I was watching one of my favourite films recently and was thinking about how under-seen or maybe just under-rated it is. There are so many films in the world and so little time. How many times do we sit down to watch a film and end up with a glazed expression while We Bought A Zoo or World War Z?
I really enjoyed @midnightpunk’s 100 Greatest Movies of all time list, and while I can’t commit to that many myself, hopefully I can put together a decent list of films that aren’t championed, that are on the margins but still great (or at least enjoyable) films that deserve an audience.
Some of these will be accomplished “cinema” that fell through the cracks, others will be rough round the edges, maybe not the most technically brilliant, but still full of enough creativity and charm that hopefully you can love them in spite their shortcomings.
Kicking it all off is the film that inspired the thread, American Movie. This is a documentary from 1999 that follows horror film obsessive and director Mark Borchardt as he tries to get his latest projects off the ground.
I first saw American Movie on BBC2, late at night sometime in the early 00s. I would have been 17 or 18 or thereabouts and I fell in love with the film instantly. There are so many genuinely funny moments and lines that I couldn’t believe that these were real people trying to make a real film. I must have watched for at least half an hour convinced this was a new Spinal Tap. Watching it over the years, my love for American Movie has never diminished, It’s been in my top four films in Letterboxd since I first joined the site, but as I’ve got older the reasons I love it have changed.
When I was younger and more cynical, I saw Mark as a bit of a loser, a guy who could get nothing right, someone who was utterly deluded that his terrible films could ever succeed, on top of that he’s got that funny Fargo accent. I mostly enjoyed the film for the unintentionally comedic elements. As I’ve gotten older, and now at 41 years old, the scales have tilted entirely in the opposite direction.
Mark lives in a small town in Wisconsin, the very definition of run-down, run of the mill middle America. You can see the desolation, struggles and lack of opportunity in every frame of this film. The town is almost permanently covered in grimy, dirty snow, the people all live in trailers or very modest houses, the sky is constantly grey. Mark is battling mountains of debt, some of his friends have been in and out of prison, another almost died of a drug overdose, his mum wishes he’d forget about his dreams of being a big-time film director and just take the first menial job he can.
These days I see a man living in a sea of mediocrity, surrounded by people with small ideas, who’ve been beaten down by life, whose only plans are survival, a man who has decided that he wants to do better with his life and refuses to be beaten, no matter what obstacles get in his way and I’ve just really got to admire him. The first lines in the film are Mark saying “I was a failure. I was a failure and I get very sad and depressed about it, and I can’t be that no more…”
Mark Borchardt is not the only great screen prescence in this film, pretty much everyone who speaks to the camera is a real character. There’s Uncle Bill, a frail, old man living in a squalid trailer who seemingly has vast fortunes in the bank. He’s a prickly character and says very little to his family, but despite his cynicism that Mark’s films will ever get anywhere, still provides cash when he hears beautiful ladies might see his name listed as Executive Producer. Mark’s mum and his siblings openly talk about how he’s wasting his time and he’ll never get anywhere. There’s the flamboyant older gent who believes acting is an art and is so desperate for any chance to prove his great talents in this cultural vacuum that he’s stuck working for Mark… and finally there’s Mike Schank.
Mike is Mark’s best friend, his right hand man, and in some ways his total opposite. Whereas Mark has dreams and ambitions beyond his resources, Mike is just happy to be alive. When Mark’s feeling angry or down, Mike’s appearance, shuffling in with his green army jacket and his big smile on his face, is enough to shake him out of it. I think pretty much everyone knows a variation of Mike, he’s that guy that was permanently stoned, that faraway expression in his eyes, no malice in his bones and an absolute master on guitar. Mike is the friend who had almost died, and his recounting of the story is one of the funniest bits in the whole film. This is a guy who pushed the drugs to the very limit and now wanders round in a permanent fug, but it is impossible not to enjoy Mike every time he’s on screen and his guitar playing that forms the film’s soundtrack is wonderful. When this guy screams, you know he’s seen some shit in his time.
As the film opens, Mark is trying to complete his magnum opus, Northwestern. It’s his most ambitious project to date, a black and white feature film, but the money soon runs out and Mark wastes no time jumping straight into a short that he had been working on previously. Coven is a 35 minute horror shot on 16mm black and white reversal (I have no idea what that means but Mark is so absolutely into it so I am too). He figures if he can complete it and sell 3000 copies then he’ll be back on top with enough money to finish Northwestern. We follow him through the whole process of film making, Mark does it all, writing, casting, acting, directing, stunt man, set designer, editing, publicising, he’s a true renaissance man.
Man, I have so much to say about this film, I could go on for hours. The head through the cupboard scene, staying up all night drinking peppermint schnapps, the scarecrows on a killer slant…
I don’t want to take up any more of your time that could be spent watching this thing. If I could boil it down to its essentials, American Movie is a film about everyday people, creativity and ambition and the highs and lows that come with all of that. From meeting Mark accidentally in an editing suite one day, Chris Smith realised how lucky he was and truly captured lightning in a bottle with this one.
I’ll leave the last words to Uncle Bill
It’s alriiiiiiight, it’s okaaaaaaay, uhh… there’s something to live for, Jesus told me sooooooo
American Movie is available on Amazon Prime or cut up into several parts on youtube
