film

American Movie

User Rating	1 2 3 4 5
Producer(s)	Chris Smith, Sarah Price
Director(s)	Chris Smith
Release Date	1999
Runtime	107 min
Format(s)	16mm, 35mm, video, DVD, web
Language(s)	English
Youth Media	no

Film Description

Chris Smith's documentary about a young Wisconsin man (Mark Borchardt) and his drug-addled best friend (Mike Schank) in a three-year struggle to make a cheap horror movie is a fascinating, disturbing character study. Borchardt is resourceful, if a little unhinged, and his fast-talking enthusiasm sweeps many of his friends and family up in pursuit of his dream. There are a lot of funny, sometimes uncomfortable glimpses of Borchardt's filmmaking (at one point, he pounds a friend's head, take after take, into a kitchen cabinet until the cabinet breaks), but the documentary also deals with Borchardt's poor, uneducated background, the collection agencies after him, and the trouble he has supporting his three kids. Smith sometimes ridicules his subject, but mostly he presents the story in a refreshingly heartfelt way. It is Borchardt's dream that keeps those around him alive and relatively sane.

— Bruce Diones