In 2018, I was going to make a movie. It was called Speak Like A Dog. I had a feature-length script, an iPhone with a decent camera, a bootleg rip of Werner Herzog’s Masterclass, and a dozen or so books on filmmaking. This was going to happen because it had to happen. I couldn’t sit around and wait for my life to pass me by with nothing to show for it.
When we meet Mark Borchardt, the subject of Chris Smith’s 1999 documentary American Movie, he has a similar mindset. Speeding in his car across the Northwest side of Milwaukee in 1995, he talks just as fast about how he can’t be sad and depressed about his life anymore. He can’t spend another fifteen years, beer in hand, thinking about making the great American movie. It’s no longer enough, he says “just to drink and dream, but rather to create and complete.”
That’s the difference between Mark and any would-be filmmaker you’ll ever meet — he actually fucking did it.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at 1999’s Sundance Film Festival, American Movie follows Mark as he works to finish his short film Coven and break into Hollywood his own way. A stringy, motor-mouthed Wisconsinite, Mark doesn’t seem like a likely candidate for success. Every other word out of Mark’s mouth is either “fuck” or “man”, fired out with an accent that’d be home at any dive from Menomonee Falls to Green Bay. He’s woefully behind on credit card bills and child support, lives at home with his Swedish-immigrant mother, and drinks to excess (even by Wisconsin standards). His brothers think he’s best suited for working in a factory, with one claiming he always thought he’d just “become a stalker.” However, as Roger Ebert said in his review, “Mark Borchardt may want to make a movie more than anyone else in the world.” For three years, every penny that he makes sweeping out mausoleums or other odd jobs goes into the film’s budget. He spends his free time calling townies to be extras, dragging himself through swamps to get the right shot, or working on his script in the peace and quiet of the Milwaukee County airport parking lot.1
“I’m gonna tell you why films fail and I’m gonna tell you why films succeed,” Mark declares early on at a production meeting. A towering figure with prescription aviators and a gnarly mullet, Mark is a magnetic presence — drawing in friends who want to support him and crewmembers who think he might actually strike it big. He obviously knows a lot about movies — the type of filmstock needed, when ADR will be required, and how to compose a striking image.2 His film literacy is impressive, with Coven described as a cross between “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Seventh Seal.” His life revolves around movies, so he expects the same from his cadre of local Milwaukee actors and crew. During a table read, he remarks to the camera that the actors are “making a mockery of my words.” Although edited to be a self-serious laugh line in the film, one could easily imagine Tarantino waxing his ego about the exact same thing.
Like any “making-of” story, everything that can go wrong, does. Crucial segments of the film reel go missing. When only one person shows up to be an extra, Mark ropes in his poor mother to trudge across a frozen swamp for the camera. When filming a stunt where Mark is supposed to ram another actor’s head through a wooden cabinet, the wood doesn’t break. He shoves the man into it over and over again. They cut notches into it with a handsaw to help with breakage, but that doesn’t work either. Mark, a few beers in, bashes his bloody knuckles against the thing in frustration. Finally, hours later, he crashes the man’s head through the door – shards of wood narrowly missing his jugular. Someone is going to get killed on this set, I thought to myself — but how did this differ from the famously dangerous sets of Evil Dead or The Blair Witch Project? Why is Mark’s auteurship not paying out like Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh, or any other indie darling?
In the twenty years since its release, American Movie has received criticism for what some view as exploitation of its subject and his family. The film is undeniably funny, often playing like a non-fiction Christopher Guest picture, but some of those laughs are clearly at Mark rather than with him. The film also shows the deeply upsetting nature of living through poverty and addiction while chasing your dreams. Watching Mark work dead-end jobs and drink himself into a stupor is tough. However, those who see the film as simply a hit piece on a down-and-out goofball have missed the point.
For example, Mark’s siphoning of money from his ancient Uncle Bill is clearly elder abuse, as the frail man is often dragged along to write checks at the bank or hounded into performing in the film.3 However, Mark seems to be the only family member who cares for Bill. Mark routinely visits Bill’s magazine-filled trailer, where they drink and talk past each other. “Don’t you have an American dream?” Mark asks. “What dream? I don’t have dreams anymore.” Bill replies, deadpan.4 When Thanksgiving comes around, Mark is the only family member to have dinner with Bill. The pair drink an ungodly amount of beer (as well as a horrific cocktail of peppermint schnapps and sprite) before Mark tenderly bathes the old man before dinner. Soon, an oddball collection of friends arrive to eat overcooked turkey — this being the only place that’d have them, and the only place they’d want to be. It’s a raw and uncomfortable scene that’s reminiscent of Coven’s inspiration, but also, a perfect illustration of American Movie’s complicated tone. It’d be one thing if Smith’s documentary was purely comedic — but it’s depressing, inspiring, and undeniably human.
That humanity shines in both Mark’s determination and the lovely people who surround him. Late in the film, as Mark’s forty-minute short film enters its third year of production, he drives home from his new job performing maintenance at the local cemetery. Wide-eyed, he says his boss told him he hoped this was the beginning of a long relationship. “That scared the shit out of me,” Mark says. As eccentric as Mark is, he’s never more relatable here. We’ve all worked a job and thought — God, is this all there is? Most inspiring about Mark’s story, despite his personal and financial life deteriorating rapidly, is that every day he works to make sure that’s not all.
As for the people around him — they are angels. From Mark’s doting mother to depressive Uncle Bill, his family may try to wear him down with the classic Midwestern passive-aggression, but when push comes to shove they’ll do thirty-one takes to be in his movie. The crew of local Milwaukee actors and production designers remark to the camera that Mark’s style isn’t “professional”, but each of them are enamored enough by his passion to tough it out for three years. Lastly, Mark’s friends are what we should all aspire to be. Ken Keen, a balding, jolly man, feels like the buddy from high school who never left; while Mark’s producer-turned-girlfriend Joan sweetly says, “If Mark accomplishes just twenty-five percent of what he wants to do, it’ll be more than what most people do in a lifetime.” Lastly, there is Mike Schank. The musician for Coven and Mark’s stalwart right-hand man, he is a real-life Silent Bob — offering only sweet advice and drug-burned stories to account for his recent sobriety. When every extra falls through, Mark says to his mom, “everyone fell through except for Mike Schank right there.” American Movie turned the soft-spoken man into a cult icon on his own, and when Mike passed from cancer in 2022, both the city of Milwaukee and many iconic directors united in remembrance of the man.5 Mark Duplass tweeted “RIP Mike Schank. Watch him in AMERICAN MOVIE and learn how to be a good friend.”
Late in the film, Mark wakes up in the middle of the night to pick up Ken Keen from prison. Mike Schank, the camera crew, and Mark all pile into his beater and drive to the Milwaukee correctional facility. Ken opens the car door, grinning to see his friends, and a bit embarrassed by the camera crew. He squeezes in and they drive off into a blizzard. The reason Ken gives for his arrest is nebulous, but that’s not the point.
He’s your friend and you’ve got a movie to make.
American Movie is available to stream on The Criterion Channel.
Special thanks to Sophie and Tyler Herr, Austin Smoldt-Sáenz, Elena Bruess, Joshua De Lanoit, and Max Seifert.
The drab, ice-covered setting of Milwaukee is a beautiful sight. While watching, my dad said he and his buddies used to go to the restaurant at that airport. They had good food.
It was very fun to learn that Mark and I have the same aesthetic interests: rusting and decaying Midwest industrial landscapes.
In order to prepare Uncle Bill for his speaking role in Coven, Mark’s friend gives him some Surge, which he calls “a new soda from Coca-Cola.”
This is pretty much word-for-word what a destitute Russian woman says in Adam Curtis’s documentary TraumaZone. Her words are used to illustrate the depth of nihilism and despair found in Russia during the 90s.
By all accounts, Mike Schank was a mensch. Despite his cult-status, he volunteered for twenty years at the Milwaukee Alano Club, an AODA (Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse) recovery center. His celebration of life was held there in 2022.