American Movie
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American Movie is a 1999 documentary directed by Chris Smith about the trouble Mark Borchardt went through trying to make an independent horror movie called Coven.
It's 1996. Mark Bordchardt is a wanna-be film director of Wisconsin. He has three children and an estranged ex-girlfriend, lives with his parents, and is alcoholic. To make a living he delivers newspapers. He dreams of filming a project called Northwestern, but early in the movie admits he can't make it with the resources he has. Instead, he decides to finish a smaller project, Coven, that he left unfinished years ago.
His Uncle Bill, an elderly, incredibly wealthy man that nonetheless lives on a trailer, agrees to finance the movie but makes Mark promise he will repay the cost through selling the movie on VHS. But with Mark's alcoholism, inability to plan ahead, and an amateur crew of family and friends who is incompetent at his job, finishing Coven will be a hard task.
Produced by C-Hundred Film Corporation, Civilian Pictures, and Bluemark Productions. Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.
- The Alcoholic: Mark is clearly an alcohol addict and is not helping him in finishing Coven at all.
- American Dream: The story falls on Flavor 1 at the end, with Coven being a success. Mark discusses the trope with Uncle Bill at end. Bill prefers instead to give Mark advice about for Mark to focus on the spiritual and on making people happy.
- B-Movie: About the making of one. In fact, the deal between Mark and Bill involves about it selling enough VHS copies of it. The first screening is only on a local theater.
- Cool Uncle: Mark's Uncle Bill, that is supportive of Mark's dreams, despite being a Cloudcuckoolander that you would think it's hoarding his money since he lives on a trailer.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Uncle Bill, that lives on a trailer despite being extremely wealthy, apparently by his own choice. Considering he is eighty years old during filming, dementia may be a cause, but it is up to interpretation.
- Darkest Hour: The aftermath of Super Bowl XXXI. Not because Mark cares about the game, but because his frustration of his making of Coven reaches a boiling point.
- Foil: Mike is perhaps accidently one for Mark, being a recovering alcoholic whose addiction to the substance was changed to one for gambling. He argues that alcohol gives the addict only losses, while a gamble can eventually win. One may say his attempts to get money have even worse chances of being successful than Coven.
- Mood Whiplash: Sometimes the mishaps on-screen are very funny, but the mishaps have consequences, real consequences, that makes Mark's situation worse, making the movie kind of a tragicomedy in tone.
- No Antagonist: There is not really anybody trying to stop Coven of being produced except of in-house issues.
- Where Are They Now? Epilogue: The epilogue explains that Uncle Bill died on 13 September 1997, leaving Mark's money to complete Northwestern.