Product Details

• Actors: Mark Borchardt, Mike Schank, Tom Schimmels, Monica Borchardt, Alex Borchardt
• Directors: Chris Smith
• Producers: Chris Smith, Jim McKay, Michael Stipe, Sarah Price
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: January 16, 2001
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0767839145
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #196,412 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

Struggling filmmaker Mark Borchardt is the subject of American Movie, and he may also be the most determined man you'll ever meet. The straggly haired, fast-talking, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, native lists his greatest influences as Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He began making horror movies as a gangly adolescent, and is now set on finishing Coven (which he pronounces like "woven"), the "35-minute direct market thriller" he has worked on for two years. In the process, he steadfastly battles immense debt, the threat of losing his kids, and birds chirping gleefully through scenes set in the dead of winter. His mother would rather do her shopping than be an extra, his brother contends he's best suited for factory work, and his father just wants him to "watch the language."

Standing by him through it all is Mark's childhood buddy, Mike Schank, who is the strongest weapon against drug use a task force could ever hope for, and Uncle Bill, begrudging financier of Coven, who appears to be wasting away before our very eyes. In less perceptive hands these two could easily become caricatures--the burnt-out stoner and the crotchety old coot--but through director Chris Smith's lens we see why Mark loves them, why they love Mark, and why each of these stories is uniquely compelling.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, the film has been compared to Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman--two unquestionably hilarious mock-documentaries--and, indeed, American Movie has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. But in the spoofs, we feel encouraged to point and giggle at the poor slobs trying to get a piece of the action. Smith, however, offers us a funny and overwhelmingly affectionate portrait; you may sit down expecting to laugh at Mark's pie-in-the-sky hopes, but you soon find yourself bursting with admiration. "The American dream stays with me each and every day," Mark says, and by the end, we want nothing more than for it to come true. (The DVD version includes the complete short film "Coven.") --Brangien Davis

From The New Yorker

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
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Heart Mike Schank, April 9, 2002

By 

mattyp4 (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Movie (DVD)

I have a confession: I rented this on video as soon as it came out back in 1999 & I hated it. In fact, my friend & I turned it off in the middle of the film. Actually, I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but the real reason is b/c we didn't know we were watching an actual documentary... Looking back on it, I feel like one of those stupid people who went to see The Blair Witch project, threw up, & thought it was real. So I eventually watched this again in one of my film classes. Yes, by then I knew it was real, but I had never felt like giving it that 2nd chance.

Well, upon that second viewing, I quickly came to the realization that this film is amazing!! I can't believe how stupid I was to give up on it before!

As far as documentaries go, American Movie is near-flawless. It's got humor, sympathy, inspiration, old guys eating Polish sausage, you name it- it's there. No really, we laugh at the "characters," but there's actually a really inspiring & uplifting message to it all. It follows the life of one major film buff from Milwaukee who sets out to make a feature film (Northwestern) but becomes sidetracked with funding problems, so he decides to finish up a short horror film (Coven) to sell for profits. The trials & tribulations of Coven's production make up American Movie.

As for the DVD, it's excellent. There are deleted scenes galore, many of which are GREAT! And they're not just throw-away junk scenes, which is always a plus. There are commentary tracks & trailers, but best of all, the mother of all extras is... COVEN. Yes, the 22-minute short film is included in its entirety. I can die happy now.

I saw my friend recently & told her that I not only watched American Movie again (which we vowed never to do), but that I loved it! She then told me how she was "forced" to watch it again for one of her film classes & that she loved it too!! So there's hope for all us imbeciles yet.

Do yourself a huge favor & see this movie if you haven't already done so. And if you watched half of it before & hated it, please give it a second try. Once you loved it, come back & purchase this DVD like me!

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What if Don Quixote lived in Wisconsin and drank schnapps?, March 9, 2002

By 

C. Burch (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: American Movie [VHS] (VHS Tape)

As I watched Mark Borchardt stumble through the filming of 'Coven', I kept thinking of the Austrian court composer Solieri's line in Milos Forman's Amadeus: "All I ever wanted was to sing to God", laments Solieri, "He gave me that longing, and then made me mute".

What do you do with your life when you want to sing, but you are tone deaf? What if you spend far more time dreaming than making your dreams come true? That is the subject of this surprisingly touching and moving documentary.

Mark Borchardt is not mute. His muse has whispered in his ear since he was 12 years old, telling him to make movies. Problems with drinking and a stint in the Army have kept him from his love. As the documentary opens, Mark is doing pre-production for a feature-length movie, 'Northwestern'. As you watch Mark meet with production staff and potential actors, you quickly realize that he is hopelessly over his head. Mark is given to long, rambling monologues, where you feel he is trying to throw a net of words over his problems.

Eventually Mark sees the handwriting on the wall. He realizes that he cannot start this movie, and decides instead to complete a short film he started several years earlier, 'Coven'. (Mark pronounces it KO-ven, rather than KUH-ven).

As the documentary progresses, you are brought into the well intentioned but dysfunctional world of Mark's friends and family. You find yourself wondering about the line between loyalty and co-dependency. What is the difference between supporting a dream and enabling a friend to live in a fantasy world? You see the inhabitants of Mark's world struggle with these questions. Through it all, Mark may stumble, but he holds true to quest of completing Coven.

If Mark is quixotic, then his good friend Mike Shank is definitely his Pancho. Mike has been sober for a couple of years, but you can tell he was dinged up a bit in the drug wars. He is so totally without guile, and so completely loyal to Mark, as to be utterly disarming.

It is tempting to smirk at these people at the beginning of the film, much less easy to do so by the end. Whatever you think of Mark as a filmmaker, you are moved by his struggle to see his vision completed.

Chris Smith could have created a patronizing look at an Auteur with less talent than himself, but he has accomplished much more than that. This story makes you wonder about the dreams of people who are not famous, or glamorous, but still listen to their muse. The touching conclusion of this movie is that there is real nobility in their quixotic quest.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Hilarious, June 11, 2000

By 

Dane M. Marvin (Council Bluffs, IA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: American Movie (DVD)

This is one of those movies that you see only one copy of at the video store, and it's usually always available. You'll find that sometimes these are the best movies out there, and "American Movie" proves to be one such diamond in the rough. Mark Borchardt and his dream of becoming a huge filmmaker are the subject of this riotous documentary that follows him on his journey to complete the low-budget horror film "Coven". Along the way, filmmakers Smith and Price shed light on almost everything we could possibly know about Mark and his friends. Most of the time, you'll find yourselves laughing at the characters (the heart-of-gold former drug addict Mike and the eccentric, penny-pinching uncle come to mind) rather than with them. Nonetheless, you ARE laughing at this slice of life shot in smalltown Wisconsin. You may question Mark's goals and priorities and you may question his logic (trying to make it big by filming low-budget horror flicks? ), but in the end you'll realize he's just a man with a dream who will let nothing get in his way. After that's the American dream and this is truly an American movie. Any aspiring filmmaker should see this as well as anyone with a sense of humor.