Tricycle? That Sounds Like Bicycle!

American Movie (1999, Chris Smith)

Rating ... B+ (72)

A hopelessly inadequate filmmaker ties the noose on his own dignity, with documentarian Chris Smith on hand to capture the specatacle. Writer, producer, actor, director Mark Borchardt is a struggling amateur pursuing his dream of filmmaking, creating two independent films without ever leaving his home just north of Milwaukee. Calling him a loser is no stretch of the imagination; he has no shortage of hilarious, oddly evident personal problems. Most glaringly, there's his limited capability. (Complaining of thespians butchering his script during casting, Mark shows them the "proper" way - hysterically screaming the lines and inserting the f-word between every other word, script be damned.) He pronounces his film Coven with a long 'O' and when one of his actors informs him a short 'U' sound is correct he responds "Coven? That sounds like OVEN!" Mark is also a self-described "half Satanist, half Christian." He's aided by fellow slacker Mike Schank, a former pothead and partier who replaced his drug addiction with buying lottery tickets because "sometimes you win!" Mark is particular about set design, insisting two scarecrows featured in an establishing shot be tilted to form a right angle between them - "do you GET IT?" - and confounds Mike with tricky logic when his friend wins $200. ("I don't really want to buy beer," Mike admits. Mark responds: "I don't really want to buy beer either, but if you buy it I'll sure drink it!")

Nevertheless, the accomplishment is that the film's hilarious mockery is consistently revealing. There are several anecdotes about Mark's dead-end job at a cemetary that depict his vitriol towards everyone in the same boat as him. He castigates them for their lack of ambition but it's difficult to distinguish how much of his disdain stems from his own lack of accomplishment. His friendship with Mike comes across as parasitic - someone who's a bigger loser than himself who can cheer him up when he comes home after creating ADR in a restroom or when he's depressed thinking about "who I am and shit like that." Though Mark completes Coven, American Movie ultimately depicts the fulfillment of aspirations through abasement - the worth of lofty goals cheapened to allow easy accessibility for the talentless.