American Movie

"Watching a film" is an oversimplification. We don't just "watch" — that implies passivity, and not all of us work that way.

Films provide images and sounds, and audiences process them to make meaning. But we also transact. What we bring to the film — our life experiences, our knowledge — informs our viewing. A film you saw 10 years ago and haven't watched since can provide a radically different viewing experience now.

I'm no authority. This is just shit I think about after 9 years of college.

Of course, the film doesn't change. You do. So does the transaction. What you know now affects the way you interpret the film now, as opposed to how you viewed the film when you were younger.

I have to credit my friend Chris Turvey, who introduced me to this film. When we watched American Movie together for the first time, in the living room of a shabby college rental, we spent most of our time laughing at Mark Borchardt's failures and the odd behavior of his burnout friend, Mike Schank. We had no idea.

Years on, with a few failed attempts at filmmaking and a closet full of bad writing, I bring a lot to a viewing of American Movie. I see the film as both a cautionary tale and a battle cry.

Mark Borchardt's experience is what happens when you don't know what you're doing and can't find dependable people on whom to rely. He's a cautionary tale for people who don't have their shit together, and for people who want to get their shit together and can't due to negative forces around them.

However, this is also what happens when you have the tenacity and work ethic to overcome the most brutal disappointments. Who spends three years working on a 35-minute short film? Mark Borchardt, and any other artist who can't let go of an idea. Coven is barely watchable, but Borchardt made a movie. That was his American dream. He got there. He's still trying to make films.

Borchardt could just quit, but he doesn't. Life gets in his way and people let him down, and he lets himself down, but tomorrow he gets up and tries again. He's someone who always has a new plan or a new angle for success, but never gets anywhere — and that's maddening stuff.

But it's also validating in a way. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, Thoreau wrote. Mark Borchardt's desperation is just louder than mine.