There, but for the Grace of Booze....

Last night at Film Society, I finally saw American Movie; if you've not seen it, it's a movie that holds much of the same fascination and horror of a train wreck. Not just a regular train wreck, either, but one of those ones you see in movies where the trestle is out and the train just peels off down into the ravine car by car by car.... It's truly amazing.

It's a documentary, and I can sympathize with the basic motivation of its subject--it's about an ordinary guy who wants to be an independent filmmaker. I've dreamed about making films since I was 8 or 9, wrote scripts in middle and high school with every intention of committing them to celluloid... and never quite managed to do it. (Though my dreams of being an on-camera star were finally realized in 2006, thanks to MD Hearts!) So I know a little of how Mark, the guy in American Movie, feels.... But oh. My. God. The guy is obsessed with making a horror film--but also with writing craptastic scripts, worming money out of his mentally infirm but rich uncle, and drinking huge quantities of peppermint Schnapps and Labatt Blue. He's just the kind of guy who would have come into the game store and talked to us for hours about his movie/game design/RPG character, whatever, while we took turns hiding in the back room. A telling moment is an interview clip with one of his brothers, who says, "Yeah.... I never really thought Mark would be a filmmaker. I kind of thought he'd turn out to be, you know, a stalker, or a serial killer or something. Seriously." It's like the reverse of when they interview the serial killer's family and they say "Oh, no, he was always such a nice boy, and so polite!" Here, Mark's own family thinks he has stalker potential. His best friend is a recovering addict who is really kind of sweet, always very agreeable, not very bright--and he's like a poster child for what happens when you drop acid/drink/get high to excess, because it's apparent that certain areas of his brain are no longer functioning. He was my favorite person in the movie, actually... But the main thing about Mark is that he will not give up on his dream. Even though his dream seems like a really bad idea--even though his movie looks kind of awful--even though he has no money, and a complete lack of good sense--he knows what he wants, and he goes for it. And strangely enough, he gets it. He makes his awful movie (called "Coven," with a long "o" sound) and has his premiere, and then this documentary about him was a huge hit at Sundance in 1999, and he's sold over 5000 copies of his film and has moved on to make more movies and realize his dream. You gotta admire that.

My pal with the camera is talking about starting to shoot his first film in May, and I am on board 100%. But if I have to drink that much Peppermint Schnapps and Labatt in order to be a filmmaking success, I think I'd rather be a loser...