ALL films should inspire the filmmaker inside of you. Those that are good should inspire you to create like or exceed it. Those that are bad should inspire you to create something better. More to the point, those that are bad should help you understand that you can make better.
I have not seen An American Movie but I have heard of it and its low-budget success should be taken as an inspiration. The tools are available and the burgeoning filmmaker would do well to start to use them.
—PolarisDiB
@Polaris- Your comments are well thought out, but you definitely need to see this film- Once you do, you will understand the tilt of the original post (or at least my understanding of it.). American Movie can be equally seen as a cautionary tale and an inspiration- It can effect some aspiring film makers the same way that “Spinal Tap” effects a lot of musicians (“funny” but “ouch”…). The audience usually doesn’t know wether to laugh at the guy or to send him 100 bucks to help him. In the end, I find it inspirational, -it’s kind of the “un-Rocky.” I think “American Movie” and “Hearts of Darkness” are the two best films on film making in the U.S.A.
@ I dream— regarding the personal cinema in question. I actually like the footage aesthetically. It reminds me of “Night Of the Living Dead” Yes it is provincial, but that it is what is great about it. To take it further than the movie does… Imagine living in a small town in the U.S.A. and every three months or so there was a micro budget horror movie produced locally, where you recognized most of the actors from your town. It would be quite the community gathering, and a total blast. So the cinema documented in the film could be profound.. but only locally.
How about the movie Dig? Ever seen that? I think that fits more the concerns you put forth about American Movie’s effect on filmmakers as cautionary tale. The thing is, these are cautionary tales, but not cease and desists. “Make art, but don’t be this guy.” In Dig, the Dandy Warhols members are constantly asking out loud, "Why you gotta be like that, man? You’re so talented. " Then again, I don’t think the documentary put forth enough examples of how he was supposed to be talented, so it felt more like he wasn’t.
The same thing also could be true of Camera Buff. Obsession in any form is a negative force that destroys rather than nurtures. But watching that film shouldn’t detract filmmakers, just help them make sure to pay attention to real life too, which I also readily encourage in the making and discussion of film as well.
But I will have to see American Movie to precisely understand how this dialog operates. Nevertheless, those are my feelings in anticipation of seeing it!
—PolarisDiB
@Polaris “these are cautionary tales, but not cease and desists” is very well put.
I liked this film. It’s funny and touching. I don’t think Mark Borchardt is an extremely talented filmmaker, but a fair number of people say things like “I could make a better film than that” and never do anything about it. At least he went out there and shot his film. I personally have not made a film, but I think, to a certain extent, anybody who can manage to shoot a film should be given a little credit for what he or she has done. How many people go out there and shoot their film that they talk and talk about? My friend and me want to make films and mentioned to me one time after we had seen a pretty bad film that at least that person went out and shot a film. If you get to the editing stage, even better and of course, exhibition and distribution helps even more.
@Two Plus Two I agree with you that American Movie and Hearts of Darkness are great films made about American filmmaking. However, I would add that there are a few more I would add as well such as Baadaass which is a feature based on the making of Sweet Sweetback Baaddasse’s Song and I guess maybe I might add Burden of Dreams with it. All of these films illustrate a fundamental point about filmmaking, at least from what I can understand, which is that these particular filmmakers are persistent and work things out so that they manage to finish their films. From the film books, magazines and from filmmakers that I have met at festivals, Murphy’s Law reigns supreme on a film set and these filmmakers should be congratulated for their determination to go out there and make their films. As an aside, I’d like to mention on the Burden of Dreams Criterion disc there is a short where Werner Herzog challenged someone to make a film and if Werner Herzog ate a shoe, this person would have to go out there and make their film. Burden of Dreams concerns the making of Fitzcarraldo.
The most intriguing part of the film was Borchardt’s other film, Northwestern; his “great american story.” The first fifteen minutes or so of American Movie is concerned with the weight of one’s dreams, how painful the reality is that they will forever remain unrealized. Coven was the simple alternative to Northwestern. It is a vile truth, yet a truth none the less that all are enslaved by their economic situation. Does the exclusive nature of film making benefit it? Weeding out those who are not talented or the exclusivity merely alienates those voices that need film as an outlet?
I was interested in Northwestern as well. It too had the “Night of the Living Dead” look (which to me is a complement) but was a story closer to the director’s real life (with nightmare exaggerations.) Would it have been great? Probably not. Would some of it have been unintentionally funny? Probably. Would it have been interesting? YES, to me. I have the feeling (hope) it would have had an unorthodox structure and some one-of-a-kind moments. Because of its expensive and manpower-intensive nature, the film world suffers from a lack of “interesting but flawed” work from unique voices. (Unique voices are easier to find in music, which is so much easier to produce.) Too much independent cinema aspires to being polished and professional with some sort of twist or hook. This can produce a lot of films that look like the director is auditioning for his/her next gig. (btw, I am more familiar with independent cinema in U.S.A. than elsewhere, so my comment is limited to that.)
That’s just the way it is when so much money is involved.
“All of these films illustrate a fundamental point about filmmaking, at least from what I can understand, which is that these particular filmmakers are persistent and work things out so that they manage to finish their films. From the film books, magazines and from filmmakers that I have met at festivals, Murphy’s Law reigns supreme on a film set and these filmmakers should be congratulated for their determination to go out there and make their films. "
This this this a thousand times this. What’s in your head never makes it to screen. What makes it so screen is creativity, endurance, collaboration, compromise, workarounds, frustrations, complications, failures, happy accidents, and collisions. Just grabbing a video camera and shooting your father talk about his day will teach you more about filmmaking than you would initially imagine, the way that, whether what he’s talking about is boring or not, what you shoot ends up being boring and the film you make, not the content, becomes the target of the criticism (even if “the point” was trying to bore audiences), trying to shoot a flower and make it lovely and explore it how you “see” it, trying to get friends to actually pay attention long enough to help you on a project—these things turn people off when they try so hard for so long and don’t get anything they want from it. However, one day you’ll be looking through all of that dead footage (that of course you saved because you’re a smart person and don’t get rid of anything) and you’ll discover that in a few attempts, you were onto something.
Herzog is quite frankly the most vibrant character study. His filmmaking tactics are completely unethical, from stealing his first camera to exploiting third world labor for Fitzcarraldo . Not very interested in discussing politics, ethics, and meaning himself, he’s nevertheless willing to digest boot leather if it’ll get a film made. With movies like the ones mentioned in this thread and stuff like Camera Buff and Peeping Tom , part of the thing that people are acknowledging is that filmmaking cannot take over for pure conscience and awareness, and these movies serve as warnings and questions into the very act of filmmaking. But the solution is given in the most unlikely film of all, Michael Moore Hates America . In that movie, the filmmaker interviews one of the Maysles brothers (I believe it was Albert) and Albert Maysles says, “A documentarian” (and I would argue filmmaker) “must approach his subject from the perspective of love. Without love for the subject, the documentary cannot be very good.” (The producer of the film, also camera operator, called out the director in that scene and forced him to admit that the movie was called Michael Moore Hates America , which Maysles responded to by saying, “Well, I think he does.”).
If anything should hinder one’s action to make a movie, it is one’s own motivations to do so. If it’s to make money, get famous, and fuck groupies then that might actually happen, but you’ll reap what you sow. If it’s to make hateful polemics about something you don’t like, you’ll probably get hateful responses in turn. If it’s to provoke, you’ll probably succeed, and then you have a bunch of provoked people on hand. Like freedom of speech, you can say or do whatever you please with movies, but what you say and do with movies comes with its own consequences. Nevertheless, in the end, one thing anybody, no matter what their opinion on the movie may be, cannot deny that you actually succeeded in making it, something all too many people just cannot say they achieved.
The best part about making movies is when you get past the point where you say, “I could do better” and realize, “I HAVE done better”. At that point, it becomes a prerogative to continue.
—PolarisDiB
idreamincelluloid
Does this film inspire or discourage the filmmaker inside of you? Is the, what i would call, personal cinema documented within the film provincial or profound?