Mark Borchardt first erupted into the popular consciousness as the eccentric protagonist of the 1999 indie phenomenon American Movie, directed by Chris Smith and Sarah Price. The celebrated documentary depicts long-haired Wisconsin native and gonzo filmmaker Mark as he attempts to complete his horror movie Coven. Some of his filmmaking adventures include being literally dragged through the mud, begging people for money, and putting his friend's head through kitchen cabinets.
American Movie turned Mark into an enduring cult hero, but it does not seem as if being a celebrity--albeit an odd one--has affected him at all. He says that he's always been a hard worker with tons of ideas and multiple projects going on at the same time. He is truly a person to look up to due to his determination.
When I called Mark, I expected to speak with a somewhat serious yet goofy man with a heavy Midwestern accent and to hear a lot of "yeah man"s and "right on"s. On the contrary, Mark is extremely articulate. He talks as if everything he says is going to be published in a literary text. He has so many different ideas on life and goes far beyond the character that he is portrayed as in American Movie. He is not upset with this character though, or with the way he was portrayed. It was what made the film interesting.
Following our talk, I have a somewhat different view of Mark. He is powerfully serious and intense. As he well should be, for a man who has been extremely passionate about films and filmmaking and just received his time in the limelight a few years ago. His next big undertaking is a thriller called Scare Me, and he continues to labor on his pet project, the coming-of-age drama Northwestern. Mark also talked about his American Movie co-star and best friend, wide-eyed, irrepressible recovering addict/heavy metal fan/ace guitarist Mike Schank.
I heard you've been finishing your different drafts of Northwestern, doing a "Mike and Mark Comedy Horror Movie," writing a novel, and working on a project called Scare Me. What's the deal?
The Mark and Mike Horror Comedy movie was a script that I wrote some years ago because of the marketability of the Mark and Mike idea, but it's not something that I'm going to personally pursue at this time. As for Northwestern, that's my own personal film and whenever I do it is when I do it. I mean I am mentally fascinated by the subject, but I am in the middle of production of Scare Me, so I can't do all of those things at once. So right now Scare Me is the only film I'm working on. I've wrote almost a dozen drafts of Scare Me in the past few years, and we are right in the middle of shooting it right now in Milwaukee.
What is Scare Me about?
It's about an alcoholic writer who has to write a horror novel to get out of debt but evil forces intervene. "Evil forces" is a very broad and vague thing to say, but I mean most films are drama, so they have conflict and friction in them, so when it comes to the horror genre, usually, there is some sort of a sinister force, something dark obviously, and this takes the form of a publisher.
This theme of an alcoholic writer seems to be repetitive in many of your projects, such as Northwestern and Scare Me, and the theme of a man lost in the world is definitely evident in Coven. Does this represent you in any way, and do you tend to write yourself into your various characters?
I don't put myself into my films because I don't even think about it, but I do have an alliance with my characters in a sense. There're two things that you mentioned and that's alcohol and writing. Those two factors indicate a lust for life because alcohol is a way to make yourself feel better and to make yourself explode upon a scene. Writing is like a documentation of what life is like or even a preface to what you would like your life to be like. So alcohol and writing are these testaments to the love and passion of life. Any one of these characters is in love with life and is aware of his being and aware of existence.
When I saw Coven, the first thing that came to my mind was the fact that a support group that is seemingly trying to help an alcoholic lost man turns out to be a coven of witches. I was wondering if this was at all indicative of the way you feel about support groups or a commentary on them?
Well, absolutely, because why does anyone do anything? People have motives for doing anything and it's very rare that people wake up in the morning and say, "Gee, I'm going to help people" just for that clear finite reason. There always seems to be a peripheral subterfuge. And when you encounter these groups--just like church groups--they really don't care about God, they really don't care about your alcohol problems, they need you, they need fresh blood to keep their collective environment going, and if you have a problem such as alcohol, this is a very serious problem. It can destroy your health, it can destroy your life, it's serious business, and if you want to stop this addiction, then you need to look into yourself and stop it. And it's too serious to play games with groups and so forth. Now these groups exist because people can't do it themselves, so then these groups do have a purpose, but to the independent individual who handles his own problems, these groups are meaningless and nonexistent, and its just funny that people can say that "You can't do it yourself, you need us", and that is where some of the spirit of the film comes from. I mean, you can take the film at face value; that is exactly what I meant. All films, paintings, literature, all this and all that are metaphors. Horror films are all metaphors for our horrors and hopes in real life. You build a building for function, which is practicality, and also the facade which is for its aesthetic values, and there's always two different ideas and agendas going on.
Now lets talk about American Movie. How did it change you as a person?
Well, I think that that is a clich?mistake that people make is that celebrity changes you. What I found out is that it doesn't necessarily change the person themselves, but it does change the people around them, whether it be friends, family, or whoever you encounter. It can change the way they look at you, which I find bizarre and superficial. So whatever, man, I'm sure people react in different ways. And once you're in something that has popularity or a cult status, it lives on forever. But that's not my life. It's an incident that occurred in my life. It's a huge incident, not to downplay it, but it's an event. It is someone else's film who had the understanding that he had an interesting subject and went with it, and anything that had to do with that film had to do with those filmmakers, Chris Smith and Sarah Price.
But you're obviously the star of the film as well as Mike, and you are the people that come to mind when American Movie is mentioned.
Right, and again Mike happened to have the time to be with me at all times. The filmmakers could have selected anyone to be my partner. That was again another brilliant decision by the filmmakers who had a gut instinct. Those filmmakers were extraordinarily perseverant in putting everything they had economically, energetically, and time wise into the movie.
The Mark we see in American Movie seems to be a character. How much do you feel like the guy in American Movie represents you?
I like that you say that because Mark in American Movie is a phantasm--a media phantasm, one that really does not exist to that much of an extent. It is a slice of pie of a larger dynamic. When a filmmaker goes out to make a documentary they have a certain point of view. A true documentary would have to be made by six billion people. This was only made by two, and they have a particular point of view. But the film has to be entertaining, so that's the main dynamic: entertainment. So out of real life [the film created] a kind of phantasm. It's a persona that the audience sees as being a person, as being complete. But I, the subject, see the persona as being very fragmentary and just a small slice of the pie. So people see that and don't know who I am, and they have an unbalanced point of view. But I don't care. It's just like a character in a film, that's just what it is. It was a particular time, a particular circumstance, and a particular set of conditions.
I heard Mike has been sober for some time now. How is he doing and what is he working on?
He has been sober nine years as of next Tuesday. He adds new songs to his CD, Songs I Know. That has been his mission as of the past years is to add songs to his CD. He is a very good guitarist and one-man band.
The lead female in Northwestern is described as a "long-haired freak chick", so let's say you had to pick a female to play that role, who would you pick?
You mean if I had a gun to my head?
Yes.
If I say anyone, that is what people will fixate on and this whole virus will propagate from that one arbitrary answer. You can write that down.
Well put! Thank you. It has been great talking to you. Is there anything else you'd like to add that I did not ask you?
I want to say: scarememovie.com
When can we expect to be seeing it?
At the end of 2004.
Will it be in theatres, or on video?
I have no idea; all I know is that I'm making it. I'd play the stock market if I knew that.
American Movie turned Mark into an enduring cult hero, but it does not seem as if being a celebrity--albeit an odd one--has affected him at all. He says that he's always been a hard worker with tons of ideas and multiple projects going on at the same time. He is truly a person to look up to due to his determination.
When I called Mark, I expected to speak with a somewhat serious yet goofy man with a heavy Midwestern accent and to hear a lot of "yeah man"s and "right on"s. On the contrary, Mark is extremely articulate. He talks as if everything he says is going to be published in a literary text. He has so many different ideas on life and goes far beyond the character that he is portrayed as in American Movie. He is not upset with this character though, or with the way he was portrayed. It was what made the film interesting.
Following our talk, I have a somewhat different view of Mark. He is powerfully serious and intense. As he well should be, for a man who has been extremely passionate about films and filmmaking and just received his time in the limelight a few years ago. His next big undertaking is a thriller called Scare Me, and he continues to labor on his pet project, the coming-of-age drama Northwestern. Mark also talked about his American Movie co-star and best friend, wide-eyed, irrepressible recovering addict/heavy metal fan/ace guitarist Mike Schank.
I heard you've been finishing your different drafts of Northwestern, doing a "Mike and Mark Comedy Horror Movie," writing a novel, and working on a project called Scare Me. What's the deal?
The Mark and Mike Horror Comedy movie was a script that I wrote some years ago because of the marketability of the Mark and Mike idea, but it's not something that I'm going to personally pursue at this time. As for Northwestern, that's my own personal film and whenever I do it is when I do it. I mean I am mentally fascinated by the subject, but I am in the middle of production of Scare Me, so I can't do all of those things at once. So right now Scare Me is the only film I'm working on. I've wrote almost a dozen drafts of Scare Me in the past few years, and we are right in the middle of shooting it right now in Milwaukee.
What is Scare Me about?
It's about an alcoholic writer who has to write a horror novel to get out of debt but evil forces intervene. "Evil forces" is a very broad and vague thing to say, but I mean most films are drama, so they have conflict and friction in them, so when it comes to the horror genre, usually, there is some sort of a sinister force, something dark obviously, and this takes the form of a publisher.
This theme of an alcoholic writer seems to be repetitive in many of your projects, such as Northwestern and Scare Me, and the theme of a man lost in the world is definitely evident in Coven. Does this represent you in any way, and do you tend to write yourself into your various characters?
I don't put myself into my films because I don't even think about it, but I do have an alliance with my characters in a sense. There're two things that you mentioned and that's alcohol and writing. Those two factors indicate a lust for life because alcohol is a way to make yourself feel better and to make yourself explode upon a scene. Writing is like a documentation of what life is like or even a preface to what you would like your life to be like. So alcohol and writing are these testaments to the love and passion of life. Any one of these characters is in love with life and is aware of his being and aware of existence.
When I saw Coven, the first thing that came to my mind was the fact that a support group that is seemingly trying to help an alcoholic lost man turns out to be a coven of witches. I was wondering if this was at all indicative of the way you feel about support groups or a commentary on them?
Well, absolutely, because why does anyone do anything? People have motives for doing anything and it's very rare that people wake up in the morning and say, "Gee, I'm going to help people" just for that clear finite reason. There always seems to be a peripheral subterfuge. And when you encounter these groups--just like church groups--they really don't care about God, they really don't care about your alcohol problems, they need you, they need fresh blood to keep their collective environment going, and if you have a problem such as alcohol, this is a very serious problem. It can destroy your health, it can destroy your life, it's serious business, and if you want to stop this addiction, then you need to look into yourself and stop it. And it's too serious to play games with groups and so forth. Now these groups exist because people can't do it themselves, so then these groups do have a purpose, but to the independent individual who handles his own problems, these groups are meaningless and nonexistent, and its just funny that people can say that "You can't do it yourself, you need us", and that is where some of the spirit of the film comes from. I mean, you can take the film at face value; that is exactly what I meant. All films, paintings, literature, all this and all that are metaphors. Horror films are all metaphors for our horrors and hopes in real life. You build a building for function, which is practicality, and also the facade which is for its aesthetic values, and there's always two different ideas and agendas going on.
Now lets talk about American Movie. How did it change you as a person?
Well, I think that that is a clich?mistake that people make is that celebrity changes you. What I found out is that it doesn't necessarily change the person themselves, but it does change the people around them, whether it be friends, family, or whoever you encounter. It can change the way they look at you, which I find bizarre and superficial. So whatever, man, I'm sure people react in different ways. And once you're in something that has popularity or a cult status, it lives on forever. But that's not my life. It's an incident that occurred in my life. It's a huge incident, not to downplay it, but it's an event. It is someone else's film who had the understanding that he had an interesting subject and went with it, and anything that had to do with that film had to do with those filmmakers, Chris Smith and Sarah Price.
But you're obviously the star of the film as well as Mike, and you are the people that come to mind when American Movie is mentioned.
Right, and again Mike happened to have the time to be with me at all times. The filmmakers could have selected anyone to be my partner. That was again another brilliant decision by the filmmakers who had a gut instinct. Those filmmakers were extraordinarily perseverant in putting everything they had economically, energetically, and time wise into the movie.
The Mark we see in American Movie seems to be a character. How much do you feel like the guy in American Movie represents you?
I like that you say that because Mark in American Movie is a phantasm--a media phantasm, one that really does not exist to that much of an extent. It is a slice of pie of a larger dynamic. When a filmmaker goes out to make a documentary they have a certain point of view. A true documentary would have to be made by six billion people. This was only made by two, and they have a particular point of view. But the film has to be entertaining, so that's the main dynamic: entertainment. So out of real life [the film created] a kind of phantasm. It's a persona that the audience sees as being a person, as being complete. But I, the subject, see the persona as being very fragmentary and just a small slice of the pie. So people see that and don't know who I am, and they have an unbalanced point of view. But I don't care. It's just like a character in a film, that's just what it is. It was a particular time, a particular circumstance, and a particular set of conditions.
I heard Mike has been sober for some time now. How is he doing and what is he working on?
He has been sober nine years as of next Tuesday. He adds new songs to his CD, Songs I Know. That has been his mission as of the past years is to add songs to his CD. He is a very good guitarist and one-man band.
The lead female in Northwestern is described as a "long-haired freak chick", so let's say you had to pick a female to play that role, who would you pick?
You mean if I had a gun to my head?
Yes.
If I say anyone, that is what people will fixate on and this whole virus will propagate from that one arbitrary answer. You can write that down.
Well put! Thank you. It has been great talking to you. Is there anything else you'd like to add that I did not ask you?
I want to say: scarememovie.com
When can we expect to be seeing it?
At the end of 2004.
Will it be in theatres, or on video?
I have no idea; all I know is that I'm making it. I'd play the stock market if I knew that.
