Posted by Frank Reynolds at spider-we073.proxy.aol.com on December 15, 1999 at 11:15:03:
In Reply to: Re: Hey, Vincent, have you seen American Movie? posted by Malcolm Load on December 15, 1999 at 03:13:27:
: Frank...what the fuck do you do...or have you done...to have such an attitude....just curious
Well, for one thing, I'm an editor...I've edited six features (like Smalls said, low-to-mid budget), but the only two you probably would have heard of are TROMEO AND JULIET and MAN OF THE CENTURY. (Another, SWIMMING, just got a special screening slot at Slamdance next year.)
Second, jeez, I'm sorry if I ticked you off...I didn't use the term wannabe in any derogatory sense or anything...AMERICAN MOVIE is simply the struggle of one person who strives to become a filmmaker, and that "becoming" process is what the movie is about. Now it's true that I don't believe one is truly a filmmaker until one actually finishes a movie, or at least has it far enough along that one has a showable product. (ie. a scratch-mixed hi-res Avid cut). And yes, Mark did finish COVEN, which in my book does qualify him as a filmmaker in my book. (Smalls in incorrect in the sense that I think one has to finish a feature to qualify him/her as a filmmaker.) But hey, they're just words. When I said "wannabe filmmaker" in my first post, I didn't mean it as a loaded term, or a derogatory term...it was just the phrase that came into my mind at the time. And I'm not picking on Mark or judging him...in fact I do want to see COVEN, and considered ordering a tape from it on the website. (It's just with the holidays and all, I'm watching my cash.) AMERICAN MOVIE is not necessarily the story of one who IS a filmmaker in my opinion, it's about someone who BECOMES a filmmaker, and by the end he becomes one, but during that process of becoming one is not a filmmaker YET. That's all I was saying. Don't take it so personally.