Movies About Making Movies

Note From Tongal: "Movies About Making Movies” is part of a series of Tongal Community-written blog posts that were originally sourced in the Write What You Know Tongal Blog Project. Read more Tongal Community-written posts here and stay tuned for more opportunities to Pitch a topic and write for the Tongal Blog!

----

“No one has ever, ever paid admission to see an excuse. No one has ever faced a black screen that says, ‘Well, if we had these set of circumstances, we would’ve shot this scene…so please forgive us and use your imagination.’ I’ve been to the movies hundreds of times. That’s never occurred.” 

                                                                                          —Mark Borchardt, American Movie

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love movies. My earliest movie memories involve my hard-working mother packing her five children into a beat-up station wagon and taking us to a drive-in theater in New Jersey. (In the movie version of this story, Mom would’ve hid a few of us in the trunk to save money on admission.) Upon finding a spot to park, Mom would fall asleep immediately. My two teenage hooligan brothers would leave the car and try to pick up girls at the snack bar. My sister would do her homework. My younger brother would stare creepily at other people in nearby cars. Me? I watched the movies. All the movies. Every second of every movie. From Hollywood blockbusters like Rocky to grimy foreign gorefests like Cannibal Holocaust. As a preteen, I watched all manner of inappropriate films—The Incredible Melting Man, Lifeforce, Eaten Alive!, Saturday Night Fever. Today, subjecting a 10-year-old to such adult material—beheadings, nudity, flesh-eating, disco dancing—would probably be considered child abuse. But, wow, I loved it all. Good movies and bad movies, big budgets and small. A movie lover was born. Thanks, Mom! 

Now, I’m an adult, with a family and bills and real life to contend with, but my Hollywood dreams continue. I’m a freelance writer, and I spend quite a bit of time writing screenplays. I’m a dreamer, like many of my fellow Tongalers. Someday, I know I’ll be on the set of a movie that I wrote. I know my time is coming. I’ve had ups and down. Many of my fellow Tongalers are filmmakers whose dreams have already come true. Many others are like me, pounding away, working toward their movie-making goals. But what happens if your dreams do come true? Will you be ready?

How do you prepare for a career in movies so you don’t blow your chance? You watch movies about making movies, of course! You watch documentaries that take you behind the scenes of motion picture productions both big and small. I’ve seen them all and learned a lot. Here are my favorite movies about making movies, and a lesson I learned from each. 

Overnight 

Roger Ebert called it the best documentary about Hollywood he’s seen. It’s the story of Troy Duffy, a regular guy from Boston who moves to Hollywood, writes a screenplay, and becomes an overnight sensation when Miramax buys his script. Troy became an inspiration to millions, according to himself. The problem? Troy turned out to be an enormous asshole, spending the next few years burning bridges and pounding beers. Miramax put his film in turnaround, and Troy ended up bitter and broke. The script was picked up by another company and eventually got made. Troy’s film, The Boondock Saints, went on to become something of a cult hit. Unfortunately, no one wanted to work with Troy, and his Hollywood career stalled. 

Lesson Learned: Don’t let success go to your head.

American Movie

Mark Borchardt didn’t need Hollywood to make his dreams come true. He made low-budget horror movies with family and friends in Wisconsin. His passion came right through the screen in this charming, often-hilarious documentary. What he lacked in talent, he more than made up for with enthusiasm, humor, and personality. Aspiring filmmakers can learn something from watching Mark never give up, personal life be damned. He’s just a guy who wanted to make movies, so that’s what he did. Don’t feel bad for Mark; he wouldn’t have it any other way—well, unless that way involved making a lot of money. The film is chock-full of inspiration from Mark: “This time I cannot fail. I won’t fail; it’s not in me. You don’t get second chances and mess them up; you’d be a fool to. Not just finishing films or in the long run getting some money…This time it’s more important not to fail, not just to drink and to dream, but rather create and complete.”

Lesson Learned: If you want to make a movie, go make a damn movie. 

Hearts of Darkness

Behind the scenes of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War masterpiece. The completed film ended up becoming a classic, but behind the scenes, it was almost a total disaster. From bad weather to star Martin Sheen’s heart attack early in filming to Marlon Brando’s arriving on set overweight and unprepared, everything that could’ve gone wrong did go wrong. Coppola took that chaos and harnessed it. He embraced the madness. Sure, he nearly died in the process, but it was for art. 

Lesson Learned: Things will probably go wrong on set. Don’t give up. Use that chaos to your advantage.

Dreams On Spec

A wonderful documentary about screenwriting that follows several writers as they try to make it in Hollywood, to varying degrees of success. The bad news: most screenplays never get made. The worse news: you’ll probably never be a successful screenwriter. The encouraging news: some people do make it, so why not you? One of the writers featured in the film is David J. Stieve. He sold his script, which would become the film Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. He quit his job and began his screenwriting career. But selling a script doesn’t always mean you’ve “made it.” David quickly discovered what it’s really like for a lowly screenwriter when the director changed his script without telling him. That’s life in Hollywood, where screenplays are not sacred, and screenwriters are expendable. 

Lesson Learned: Once you sell your script, it’s not your baby anymore. It’s the director’s.

---

Which movies about making movies do YOU love? Share down in the comments!