A few scenes later, as he goes through a mailbox full of tax, child-support, and phone bills, recounts his outstanding debts to family members, and crows with triumph when he comes across a new Visa card, and later still, when he expounds on his grandiose vision for his six-years-in-development autobiographical first feature, Northwestern, to a "production meeting" attended by bewildered-looking misfits, the obvious question arises: who does he think he's kidding?

Another, perhaps more germane, question might be: who does American Movie director Chris Smith think he's kidding? Is this supposed to be a satiric look at the delusions of grandeur in the talentless, in the mode of mockumentaries like Waiting for Guffman? Or is it a genuine ode to an undiscovered, primitive genius? Borchardt is too savvy for the former, too messed-up for the latter. And Smith's own involvement hardly allows for Olympian irony -- he himself is a desperately aspiring filmmaker, one whose commitment of so much time and effort in profiling an even more desperate filmmaker suggests a bizarre self-reflexivity. In other words, American Movie is as much about Smith's American movie as it is about Borchardt's.

Nonetheless, the absurdities of Borchardt's quest speak for themselves. As it becomes clear that Northwestern is not about to happen -- no script, no money, no cast, and as a sardonic cut during another "production meeting" shows, no backers -- Borchardt resorts to a fallback plan. He decides to finish "Coven" (the correct pronunciation of the word sparks one of the production's milder controversies), a half-hour short about a recovery group with Satanic ambitions. Marketing this directly to video, Borchardt hopes to sell 3000 units at $14.95 and raise enough money to resume his epic.

What follows is like Ed Wood without the angora, as Borchardt is joined by his cast and crew of eccentrics to labor heroically and absurdly with marginal resources to create and complete "Coven." Among those helping out are some of the most fascinating characters in any film this year. Like childhood friend Mike Schank, whose bearded, Goth-like appearance, glazed stare, and nervous giggle conceal a canny innocence forged by years of drug abuse (his scratchy but serene classical-guitar playing provides American Movie's soundtrack). Or Mark's mother, Monica, whose Swedish-accented common sense doesn't stop her from pitching in when her son needs a hooded extra to help drag him repeatedly through an icy swamp for a key scene. Then there's Mark's savior and memento mori, Uncle Bill, an 80-year-old moribund tightwad living in a trailer park, from whom Mark is trying to extract money by promising him fame and riches as "executive producer."

If Mark is a B version of Horatio Alger, Uncle Bill is Samuel Beckett by way of Tobe Hooper. Revenant-like, ranting, utterly negative, he mocks Mark's efforts even as he, with seeming bemusement, underwrites them. One of American Movie's funniest and most moving scenes has Mark trying to loop Uncle Bill's lines for his cameo in "Coven." "It's all right! It's okay! There's something to live for! Jesus told me so!" After 30 or so takes, Uncle Bill gives up.

But not Mark Borchardt. Even after a doctored cabinet door fails to break through when he rams an actor's head repeatedly into it, he persists. As family members, friends, and associates reiterate in interviews, Mark's biggest asset, besides his big mouth, is his stubbornness. Neither, as Smith suggests, is Borchardt without talent. Asked what his influences are, Borchardt notes Dawn of the Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's just another cheap laugh at Borchardt's expense until he points out that it's those films' use of bleak landscape that inspires him. And the shots from the finished "Coven" that follow show that, in fact, Borchardt does have an eye and at least as much cinematic competence as Chris, or even Kevin, Smith.

See for yourself when "Coven" screens at midnight at the Coolidge Corner Theatre this Friday and Saturday (December 17 and 18), or do Borchardt a favor and order a copy of the video through his Web site. Whether Northwestern will ever see the screen or be worth the wait is problematic, but the ordeal and the vision behind it, as recorded in Smith's movie, remain a rueful, uproarious version of the American Dream.