#Jonathan Caouette

[genevieveetguy]

It's just like the 60's. Only with less hope.

Shortbus, John Cameron Mitchell (2006)

[spacereptilesareyourfriend]

[media-consumption]

Movie: Tarnation

Director: Jonathan Caouette

This movie is gut-wrenching.

[communistconsumerist]

Staging a Woman's Tarnation

tw: mentions of sa and substance abuse

Jonathan must really love women. It is why he confides to his grandma, after all. She gifts him words of comfort in return, for he is too burdened with the weight of his mother's, Renee, muliebrity and the patriarchal pain that is attached to it. She tells him: "To take away their memories of heaven, God touches the crease between babies’ noses and upper lips." For once, Caouette listens, and does so to his mother with whom he has connected “like never before”. It is a connection he has made through shoving a camera in front of her face, and he deepens their bond by playing the roles of “the adults” in their intertwined lives—all in a dejected narrative he has set out "for her". You could see him as a puppeteer, then, holding his torpefied relatives on strings—as puppet and porcelain as they can get. The iMovie editing for his play make their (the dead, the senile, the delusional) declines to be filmed all the more jarring, however. Their declines—but, most preeminently, Renee's declines—to being thrusted into an incongruous, polyphonic piece of work wherein home footage and found footage embrace the staged, and wherein Caouette finds himself in a continuous performance. One in front of a seemingly unattended camera he enigmatically stages as a child and as an adult.

Where the text outwardly deprive him from being a narrator we know of him nothing. His disorder seeps through the veins of all the craggy footage and sonic bites he has marshaled into a ceramic container that, for him, may not be fictive, but comes across as such if one dissociates oneself from all the heaviness of all that is made visible. This is startling, really, especially if Caouette unblemishedly utters throughout his film that he intends to honor his mother with it (whom he loves oh so much). He complains to his mom: "You know, I'd like to find out some things about myself, too," and she is willing to comply and perform his history outside the cadres Caouette wants to thrust his unformed memories into. The story he tells in Tarnation (2003) is not of himself, then. It is of a woman—a mother, he wants to embrace through exonerating her from all the wrongdoings her grandparents have loaded onto her existence. A mother who continuously wants to flee from the camera her son has placed in front of her body. A mother who wants to flee from the memories Caouette has claimed are his own. A mother young Jon performs in front of a lens, as if she is merely "a role". It is only ironic that, in a later scene, he touches his sleeping mother there where God obliterates the frangible from memory. Her son haunts her. Comical, really, if one considers how bloodcurdling he has packed his film-souvenir. 

His (being Caouette, being Jonathan, being Jon) film-souvenir. It is a term Meunier has coined for the type of films that exist to be a keepsake of an event in an individual’s life. It is scopophilic, then, that the "actual" individual ("woman") in Tarnation cannot exert control over what parts of her life are made into a relic. For as much as Caouette crafts the relic to be an act of love, he makes of his mother’s pain a spectacle—a performance to be consumed. A performance to be a means of escape. To do this by putting on the costume of a "woman", literally and figuratively, even as a way to externalize the torment of the underprivileged, is rape. 

Rape, as in its literary definition, rape /reɪp/verb. 

    To “possess” a person's body (physically) and assert control over it. Historically, also a possession (figuratively) that has been ascribed to "womanhood" (for other "figurative" defintions, seek: patriarchy). 

Tarnation’s body is that of the deluded—deprived of a voice, desecrated since its paralyzation. The body of an infant—breakable and brittle, frangible like ceramic. The femme-ivied body that could become a site for denaturalized performance is one that, instead, becomes oppressive. It is the art of drag in its most hazardous form—one it has been criticized by the likes of bell hooks who see in the art a danger. The latter comes as no surprise, really. To take up a woman’s space is a "man’s" job (seek: patriarchy). Caouette, too, succeeds in this. It is as if her cries to have the cameras turned off and memories erased are a mockery to him—a costume he can dress himself up in to perform. They form “a part of who he is,” after all. Or who he, playing his mother, is. Or who he, his film, is. 

As much as Caouette incorporates meta-commentary on the art of documentary—he emphasizes the staged-ness of staged shots—he fails to meta-commentate on the subjugation of the lens within the documentary genre, as well as of the “staged-ness” itself. A mother’s tarnation is not a costume a son can seize upon himself. It is appropriation to do so. Pain worn as costume is not a pain endured. A pain that has culturally, historically, and religiously been ascribed to womanhood. That Caouette paints this performance to be objective, then, could be considered to be another addition to the history of "men" masking away all the harm that is inflicted upon the female body in the name of “privilege”. Whether this privilege is getting to know oneself better, or a gendered performance: queer spaces are not exempt from misogyny. Renee may be loved in Tarnation, but, Renee, a woman, has the right to authorize her performance too—one where the crease between her nose and upper lip is touched and her tarnation is removed.

[lleah]

Psychologie, santé mentale ou trouble de la personnalité

My little princesse

Polisse

Invisible man

Sick of myself

The patient ( série)

Le monde de Charlie

Gone girl

I Care a lot

Bienvenue a marwen

Melancholia

Festen

Oslo 31 août

Libre et assoupi

Yes man

The Truman show

The lobster

Vice et versa

Tarnation - Jonathan Caouette

La vague

Shutter Island

Get out

Maniac (série)

Split

WE need to talk about Kevin ***

Chatroom *

Perfect blue

Le patient ( d'après la BD de Thimothée le boucher)

Chanson douce ( d'après roman Slimani)

Jalouse

Lolo

Melancholia

To the bone

Happiness therapy

[nofatclips]

Cordelia by Lost Horizons (featuring John Grant) from the album In Quiet Moments - Written, directed, and edited by Jonathan Caouette

[nofatclips-home]

Glacier by John Grant - Video by Jonathan Caouette

[dankusner]

Texas filmmaker Jonathan Caouette has a new 27-minute short. 'The Blazing,' is about a mysterious frequency that seeps its way into the airwaves. Felt around the globe, its terrifying effects transform the fabric of reality.

Premieres Sun, Nov. 14 in Houston's at the Rice Cinema, 6100 Main. Houston Cinema Arts Society.

'Tarnation' newsclip: https://bit.ly/3HkBBPJ

Friday, September 24, 2004

BUZZ BOY: Jonathan Caouette spent $218 making “Tarnation.” The documentary received a standing ovation at Cannes.

Born and raised in Houston, Jonathan Caouette grew up mostly with his grandparents.

Since his mother was in and out of hospitals dealing with acute bipolar disorder, Jonathan also spent time in the foster care system, where he experienced traumatic neglect and abuse.

At the age of 11, to escape the pain and drama, he borrowed a neighbor’s video camera and began documenting his daily life.

A self-proclaimed packrat, Caouette saved 160 hours of footage, photographs and answering machine messages.

Almost 20 years after shooting his first videotape, Caouette began using the iMovie editing software, which came bundled on his boyfriend’s Apple computer.

The result: “Tarnation,” one of the surprise hits at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation.

Caouette says the film only cost $218.

“Tarnation” debuted at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and has already gained a cult following.

Last year’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning director Gus Van Sant and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell liked it so much they came on board as executive producers.

On Saturday, North Texans can get a sneak preview of this autobiographical masterpiece at the Modem Art Museum of Fort Worth.

“Tarnation” is part of the Magnolia at the Modem film series. Modem Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnel St. Sept. 25, at 7 p.m. $7.50. 817-738- 9215.

[nisiquiera]

Tarnation - 2003 - Jonathan Caouette

[davidhudson]

Happy 45th, Jonathan Caouette.

[moviesandmania]

AGONY (2020) Reviews and overview of Asia Argento mystery thriller

AGONY (2020) Reviews and overview of Asia Argento mystery thriller

Agony is a 2020 Italian mystery thriller film in which a New York family woman goes to Tuscany to execute her estranged mother’s will. There, she deciphers visions of her forgotten childhood and confronts a spectral “Lady in Red,” whose dark secret unlocks a terrifying destiny. Produced and directed by Michele Civetta (The Gateway) from a screenplay co-written with Joseph Schuman. The…

[half-a-tiger]

LOST HORIZONS feat JOHN GRANT - “Cordelia”, from ‘In Quiet Moments’ out February 26th 2021 via Bella Union.

Lost Horizons are Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins) and Richie Thomas (Jesus and Mary Chain, Dif Juz).

Written, directed, and edited by Jonathan Caouette

[lmonot]

[themoonlightspotlight]

Tarnation film

Tarnation is an extremely moving film made by Jonathan Caouette that I recommend anyone should watch! The film is about the life of Jonathan himself and his relationship with his mentally ill mother. What is so impressive about the movie is that it is made up of 20 years worth of VHS and Super 8 footage along with hundreds of photographs. Not only this but the entire film is edited with iMovie making the budget of the movie $218.32. It is clear that Caouette had a passion for filmmaking from a young age as we see him filming himself acting different characters and videoing his family and friends. Even at a young age, he had a very clear understanding of the struggles and complexity of life. As an audience, we see this through the characters he acts as. 

At the beginning of the film, we learn about his mother’s life and her struggles with mental health. This then becomes the underlying narrative for the rest of the film as Jonathan deals with his lifelong repercussions of having a mentally ill mother and wanting to support her whilst also living his own life with many of his own issues. The film explores sexuality, mental illness, childhood, family and life in general in such a unique and experimental way. Below is a link to the movie on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I7Py77UWCw&t=1535s&index=19&list=WL

[lleah]

Documentaire 

Robert Kramer

    Road One  (Analyse)    

Ross McElwee

    Backyard (Analyse)

Humbert et Penzel

    Step across de border

Chris Marker :

    La Jetée

    Sans soleil

    Lettre de Sibérie

    Le fond de l’air est rouge (77) 3h sur mai 68

Peter Watkins :

    Punishment Park

    La bombe

    La commune

Islid le Besco

Demi-tarif (suit des enfants vivre sans argent, sc métro)

Jonas Meckas

    Step across the border (suit un groupe pdt 2 ans)

    Lost, lost, lost

Chantal Akerman (à influencé GVS et Haneke)

    Sud

    Installations France et EUA

    No Home Movie

Hip-Hop Revolution

Sugar Man

Nicole Vedès

    Paris 1900 (49)

Jonathan Caouette (CHOC)          

    Tarnation (2004)

Claude Lellouche

    C’était un rendez-vous (76) (plan séquence de 8min traversée de paris)

Benyamina

Salam (documentaire Diams)

Striptease

Poulet frites

Ni juge ni soumises

[chloesevignyonline]

Chloë Sevigny in Jonathan Caouette’s 2010 horror short All Flowers in Time.