Tarnation
Tarnation is a
2003 documentary film by
Jonathan Caouette (born November
1973).
The 88-minute long film was produced with a minimal budget of $218, using free
iMovie software on a
Macintosh computer. As film critic
Roger Ebert notes, thousands more were spent on creating a film print, and over $400,000 were spent clearing the rights to use the copyrighted music and scenes.
[Documentary makers rally for fair use, from tiscali.co.uk: Citing dozens of examples, they contend, for instance, that the budget of Jonathan Caouette's homemade 2004 documentary "Tarnation" ballooned from $218 to $400,000, "using most of the eventual budget to clear rights."] |
Tarnation film poster |
Tarnation is a
documentary of Jonathan Caouette's life, also focusing on his mother, Renee LeBlanc, who was treated with
electroshocks in her youth. With an oft-gone mother and a father (Steve Caouette) who had abandoned them, Caouette had a rough childhood. He eventually came to live with his grandparents, Adolph and Rosemary Davis, who had some personality quirks but were able to provide a supporting and generally good roof over his head.
Caouette
came out as gay at a young age and moved to New York City at age 25, eventually finding a boyfriend named David Sanin Paz. They both live in New York City today. For a time his mother joined them as well, and as he had tracked down his father the three of them were able to re-establish a family connection. In 2005, Caouette brought his mother to live in NY so she would be closer to him and David.
An impressive scene early in the movie has an 11-or-so-year old Caouette relating a monologue about a damaging relationship he made up on the spot, wherein he plays an unknown woman.
Today he is involved in speaking at showings of his movie and helping his grandfather with his house and personal dealings at Caouette's childhood home.
Caouette used old
VHS video footage, photographs and answering machine messages to tell his story. The soundtrack further uses songs by
Lisa Germano, the
Cocteau Twins,
Dolly Parton,
Low,
Mark Kozelek,
Glen Campbell,
The Magnetic Fields,
Nick Drake and many more. Two songs,
Tarnation and
Desperation were composed by
Max Avery Lichtenstein to be played on the end credits. The song 'Safe As Milk', from the band
Hopewell, was used on the trailer.
The film was published in
2004, supported by
Gus Van Sant and
John Cameron Mitchell and
Gordon Thomas as executive producers, and Stephen Winter and Caouette as producers. When presented at the
Los Angeles film festival, it won the prize for best documentary.
The film entered the "official selection" of the 2004
Cannes Film Festival Directors' Fortnight and
Sundance Film Festival.
The world premiere of the movie, at MIX, the New York Lesbian & Gay Film Festival in November 2003 was much more abstract in nature, running for about two hours. With input from Van Sant, Mitchell, producer Stephen Winter, and co-editor Brian A. Kates, he re-edited it down to two hours, then finally about an hour and a half for the general screenings.
*
Euphemism (for the meaning of the word "tarnation")
*
Jonathan Caouette's Blog (about himself and Tarnation)*
BBC website article about the screening at the Cannes Festival 
