JONATHAN CAOUETTE SCEENING PRESENTATION AND Q&A
   [15-04-05]

   Jonathan Caouette, presented his documenary work, Tarnation, and discussed his work through Q&A after the screening.

TARNATION (15)
USA 2004   Dir. Jonathan Caouette   1hr 45mins
Jonathan Caouette's spellbinding debut - Tarnation reimagines the whole idea of what a documentary can be. Caouette has been documenting his life since he was eleven years old. With Tarnation, he weaves a psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, Super-8 home movies, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of 80s pop culture and dramatic reenactments to create an epic portrait of an American family torn apart by dysfunction and reunited through the power of love.


Jonathan and Renee at Lovebytes 05


Tarnation Q&A at Lovebytes 05

"I quit my jobs and went on a nicotine and caffeine frenzied maniacal editing marathon and would stay there for 4 days at a time and push and push myself"


Jonathan Caouette

"LOVEBYTES..I love the name! Isn't there something called Soundbytes?! I think Lovebytes is my first exclusive digital festival and I'm so glad these exist and I have a feeling in the next 2 years that there's going to be a whole conglomeration of digital film festivals.

One thing I wanted to say in the question and answer, is that I really think the people who have created home editing software, aren't cognoscente of the monstrosity that they're created. I really think its going to enable any Joe-Shmo to just get out there and make a film and know there's no excuses and I think it's really going to change the relationship between the artist filmmaker and the medium of film. In a way that's going to be a renaissance, that's going to revolutionise even the way that we distribute films. For any of my other projects that I want to make on my own computer from here on out, I'm self-distributing and I think because of the notoriety of this film, I'll be able to do that."

I love the fact Tarnation started life in Imovie!
"In went from Imovie, to aspects of it that were cut on Adobe After Effects, like the quads, the split screens, that you can't achieve on Imovie. I cut all the scenes rhythmically to music that you see in the quads. I gave them to my friend Jason Banker, who took all those images and put them together in the stilt screens, that's were it was sort of cheating and then eventually it lived on an Avid where we did our initial sound mixing and also we were able to output on digi-data and then Lucas films, Skywalker sound invited me to come and do my sound mix there out at Star Wars land, and now its like this low-fi film with all this star wars sound!"

Who would you like to work with?
"I would have to say…Leonardo Decaprio, but pull him back to something that's not Hollywood, something indie. I've always admired him as an actor because he just goes way over the edge and takes risks, not as many as he used too but I'd love to work with him on that perspective and pull him back. Directors? David Lunch!"

On England
"Renee and I love England, it's fantastic, we're gonna go around London, I love London, I love rural England, it's amazing, I can't wait, Manchester, Belfast, Manchester again, then London, doing the same kind of stuff."
Stills from Tarnation
Jamie Bristow
" I initially felt quite embarrassed because it's obviously intensely personal and because you knew he was in the audience. You kind of felt a bit voyeuristic. The monologue of the 11 year old kid talking to the camera really knocked me for 6, that being one of the opening scenes. There's something very narcissistic, which he admits himself, and jokes about it but I kind of see it as a symptom of him upbringing, a cathartic process, I think he needed to tell his story and he obviously felt that from a young age and that's quite unique that he always felt there was something special about him that the world needed to hear. I think he's done it incredibly well and not cheesily and in quite a powerful and enthralling way."

Yulia Iruskinate, Lithuania

"My first impression was that its not so much about directing, well it is about editing, but its not the thing, it's the thing that the guy was collecting everything all his years, plus it's also very personal. That's what I like in this movie.

 
Jude, Photographer & Writer (writing a novel called 'My Adventures in Cyberspace')"On the IMDB website there's a thread relating to the Tarnation film, and people slagging Jonathan off for his film being unhonest so I've been on their defending him, because I think its one of the most honest films I've even seen. And my mother suffers from paranoid schizophrenia like Jonathan's so it was very pertinent to me. I loved the references to Nick Drake, and the fact that he's got Max Erman in there. I though it was a very honest, brilliant film, yes a bit narcissistic but what it wrong with being a bit narcissistic when you've lived a life that's had so much shit in it?!? I just hope he's not having a hard time with his mum tonight because knowing my mum, I know it can be hard. I hope she's coping with it ok."

Laura Zetterberg
"It was intriguing, I didn't know anything about the film so I was quite surprised and felt a bit uncomfortable in the beginning because it was completely something that I thought it wouldn't be, but then you get sunk into it and it was really good."

 

John Hobson
"It was a very moving film.  I was trying to put myself in the place of the person in the film but I found it so hard to do that, to imagine how they are feeling.  It was very affecting, the sort of film I'd really like to see again.  It's hard to believe that it really is real, someone's life."