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List Price: $19.95 | | Label: Fox Lorber
Salesrank: 42264
Released: May 17, 2005 |
| Our Price: $13.74 |
| Used Price: $4.78 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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| Features:
Color Dolby DVD Full Screen NTSC | |
Editorial Review:
DVD extras include: Director commentary, optional French subtitles, Photo Gallery. Jonathan Caouette's spellbinding debut film Tarnation re-imagines the whole idea of what a documentary can be. Having filmed his life since he was eleven years old, Caouette has woven together a psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, super-8 home movies, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of '80s pop culture and dramatic re-enactments to create an epic portrait of an American family torn apart by dysfunction and reunited through the power of love. arnation begins in 2003 as Caouette learns of his mother's lithium overdose back in his native Texas. Faced with the haunting remnants of his past, including a family history of mental illness, abuse and neglect, Caouette returns home to aid in his mother's recovery. During this time, he rekindles a touching relationship with his mother, another victim of a tumultuous childhood and discovers that family ties are never truly unbound.
Description of Tarnation:
A dark and troubling dream that David Lynch must envy, made all the more unsettling because it's true, Tarnation can only be called at auto-documentary. It's a self-portrait of the family life of Jonathan Caouette, whose mother Renee (a former child model) was forced to undergo electric shock treatment repeatedly in her youth, leading to erratic behavior throughout her life. But though the events of Caouette's life are sad, horrific, or a testament to human resilience, what makes the movie striking is how it was made: Caouette cobbled the movie together from photographs, tape recordings, and home movies that he's shot throughout his life, ranging from footage of himself at 11 years old imitating a battered wife to trashy horror movies he made as an adolescent to the first time he met his father. The unique and fluid result is mesmerizing and eerily intimate, like stepping into someone else's stream of consciousness--though few of our dreams have such a killer indie rock soundtrack. --Bret Fetzer
Tarnation Reviews:
powerful, honest and heartbreaking 
2009-06-17 - Tarnation is an intense, honest and extremely difficult to watch autobiographical film made by Jonathan Caouette. Jonathan Caouette is brilliant, to say the least; he edited this footage which he principally shot himself over the course of many years. Caouette uses this film as a vehicle to tell his life experiences with clarity mixed with a stream of consciousness and surrealistic clips designed to demonstrate what was going on in his mind at the time. I also think it must have been rather cathartic for Jonathan to make this film.
Jonathan Caouette essentially tells his life story in chronological order; and he enhances it very well by showing his grandparents' wedding (on his mother's side of the family) and how they had a daughter named Renee. Unfortunately, Renee falls in an accident and she gets shock treatments to help her recover from what they think is a psychosomatic paralysis. (I don't think they would prescribe that today.) Renee recovers from her paralysis in six months--but the shock treatments continue for 18 months more! We briefly see Jonathan's mother marrying his father Steve; but Steve runs away soon after he marries Renee not even knowing that she's pregnant.
Unfortunately, the story gets worse. Renee goes in and out of psychiatric hospitals; and we learn that Jonathan was placed in foster homes for years where he was emotionally and physically abused. I was incensed at the abuse that Jonathan was forced to endure.
Jonathan continues to tell his life story: his deep emotional connection with his maternal grandparents and his mother Renee; his quest to find his father Steve; his first boyfriend Michael; moving to New York City from Texas to pursue an acting career and much more.
Actually, his life story is fascinating and I truly hung on every word that was printed on the screen; Caouette used this technique to tell us the facts of his life story. We get many psychedelic and surrealistic film clips Jonathan shot to demonstrate the demons in his mind.
However, there's a price to pay for watching this film: It's very tough to take. The footage is frequently extremely unpleasant. We see countless family fights and by the time this film was completed Jonathan's mother Renee had so much brain damage from a lithium overdose that we see her acting like a child. The surrealistic clips are often disturbing and while I applaud Jonathan's honesty and openness it's just not easy to swallow. And I have a master's degree in social work that emphasized counseling! If I found this to be tough, you KNOW it's a tough film to sit through.
The DVD comes with several extras. The extras include a director's commentary and some extra scenes that fall under the title of "1983/1984 Rushes."
Overall, Tarnation is a brilliant, creative film that could only originate from the mind of a genius. Sadly, Jonathan's been through so much he's become a rather tortured genius; and that's truly a shame. I recommend this motion picture for anyone interested in the issues raised here; others will have to choose for themselves if they can stomach this powerful, dramatic and often heartbreakingly honest autobiographical film.
A Study In Narcissism, Not Schizophrenia or Family Relationships 
2009-05-03 - I'm pretty surprised at the amount of good reviews this film has gotten on Amazon--in comparison, the reviews on Netflix are, I think, much more realistic. I think people who have never been exposed to someone like Jonathan Caouette might find this film original and eye-opening, but the fact is that trashy gay male art students from dysfunctional, abusive or drug-addled families are a dime a dozen, and the streets of any major city in America are teeming with them. This film was painful to watch--I was cringing with embarrassment for Jonathan and his family through most of the scenes and found myself watching the film for the train wreck qualities of it, and not because I felt any particular interest in the story of how Jonathan coped with his situation.
A dark look into one man's twisted/colorful life. 
2007-11-14 - Tarnation is one of those movies that its affect continues to resonate within me. It is deeply disturbing to witness the fractured family dynamic, and to watch a child's life become so profoundly impacted by the mistakes of others. With that said, it instilled a feeling of hope for me, as the creator of the documentary seems to rise above his damaged past, and his dedication for his mother is a wonderful example of true love. If you are delighted by disturbing scenarios that have a purpose and an eventual positive-albeit non traditional- outcome, then check this flick out.
transcending texas
2007-01-24 - "We're all just one happy family," insists grandfather Adolph, "and we all love God." How and why that tragic falsehood got perpetuated in his horribly dysfunctional family is the subject of Jonathan Caouette's intense, emotionally raw, and deeply sad autobiographical documentary. His mother Renee--for all her madness, mental illness, 200 shock therapy treatments as a child, drug abuse, rape, and over a hundred psychiatric hospitalizations from 1965 to 1999, knows better: "Screwed up parents raise screwed up kids. I just wanted to break the cycle." She did not and could not, and her son Jonathan, writer and director, has paid a horrible psychic price: ''I don't want to be like my mom," he frets in a final scene. But he repeated the past and more, including growing up gay in Texas, and developing a "depersonalization disorder" in which one views one's life in a detached, third person manner as if in a dream.
Caouette incorporates numerous media into his cinematic catharsis --super 8 home movies that he started taking when he was 11, still photos, phone messages, movie clips, tape recordings, and even simple text. He fires these at the viewer in a non-linear fashion and at a staccato pace, often filling split screens with dozens of overlapping frames. The disorienting effect mimics his life, and even draws the viewer into his own state of mind. Caouette is a gifted film maker. As a human being he gets high marks for sheer bravery for confronting his horrific past, and for his deep tenderness toward his deranged mother who came to live with him in New York City. No person should bear even a fraction of the curse that he inherited. Tarnation makes at least two claims to fame. It has won a place as one of the "Top Ten Films of the Year" on over 50 such lists, and was reputedly made for $218 on a Macintosh and edited with the bundled iMovie software.
A Personal Photo Album
2007-01-20 - "TARNATION"
A Personal Photo Album
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
"Tarnation" made for less than $3oo is an autobiographical documentary made by Jonathan Caouette. It is chaotic, it is blurry, it is weird but most of all it is real. It is also one of the most touching films I have ever seen. Caouette recorded\his family concentrating on the mistreatment of his mother and the impact it had on his own life He used old home movies and photographs to assemble a collage which documents his and his mother's lives. Some of this includes his mothers various stints at psychiatric hospitals and his own entrance into the world of underground filmmaking.
The style that we get both disquiets and disorients and is anarchistic. I am sure that not many have been able to sit through the entire film (although I did). The film is grainy and repeats itself several times. The director devised his own techniques and uses them over and over.
There is great material here for a film if it were given to the right person. One terrible thing after another seems to happen to him and his family.
The film does take shape and show prose when Caouette concentrates on his own gay life. His coming out story is interesting and his life as a gay male is fascinating. There are even parts of his familial life that are interesting to watch.
If you are able to sit through the entire movie, you will see something that will break your heart and your spirit. I only wish that the whole thing would have been more professional.
