"At the age of eleven, TARNATION director Jonathan Caouette borrowed a neighbor¹s video camera and began documenting his daily life, interrogating his family members and making short films to escape the drama of his everyday existence. Caouette utilized six different cameras over the years, including Super-8, Betamax, VHS, Hi-8 and Mini-DV, with which he shot the bulk of the footage that appears in TARNATION. In addition, he compiled still photographs, archived answering machine messages and audiocassette diaries - all of which documented the details of his tumultuous life. As a self-proclaimed pack rat, Caouette saved what turned out to be 160 hours of personal recorded materials in a wide range of different video and audio formats, spanning over twenty years. When considered as a whole, these materials offer a devastating, yet mesmerizing portrait of a troubled American family. The footage includes unsettling domestic situations, unique dramatic performances (by a pre-teen Caouette and his mother) and unexpected demonstrations of compassion and love that could only be called unconditional." read more.
Tarnation.USA, 2003 Dir.Jonathan Caouette.
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