My favorite film of 2004 wasn't nominated for any Oscars. It's Tarnation, Jonathan Caouette's absorbing, disturbing, and visually stunning documentary about his life and the life of his repeatedly institutionalized mother. There's a brief but interesting interview with Caouette in the current Columbus Alive.
Assembled on an iMac from the video diaries he started to record at age 11, Tarnation reportedly cost just $218.32 to make -- though the budget surely grows if you include the legal cost of all the audio and video samples, drawn from everything from Hair to Zoom. Several critics have compared the picture to Capturing the Friedmans, despite their rather different styles, because both films would have been impossible in the days before video cameras were standard equipment for an American household. In the words of Gus Van Sant, "They are no longer home movies, but movies of the home." Or, as I put it myself back in 2001:
[T]he most ephemeral of film genres, the home movie, has undergone a radical change: It now involves editing as well as photography, allowing the domestic director to arrange his images in a coherent way. The difference between the traditional home movie and its modern descendant is the difference between a cluttered attic and a collector's den.
That in turn implies that the boundaries between the home movie and the independent film have blurred, and may soon break down entirely.
This flowering won't stop with Capturing the Friedmans and Tarnation. And while it's sure to include its share of poorly conceived crap, you can expect to see more masterpieces too.
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|2.3.05 @ 1:14PM|#
Dittos.
I can't recommend that movie enough.
On a loosely related note, I can't track down the new movie on Henry Darger but I hear it's the bee's tits.
|2.3.05 @ 1:43PM|#
Tarnation was okay, but it really lacked a little something to put it over the edge.
I'm thinking Ned Beatty makes that an oscar winner.
|2.3.05 @ 1:49PM|#
The Darger doc is "In the Realms of the Unreal," reviewed here -- not necesarily an endorsement of the review (or the film, since I haven't seen it), but just to note that it is currently playing in Chicago.
On-topic: Does anyone recall (have a link to) the recent report (or maybe recently blogged report) concerning the use of commercial television footage and music in documentary film? I have been wondering how that would intersect with the "do-it-yourself" ethic of guys like Caouette. In terms of career documentarians, I believe the result was a strong avoidance of popular songs, films, and TV shows, which I think it just unfortunate. Some version of the reply to this