Tarnation

Director: Jonathan Caouette

2003 / 88min / DCP

A combination of video diary, dysfunctional family scrapbook, found footage documentary, and pop musical elegy, Caouette’s poignant, powerful breakthrough film tells the harrowing story of the filmmaker’s life, from his mother’s damaging exposure to electroshock therapy in his youth, a pedigree rife with abuse, addiction, and abandonment, and his own unlikely survival through escape into musical theater and cinematic self-expression. “Adrift in a selectively arranged saga of breakdowns, foster homes, abuse, attempted suicide, and brain damage, the artist clutches his camera as though it were a life raft, and apparently he survives.”—J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

Composer John Califra, Clearance Producer Roberta Morris, & Producer Stephen Winter in person for a Q&A on Saturday, August 19th, moderated by filmmaker Taylor A. Purdee