I noticed during the screening of Tarnation that during examples of the reluctant subject (i.e. Renee, Adolph), no one viewing was slightly inclined to laugh. In Alan Berliner's Nobody's Business, the recurring and almost disabling reluctance of Oscar Berliner is basically comedic; his tone and non-compliance just really presented an older man who doesn't care.
Now, that's not to say these little "bouts" Alan and his father get into aren't to be taken serious. In one or two instances Oscars is clearly growing upset. These moments are cleverly accompanied by clips of pujilism. Middle century film of boxers runs through the duration of the short arguments.
Another small recurring theme is time. I think the metrenome-esque ticking of a timewatch, sometimes rapid, sometimes slower, can be interpreted various ways. Discussion of Oscar's grandparents goes quite quickly, maybe dictated by the metrenome? The reading and discussion of a letter from Oscar's grandfather to his father is pretty intriguing (...if I remember correctly, about ensues). But the seemingly incessant ticking would occur after Berliner enquires a question: the ticking heightens, becomes more focued, then.... BING! that little bell sounds as answers are found.
While I noticed these elements of the film, I also saw that it transitions well into different areas of interest. The accounts of a few woman who knew him well, as a handsome and desirable guy were kind of cool. Then the shots of him as a father, looking so happy and just really truly enjoying the time with the children. It's a lot of visual accolades about Oscar who is right now in the movie being a spoil-sport. But I like Oscar, I think he does a great job, and at times I am not laughing at his somewhat humourous honesty. One example where I kind of think Alan Berliner is being dumb is asking if Oscar really could relate more to his army friends than his grandparents.. Obviously! They're at war together and going through the same type of life. In the early half of the century I'm pretty sure a lot of parents/grandparents were oozing with outward affection.
I don't know. I really did like this film, I thought it was well done and profiled a family effectively, with Oscar at the centre.
I also liked, very much, Oscar's response to why he had had kids with his wife whom he knew he would not last with. He said that having kids was "trying to bring logic to an emotional situation." Oscar is a smart man, his son might be a smart-alec.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Ins and Outs -- losses of bouts -- of a Texan Family
So.. Wow.. I’ve definitely a lot to say about Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation. The fact that it’s filmed entirely by him, and him from a young age is really remarkable. Is this foresight? It seems like it, but at that young of an age there’s no way Caouette could have realized that the sum total of his years of filming would be the lifeline of an award-winning documentary. Or..Can..It!?
Can I call this an artistic exploitation of the enigmatic history of four members of a family? It’s so about each Adolph and Rosemary, Renee and Jonathan. Clearly Jonathan gets the most visually in depth look at himself in the piece.
His experimental, secretive monologues near the beginning of our acquaintanceship with him are shocking. Not so shocking that he is portraying a girl and doing dramatic monologues; he establishes in his first scene his sexuality. What’s shocking is the inclusion of tapes which have been kept and studied for years (as is assumed with much of his earlier material). In two consecutive showings of these
early-years monologues, the documentary cuts SO abruptly it makes you feel awkward. Was I shocked at the cinematic technique? Maybe partially, but more so by a 7 year old pouring his heart into the camera, and about some pretty crazy weird stuff.
The same feeling I felt at the beginning of the movie... I felt at times as though I was learning the pictorial history of the family of an axe murder, and would you believe it? It was all the music! The intense and uncomfortable audio accompanying the short.. bursts.. of.. sentences.. which narrate throughout the documentary not only convey feeling, but pull that feeling out of you, like out of your pores of your forearms and the back of your legs. Everywhere. I don’t believe there is anything ill to be said about the early content and its grainy features; the two media (sketchy music/sketchy video) just play off each other so well, and a lot of time Caouette (in his young originality) is to thank.
He not only helps maintain the eerie allure of scenes, but audio wise he will tease and flash whichever image (possibly a simple feature of iMac media use) to match the distorted music or background audio – very uncomforting. (At this point in the movie all I wrote was “scary noise reverberates flashing picture”).
I feel like I could talk for days about Jonathan. As a viewer, I thought about his homosexuality in relation to his a character in the film. When his childhood is explained, foster care abuse, finally being adopted by Adolph and Rosemary, you want to feel bad for him for having such hard early years. But then when you understand he has discovered this outlet – media – and uses it so extensively, you become trapped by his youth.
An interesting part early on is a recording of his voice. He is discussing many issues, one of which is the fact of his sexuality. He is SO young and saying something to the effect of “Yes of course I’m gay, I’ve always been gay, I’ve always known it.” This sound bite is accompanied by other footage of him growing up, and one frame I remember especially. In keeping with the remembrance of Renee’s jumping off the roof, Jonathan has the camera set up on the roof looking down at him.
Everything I’ve discussed this far happens relatively early in the film. As Jonathan’s adolescence begins, the narration reveals his first experience with drugs was the smoking of two PCP laced joints in succession. “It was later found out that both joints were dipped in formaldehyde.” Holy shit!! What are they smoking in Texas!? Like most people I know smoke drugs, get high, then go buy more. If you smoke formaldehyde consistently, or are sick enough to give them to some little kid, how are you not dead already!?
Tarnation definitely as a reality piece does a lot. Apart from the fact it’s all real footage, it has various examples of straight up how bad people are. How sick and deranged the world is and that sometimes it doesn’t matter who you are – you can’t help it. There’s the man who rapes Renee in Chicago, Jonathan’s foster parents, Adolph and Rosemary (who it is never quite clear if they abused Renee), the doctors administering shock treatment to Renee, and again the drug dealer who lives in her building, and essentially gives Jonathan brain damage. I think the movie says a lot about how a lot can go wrong in life, and even more will go wrong if you’re in an unlucky enough of a situation.
Can I call this an artistic exploitation of the enigmatic history of four members of a family? It’s so about each Adolph and Rosemary, Renee and Jonathan. Clearly Jonathan gets the most visually in depth look at himself in the piece.
His experimental, secretive monologues near the beginning of our acquaintanceship with him are shocking. Not so shocking that he is portraying a girl and doing dramatic monologues; he establishes in his first scene his sexuality. What’s shocking is the inclusion of tapes which have been kept and studied for years (as is assumed with much of his earlier material). In two consecutive showings of these
early-years monologues, the documentary cuts SO abruptly it makes you feel awkward. Was I shocked at the cinematic technique? Maybe partially, but more so by a 7 year old pouring his heart into the camera, and about some pretty crazy weird stuff.
The same feeling I felt at the beginning of the movie... I felt at times as though I was learning the pictorial history of the family of an axe murder, and would you believe it? It was all the music! The intense and uncomfortable audio accompanying the short.. bursts.. of.. sentences.. which narrate throughout the documentary not only convey feeling, but pull that feeling out of you, like out of your pores of your forearms and the back of your legs. Everywhere. I don’t believe there is anything ill to be said about the early content and its grainy features; the two media (sketchy music/sketchy video) just play off each other so well, and a lot of time Caouette (in his young originality) is to thank.
He not only helps maintain the eerie allure of scenes, but audio wise he will tease and flash whichever image (possibly a simple feature of iMac media use) to match the distorted music or background audio – very uncomforting. (At this point in the movie all I wrote was “scary noise reverberates flashing picture”).
I feel like I could talk for days about Jonathan. As a viewer, I thought about his homosexuality in relation to his a character in the film. When his childhood is explained, foster care abuse, finally being adopted by Adolph and Rosemary, you want to feel bad for him for having such hard early years. But then when you understand he has discovered this outlet – media – and uses it so extensively, you become trapped by his youth.
An interesting part early on is a recording of his voice. He is discussing many issues, one of which is the fact of his sexuality. He is SO young and saying something to the effect of “Yes of course I’m gay, I’ve always been gay, I’ve always known it.” This sound bite is accompanied by other footage of him growing up, and one frame I remember especially. In keeping with the remembrance of Renee’s jumping off the roof, Jonathan has the camera set up on the roof looking down at him.
Everything I’ve discussed this far happens relatively early in the film. As Jonathan’s adolescence begins, the narration reveals his first experience with drugs was the smoking of two PCP laced joints in succession. “It was later found out that both joints were dipped in formaldehyde.” Holy shit!! What are they smoking in Texas!? Like most people I know smoke drugs, get high, then go buy more. If you smoke formaldehyde consistently, or are sick enough to give them to some little kid, how are you not dead already!?
Tarnation definitely as a reality piece does a lot. Apart from the fact it’s all real footage, it has various examples of straight up how bad people are. How sick and deranged the world is and that sometimes it doesn’t matter who you are – you can’t help it. There’s the man who rapes Renee in Chicago, Jonathan’s foster parents, Adolph and Rosemary (who it is never quite clear if they abused Renee), the doctors administering shock treatment to Renee, and again the drug dealer who lives in her building, and essentially gives Jonathan brain damage. I think the movie says a lot about how a lot can go wrong in life, and even more will go wrong if you’re in an unlucky enough of a situation.
Grizzly Man - Perception, "Tainted" Perception
Perception, “tainted” perception. So I’m in first year, and a friend who I live with know was raving about this “grizzly man” documentary. I caught a scene of it, and in being slightly disappointed it wasn’t some old footage of Sasquatch, I held it in contempt. The little bit that I did watch, I saw Timothy Treadwell in a sentimental moment. While he is clearly upset with the death of a small fox by the side of the water, to me, walking in at that point, I thought he was a nut job. After viewing the film for the purposes of 286, I think I was right.
There were moments throughout the film where I though back to my original feelings, but upon seeing the scene with the dead fox, I remembered how I felt real well. I sounded like one of the pilots or the museum worker, who really criticizes and calls out what Treadwell did. I suppose it was a full spectrum view of Treadwell and his footage of himself which gave my feelings a fair chance. There is obvious much cinematic thought in how it is all put together by Herzog.
His techniques we discussed a bit, like letting the camera run were pretty interesting in the interview process. The doctor who had the job of sorting the bags of body parts, and Treadwell’s close friend Jewel each were subjects of this. Another was the museum curator, in which he (like the doctor) kind of look to the camera, look away, and look to the Herzog. I think a technique like this forces those speaking to think about the last things out of their mouth. They must be thinking to themselves “Does Werner want more?” or whatever it is they just spoke on. He is almost milking the comments out of him. A huge thing is, the voyeuristic gaze I think. Maybe perhaps why people enjoy the film in general is how well you get to know Treadwell. Did Grizzly Man win so many documentary awards because people want to see the life of a somewhat messed up, crazy dude. “A True Story of a Life Gone Wild” is what reads on the movie poster, and Herzog creates this well.
What I think is funny is that, there’s crazy people all around the world. What if Treadwell didn’t have the option to film his summers for so many years, any story we hear of him, assuming we didn’t know him, would seem untrustworthy. How could we determine how crazy we think he is? Or how much reason he was using when he started this lifestyle?
The kicker is, in terms of perception, every director and their methods change what every member of the audience will think. So other than the widespread viewing of Grizzly Man to get the story of Treadwell out, Herzog’s inclusions, exclusions of his life can hardly touch the fact that he was eaten by a bear. He was eccentric and extremely unique individual, and if there was never a movie made but you knew him, or of him, then that's all that should matter.
We're all just the audience, the paying customers to know Timothy Treadwell.
That's my piece on perception . . . I don’t look down on Grizzly Man. I think it is a lot better and there’s more of a point to it than I originally thought. I just kind of wanted to talk about how I felt like I didn’t want to be classified with those so outwardly opposed to Treadwell’s work .
There were moments throughout the film where I though back to my original feelings, but upon seeing the scene with the dead fox, I remembered how I felt real well. I sounded like one of the pilots or the museum worker, who really criticizes and calls out what Treadwell did. I suppose it was a full spectrum view of Treadwell and his footage of himself which gave my feelings a fair chance. There is obvious much cinematic thought in how it is all put together by Herzog.
His techniques we discussed a bit, like letting the camera run were pretty interesting in the interview process. The doctor who had the job of sorting the bags of body parts, and Treadwell’s close friend Jewel each were subjects of this. Another was the museum curator, in which he (like the doctor) kind of look to the camera, look away, and look to the Herzog. I think a technique like this forces those speaking to think about the last things out of their mouth. They must be thinking to themselves “Does Werner want more?” or whatever it is they just spoke on. He is almost milking the comments out of him. A huge thing is, the voyeuristic gaze I think. Maybe perhaps why people enjoy the film in general is how well you get to know Treadwell. Did Grizzly Man win so many documentary awards because people want to see the life of a somewhat messed up, crazy dude. “A True Story of a Life Gone Wild” is what reads on the movie poster, and Herzog creates this well.
What I think is funny is that, there’s crazy people all around the world. What if Treadwell didn’t have the option to film his summers for so many years, any story we hear of him, assuming we didn’t know him, would seem untrustworthy. How could we determine how crazy we think he is? Or how much reason he was using when he started this lifestyle?
The kicker is, in terms of perception, every director and their methods change what every member of the audience will think. So other than the widespread viewing of Grizzly Man to get the story of Treadwell out, Herzog’s inclusions, exclusions of his life can hardly touch the fact that he was eaten by a bear. He was eccentric and extremely unique individual, and if there was never a movie made but you knew him, or of him, then that's all that should matter.
We're all just the audience, the paying customers to know Timothy Treadwell.
That's my piece on perception . . . I don’t look down on Grizzly Man. I think it is a lot better and there’s more of a point to it than I originally thought. I just kind of wanted to talk about how I felt like I didn’t want to be classified with those so outwardly opposed to Treadwell’s work .
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