Jonathan Caouette | |
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| Born | Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Director, producer, film editor, writer |
Jonathan Caouette is an American film director, writer, editor and actor.
Jonathan Caouette | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Director, producer, film editor, writer |
Jonathan Caouette is an American film director, writer, editor and actor.
Caouette's mother was mentally ill and frequently institutionalized. He never knew his father, being raised between his mother, grandparents and foster homes. He was raised as a reformed Jew. [1] He attended Westbury High School in Houston, Texas from 1987 to 1990 where he was bullied regularly for his effeminacy. [2] [3] [1]
At the age of 12, Caouette accidentally smoked PCP, resulting in what a doctor later diagnosed as depersonalization disorder.
Caouette is the director and editor of Tarnation (2003), an autobiographical documentary [4] that premiered at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals in 2003, and the director of All Tomorrow's Parties about the cult music festival. Caouette has also directed the experimental short film All Flowers in Time and the feature documentary Walk Away Renee. The latter was produced by Agnes B and premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In 2009, Caouette served as a creative advisor for director Matthew Mishory's film, Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman . [5]
He has described Tarnation as an attempt to give his disorder filmic form. [6] Of the film, he said:
It was a completely organic process based on these unusual, psychological experiences I've had in my adult life—these strange, trancelike experiences, similar to sensations I remember from childhood when I had a very high fever. Where I'm half asleep and half awake, just on the cusp of dreamland. And right as I'm about to conk out, this whole plethora of information comes from my own awareness and rushes into my mind's eye. It's like a story, or a poem, or a series of images...It only makes sense for a moment and then it dissipates. It's like this weird waking dream. I wanted to lucidly mimic that in the form of a film and transpose it cinematically. Soon after I met John [ Cameron Mitchell ] and I had auditioned for his film Shortbus . I had to break away from everything in New York to go rescue my mother in Texas where my grandfather was, one could say, inadvertently allowing her to overdose on lithium. I had to go out there to be their saving grace. After I nursed her to health. I brought her back to New York with me, documenting everything. When I came back, I met this guy who was an intern at the MIX Film Festival. I showed him about 45 minutes of the film I had been making, which had three working titles at the time. "Lucid," "The Day I Disappeared" and "Tarnation," and he said, "Whatever this is, you should finish it because there's a deadline for this film festival coming up in three weeks." So I took my vacation from Mikimotos, where I was working as a door-man, and I went on this crazy editing marathon and got the film in right in the nick of time. I got it into the hands of the then festival director, Stephen Winter, who is also really good friends with John Cameron Mitchell, and that's how everything exploded. [6]
Caouette had a major role in the 2006 film Fat Girls [7] and the film Portland, scheduled for pre-production in 2012. [8] He also appeared in Shortbus , directed by John Cameron Mitchell [9] and in the German documentary Wie ich lernte die Zahlen zu lieben/ How I Learned to Love the Numbers about OCD by Oliver Sechting & Max Taubert.
Caouette has a son, Josh, [10] who was featured in the 2008 documentary Bi the Way . Caouette is gay and lives with his husband David in New York City. [11]
Films directed by Caouette:
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English artist, film maker, costume designer, stage designer, writer, poet, gardener, and gay rights activist.
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian broadcaster, musician, film director, actress and multimedia artist. She is a former MuchMusic VJ and a former radio host on CBC Radio. She has appeared in films, notably in the John Cameron Mitchell movie Shortbus.
The Hidden Cameras are a Canadian indie pop band. Fronted by singer-songwriter Joel Gibb, the band consists of a varying roster of musicians who play what Gibb once described as "gay church folk music". Their live performances have been elaborate, high-energy shows, featuring go-go dancers in balaclavas, a choir, and a string section.
Reginald Vermue is a Canadian indie rock singer from Guelph, Ontario. Born in Trenton, Ontario, he has recorded music under the stage names Gentleman Reg and Regina Gently. His musical style has been compared to Elliott Smith, Aimee Mann, The Smiths and Cat Power. He had a cameo role in the 2006 film Shortbus.
Tarnation is a 2003 American documentary film essay by Jonathan Caouette.
Jocelyn Rachel Samson, known professionally as JD Samson, is an American musician, producer, songwriter and DJ best known as a member of the bands Le Tigre and MEN.
Daniel Sea is an American filmmaker, actor and musician. They rose to prominence through their role as Max Sweeney on Showtime's drama series The L Word. Sea (he/they) is a trans non-binary actor, musician and artist who has worked in film, theater, TV, and the fine arts. They played the first recurring transmasculine role on television, appearing from 2006-2009 as Max in Showtime's The L Word. In 2022, they reprised the role as Max for the current iteration of the L Word: Generation Q. They acted in films such as John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus, and Barbara Albert's film The Dead and the Living.
Shortbus is a 2006 American erotic comedy-drama film written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. The plot revolves around a sexually diverse ensemble of colorful characters trying desperately to connect in an early 2000s New York City. The characters converge in a weekly Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. According to Mitchell, the film attempts to "employ sex in new cinematic ways because it's too interesting to leave to porn." Shortbus includes a variety of explicit scenes containing non-simulated sexual intercourse with visible penetration and male ejaculation.
DUMBA was a collective living space and anarchist, queer, all-ages community center and venue in Brooklyn, New York.
Paul Festa is an American writer, filmmaker, and violinist. Born and raised in San Francisco, he currently resides there with his husband James Harker.
Fortissimo Films is a Dutch entertainment company specializing in the production, presentation, promotion and distribution of feature films, founded in 1991 with offices in Amsterdam.
John Cameron Mitchell is an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, singer, songwriter, producer and director. He is known as the writer, director and star of the 2001 film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which is based on the stage musical of the same name. He also portrayed the role of Joe Exotic in the Peacock limited series Joe vs. Carole in 2022.
Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman is a 2009 short film based on the early years, work, and legacy of British artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. The film was written and directed by Matthew Mishory and produced by Iconoclastic Features. It was executive produced by Andreas Andrea. Keith Collins, Jarman's surviving muse, participated in the making of the film. Jonathan Caouette served as a creative advisor. It is the first narrative work about the life of Derek Jarman.
Paul Dawson is an American actor. In the 2006 comedy-drama film Shortbus, written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, he played the secretly suicidal former prostitute James.
Walk Away Renee is a 2011 American documentary film directed by Jonathan Caouette. It is the third full-length feature in Caouette's filmography.
The 33rd Moscow International Film Festival was held from 23 June to 2 July 2011. The Golden George was awarded to the Spanish drama film The Waves directed by Alberto Morais.
Jason and Shirley is a 2015 drama comedy fantasy film directed by Stephen Winter. The film is a historical re-imagining that revisits the making of Shirley Clarke's 1967 documentary Portrait of Jason.
Matthew Mishory is an American film director of Israeli descent. He has directed both narrative and documentary films and was named a "rising talent" by Variety Magazine in 2013. His award-winning 2009 film, Delphinium, about Derek Jarman, was preserved by the British Film Institute in its National Film Archive.
Roberta Morris Purdee is an American film producer and documentarian.
Hope Runs High is an American film distribution company. They began preserving digitally and distributing out-of-print documentary films before expanding to narrative and first-run theatrical films. A unique element of their library is that much of it focuses on films by women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ filmmakers and subjects. The company also houses a small record label that releases movie soundtracks and film scores.
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