12 - Portraits of the Self

Portraits of the Self

By: Brent, Daphné and Stéfanie

This week, we saw how a documentary film could be used as a way to make a portrait of people; either the filmmaker itself or a distinct group of people. How the filmmaker chooses to portrait someone influences the view we have of that person. We saw earlier this semester how Michael Moore presented Charlton Heston to us in way to make us believe he was a stupid, heartless man. Moore trapped him in his house and manipulated his questions to make it impossible for Heston to truthfully answer; he represents the NRA, he cannot talk against it. Contrary to Moore, Agnes Varda and Jonathan Caouette either show vulnerability of the character or an objective portrait.

Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (The Gleaners and I): What a Waste!

Agnes Varda has been making films for almost fifty years. Focused on showing a realist portrait of the world, most of her films follow the lives of a group of people. In The Gleaners and I, we see how gleaners all around France live, and why they glean. Made in France, this 82 minutes film was awarded the Melies Prize for Best French Film of 2000 by the French Union of Film Critics. This film documents those who scavenge and fight to survive in both urban and rural areas of France. Showing her freedom to experiment by using just a digital camera, Varda travelled through France for several months to meet today’s gleaners and record her meetings. Throughout the film, Varda's comforting, dry voice-over narration is heard, which makes the 'I' of the film's title a visible, vibrant presence in the film. Varda also films her own signs of aging and talks flexibly about death, "Death is around the corner.” For example the graying of her hair in the beginning of the film (when she brushes her hair) and the age spots on her hands. Ironically, she captures her old characteristics but also films herself doing things a child would do, like closing her hand on trucks and other childlike play.  

Here is an example of Varda's childlike play:

One of the incredible things that Varda does is that she never humiliates or emotionalizes her interviewees and makes them feel as comfortable as possible. The gleaners in this film are fascinating individuals that talk openly about their lives and economic situations. This film is an unanticipated path that leads to a man who digs through the rubbish left over in a Paris market. Francois, a tough young man who subsides just on what he finds in the garbage. He feels like it’s a duty to show people how much they waste and gleans by conviction. Later on, Varda finds out that this man has been a teacher for literacy for six years and even interviews him in his classroom. This film is a wandering-road movie and Varda's observations during her travel in The Gleaners and I show the class inequalities in France.

This film showed that we are so keen on having potatoes the perfect size that companies throw tons of perfectly good potatoes away that could be put to good use. It doesn’t have to do with just potatoes, but tons of things in general in our world that we take for granted. The gleaners in this film are people who pick up these “unapproved” potatoes and use them to their advantage. These people aren’t necessarily poor or don’t have money, many of them are just regular people. Varda filmed many different kinds of gleaners. For example, she interviewed gypsies, teachers, mothers and many more. There were even little kids who are having fun as if it were apple picking but with potatoes. Not only does Varda observe these gleaners, she brings her own so that they can use this perfectly fine vegetable and donate it to charity for people who are in need. At one point in the film, two men were interviewed and filmed so we can see how they take advantage of thrown out food that’s still edible. Not only do they pick up food, they also take broken stoves or refrigerators and fix them. We see that their home is filled with working stoves and refrigerators. Already it’s amazing how these men can cook good meals with these old foods but they also share whatever they make and offer it to an old lady who lives near by. One of the craziest things is that a lot of people glean by choice, like Francois the teacher. 

Varda didn’t put hard work into making this film for the money as she did it to show the world how much we waste. She believes that the old tradition of gleaning was extremely healthy for our planet. Varda believes that the key to a good documentary is that “You pick ideas, you pick images, you pick emotions from other people, and then you make it into a film” Agnes says that she also gleans. She gleans ideas and images to put together a documentary. This film invites to be more open-minded and less judgemental. Agnes wants us to question our life styles  by showing us different scenes of waste. She shows us images that we have to make sense of. 

Through The Gleaners and I, Varda does simultaneously a portrait of herself as well as a portrait of the humankind. For example, when she combs her hair, it is not something glamorous; it is simply a natural gesture that shows her aging. She sees it herself and wants to show us. It is not something that every filmmaker would do; showing vulnerability and personal weaknesses. Then, she does a portrait of the humankind.  She introduces many gleaners to us some more important than others, like Francois. Playing a big part of the documentary, Francois is a person with whom we found ourselves sympathizing with. At the premiere in France, he was invited to assist by Varda. After the film, he talked with the viewers and even introduced them to gleaning; he gave them all cake and asked them to taste it, they liked it. Afterwards, he told them that the he found the cake in the garbage and it was perished. So, it truly shows that, like he says, we have to trust our nose more than the date. 

For how long has our society had such high standards? What happened to when everything that was in sight was appreciated? Are we so different from the people interviewed? These people are the core of this film since Varda builds portraits of them to make them sympathetic or not. Believe it or not, the gleaners show us how to be human and we establish a relationship with them.

Tarnation: Family Videos as a Therapy

This 88 minutes documentary was made over the course of about 20 years by Jonathan Caouette. It was released in the United States in 2003. What is impressive about this is that it was done on a budget of 218$. We see Caouette grow throughout the movie and it starts with his eleven-year-old self. This film attempts to show the filmmaker’s experiences growing up being gay with a schizophrenic mother. We can say that is it an experimental film because he used a lot of home videos and family pictures. The editing was done with Imovie, which shows that it legitimately is an amateur documentary. It also gives us a bigger sense of realism and it feels like we are a part of his story.

Here is a video where Caouette explains why he did his film, and how he achieved it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehUnvv4Xykw

Caouette’s mother and him left for Chicago with no money or place to stay. Living on the streets with little protection, Caouette’s mother, Renée, was raped in front of her son. Borrowing money from Renée’s parents, they took the bus back home to Texas but got thrown out half way there because Renée was disturbing the passengers. 

Caouette was shortly after taken away from his mother and was put under his grand-parents care. A couple of years later, social services took him away from them and put him into multiple foster homes while his mother went to jail from 1977 to 1980. He was psychologically and physically abused: he would get tied up and beaten by his guardians. Caouette would do video diaries and the first one we see of Caouette is when he is 11 years old: he is dressed as a woman and claims to be named Hillary. He is acting out a scene where he is giving his testimony to the police because he was beaten up by her husband while she was pregnant. We see another one shortly after of him playing a character named Shirelle, talking about everything and nothing. 

We get glimpses inside Caouette’s head as he explains to us how he thinks maybe he is gay because of when he was sexually abused. He desires it but does not want to actually do it. He claims; “I am not crazy, I am an idiot.” From 1987 to 1993 Caouette’s grand-parents hospitalized him eight times. In the fall of 1986, he became friends with a drug dealer, while he was visiting his mother in Chicago, who gave him two joints that he later learned had PCP and formaldehyde in them. Since then, Caouette has not been able to concentrate; he has a depersonalization trouble and feels as if he is constantly living in a dream. 

At 13 years old, Caouette started hanging out at a gay club named Visions that was for people over 18 years of age. He would dress up as a gothic woman to get in. He made a handful of amateur films such as ankle slasher, spit and blood boys, Rosemary Davis etc... He dreams of starring in musicals such as ‘hair’ and wants to make one based on his own life. At 15 years old, he has his first boyfriend named Michael. His relationship lasted all of his high school years. Michael and he put up a musical version of Blue Velvet. All of this happened while Caouette’s mother kept coming in and out of hospital. 

From 1986-1991, Caouette tried committing suicide at least once a week and would vandalize his house. Caouette would dream that he would locate his father and he would tell him that he had no idea he existed and that he could have been a part of his life. Jonathan wants to get out of his grand-parents’ house. His grand-mother passes away in 1995 he then leaves for New York. In 1998, he gets a job as an actor. He finally got the chance to star in the musical ‘Hair’, he did commercials and played in 17 student films. He then met David, who became his boyfriend. Renée went to New York for the first time in 2000 and reconnected with Jonathan. David and Jonathan move in together in Brooklyn. His mother moves in with him soon after. He tries to talk to her and understand why she became this way and she says: ‘‘Sick parents raise sick children.”

He finally located his father in 2002. He met him accompanied by his mother. It was the first time they were together in 30 years. His father and he kept touch. In 2002, his mother suffered from a Lithium overdose which led her to realize that she has to get better. He made a second movie, which is seen as a sequel to Tarnation. It is called Walk Away Renée, a film about his mother’s story. He felt that he needed to make a movie about his mother`s life and so much was left out in Tarnation. 

It relates to this week topic since it really is a portrait of the humankind, one human in particular; Jonathan Caouette. The way the people are presented is not objective and we see the filmmaker’s vulnerability in this documentary. 

First of all, we have home videos to show how toxic his family truly was. In this film, his whole family do damaging acts: his grand-mother smokes even if she knows she is going to die soon because of it. His mother left him with her parents and went away. Caouette was just a child, and he didn’t have anyone to take care of him. When she came back, she took him to Chicago, but they lived in the streets and didn’t have any money, food or shelter. Just his father left them when he was really young; nothing in this family’s life was going well. Still, he really built a portrait of his family, but mostly his mother in a way that we don’t judge them so much. Normally, a messed up family like his would generate negative emotions, like anger inside the viewer’s heart. But, Caouette uses the images in a way that we would sympathetic towards them instead of angry against them. We don’t feel like he is using his mother to get money, but mostly to liberate himself; he felt so much pain because of his relationship with her that he had to let it all out of his chest. He wants to show his struggle throughout his teenage years: dealing with his schizophrenic mother, him being gay in a conservative state and having no support at all from his family. We don’t necessarily create a relationship with any of the portraits he did, but we do feel emotions watching the film. We really feel bad looking at such a damaged child.

Second-of-all, he shows how vulnerable he is. For example, he shows us a scene where he acts as if he was a woman whose husband is beating her. We can see how weird it is that such young boy can relate to this subject matter. Also, just showing his family like this puts him in a very delicate position: he chose to let the world know about his life, in a very raw way. He didn’t show only show the good times they had, like when he met his dad and his mother was there with him. That was a good moment. But, he mostly showed the worse moments, like when his mom was raped in front of him. 

  

So, what he puts in his film and what he leaves out of it really shapes our view of his family. Maybe that in Walk Away Renée we can see more layers in Renée, but in Tarnation, we mostly see how he lived through it. Basically, Tarnation relates to this week’s topic because it is a raw portrait of Jonathan Caouette. He learned about himself by making this documentary; it really worked as a mirror. 

Another interesting link is an interview that Caouette did where he explained a bit more about his background, but also how he felt facing the public’s response and questions. http://movies.about.com/od/directorinterviews/a/tarnation101504.htm

How are they alike?

Both films share a very personal view of life. With The Gleaners and I, Agnès Varda showed us not only the gleaners, but also herself. In the making of that film, she discovered the work of the gleaners; how they lived, why they decided to glean, or what circumstances brought them to glean, but she also showed that making a film is a form of gleaning; picking images here and there, put them together and create a meaning. We saw many inspiring people, especially François, with his rain boots. She also makes us realize that we throw things that are still good, we are wasting a lot of materials and food. Varda discovered herself through that film too; she said that she felt like an unknown monster, she can feel her body aging, but she still acts childishly. She shows us signs of her aging, like her hair turning grey, and her wrinkled hands. Still, she tries to catch trucks passing by, a very childish act by her aging hands. What she shows also is that we shouldn’t judge people; she started off her film by an honest curiosity about the gleaners, she never looked down on them. We feel like this is why the film works so well; the gleaners didn’t feel they were being judged, they had someone listening to what they had to say, for once. We can see how people can live out of gleaning, and that in the end, the gleaners are even helping the cultivators. We also see a touching truth; even when they don’t have a lot of money, the gleaners share with each other, they help the others, like with the food. Finally, with The Gleaners And I, we can learn to be more careful about the waste that we do, to trust our nose instead of the best before date. 

Then, Tarnation is also a very personal film. We can clearly see how Caouette survived his troubled life by filming himself. It is really hard to expose ourselves in such a deep way, and the film Caouette did is really raw. He said in an interview that the question and answer sessions were really hard, because people would ask him about his mother, if she was getting better, and some other very personal details. So, it would be hard for him to answer, since there were deeply personal questions. Caouette did the film first for himself; he didn’t plan on showing it to the world. Still, he did and it ended up in Festival de Cannes and Sundance Film Festival. We think that it really shows that our own life can inspire others, and make some change, even if we think it’s just a boring and horrible life. For Caouette, filming his life was liberating, it made it easier to live every day. Since he didn’t have anyone he could tell about it when he was young, filming his life made him take a step back and look at his life as if he was a stranger. Also, it was like his personal diary; it was his way to express what he felt, and we all feel better once everything is said. He showed us how damaging life could be, and even if it leaves scars, finding a way to make it a film can be helpful. He used the camera as a defensive strategy; he filmed what he lived, so that he could see through the camera’s eye that what he was living was actually happening, then he could watch it later and try to make sense out of it, since the moment was captured in film. We can learn from Tarnation that when life is harsh, we can escape in something we love, a form of art where we get to understand ourselves. Finally, we can see how subjective a documentary could be; from the exterior, Renée could be seen as an irresponsible mother, but through his eyes, we see her as a loving mother who is deeply sick. 

Here is a link to Caouette’s personal blog: http://jonathancaouette.blogspot.ca/

Wrapping Up

As a conclusion, we can see how looking at a film, we can actually look through people. The making of a film can be seen as gleaning, picking up bits and pieces everywhere to make a film, or even a therapy as Caouette did. The camera can become the attentive person we all need, one day or another in our lives. Also, we should look at ourselves more often; take some time to take a look back on our lives to see if it’s what we want. To do a retrospective can be helpful; we get to know ourselves and the world that surround us.