Tarnation

    Tarnation was quite an interesting documentary to watch. It was both fascinating yet disturbing at the same time. Further, it appeared to have no structure other than chronological time when watching it for the first time. It wasn’t until after I had done the readings and critically thought about it that I was able to form my own opinion on John Caouette semi-autobiography.

Picture Perfect Family

    Unlike traditional documentaries Caouette’s documentary seemed rather surreal. The fact that Caouette suffered from ‘depersonalization disorder,’ “feelings of disconnection from his own body and constant intimations of unreality” (Arthur, 880), definitely gave the film it’s unique perspective. As Caouette once stated “I conceive the film as a new way of looking at documentary, as though it were imitating my thought process, giving the audience the experience of seeing what it was like to be inside my head” (Arthur, 880). This unique perspective while one could argue that this makes Caouette “prone to unreliable narration” (Arthur, 880), I think this allowed him to film and capture things we would never otherwise see. “Home movies have been characterized as providing highly selective, idealized glimpses of family life” (Orgeron, 48).

Caouette - Role Playing

    Caouette’s film not only captures the flaws and secrets within his family but it also allows him to better understand himself and his disorder, “the film ends up exposing Jonathan’s, suggesting throughout that video has become his primary way of knowing, interacting, understanding, and finding out” (Orgeron, 55). Moreover, filming himself and his family through his perspective allows Caouette to express himself in a healthy and safe manner. “Narrative is used as a therapeutic process” (Arthur, 872). We see how the camera has helped Caouette early on, before he used the camera as a coping mechanism he resorted to drugs and violence as his outlet which resulted in being hospitalized a few times. By expressing himself through another character, role playing with his family, or just simply talking or listening to another family member talk to the camera Caouette embraced the disorder that surrounds him, and attempts to aestheticize it (Orgeron, 55). And this is what made the film so surreal. The fact that Caouette used a camera in attempt to make sense and somehow to bring order to the chaos he was experiencing through his disorder and his far from picture-perfect family.

    This film shows that while a camera is an invasive object, it’s sometimes is the only way to make sense of your surroundings and overcome obstacles. Further, Caouette’s presentation of his family through his own perspective, not only allows us (the viewers) to connect or sympathize with him because we can relate to some of the experiences, but it also shows us how Caouette overcame a great deal of hardship (his mother’s overdose, hospitalization and his disorder) to become the successful person he is today.

Work Cited List:

Arthur, P.. (2007). THE MOVING PICTURE CURE: Self-Therapy Documentaries. Psychoanalytic 
            Review, 94(6), 865-85.  Retrieved December 8, 2010, from ProQuest Psychology Journals.

Orgeron, Devin, and Marsha Orgeron. "Familial Pursuits, Editorial Acts: Documentaries after the Age
              of Home Video." Velvet Light Trap. 60. (2007): 48-56. Print.

Superstar

 I think superstar was by far one of the unique films I have ever seen. Unlike mainstream biographical specials aired on television, this film took biographies of celebrities to a whole new level. Haynes used both barbies and real footage of people, buildings, television shows etc. To narrate an unglamorous and rather accurate story of Karen Carpenter’s rise to fame, fight with anorexia and her eventual death. The use of barbie dolls enabled Haynes to do two things: have ultimate control over the bodies of his ‘performers’ (Desjardins, 33) and provide us (the audience) with an alternative objective and abstract portrayal of Karen’s life.

Similarities between Barbie & Anorexic bodies

    By using barbie dolls, Haynes was able to take on the role of the hegemonic control of Hollywood. Due to the ubiquitous nature of media the message being instilled into our minds is ‘thin is beautiful’ so, with the rise to fame, Karen was expected to adhere to Hollywood’s standards, especially, if she wanted to stay in the spotlight. This marked the beginning of Karen’s long battle with anorexia since “the processes and achievement of stardom and anorexia each involve discipline, surveillance, and hyper-visualization of the body, the conceptualization of perfection and the attainment of ideas” (Desjardins, 32). Haynes, playing the hegemonic force controlling Karen used this “unlimited power over his ‘performers’ bodies by somewhat aggressively (cutting [and] burning) the dolls thus calling attention to and critiquing how little power female stars have [over their own bodies]” (Desjardins, 33).

We can see their faces to reveal emotions we can relate to

    “The film’s use of dolls and dollhouses suggest that the staging of identity can simultaneously reify the subject and engage her in a death-in-life process” (Desjardins, 28). This reminded me of the musical Broadway ‘The Lion King’. Large masks were created so that the audience could recognize each character. But, to connect with them on an emotional level and to present a more realistic portrayal of the story, the masks were purposely made not to conceal the face, but rather to reveal human qualities and facial expressions. This, in a sense, provides the audiences an alternative and perhaps more emotive form of telling the story.

    Unlike the Lion King, which used masks to help portray a more conventional story line in which we can relate to the characters, Haynes uses props, doll animation and live action featuring ‘real people’ and presents them through an artisanal mode of production thus playing with the conventions of documentary, biopic, and woman’s film (Desjardins, 37). He did this so that we (the audience) would engage with the film through an objective point of view rather than be coaxed to identify with the characters and their ideologies through conventional narratives (Desjardins, 44) the way Hollywood does. However, in addition to coaxing us to relate to the characters Hollywood would take the conventional narrative a step further by somehow making this tragic story end on a more positive note and make sure that the industry itself is not blamed for the death of Karen Carpenter. So as one can see, Haynes use of barbie dolls not only enabled him to present an accurate story, but it helped him reveal a dark side of Hollywood.

Work Cited List:

Desjardins, Mary. "The Incredible Shrinking Star: Todd Haynes and the Case History of Karen Carpenter." Camera Obscura 

           57. Ed. Andrea Fontenot . North Carolina, United States: Duke University Press , 2004. Print. 

Cannibal Tours

This was a very interesting film to watch. I found it fascinating to see how the Western culture has framed third and fourth world countries and their culture in such a foreign way that we see them as a unique entity in which we crave to get more of. Because these cultures are presented as different, exotic and primitive within our own society, not only are we classifying them as others, but we objectify them. As a result, whenever tourists visit these countries, they come with this mindset already in place and feel the need to somehow capture the differences between that place and home (Collins and Lutz 89). This is especially apparent when the tourists visited New Guinea specifically to see the ‘primitives’.

    Throughout the film, the New Guineans were treated like commodities. Right from the beginning we could see tourists taking photos or filming everything and every person they see. These tourists appeared to think that because they were of a civilized country they could objectify the New Guineans. They (the tourists) had the right to do as they pleased, for example, without even asking the children if they minded having a photo taken of them, a tourist walked up next to them and instructed her fellow tourist to take a picture of her with the kids.

'Primitive' rituals captured

Furthermore, these tourists appeared to have an obsession with capturing the New Guineans as “unchanging and as more primitive than civilized” (Collins and Lutz 108). Due to the way New Guineans and their primitive culture was perceived, tourists appeared to have this idealization of the New Guineans as exotic beings who acted in a specific manner, wore certain clothing and vegetated on natural untouched land. Unfortunately, upon arrival these tourists found that these ‘primitives’ were, in fact, living between modern and traditional lifestyles. While they still hunted, performed ancient customs and rituals and carried out other primitive activities, a good portion of them wore regular clothing, were, to some degree, familiar with the Western culture, and exploited their culture and themselves to earn money so that they could buy their basic necessities. As a result the tourists staged most of their shots by insisting that the New Guineans must pose a certain way or chased those who still carry out traditional customs. For example, as the tourists were exploring some of the areas, a women walking while carrying her child in a sling became the target and was followed by tourists snapping away.

The tourists constantly photographing the 'primitives'

The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes

After seeing the documentary on the autopsy, and getting over the initial shock of such disturbing images, I was finally able to think critically about it’s content. It left me pondering two questions.

1. Is it Art?
2.  Should it be compared to the slaughtering of animals?

Is it art?

    Grotesque, repulsive, nauseating, disturbing, mind numbing...these are just a few of the words that may be used to describe Brakhage’s film. The questions that remain are, is it art? If so, is there a rule against art being grotesque? Theoretically speaking, the answer would be no. While the images of the film “The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes” are blunt, disturbing and difficult to watch, it could be considered art, as Bart Testa states, “the camera comes so close here that the body no longer appears as a recognizable human form, but merely as a series of enigmatic shapes” 282. Had the viewers been exposed to only those scenes, it would have been like looking at Soutine’s Le Beouf Ecorche, a hunk of raw meat.

Soutine: Le Boeuf Ecorche 1925

By taking on an avant-garde approach, this film pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm, and like the painting, “focuses on what seems, in principle, to be unknowable and mysterious” (Testa, 273) in its rawest and most natural form; flesh, blood and bones.

Frida Kahlo: A Few Small Nips 1935

    Furthermore, by timing and pacing the shots, frames, and sequences in such a way that the viewer is never allowed to get used to the film’s imagery (Testa, 277), keeps the shock factor a constant. Like seeing a disturbing painting for the first time such as A Few Small Nips by Frida Kahlo. Despite the similarities of being shocking and disturbing, would this film be considered as art? Personally, I would have to say yes, The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes, is art. As Alexander Nehamas, a professor in the Humanities at Princeton University, puts it, while one cannot define art, it is whatever is made in an artistic process and consumed as art. Most pieces of art in museums were not intended to be art. However, to be an art object, that object must differ interestingly from others of its kind.





Should it be compared to the slaughtering of animals?

Bones

Dexter

    Had we been watching Bones, CIS, Nip/Tuck, Criminal Minds, Law & Orders, Dexter, and every other horror movie, we wouldn’t think twice about the autopsies, in fact, we would be curious to know what their findings were. While autopsies are a cultural norm in today’s societies and has no humane but a justifiable purpose to it, it is very difficult to watch. Just as difficult as it to think about slaughter houses. While slaughter houses have no humane purpose, when one thinks about the meat industry they “skip the part of the perceptual process that makes the mental connection between meat and living animals” (Joy, 15). The same thing happens when we picture autopsies. Despite seeing dead bodies regularly on television, from different angles, and the characters picking away and analysing it, we disconnect ourselves from it. Thus, not only are we able to watch it, but we enjoy watching it.
    Seeing the real thing, and knowing that it is, in fact, real “tear[s] the veil from this ignored knowledge, and abattoir imagery passes through an outrage that cannot but make the viewer uncomfortable.” (Testa, 277) Watching the bodies being treated like animal carcasses, moved off the table without care, organs and pieces of the body being removed and placed in bags, being wiped out from the inside forcefully and the cutting through bone and flesh in a rough manner points out our everyday inhumanity as carnivores thereby making the spectacle of animal slaughter an allegory of human slaughter (Testa, 280). That being so, it is safe to say that the “moral end is to sensitize us to a hidden inhumanity that is actually commonplace” (Testa, 277). It is like watching Earthlings, directed by Shaun Monson and narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, the only difference is, we are now watching the standardized and harsh treatment of ourselves.