You had to be there, that’s the general feeling after watching the film marking 10 years of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival. Either because the performances were so good that film could never fully capture the moment, such as Grinderman’s rampant 2007 set, or because eventually indifference settles in towards clips of strangers being drunk, performing covers of ‘Maps’ and making out during Seasick Steve and The Boredoms. Those are their festival stories, nobody else’s, and it’s not much different from being shown other people’s holiday photos.

This film, though, would be nothing without the fans – a collaborative effort, film by fans, artists and filmmakers has been cut together by director Jonathan Caouette, most thrillingly at the start of the film when various footage of two different performances of ‘Atlas’ by Battles build to a rowdy climax. Most of the clips are from 2004 onwards, since when the availability of relatively cheap cameras and phones and YouTube has made everyone a potential documentary maker.

ATP’s back story is covered briefly in a sequence where founder Barry Hogan watches himself being interviewed on The Culture Show. There are unanswered questions, such as how it stays sponsorship-free or how curators are chosen, but mini-manifestos from Jerry Garcia, Thurston Moore, Patti Smith and Iggy Pop certainly explain at least part of what ATP stands for – reclaiming rock & roll from big business and industry. It’s worth considering during the clips of chalets bustling with ad hoc ‘fan bands’, an idea that has since been co-opted for multinational brands’ for ad campaigns.

Audience and artists living, mingling and performing alongside each other (as Daniel Johnston, Lightning Bolt and Grizzly Bear are filmed doing) is a great part of ATP’s appeal, but it’s the action onstage that’s the most exciting here, such as a lush version of ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’ by original festival curators Belle & Sebastian, and invigorating, intense performances by Yeah Yeah Yeahs; a ritualistic, chaotic Stooges; and furiously funky and lo-fi Gossip. Les Savy Fav, who performed at the film’s screening tour in October, bring the stage to the audience and together they sum up 10 years of ATP as good as anyone when they shout: “We were there when the world got great! We have to make it that way!” Originally written for High Voltage

Out: on DVD now

Grinderman – ‘No Pussy Blues’ (Live @ ATP 2007 with Bobby Gillespie)

Jonathan Caouette

Hace algunos años me aburrí un poco de ver siempre las películas hollywoodense y me decidí a visitar el lado “oscuro, intrigante y poco solicitado” de blockbuster: cine de arte.

En fin, paseándome por esta zona hace ya algunas semanas me encontré con un título que llamo mi atención y por solo medio leer rápidamente renté la película creyendo que se trataba de un filme de Gus Van Sant, que sólo me ha dejado buen sabor de boca con las únicas dos películas de su autoría que he rentado. Cuál fue mi sorpresa al abrir la película y me encontré con el nombre de otro director: Jonathan Caouette y leyendo mejor la sinopsis me di cuenta de que se trataba de un documental y me dije a mi misma: weeebaa los documentales. En los personal nunca he sido muy fanática de los documentales, pero ya habiendo pagado por la película me decidí a verla, ni pedos.

El resultado después de verla fue el siguiente: quedé realmente fascinada con el largometraje que hasta decidí subir algo de ella a este mísero blog. El nombre del documental??: “Tarnation”, ópera prima del director Jonathan Caouette, quien es también escritor, editor y protagonista (junto con su madre y abuelos) un proyecto fílmico que me parece que no dejará a ninguna persona indiferente, sea por el despliegue de colores, psicodelia, música, crudeza y corazón con el que está realizado.  Como plus tiene además como productores ejecutivos a John Cameron Mitchel (“Hedwig and the Angry Inch”) y a Gus Van Sant (“Paranoid Park”, “Milk”, “My Own Private Idaho” y varias más).

“Tarnation” logra mediante videos grabados durante 20 años con distintos formatos de cámara, videodiarios, fotografías, videos musicales, escenas de películas, mensajes de máquinas contestadoras,  psicodelia, música exquisitamente escogida, referencias a David Lynch, creatividad y honestidad lo que pocas películas logran en nuestros días: retratar las relaciones familiares sin tapujos ni tratando de hacerlas ver como el núcleo social perfecto, retratar los problemas entre ellos, las desgracias de una vida no afortunada y los miedos, inseguridades, anhelos, traumas de un ser humano que además de consumir drogas en una temprana edad, no contar con una figura paterna, ser homosexual, tener una madre con problemas psicológicos que se la pasa durante toda su vida saliendo y entrando a instituciones mentales y unos abuelos excéntricos pero cariñosos.

El director y protagonista contaba con 160 horas en videos y material que había venido grabando desde los 11 años de edad, todo esto para editar una reseña extremadamente real y apegada a lo que él había venido viviendo desde que era un pequeño (viendo a su madre ser violada frente a sus ojos, llendo y viniendo de instituciones para niños huérfanos y con un problema de “despersonalización” que hace ver su vida como si fuera un sueño ). El director nos abre una ventana para ver lo complicado que puede ser el ser humano, con sus oscuros momentos, sus depresiones, sus más profundos miedos y sus anhelos de alcanzar la felicidad ante todo. Es impresionante la empatía que logra despertar en el espectador y te hace cuestionarte muchas cosas sobre tu propia vida, relaciones familiares y proyectos personales.

Tarnation, es un collage fílmico de un ser humano fascinantemente optimista, a pesar de todo lo que ha vivido…es la única forma en que puedo describir rápidamente esta película que espero poder adquirir pronto, ya que merece la pena tenerla en la colección personal…siempre es bueno tener una película en casa que nos recuerde todos los sentimientos que un ser humano es capaz de experimentar.

En una de las escenas del film

Abajo les dejo unos videíllos como siempre, para que le den un vistazo y se animen a rentarla!

A 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes, for this?? And awards, really??

I guess I’m going to go out on a limb and be the only person on Earth to say that Jonathan Caouette’s 2004 documentary Tarnation is like watching someone masturbate for 90 minutes. The gay son of a small-town Texas woman suffering from schizophrenia (I’m not even sure Caouette ever tells us her diagnosis in the film. I remember one part in which he says his mother, Renee, was in and out of hospitals, but doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her.), Caouette certainly has rich subject matter to work with. He was abused in foster care and mostly raised by his grandparents. And as a lifelong exhibitionist, evidently, Caouette has countless hours of film from when he was growing up, some of it in shirtless scenes at age 11. Dave and I wondered who the hell was filming this homoerotic footage? We never find out.

Who’s filming young Jonathan is just one of many questions that go unanswered in this thing. In the most annoying and frustrating scene, near the end of the film, Caouette confronts his grandfather (who I only found out was suffering from Alzheimer’s from one of the stories I read about the movie just now) about letting doctors give Renee shock treatments when she was a child and her charges that they abused her. It’s one jump cut after another as Grandpa isn’t given the opportunity to answer a single question. Maybe he didn’t answer, maybe he just stuttered or sighed or shook his head, but at least let us see that, don’t just cut over and over as though only your questions are important.

It wasn’t only the manipulative editing in the scene that bothered me, however. Jonathan is understandably angry that his mother endured shock treatment, but have some compassion for your grandparents given the era, for God’s sake. They were lower-middle-class Texas parents in the 1950s; a lot of people went along with doctors’ recommendations for such treatment then because they didn’t know any better. I think it’s unfair to judge their decision through a modern lens, as painful and unfortunate a decision as it was.

And some of the accusations Jonathan hits his grandfather with are pretty bizarre. Renee had told her son that her parents had beaten her and locked her in closets and that she suspected they weren’t really her parents at all. Paranoid delusions that your parents aren’t really your parents and are trying to hurt you are really, really common among people suffering from schizophrenia. Does Caouette know that? Who fucking knows. He appears to take what Renee has told him as fact. Since Caouette was raised by his grandparents, maybe his belief in her stories stem from abuse he suffered at their hands as well? Again, who knows?

I realize there won’t be pat or easy answers to Caouette’s question, “Why is my family so fucked up?” But he cold have at least let his grandfather try to answer his questions.

Also from the New York mag article: “Although Caouette admits to staging portions of Tarnation, he doesn’t feel like the dramatizations discount the emotional impact of the film. ‘Really, what is truth?’ Caouette asks. ‘I can say my truth from my point of view, but I bet my mother’s point of view is going to be completely different.’ Winter agrees. ‘Jonathan is able to composite drama into a narrative form that gets you right into the story.’”

Am I the crankiest person on Earth or is that last quote a load of shit? “…composite drama into a narrative form”? Jesus Christ. But anyway, I agree with Caouette’s statement here, but I think that the reason this film doesn’t work for me is that Caouette is too selective in what he chooses to reveal. He brings up all this crazy shit that happens in his family and then flits off into an artsy montage of pictures of himself. Like when he says that he called Adult Protective Services after he sees the conditions his mother and grandfather are living in but we never see them and never hear of this again. And while he leaves out a great many details, he lingers over old footage in segments that become pointless, tedious and even annoying.

New York magazine wrote “By all odds, Tarnation should have been an unwatchable, masochistic morass, but Caouette’s love for the broken Renee—which is the true subject of the film—is awe-inspiring.” No, you were right the first time, it is almost unwatchable. And Renee SHOULD have been the subject of the film, but she is merely peripheral in Caouette’s world view.

I am still reeling from the absurdity of the great reviews of this movie, but I should say that the most persistently annoying element of Tarnation is its self-indulgence, as I said initially. A preponderance of the film is a montage of stills in which Caouette poses. “Here’s me looking hot with a shirt on,” “here I am looking hot with no shirt,” “And here I am looking hot with long hair,” “And here I am in the backyard with short hair, note my piercing blue eyes…” Ok, you’re a good-looking guy, Jonathan, we get it. Gus Van Sant executive produced this and I kept thinking, “Thanks, Gus. I know he’s hot and all, but come on. Are you fucking serious?” Tarnation was three hours long at one point, before Gus and some other mentors gave Caouette a crash course in editing, so I guess I at least have to express gratitude to Van Sant for that.

Here’s a trailer for it. It does look interesting, doesn’t it? Some of it is. Maybe more of it will work for you than it did for me and Dave.

Montag, 05.01.09 | 23.40 – 01.15 | SF1 | USA 2004 | Regie: Jonathan Caouette

No-Budget-Doku, die am Heimcomputer für 200 Dollar entstanden ist und Gus van Sant so begeisterte, dass er als Produzent an Bord kam: Regisseur und Protagonist Jonathan Caouette verarbeitet seine chaotischen Lebensepisoden, die er seit seinem achten Lebensjahr auf Video festhält und setzt ein collagenartiges Panorama seiner Beziehung zu seiner psychisch kranken Mutter und der schmerzhaften Selbstfindung als Künstler zusammen.

Trailer:

Critique du film Tarnation

Publié dans Main Blanche, automne 2007

Texas, 1973.  Naissance de Jonathan Caouette, fils de Renee LeBlanc et d’un père déjà reparti au New Hampshire.  Dès l’âge de onze ans, le petit garçon a une caméra vidéo à la main et filme tout ce qui a lieu autour de lui.  Le film Tarnation, complété en 2003, retrace sa vie entière à travers sa relation à sa mère, atteinte d’une sévère maladie mentale.

Le procédé narratif en tant que tel relève d’une structure classique : le film commence en 2003, dans un moment de crise, alors que Renee est hospitalisée suite à une overdose de lithium.  Puis, par un retour en arrière, on apprend son histoire : à l’âge de douze ans, un accident la laisse paralysée pendant six mois, à la suite de quoi ses parents lui feront administrer des années de traitements d’électrochocs.  On  nous dit qu’elle fut traitée dans plus d’une centaine d’hôpitaux psychiatriques depuis ; toutefois, son dossier indique qu’au départ, elle ne souffrait d’aucun problème en particulier.  Ceci est en quelque sorte un préambule au récit de l’existence de Jonathan, que nous découvrirons chronologiquement, jusqu’à ce que la boucle soit bouclée et que l’on apprenne l’issue de l’intoxication au lithium.

En cette ère de reality shows, on peut se demander quel intérêt présente les tribulations d’un illustre inconnu et de sa famille dysfonctionnelle.  Heureusement, le résultat dépasse l’anecdotique, en grande partie grâce à un travail visuel de tous les instants.  L’ensemble correspond à un collage de photographies, de films Super-8, d’extraits de films et d’émissions télévisuelles qui ont marqué Jonathan, d’enregistrements vocaux et de messages de répondeur, ainsi que de petits exercices de fiction réalisés durant son adolescence.  Le montage saccadé crée un rythme soutenu, et l’utilisation de nombreuses métaphores visuelles soulignant l’isolement et le désespoir, comme cette femme aux longs cheveux foncés frappant sur une vitre baignée de pluie, donne une dimension plus universelle à un récit au départ très personnel.

La primauté de l’image est ici patente ; nulle narration en voix-off ne vient expliquer le propos.  L’histoire est racontée par écrits surimposés à même les différents plans.  Ce texte est lui-même visuellement découpé, monté, de manière à créer des effets de surprise ou d’ironie.  De plus, toutes les prises de vue, les montages photographiques en particulier, sont étudiées et étoffées par une multitude d’effets, comme le ralenti, l’accéléré, le fondu enchaîné, la multiplication d’une même image dans un seul cadre, ou la saturation lumineuse.  À un point tel où on se demande parfois si cette œuvre ne quitte pas le domaine du documentaire pour entrer dans celui du film d’art.  Pour le spectateur, c’est une expérience esthétique garantie dans un univers fortement marqué par le psychédélisme.

Cela reste un film néanmoins touchant, où la mère sert de prisme pour appréhender le personnage principal.  L’ensemble des archives ne renvoie pas à une vulgaire représentation narcissique, mais bien à une quête d’identité qui pose les questions de l’hérédité, de l’inné et de l’acquis.  Pourquoi Jonathan connaît-il aussi des problèmes, bien que Renee n’ait jamais souffert de troubles mentaux avant les électrochocs ?  Le film est d’une honnêteté presque brutale, alors qu’est présentée sa première rencontre avec son père, à trente ans, et la réaction des membres de la famille qui refusent d’admettre leur part de responsabilité dans la tragédie.

Une réussite formelle, oui ; mais surtout une œuvre qui dépasse le pathétique de son propos pour établir une véritable réflexion.  Un des films les plus mobilisateurs que j’ai vu cette année ; à mon humble avis, du grand cinéma.

Tarnation, un film de Jonathan Caouette, États-Unis, une production Wellspring et Tarnation Films, 2005, 100 minutes.

Kabluey
[ 3 stars out of 4 ]

Every character in this movie is pretty high-strung but somehow it all works. I’ve never seen Lisa Kudrow so broken down, including her darker characters in other indie movies, so I absolutely loved her in this. Even though she did not get as much screen time as I would have liked, she made the most of her character in each scene and by the end I felt like I got to experience her complexity even for just a little bit. Scott Prendergast, who starred, wrote and directed this film, was very good as a slacker who ultimately cares for his family even though they’re not related by blood. He’s far from perfect but I ended by really liking his character because he’s the kind of guy who continues to go on living even though his efforts aren’t good enough time and time again. His bit with the blue mascot was creative, funny, and symbolic. I thought it was interesting when Prendergast is under that mascot, he gets all the (mostly) positive attention, but when he’s just his regular old self he never gets noticed or is often picked on. I also enjoyed the soundtrack because it was deflty used during the more sensitive moments. As for its ending, it’s touching but not sappy and well-deserved by the characters. Unlike “Margot at the Wedding,” this one actually had a glimmer of light at the end of the road so I felt like the characters’ suffering had a purpose. Lastly, I’d like to note that this is the kind of movie that thrives on its imperfections–little “pointless” things like people on the bus talking or rich mothers gossiping, made this movie more interesting and unpredictable. If one is in the mood for taking a chance with a small movie, I recommend picking this up.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (1974)
[ 3 stars out of 4 ]

The attention to detail this film had impressed me because one doesn’t encounter that often in horror pictures. I can understand why this became a classic because it’s comedic and horrific, sometimes at the same time, and it’s inspired enough to dabble with the macabre. With its brisk pace of slightly under an hour and twenty-five minutes, the moment Leatherface appeared, the film refuses to let go of its audience. There were several highlights in this film and one of them I had mentioned already (Leatherface’s first appearance–the way he shut that door plays over and over in my head): the lead character’s (Marilyn Burns) chase from the woods to the house, Teri McMinn’s fall in the kitchen while the camera looms about and all we hear is the chicken, and the dinner scene when the grandfather was forced to hurt Burns. The last one I will never forget because the man looked about a hundred years old. Scenes like that made the movie really twisted and borderline sick. I can’t say I like the movie in a positive way but it does deserve my commendation because it’s unconventional but somehow all the disparate elements worked. Tobe Hooper, the director, knew what he was doing and his talent jumps out from the movie. All of that said, I still prefer the remake of this film because that one is more structured, had more scenes that made me jump, and it doesn’t abuse the use of women screaming. Moreover, the remake has a strong lead female (played by Jessica Biel) and a more satisfying (but less haunting) ending. The two movies are so different but comparable in many ways… and I respect them both.

Tarnation
[ 3 stars out of 4 ]

Jonathan Caouette made this film for about two hundred dollars. Not only do I find that amazing, I also find it inspiring. Caouette really got creative with his storytelling: from voice-overs and fonts to home videos and photographs, all of them serve to progress the story. In a way, I got the sense that Caouette had been planning to make this film ever since he was a boy. Although the crux of this documentary is Caouette’s schizophrenic mother, I argue that this is more about Caouette’s journey from childhood to adulthood. I found it interesting that his sexuality is not a hindrance in his life, which is so unlike most LGBT films, both in fiction and non-fiction. The scenes where he would take on a particular character starting from when he was eleven blew my mind because he could act so well. I’m surprised he didn’t pursue an acting career when he turned into an adult. Still, this movie is its own worst enemy. Even though I loved Caouette’s creativity, sometimes he becomes too creative with his images to the point where they get distracting and considerably slows the story down (near the end of the feature). I liked that there were some “truths” that may seem true one minute and false the next; the unanswered questions had the same effect on me. Casual moviegoers will most likely not find this movie impressive at all because it’s really kind of an acquired taste. You watch enough movies and you get sick of the same old style and when films like this comes out, it’s refreshing and interesting. This documentary, though flawed, has a lot of heart and I feel like I got a real peek at Caouette’s life even for just a little bit. It made me want to buy a camera and start recording moments in my life. Ebert and Roeper said that Caouette edited the picture masterfully. I could not agree more.

Music: I’ve been considering since yesterday the concept of ‘favourite albums’ following the Poptimist column on Pitchfork. It is a very individually definable phenomena and one that can change over time vastly. I’m going to write about it in full very soon. But this has prompted me to think about that exact deal and the two albums that I keep coming back to, Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth and Let It Be by The Replacements, have been getting a good chunk of play this week.
The Dodo’s Visiter album is growing on me and I got hold of Blue Cheer’s Vincebus Eruptum this week, a loud and slow proto-punk masterpiece. I’m still really unsure about My Morning Jacket’s latest which is a little too Prince-pastiche for me in places.
Camille remains on the playlist with her new record and I rediscovered one of my girlfriend’s favourite records this week, Joy Zipper’s American Whip. The album is among the most heartfelt and beautiful in the collection but avoids any sense of soporific lameness by maintaining a posturing cool and recalling the most dreamy parts of JAMC at all times.

Film: Lots of films watched this week. You can read my reviews of Bandit Queen and Alice in the Cities on Screenjabber. I’ll tell you in preview that I enjoyed one much more than the other.
I finally caught up with Tarnation this week, Jonathan Caouette’s amazing home-made documentary which is really about his mother and the lost generation of those sent to shock therapy by worried parents of the 60s. His story is pretty heartbreaking but what makes the film such a fascinating experience is his heavily underground-influenced visual style which includes many flashing montages of striking, Lynchian images and a wide palette of colours and music cues. It’s a nighmarish vision in places but really plays as a tribute to his damaged mother. Highly recommended.
Tom and I also decided it might be fun to re-experience the classic Twins, Ivan Reitman’s Arnie/DeVito comedy about the two playing genetically created twins who never meet. It’s a pretty average piece of rubbish but the overall concept – that Arnie is the absolute embodiment of perfect humanity and DeVito is all the dregs shlubbed together – is inherently funny. As I say, no classic, but it has a nice number of curio moments and a really odd, completely un-moody performance from David Caruso.
I promise next week will see me watching some better movies.

Books/Comics/Magazines: Great article in GQ about Errol Morris and his craft and a really nice profile of Obama in Esquire. I haven’t really taken in either yet.
Scott Pilgrim is on heavy reading rotation in our house now, loving that one. I’m also about to start reading Jeffrey Brown’s Clumsy, a painfully autobiographical tale of a young man attempting to lose his virginity.
I’m still on Generation Kill at the moment but I’ll finish that off today. It’s been a pretty harrowing read, particularly in the latter half where the real horrors of war seem to be seeping through the tough exteriors of the recon marines profiled. It certainly makes you at least question attitudes to war, particularly with regard to criticism of a world no-one who hasn’t experience it could ever understand fully. The TV series will be amazing.

Other: I’ve fallen head over heels in love with Tesco’s Finest Chicken Mulligatawny soup. Oh my god. The sheer amount of chicken in the thing. Fan-flipping-tastic.

Tarnation es una película por momentos imposible de soportar, aunque de a poco e increíblemente se las arregle para apuntar un final casi feliz. Nuevamente, en medio de esos juegos del posarte que últimamente tanto se utilizan para dificultarnos dictaminar si lo que vemos y oímos debemos llamarlo o no ficción, el filme más bien debería definirse como una especie de documental autobiográfico que tienen como figuras estelares al director y su madre, desde la dura Texas de los años cincuenta hasta la Nueva York del nuevo siglo.

La vida terrible de la joven mujer, Renée, y su historia de desequilibrio mental, violación y reclusiones en psiquiátricos, décadas de electroshocks y padecimientos a través de su internación en más de cien hospitales a lo largo de tres décadas; y el no menos cruel destino de su hijo, Jonathan, están retratados a la manera de quien recorre un álbum familiar de fotos. Así, sentados en el living, viendo las diapositivas que ilustran tal o cual escena mientras una suerte de narrador presenta y ordena el material con un exceso de cartelitos y efectos visuales mínimos como para que las imágenes que se repiten circularmente lo hagan siempre ganando efectividad en su dramatismo; y mientras se desea con todo el corazón que esa historia de amor que se comienza a mostrar permanezca y dure, o que Jonathan se distraiga contándonos esas películas de terror berreta que siempre tanto le gustaron…

Tarnation es ya un clásico del cine yanqui independiente de los últimos años y referencia obligada de muchos jóvenes realizadores de todo el mundo. Fue producida por Gus van Sant y distribuida en el 2002. Está llena de canciones de música indie, con sus guitarras suaves aunque por momentos chiyonas y las voces fáciles aunque oscuras y tristes, que tanto se emparientan con lo que el filme muestra. La dirección, guión, cámara y edición de Tarnation estuvieron a cargo de Jonathan Caouette; al fin y al cabo es su vida, ¿no?

Les Voyeurs #18
L’ambiguïté sexuelle
Émission diffusée vendredi 11 janvier à 16h
Rediffusée samedi 12 janvier à 10h

Actualité

-La guerre du DVD Haute-Définition est finie ! Le procédé Blu-Ray l’emporte sur le HD-DVD : Warner Bros, New Line et Paramount annonce l’arrêt des productions de leurs films sur le support HD-DVD. Autant annoncer la mort du support tout de suite.
-Garage de Lenny Abrahamson (actuellement aux Sémaphore)
-L’Année où mes parents sont partis en vacances de Cao Hamburger (actuellement aux Arcades)
-Cérémonie des Golden Globes du 13 janvier 2008 transformée en simple conférence de presse dû à la grève des scénaristes d’Hollywood débutée le 5 novembre 2007

Dossier : l’ambiguïté sexuelle

Dans la société, l’assignation de genres s’articule autour du seul binôme masculin/féminin, malgré l’existence d’hermaphrodites, de travesti(e)s et de transsexuel(le)s. Les Voyeurs se sont demandés si les cinéastes incluaient le « troisième sexe » dans leurs œuvres et s’ils rendaient l’ambiguïté sexuelle un peu moins ambiguë.

Ambiguïté physiologique :
L’héroïne hermaphrodite de XXY de Lucia Puenzo (2007)
Les physiques androgynes de Louise Brooks, Katharine Hepburn, Rudolph Valentino, Jane Seberg, Jamie Lee Curtis…

Ambiguïté psychologique :
La crise d’identité de Teena Brandon dans Boys Don’t Cry de Kimberly Pierce (2000)
L’incompréhension de Ludovic dans Ma Vie en Rose d’Alain Berliner (1997)

Ambiguïté physique :
Le travestissement de Patrick “Kitten” Brady dans Breakfast on Pluto de Neil Jordan (2005) et de Victoria dans Victor Victoria de Blake Edwards (1982) (actuellement à l’affiche).

La transsexualité du Docteur Frank-N-Furter dans The Rocky Horror Picture Show de Jim Sharman (1975), de Bree dans Transamerica de Duncan Tucker (2006) et de Bernardette dans Priscilla, Folle du Désert de Stephan Elliott (1994).

L’Ambiguïté sexuelle dans le cinéma de genre :
SF : Ripley contre la créature dans la saga Alien
Thriller : Le psychopathe veut changer de genre, par exemple dans Psychose d’Alfred Hitchcock (1960), Le Silence des Agneaux de Jonathan Demme (1991)…
Fantastique : Dr Jekyll et Sister Hyde de Roy Ward Baker
Western : Les deux femmes rivales dans Johnny Guitar de Nicholas Ray

Les Inclassables :
Tarnation de Jonathan Caouette (2003)
Orlando de Sally Potter (1993)

La bande originale de la semaine

« Le Mourant sur le Pont » de Jürgen Kniepper du film Les Ailes du désir de Wim Wenders (1987)

La Chronique d’Erik-qui-Râle
Les suites…Ça m’énerve

Extraits
Bernie d’Albert Dupontel (1996)
Le Silence des Agneaux de Jonathan Demme (1991)

Musique
« Sweet Transvestite » de la BO The Roky Horror Picture Show
« Are you a boy or a girl » de The Barberians

Tarnation, 2003, USA

Mycket rörande dokumentär med filmer och foton som tagits under den homosexuella huvudpersonens hela liv. Han har filmat sig själv – riktig hemvideo alltså – men ändå bra och spännande och absolut rörande. Jo, jag sade det. Hemsk film!
Hans mamma var sinnessjuk och han själv hade knarkat redan som barn och morföräldrarna han bodde hos verkade inte så mycket friskare de. Se den! /Imdb/