Jonathan Caouette (born November 26, 1972) is an American film director, writer, editor and actor.
Film career
Caouette is the director and editor of ''
Tarnation'' (2003), an autobiographical documentary, that premiered at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals in 2003 and the director of ''
All Tomorrow's Parties
"All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by the Velvet Underground and Nico, written by Lou Reed and released on the group's 1967 debut studio album, ''The Velvet Underground & Nico''.
Inspiration for the song came from Reed's observation of Andy Warh ...
'' about the cult music
festival
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...
. 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
The 64th Cannes Film Festival was held from 11 to 22 May 2011. American actor Robert De Niro served as the president of the jury for the main competition and French filmmaker Michel Gondry headed the jury for the short film competition. South Ko ...
. In 2009, Caouette served as a creative advisor for director Matthew Mishory's film, ''
Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman''.
As an actor, Caouette played a major role in the 2006 film ''
Fat Girls
In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food.
The term often refers specifically to triglycerides (triple est ...
'' and the film ''Portland'', scheduled for pre-production in 2012. He also appeared in ''
Shortbus
''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. T ...
'', directed by
John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell (born April 21, 1963) is a two-time Tony Award winning American actor, playwright, screenwriter, singer, songwriter, producer and director. He is best known as the writer, director and star of the 2001 film '' Hedwig and th ...
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.
Personal life
Caouette attended
Westbury High School in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
, Texas from 1987 to 1990.
Caouette has a son, Josh, who was featured in the 2008 documentary ''
Bi the Way''. Caouette is gay and lives with his husband David in New York City.
At the age of 12, Caouette accidentally smoked
PCP, resulting in what a doctor later diagnosed as
depersonalization disorder
Depersonalization-derealization disorder (DPDR, DPD) is a mental disorder in which the person has persistent or recurrent feelings of depersonalization or derealization. Depersonalization is described as feeling disconnected or detached from one ...
. The director has described ''Tarnation'' as an attempt to give his disorder filmic form. 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
''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. T ...
''. 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.[Wilcha, Christopher]
"Jonathan Caouette"
, ''BOMB Magazine
''Bomb'' (stylized in all caps as ''BOMB'') is an American arts magazine edited by artists and writers, published quarterly in print and daily online. It is composed primarily of interviews between creative people working in a variety of disciplin ...
'', Fall, 2004. Retrieved 2011-7-25.
Films
* ''
Tarnation'' (2003)
* ''
All Tomorrow's Parties
"All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by the Velvet Underground and Nico, written by Lou Reed and released on the group's 1967 debut studio album, ''The Velvet Underground & Nico''.
Inspiration for the song came from Reed's observation of Andy Warh ...
'' (2009)
* ''
All Flowers in Time'' (2010, short)
* ''
Walk Away Renee
Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined by an 'inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults o ...
'' (2011)
References
External links
*
Jonathan Caouette's MySpace*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caouette, Jonathan
Male actors from Houston
1973 births
Living people
American gay actors
American gay writers
Film directors from Texas
LGBT people from Texas
Writers from Houston
Collage filmmakers