Title: Walk Away Renee Director: Jonathan Caouette In 2004 Jonathan Caouette made a film, “Tarnation,” about his tumultuous upbringing with his maternal grandparents and fractured, on-and-off-again relationship with his disturbed mother, Renee LeBlanc, who suffered from psychosis after undergoing shock treatments in her adolescence following a period of time being paralyzed. The movie, which screened at Sundance and Cannes, became something of a media sensation for being edited on free iMovie software on a Mac and having a budget of only a couple hundred dollars (though subsequently brushed up sonically prior to a theatrical release), but it was no parlor trick. An intense and unsettling autobiographical bricolage, the movie had important things [ Read More ]...
- 8/9/2012
- by bsimon
- ShockYa
"Walk Away Renee," which debuted at Cannes 2011, is Jonathan Caouette's follow-up to his much-lauded 2003 documentary "Tarnation." The film is playing at Los Angeles' Outfest on Saturday, July 21 and is already available on SundanceNow. Our exclusive clip and trailers are below. The filmmaker's mother, Renee Leblanc, is front and center in both of his video memoirs. As a child, she was given electroshock therapy and as an adult, lives with acute bipolar and schizoaffective disorder. In "Walk Away Renee," the latest psychiatric facility is not working out and Caouette decides to drive his mother cross country from Houston to New York. She loses her medication and the relationship between mother and son veers in both touching and tragic directions, with both souls exposed through footage Caouette creatively weaves together with metaphysical overtones. The film itself it quite a ride, immersive and boldly personal. The exclusive clip we...
- 7/20/2012
- by Sophia Savage
- Thompson on Hollywood
Jonathan Caouette made a name for himself some years back with his debut feature "Tarnation," a manic, prodding look into his family, created on the cheap using home videos and the trusty iMovie program. His stock blew up, and a successful screening at the Sundance Film Festival eventually lead to him helming the "All Tomorrow's Parties" documentary and a personal horror short "All Flowers In Time."
But the story about Caouette and his mother Renee Leblanc wasn't over, and the director revisited this for "Walk Away Renee," a documentary that serves as a sequel/proper-ending to his astonishingly affecting first film. You can check out "Walk Away Renee" right now online at SundanceNow, and in preparation for its release we spoke to Jonathan about its germination, the difficulty of making a work so intimate, and what he's up to for his next project.
Isn't That The Title Of...
Fans of...
But the story about Caouette and his mother Renee Leblanc wasn't over, and the director revisited this for "Walk Away Renee," a documentary that serves as a sequel/proper-ending to his astonishingly affecting first film. You can check out "Walk Away Renee" right now online at SundanceNow, and in preparation for its release we spoke to Jonathan about its germination, the difficulty of making a work so intimate, and what he's up to for his next project.
Isn't That The Title Of...
Fans of...
- 6/29/2012
- by Christopher Bell
- The Playlist
I’ve been struggling to find a metaphor for the very special, not to mention most unusual, connection between director Jonathan Caouette and Renee Leblanc, his mentally ill and frequently institutionalized mother and the subject of his most recent film, Walk Away Renee. The closest I could come is really a parallel, and it lies within Caouette’s body of work. In his 2010 surreal short All Flowers in Time, a beautiful young woman, played by Chloe Sevigny, has an indefinable relationship with an adolescent boy. In a bizarre world where young people’s eyes can turn glowing red, the two seem to be close, in what way we do not know. At certain points, they look at each other with their neon-looking eyes, make faces, and giggle, but, above all, a supernormal affection emanates from this experimental narrative.
Asked to explain his and his mother’s amazing rapport, Caouette, now 39, responds,...
Asked to explain his and his mother’s amazing rapport, Caouette, now 39, responds,...
- 6/28/2012
- by Howard Feinstein
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Walk Away Renee, Jonathan Caouette’s follow-up/sequel to Tarnation, is having its big day today, with both the “real-world” premiere of the new cut of the film playing at BAMcinemaFest tonight, and also its simultaneous online premiere through SundanceNOW’s Doc Club.
Howard Feinstein had an excellent, long chat with Caouette which just went live on the Filmmaker site, and we’re also very pleased to have an exclusive clip from Walk Away Renee which captures one of the more experimental moments from Caouette’s portrait of the relationship between himself and his mentally ill mother, Renee LeBlanc.
… Read the rest...
Howard Feinstein had an excellent, long chat with Caouette which just went live on the Filmmaker site, and we’re also very pleased to have an exclusive clip from Walk Away Renee which captures one of the more experimental moments from Caouette’s portrait of the relationship between himself and his mentally ill mother, Renee LeBlanc.
… Read the rest...
- 6/27/2012
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Born out of a truck load of home videos, answering machine recordings, and photographs, Jonathan Caouette's 2003 autobiographical "Tarnation" was a dearly personal and often frightening no-holds-barred look into a family torn apart by a tortured past. Cobbled together with iMovie before YouTube was even a twinkle in a vlogger's eye, the film bleeds honesty and its fearless look at the subjects (including the director himself) can be downright terrifying at times. But it wasn't just a family arguing or bitterly digging into old wounds -- Caouette had a manic, assaulting editing style and a penchant for some truly disturbing experimental sequences, an aesthetic that exhibited their emotional states in a fresh, genuinely perturbing way. A hit at the Sundance Film Festival, the movie went on to gather a number of ecstatic supporters and thrust the director into the spotlight. We're now in 2012, and after helming documentary "All Tomorrow's Parties...
- 6/27/2012
- by Christopher Bell
- The Playlist
Sometimes superlatives need to be slung, such as when speaking of the richest, most ambitious and exciting decade yet for nonfiction film -- and, really, what other variety could back up that boast? To nail down a single doc as the preeminent work that typifies these years is no easy task, especially since the best of the bunch attacked specific subjects with laser-like precision and idiosyncratic techniques. (Sit tight, the lede is about to be buried.)
The '00s legitimized the allure of the "pop doc," a trend that shoehorns potentially lackluster material into glossy narratives. Spelling bees were transformed into suspense thrillers ("Spellbound"), quadriplegic rugby players did their own stunts ("Murderball"), tangoing kids got their dance-off ("Mad Hot Ballroom"), a reckless but beautiful feat of derring-do was reenacted like a heist procedural ("Man on Wire"), and a PBS-style nature film became a blockbuster saga of familial survival ("March of the Penguins"). Who'd have thought,...
The '00s legitimized the allure of the "pop doc," a trend that shoehorns potentially lackluster material into glossy narratives. Spelling bees were transformed into suspense thrillers ("Spellbound"), quadriplegic rugby players did their own stunts ("Murderball"), tangoing kids got their dance-off ("Mad Hot Ballroom"), a reckless but beautiful feat of derring-do was reenacted like a heist procedural ("Man on Wire"), and a PBS-style nature film became a blockbuster saga of familial survival ("March of the Penguins"). Who'd have thought,...
- 12/7/2009
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.