Tarnation is a 2003 American documentary film by Jonathan Caouette. Summary The film was created by Caouette from over 20 years of hundreds of hours of old Super 8 footage, VHS videotape, photographs, and answering machine messages to tell the story of his life and his relationship with his mentally ill mother Renee. Synopsis Tarnation is an autobiographical documentary focusing on Caouette's early life and adulthood, as well as his mother, Renee LeBlanc, who was treated with electroshock in her youth. With an absent father and a mother who struggled with mental illness, Caouette eventually settled in the Houston area with his grandparents, Adolph and Rosemary Davis, who despite personality quirks, provided a supportive family for him. The film explores Caouette's life as he negotiates his complicated relationship with his mother as her child, friend, and ultimately, parental figure while developing his creativity as an actor, writer and director. His empathy for his mother, and for the abuses women endure, is demonstrated in a scene early in the movie in which an approximately 11-year-old Caouette improvises a monologue as a woman in an abusive relationship. Caouette came out as gay at a young age and moved to New York City at age 25, eventually finding a boyfriend named David Sanin Paz. They lived together in New York City for many years. As documented in the film, his mother has lived with them at times and they've formed an unusual family. Soundtrack The soundtrack uses songs by Hex (Donnette Thayer and Steve Kilbey), Lisa Germano, The Cocteau Twins, Dolly Parton, Low, Mark Kozelek, Glen Campbell, The Magnetic Fields, Iron and Wine, The Chocolate Watchband, Mavis Staples, Red House Painters, Marianne Faithfull and many more. Orchestral cues for the film were composed by John Califra. Max Avery Lichtenstein wrote several original instrumental songs for the film, including the film's recurring theme "Tarnation". The film's trailer features orchestral music by John Califra, "Tarnation" by Max Avery Lichtenstein, and the song "Safe As Milk" by the band Hopewell. No soundtrack compilation album has been released, but a digital E.P. featuring selections of Max Avery Lichtenstein's original music for the film was released in 2005 by Tin Drum Recordings. Production Caouette was shaping his material when he sent in an audition tape for John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus. The tape contained the footage of an 11-year-old Jonathan imitating a battered wife. Mitchell was impressed and encouraged