Draft:Running Stumbled
2006 documentary by John Maringouin
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Running Stumbled is a 2006 American documentary film written and directed by John Maringouin. The film documents Maringouin's return to his estranged father's home in Terrytown, Louisiana — his first visit in 25 years — where he finds his father, Johnny Roe Jr., a Dadaist painter and drug addict, living in chaotic co-dependence with his common-law wife of nine years, Virgie Marie Pennoui. Shot primarily on digital video in 2002, the film is structured in 13 chapters and blends documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques.
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Virgie Marie Pennoui
| Running Stumbled | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | John Maringouin |
| Screenplay by | John Maringouin |
| Produced by | Molly Lynch |
| Starring | Johnny Roe Jr. Virgie Marie Pennoui |
| Edited by | John Maringouin Molly Lynch |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 85 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The film received an Independent Spirit Award nomination and achieved a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite numerous distribution offers following its festival run, Maringouin chose to block the film's commercial release. The film contains a scene in which Johnny Roe Jr. appears to allude to having committed murder.[1] The film was later made available on MUBI.
Title
The film's title derives from a remark made by Johnny Roe Jr. during filming, in which he describes his own nature by saying "running stumbled is my middle name."[2]
Background
John Maringouin was raised apart from his biological father, Johnny Roe Jr., a Dadaist painter based in the New Orleans suburb of Terrytown, Louisiana. Roe had been charged with the attempted murder of his son and family following a car crash; father and son had been estranged ever since, and Maringouin had long since dropped his father's surname.[3]
In 2002, Maringouin received a call from the authorities reporting that his father's home was in disarray. He returned to Terrytown for the first time in 25 years, bringing a camera. What he found was Roe living in semi-squalor with his common-law wife Virgie Marie Pennoui, who claimed to be both cancer-stricken and suicidal, surrounded by the detritus of their derailed lives.[3]
Film
The film is structured in 13 carefully selected chapters, each averaging approximately five minutes, shot on digital video and Super 8. Maringouin subjects the material to extensive post-processing — pixilation, solarization, colour filtration — giving the film a hallucinatory quality. Two bookending chapters, shot in heavily filtered red tones, are the film's only scripted sections: the first shows Maringouin arriving unannounced at the home on Easter Sunday; the second shows him telling his father the true extent of the motives behind making the film.[2]
Maringouin himself barely appears onscreen. Rather than staging a father-son reconciliation, the film immerses the viewer in the domestic world of Roe and Pennoui — their arguments, their pharmaceutical haze, their moments of dark comedy and sudden violence. A supporting presence is Stanley Laviolette, Roe's neighbour, who appears caring for his elderly mother and obsessing over the correct prayers for her to recite.[2]
Pennoui is last seen being taken to hospital; she subsequently moved to a mental ward. The family home was later destroyed in a fire during Hurricane Katrina.[2]
Distribution
Following its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and its US premiere at the CineVegas Film Festival in June 2006, before subsequently screening at the BFI London Film Festival — where it screened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts — and festivals in Split and Buenos Aires, the film received an Independent Spirit Award nomination and attracted significant interest from distributors.[4]
Maringouin declined all distribution offers, choosing to block the film's commercial release. The film contains a scene in which Johnny Roe Jr. appears to allude to having committed murder.[1] The film was subsequently screened at various documentary art venues and eventually made available on MUBI, where it found a new generation of admirers.
Critical reception
Running Stumbled holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[5]
Writing in Variety, Robert Koehler called it a "remarkable filmmaking debut" and compared it directly to Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation, noting that unlike Caouette, Maringouin largely removes himself from the frame, choosing to observe rather than confess.[2] Writing for IndieWire, Mark Olsen described the film as crafted "like an exorcism," adding that even those who did not respond to it "couldn't seem to stop talking about it."[6]
Time Out placed the film alongside Tarnation and Grizzly Man, describing it as part of "the fascinating, ever-expanding sub-genre of auto-archive documentary."[7]
Legacy
Despite its extremely limited distribution, Running Stumbled developed a devoted following among filmmakers and cinephiles and is considered a significant, if largely unseen, work in the tradition of American personal documentary filmmaking. Its availability on MUBI has introduced the film to wider audiences in subsequent years.
The film represents the first chapter in Maringouin's career as a filmmaker working at the intersection of documentary and experimental cinema. His second feature, Big River Man (2009), about endurance swimmer Martin Strel's attempt to swim the entire Amazon River, won the Cinematography Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. His third feature, Ghostbox Cowboy (2018), premiered in the narrative competition at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.