Harmony Korine: Interviews tracks filmmaker Korine’s stunning rise, fall, and rise again through his own evolving voice. Bringing together interviews collected from over two decades, this unique chronicle includes rare interviews unavailable in print for years and an extensive, new conversation recorded at the filmmaker’s home in Nashville.
After more than twenty years, Harmony Korine (b. 1973) remains one of the most prominent and yet subversive filmmakers in America. Ever since his entry into the independent film scene as the irrepressible prodigy who wrote the screenplay for Larry Clark‘s “Kids” in 1992, Korine has retained his stature as the ultimate cinematic provocateur. He both intelligently observes modern social milieus and simultaneously thumbs his nose at them. Now approaching middle age, and more influential than ever, Korine remains intentionally sensationalistic and ceaselessly creative.
He parlayed the success of “Kids” into directing the dreamy portrait of neglect “Gummo” two years later. With his audacious 1999 digital video drama “Julien Donkey-Boy,” Korine continued to demonstrate a penchant for fusing experimental, subversive interests with lyrical narrative techniques. Surviving an early career burnout, he resurfaced with a trifecta of insightful works that built on his earlier aesthetic leanings: a surprisingly delicate rumination on identity (“Mister Lonely,” 2007), a gritty quasi-diary film (“Trash Humpers,” 2009) and a blistering portrait of American hedonism (“Spring Breakers,” 2013), which yielded significant commercial success. Throughout his career he has also continued as a mixed-media artist whose fields included music videos, paintings, photography, publishing, songwriting, and performance art.
So many artists have staked a claim to creating “subversive” work over
the years that the term has practically lost its value. But that’s hardly
the case for Harmony Korine, still one of the most prominent subversive
filmmakers in America.
Ever since erupting onto the independent film scene as the irrepress-
ible prodigy who wrote the screenplay for Larry Clark’s “Kids” in 1992, Korine has retained his stature as the ultimate cinematic provocateur: He
both intelligently observes modern social milieus and gleefully thumbs
his nose at them at the same time. Now approaching middle age and
arguably more influential than ever, Korine remains a knowingly sensationalistic and innovative creative mind.
But it’s been a bumpy ride. In 1995, Korine came out nowhere and
became an overnight media darling, stealing the spotlight from “Kids” director Larry Clark and quickly taking advantage of the attention to project his bad boy image across the world. Korine’s origin story, the tale of
a disillusioned NYU dropout discovered by Clark while skating around
Washington Square Park, quickly overshadowed the sheer determination involved in his first completed screenplay. A serious film geek raised
by a documentary filmmaker in Nashville, Korine turned Clark’s idea for
a movie about promiscuous teenagers whose antics ultimately lead to
an AIDS dilemma into a full-fledged screenplay over the course of three
weeks. The young writer recorded conversations with his friends as the
basis for a highly naturalistic flow of dialogue, resulting in a seminal
portrait of New York’s underground youth culture. The movie portrayed
a dark, depraved world, but it was especially haunting because it maintained a stark realism throughout.
A hit at Sundance and Cannes, “Kids” transcended the perceived limitations of its NC-17 rating and grossed $20 million at the box office, effectively turning Korine into a major pop culture figure. That same year, he
appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and mystified a nation with a combination of wide-eyed innocence and scrappy demeanor. The media loved Korine’s playful behavior and foul mouth. He expressed adoration for vaudeville and certainly put on a good show, tap dancing for one
interviewer and harassing pedestrians while hanging out with another.
He was practically an auteur before even directing his first film.
The next few years unfolded in a whirlwind of creativity and scandalous gestures. Korine’s directorial debut, “Gummo,” was shot in rundown
Nashville neighborhoods on 16mm, eschewing plot for bizarre asides
and eccentric character sketches. The New York Times’ Janet Maslin infamously called it the worst movie of the year, an assertion that “Gummo”’s
producers considered placing on its poster. There’s no doubting the potency of a movie so dense with images and information, which dances a
line between experimental documentary and lyrical portrait of an alienated lower class with such riveting intensity that it transcends any easy
categorization.
Set in a decrepit neighborhood ravished by a tornado, “Gummo” contains an ensemble of pariahs, including a mute boy who wanders about
town wearing bunny ears, a pair of boxing skinhead siblings, a gay dwarf,
and two young rebels who kill stray cats for cash—one of whom, Solomon (Jacob Reynolds), receives questionable advice from his tap-dancing
mother (Linda Manz). A kaleidoscopic peek into America’s marginalized
inhabitants, “Gummo” tossed aside traditional plot in favor of freewheeling images and vignettes. It mystified even the viewers who loved it.
Next, Korine was invited to join the vaunted brotherhood of Dogme
95, the DIY movement kickstarted by Danish filmmakers Lars Von Trier
and Thomas Vinterberg that required all participants to adhere to a set
of arbitrary rules, like shooting on video with natural lights and no special effects. The sole American participant in the project, Korine’s effort
(which admittedly broke some of the Dogme rules) was unsurprisingly
brash, but also far more focused than his previous effort. The story of a
schizophrenic man and his maniacal relatives (based on Korine’s uncle), “Julian Donkey-Boy” delivered a brutal, transgressive form of dramatic storytelling littered with eccentric digressions. Characterized by an ultra-
grainy DV look and abrupt editing techniques, the film was anchored
by Ewen Bremmer’s disturbing performance. It also owed much to German New Wave legend Werner Herzog—now one of Korine’s major advocates—in the role of the boy’s crazed father. Critics were once again
divided on the merits of Korine’s output, but there was no doubting that
the attention to his burgeoning artistry continued to increase.
In the wake of “Julian Donkey-Boy,” he kicked off an ill-fated project called “Fight” in which hidden cameramen (including colleagues David
Blaine and Leonardo DiCaprio) watched as Korine attempted to engage
random street characters in violent brawls. After suffering major injuries
and a handful of arrests, Korine abandoned the project; the completed
footage has never screened publicly, and has become a central ingredient
in the filmmaker’s irascible reputation, even once he cleaned up his act.
Korine was rarely sober when he made “Fight,” but drugs could hardly
mollify the impact of fame and expectations barreling down on him from
every direction. His much-publicized relationship with actress Chloe Sevigny, who had appeared in all of his completed features up until that
point, ended badly. By the end of the decade, Korine abruptly vanished
from the public eye, heading out to Europe for a depraved three-year
interlude in his career that remains largely undocumented. This period
culminated in 2003 with his admission to a methadone clinic.
With help from advocates of his earlier work, including the fashion
magnate agnès b., Korine gradually put his life back together. In 2005,
he directed a television documentary about his old pal David Blaine. By
then, Korine had quietly resettled in Nashville, where he fell in love with
a local waitress, got married, and bought a house. In 2008, he unveiled
the agnès b.–produced “Mister Lonely,” arguably his softest, most accessible
work—a delightfully surreal tale about a Michael Jackson impersonator
(Diego Luna) who discovers a commune filled with other outcasts playing dress up, which takes place in parallel to another offbeat story involving Werner Herzog as a priest. The next year, Korine was making the
rounds with “Trash Humpers,” a scrappy production shot on lo-grade video
featuring the titular characters (including one played by Korine) wandering around murky regions of Nashville and engaging in the eponymous sex act. But they also share poetry and tender monologues about
the spiritual dimensions of being a pariah, statements that suggested the
movie served as Korine’s mantra. Consolidating the aesthetics of his earlier films with more sophisticated pontifications, “Trash Humpers” is argu-
ably Korine’s most personal work.
Korine started work on “Spring Breakers” the next year. The apotheosis
of his attempts to subvert pop culture, the movie’s trim plot involved
a group of college girls who rob a diner to fuel a hedonistic voyage to
the center of the party scene in St. Petersburg, Florida. Filmed with an
alarmingly bright palette and occasional shadowy interludes, set to a
combination of pulsating electronic melodies and an ominous score by
Cliff Martinez, “Spring Breakers”’ biggest coup was its cast: Pop star Selena
Gomez led an ensemble of well-known faces as the women at the helm of the gleeful adventure, which abruptly shifts tones when they wind up
arrested.
Rescued by a messianic pimp named Alien played with memorable
exuberance by James Franco, the girls wind up thrust into a nightmarish
inversion of the pleasure they initially sought. But the ones who choose
to stick around for this next stage find themselves entranced by an even
greater height of rebellion. Hence the true shock value of “Spring Breakers”: rather than moralizing, Korine celebrates the dogma-fueling criminal antics for their capacity to undermine the rigidity of social mores.
Describing this outlook as “gangster mysticism” in interviews, Korine
proved he could maintain his outsider perspective even while creating a
more commercial film.
The response to the movie seemed to validate his ambition. “Spring
Breakers” grossed more in its limited opening weekend release than any
of his previous films in their entire theatrical runs, landed on numerous critics’ top-ten lists, and even led to a serious awards campaign for
Franco. Korine was no longer a rebel at odds with the establishment; he
had successfully invaded it without selling out.
The irony of Korine’s reputation as a kind of twisted cultural insurgent
is that he came from a relatively low-key background. Born in a commune in Salinas, California, Korine grew up in Nashville under the guidance of his documentarian father, who taught him how to make movies.
In high school, encouraged by a teacher who liked his writing, Korine
made a remarkable black-and-white short film called “A Bundle of Minutes” that featured an angry loner wandering about town, committing robberies and ranting about his life. It ultimately helped him gain acceptance
to NYU and convinced Clark to hire him to write “Kids.” Viewed in retrospect, “A Bundle of Minutes” outlines much of the restless excitement for
deconstructing traditional storytelling methods visible in all of Korine’s
work. At one point, fuming about the limitations of his world, the movie’s protagonist rants that he’s “the world’s most stupid genius.” That
may well remain Korine’s means of self-justification: His movies cherish
striking images and the flow of shocking events over cohesive ideas. He
lets his unvarnished inspiration lead the way, which may be why he has
always wrestled with the challenge of explaining himself to the public.
Yet it’s through the process of speaking to various journalists that he
may have crafted his most intricate achievement. Throughout twenty
years of interviews, Korine has developed into one of the great fabulists
of our time, his storytelling antics extending beyond a handful of distinctive feature films and permeating the discourse surrounding them.
For that reason, his inclusion in the venerable Conversations with
Filmmakers Series makes for a unique opportunity: Korine is one of the
youngest filmmakers to receive this treatment and perhaps its most elusive subject.
