Harmony Korine

Harmony Korine
Born	(1973-01-04) January 4, 1973 Bolinas, California, USA
Occupation(s)	Film director, producer, screenwriter, and author

Harmony Korine (born January 4 1973) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and author.

He is best known for the screenplay Kids and for directing the movies Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy. He has been a seminal figure in independent film, music and art throughout the past decade.

Early Life

Korine was born in Bolinas, California and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of documentary filmmaker Sol Korine. He spent his early years in Nashville, TN, before moving to New York City to live with his grandmother. A solitary teenager, Korine frequented revival theaters, watching classic films by John Cassavetes, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, Fassbinder, and Alan Clarke. He studied English at New York University for one semester before dropping out to pursue a career as a professional skateboarder. Korine was skating with friends in Washington Square Park when he caught the eye of photographer Larry Clark. Korine showed Clark a screenplay he had written about a teenager whose father takes him to a prostitute. Impressed, the photographer asked him to compose a script about his everyday life. Within three weeks, Korine wrote Kids, a film about 24 hours in the sex- and drug-filled lives of several Manhattan teenagers.

Films

Kids & Gummo (1995-1998)

File:Kids film poster.jpg

Kids

Korine first gained notoriety in 1995, at the age of 21, for the Kids screenplay, for which he remains the youngest credited screenwriter of all time.. The film examines the lives of several New York City teenagers who are coming of age in the era of AIDS. Kids garnered good reviews, but due to its NC-17/unrated rating, few of its intended audience actually saw the film upon its debut. However, it has since become a significant cult film. Among others, the film features Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson in their first movie roles.

Following his fame with Kids, Korine directed and co-produced Gummo (1997), a film based on life in Xenia, Ohio, a town devastated by a tornado on April 3, 1974. Forgoing conventional narrative, Gummo embodies sketches written by Korine, hence the nonlinear, fragmented events over the course of the film capitalizing on the obscure. Much of the cast was found during preproduction where it was filmed in Tennessee, and of all those who appeared in the film, only five were experienced actors/actresses. The film is notable for having unsettling, often bizarre scenes, as well as its dreamlike soundtrack, which strengthens the disconcerting atmosphere.

It premiered at the 24th Telluride Film Festival on August 29 1997. During the screening, numerous people got up and left during the initial cat drowning sequence. After the screening, Werner Herzog - the prolific director associated with the German New Wave - and Harmony Korine hosted a Q&A session in which Werner gave praise to the film overall, especially the bacon taped to the wall during the bathtub scene. Later he told the New York Times, "When I saw a piece of fried bacon fixed to the bathroom wall in Gummo, it knocked me off my chair. [Korine's] a very clear voice of a generation of filmmakers that is taking a new position. It's not going to dominate world cinema, but so what?".

Although a majority of mainstream critics derided it as an unintelligible mess, it won top prizes at that year's Venice Film Festival and earned Korine the respect of noted filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant, among others. Its stature has only grown in the ensuing years, gaining a cult classic status as a truly shocking and experimental film "unlike anything you've seen in a while -- maybe ever -- and that if you're the kind of person who claims to be frustrated by the predictability of commercial filmmaking, [it presents] a rare opportunity to put your money where your mouth is."

In 1998, Korine made The Diary of Anne Frank Part II, a 40-minute three-screen collage featuring a boy burying his dog, kids in satanic dress tearing apart and vomiting on a Bible, and a man in black-and-white minstrelsy make-up dancing and singing "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean". It utilizes some of the same actors and themes as Gummo, and can be considered a companion piece.

Julien Donkey-Boy & Ken Park (1999-2003)

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Julien Donkey-Boy

Korine released his next film, Julien Donkey-Boy, in 1999, which included a signed Dogme 95 manifesto. While it broke a number of the movement's basic tenets, Lars Von Trier himself lauded Korine's ability to interpret the rules creatively.

The story is told from the perspective of a young man suffering from schizophrenia, played by Ewen Bremner of Trainspotting fame, as he tries to understand his deteriorating world. Julien's abusive father is played by Werner Herzog. At one point, Korine was to play the son, but he backed down and was replaced by Evan Neumann.

Like Gummo and Kids, it too has since become something of a cult classic, a go-to film for those seeking cinema that is, as Roger Ebert said in his three star review, "shocking for most moviegoers", unlike "the slick aboveground indie productions" that are now the norm.

In 2002, Larry Clark made the film Ken Park, based on a script Korine had written several years earlier. The film, another adult tale of youth gone awry, was not distributed in the US and was banned in Australia due to unsimulated scenes of sexual intercourse involving teens. At the time of its release, Clark and Korine had long since parted ways and Korine had no involvement in its production.

In 2003 he made the televison documentary film Above the Below about his friend, illusionist David Blaine and his 44-day stunt in a park over the bank of River Thames in London inside a suspended Plexiglas box. A documentary commissioned by Sky Television and Channel 4, it also includes jokes, visual poetry, and music. In addition to the documentary, Korine has worked with Blaine on a number of Blaine's specials. Blaine also appears in Korine's next movie, Mister Lonely, as a Panamanian priest.

Mister Lonely (2003-)

His third feature film, Mister Lonely, began production in 2006, starring Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, Anita Pallenberg, David Blaine, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Werner Herzog and Mal Whiteley. The film is co-written by his brother, Avi Korine.

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Mister Lonely

The idea had its genesis after the release of Julien Donkey-Boy but a lengthy heroin addiction and general disillusionment (along with relative fundraising difficulties) prolonged the process. In an February interview with Screen International he says: "I'd been making movies since I was virtually a kid, and it had always come very easily. At a certain point after the last movie, I started to have this general disconnect from things. I was really miserable with where I was. I began to lose sight of things and people started to become more and more distant. I was burnt out, movies were what I always loved in life and I started to not care. I went deeper and deeper into a dark place and to be honest movies were the last thing I was thinking about - I didn't know if I was going to be alive. My dream was to evaporate. I was unhealthy. Whatever happened during that time, and I won't go into the details, maybe it was something I needed to go through."

The story, according to the Korines, is of "a young American man lost in Paris. He scratches out a living as a Michael Jackson look-alike, dancing on the streets, public parks, tourist spots and trade shows. Different from everyone else, he feels as if he's floating between two worlds. During a car show Michael Jackson meets Marilyn Monroe. Haunted by her angelic beauty he follows her to a commune in the Highlands, joining her husband Charlie Chaplin and her daughter Shirley Temple. A place where everyone is famous and no-one gets old. Here, The Pope, The Queen of England, Madonna, James Dean and other impersonators build a stage in the hope that the world will visit and watch them perform. Nuns fall out of airplanes and children ride pigs. Everything is beautiful. Until the world shifts, and reality intrudes on their utopian dream."

The Screen International interview describes specifically "scenes being shot in an old people's home in the Ville de Bonnueil, an hour outside Paris, and the next day in the Luxembourg Gardens and Montparnasse," that "show typical Korine improvisational touches." It goes on to say: "In the retirement villa, where 'Michael' first meets 'Marilyn', Luna is dressed as a Dangerous-era Jackson, delivering some trademark whoops around some seriously aged Parisian senior citizens, singing, "You're never gonna die, I want you to live forever," as the residents fall asleep in their chairs. Morton proceeds to comfort a nonagenarian non-actor who appears to be hitting himself with a plastic hammer."

The movie finished production in early 2007 and will likely debut at Cannes.

Other works

Books

In 1998 Korine published a book entitled A Crack Up at the Race Riots, a collage of suicide notes, jokes, rumours, fragments of dialogue, movie ideas, letters from Tupac Shakur, and other random bits. It was described by publisher Doubleday as "the ultimate postmodern video," like "Slacker meets James Thurber."

The bookjacket reads, "There is no place for plot, linear narrative, character development, or scene setting in Harmony Korine's audacious and original first novel, A Crackup At The Race Riots. The twenty three year old filmmaker has created a bold work of fiction, a montage that takes literary convention and explodes it in a sequence of half-remembered scenes, suicide notes, dialogue fragments, movie ideas, rumors, and jokes. Korine's eye and ear are exquisitely tuned to the absurd, to the hypocrisy and hilarity that comprise our national obsessions with death, dirt, poverty, celebrity, religion, and gossip."

2002 saw the release of Pass the Bitch Chicken, a collaboration with artist Christopher Wool. The book consists of Korines photographs heavily edited by Korine and Wool.

Art

He has also been involved with a number of major art projects, including "The Devil, The Sinner and His Journey", which featured Korine in blackface as O.J. Simpson and the actor Johnny Depp as Kato Kaelin. Much of his art is photography or video related to his films.

In particular, Gummo seems to have been the basis for much of his late-nineties artistic output. Most recently his works were presented in a 2003 exhibition at agnes b's Galerie du jour in Paris, with whom Korine has often been associated.

Music

Korine has directed a number of music videos for artists such as Sonic Youth, Cat Power and Will Oldham. In addition, he sang on Oldham's "Ease Down The Road", and co-authored the lyrics of Björk's musical composition "Harm of Will" from her album Vespertine (2001). In 1999 Korine and Brian Degraw of Gang Gang Dance released a music CD SSAB Songs. "I don't really know what it sounds like," Korine explained to i-D magazine. "I only listened to it once. I think it's the kind of album I'd only listen to once".

Themes and influence

Much of Korine's work is based around the dark humor and absurdism involved in dysfunctional childhoods, mental disorders, and poverty. This is often incorporated into surrealist, non-linear forms and presented experimentally (see the mix of Polaroids, Super 8 and high definition film that makes up Gummo).

Another major theme is of the 19th century American blackface minstrel show, as seen in his "No More Workhorse Blues" music video and a number of his short films. Most enigmatically he mentioned in a 1995 Letterman appearance that he was working on a biopic of a one-legged Olympic swimmer resembling Stepin Fetchit.

Though mainstream success has eluded Korine he has gained a significant cult following. Despite the scorn of a majority of mainstream reviewers, he has won festival prizes at Venice and Rotterdam, among others, and established directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci and Gus Van Sant are outspoken proponents of Korine's genius. A significant number of scholarly essays have been written on the importance of his oeuvre to film and art in general.

As critic Roger Ebert said in his review of Julien Donkey-Boy, "Korine, who at 25 is one of the most untamed new directors, belongs on the list with Godard, Cassavetes, Herzog, Warhol, Tarkovsky, Brakhage and others who smash conventional movies and reassemble the pieces... Harmony Korine is the real thing, an innovative and gifted filmmaker whose work forces us to see on his terms."

In a 1999 Dazed and Confused magazine article Korine listed his top ten films as: Pixote by Hector Babenco, Badlands and Days of Heaven by Terrence Mallick, Fat City by John Huston, Stroszek by Werner Herzog, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and A Woman Under the Influence by John Cassavetes, McCabe and Mrs. Miller by Robert Altman, Out of the Blue by Dennis Hopper and Hail Mary by Jean-Luc Godard.

Filmography

Feature-length

• Mister Lonely (2007)
• Above the Below (2003) (documentary)
• Ken Park (2002) (screenplay only, directed by Larry Clark)
• Julien Donkey-Boy (1999)
• Gummo (1997)
• Kids (1995) (screenplay only, directed by Larry Clark)

Shorts

• Jokes (2000) (with Gus Van Sant)
• Korine Tap (2000)
• The Diary Of Anne Frank Part II (1998)

Music videos

• Living Proof by Cat Power (2006)
• No More Workhorse Blues by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (2004)
• Sunday by Sonic Youth (1998)
• Casper the Friendly Ghost by Daniel Johnston (1995)

Trivia

• Korine appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman three times before finally being banned for shoving Meryl Streep in the Green Room in 1999. His first appearance, in 1995, was to promote Kids; his second, in 1997, was for Gummo; and his third, in 1998, was to promote A Crackup at the Race Riots. These appearances are notable for Korine's incoherence and deadpan hilarity, something also found in his director's commentaries and filmed interviews. There is some debate as to whether it is simply his persona or, as Letterman posited during his last visit, due to heavy drug intake.
• He originally intended to follow up Gummo with a short-lived project known as Fight Harm, directed by Blaine. Described as a comedy, it comprised footage of Korine engaging random people in actual street fights. In filming these fights, Korine followed a loose set of rules: his opponent had to be larger and stronger than him, he had to provoke his opponent into throwing the first punch, and the fights could not be broken up unless Korine was in danger of losing his life. David Blaine filmed most of the fights for him, however Korine claimed later that he was one of the worst cameramen he's ever worked with and most of the footage Blaine shot was unusable. After filming seven fights and sustaining several injuries, Korine had produced only fifteen minutes of usable footage. He subsequently aborted the project.
• Harmony Korine has a cameo in the film Good Will Hunting. He plays a young man in the jail Will Hunting is brought to. He also has a cameo in Gus Van Sant's Last Days.
• Director Bernardo Bertolucci once declared Gummo and Korine capable of "creating a revolution in the language of cinema." He would later receive love letters from Jean-Luc Godard after he saw the film. The actor Johnny Depp, also a fan, described Gummo as "one of the most truthful pieces of filmmaking in a long time."

External links

• Harmony-Korine.com - Unoffical Fansite
• Harmony Korine at IMDb
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database

Video

• Harmony Korine (DVblog)

• deleted scene from Julien Donkey-Boy (Google Video)
• deleted scene 2 from Julien Donkey-Boy (Google Video)
• The Name of this Film is Dogme 95 - Saul Metzstein (Google Video)