Ten Things You Should Know About Harmony Korine Before Watching Spring Breakers
The cult filmmaker's latest effort is an odd mainstream breakthrough. The rest of his career isn't any saner.
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Since it premiered at Venice Film Festival last September, there’s been a media and merchandising frenzy over Spring Breakers. That’ll happen if you make a movie about four nubile bikini-clad babes running amok in Tampa Bay, Florida, cast two former Disney princesses in the leads and James Franco as a corn-rowed, gold-grilled gangster, and then have all of them sing along to Britney Spears’ ‘Everytime’ in the sunset wearing hot pink tankinis and unicorn-emblazoned balaclavas while brandishing semi-automatics.
Thanks to said frenzy, you probably know all kinds of things you never though you’d know, about Skrillex, drill music, Gucci Mane and James Franco. But filmmaker Harmony Korine, the writer-director behind this slice of ‘beach noir’, has been less than thoroughly unpacked. You probably saw Kids and Gummo; you probably know the legend of how he was plucked from NYC’s Washington Square as a 19-year-old skater, film student and performance artist by photographer-turned-filmmaker Larry Clark (who went on to direct Korine’s scripts for Kids and Ken Park).
Here are some other things you should know about him and his rather weird and wonderful body of work, to get you through the inevitable water cooler conversations around one of this year’s most talked-about films.
1. His roots
He grew up in Nashville, Tennessee (where he spent some years living in a commune), and has now moved back there with his wife Rachel (aka Cotty in Spring Breakers) and young daughter. His father was a documentary-maker for PBS in the ‘70s, profiling strange characters from the South, and Korine has said that many of the people and experiences from this time in his life are the inspiration for his work.
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2. His breakthrough
He made his film debut in 1995 with the taboo-busting Kids, which he wrote and had a bit part in. A harrowing tale of teen fucking, fighting, skating and unprotected sex during New York’s AIDS epidemic, it starred his then girlfriend Chloë Sevigny, and kickstarted both their careers. Clark also used an early script by Korine for the basis of his controversial 2002 film, Ken Park.
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3. The film you need to know
In 1997, Korine made his directorial debut with Gummo, a series of vignettes set in a Southern neighbourhood featuring redneck teens fighting, boozing, fucking, torturing cats, and primping. It also starred Chloë Sevigny, who, in addition, designed the costumes.
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4. He’s connected
Harmony and his friend and collaborator, illusionist David Blaine, were tight with Leonardo DiCaprio in the ‘90s, and part of his New York ‘Pussy Posse’.
Harmony, Leo and Michael Rapaport, backstage with A Tribe Called Quest. What a party.
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5. He’s mental
He did Fight Club before David Fincher did. In early 1999, Korine embarked on an experimental film project called Fight Harm, where Blaine filmed him spontaneously picking fights in the streets of New York. The rules were simple: he couldn’t throw the first punch, and he could only pick fights with people bigger than himself (oddly, they also required the potential assailant to sign a release form to be included in the film). He eventually abandoned the project, for health/safety reasons. Korine’s mentioned that he may release the footage in the future.
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6. He’s seen everything
Besides his upbringing, Korine had a much publicised, drug-induced breakdown after his 1999 Dogme effort, Julien Donkey Boy. He wound up in Paris, doing so many drugs that his teeth were falling out.
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7. He survived
Korine bounced back into features in 2007 with Mister Lonely, a film about a commune of celebrity look-alikes. It starred Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson impersonator and Samantha Morton as a Marilyn Monroe one, and also featured eccentric German filmmaker Werner Herzog (who had previously appeared in Julien Donkey Boy).
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8. He does other stuff
He wrote lyrics for a Bjork song. Really. And he paints. And he draws.
Untitled (2005).
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9. He’s probably not mellowing out anytime soon
If you think Spring Breakers is dark, you should see his last film, Trash Humpers.
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10. If you ask him to reflect on his body of work, he’ll say this:
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Spring Breakers opens in cinemas nationally on May 9.
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Dee Jefferson has been talking and writing about film for over ten years and for various outlets, including ABC 702 and PowerFM in Adelaide, Inside Film, Filmink, Senses Of Cinema, The Brag and Beat (Melbourne). She is currently the Arts & Culture Editor of Time Out Sydney.