Epicly Later'd (2011–…): Season 1, Episode 8 - Harmony Korine - full transcript
Harmony Korine has spent his life disrupting traditional cinema with his provocative films. What most people don't know is that first and foremost he's a skater.
I got a Cohiba plug.
Cohibas.
**
Albert's like my, -
he's, like, one of
my favorite people in Miami.
He's a-an encyclopedia of, like,
any great crime
that's happened here.
A lot of times,
I just come over to his house
if I'm thinking of a story,
or I-I needed
certain characters,
or, I want to be inspired.
I try to, like,
pick Albert's brain.
The state of Col--
I mean, the state of Florida,
you know, Orlando,
St. Petersburg,
Jacksonville, Tampa,
you know, y-you got --
you know, you got --
you got trailer-park murders
where you have, you know,
you have four or five guys
who get drugged out,
go to somebody's trailer
and m-murder the family.
Yeah.
That happens a lot.
You know, it happens a lot.
You know, who knows when
the end times are near.
Maybe one or two
or three generations.
So, demonic entities
are working overtime
to take as many people
to Hell as they can.
Real deal.
Listen to -- Listen to Albert.
He knows. Yeah.
I mean, the book of Revelations.
Jesus Christ, what happened?
**
A lot of the kind of
love for the films that come now
weren't there
in the very beginning.
They're much more
kind of created
with confrontation and venom.
He has, like, no fear
when it comes to making film.
Like, people who skate, like,
aren't afraid to do shit the hard way.
Like, Harmony has that
in spades.
Harmony went from
skating, he went to film school,
he did "Kids," gets a picture
deal, and now he's making art.
His shit sells for bread.
How much is this one
if I wanted to buy it?
I don't know.
A couple hundred thousand.
If you think it's a lie,
it's the truth.
If you think it's the truth,
it may be a lie.
And that's comedy.
The things that scare me --
I go t-towards those things.
If what I'm seeing is exciting,
then you don't
have to justify it.
I'll snap that motherfucking
neck! Bam! Bam! Bam!
The thing is that
Harmony is a storyteller,
and I don't think
he can ever turn it off.
**
We flew down to Miami
to meet up with Harmony Korine.
He's a little bit different than
the normal people we feature
on this show.
Usually, it's, like,
a pro skater.
But Harmony, as a director
and a storyteller,
I feel like
has such an interesting take
on skateboarding.
And he's got a story
that's surprisingly intertwined
with skating.
I mean, the -- the "Kids" film
was --
was so popular culturally,
and such a cool document of
a certain time in skateboarding.
You know, kind of like
the mid-, early-'90s.
So Harmony lives in Miami now,
and we're kind of interested
in why he's here,
what he likes about Miami.
And kind of just get
to the bottom of who he is,
and hope you enjoy it --
the Harmony Korine episode.
**
Welcome to "Epicly Later'd"
on VICELAND.
This is
the Harmony Korine episode.
That's my dad.
Hello, America!
I-It's interesting to me
to see skateboarders now
because for the most part,
they seem so much more peaceful.
Then, when we were skating,
it was so much about,
like, violence,
probably because of all
the people that fucked with you.
**
I remember those -- those early
Alien Workshop videos,
for me, were like, blew my mind.
I remember, like, w--
I think it was, like,
the Scott Conklin part
in the video where he's, like,
getting in a fight.
That like 1-minute video clip --
it showed
this kind of weird foreboding
and violence
that I kind of
I-identified with.
**
Skateboarding at that point
wasn't really,
in like the late-'80s,
early-'90s in -- in the South,
wasn't something that most
people, like, aspired to do.
It was much more, like,
looked down upon,
and, you know,
we were spit at all the time,
and fights
were like a daily occurrence.
The whole time,
I was just waiting for someone
to jump out of, like, a truck
and rob us
or something like that.
**
At the same time, it was fun.
Like, I have to admit,
like, it was pretty fun.
I went to my first,
like, hardcore show.
I went and saw JFA
at some club in Nashville.
It was so violent in the South.
In that scene, it was, like,
a lot of rednecks.
There was a lot of violence,
a lot of fighting.
So, I was getting, like, beaten
up in the pit or whatever.
There was, like, people with,
like, razor blades in the pit
and just blood everywhere and...
...I loved it.
I wanted to go to San Francisco
because all the street skating
was in San Francisco.
It was just, like,
that was the place.
We took a Greyhound bus
to San Francisco
and we just got our boards,
and I remember,
we just skated to Embarcadero
immediately.
**
James Kelch was probably, like,
the first person I saw.
He was the mayor of Embarcadero
at -- at that point.
Jovontae Turner.
Carroll brothers were there.
We don't look alike.
Rick Ibaseta.
Coco Santiago.
It was like the pages of magazines
had, like, come to life.
**
That trip
was super important to me,
and I was there
for like the whole summer.
It was, like,
the craziest trip ever.
I mean, it was really fucked up.
The very first moment, if you
really want to know the truth,
as soon as I got there,
there was this girl.
Her name was ****
I got there and I remember,
she was getting finger banged
in the -- she was, like, stan--
she was standing
out by the fountain
with her pants down,
and some skater
just was, like, fingering her.
I was like,
"What the fuck is this place?"
It w--
It was so lawless and gnarly.
My God!
A lot of the kids that
were hanging out at the time
would later be
in the movie "Kids."
Lavar was there.
It's all about the money.
I remember, like,
Nick Lockman was there.
He was probably like 11 or 12.
Slow down, Nick.
Back then, like,
nobody's parents really cared.
Like, if you went away,
you would tell your mom,
"I'm going, and I'll, like, see
you at the beginning of school,
in a couple months
or something."
I think we slept on a rooftop
for a couple nights.
And then, just one of, like,
the kids there,
one of them, like,
had a flop house.
I remember
we started staying with him.
I remember, like, ****
going back to the flop house,
and I think she took, like,
everyone's virginity.
**
To be honest with you,
after that trip,
skateboarding got
really technical,
and stairs and handrails
and stuff,
I just knew I wasn't, like,
ever gonna be good enough
to, like, turn pro or, you know,
have a career at skateboarding.
It wasn't that I lost interest,
but I just started to feel like
that it wasn't, like,
my lot in life.
Basically, what happened was,
when I was a junior
in high school,
I started making movies.
I had this one teacher.
I took
a creative-writing course,
and I'd written
like a one-page story.
She actually, like, said, "Hey,
Harmony wrote something interesting."
She said, "What do you want to do when you
grow up?" I said I wanted to make movies.
She got, like, a grant from,
like, the city,
and, like, I made my first film.
Her name was Miss Bradshaw.
She started the whole thing.
My greatest aspirations
were crack addiction
and schizophrenia.
I wanted to experience the
lowest depths of urban culture.
I wanted to sing Barry Manilow
songs to the police
as they walked the beat
and have them say,
"Just another youth gone bad.
Just some angry punk.
He'll be dead in a year."
I just wanted
to make sense of disaster.
And I remember watching it,
and I was like --
I just remember that was like
a super pivotal moment,
'cause I was like, th-the
footage looked legitimate.
It looked like my version
of like a Casavetis film
or something.
Or, like -- and it wasn't even
that it was, like,
the best or this or that.
It was just something, like,
you just see...
there's your in.
**
I made okay grades,
and I made little, interesting
movies in high school,
and then I got
a scholarship to NYU.
I had spent so much time
in New York.
My parents are from New York,
my grandma lived in New York.
And having skated in New York
and that whole, like,
the East Coast,
like all those kids,
a lot of them were my friends.
I-I really just wanted
to go to NYU.
That's when I moved to
my grandma's house in New York,
in like 1993.
Like, the whole city was like
a playground at that point.
**
Everyone skated the
Brooklyn Banks, Union Square.
But, really, the main genesis
was Washington Square Park.
That's where pretty much
everyone just would hang out.
So, it'd be, like,
the Lo Lifes in one section
and then, like, the skater kids,
and then, like,
hippies or whatever.
It was very, like, segregated.
Most of the skaters
were real weirdos,
and it was like a-a mark
of, like, a real alternative.
**
My shit is mad fucked up.
Steven Cales at that point
was like the most pure
street skater ever.
He was, like, the first kind of
super proto
gangster skateboarder.
And I remember
he used to come and go.
Come and go, like come visit.
We liked him.
I don't know, for some reason,
we liked him.
And plus, he was cool to Harold.
Harold Hunter was the first guy
that everybody met in New York.
Of course he wasn't,
but he's the first guy
you remember meeting,
'cause he's Harold Hunter.
Harold was like
the mayor of downtown.
When I first started
coming to New York
when I was like 12,
13 years old,
he was one of the first people
I met.
He would crack everyone up.
He's kind of like
an American original.
And I was kind of, like,
you know, kind of sizing him up.
Not like I'm gonna attack him,
but it's just
some New York shit.
But since Harold
brought him around, okay, cool.
I think what Harmony captured
and what -- what Larry --
'Cause we got to remember,
we can't just be
Harmony, Harmony, Harmony.
I know this is Harmony's piece,
but Larry's the elder.
Larry's been on this whole
trying to hook up with kids
and shoot them.
He's been doing this
before he even met us.
Just to answer your question,
just adding that on.
**
I first met Larry Clark
going to
a documentary photography class.
I was, 17.
And I wasn't even a professional
photographer at that point.
I just photographed,
my friends skateboarding.
I started sending him prints
and he would give a call back,
and just say, "Shoot more."
And he came out to San Francisco
wanting me
to show him skateboarding.
Visually, being visualized,
most exciting kids
were the skateboarders.
So I started hanging out
with the skateboarders
in the late '80s.
I was in San Francisco,
I was in California,
and then I was back in New York.
And then, one day,
I was sitting
in Washington Square Park
with my skateboard,
and I had -- had my Leica.
And this kid came up
and sat down next to me
and said his name
was Harmony Korine.
And he said, something about
the Leica and Robert Frank,
and I said,
"What 18-year-old kid
knows about Leicas
and Robert Frank?"
So, I -- we got
in a conversation with him.
I knew that
I wanted to make movies young.
I didn't want to wait. I w--
I felt like I was, like, you
know, kind of like e-exploding.
Well, I wanted to make
a movie about adolescence.
I wanted to make a film that
had never been made before.
I-I need someone
to write the film that's a kid.
It needs to be written
from the inside.
Because my first book, "Tulsa,"
I was a kid when I did it.
So I called Harmony and asked
him to write me a screenplay.
I remember going over
to Larry's house at that point.
I think Gus Van Sant
was over there.
That's when I kind of knew
it was legit.
Ready? Go.
Ready, and action.
I'm telling you, the whole movie
doesn't make sense how it happened.
It was that last gasp
of crazy, weird New York moment
where people let us make a film
that you'd never be able to make
right now.
Could you say it one more time?
What's your dad's name?
Harmony Korine.
What job does he have?
He's a director.
Have you ever seen
any of his movies?
N-No.
Not a single movie?
No. They-They're too
inappropriate.
Yo, how was that shit, yo?
My God.
So good, dude.
That girl can fuck.
Word.
She can fuck, yo?
Hells, yeah, halfway through,
I'm thinking like,
"This girl's no virgin.
No virgin
can fuck like this."
You sure she's a virgin?
How'd she smell?
Did her puss stink?
Take a whiff.
Butterscotch, yo.
It's the best.
**
When people ask me about "Kids,"
it is this really weird,
unique --
I can't even explain
how it happened.
Nobody had ever done anything.
Everyone was amateurs.
Nobody had ever acted.
I had never -- Or I had never
written a real script.
You know, Larry --
he had never directed.
It -- It was just --
just weird synthesis.
The actual story of "Kids"
was over a four-
or five-year period
of me hanging out
with these kids
and getting stories and
seeing things that happened.
He wanted to make a movie
about a character
that took virginities.
And somewhere, there had to be
AIDS in the plot.
Jennie, you've tested positive
for the HIV virus.
But I only had sex with Telly.
I remember going to, like,
the 20-year anniversary,
watching it and being
totally shocked by the film,
having an adult reaction to it
and be like,
I know what happens
and I'm still like
gasping and in awe.
Quim Cardona
was supposed to be Telly
in the movie,
but his mom
wouldn't let him do it.
Somehow -- I don't know how --
they ended up on me.
Larry later on told me
they said,
"Why would you cast this kid?
He's ugly."
And Larry goes,
"Well, a good-looking guy
wouldn't have to chase pussy."
Yo, but that's it.
You know, you got to, like,
take it slow, you know,
and you got to be smooth.
Girls like it slow and romantic.
Justin Pierce
was always gonna be Casper.
That role was written for him.
Harold's role
was written for Harold.
Steven's role
was written for Steven,
but Steven had gotten locked up.
I was supposed to be
in the movie, right,
but I was going to go get
this script.
I ended up stopping
at the store,
because I was into
r-- stealing shit.
Like, you know,
even though I was getting paid
from skateboarding,
I still was like one side
of my head in the streets
and one side of my head
in skateboarding.
The security guy was standing
in front of the door,
and I pull out the meat cleaver.
Back in those days,
they killed a kid over Jordans,
so I would carry a knife on me.
I don't know how he had a gun,
but he pulled out a .22.
And I was like, "Shit."
And the cops came,
I got arrested and... whatever.
Anyway, I ended up getting,
24 months.
So, Jon Abrahams -- Jonny Boy --
he did good, though.
**
We both had this idea
of making a film
that felt more like
it was eavesdropping
or more like it was like
stolen moments or something,
and using all real --
all the real kids from the park.
There's so many people think --
think it's improv, you know,
but it's not improv.
This is Harmony's
word for word line.
Say you was to die tomorrow, right?
Yeah.
50 years from now,
all the virgins you ever fucked,
they're gonna remember you,
right?
Yeah, yeah.
That's right.
They're gonna tell
their grandkids about that shit.
"That Telly,
he sure was good in the sack."
The only improv is the four boys
sitting on the couch
smoking weed.
Yo, where'd you get that shit?
My brother.
**
Yeah, we was smoking weed.
We was smoking weed before
they told us to smoke weed.
That's why they were like,
"Just smoke weed." You know?
It just never felt
like we were making a movie.
It was basically
an exaggerated version
of what we were already doing.
You know, the fight
in Washington Square Park
was based on a fight that
happened at the Brooklyn Banks.
What the fuck
you guys doing, man?!
He's a fucking human being!
Who gives a shit?!
Hey, stop it!
You don't fucking tear people and shit.
Yo, bro.
Put your shirt on your shit.
At that point,
mostly kids, everybody,
we all just wanted
to mostly just disappear.
This was, like, pre-Internet
and before everyone's life
was always on display.
It was more of a thing of, like,
living a life
that was away from your parents
and away from convention.
And most everyone
had broken homes and stuff.
So, it was a -- the movie was
mostly trying to show that --
that world and that
kind of like oblivion seekers.
**
Pbht!
That weed is mad good, yo.
It was pretty raw.
It seemed like a documentary.
You know, it had that feel.
It was like NC-17,
it was a controversy.
It just made all the kids
want to see it even more
'cause they weren't allowed.
The people you saw
in the film was a tight group.
So you got this tight group
who were with each other
all the time.
Now they're on camera.
I-It was natural.
Harold's performance and Justin's
performance, even though it isn't them,
they are the most real thing
in the movie.
They're just being that...
Damn, Kim,
your body looks fucking dope.
You think so?
Hells, yeah.
I'm serious, yo.
It's funny, you don't really
know how dope a girl's body is
until she takes
all her clothes off.
Truth or dare, you guys.
Kiss each other.
Sure.
I do that all the time.
Holy...
You guys are dykes, right?
Shit!
Justin was always sort of
more important than I was,
'cause I would follow orders
and I would be there on time.
And Justin was sort of hard
to wrangle in.
But that made him exciting.
Casper.
Casper, where's --
What are you doing here?
Long time, no see.
He was definitely wild,
with like the drink
and the drugs.
Super sweet kid,
but yeah, I-I was scared of him.
Not because he was scary,
just 'cause...
he was so real.
**
People loved him.
He was extremely magnetic,
super wild, tough as fuck,
but, you know, he had demons
and he was the real thing.
You know,
I always thought of him
as like the -- the James Dean
of the streets.
Yo, what's she looking worried
about that nigga for?
Hey, hit this, yo.
Hey.
It somehow --
the movie resonated with people
in this specific generation.
When it came out in '95,
I was 13 years old.
And, you know,
we'd be at Astor Place
and all these people
come up to me and be like,
"That's the kid from the movie.
You saved my life.
Man, that movie was crazy, man.
You know,
I went to get an AIDS test."
I-I was like, "All right."
* What the fuck?
What?!
* No fuckin' run now
* I skateboard every single day,
from here to L.A. *
I mean,
if Howard was still alive,
he would tell you,
"Yo, you ever saw 'Kids'?
I was in that."
That's what he used to say
back then,
and he would get all the girls
saying it.
He was funny.
**
People lived hard.
The reason those lives
are so fantastic
is because they were also
just so... unhinged.
When they -- When they died,
it was pretty horrible.
Some of those guys were living
pretty hard, pretty fast,
and some of the guys
didn't make it.
There's no reason why Harmony
couldn't be on that list.
Or Larry or myself.
I think that in that movie,
you have that
"I don't give a fuck" attitude,
which a lot of us had already
before the movie
and still had after the movie.
You know, some people just --
you can't tell them anything.
Some people just have to learn
on their own.
It's sad, you know,
the two people that put me
in the movie aren't here,
but I feel like that attitude --
it was in them already.
It captured that emotion...
that people can't articulate
in words,
but it's a feeling
that's universal.
That's why everybody was like,
"Holy shit! Yo! Yo!
My crew --
yo, we're like that, too."
Yeah, everyone's like that.
That's -- That's just universal.
That's what you saw.
That's what they captured.
It's, like,
the best film about skating
that's not about skating,
because all the skate movies
are so bad.
Like, when it's about --
when it's --
when they're trying to be
about skating.
The genius way to do it
is just to, like,
create a regular human story
that is set
in a world of skating.
I mean,
it changed Larry Clark's career.
It launched --
It launched Harmony's career.
I was seeing films
in a different way.
I was wanting to make movies
with images coming from
all different directions.
It's called
a euphoric blockbuster,
and it's supposed to
make Special K look weak.
Just take it.
No. I don't --
You look sad.
So come here.
Just -- Just take it.
Just swallow. I promise.
"Kids" was never a movie
I would've made on my own.
It wasn't a film -- a story --
that I was dying to tell.
If I hadn't been asked
to write that movie,
I wouldn't have written it.
Well,
that's the thing that's so funny
is that people think of "Kids"
as a Harmony Korine film,
but Harmony didn't direct it.
Harmony wrote the script and
the story is totally Harmony,
but it's not
a Harmony Korine movie.
Like, "Gummo" was really, like,
the first kind of chance for him
to, like, really flex
that muscle and be like,
"Okay, this is what I --
what I make."
"Gummo" was more like
kids I had grown up with,
and had to do more
with like Southern culture,
middle America, glue sniffers,
and just, like, the weirdness
of, like, small towns
and types of kids I used to
go to school with.
Is there enough light?
You guys want to do it here?
Just stand
in this light right here.
So -- So these guys,
I've known since I was --
we were all little kids,
like, together...
11, 12 years old.
Yeah.
...skateboarding, so...
And h-he was the -- out of
all of us, he was the cra--
This guy,
now you could never tell,
but he was far and away
the craziest.
He's the guy
from "Gummo."
In the sequence
with him and his brother,
the skinhead brothers that
beat the shit out of each other,
that's him.
Were you really a skinhead?
No. No,
he's like the furthest thing.
I was just, like, a, you know,
a street kid, I guess.
I didn't want to make a film
that w--
had a kind of linear logic.
I didn't care about
making things that made sense.
I wanted
to make perfect nonsense.
The main character I saw
on an episode
of "Sally Jessy Raphael,"
called "My Child Died
from Sniffing Paint."
And he was
a paint-sniffing survivor.
And that's who starred
in the movie.
Yeah, that's the craziest thing
is they gave it to Bob Shaye.
He's like,
"I didn't make it past page 8."
That's what he said to me.
He was like, "But I'll give you
enough money to make this film,
as long as you tell me
it's not artwork."
And I was like,
"Of course not. I hate art."
The producers didn't have
a fucking clue in the world
what -- about "Gummo."
They said,
"What is this?" You know?
I loved that fucking film, man.
Just the kid.
The fucking kid eating
his spaghetti in the bathtub.
**
I did that shit.
I did shit like that.
It's set in Xenia, Ohio,
because that's where
Alien Workshop was based.
At the end of "Memory Screen"
is a reference to Xenia.
Harmony's favorite movie
was "Memory Screen,"
so that was like Harmony's,
like, saying thank you
or at least, like, homage
to -- to "Memory Screen."
This is the Alien Workshop.
**
I love the blind videos,
and, you know, you grew up
with all the PAL videos.
But definitely, by far,
the Alien Workshop videos,
like "Memory Screen,"
it kind of felt like the id.
It's -- It was like scratching
something kind of crazy.
**
It was, like,
one of the most crazy
artistic skate videos ever made.
So much of the --
the camera work and the sty--
the editing style in "Gummo"
really came from
"Memory Screen."
I mean, he made it into
something much bigger than that,
but, you know,
it was that aesthetic.
The ambience with the vibe,
like the use of music,
they tapped into the feeling
of what it was like to be not --
not just a skateboarder, but be,
like, living in middle America.
All the kids in Nashville
loved it
because it felt like
it was made for us.
**
Do you think "Gummo"
pretty well represented
Nashville?
No.
I think, m-my take on "Gummo"
is it was more representative
of just, like,
you know,
what people don't want to see.
You know, it's like everything
that people, um, want to ignore
that's out there --
that's really out there.
Let's show you how things are
in some people's lives.
Yeah, of course.
The whole movie was like that.
We were shooting in some house,
and the house
was just a house of packrats.
And we found a jawb-- someone's
jawbone on a chandelier.
Producer pulls me aside
and says, "The crew just left."
I was like, "What do you mean
the crew left?" You know?
He's like,
"The crew left. They don't b--
They're not putting themselves
in harm's way."
And I remember
my cinematographer,
he looked at me, and he goes,
"Fuck them all.
I just need me, you,
the lightbulb, and the actor."
I was like...
"All right, let's do this."
People who skate, like,
aren't afraid to do shit
the hard way.
Like,
Harmony has that in spades.
Like, it's not like,
"What's the easiest?"
You know? It's like,
"What's the gnarliest?"
* Make it, make it,
don't take it *
* Make it, make it,
don't break it *
Shit, y'all. I'm out of here.
Fuck you.
It's too hot for this shit.
It's too hot for TV.
**
**
I didn't know
you painted like this.
Yeah, this is --
This -- This is...
Yeah, it's all from,
l-living here
for the last year or two.
I-I was kind of like, we started
out making what I was calling,
like, a kind of beach noir-ish,...
Beach what?
Noir?
I was calling it like B--
These kind of like violent,...
They -- They felt like
they were kind of coincided
with the films a little bit.
But they're kind of like
viol-- like, kind of like weird,
violent, surf, beachy,
semi-narrative paintings.
Um, they're all watercolor.
It's funny because people
say, "In the last few years,
Harmony's, like,
kind of exploded as an artist."
But, like,
he's never stopped making work.
He's an artist overall,
and so, if he wants to write
a book, he could do it.
If he wants to make a movie,
a music video, whatever.
And he's pretty talented
at everything he does.
Even though he's, you know,
known more as like a film director now,
he's worked pretty consistently
as a visual artist,
like, all the way through.
You know, he did, like,
the collaboration
with Christopher Wool,
"Pass the Bitch Chicken,"
and he did amazing collaboration
with Rita Ackermann
at the Swiss Institute
in New York.
As I know him,
he's always been, like,
kind of an artist first,
in a weird way.
Yeah, so Alleged
was this little gallery
that Aaron, I think,
lived out of,
and he just started
doing shows there.
I was hanging around
the skating and music worlds,
and the artists
that were showing --
they were, like, all my friends
from those worlds.
And so, it was a natural place
for anybody who was interested
in skateboarding and art
to hang out.
The first time I met Harmony,
he came by the gallery
one night,
way before "Kids" or whatever.
We started talking, and he's
like, "I want to do a show here."
I was like,
"What do you want to do?"
And he's like, "I want to put a
cage in the middle of the space,
and I want
to put a midget in it,
and I want to have a neon sign
over it that just says --
that just says,
'Spit on the midget.'"
That was his show.
**
I wanted it all
to be entertaining.
With my life,
the things I was creating,
the films and the artwork
and everything, writings,
I didn't want to differentiate
between th-that
and -- and my real life.
And so,
it got really murky and things,
and it was a lot of fun,
and then it became crazy, too.
**
At that period of time,
he was really just about
shocking the hell out of you.
There's the sort of legendary
"Fight Harm" series.
There's never been
any sort of corroboration
that he ever actually shot
any of that stuff.
I don't know if --
I've never seen footage,
and I've seen, like,
a lot of stuff from Harmony.
I've never seen
any "Fight Harm" footage.
I was such a huge fan
of Buster Keaton and Chaplin
and, like, physical comedians,
people that would, like,
fall on their ass
and it would just be hilarious.
So I wanted
to make a film release,
what I thought was kind of like
the world's greatest comedy.
"Fight Harm" was basically
he would go out, supposedly,
on the streets
and provoke fights with dudes
and get them to beat him up.
And David Blaine
was filming him do it.
The magician.
I want to talk about your
friendship with Harmony Korine,
'cause, you know, you guys have
been friends since you were kids.
What I love about him
is his -- his ability
to chase his art
in a way that most people won't
and take risks.
Everything that he does
is a complete risk,
and it's so far ahead
of its time.
I was wanting to fight,
like, some--
one person in every demographic.
So you'd fight, like,
a Greek guy one day.
You'd fight, like, some --
a huge lesbian the next day.
I thought --
I felt like sequences
of me getting beaten up
would just be hilarious.
He's running around
provoking people,
like security guards
and -- and bouncers
and just getting them
to beat him up.
And often, I had to jump in,
because I'm like,
"This is too crazy."
**
So where's the footage?
So I have the eight fights
in a safe.
So can we put them in the thing?
I feel like
it's like a skate part.
Yeah. Like,
I'm gonna grind this rail.
I'm gonna fight this dude.
I have to say,
you know, it's a weird thing,
because people have been wanting
to see it for a long time,
and I don't know if, like,
it's hard for me to, like --
Not that I look at it,
but even the concept,
it's, like, hard for me
to, like, go back and see that.
And then I'm almost like
the idea of it
maybe is better
than the actual footage.
You know what I'm saying?
Like...
Yeah.
* Hump it, hump it, hump it
* Get it
* Get that trash pussy
"Trash Humpers"
seems like a skate video.
Yeah. That's kind of --
Yeah, that's kind of right.
It's kind of...
In Nashville, growing up, we --
I used to live by this --
it was like
an old person's home.
For $19 a month, you could house
an old person in this per--
guy's h-house next to me.
And so, I would see old dudes
humping trash cans.
I was always freaked out by it.
It was like a real horror to me.
So, it was one of those images,
looking out your window,
seeing an old guy just
fucking banging a trash can,
it, like, singes itself
in your psyche.
Rachel, his wife, was one of the
old people fucking garbage cans,
which is even more hilarious
that she was, like, doing that,
dressed up like an old lady.
Even calling it a movie
is almost strange.
It was meant to be something
you would find, like,
stuck up the guts of a horse
or something
or buried in
the trash somewhere, you know?
I originally wanted
to distribute the movie
by just sending it out
to police stations.
Damn. Y'all killed this dude.
Y'all kilted this shit.
This dude danced his last dance,
for God's sake.
Shit. Damn!
That's like career sabotage
to do that as a director
after, like,
having a run of, like,
critically acclaimed films.
But, yeah.
I mean, it goes back to skating.
"Trash Humpers"
is a skate video...
without skating, you know, just
all the weird shit in between.
It's an anti-hero video.
I never really thought of things
as being perfect or imperfect.
I -- They just exist,
and they're perfect in the fact
that they just exist.
In the end, it's like, is it --
it's either interesting
or not interesting.
This is this one --
This one girl.
I think she --
I think she's an actual person.
She had her legs -- her legs
were run over or something.
I had been coming here
for a couple years
to write scripts,
and I was always kind of,
like, intrigued by --
by the culture here.
And I just love the way
that things look,
and there's also, like,
menace and beauty.
It's kind of, like, palpable.
It's all smacked up
against each other.
You know, you hear about actors
doing sort of like
method acting.
Do you have to do...?
Method writing.
...method writing?
For me, 100%. Yeah.
I-I've never understood when
people could just, like, li--
write in their living room
or something.
You know,
'cause it's so comfortable.
Like, how could you write
violence in the same place,
like, you tuck your daughter in?
**
Have you ever been
on a set with your dad
while he was filming?
Yes.
Did you meet Selena Gomez?
She knows Justin Bieber.
I know.
I've met Justin Bieber, too.
You did?
What's he like?
He's...
He's kind of mean.
**
So, the movies between "Gummo"
and -- and "Spring Breakers"
would be, um...
"Julien Donkey-Boy,"
"Mister Lonely,"
"Trash Humpers,"
and "Spring Breakers."
That's what I love about him
is that he's not stuck on genre.
He's definitely like --
that's one thing
that's really interesting
about him as a director.
He definitely has a vision.
A Harmony movie
is a Harmony movie,
just because of the writing
and the way he directs.
But, like, he's all over
the place in terms of genre.
Like, "Spring Breakers"
was conceived to be
with famous social-media girls.
Like,
they're all like Disney stars.
Selena, I want you to
talk about this transition
that you've been doing
from being a former Disney star
to a more adult role
in this film.
Well, whenever my series ended,
I was -- I was really excited
to start doing
a couple of movies,
and I thought that doing,
um, the independent route
would probably be best for me.
And whenever
Harmony mentioned my name
and -- and I read the script,
I think if there's anybody
that I'm gonna take this risk on
and doing the transition,
it would be Harmony.
Yeah, all right.
We have a question down here.
With that movie,
I wanted to work with
these girls specifically.
That was part of the concept.
And so, we went to Selena.
Real quickly, we got back,
"Yeah,
she wants to audition for you.
She wants to --
She'll fly down to Nashville."
I was like, "Whoa, really?"
At that point, she was probably
like 18 or something.
I was like -- I couldn't imagine
her even knowing the movies.
But what happened was,
her mom is kind of like m-my age
and my generation,
and in growing up with the films
that I had made,
I guess, or had liked them.
She grew up in Texas
and so, she I guess
told Selena about it.
And her mom was like
going gaggle over the fact
that she was in the same room
with Harmony,
'cause her favorite movie
is "Gummo."
And that's why Selena did it.
Well, just, like, such a Harmony
story, you know what I mean?
Like, Selena Gomez's mom
favorite movie is "Gummo."
**
Is that a painting of a boat?
Yeah, so these are all --
I call them ad-adult yachting
or adult boating.
You know, here in Miami, you see
all these douchebags with boats,
and it's kind of awesome.
And, so then --
and I always, like,
liked the titles of boats.
And so,
I just started painting boats.
And then,
coming up with funny titles,
a lot of the titles are, like,
just weird porn titles.
So we have Anus and Andy,
Missionary Impossible,
Star Whores.
And I like to imagine that,
like, all these boats
and boat owners are, like,
hanging out together somewhere,
in -- in the Keys probably,
gang-banging.
**
It seems like you roll
between, like, extremely poor
and then extremely wealthy.
Is that something
you like to play with?
I mean, I-I guess,
and not even, like, necessarily
like a conscious thing.
It's more, with people
or things, it's more...
I-I never really differentiated.
It's more just, I like things
that are just -- that pop out,
that are just interesting and --
or character.
So, if somebody --
like Albert
is just such a crazy character.
You know,
you just want to, like,
be around them all the time.
It's the same thing with things.
High culture, low culture --
it's really --
it means nothing anymore.
Culture's up for grabs.
I just kind of, like,
go wherever I'm pulled.
**
Albert's car is like an artwork.
Yeah, my -- this gets me, -
What is that? Is that seeds in
the back seat? Those are seeds.
You know, for tea.
Th-There were
some bugs in there,
so I put it there to dry out.
You're gonna drink that shit?
No.
It's dried out, bro.
You know, I got my
bachelor's in criminal justice,
so these detectives
would come to class,
shared gruesome stories.
People were chopped up,
put in septic tanks.
Extorted money,
real estate, bank accounts,
drug-induced them
with horse tranquilizer
and then take them out
in a boat, out to the sharks.
I mean, literally,
they -- they'll throw
a lot of blood and bait
out there and then --
and then when the sharks
start circling,
they'll dump the bodies.
Yeah.
Tor-Torturous.
Torturous.
I mean, do we go back
to skateboarding or...?
**
Dude, Albert is unbelievable.
He's, like, such a character --
Weirdly, like magical,
strange, fascinating,
and entertaining guy.
I think the first time
I saw him,
he was passed out
in his car, right?
Though, wasn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
I tried to wake you up,
but you were passed out
in the car.
I mean,
I had surfed all day long.
Who knows?
Maybe, too many Mickeys.
I don't know, bro.
Too -- I don't know.
I caught him --
caught him a couple times.
And he's probably, would you
say, the first skateboarder --
one or two skateboarders
in Miami?
South Florida, yes.
You know, when I was
a little boy in New York,
I remember grabbing a milk box
and putting four metal wheels
on it from a roller skate,
and with -- with --
with handle bars
and just pushing
up and down the block.
I was like 7, 8, 9 years old.
That was the -- I mean,
I got -- I got hooked.
He can, like, clean a dog's
teeth with his fingernails.
You know, the way
you would pay for a dentist
to get the plaque
off a dog's teeth?
He can do it with
his fingernail, the exact --
No, but I know --
I also have a special,
tool from some dentist.
Yeah, whatever, but you --
a-admit, you're -- I mean --
You know, a-a dog
will not tell you
that his teeth hurt or his canine hurt.
**
What did you think
about Harmony when he moved in?
Harmony's a great guy,
he's a great neighbor,
he's been a blessing,
and, and then --
and then, when I -- when -- when
I heard he was a skateboarder,
I-I felt
there was a resonance there.
I always think of skateboarding
as one of those things that --
it kind of changes the way
that you think about the world.
All of a sudden,
you're driving down the street
and everything is a ditch,
everything is a curb.
That's why I think I-I've shot
so many movies in back alleys
and parking lots
or sidewalks with little curbs
and manual spots.
I just always love that.
And also, you start
looking at things different.
You start, like, trying
to find places that are hidden.
You want to go...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**
He's still that kid
who walked into my gallery
and said,
"Let's put a midget in a cage."
His mind still thinks that way.
He's still, like,
a provocateur in that way.
That's just the way
he'll always gonna be.
**
I always felt like
with the artwork,
ever since I was young,
there was no hierarchy.
That it was all just
part of a unified aesthetic.
It all came from the same place.
The scraps of paper
and the zines and the writings
were the same thing
as the paintings, as the movies.
Why castigate these creatures
whose angelic features
are bumping and grinding
on the trash?
Bing, bang, booty.
It all came from the same place.
It spoke to the same ideas.
And -- And I liked
that there was never
any real di-division
to anything.
It's tricky for anybody so young
to be given this kind of freedom
to do
whatever the fuck they want.
He is the success story
and really took a very strange
path to get to where he's at.
I feel like I just go
to where the action is,
and... I... I'm sick like that.
**
Yo, Harm!
That's my -- That's the guy
I get the Cuban stogies from.
Hector.
Really?
Yeah.
**
No, Dad.
That's my board.
No! Aah! Aah!
**
Geez.
That wasn't nice.
Damn, y'all kilted this shit.
Hot for this shit.
It's too hot for TV.
Cohibas.
**
Albert's like my, -
he's, like, one of
my favorite people in Miami.
He's a-an encyclopedia of, like,
any great crime
that's happened here.
A lot of times,
I just come over to his house
if I'm thinking of a story,
or I-I needed
certain characters,
or, I want to be inspired.
I try to, like,
pick Albert's brain.
The state of Col--
I mean, the state of Florida,
you know, Orlando,
St. Petersburg,
Jacksonville, Tampa,
you know, y-you got --
you know, you got --
you got trailer-park murders
where you have, you know,
you have four or five guys
who get drugged out,
go to somebody's trailer
and m-murder the family.
Yeah.
That happens a lot.
You know, it happens a lot.
You know, who knows when
the end times are near.
Maybe one or two
or three generations.
So, demonic entities
are working overtime
to take as many people
to Hell as they can.
Real deal.
Listen to -- Listen to Albert.
He knows. Yeah.
I mean, the book of Revelations.
Jesus Christ, what happened?
**
A lot of the kind of
love for the films that come now
weren't there
in the very beginning.
They're much more
kind of created
with confrontation and venom.
He has, like, no fear
when it comes to making film.
Like, people who skate, like,
aren't afraid to do shit the hard way.
Like, Harmony has that
in spades.
Harmony went from
skating, he went to film school,
he did "Kids," gets a picture
deal, and now he's making art.
His shit sells for bread.
How much is this one
if I wanted to buy it?
I don't know.
A couple hundred thousand.
If you think it's a lie,
it's the truth.
If you think it's the truth,
it may be a lie.
And that's comedy.
The things that scare me --
I go t-towards those things.
If what I'm seeing is exciting,
then you don't
have to justify it.
I'll snap that motherfucking
neck! Bam! Bam! Bam!
The thing is that
Harmony is a storyteller,
and I don't think
he can ever turn it off.
**
We flew down to Miami
to meet up with Harmony Korine.
He's a little bit different than
the normal people we feature
on this show.
Usually, it's, like,
a pro skater.
But Harmony, as a director
and a storyteller,
I feel like
has such an interesting take
on skateboarding.
And he's got a story
that's surprisingly intertwined
with skating.
I mean, the -- the "Kids" film
was --
was so popular culturally,
and such a cool document of
a certain time in skateboarding.
You know, kind of like
the mid-, early-'90s.
So Harmony lives in Miami now,
and we're kind of interested
in why he's here,
what he likes about Miami.
And kind of just get
to the bottom of who he is,
and hope you enjoy it --
the Harmony Korine episode.
**
Welcome to "Epicly Later'd"
on VICELAND.
This is
the Harmony Korine episode.
That's my dad.
Hello, America!
I-It's interesting to me
to see skateboarders now
because for the most part,
they seem so much more peaceful.
Then, when we were skating,
it was so much about,
like, violence,
probably because of all
the people that fucked with you.
**
I remember those -- those early
Alien Workshop videos,
for me, were like, blew my mind.
I remember, like, w--
I think it was, like,
the Scott Conklin part
in the video where he's, like,
getting in a fight.
That like 1-minute video clip --
it showed
this kind of weird foreboding
and violence
that I kind of
I-identified with.
**
Skateboarding at that point
wasn't really,
in like the late-'80s,
early-'90s in -- in the South,
wasn't something that most
people, like, aspired to do.
It was much more, like,
looked down upon,
and, you know,
we were spit at all the time,
and fights
were like a daily occurrence.
The whole time,
I was just waiting for someone
to jump out of, like, a truck
and rob us
or something like that.
**
At the same time, it was fun.
Like, I have to admit,
like, it was pretty fun.
I went to my first,
like, hardcore show.
I went and saw JFA
at some club in Nashville.
It was so violent in the South.
In that scene, it was, like,
a lot of rednecks.
There was a lot of violence,
a lot of fighting.
So, I was getting, like, beaten
up in the pit or whatever.
There was, like, people with,
like, razor blades in the pit
and just blood everywhere and...
...I loved it.
I wanted to go to San Francisco
because all the street skating
was in San Francisco.
It was just, like,
that was the place.
We took a Greyhound bus
to San Francisco
and we just got our boards,
and I remember,
we just skated to Embarcadero
immediately.
**
James Kelch was probably, like,
the first person I saw.
He was the mayor of Embarcadero
at -- at that point.
Jovontae Turner.
Carroll brothers were there.
We don't look alike.
Rick Ibaseta.
Coco Santiago.
It was like the pages of magazines
had, like, come to life.
**
That trip
was super important to me,
and I was there
for like the whole summer.
It was, like,
the craziest trip ever.
I mean, it was really fucked up.
The very first moment, if you
really want to know the truth,
as soon as I got there,
there was this girl.
Her name was ****
I got there and I remember,
she was getting finger banged
in the -- she was, like, stan--
she was standing
out by the fountain
with her pants down,
and some skater
just was, like, fingering her.
I was like,
"What the fuck is this place?"
It w--
It was so lawless and gnarly.
My God!
A lot of the kids that
were hanging out at the time
would later be
in the movie "Kids."
Lavar was there.
It's all about the money.
I remember, like,
Nick Lockman was there.
He was probably like 11 or 12.
Slow down, Nick.
Back then, like,
nobody's parents really cared.
Like, if you went away,
you would tell your mom,
"I'm going, and I'll, like, see
you at the beginning of school,
in a couple months
or something."
I think we slept on a rooftop
for a couple nights.
And then, just one of, like,
the kids there,
one of them, like,
had a flop house.
I remember
we started staying with him.
I remember, like, ****
going back to the flop house,
and I think she took, like,
everyone's virginity.
**
To be honest with you,
after that trip,
skateboarding got
really technical,
and stairs and handrails
and stuff,
I just knew I wasn't, like,
ever gonna be good enough
to, like, turn pro or, you know,
have a career at skateboarding.
It wasn't that I lost interest,
but I just started to feel like
that it wasn't, like,
my lot in life.
Basically, what happened was,
when I was a junior
in high school,
I started making movies.
I had this one teacher.
I took
a creative-writing course,
and I'd written
like a one-page story.
She actually, like, said, "Hey,
Harmony wrote something interesting."
She said, "What do you want to do when you
grow up?" I said I wanted to make movies.
She got, like, a grant from,
like, the city,
and, like, I made my first film.
Her name was Miss Bradshaw.
She started the whole thing.
My greatest aspirations
were crack addiction
and schizophrenia.
I wanted to experience the
lowest depths of urban culture.
I wanted to sing Barry Manilow
songs to the police
as they walked the beat
and have them say,
"Just another youth gone bad.
Just some angry punk.
He'll be dead in a year."
I just wanted
to make sense of disaster.
And I remember watching it,
and I was like --
I just remember that was like
a super pivotal moment,
'cause I was like, th-the
footage looked legitimate.
It looked like my version
of like a Casavetis film
or something.
Or, like -- and it wasn't even
that it was, like,
the best or this or that.
It was just something, like,
you just see...
there's your in.
**
I made okay grades,
and I made little, interesting
movies in high school,
and then I got
a scholarship to NYU.
I had spent so much time
in New York.
My parents are from New York,
my grandma lived in New York.
And having skated in New York
and that whole, like,
the East Coast,
like all those kids,
a lot of them were my friends.
I-I really just wanted
to go to NYU.
That's when I moved to
my grandma's house in New York,
in like 1993.
Like, the whole city was like
a playground at that point.
**
Everyone skated the
Brooklyn Banks, Union Square.
But, really, the main genesis
was Washington Square Park.
That's where pretty much
everyone just would hang out.
So, it'd be, like,
the Lo Lifes in one section
and then, like, the skater kids,
and then, like,
hippies or whatever.
It was very, like, segregated.
Most of the skaters
were real weirdos,
and it was like a-a mark
of, like, a real alternative.
**
My shit is mad fucked up.
Steven Cales at that point
was like the most pure
street skater ever.
He was, like, the first kind of
super proto
gangster skateboarder.
And I remember
he used to come and go.
Come and go, like come visit.
We liked him.
I don't know, for some reason,
we liked him.
And plus, he was cool to Harold.
Harold Hunter was the first guy
that everybody met in New York.
Of course he wasn't,
but he's the first guy
you remember meeting,
'cause he's Harold Hunter.
Harold was like
the mayor of downtown.
When I first started
coming to New York
when I was like 12,
13 years old,
he was one of the first people
I met.
He would crack everyone up.
He's kind of like
an American original.
And I was kind of, like,
you know, kind of sizing him up.
Not like I'm gonna attack him,
but it's just
some New York shit.
But since Harold
brought him around, okay, cool.
I think what Harmony captured
and what -- what Larry --
'Cause we got to remember,
we can't just be
Harmony, Harmony, Harmony.
I know this is Harmony's piece,
but Larry's the elder.
Larry's been on this whole
trying to hook up with kids
and shoot them.
He's been doing this
before he even met us.
Just to answer your question,
just adding that on.
**
I first met Larry Clark
going to
a documentary photography class.
I was, 17.
And I wasn't even a professional
photographer at that point.
I just photographed,
my friends skateboarding.
I started sending him prints
and he would give a call back,
and just say, "Shoot more."
And he came out to San Francisco
wanting me
to show him skateboarding.
Visually, being visualized,
most exciting kids
were the skateboarders.
So I started hanging out
with the skateboarders
in the late '80s.
I was in San Francisco,
I was in California,
and then I was back in New York.
And then, one day,
I was sitting
in Washington Square Park
with my skateboard,
and I had -- had my Leica.
And this kid came up
and sat down next to me
and said his name
was Harmony Korine.
And he said, something about
the Leica and Robert Frank,
and I said,
"What 18-year-old kid
knows about Leicas
and Robert Frank?"
So, I -- we got
in a conversation with him.
I knew that
I wanted to make movies young.
I didn't want to wait. I w--
I felt like I was, like, you
know, kind of like e-exploding.
Well, I wanted to make
a movie about adolescence.
I wanted to make a film that
had never been made before.
I-I need someone
to write the film that's a kid.
It needs to be written
from the inside.
Because my first book, "Tulsa,"
I was a kid when I did it.
So I called Harmony and asked
him to write me a screenplay.
I remember going over
to Larry's house at that point.
I think Gus Van Sant
was over there.
That's when I kind of knew
it was legit.
Ready? Go.
Ready, and action.
I'm telling you, the whole movie
doesn't make sense how it happened.
It was that last gasp
of crazy, weird New York moment
where people let us make a film
that you'd never be able to make
right now.
Could you say it one more time?
What's your dad's name?
Harmony Korine.
What job does he have?
He's a director.
Have you ever seen
any of his movies?
N-No.
Not a single movie?
No. They-They're too
inappropriate.
Yo, how was that shit, yo?
My God.
So good, dude.
That girl can fuck.
Word.
She can fuck, yo?
Hells, yeah, halfway through,
I'm thinking like,
"This girl's no virgin.
No virgin
can fuck like this."
You sure she's a virgin?
How'd she smell?
Did her puss stink?
Take a whiff.
Butterscotch, yo.
It's the best.
**
When people ask me about "Kids,"
it is this really weird,
unique --
I can't even explain
how it happened.
Nobody had ever done anything.
Everyone was amateurs.
Nobody had ever acted.
I had never -- Or I had never
written a real script.
You know, Larry --
he had never directed.
It -- It was just --
just weird synthesis.
The actual story of "Kids"
was over a four-
or five-year period
of me hanging out
with these kids
and getting stories and
seeing things that happened.
He wanted to make a movie
about a character
that took virginities.
And somewhere, there had to be
AIDS in the plot.
Jennie, you've tested positive
for the HIV virus.
But I only had sex with Telly.
I remember going to, like,
the 20-year anniversary,
watching it and being
totally shocked by the film,
having an adult reaction to it
and be like,
I know what happens
and I'm still like
gasping and in awe.
Quim Cardona
was supposed to be Telly
in the movie,
but his mom
wouldn't let him do it.
Somehow -- I don't know how --
they ended up on me.
Larry later on told me
they said,
"Why would you cast this kid?
He's ugly."
And Larry goes,
"Well, a good-looking guy
wouldn't have to chase pussy."
Yo, but that's it.
You know, you got to, like,
take it slow, you know,
and you got to be smooth.
Girls like it slow and romantic.
Justin Pierce
was always gonna be Casper.
That role was written for him.
Harold's role
was written for Harold.
Steven's role
was written for Steven,
but Steven had gotten locked up.
I was supposed to be
in the movie, right,
but I was going to go get
this script.
I ended up stopping
at the store,
because I was into
r-- stealing shit.
Like, you know,
even though I was getting paid
from skateboarding,
I still was like one side
of my head in the streets
and one side of my head
in skateboarding.
The security guy was standing
in front of the door,
and I pull out the meat cleaver.
Back in those days,
they killed a kid over Jordans,
so I would carry a knife on me.
I don't know how he had a gun,
but he pulled out a .22.
And I was like, "Shit."
And the cops came,
I got arrested and... whatever.
Anyway, I ended up getting,
24 months.
So, Jon Abrahams -- Jonny Boy --
he did good, though.
**
We both had this idea
of making a film
that felt more like
it was eavesdropping
or more like it was like
stolen moments or something,
and using all real --
all the real kids from the park.
There's so many people think --
think it's improv, you know,
but it's not improv.
This is Harmony's
word for word line.
Say you was to die tomorrow, right?
Yeah.
50 years from now,
all the virgins you ever fucked,
they're gonna remember you,
right?
Yeah, yeah.
That's right.
They're gonna tell
their grandkids about that shit.
"That Telly,
he sure was good in the sack."
The only improv is the four boys
sitting on the couch
smoking weed.
Yo, where'd you get that shit?
My brother.
**
Yeah, we was smoking weed.
We was smoking weed before
they told us to smoke weed.
That's why they were like,
"Just smoke weed." You know?
It just never felt
like we were making a movie.
It was basically
an exaggerated version
of what we were already doing.
You know, the fight
in Washington Square Park
was based on a fight that
happened at the Brooklyn Banks.
What the fuck
you guys doing, man?!
He's a fucking human being!
Who gives a shit?!
Hey, stop it!
You don't fucking tear people and shit.
Yo, bro.
Put your shirt on your shit.
At that point,
mostly kids, everybody,
we all just wanted
to mostly just disappear.
This was, like, pre-Internet
and before everyone's life
was always on display.
It was more of a thing of, like,
living a life
that was away from your parents
and away from convention.
And most everyone
had broken homes and stuff.
So, it was a -- the movie was
mostly trying to show that --
that world and that
kind of like oblivion seekers.
**
Pbht!
That weed is mad good, yo.
It was pretty raw.
It seemed like a documentary.
You know, it had that feel.
It was like NC-17,
it was a controversy.
It just made all the kids
want to see it even more
'cause they weren't allowed.
The people you saw
in the film was a tight group.
So you got this tight group
who were with each other
all the time.
Now they're on camera.
I-It was natural.
Harold's performance and Justin's
performance, even though it isn't them,
they are the most real thing
in the movie.
They're just being that...
Damn, Kim,
your body looks fucking dope.
You think so?
Hells, yeah.
I'm serious, yo.
It's funny, you don't really
know how dope a girl's body is
until she takes
all her clothes off.
Truth or dare, you guys.
Kiss each other.
Sure.
I do that all the time.
Holy...
You guys are dykes, right?
Shit!
Justin was always sort of
more important than I was,
'cause I would follow orders
and I would be there on time.
And Justin was sort of hard
to wrangle in.
But that made him exciting.
Casper.
Casper, where's --
What are you doing here?
Long time, no see.
He was definitely wild,
with like the drink
and the drugs.
Super sweet kid,
but yeah, I-I was scared of him.
Not because he was scary,
just 'cause...
he was so real.
**
People loved him.
He was extremely magnetic,
super wild, tough as fuck,
but, you know, he had demons
and he was the real thing.
You know,
I always thought of him
as like the -- the James Dean
of the streets.
Yo, what's she looking worried
about that nigga for?
Hey, hit this, yo.
Hey.
It somehow --
the movie resonated with people
in this specific generation.
When it came out in '95,
I was 13 years old.
And, you know,
we'd be at Astor Place
and all these people
come up to me and be like,
"That's the kid from the movie.
You saved my life.
Man, that movie was crazy, man.
You know,
I went to get an AIDS test."
I-I was like, "All right."
* What the fuck?
What?!
* No fuckin' run now
* I skateboard every single day,
from here to L.A. *
I mean,
if Howard was still alive,
he would tell you,
"Yo, you ever saw 'Kids'?
I was in that."
That's what he used to say
back then,
and he would get all the girls
saying it.
He was funny.
**
People lived hard.
The reason those lives
are so fantastic
is because they were also
just so... unhinged.
When they -- When they died,
it was pretty horrible.
Some of those guys were living
pretty hard, pretty fast,
and some of the guys
didn't make it.
There's no reason why Harmony
couldn't be on that list.
Or Larry or myself.
I think that in that movie,
you have that
"I don't give a fuck" attitude,
which a lot of us had already
before the movie
and still had after the movie.
You know, some people just --
you can't tell them anything.
Some people just have to learn
on their own.
It's sad, you know,
the two people that put me
in the movie aren't here,
but I feel like that attitude --
it was in them already.
It captured that emotion...
that people can't articulate
in words,
but it's a feeling
that's universal.
That's why everybody was like,
"Holy shit! Yo! Yo!
My crew --
yo, we're like that, too."
Yeah, everyone's like that.
That's -- That's just universal.
That's what you saw.
That's what they captured.
It's, like,
the best film about skating
that's not about skating,
because all the skate movies
are so bad.
Like, when it's about --
when it's --
when they're trying to be
about skating.
The genius way to do it
is just to, like,
create a regular human story
that is set
in a world of skating.
I mean,
it changed Larry Clark's career.
It launched --
It launched Harmony's career.
I was seeing films
in a different way.
I was wanting to make movies
with images coming from
all different directions.
It's called
a euphoric blockbuster,
and it's supposed to
make Special K look weak.
Just take it.
No. I don't --
You look sad.
So come here.
Just -- Just take it.
Just swallow. I promise.
"Kids" was never a movie
I would've made on my own.
It wasn't a film -- a story --
that I was dying to tell.
If I hadn't been asked
to write that movie,
I wouldn't have written it.
Well,
that's the thing that's so funny
is that people think of "Kids"
as a Harmony Korine film,
but Harmony didn't direct it.
Harmony wrote the script and
the story is totally Harmony,
but it's not
a Harmony Korine movie.
Like, "Gummo" was really, like,
the first kind of chance for him
to, like, really flex
that muscle and be like,
"Okay, this is what I --
what I make."
"Gummo" was more like
kids I had grown up with,
and had to do more
with like Southern culture,
middle America, glue sniffers,
and just, like, the weirdness
of, like, small towns
and types of kids I used to
go to school with.
Is there enough light?
You guys want to do it here?
Just stand
in this light right here.
So -- So these guys,
I've known since I was --
we were all little kids,
like, together...
11, 12 years old.
Yeah.
...skateboarding, so...
And h-he was the -- out of
all of us, he was the cra--
This guy,
now you could never tell,
but he was far and away
the craziest.
He's the guy
from "Gummo."
In the sequence
with him and his brother,
the skinhead brothers that
beat the shit out of each other,
that's him.
Were you really a skinhead?
No. No,
he's like the furthest thing.
I was just, like, a, you know,
a street kid, I guess.
I didn't want to make a film
that w--
had a kind of linear logic.
I didn't care about
making things that made sense.
I wanted
to make perfect nonsense.
The main character I saw
on an episode
of "Sally Jessy Raphael,"
called "My Child Died
from Sniffing Paint."
And he was
a paint-sniffing survivor.
And that's who starred
in the movie.
Yeah, that's the craziest thing
is they gave it to Bob Shaye.
He's like,
"I didn't make it past page 8."
That's what he said to me.
He was like, "But I'll give you
enough money to make this film,
as long as you tell me
it's not artwork."
And I was like,
"Of course not. I hate art."
The producers didn't have
a fucking clue in the world
what -- about "Gummo."
They said,
"What is this?" You know?
I loved that fucking film, man.
Just the kid.
The fucking kid eating
his spaghetti in the bathtub.
**
I did that shit.
I did shit like that.
It's set in Xenia, Ohio,
because that's where
Alien Workshop was based.
At the end of "Memory Screen"
is a reference to Xenia.
Harmony's favorite movie
was "Memory Screen,"
so that was like Harmony's,
like, saying thank you
or at least, like, homage
to -- to "Memory Screen."
This is the Alien Workshop.
**
I love the blind videos,
and, you know, you grew up
with all the PAL videos.
But definitely, by far,
the Alien Workshop videos,
like "Memory Screen,"
it kind of felt like the id.
It's -- It was like scratching
something kind of crazy.
**
It was, like,
one of the most crazy
artistic skate videos ever made.
So much of the --
the camera work and the sty--
the editing style in "Gummo"
really came from
"Memory Screen."
I mean, he made it into
something much bigger than that,
but, you know,
it was that aesthetic.
The ambience with the vibe,
like the use of music,
they tapped into the feeling
of what it was like to be not --
not just a skateboarder, but be,
like, living in middle America.
All the kids in Nashville
loved it
because it felt like
it was made for us.
**
Do you think "Gummo"
pretty well represented
Nashville?
No.
I think, m-my take on "Gummo"
is it was more representative
of just, like,
you know,
what people don't want to see.
You know, it's like everything
that people, um, want to ignore
that's out there --
that's really out there.
Let's show you how things are
in some people's lives.
Yeah, of course.
The whole movie was like that.
We were shooting in some house,
and the house
was just a house of packrats.
And we found a jawb-- someone's
jawbone on a chandelier.
Producer pulls me aside
and says, "The crew just left."
I was like, "What do you mean
the crew left?" You know?
He's like,
"The crew left. They don't b--
They're not putting themselves
in harm's way."
And I remember
my cinematographer,
he looked at me, and he goes,
"Fuck them all.
I just need me, you,
the lightbulb, and the actor."
I was like...
"All right, let's do this."
People who skate, like,
aren't afraid to do shit
the hard way.
Like,
Harmony has that in spades.
Like, it's not like,
"What's the easiest?"
You know? It's like,
"What's the gnarliest?"
* Make it, make it,
don't take it *
* Make it, make it,
don't break it *
Shit, y'all. I'm out of here.
Fuck you.
It's too hot for this shit.
It's too hot for TV.
**
**
I didn't know
you painted like this.
Yeah, this is --
This -- This is...
Yeah, it's all from,
l-living here
for the last year or two.
I-I was kind of like, we started
out making what I was calling,
like, a kind of beach noir-ish,...
Beach what?
Noir?
I was calling it like B--
These kind of like violent,...
They -- They felt like
they were kind of coincided
with the films a little bit.
But they're kind of like
viol-- like, kind of like weird,
violent, surf, beachy,
semi-narrative paintings.
Um, they're all watercolor.
It's funny because people
say, "In the last few years,
Harmony's, like,
kind of exploded as an artist."
But, like,
he's never stopped making work.
He's an artist overall,
and so, if he wants to write
a book, he could do it.
If he wants to make a movie,
a music video, whatever.
And he's pretty talented
at everything he does.
Even though he's, you know,
known more as like a film director now,
he's worked pretty consistently
as a visual artist,
like, all the way through.
You know, he did, like,
the collaboration
with Christopher Wool,
"Pass the Bitch Chicken,"
and he did amazing collaboration
with Rita Ackermann
at the Swiss Institute
in New York.
As I know him,
he's always been, like,
kind of an artist first,
in a weird way.
Yeah, so Alleged
was this little gallery
that Aaron, I think,
lived out of,
and he just started
doing shows there.
I was hanging around
the skating and music worlds,
and the artists
that were showing --
they were, like, all my friends
from those worlds.
And so, it was a natural place
for anybody who was interested
in skateboarding and art
to hang out.
The first time I met Harmony,
he came by the gallery
one night,
way before "Kids" or whatever.
We started talking, and he's
like, "I want to do a show here."
I was like,
"What do you want to do?"
And he's like, "I want to put a
cage in the middle of the space,
and I want
to put a midget in it,
and I want to have a neon sign
over it that just says --
that just says,
'Spit on the midget.'"
That was his show.
**
I wanted it all
to be entertaining.
With my life,
the things I was creating,
the films and the artwork
and everything, writings,
I didn't want to differentiate
between th-that
and -- and my real life.
And so,
it got really murky and things,
and it was a lot of fun,
and then it became crazy, too.
**
At that period of time,
he was really just about
shocking the hell out of you.
There's the sort of legendary
"Fight Harm" series.
There's never been
any sort of corroboration
that he ever actually shot
any of that stuff.
I don't know if --
I've never seen footage,
and I've seen, like,
a lot of stuff from Harmony.
I've never seen
any "Fight Harm" footage.
I was such a huge fan
of Buster Keaton and Chaplin
and, like, physical comedians,
people that would, like,
fall on their ass
and it would just be hilarious.
So I wanted
to make a film release,
what I thought was kind of like
the world's greatest comedy.
"Fight Harm" was basically
he would go out, supposedly,
on the streets
and provoke fights with dudes
and get them to beat him up.
And David Blaine
was filming him do it.
The magician.
I want to talk about your
friendship with Harmony Korine,
'cause, you know, you guys have
been friends since you were kids.
What I love about him
is his -- his ability
to chase his art
in a way that most people won't
and take risks.
Everything that he does
is a complete risk,
and it's so far ahead
of its time.
I was wanting to fight,
like, some--
one person in every demographic.
So you'd fight, like,
a Greek guy one day.
You'd fight, like, some --
a huge lesbian the next day.
I thought --
I felt like sequences
of me getting beaten up
would just be hilarious.
He's running around
provoking people,
like security guards
and -- and bouncers
and just getting them
to beat him up.
And often, I had to jump in,
because I'm like,
"This is too crazy."
**
So where's the footage?
So I have the eight fights
in a safe.
So can we put them in the thing?
I feel like
it's like a skate part.
Yeah. Like,
I'm gonna grind this rail.
I'm gonna fight this dude.
I have to say,
you know, it's a weird thing,
because people have been wanting
to see it for a long time,
and I don't know if, like,
it's hard for me to, like --
Not that I look at it,
but even the concept,
it's, like, hard for me
to, like, go back and see that.
And then I'm almost like
the idea of it
maybe is better
than the actual footage.
You know what I'm saying?
Like...
Yeah.
* Hump it, hump it, hump it
* Get it
* Get that trash pussy
"Trash Humpers"
seems like a skate video.
Yeah. That's kind of --
Yeah, that's kind of right.
It's kind of...
In Nashville, growing up, we --
I used to live by this --
it was like
an old person's home.
For $19 a month, you could house
an old person in this per--
guy's h-house next to me.
And so, I would see old dudes
humping trash cans.
I was always freaked out by it.
It was like a real horror to me.
So, it was one of those images,
looking out your window,
seeing an old guy just
fucking banging a trash can,
it, like, singes itself
in your psyche.
Rachel, his wife, was one of the
old people fucking garbage cans,
which is even more hilarious
that she was, like, doing that,
dressed up like an old lady.
Even calling it a movie
is almost strange.
It was meant to be something
you would find, like,
stuck up the guts of a horse
or something
or buried in
the trash somewhere, you know?
I originally wanted
to distribute the movie
by just sending it out
to police stations.
Damn. Y'all killed this dude.
Y'all kilted this shit.
This dude danced his last dance,
for God's sake.
Shit. Damn!
That's like career sabotage
to do that as a director
after, like,
having a run of, like,
critically acclaimed films.
But, yeah.
I mean, it goes back to skating.
"Trash Humpers"
is a skate video...
without skating, you know, just
all the weird shit in between.
It's an anti-hero video.
I never really thought of things
as being perfect or imperfect.
I -- They just exist,
and they're perfect in the fact
that they just exist.
In the end, it's like, is it --
it's either interesting
or not interesting.
This is this one --
This one girl.
I think she --
I think she's an actual person.
She had her legs -- her legs
were run over or something.
I had been coming here
for a couple years
to write scripts,
and I was always kind of,
like, intrigued by --
by the culture here.
And I just love the way
that things look,
and there's also, like,
menace and beauty.
It's kind of, like, palpable.
It's all smacked up
against each other.
You know, you hear about actors
doing sort of like
method acting.
Do you have to do...?
Method writing.
...method writing?
For me, 100%. Yeah.
I-I've never understood when
people could just, like, li--
write in their living room
or something.
You know,
'cause it's so comfortable.
Like, how could you write
violence in the same place,
like, you tuck your daughter in?
**
Have you ever been
on a set with your dad
while he was filming?
Yes.
Did you meet Selena Gomez?
She knows Justin Bieber.
I know.
I've met Justin Bieber, too.
You did?
What's he like?
He's...
He's kind of mean.
**
So, the movies between "Gummo"
and -- and "Spring Breakers"
would be, um...
"Julien Donkey-Boy,"
"Mister Lonely,"
"Trash Humpers,"
and "Spring Breakers."
That's what I love about him
is that he's not stuck on genre.
He's definitely like --
that's one thing
that's really interesting
about him as a director.
He definitely has a vision.
A Harmony movie
is a Harmony movie,
just because of the writing
and the way he directs.
But, like, he's all over
the place in terms of genre.
Like, "Spring Breakers"
was conceived to be
with famous social-media girls.
Like,
they're all like Disney stars.
Selena, I want you to
talk about this transition
that you've been doing
from being a former Disney star
to a more adult role
in this film.
Well, whenever my series ended,
I was -- I was really excited
to start doing
a couple of movies,
and I thought that doing,
um, the independent route
would probably be best for me.
And whenever
Harmony mentioned my name
and -- and I read the script,
I think if there's anybody
that I'm gonna take this risk on
and doing the transition,
it would be Harmony.
Yeah, all right.
We have a question down here.
With that movie,
I wanted to work with
these girls specifically.
That was part of the concept.
And so, we went to Selena.
Real quickly, we got back,
"Yeah,
she wants to audition for you.
She wants to --
She'll fly down to Nashville."
I was like, "Whoa, really?"
At that point, she was probably
like 18 or something.
I was like -- I couldn't imagine
her even knowing the movies.
But what happened was,
her mom is kind of like m-my age
and my generation,
and in growing up with the films
that I had made,
I guess, or had liked them.
She grew up in Texas
and so, she I guess
told Selena about it.
And her mom was like
going gaggle over the fact
that she was in the same room
with Harmony,
'cause her favorite movie
is "Gummo."
And that's why Selena did it.
Well, just, like, such a Harmony
story, you know what I mean?
Like, Selena Gomez's mom
favorite movie is "Gummo."
**
Is that a painting of a boat?
Yeah, so these are all --
I call them ad-adult yachting
or adult boating.
You know, here in Miami, you see
all these douchebags with boats,
and it's kind of awesome.
And, so then --
and I always, like,
liked the titles of boats.
And so,
I just started painting boats.
And then,
coming up with funny titles,
a lot of the titles are, like,
just weird porn titles.
So we have Anus and Andy,
Missionary Impossible,
Star Whores.
And I like to imagine that,
like, all these boats
and boat owners are, like,
hanging out together somewhere,
in -- in the Keys probably,
gang-banging.
**
It seems like you roll
between, like, extremely poor
and then extremely wealthy.
Is that something
you like to play with?
I mean, I-I guess,
and not even, like, necessarily
like a conscious thing.
It's more, with people
or things, it's more...
I-I never really differentiated.
It's more just, I like things
that are just -- that pop out,
that are just interesting and --
or character.
So, if somebody --
like Albert
is just such a crazy character.
You know,
you just want to, like,
be around them all the time.
It's the same thing with things.
High culture, low culture --
it's really --
it means nothing anymore.
Culture's up for grabs.
I just kind of, like,
go wherever I'm pulled.
**
Albert's car is like an artwork.
Yeah, my -- this gets me, -
What is that? Is that seeds in
the back seat? Those are seeds.
You know, for tea.
Th-There were
some bugs in there,
so I put it there to dry out.
You're gonna drink that shit?
No.
It's dried out, bro.
You know, I got my
bachelor's in criminal justice,
so these detectives
would come to class,
shared gruesome stories.
People were chopped up,
put in septic tanks.
Extorted money,
real estate, bank accounts,
drug-induced them
with horse tranquilizer
and then take them out
in a boat, out to the sharks.
I mean, literally,
they -- they'll throw
a lot of blood and bait
out there and then --
and then when the sharks
start circling,
they'll dump the bodies.
Yeah.
Tor-Torturous.
Torturous.
I mean, do we go back
to skateboarding or...?
**
Dude, Albert is unbelievable.
He's, like, such a character --
Weirdly, like magical,
strange, fascinating,
and entertaining guy.
I think the first time
I saw him,
he was passed out
in his car, right?
Though, wasn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
I tried to wake you up,
but you were passed out
in the car.
I mean,
I had surfed all day long.
Who knows?
Maybe, too many Mickeys.
I don't know, bro.
Too -- I don't know.
I caught him --
caught him a couple times.
And he's probably, would you
say, the first skateboarder --
one or two skateboarders
in Miami?
South Florida, yes.
You know, when I was
a little boy in New York,
I remember grabbing a milk box
and putting four metal wheels
on it from a roller skate,
and with -- with --
with handle bars
and just pushing
up and down the block.
I was like 7, 8, 9 years old.
That was the -- I mean,
I got -- I got hooked.
He can, like, clean a dog's
teeth with his fingernails.
You know, the way
you would pay for a dentist
to get the plaque
off a dog's teeth?
He can do it with
his fingernail, the exact --
No, but I know --
I also have a special,
tool from some dentist.
Yeah, whatever, but you --
a-admit, you're -- I mean --
You know, a-a dog
will not tell you
that his teeth hurt or his canine hurt.
**
What did you think
about Harmony when he moved in?
Harmony's a great guy,
he's a great neighbor,
he's been a blessing,
and, and then --
and then, when I -- when -- when
I heard he was a skateboarder,
I-I felt
there was a resonance there.
I always think of skateboarding
as one of those things that --
it kind of changes the way
that you think about the world.
All of a sudden,
you're driving down the street
and everything is a ditch,
everything is a curb.
That's why I think I-I've shot
so many movies in back alleys
and parking lots
or sidewalks with little curbs
and manual spots.
I just always love that.
And also, you start
looking at things different.
You start, like, trying
to find places that are hidden.
You want to go...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**
He's still that kid
who walked into my gallery
and said,
"Let's put a midget in a cage."
His mind still thinks that way.
He's still, like,
a provocateur in that way.
That's just the way
he'll always gonna be.
**
I always felt like
with the artwork,
ever since I was young,
there was no hierarchy.
That it was all just
part of a unified aesthetic.
It all came from the same place.
The scraps of paper
and the zines and the writings
were the same thing
as the paintings, as the movies.
Why castigate these creatures
whose angelic features
are bumping and grinding
on the trash?
Bing, bang, booty.
It all came from the same place.
It spoke to the same ideas.
And -- And I liked
that there was never
any real di-division
to anything.
It's tricky for anybody so young
to be given this kind of freedom
to do
whatever the fuck they want.
He is the success story
and really took a very strange
path to get to where he's at.
I feel like I just go
to where the action is,
and... I... I'm sick like that.
**
Yo, Harm!
That's my -- That's the guy
I get the Cuban stogies from.
Hector.
Really?
Yeah.
**
No, Dad.
That's my board.
No! Aah! Aah!
**
Geez.
That wasn't nice.
Damn, y'all kilted this shit.
Hot for this shit.
It's too hot for TV.