THE INFLUENCE OF KORINE AN INTERVIEW BY MATT GRAHAM
It’s the late 90s, I lived in a trailer park in Woodhaven Michigan, which is part of an area called downriver, its blue collar and working class, lots of autoworkers and laborers, it’s a place with tired people who work too hard to want a challenge in their art and film. I’m one of these people and I’m trying my hardest not to be. I don’t work much, I read anything I can get my hands on about cinema. I spend hours at Borders Books, reading film magazines. I pick up Entertainment Weekly. The issue had a Sundance recap. The Sundance Film Festival was where American Indie cinema lived and since about 95 I had been trying my hardest to pay attention to what was happening there. I read through the article, taking in all the info I can. There is a small blurb about films at the festival and I recognize Harmony’s name as the writer of Kids, the poster is hanging in my room, Telly, Casper, Jenny on my wall in a box full of movie posters I bought at a garage sale. It was my obsession. I go to Best Buy with my Aunt to pick up some belated Christmas gifts and I slink off to look at the movies, I’m running my eyes over a shelf of VHS tapes, when I spot the spine, Gummo, a literal jolt of excitement surges through my body. I grab it and look immediately at its now iconic cover. This is it, this is what I want, I want to leave now, be driven home and run straight to my room and put this in the VCR. I wait impatiently for my cousins to pick out what they want, we check out and head home. I say nothing as I walk in the door of our single wide, and jet straight to my room, the place where I lived with movies. I’m almost shaking excited as I put it in the VCR, my religious cult upbringing always delivered a thrill when watching something considered controversial, or dangerous or subversive.
Gummo had caused walkouts, controversy, and an extreme negative reaction. As the movie began to roll across my tube tv, I was stunned. This was unlike any cinema I had seen or even considered, the images were disparate, fractured and broken. No plot, no throughline, the chaos of middle America, there were people like this in the trailer park I lived in. The grains and film stocks, the soundtrack, the clothing, the stylish nature, blasted through with the best ugliness of low brow art. When it was over I wanted to drown a cat. My view of cinema was changed. The year after Gummo arrived Korine had a new creation in a new medium. His first novel A Crackup at the Race Riots. The book was splintered, experimental, broken, plotless and played with form. It’s made of lists, script fragments, old Hollywood rumors, vaudeville jokes and it uses language as liquid, something that slips over the pages, never quite coming to rest, never letting you feel at ease, it was exciting fresh and different and like Gummo lots of people hated it. Its lasting legacy is still haunting the circles of whatever indie lit is today, there’s authors who adore the book and saw it as a guide to something that opened imagination, something that refused to stay stagnate, it was and still is a deeply beautiful and impactful read. Korine’s art has been so expansive and his influence extends through all mediums.
I talked to four Author’s who have felt the influence of Korine on their creations about his lasting impact and affect its had on their work. Gummo turns 25 this fall, and Korine is still as present and relevant as he ever has been, he’s amongst a small group of truly original American Iconoclasts.
Thomas Moore is an English Author, poet and Artist whose books When People Die, Graves and Skeleton Costumes are available from Kiddiepunk, his Novels Forever and Alone are available from Amphetamine Sulphate as well as his prose/art book collaboration with artist Steven Purtill Small Talk At The Clinic which has a Korine influence.
What about Korine’s artistic aesthetic speaks to you? Amongst his visual pieces what feelings and moods are conjured when you look at a piece from him?
I find a lot of deep beauty in Korine’s work. I think of the first time I encountered his work, which was the Sunday music video that he made for Sonic Youth. It has these stunning shots of the ballet dancers, speeding up, and then these slow shots of Macaulay Culkin with saliva dripping off his lips, staring into the lens, making out with his girlfriend and slow motion rocking out with Thurston Moore. That video is just gorgeous.
Then I’m a huge fan of his visual work, especially some the photography stuff he used to do – these blurry black and white photos like he did in the Ass Sanctuary and also the Pigxote book that he did. They create these completely beautiful moods and dreamy tones – they just fill me with excitement and inspiration and all the stuff that art is meant to do. His photography work has definitely influenced some of my work, I think certainly with some of my poems. And even in something like Trash Humpers, with all its absurdity and whatever, there are a couple of moments when you see the sky with these VHS tracking lines going over it, and just for a split second there’s something there that is just stunning and really moving. I suppose I like things that remind me that beauty can be found anywhere, even in the strangest of places.
Stills from Harmony Korine's March 1999 issue, Untitled (The Ass Sanctuary)
As someone who lives outside the United States do you see anything that you would describe as distinctly American about his art?
It’s strange because I think I totally get that there are very American motifs in his work, but I also see a real kinship between Harmony Korine and the French Surrealists. And I always think about the scenes of Mister Lonely that he shot in Paris, and these kind of play into that. But yeah, I guess there are some extremely American things going on in Korine’s work, but perhaps it’s more of the surface of the pieces rather than the heart of them, if that makes sense?
What do you think Korine’s artistic legacy is? Why do you think nearly thirty years on from Kids and 25 from Gummo that he still has an impact on youth culture? What makes his work timeless in your eyes?
His legacy is just an amazing body of work across various mediums that continues to grow. He’s one of these artists who just seems to realize and create work so purely – sometimes it’s hard to just let the ideas become what they need to without ego or the artist’s own worries or concerns getting in the way and switching things up and changing how things are meant to turn out. Harmony Korine always strikes me as someone who is able to let the ideas do exactly what they need to, and he remains very honest and loyal to them. Whether it’s Julian Donkey Boy or a zine or one of his Young Twitchy paintings, it always feels to me like the ideas come and he just tries his very best to keep them as pure as they need to be and lets them turn out exactly as they have to.
Tex Gresham is an Author and Screenwriter. His book Heck Texas has a Korine influence and is an amazing slice of madness. He also just released the book Easy Rider 2: Sleazy Drivers a collaborative effort with writers KKUURRTT featuring sections from Calvin Bryce Gonzales and indie lit royalty Brian Alan Ellis. He also has a book of poetry entitled This is Strange June out June ninth from Really Serious Literature and he’s also just finished a screenplay titled In The Rough described as “Uncut Gems at a golf course”.
What influence and how big of an impact did A Crackup at the race riots have on Heck Texas?
A Crackup at the Race Riots changed my reader brain. I was like “Holy shit... A book can be like this?!” It really fit with the way I was viewing literature at the time -- a chaotic mess that has a cohesive emotional throughline. I probably read it like 5 or 6 times in a row when I first got it. It really captured what I wanted to do, sort of conjure my ADD into written form. So basically I ripped off the form/style of Crackup, but gave it my own spin, my own story and experiences.
You’re also a screenwriter, within Harmony’s films are there visual elements or writing that influences you when you write a script? Which of his films have had the greatest impact on you?
Gummo had the greatest impact on me, no question. I first saw it when I was like 14 (so like over twenty years ago haha) and it blew me away. Used to watch it all the time. Had it on VHS. And I think the one image that stuck with me is when the two deaf people are arguing in ASL at the bowling alley. It’s such a short moment, not at all played for laughs, but rather just a slice of reality that I’d never seen before. It was real. That, and the two brothers scene. I also REALLY respected the scene in JULIEN DONKEY-BOY when Herzog drinks the cough syrup out of his shoe.
Korine to this day is still a standard within segments of youth culture today. What is his artistic legacy in your opinion and why is he still relevant today?
I think his artistic legacy and its continued resonance comes from the fact that it’s both respectful and VERY disrespectful to the reverence and importance of art. He pushes against and rebels against the high-brow-ness of most art. He works in low-brow territory, but he never plucks the low-hanging fruit. He manages to make it all sincere and real and interesting. He is very much a unique flavor and seems to be having a damn good time being EXACTLY who he is, never making pretenses. That kind of shit hits people -- especially youth who are looking for a way to find themselves and rebel and do something different.
Jackson Cole Jr is a New York based writer and visual artist who published the first part of his highly cinematic and experimental written trilogy For Shelly O’Connor: The East End Series Vol. 1 last year. Part 2 of the trilogy Atropa Belladonna is tentatively scheduled for an August release this year.
What level of influence and impact did Korine’s work have on Shelly O’Connor?
Korine’s work has influenced my writing quite a bit, especially in terms of surrealism, which helped shape the prose of Shelly O’Connor. Funny thing is, I’m not so much influenced by other writers. For me, it’s always been filmmakers like Bertolucci, Lynch, Van Sant, Truffaut, etc
How has Korine influenced your artistic approach overall?
He formed the Mistakist Manifesto. An idea that errors are the most exciting thing about creating. To write with that kind of freedom, allowing chaos to occur is a lot of fun as it permits beautiful mistakes to happen that can turn the story in a completely new direction instead of sticking to some ridged ol’ format.
Growing up in NY how heavy was the impact from Kids when it was first released?
Kids was a big impact among the skaters, punks, and whoever else was swirling around lost in the drug-void of that era. Kids mostly appealed to the outcasts, misfits, and rebel mutants along the outer edges of NY.
Also, within your visual creations which work of Korine’s means the most to you?
It’ll always be Gummo. To me, it plays like a strange dream that’s impossible to describe after you awake.
Kids (1995)
Alex Osman is an Erie PA based Author, filmmaker, musician and multi discipline creative, his debut novel Problem Child will be released this summer from New York based indie publisher Expat Press.
Why do you think Korine still has an influence over youth culture?
He wrote his first movie when he was a kid. He looked our generation right in the eyes and showed us who we were.
What about his legacy and art still keeps him relevant after nearly 30 years on the scene?
His films continue to portray an untamed raw beauty about youth mixed with haunting, nightmarish sequences that transcend the era they were produced.
What influence does Korine’s film work and A Crackup at the Race Riots have on your debut novel Problem Child?
Seeing Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy for the first time in high school had me envious. I was just sitting in my bed like, “Fuck, somebody made the movies I always wished I could make, but didn’t think could be considered movies.” His work completely flipped my views on film, art, writing. I thought, “if this stuff exists, then I really can make the things that I want to make, and however I want.” I was influenced by the structure of Crackup, how it’s seemingly random at first glance, but as you read you begin to find common threads and a narrative underneath everything. I approached Problem Child in a similar way, moving away from a “Here’s the stories section, here’s the poems section” structure.
Why do you think Korine’s work has had such a long-standing influence and impact on youth culture? What about his aesthetic makes it always in style?
I think his work with companies like Gucci and Supreme, and artists like Rihanna and Billie Eilish especially have gotten his name out to a younger audience, who immediately latched on because of the human-yet-surreal, familiar-yet-fresh, economic, timeless, and fashionable qualities of his aesthetic. Kids are always looking for something new, something they haven’t seen before, something cool. His work captures the strange beauty of life and being human, things you might not see every day, but they exist. I think his aesthetic will only go out of style if the world ends and life ceases to exist, because the foundation of his aesthetic is life itself.
