Profile of Harmony Korine on Famous Like Me

Harmony Korine (born January 4, 1973) is a US film director and writer. He first appeared in the public's eye as the author of film director Larry Clark's debut, Kids, a tale of irresponsible teenagers in New York which garnered rave reviews but was literally unable to be seen by the intended audience due to the NC-17 / unrated rating.

Following the success of that Harmony directed and co-produced Gummo, another unique story loosely based around the premise of aspects of life in Xenia, Ohio, post-tornado (although most of it was not filmed there). Harmony cast himself in the film, which features very unusual / disturbing images (bacon on the walls, deaf people arguing, delinquent children) in a bit part as a shy gay teenager. He also had a cameo in Kids as a clubgoer. His sometimes girlfriend, actress Chloë Sevigny (who first appeared in Kids) was perhaps the most well-known "star" in an otherwise largely "non-actors" movie.

Mr. Korine followed this movie with another one, entitled Julien Donkey-Boy, which was equally enigmatic and which claimed to adhere to the Dogma 95 rules of filmmaking (which state, among other things, that all things be natural and no extra props be used).

The originally intended follow-up to Gummo was a short-lived project known as Fight. Described as a comedy, this film was to be composed of footage of Korine himself engaging random people in actual street fights. Korine followed a loose set of rules when filming. His opponent had to be larger and stronger than him, he had to provoke his opponent into throwing the first punch, and the fights could not be broken up for any reason other than Korine being in danger of losing his life. After filming seven fights and producing only fifteen minutes of usable footage along with several injuries, including a broken ankle, the project was aborted.

In 2002 Larry Clark made the film Ken Park based on a script Korine had written several years earlier, another adult tale of youth gone awry which has not found a distributor in the US and was banned in Australia.

He is the author of the lyrics of Björk's musical composition "Harm of Will" from her album Vespertine (2001).

He is also the author of a book entitled A Crack Up at the Race Riots, a collection of notes, rumors and random words he invented, stole (part of an old interview with actor Johnny Depp, from Interview magazine, is included) and overheard.

His third film as director, Mister Lonely, is set to begin production in October with stars Mary Steenburgen and Kip Pardue.

Press

Larry Clark on Harmony Korine, "The Face" magazine, Oct '02: "He was a cute kid. He ain't so cute anymore."

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