By Erin Free
Harmony Korine has been working cinematic wonders on the fringes ever since he penned the salacious screenplay for Larry Clark’s incendiary 1995 shocker, Kids, and he’s always liked to push the audience…hard. Whether it’s with the absurdist smalltown storytelling of his 1997 directorial debut, Gummo; the Dogma experimentalism of Julien Donkey-Boy; the lo-fi delirium of Trash Humpers; or the guns-drugs-and-T&A mash-up of Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine takes no prisoners. He’s a bold, daring, uncompromising, and under-celebrated American filmmaker whose ability to prod and provoke is actually matched by his talent.
One of Korine’s most extraordinary projects, however, remains unfinished. After the mixed reaction received by Julien Donkey-Boy, Korine worked on a variety of projects, including the 1998 novel, A Crack Up At The Race Riots; a series of photography exhibits; and various music videos, including Sonic Youth’s “Sunday”, in which Macaulay Culkin and his then-wife, Rachel Miner, kiss passionately in one-take close-up for the duration of the clip in an act of stunning viewer voyeurism.
In 1999, however, Korine kicked off what could have been his confrontational magnum opus with the aborted Fight Harm, in which the director would provoke random groups of people into violent physical altercations, while the cameras rolled. “I was arrested three times, and got bones broken,” Korine told Project A at the time. “It’s just me getting into fights with people, or starting fights. So I was hospitalised, both psychiatric and physical. Also, I was put in jail, because when you’re arrested three times, you have to serve a prison sentence. I had to pay lots of money in court fines. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish that movie. I wanted to make a ninety-minute feature which just consisted of me in the most brutal interactions possible. Fighting every demographic of person. I got to six or seven, but I was injured in lots of different ways. I don’t know how it’s going to work out. Maybe in a few years, I’ll show it in a museum. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it into a feature if I want to survive.” Ouch!
A Crack Up At The Race Riots will screen at The Revelation Perth International Film Festival on July 12 (8:45pm, Paradiso; BUY TIX) and July 17 (11.15am, Luna Leederville; BUY TIX).
