Writer/director Harmony Korine envisions a world where movies can be implanted into your imagination…which is a very Korine thing to say.
When we say “cinema is dead”, we don’t quite mean what Harmony Korine has in mind. Literally. The Gummo, Spring Breakers and Baby Invasion director would like to see a world where movies literally put directly into the minds’ of viewers. Wait, are they even viewers at that point?
Sitting down with Interview, Harmony Korine wondered, “How can you be inside of a film? You know what I mean? At some point, I would love to be able to transport the movies into your mind directly. You could just drink something or stare at something, and then you just transport a full emotion, a full ride or a character, into your imagination with no screen.”
Harmony Korine is far from being short on unique ideas, using the film medium to innovate in ways that may ultimately distant most viewers but may show worth with certain audiences. Take, for instance, last year’s Aggro Dr1ft, which was shot entirely in infrared. Or this year’s Baby Invasion, which used AI and video game engines to create the look. Yes, his take that video games are superior-looking to anything Steven Spielberg has ever done is pretty idiotic, but at least he’s owning it.
So what makes Harmony Korine tick and what is he really after? Not surprisingly, a lot of it just revolves around him. “I make a lot of these things just to entertain myself, and I don’t really overthink it. I might come up with a storyline that’s really aggressive, violent, extremely transgressive, or whatever it is. It’s mostly a mood that I’m chasing, a feeling. A lot of these films, these newer films, they don’t really have a precedent as far as what’s been made or what’s come before them. I’m really trying out ideas. I have these specific ideas, visions, moods, and aggression. There’s an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, and the films can fluctuate and dance between the two worlds. There are things that are probably autobiographical to some extent, maybe, but I’m not really sure. I don’t think about them in those terms. It’s mostly that I’ll have images and sounds in my mind, wanting to see things in a specific way, always trying to go towards the light or push myself towards something more inexplicable, a kind of emotion, or something that even just vibrates.” And that, kids, is how you get something like Trash Humpers…
What are your thoughts on Harmony Korine as a filmmaker? Does he have value or are his experiments off-putting?
