Harmony Korine
Harmony Korine
Harmony Korine is an American film director and screenwriter. He is best known for writing Kids and for writing and directing Spring Breakers, Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy and Mister Lonely. His film Trash Humpers premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and won the main prize, the DOX Award, at CPH:DOX in November 2009. His most recent film Spring Breakers was released in 2013...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth4 January 1973
CityBolinas, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Ever since I was little, I would just make stories up in my mind. It was based on people I saw in the street or someone I would talk to, or I would hear a specific voice.
Everything has to have some kind of a point for people to breathe easy. What's the point of life? I have no clue, but sometimes there are things that just attract us and pull us in a certain way.
Here's the thing that people don't understand: I don't really care. I've never been a careerist. It's not a strategy. I react to certain characters and story lines and specific mode of filmmaking.
I don't even know how people read new fiction anymore because there's so much old fiction that exists that seems great that's unread. It's overwhelming to me. But, I mean, I do read. But there probably haven't been many people less literate than me that have been in 'The Paris Review.'
I've just always liked watching people dance. I can't explain it. It used to just make me laugh.
I don't make movies for the same reason that a lot of people do. I make films because I need to see them exist in a very specific way.
I've never had to pitch a movie to a studio. I usually just let people read the script, then I cast it. I always think pitching is for baseball.
I always wanted the films to play in malls, and I wanted as many people as possible to see them. I never want them to be marginalized in the kind of rarefied, elitist world. I always have hopes that the films will permeate culture in a big way. A lot of times, I'm wrong, but it's always the hope.
Sometimes, when you watch people play a video game, they seem lost in this wormhole, or in a trance.
I don't listen to music made by white people. I especially hate anything where a guitar is used. I don't listen to white people and guitars.
I use to live on this street when I was a kid where there was an old person retirement home, and all of the old people would listen to that band Herman's Hermits, and they would wear white nursing shoes. And they would throw away stacks of VHS tapes, and I would go through the trash and take them.
I purposefully try to make films in that grey area, where things are morally ambiguous. It's like life: good people do horrible things, and bad people do good things, and there's beauty in horror and horror in beauty.
I always get sick of these conversations where people are so obsessed with pixels, with high definition, and even with technology in general. I find it just dull and heartless. And so I wanted to use only the worst machines.
You can still make music that people love, but there won't be more innovation. I started listening to electronic music a long time ago. But mostly I listen to rap. I think rap is the most interesting.