Biography

Harmony Korine

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Harmony Korine was born in 1973 in Bolinas, California. His family moved to the east coast of the United States when he was five, and he spent his early years in Nashville, Tennessee, and New York. At the age of nineteen, he wrote the critically acclaimed screenplay Kids (1995) for director Larry Clark. At the time of release of Gummo (1997), he was at work writing a new feature and a 10-part decalogue called "Jokes," which is to be financed through French investors.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

The movies he directs rarely have a linear plot and are often made up of pieces of events that are highly symbolic and/or metaphorical.
Utilizes a variety of aesthetic styles and modes, ranging from VHS tape for Trash Humpers (2009) and blown up DV tape for Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) to neon-soaked fine grain 35mm for Spring Breakers (2012). He even varies aspect ratios from film to film.
Films (with the exception of Mister Lonely (2007)) depict decadence in America.
Often depicts teenagers doing violent and disturbing things (i.e. drug abuse, incest, sex addiction, murder)

In 2013, while James Franco was promoting the Korine-directed Spring Breakers, Franco asked David Letterman to comment on the rumor that Korine had been banned from appearing on Letterman's talk show during the late 1990s. After demurring, Letterman finally confirmed that Korine had indeed been banned, and revealed the reason why: Meryl Streep was also a guest on the same day that Korine was scheduled to be on, and Letterman said that he "went upstairs to greet Meryl Streep and say 'welcome to the show,' and I [knock on the door]...and she was not in there. And I looked around, and I found...Harmony going through her purse. True story. And so I said, 'Okay, that's it, put her things back in her bag and then get out.'".
Has an unfinished "slapstick comedy" film in which he goads bigger men into getting into fights with him. Korine says it consists "entirely of me getting beat up".
Wrote lyrics with Björk for her song "Harm of Will" from the album "Vespertine".
Readily admits that he was often stoned when he appeared on David Letterman's show during the mid-1990s, when he felt like he 'was a kid'.
Directed the video for Sonic Youth's "Sunday" starring Macaulay Culkin and Rachel Miner.

What I remember myself from films, and what I love about films, is specific scenes and characters.
If Richard Wagner lived today, he would probably work with film instead of music. He already knew back then that the 'Great Art Form' would include a sort of fourth dimension; it was really film he was talking about.
[on meeting David Blaine] The first time I hung out with him, he took me to this condemned building, and it had a pizza oven [inside], and he crawled into the pizza oven and turned the heat on to 400 degrees, or something like that, and he stayed in it for, I guess, a half hour. He came out, and except for one or two second-degree burns, he was unscathed. You meet a lot of musicians and filmmakers and actors, but it's rare to meet someone who can step inside a pizza oven and take the heat. I was intrigued by that.
After 100 years, films should be getting really complicated. The novel has been reborn about 400 times, but it's like cinema is stuck in the birth canal.
I never cared so much about making perfect sense. I wanted to make perfect nonsense. I wanted to tell jokes, but I didn't give a fuck about the punch line.

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