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HARMONY KORINE INTERVIEWOliver Zahm / Purple / Fall - Winter 2007/2008
Harmony Korine is back, his demons conquered, his humor intact. His latest film, Mister Lonely, is a masterpiece, the summum opus of his career to date, a synthesis of his trademark imagery and his profound questioning of the current status of film. Through the loving portrayal of old-world icons – Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, among others – he contrasts a present driven by novelty alone, suggesting that the disappearance of celebrities parallels our loss of artistic community. And still he longs to hear the music of the golden-scaled fish... Oliver Zahm: It’s good to see you again, Harmony. We’ve all been waiting for your return to film. We missed your voice, which many consider the voice of your generation. Maybe that’s too great a weight on your shoulders, to speak for a whole generation. Maybe your personal vision is more what you try to express. Harmony Korine: It’s all about just surviving, really. That, and feeling comfortable enough to be able to create again, and to make movies again. Zahm: So, you finished Mister Lonely on time for the Cannes festival. You worked at it for about two years, right? Korine: Yeah. Two years of actually working on it. But I’d been thinking about it for another five or six. Zahm: To tell you the truth, I don’t know anything about it. Korine: [Laughs] That’s good. I can see you really did your homework. I like that. Zahm: Well I never read other journalists’ opinions of a work, or other interviews with its creator, because I don’t want to be influenced by them. I want it to be fresh when I meet you. Korine: Yeah, yeah. I understand that. Zahm: What did the idea of this film come from? Korine: Well, almost a decade ago I started having these daydreams of nuns jumping out of planes on bicycles – I mean with no parachutes! – and spinning and dancing in the sky, and then landing gently back on earth. [Laughs] I wanted to film that for some reason. I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say with it. But I put that on the back burner and started writing a script for a film I called What Makes Pistachio Nuts? Zahm: Beautiful title. It has a little puzzle in it. Korine: Yeah. It’s about a guy in Tennessee with a pig he names Pistachio. Pistachio is so big the guy can put a saddle on him and ride him around. Ride into town on his back. This guy is obsessed with making the world’s stickiest glue. He finally produces a glue so sticky that he can apply it to the bottom of Pistachios hoofs, and ride him right up the sides of walls, and across the ceiling, up side down, without falling down. He charges admission for people to watch all this. But I was feeling pretty unhealthy when I finished the script. It was around 2001. I was living alone in a house in Connecticut after I left New York. Nice old house, down by the water. I cam back home one day and found the house had disappeared. Burned down to the ground. There was nothing but ashes left. Everything I owned went up in flames. I mean everything, including the Pistachio script. It was like the hand of God had struck me. I still have no idea how it happened. Plus, I had no money, so it was really tough. I ended up moving to Paris. After a while I started thinking about nuns again, and working on ideas for a story I wanted to tell about Mr. Lonely and the impersonators. It’s different from previous movies: breaking down the image, breaking down beauty, and deconstructing the narrative were important to me. Maybe the chaos in the films was a reflection of my mental state at the time. Zahm: Was this idea of storytelling a reaction against the typical Hollywood conventions? Korine: Yes, I was after something more. Plot didn’t concern me. It was more of an abstraction. Emotion and feeling were important things. But Mr. Lonely is different again from all the previous films in that it’s actually more classical. I feel differently inside about things, and I just didn’t want to fight that anymore. I wanted to make the most beautiful picture I could make. It isn’t a conventional film, but there is a real story. Actually there are two stories running in parallel: the story of the nuns, and the main story of a group of iconic celebrity impersonators living on a sort of hippy commune in Scotland. But the story actually begins in Paris, with a Michael Jackson impersonator making his living dancing in the street. Zahm: That reminds me of Lars von Trier’s Idioterne. Korine: I like that movie a lot. I actually lived on a commune for a few years when I was a kid. I’ve never seen that world portrayed in a film. Anyway, my film is more about a society of fake celebrity icons: Sammy Davis Jr., Marilyn Monroe, married to Charlie Chaplin, with Shirley Temple for a daughter. But you see them living normal lives – Abraham Lincoln mowing the grass; James Dean shearing sheep; The Three Stooges going fishing! [Laughs] Zahm: It’s a meta-comedy. You’re showing your playful side, Harmony – perhaps for the first time. Although I do remember you on The Letterman Show dressed like Charlie Chaplin. Or was it Harpo Marx? Korine: Harpo. I was taking all my style cues from Harpo at the time! But yeah, with this film I really went with it. Zahm: And it sounds like you really went pretty far (Laughs) Korine: Why do you think it took me 8 years to make it? [Laughs] It wasn’t easy making a movie like this. Zahm: Did you use actors or real people in the roles? Korine: Both. Samantha Morton plays Marilyn Monroe. Diego Luna is Michael Jackson, Denis Lavant is Charlie Chaplin, Anita Pallenberg is the Queen. She’s great – a real character and a very good actor – really funny. Not much vanity left about her looks. Very honest about who she is and the life she’s led. And what a lot of life that is! Werner Herzog plays an alcoholic priest in the jungle with the nuns. Leos Carax plays Michael Jackson’s shy French agent. Zahm: A shy agent. That’s a rarity. Korine: Yeah! [Laughs] The part was written for Jean-Pierre Leaud, but his teeth fell out a week before he was supposed to start! He couldn’t talk! As I wrote it, the agent was a mad Frenchman, totally over the top, really boisterous. But Leos played him as being depressed. An odd take on the guy, but I really liked his performance. It was really interesting. Zahm: It’s unusual that you have other filmmakers – Werner and Leos – act in this film. Korine: I think certain directors do make good actors. Plus, these guys are my friends, and I saw something in them I thought would be interesting on screen. Zahm: Do you act in it too? Korine: No, it was enough just to direct it, without having the added pressure of acting in it. My wife acts in it. She plays the part of Little Red Riding Hood impersonator. Zahm: I’m reminded of The Society of Spectacle by Guy Debord. Korine: Yes, I guess it has a bit of that in it, too. There’s actually no mention of time in the film. When you see the Michael Jackson impersonator dancing in the streets you do get the sense of what decade it is, but there isn’t a real reference to time. It’s like science fiction in the way that the real world is slightly tweaked, slightly messed with. The laws of nature do exist, but amazing things can happen. There is a story that has a definite arc. Things don’t occur randomly. But, at the same time, I think it flows in what I feel is almost a musical way, a lyrical way. Zahm: It sounds very exciting. Why did you shoot it in Scotland? Korine: My brother and I actually wrote the script with Iceland in mind. So we went there looking for locations. On the last day we saw an interesting house – kind of remote – so we knocked on the door. A woman opened the door just wearing a nightgown with nothing on underneath. Her breasts were totally exposed. She was crying. Make-up was streaming down her cheeks. The Icelandic guy we were with asked her if she was okay. He told her we didn’t mean to disturb her, that we were just shopping locations for a film. She said no, it’s all right, invited us inside, and kept on crying. When we asked her if she was sure she was okay, she said, “Yes, but I have to show you something.” She took us out back to the barn. We went inside. There were ten dead horses on their backs, with their legs sticking straight up in the air! Frozen stiff. She said, “I just wanted to show you my dead horses.” What an image! A half-naked woman, crying, and ten dead horses, their legs reaching for the sky. When I asked the woman how the horses died she said, “You must leave! You must leave Iceland right now!” I’m dead serious. I said, fuck this, we have to get out of her! I’m not making a movie in a place with so many dead horses! Took it as a bit of a bad omen. So I said, fuck it, let’s shoot in Scotland! [Laughs] That’s what happened! Zahm: What exactly was the phrase that the characters used about imitation (or irritation?) and sincerity? It seemed to be a key statement for the whole movie. HK I have forgotten exactly, but I know what phrase you’re talking about. I think the Queen says something to the affect that “there are no truer souls than the souls of those who impersonate because we live through others so that we may keep the spirit of wonder alive.” Yes, this sentence is key to their philosophy. Zahm: What do you want to say by using impersonators of Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, and Sammy Davis Jr? Does it mean that our generation is not able to produce or create our own true stars? Korine: No, not really. In general I just wanted to create an environment where watching Buckwheat give the Pope a bath seemed like normal behavior. 
 Purple (Fall - Winter 2007/2008)
Zahm: Is the community of impersonators directed by Charlie Chaplin and his wife Marilyn Monroe? Is it a metaphor for the community of artists in general? More precisely, is it a metaphor for the failure of the idea of the avant-garde – if we agree that the avant-garde is always produced by a small group of visionaries who share and partake in the same movement, whether it be in art or elsewhere Korine: I am not sure about this, but I will try and find out soon. Zahm: Can you explain to me why you chose the genius Werner Herzog to play the priest? Korine: He always reminded me of an alcoholic priest When you listen to him speak he sometimes sounds like a drunk whose head is filled with scripture and strange text. When he arrived in the jungle for filming, the first thing he asked for was to be taken where there were vultures flying overhead. Once he saw that there were plenty of vultures in the are, he told me he was ready to go. No one else could play this part. Zahm: I’ve never seen Leos Carax in a film before. Was it his first role as an actor? What was it like to direct a director from your own generation, especially a shy, secretive guy like him? Korine: It was great. Leos is a special guy. We’ve been friends for man years. He smokes a lot of cigarettes. In fact I would call him a smoking artist, a nicotine artist. He’s also one of my very favorite directors. He’s shy and wise beyond his years. Zahm: Why, after the actual suicide of Marilyn Monroe, do you kill her character again in your film? Is it to be loyal to the character? Or is it about the failure to love? Korine: In some ways the lives of the impersonators mimic the lives of the icons they impersonate. It was my intention to play with their myths a bit. Zahm: Why did you choose Denis Lavant to play Chaplin? Is it a homage to Leos Carax? Korine: I always loved Denis. The way he moves his body. He’s one of the greats. No one else could play this part. He’s from another era. He lived as Chaplin during the entire shoot and slept in a strange pair of leather socks and ill-fitting shoes. He should be considered a French national treasure. Zahm: Do you intend for your film to be seen as a kind of reaction to the industrialization of Hollywood films? Korine: I rarely set out with any kind of agenda. Of course, people are free to read anything they like into my films. But sometimes I don’t even know exactly what I’m trying to say. I just know that I would rather speak about a feeling than to address an issue.
 Purple (Fall - Winter 2007/2008)
Zahm: I sense in your films a feeling of beautiful innocence, and one of profound sadness. Is Mister Lonely any lighter in tone, or less sad than your previous films? Korine: It’s like life to me, in that things are never just one way. I always felt that everything came at a price. Things that feel funny so someone might be painful to another person. It’s a lot of different emotions, often at the same time. I play with that in my films, to some extent. But to be honest with you, I think this one is actually pretty funny. Zahm: Tell me a bit about your life. You left New York, to the sadness of your friends and the artistic community you belonged to. Then you disappeared from Paris. Not that there was must to disappear from in Paris, actually! Korine: That’s true. [Laughs] Well, actually, disappeared is a good word for it. Becaust that’s what I wanted to do. I’d lost interest in things. Although actually, even to say that I’d lost interest in things – in life, or in film – is giving me too much credit. It was more like they left me. I just became sick of the things around me. The places I was living in, New York and Paris, and the people living around me. And sick of what I felt I was in danger of becoming. Things began to feel more and more phony to me, and I began to hate it. It was fake. A fraud. I didn’t want to make films anymore; I just wanted to live my life. I was feeling suffocated and I did just want to disappear – go somewhere where people didn’t know or care about me. I started traveling to different places. I lived in the Amazon jungle for a while. I met a kind of fisherman’s cult. They worshiped fish! They were always trying to capture the baboon fish, their most prized fish. They’d only caught three of them in 75 years. A spectacular fish! Golden scales, three of which sound like a piano if you touch them. But they don’t really play a song. More like Bartok in reverse! [Laughs] Something to do with the positioning of the gills. You can hear the music in the water. Apparently there are guys in China and Korea who’ll pay upwards of six-million dollars for one of these fish. Zahm: You’re not just making this up, are you? {Laughs} Korine: No, no. I’m dead serious. This is around 2003. I hung out with these guys, living in a hut for six months. Never saw the fish! Yeah, yeah, promises, promises. It became my Holy Grail. If I can just find that fish! Didn’t happen. So, fuck it, let’s make a movie. Strange atmosphere, but it was good. They talked to me and helped me get my head back on straight. It was a slow climb back. Zahm: Did you actually stop thinking about making films? Korine: Yeah. I didn’t’ care anymore about film. The important question for me was whether I was going to go on living. I mean, the last time I saw you in Paris, right around then, two of my teeth fell out when I bit into a sandwich. I said to the guys, “Hey motherfucker! I spend three bucks for your sandwich and I get bones it?!” He looked at it and said, “That’s not bones, that’s your teeth!” [Laughs] Zahm: Oh, no! (Laughs) Korine: I took another look at my sandwich and said, “Oh yeah, you’re right! That’s when I realized I was starting to fall apart. I left Paris pretty much within a month after that. Zahm: For London? Korine: No, I lived in London before Paris. Paris was the end. After Paris, I decided to try and get better. I needed a place to go – a hospital or whatever you want to call it – where I could rest and get myself back together. Then I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where I live now. I met the girl I’m married to. I grew up in Nashville and I have friends there. I wanted a place that was a little quieter, and I like the music scene there. It’s easy to live there. I feel comfortable. I started to write again. I called my brother with an idea, and said, hey, let’s try and write something, I started to feel good – to feel the sun on my shoulders again.
 Purple (Fall - Winter 2007/2008)
Zahm: You came back to your roots? Country music, maybe? Korine: Yeah, I live three doors down from George Jones! [Laughs] Zahm: I didn’t know you had a brother. Is he younger than you? Korine: Yeah, he’s in his mid-twenties. He’s a really good writer. I felt I needed his help because the last thing I had written was the Pistaschio script. His name is Avi. Zahm: Ah, nice name. So you got married! I can’t believe it. Korine: Yeah, I got married three months ago in my wife’s grandmother’s living room. My wife is from Nashville, too. She’s a very good actress. I really got lucky with her. I met her when she was seventeen. Now she’s 21. But I disgusted her when we first met. I was always coming on to her, and I was really fat at the time. She told me I’d have to clean up my act if I wanted a chance with her. No more dirty fingernails! Zahm: So you were the pig in this story! Korine: Yeah! And she was riding me! [Laughs] Zahm: Your last film expressed so perfectly the mood of its period. It was so dark. Korine: Well, it was a reflection of the times: a black hole. Zahm: We missed you, and always expected you… Korine: To die! [Laughs] Zahm: No, to come back! I’m just happy to talk to you because I respect you so much as an artist. A true artist is a rarity. Not just in the film world, but anywhere. It’s great that you’re back. Korine: Well, thank you. You know, my life back home is so simple now, and it’s pleasurable just feeling the days more. I have peace inside. I’m calm. I’m ready for this now because I rested for a while. My mind is clear. I went through a really dark patch, but I came out all right, and I’m grateful for that, and for the chance to try to create again. I was ambitious in making this movie, trying things I’d never tried before. It was hard, like digging myself out of a hole. But hard as it was, I was happy once we got going on the set. Not just happy that I secured the money, or the actors, or that the film world had embraced me, but just that I had survived. Just to be on the set everyday, and have a camera waiting for me. A camera that would be saying to me, Come on, let’s have fun today. Let’s play. I mean, if it’s not fun I may as well go back to the jungle and keep searching for the golden scaled fish! [Laughs] I just might do that anyway. I’m telling you, that fish was really something!
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