WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 625 - Harmony Korine

Episode Date: August 2, 2015

Filmmaker Harmony Korine and Marc give it a second try after a fairly awkward live WTF episode a few years ago. Without Eddie Pepitone and James Franco to distract them, Harmony and Marc have a long chat about making movies, pushing boundaries, shooting on film, David Blaine, Werner Herzog, and the 20th anniversary of Harmony’s breakout movie, Kids. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls. Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now.

Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction.

Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucksters, what the fucksticks? How is it out there in the world? I can see a small slice of it. I'm Mark Maron.

This is WTF. Welcome to the show. Today on the show, I talk to Harmony Kareem, the film director in New York City, and the 20th anniversary of Kids was happening, and that's why he was in town. Generally, he lives in Nashville, and I was able to sort of cajole him. It didn't take much, but as some of you remember, I did a live WTF in Austin at South by Southwest, and Harmony Kareem was on it, and James Franco was on it. The two of them were there doing a promo tour and a screening of Spring Breakers, which is a movie that I like. And it was not an easy interview with the two of them out there.

And I remember thinking that backstage, this Harmony guy, he's pretty funny. I like him. He's got good energy, fun to talk to. And then the two of them get out there and it was a fucking nightmare. It was entertaining. And I don't regret it at all,

but it was difficult. And as some of you remember, right out of the gate, I started talking to Harmony in a very anxious and desperate way to connect with him and my respect for his art. And I believe I spit on his face by accident. Not like spit, but some spit came out of my mouth when I was desperately trying to connect around his art. connect around uh around his art i am uh in fort worth texas at the the podcast movement 2015 it's a it's a weekend or a several day uh event at a hotel where this one happens to be in fort

worth texas and there's speakers and seminars and uh guess almost classes about podcasting, about the business, about execution, about how to do it. I got here yesterday, went out to dinner with some folks, and then I went to this party and I met a lot of the podcasters or possible podcasters who are here to figure out how to do it and where to put it and how to get it bigger and all that stuff. Hold on, I'm taking a sip of coffee that I made here in the room. They had one of those double header single serving coffee makers. Not the fancy kind where you lock it down and it pops a hole in the thing

and puts water through it, but the kind with the little disc sort of circular coffee packets. And there's usually two possibilities on the top. There's a plastic shelf that you put one or two for one or two cups. But what I did, listen to what I did because I like my coffee strong, is I put two in there and then I just filled it up with enough water for one cup. And then I took the two halves of cups of coffee and made them one cup of strong coffee.

I know how to fucking do this road thing man god damn it i've got it figured out up here on the 15th floor of the omni hotel in fort worth texas looking over i don't know what a cloverleaf on the highway a couple of seemingly old buildings with at least 50 garage outlets on the bottom that stored i don't know what the history is here the remnants of buildings that once were the possibilities of the buildings that will soon be lots with cranes and tractors in them and then just beneath me 15 floors down an old church an old church it's like you look out man you look out and it's sunday morning so it's relatively quiet yet there are five six cop cars on the highway over there with their lights on

up to something. I don't know what. There's a car just driving. It's the only car on this one road. It's just driving. There's a guy in there. He's probably listening to music. He might be having a cigarette. Maybe he's old school. Might be a Chesterfield if you can still find them. He's got a life. He's got things on his mind mind he might be up to no good i don't know but there's a whole life in that car and all i see is the car when you really think of the multitudes of possibilities of what people are up to on any given second there's a guy walking across the street where's he going why is it insidious why does it seem more loaded he's the only fucking guy out there and it does not look like a walking environment well thank god thank god for podcast periscope twitter facebook every one of these people in this great glorious world have an outlet to maybe share their journey yeah i'm in my car

i'm smoking a chesterfield they're harder to find now but i'm committed to them i like chesterfields my grandfather smoked chesterfields and when i was a little kid i saw his cigarettes and i knew they were wrong but he always looked so great when he smoked them so that's what i smoke and i listen to i'm listening to my merle haggard cd right now because i had a little trouble at home a little trouble at home and i couldn't go home last night, so I've been driving around this empty downtown area for three hours. Had some pie. Talked to Fran over at the place. She listens to me.

I don't know. Maybe I should be with Fran. I got to quit smoking. I got to quit smoking. See, maybe that's going on. Maybe that guy's podcasting in his car. I don't know. Could?

He could do it. He could do it. Me and Brendan McDonald, who you all got to know a little better on the episode after the president, my producer and business partner. We were in New York. I was in New York. I did an episode of Charlie Rose, which I believe went well. It was interesting waiting to go on Charlie Rose because I'm in the Bloomberg building,

which has an amazing snack area. It looks like you have to pay for it. There's just little areas like for cereal and granola bars, and then there's a juice area and a coffee area and there's some salads a little sort of buffet type of area just right in the middle of the bloomberg building huge and it was a it was a hard thing for me because i wasn't really that hungry and i was running a little late and i didn't make the time to sort of hoard snacks who doesn't like hoarding

free snacks but it was uh it was pretty impressive in terms of an office kitchen. I think they win there. There's another guy walking. There's no one out. Okay, I'm not going to worry about him. I'm not going to worry about him. So, yeah, I was waiting to go on, Charlie Rose, and John Sununu was on,

and literally there was no break in between us. So, yeah, so I waited. I was waiting to go on Charlie Rose and John Sununu was on. And literally there was no break in between us. It's just that black studio, just two chairs. They see Sununu rap and the producer brings me there. And I wait until Sununu and Charlie have some parting words. And then I sit right down right after Sununu. And I just watch Charlie look and study his cue cards about me and then he looks up and we start and he mispronounces my name right out of the gate Mark Moran is a podcast I'm like Marin Marin I just had it felt bad got it correct though got it correct so we're gonna

have to go back and do the whole thing or I'm gonna have to live with that so that initially as an interviewer to interviewer as Charlie's's an interviewer, I am an interviewer. I was like, all right, so how much does he really know about me? And what did he just load his head up with? Good question. Didn't ask him that. It went pretty well. And I think it was good.

And it was nice to meet Charlie. You know, I'd like to interview Charlie perhaps in the future. So then later that night, Brendan and myself go see a play. We go to the theater. We see The Flick by Annie Baker. And it is a Pulitzer Prize winning play. The entire play takes place in a theater in Massachusetts outside of Worcester. Three primary characters who work at this theater that runs 35 millimeter prints of movies

there's just two guys and a woman who you know who are employees at this theater that it turns out is being sold but but they just they just talk like people who work that kind of job it's a it's supposed for most people it's a job in passing it's's a job that you sort of do for a while while you're in between things or thinking about doing something else. But one of the guys has been there longer, too long, really. And the woman has been there a while and not sure where her life is going to go. And then the other kid took a semester off college or something. But the point being is that it's one of those shows where you watch it and it's a few hours long, but the dialogue is sort of not sparse, but limited to the type of things that people talk about when they're working a mundane job with some other people. And the pacing of it is very, it's very interesting. The space in between

things being said and cleaning the theater are long. And you have to sit there in silence with these characters doing these tasks, trying to make conversation. And you walk out thinking like, what was that about? That one appeared with surprise. It demands understanding.

And me and Brendan talked for like an hour about it, trying to find that understanding and what we felt about it and what that reflection was and what it said about us and culture and what the play was about, and it was that kind of walking through the streets of New York doing that and realizing that, you know, that's one of the amazing things about New York.

That's one of the amazing things about a city, That's one of the amazing things about a city, and there's not that many that have a vibrant cultural scene where you go see theater, you get a slice of pizza, and then you fucking talk about the play for a couple hours. It was great. It sparked my brain, running in all directions, as you can hear. I think hopefully we're going to have Annie Baker on the show. Harmony Kareem.

This took place at the Bowery Hotel a little bit ago. So there's a theme here. I'm in a Fort Worth hotel, but my conversation with Harmony was at the Bowery Hotel in New York. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls,

yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m.

start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. City. city at torontorock.com city if you go to cuba you really see have you gone there yeah yeah yeah i i never went there it seemed like it was too much trouble i think it's going to be easier soon it is like one of the most amazing places it really is like one of my like it is

one of the most incredible places i've ever it's it's very um frozen in time yeah but it's like psychedelic it's not really like a uh it's not like one specific time right right so it's you know it's like you'll see like people playing uh chess on like p on pizza boxes with snails as their... Pieces? Yeah, pieces. It's like two or three in the morning you'll see little kids running around in the streets

with hammers and there's no bedtime. Those are the toys? Hammers? Yeah, hammers and that's like a big toy there. Yeah. And it's also it was actually one of those places where everything looked so good that it's like difficult to I don't know sometimes I guess it when you're making movies or saying it's easy to figure out where you want to put

the camera or where you want to like uh how you want to photograph something because it's like most of in america it's mostly like 99 percent is like looks bad and then maybe there's like a small percent of something that looks good so you know what i mean like there's not it's not or just but there it's like everything looks good so you never know where it's a very difficult thing to try to figure out like you know you're like well i could go in this direction or i could go in that direction did you shoot down there um yeah you know i was doing some stuff yeah it has not been seen yet yeah there's this film it's called the blood of havana you could probably that i it's a it was just like kind of like a little like kind of almost like

morgan artwork yeah that uh you could probably find somewhere now when you do something like that did you go down there with the intention of doing that or did you just bring a camera and say, fuck, I got to do this? It's all like the same. I have like my intentions are like a lot of times just stored in the back of my mind or I'm just like, I kind of go,

if there's something like that, it's more like in case it happens, I'll be like ready for it or I'll like kind of, Right. Because sometimes like, I don't really even know what I'm like looking for.

Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I have to just like, I have this idea, maybe it'll be like this and then it is and then I just act on it.

And what was the, since I haven't seen it, it's a short? How long is it? Oh, yeah. That's, I don't know. It's like probably

a couple minutes long. It's pretty, it's really fast. Yeah. It's really, it's like a lot of prosthetics evolved and yeah yeah it's trippy like what like prosthetic limbs or prosthetic oh no faces and like you know the kind of thing like bank robbers would wear like you know if you're gonna rob a bank you probably want to look like an old old man yeah sure scary old man yeah that's what it looked like yeah and when you do something like that as a as a an art piece because you kind of frame it that way um do you do you shoot it and you just sort of like all right it's done done we got the footage and you cut it up and and you just

you release it into the world as sometimes i i swear there's certain things that i've done that i've never shown before like that haven't ever been that I've just done that I've made, not even saying I've made for myself, but there are things that I've done that I just, the time didn't feel right. Right. I did this one, I have this one project, it's still not finished. It's with my friend Chris Cunningham, the video director, and like we were living in London. It was about 10 years ago. And we made this film. It was called Mitch Poppins. Yeah. And it's about a guy who has a super severe Tourette's,

case of Tourette's, who gets out of an airplane and is trying to search for Madame Tussauds in London. And his Tourette's is like a breakdance move, kind of. It's like this crazy like popping move. And we filmed it with like, we spent like, and he gets glossed up in the gay scene and starts like doing poppers and stuff in like alleyways.

But it almost becomes like this musical. But the time didn't seem right. And I feel like the time seems more right now. So it's gonna happen? Yeah, it's not like a feature film. It's more probably like 20 minutes long. But the Tourette's is more like a dance movement. And it's assigned to kind of musical,

like each tick, like the eye twitch has a different musical sound, or like a saw. Were you afraid of offending people originally? No, I was like ready to do it i think chris was more like we should wait a little while yeah maybe that he yeah maybe that it's too hot right now with tourette's yeah you know tress is like sensitive in like the like the it is kind of weird to be in a position where you that line you ride from you know making

fun of somebody with a real problem and comedy or whatever yeah you know it's it's tricky but you've done you've done stuff like that before but i think if the character is deep enough and it's not actually mocking the disease i mean you should be able to do whatever the fuck yeah i mean this was i don't even know it was like something else it was like a music it was like a musical version of it the weird thing is was like doing that thing the tourette's thing on the train once, some guy came up. And it was all hidden cameras and different people following with cameras in their books and stuff. And there was some guy on the tube in London came up and he was like, I'm the leading Tourette's doctor. He's like, I know exactly what you have.

And he started telling me the medications to use. You were just doing a prank? Yeah, but I was doing these extreme movements. And he was like you need and he started telling me like the medications to use you were just put you were yeah but i was like doing like this extreme yeah these like extreme movements yeah and he was like i wrote the books on it and like he sat me down and for like 15 minutes was like did you get that on film yeah yeah yeah that's like uh that's like uh in there i would assume it'll be in there it's not edited yet the fit's just so we have did you get a release from that guy i don't releases i don't know. Releases. I don't know. I don't know about any of that.

You just forge all those. Right. Just do it and see if anything comes back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He shouldn't be mad if he's giving good advice. He's representing himself well. I don't know. He was concerned.

You just deal with it. Yeah? Yeah. Have you ever had any flack like that where fucking people get pissed off? Background players that didn't know they were background players yeah yeah well you usually you mean just like have ever like had shot a guy and you didn't want to be shot no well usually it's like there it depends like if it's like a film it's like so they have people that really just scour for faces and i remember when we did gummo that was a big issue because i was shooting we were

shooting the way it was being shot was like it was pretty inclusive and like having people from all neighborhoods and people i would just pull people out of houses and we would go in to walk in the houses and shoot and and that that part was difficult where was all that shot in nashville right and that part was like difficult trying to uh because i was like i didn't really even understand the whole idea of releases right and and all that stuff and so you had to have people that would you know go back after the film was made and had to go back and find those guys and uh that's that's like a crazy thing to do i don't i'm weird about releases too it feels like an intrusion but i guess it's necessary it's best if you have somebody just go deal with it yeah yeah you have to i mean when i

was doing i was really messed up and i was doing these videos where i was getting beaten up all the time on the streets yeah and uh what was that about why were you doing that it was like how long ago was that that was probably that was a while it's probably like see almost 20 years ago you're 40 now yeah so it was like about 20 it was like So it was like about 20, it was like 90, it was like 97. So yeah, it was about like, it was almost 20 years ago. Because I kind of remember that. What was driving you to do that? Well, like I really just wanted, it was this film I wanted to do.

It was called Fight Harm. And I really just wanted to make this movie. I thought I was like a big Buster Keaton fan. Right. And like, and Abbott and Costello. And like, I loved like slapstick and I really wanted what I thought was like at that time in a maybe in a misguided way but I just wanted to make like a like a perfect comedy and I thought it was just like the distillation of like it's

like pure violence a repetition of violence would would become like some would take on some type of like uh epic humor you know like guy slips on a banana peel and slaps and hits himself in the head right but it's like really funny but it's like pure violence right and so like i wanted to in my mind take it to like an extreme and and just make a film and i i really wanted to like be like a big movie so like i was they're almost like a provocation it was like i i set out, I made these rules, and I was just like, I would just have a camera cruise follow me. I wanted to get in a fight with, like, every demographic.

Do you know what I mean? Like, I wanted to get... From a child to... No, not kids, but, like, you had to be over 18. But, like, I wanted it to be more like where you would fight, like, you know, you'd fight, like, a lesbian today, and you would get, like... And then, like, an Arab dude the next day.

Like, I wanted it to be, like. So, you're provoking people. Provoking people. It wasn't about, like, being tough or anything. It wasn't even about me fighting them. It was more about, like, the idea that, like, I wanted to make a film where it was, like, basically the only rule was, like, I had to do whatever it took to make someone punch me. Right.

Like, whatever. And then it was on, kind of, like that. like i had to do whatever it took to make someone punch me right like whatever and then uh and then it was on kind of like that and and i would never like make a like i would never go for it first never fight back no but you know you like pee on somebody they'd like go after you you know like they would just like they're just like go after you and but anyway getting back to the the releases right every time i got in one of the so there was about nine of them right that and i think like david blaine was one of the uh he was like one of the people he would it was like provocateurs no he would follow he would film and we would use his producers right so i had like a small crew of people that were like

would follow me around i was like living in the grammar sea uh and they're following me around and then you know i'd usually have to get out in a certain state of mind and then to get out there also because it's really painful because i was like getting beaten up and but what i was gonna say is that like they were all pretty much like all the people that beat that after the fights were done and i and even i would get arrested a lot of the times and uh the producers would always go to them afterwards and and they would all sign releases they were fine with it it was like a weird thing it was like people just wanted like they were like you say hey this isn't real actually he's trying to do this thing and that uh and that was all just like a part of this project right

doing can we get your release and this is after like extreme violence where they lose it yeah and they and i think there was like no case where they weren't like all right did you ever release that footage no so i have i have the i have the fights i wanted it to be like a movie it would play in the mall you know like i wanted it just fun like uh yeah that would play in the mall, you know? Like, I wanted it to... Like a comedy. Yeah, I thought it would, but I didn't realize, like, how short they would last. You know what I mean? So you've got, like, 20 minutes? How quickly they... Yeah, because, like, one could end in, like, a minute, you know?

Like, I'd just get knocked out or something. Right. Well, sort of what Jackass did, in a way, amongst themselves. Yeah, a little bit, yeah. Yeah, but it seems like it's a little more focused and a little more specific. Yeah. Not just sort of like a bunch of guys who just don't give a fuck about anything. Yeah, there's probably a connection definitely to it, but it was a little bit different.

It was before. And then, you know, I just like, at some point I was like, I don't even know if I really wanted, after it was all done and I couldn't really go on anymore. I'd gotten arrested a few times and also like my body wasn't really able to take it who beat you up the most um i got really nailed this bouncer at uh string fellas uh at the strip club uh just like a guy went up to there's like a stripper with these holding these balloons and i popped her balloons yeah and the dude just went crazy like just like

absolutely like uh beat the shit out yeah yeah it was pretty it's pretty nuts did you did you what i tried to like fight back a little bit but it was more like i would it was more like i you know i went to like throw a um a trash can at him or something like that but the trash can was like uh chained to the light uh to the to the uh pole you know and then he just knocked me out it just like clocked me he did yeah yeah oh my god but but the crazy thing is some of those days i would try to get them done i would try to do two or three in a row because i was just trying to get it done with you know and i was already so messed up i have all like the images i have all the pictures are like to you to look at that shit well i don't look at it i that's part of like why i didn't ever put it out because it's more like i almost think it's just like the

idea of it is almost better than actually like seeing it you know what i mean like the i i'm not exactly sure if like it'd be a letdown to even put it out i don't even really know if i want to ever look at it again maybe it's like something that happens much later i even i even have like like lots of photograph stills from the injuries and stuff. Wow. Because it's weird, because the idea was comedy, and I'm just thinking about that moment

where shit really happens, where the connection is made, and it changes in tone. And as a witness of that, or as somebody watching that, you get that immediate, like, oh shit! You know, like that discomfort. And then that thing where you're like oh it's also the idea of comedy is like victim this is the idea like someone's always like on on the other end of it

well it's right and i thought that you're the guy you're the guy we're rooting for but there's no way you're gonna win right and i couldn't direct someone else to do it because it would then would become something something so completely different you know yeah but like it seems to me that in those vignettes that you know once you you get no traction yeah and no you have no leverage and you're just getting the shit beaten out of you yeah it that the the comedy would probably dissipate a little bit i thought and yeah that's amazing misguided because i thought it would go the other way i thought it would just build like i thought it would just be like the repetition of the violence would just make it almost negate it. And it would just become something that was just like pure humor.

Maybe it would if you put them all together. It's like Wile E. Coyote. Yeah, that's exactly kind of what I was going for. Yeah. yeah it's uh i well what was your when you were doing it i mean because i think wiley coyote is sympathetic only because like you know his face could he could blow himself up and then be all smoking cinders and then you see him the next you know he's yeah he's back together very quickly yeah this is a fucking cartoon that's why it didn't work out yeah something you know he's you know he's never gonna and it was like also a strange time in my life you know it's like a while ago

and it it was a strange time because people were like genuinely concerned for me you know like Charlie like what like everyone thought I was like losing it a little bit or I didn't realize what I the truth is like I knew how I was wanting to do well I was just really ambitious with that and i they thought because this was the project and well this is like i remember this is like you don't there was this thing that people would say like you don't know where your life begins in the oh right right right right do you know what i mean yeah where like life begins in the in the work right right it was all and it was more like it wasn't that i didn't know it was was more like I just wanted it all to be the same.

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? No, I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way in what I do. Because I realized the other night where I got off stage at BAM after performing for 2,000 people. And I got my little bag and I put my things in it. And I was just walking out. I didn't yeah register

that there was no change in tone really yeah and it's like that's like a weird it is sometimes also when you're younger it's also kind of can become dangerous and murky because you never want things to end right yeah because and also you're working through bigger things you know sort of developing your identity taking chances for the first time. Taking chances to develop. Also, it's like an energy. When you're younger? Yeah, at least for me. Yeah.

It's like an energy that you just, you get like amped up on a certain, on a thing. And you just never want to, you know what I mean? Sure. Like days and nights and truth and fiction. Like you wanted, I don't know, like I wanted it all to be the same and like to never end. Well, it's sort of interesting to see you now and like when I saw you in Austin,

that was a weird night. That was funny. That was hilarious. I don't know if it was hilarious for me, but it was pretty good. Yeah, it was like awkward. Well, because I didn't know you and I didn't know you and i didn't

know james and you know and and you guys have been thrust into this situation yeah which i don't think either of you knew what it was no and it's just like i was trying my hardest to do something and then you know no i i think um no i think like at that point like yeah weren't familiar james I mean, like, yeah, we're familiar. James, definitely. I remember not, like, knowing what was going on. Like, you know. And I remember it was the weirdness of, like, the other guys also that were in there. And then there was, like, an audience. Right. And then some guy in the audience started, like, remember there was some guy in the audience who stood up and started screaming?

Oh, that's, well, that was Eddie. That was a show. All right. Yeah, I kind of felt like. Oh, that's, well, that was Eddie. That was a shill. All right. Yeah, I kind of feel like, but it was this weird mixture of like, of like strange mixture, like personalities and situation. Sometimes that makes for like something that's really awkwardly. It was, it was awkward. Yeah, good. That was like awkward.

But I don't know any of us were doing it on purpose. I think James was just trying to rise above it a bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he didn't want to be made a fool of. Right, right, right. And you sort of kind of detached and fragmented out on me. Yeah, I was more just like watching what was happening. Right, and then you come out and I ask you a question, and I spit on you. Remember those moments?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just spit on me, and I'm like, oh, this isn't going well at all. This is a fucking disaster. It was good. It was some kind of weird theater. It was a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

But I was so upset by it afterwards. But like that, when I saw it, I remember when you were young that you're sort of like a little wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now look at us. You're 40. You're just a guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got a kid now.

Yeah. We're just a guy with a kid. But it happens, right? Well, yeah, I mean, it happens, but you're like the same person. But I don't know, it really depends. It's like all in there. Sure, I know. It doesn't go away. You know what I mean? It's like all like, it Sure, I know. It doesn't go away. You know what I mean?

It's like all like, it's not like a rejection of anything. From the past. No, but it's more like you want your life to, at some point, if you're going to keep being able to live and grow and expand, and if you're just going to survive, and just want to have like a like a life you have to like uh be like what was like receptive to stages yeah and things get tempered you know there's things that you used to be afraid of that you aren't and now just by virtue of being older right like it's not like anything changes other than like i don't need to do that anymore i don't

think right it also is like when you're talking about young i mean like i was like making things as a kid so you really are like a kid like you really are like a teenager or uh you know in your early 20s it really is like uh you're still just figuring things right just figuring it out you know well you went to that 20 year uh anniversary of kids how old were you when you made kids or when you wrote wrote it? So I just graduated high school. I was my first semester at NYU, so like 19 or something. So it's been like 21 years. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who was there? So that's why I was in New York now. Because generally I wouldn't be here. Do you not like coming back? Not really. It's probably like my least favorite place to be come back to why i don't know i just like does it make you sad it's it's maybe there's like some there's definitely maybe sadness and i get that sometimes in some of it but it's more like uh

for one like i don't like recognize it it's like weird thing because i recognize it but i also don't recognize it right yeah i Yeah. I feel that. Yeah. And then. I was here when you were here. I was here 20 years ago. Yeah. And it feels like a shopping mall to me now. Right. In a lot of ways.

And I mean, the city itself is beautiful, but I don't like a lot of it. Yeah. It holds a lot of memories, a lot of ghosts here. And it's also just like, it's like super kind of aggressive. I just am like, I don't really, it feels like an office. Like you come, kind of like I come do my thing. It would be a weird place. I don't think I could ever like live here again.

I don't think so. I couldn't either really. Because you get to, there's a pace to it that's kind of exhausting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you get into that zone and everything's moving quickly. And you, yeah. All of a sudden you're like,

I had, I had $40 this morning. Where is it? Yeah. And, and, and, and it's exhausting,

but you know how to be here. Cause you live here. I don't really know like what it stands for anymore. Like, that's a good point. I don't know like what the, not just for yourself, but in general,

just in general past, like a kind of consumption. I don't really know what, like what, what it is anymore anymore it's interesting because like when you did kids and that you know that sort of your generation of people doing the art whatever it was that was almost the end of it yeah i mean it's just all it's like all of that vitality is yeah because it was like the last maybe that was like the last it was like the last kind of gasp of like the wildness in the city. Yeah.

Because it was like kind of, you know, the thing was like cool. Like when I was a teenager, when I moved here from Nashville, was it like you still, there was that idea that like kids with no money, creative kids from around America, people that had just like a dream. Yeah. And visions could just yeah and visions could just come and you could like pull your money together and get some place in the city and live and like do your thing and it's i guess you can't really do that in the same because no one could

afford like five thousand dollars you know rent and like little kids like you know 18 year old kids can't so you move out to like i guess they can move out to like one of the other boroughs. Brooklyn or Queens. But those places are different. Yep. I don't know what's going on out in Brooklyn. I missed that whole thing. But it's different and it's also like, I mean, the world itself is different in that, you know.

It's a little affected now. But at the time, it was very much about like culturally, about that. At that point, there was something about like people trying to like get lost right and and there was like also you know you always talk about like the danger of the city stuff like that but it was there was like a kind of like a palpable violence and a danger and a and a feeling that like if you went to this place or you did this thing you might not like come out the other end yeah you know You know, and so that's exciting. That's what you were talking about, too, just with the, you know,

getting punched up. Yeah, but it's just exciting because it was the extremes and it was also, like, it was big and you could just get, like, lost. In New York. Yeah, and you can, like, and culturally it was weird and, like, you could, like, go into, like, movie theaters and there'd be junkies passed out. It was just like a strange rhythm to the city.

And it wasn't like everyone was so into boxes. Yeah, and I don't know who's here anymore. I don't know who these people are. There's no familiarity to it. And like in Brooklyn, I guess that's where a lot of young people live. But there's a whole fashion to things there too. It doesn't feel like there's not a lot of young people live. But there's a whole fashion to things there, too. Right, right. It doesn't feel like there's any, there's not a lot of risks being taken creatively in general.

Right. Yeah, well, that's like a, yeah, that's true. That's even a bigger thing. Yeah, because like that, the kind of like, even when I remember when I saw kids, there was something kind of like weird and raw and visceral about it. And the city was a big part of that. Yeah, like you can can i said it though because that's why i was here so like two was the 20 year anniversary a couple nights ago of them they screened it and i hadn't seen it no i don't think a lot of us had seen it since it was almost made yeah and the actors were there and was larry there larry was there really yeah everybody showed up

and and um and it was yeah it was like really trippy. It was really, and I was like saying that I don't think that the movie probably could even exist. You could never make the movie again, not just because it's so much less permissive now, or it's like would be so much more difficult now because there's so many more rules. But it's even just like narratively, story-wise, it's like you can never have, it's like her trying to find this guy, her trying to find Telly. Yeah. Because now she would yeah now she would just take a cell phone and text him and say you gave me aids yeah you know what i mean or

like you get you know it would be like there would be no movie like you really with films it's like in writing you can't you can't really get lost in america anymore like you can't make a film that's like a road movie anymore because everyone has gps there's like impossible to really lose yourself anymore that's interesting huh and because it not only because narratively speaking but but it there's no mystery to anything like there's no yeah well technology really in a lot of ways like like all the technology, it really kind of made, it really, it made drama difficult in some ways. Because like, in order to be, if you're even trying to be a little bit accurate, you have to like address it. And it's kind of, a lot of it is not that exciting to see.

Isn't that weird though, that like, like a conceit for a movie would be like, we're going to take these four characters and just try to have them spend three days without their phones right right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's it totally that's that's an experimental film yeah yeah that is i mean it's it's weird you can't really movies that won't like yeah that movie wouldn't made sense now how's uh how was um chloe was there too yeah yeah and larry clark was there yeah do you how is your relationship with him um you know i hadn't like we didn't really um like keep so much in contact with each other uh like for a while but like it was um uh but no it was nice because it as seeing him after all these years it was like it was, but no, it was nice because seeing him after all these years, it was like, it was good because he was like a big part of my life as a kid, you know, and like watching

him as an artist, like I didn't know artists. I didn't know the way artists function. How'd you meet him? Was it through the photographs or what? No, I met him in a park. Like, he just like, I was in Washington Square Park. He just like was, I was between classes and I was hanging out with some of my friends in a park like he just like uh i was in washington square park he just like was i was between classes and i was hanging out with some of my friends in the park and he was taking photos

of like skaters and stuff yeah they were and he was just next to me and i don't know he just started talking and then like i um uh i was i guess he was had a leica or something i was like asking about his camera, and then he asked me what I wanted to do, and I was like, I wanted to make movies. And what I used to do is in high school, I'd make these films in high school, and because when I was young,

I wanted to make movies young. I really wanted to. I was on fire. I couldn't be contained. I really wanted to make films like then and there. And so what I would do is I was living in my grandma's house. I didn't have any money

and I would just have a stacks of VHS tapes of my, all the films I'd made in high school and I would have her phone number written on my grandma's phone number written on it and I had a pager, a beeper and I put the, and then if I saw somebody

that I thought like might like one of the movies, I would just hand them a film. Like I would just handager, a beeper, and I put the, and then if I saw somebody that I thought might like one of the movies, I would just hand them a film. Like, I would just hand them, like, a video. And so I think that's probably what happened. Like, I talked to Larry, and I was like, you should watch the, like, you know, and I just stuck, like, a video tape.

Like, what were the videos of you? They were just, like, these, like, little, like, movies I was making. And I was shooting on, like, 16 millimeter, and, like, I had been in a, you know, I was, like, never and like i had been in a um you know i was like never like particularly good in school i wasn't bad but it was just like a normalish like yeah you know but i never had i you know went to public school stuff in nashville it was pretty crappy and like but socially they were kind of they were good i liked the it was it was a strange time in the south and and and the schools that i went to

were actually really socially progressive and like and interesting but the um but i had like the i i had never been told i i was always you know we used to get hit in school right and stuff you know like i and i'd never been told by a teacher that i had never done anything anything i was doing was good. I'd never, you know what I mean? Like, I just used to goof around and, like. Kind of a clown kid? No, yeah, or not a clown, but, like, I was just, like, into my own thing.

And, like, I'd been a skateboarder. I was, like, skateboarding and stuff. And, like. Where did your parents come from? They both come from New York, but I grew up in a commune in Tennessee yeah from I and then I grew up in a commune and then moved to Nashville in like probably is like 10 years the commune was in Tennessee yeah you were born there I was born in Bolinas California where that's where the seals are yeah yeah yeah yeah i love the fucking bolinas man yeah

i was born i was born in bolinas like in a kind of communal thing there too so your parents were kind of into that they's both still around they're both around yeah they like live out in the jungle do they really yeah in nashville no no they live in the actual jungle in panama really yeah yeah so at least they committed to their yeah they're on their like they just do their own thing yeah you get along with them yeah yeah you know it's all yeah it's all good and uh able to find them though yeah yeah definitely yeah yeah and um i uh so you hadn't you didn't really have role models, and the teachers were not very supportive. So then I took this creative writing class, and I wrote this story.

I was probably 15 or 16 or something like that, and I had this teacher, and I wrote a short story. Yeah. And it was the first time. And I was falling asleep in class, and she held up this paper, and she said, Hey, Harmony, can you stand up and read this to your – And I was like falling asleep in class and she like held up my, this paper and she was like, she was like, said, hey, Harmony, can you stand up and read this to your, I was like, what? I was in trouble. I was going to get hit or something. She said, oh, this is so good and blah, blah, blah. And after, after class, she said like, what do you want to do when you get older?

And I was like, I just wanted to make movies. That's like all I ever wanted to do at that point. that's like all i ever wanted to do at that point and she said well if i can get you money could you turn this story that you wrote into a film uh like a short movie and i was like of course and she somehow like went to the school board and got me a couple thousand dollars and uh my dad she made a work of the cameras and like i got like a filmmaker yeah he had been a documentary filmmaker in the 70s and and 80s and like and showed me how to like um how to how to edit a film and like i got like a filmmaker yeah he'd been a documentary filmmaker in the 70s and and 80s and like and showed me how to like um how to how to edit a film and like i like the technical side of things and then i somehow just like translated this into like a you know into a script and or into a movie and then uh that was like what i ended up getting like a scholarship

to nyu and like i didn't really have money to pay for the tuition. Right. So, I was like, that's kind of how it all happened. And then I met Larry in the park. Wow. So, that, did you, did you stay in touch with that teacher? Yeah, her name is Miss Bradshaw. I, I've, like, seen her a couple times in Nashville when I go back.

Really? She's great. It was, like, one of those weird things. You never hear, like, people actually, anytime you say, oh, teacher really did something. Like she really did. Like that really was one of those things that like really does like had a huge effect. Oh yeah, your whole life.

On your life. Because you know, I can barely remember the names of my teachers. Right. Except just, you know, her. But she really like had this like, she did this one gesture for me that like really ended up.

Changed your life. Setting it all off. Because it was only two or three years from that point that I was making a real movie. So you meet Larry, and he's taking pictures, and you gave him a videotape. And then how's that sort of built? And then this was like... He's an intense guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

And I wasn't really familiar with, at that point, I was just coming up from Nashville. I was probably, yeah, like 19. You didn't know his photographs. No, but I didn't really know any. Was that Tulsa and kids in the other one, Times Square? Tulsa and Teenage Lost. Teenage Lost, right.

And I went over. But just in talking to him, he liked the same types of, even before I knew it, we liked a lot of the same types of movies at the time. Which were what? Well, I remember we were talking about specifically youth films, and there were movies like Over the Edge, Rumblefish, The Outsiders. There's a movie, a Brazilian film called Pichote by Hector Babanco. That's a heavy movie. That was really big.

I remember seeing that when I was a kid. That was the... About like the pickpockets. Yeah, yeah, Pichote. Yeah, that was so brutal. You're right, that's right. That fucking... It was a big kind of influence on...

And now I can see that. I can see that. And even like kind of Cassavetes' movies at the time were a super big deal for me and him. Yeah, that's how it started. And then I just went over i i went over to his house i remember gus van sant was there and i knew who gus was um you know and from my own private idaho at that time drugstore cowboy and stuff and so and they were like you know gus wanted to produce this film with larry like gus was a fan of larry's and that's kind of how it all happened i was like oh this looks legit and and it was like my first semester at school so I didn't really know

what you know I was just barely figuring out even out what like how to write a screenplay right what a screenplay was I didn't know other writers I had no idea like 19 18 yeah I had no idea like what so how it worked so who helped you put it together i mean who helped you write the script nobody because i had written because i was just right i just just figured it out i mean i was just starting i was at the dramatic writing program and right so i would just ask teachers like what's the format and how to do it i understood basic things three act structure at that point i i wasn't, like, deconstructing narrative yet. I was really just, like, it's a very basic movie in a lot of ways, structurally.

And, like, and I just understood, like, just innately kind of more, like, rhythms of the movies. And, like, this idea of, like, one page is one minute type of thing. And so, of screen time. So, it was, like, this idea of like one page is one minute type of thing and so of screen time so it was like this kind of thing and um i you know it's kind of a crazy story but it's like i probably wrote it in like a week at my grandma's my grandma's basement in nashville no in queens yeah where she lived when i was going to school that's where you got the page yeah she would like come and cut me fruit and like come in and hand it to me and and i would just write i didn't know i thought that was how long it should take you to write

a script there were no like rewrites were you just fevered just kind of yeah there was no notes or anything i mean like we discussed like what the film was going to be about you and larry and gus or no no yeah just me and larry and like discuss like the things that he wanted the film to be about. I knew all those kids inside. It was a very specific, their dialogue, their voices. I was kind of like, in a lot of ways, part of that anyway. So it was really familiar for me. Yeah.

And I was in it. You don't realize at the time, but you're writing from the inside. You're really in it. And that was Chloe's first movie? Yeah, it was everybody's. I mean, that was good to go back to. I was, like, I didn't even, yeah, as I was doing it, I didn't even know what was going to happen until the page. Right.

I've never written like that since. And it's, like, a really, it's an awesome way. It's, like, a freaky way of doing things. But you're just kind of, you're just flying. You're just going for it. Because none of it seems real anyway. Like, the idea that a movie would get made when you're a kid doesn't seem... So it was all unfolding without a plan, you're saying, on the page.

Yeah, I didn't know what the ending was going to be until I got to the end. Right. It's like a novel. Yeah, I didn't know. But even now, I still write pretty loose, but I have no cards or some type of broad structure. Then I was really just, like, flying with it. And how did you feel that, you know, watching it with the cast and everybody? It was cool, yeah.

How did it hold up? No, I mean, it was, I thought it was, like, you know, it was awesome to see. It was, like, a beautiful movie print, and it still seems pretty shocking, I think, when you see it. It's harder for me with a little bit because the um like two of the stars from the movie are dead so they die just um you know justin right who is casper character killed himself and uh and harold uh overdosed so it was like a kind of uh you know it was hard like seeing them as kids on the screen, hearing their voices and stuff. But beyond that, it was cool.

It's definitely a document of that time. I hadn't even watched it since that time, so it was trippy. But that movie set the whole thing going with you. You became sort of like a little rock star in New York. Right. Because I remember seeing you on Letterman. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You used to go on Letterman. Yeah. You I remember seeing you on Letterman. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You used to go on Letterman.

Yeah. You got a real kick out of you. Yeah, it was fun. It was like, it was cool because it let me make my own movies. Right. And I also got to watch how you made films and stuff. And it was like the thing,

like none of us, Chloe, Rosario, nobody had ever, even Larry, like no one had ever even made a, no one, it was everybody. That was Larry's first film? It was everybody's first thing. Like nobody had ever even Larry like no one had ever even made him no one it was everybody that was Larry's first film

it was everybody's first thing like nobody had ever done anything before so yeah it was wild that it actually became this whole thing

what sort of like do you like Larry's movies in general yeah I think that you know the thing with Larry is like I always viewed him as like just really his movies and his work his photographs and everything is all tied to the same thing I think that, you know, the thing with Larry is like, I always viewed him as like, you know, just really his movies and his work, his photographs and everything is all tied

to the same thing. I think he's like, I think he's very important in his, in his, and, and it's a kind of unified vision for him. It's like the, it's kind of the, you're pushing youth out into the darkness as far as I can go. Right, right. Like, I thought bully was fucking kind of brain bending.

Right, right, right, right. Right. Like, you could feel it on your fucking skin, man. Yeah, I know. What was your relationship with David Blaine? Is that around the time

that started, too? Yeah. You guys just buddies? You just liked? Well, how it was like, yeah, it was actually like, I met him like at the, he came to the premiere of the movie. It was at Miramax, like I met him like at the that he came

to the premiere of the movie it was at Miramax and and I remember kids yeah and I was like with my grandma yeah I was like hanging out and my grandma my little brother and he like and I'd heard I'd been hearing about him for a while like I've been hearing about this magician yeah everyone was talking about this magician he was a kid magician who I was like I didn't know anything about magic i was just like magicians just like with rabbits and stuff pulling rabbits out of hats and like i didn't have like an idea of like what magic was you know like past just cheese ball yeah and yeah he came up and just like walked right up to me and he like held his deck of cards and it was like still all in a wrap they were wrapped up yeah

they were just like in a it wasn't like you just held a deck and he said i want you to like visualize a card but don't say it and i was like all right and he was like don't say it and he said put it just put it in your head and then i was like all right and then like i opened up this pack of uh and um he uh i cut it and he's like turned a card over and it was the card that i was like in my brain that i'd never you know it was it was like the actual, I was like, what the fuck? And then he went to my brother, and my brother was wearing these, and he took, I have no idea how he did it, but he took off his socks while he was wearing his shoes. Like he took his, he just went up to his socks and pulled his socks off, but his shoes stayed on. Your brother?

Yes, my little brother. And then he just held my brother's socks in his hand. And that was it? That was like, I got to know this guy. Yeah, it was like, whoa. I was super trippy, and I was like, whoa, come over to my, yeah. I was like, I wanted to really figure, because everybody was an artist, or everybody was like so many, there was a lot of painters around,

photographers, and musicians, but I'd never met someone that never met someone that was pulling socks off your feet like that. That was like something. And also, it was intriguing because you knew that it took discipline to like, what he was doing. There's a craft to it. A craft and also like, who else does that? Right. Where do you even come up with that? Right.

And so, you know, from there we became very close friends. Did you ever figure out how he did it? Not that trick. I mean, the weird thing about David and a lot of that is that, like, even when you kind of know how it's done or you hear how it's done, it's still, it doesn't almost matter. Yeah, because you close it off, right? Well, even it's so hard. Even, like, the way it's done, you're just like, wow, it's like, you know. Even the trick, it takes well it's like someone likes if someone let's say scales the the empire state

building you know how it's done they just scale it but it's amazing yeah does it make it any less like you know they just climb it right how do you do it you climb it but you did it the act of doing it is still it doesn't matter how yeah so it. So it never really ruined anything for me. And you shot him do some stuff? You shot the... In the early days, because we were friends, like really early, I would shoot some of his things for his specials and stuff.

Right. And a lot of that stuff came from talking with him. It was like, I used to love that show Cops. Right. And I think at one point suggested why don't you just do what they do with cops except do with magic you know take it like i love like cops is really the first show where you were like seeing the inside of people's houses and the way people lived it was like really like a revolution like pretty like

revolutionary and like it was like you were like going into like like these places where you you weren't invited like you were seeing like the you know look at how but your couch is all fucked up but in like a mainstream context which was you know up until that point you know most americans had never weren't exposed to you know being exposed yeah being exposed in that way and so he i think like he ended up getting that producer that did that show and they ended up that and that that was definitely like part of all that street magic thing right right yeah it's just like bringing people in seeing their reaction yeah like doing it like a non-scripted right it was before i mean now everything is like that right it was like before before that isn't that's kind of wild to think about that that weird intrusion sounds like

you did a little that with uh with gummo as well just going into people's environments yeah gummo was like that gummo was um actually i grew up there so it was like it was you didn't know all the people no but i knew the area yeah i knew the end but i knew i did know some of the people and i knew like um but I had, yeah, growing up probably like a mile away from there. At that time, it was this area called the Nations. It was a pretty gnarly area in Nashville. And now it's like coffee shops, and it's gentrified.

It's like weird to go there. How are you feeling about that? To go there. The gentrification of Nashville. Yeah, no, it's upsetting to me but it's also you know it's like one of those things i think about all the time it's not just nashville but it's like a lot of it's a lot of everywhere and so it's a difficult thing nashville is interesting because it's become a more you know i live there now uh it's become more um definitely more gentrified it's like country

flavored right now where it was like as a kid growing up it was all rednecks and like all with country yeah and that's just like what it was it was like that it was like it was pretty you know it was authentic it was like there wasn't really much to do and it was like that now you have like restaurants and all this stuff and i was like yeah but it's like country flavored right do you know what i mean like and also like country this stuff. But it's like country flavored. Right. Do you know what I mean? And also like country flavored on two levels.

There's like this sort of like old kind of old guard touristy country. Yeah. And now you get a bunch of young people who have been like Mumforded. Yeah. That's the worst. To me like that shit. The hipster element. Well, just like that Americana stuff.

Right. It's like I actually like hate it. Yeah. What are the exact like, I actually hate it. Yeah. All that, like, I... What are the exact feelings? Okay, help me identify mine. Because I understand it. There seems to be a craving for authenticity that isn't earned. Well, I just hate it.

I just find it obnoxious. Yeah. Like, all that denim crap and, like... Imogen and Willie's in the gas station? I'm just going to be like, all this denim and banjos and stuff. It's just like, I just cannot into uh I and also like I feel like there's this this weird thing about when people talk about like without getting like too specific there's this weird thing about like heritage and and it's like a kind of

coded like like vernacular to me this like thing of like heritage or like uh in in terms of americana yeah where i'm just like i'm not exactly sure i like like i just you know what i mean like i don't really even listen to music anymore that has like lyrics i don't even want to hear people saying anything anymore what are you listening to i just like listening like mostly like electronic music or i'll listen like you know rap music is pretty much uh but i try to listen like the most like the the most like debased right like the least kind of profound just because it's less demanding i just that and i just don't really want to hear any it's like weird in my mind i don't want to hear anyone like like talking anymore like you know what i mean like it's like strange like when i get it I was younger, I used to like really like a lot of that stuff.

And now it's almost like I don't, I kind of shy away from it. It's like, I don't really want to like hear anyone like talking anymore. Yeah. With music. It's more what I like now is things that it's like more um i i guess i i might gravitate toward things that are more like sensory or more like atmospheric atmospheric or things that make me like even with the movies and like just like in general like my the way that i feel that i you know what i'm trying to do with things and it's more of a it's more like a kind of post-articulation

or something that's like beyond just like right i'm i for whatever reasons feel more pulled towards something that's like more of like an emotion or more like an energy let's say or something that's like more like inexplicable right and so like with music it's like i don't you know i just for whatever reason looks like like listening to things that are kind of on emotion, like that are more detached. Right. Well, I can see what you're saying. Like in film too, you see in doing,

having that craving to create feeling in almost like a sort of a poetic way, visually and otherwise, you seem to like to do things that are jarring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's definitely, your way in is to punch yeah yeah yeah yeah there's not many like there's not a lot of you know easy going no no no no no i don't

really like that yeah i don't really i don't you know it's like i really want to just i've always just kind of wanted to like go go for it right and like i always just felt like wanting to just attack do you know what i mean like in an attack in like in an right and like i always just felt like wanting to just attack do you know what i mean like in an attack in like in an interesting way but i always wanted the films or the artwork whatever it is to have a kind of more sensory component where it's just like it like goes through you you know what i mean like in this way it's like it's something that like washes through you or that attacks you and then it disappears right you know what i mean yeah yeah because like i don't really have anything that like to say yeah you don't be like what do you

have to say i don't really have anything like specific to like i don't have like a point yeah the film there's not like one general point i'm not never been interested really myself in making a kind of specific statement it's more about a feel i've always felt like the work is more about generally about a feeling well when you do like when you do something like uh you know julian donkey boy which is about that's a schizophrenic one right right yep so that that's a portal into almost any fucking thing you want right right and maybe there's like if something says something it's more of the residue of sure of it but like you find a way in that's jarring and then you have this freedom right yeah or it's more like you just want it to like i i want you to feel like you're there

yeah do you know what i mean yeah like like is right right by by virtue of um it that's the magic of it it's not telling somebody they're there but because of what's going on the connection becomes very immediate because it's causing you this it's also like a kind of controlled chaos and i've right this idea that it's okay to be lost at some at some some points and that things don't always have a beginning a middle and an end hardly ever and it's sometimes it's like nice for things just to exist just and and just to kind of like like i said like hit you attack you and go you don't always have to completely be able to like understand it right you know what i mean like sometimes it's nice to have things like in

somewhat inexplicable or something that kind of it's why i was never really interested in like this idea of like truth this obsession with truth and in art or truth in film or truth in art that was always like truth is kind of for me at least boring a little bit and you want things that are that elevate right and transcend something that's more like a kind of like a poetry or like a like a sensory type do you what I mean? Something that's more like goes beyond this idea of truth and becomes like kind of transcendent. Its own thing. Yeah, exactly.

So like that's why even to go back to like the very first thing you talked about, sometimes I'll just make things that it won't put out yet because I either feel like they're not done yet, I'm not ready for them to come out yet, or they don't really have, there's no rhyme or reason for their existence. Right. What was your relationship, how did the relationship with Werner Herzog start? So Herzog was like...

Because it sounds like you were influenced by him a lot. Yeah, Herzog's just like one of my, yeah, he's almost like a, Yeah, Herzog's just like one of my, yeah, he's like almost like a, it's a huge influence as a person and as a kid growing up, his movies meant a lot to me. I mean, his movies still mean a lot to me. Which ones in particular were the most? Oh, I mean, I love most of his, almost all his films, but the ones that I really were just most blown away,

I was always the Bruno S. movies. The Kinski films I love, always the Bruno S. movies. The Kinski films I love, but the Bruno S. movies were just... Strozak was a huge deal. Every Man for Himself and God Against All. And even Dwarf Started Small, Land of Silence and Darkness. Those films were really...

To see that kind of like, that kind of like weird mishmash of like, of truth and fiction, and then realize that like that, that there was a potion to it, that neither one of them on their own really was a big deal. But together, there was something like really, you know, trying to figure out what was true and what wasn't true. Right, right. And then you're almost like, you're almost like, wow, you're left with something like so grand you know what i mean like uh so and what way to happen was like he um i actually it was with gummo he had this guy tom

luddy who ran the san francisco film fest or telluride film festival showed him before it came out herzog out Herzog had screened the film for him and I was sitting in my house and I picked up the phone and it was Herzog

and he was like he was like I've just seen your movie it is the most audacious debut he was like you were the last foot soldier

in the army and he was like you must come out to San Francisco and I jumped on an airplane and I went out to San Francisco you know I was probably like 23 or something 24 at that time and he was like, you must come out to San Francisco. And I, I jumped on an airplane and I went out to San Francisco, you know, I was probably like 23 or something,

24 at that time. And he was living in San Francisco and, uh, yeah, it was a huge deal for me. Um, just cause it was like one of those people was like, it's very like heroic,

you know? Yeah. Yeah. And, um, yeah. And then we became friends and he was, you know,

he started, he was in, I started casting him in my films and, and just like, as always's just he's he's a he's kind of just a good friend yeah yeah you talk to him pretty regularly yeah i mean thing about verner is he's like really he really does his like work work ethic is insane he's always working so it's like putting out movies his movies and he's like putting on plays i mean he's directing operas he's like... He's putting on movies. He has movies and he's like putting on plays. I mean, he's directing operas. He's like really like, he does things that like, that people don't even know about.

He's teaching schools. He's like... Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. I remember when I was like doing location scouts for some breakers and I would like, we were in like, in Florida. I think we were looking in like, was it Sarasota or something? I was like scouting colleges just random schools there and then i would go to like there would be like this place called like ringling college which

was started by like ringling brothers oh yeah clown college clown college you're there and they were like they were like herzog just taught a course here and you were like what they were like yeah he's on the board and they're like what and they were like yeah he edited his film at uh he edited his last movie here. And you're like, really? And then you go to this other school. There's another place there called New College. And they were like, yeah, Herzog's on the board here.

He just taught like, and you're like, and I'm like in, you know, you're like somewhere in Florida, just like random. But he's like that. He's like everywhere. Wow. Yeah, he's kind of like, he's like, there's like 10 of him. Yeah. Do you take anything from that work ethic?

Do you have any desire to work like that? It's different for me. Like, I need my, I need time between the films because the movies especially take so much out of me. So, like, it takes me, like, I do a movie, it's like always a film feels like i've never had i've really never had i have director friends have had easy experiences with films i never really had a an easy experience why i don't know they're always um maybe it's types of movies that i make or maybe it's just myself not ever let i'm like a greedy director i always feel like i need more i always don't feel satisfied like i don't feel like I'm...

I never have enough time to do all the things that I want to do, so I'm just always railing up against it. Do you know what I mean? It makes me nervous to be on set and be comfortable, which doesn't really happen so much. A lot of times people come up to me and are like, oh, that movie looked like it was a lot of fun. I don't even know what fun on movies is.

I don't really, you know what I mean? I paint and I enjoy that in a completely different way. And that's fun for me because that's my own time. And it's like something I direct and I'm away from people and I can do it. But the movies is like I have to gear up. It's like going through a kind of uh through war right in in some ways and spring breakers how'd that end up doing it was great I mean it it did like it I think it was just as far as its reach it went beyond anything I'd done before and in structurally it was a little different yeah it was totally and it's exciting

I was like trying to get i'm like getting closer to where what i've always wanted to do which hopefully i'll be able to do with the next film which is what well it's just like a complete like sensory bombardment just like a total a wash of just but with any story yeah yeah no that's a definite story no there's a story no it's like it but i always say it's like the narrative the way i feel about storytelling now it's more like liquid it has to do more with like an energy right like so it's like a liquid narrative it's like things that i'm pulled more by uh it's it's more about like a kind of energy or feeling. So time, everything. It's just like, it's a definite story.

It's a super propulsive, pretty highly violent. It's a kind of revenge movie. It takes place in Miami. And you're writing it? No, it's already. You did it? I'm going to shoot it in January. It's written.

It's cast? I'm putting it together, yeah. Did you get anyone attached to it? Yeah, Benicio is going to be in it. Really to it yeah benicio is gonna be in it really idris alba is gonna do it i think pacino's got a part in it um he's in yeah i think there's a bunch of a bunch of people bro patinson i think that's fucking exciting is benicio the lead yeah yeah yeah he's one there's like two him and idris that makes fucking sense man yeah they're they're great benicio is one of my favorites right yeah he's one he seems very selective too which is kind of nice yeah you don't see him too

often and when you do you're like ah he's here i've been wanting to work with him for a long time this is like the part this was like i kind of like wrote this part for him so it was like i mean he's pretty much one of my favorite him gary oldman right like really just like the best right yeah that's good those two are great totally and uh he um and did you guys meet around it and he's and he's all yeah i mean i had known him because i would almost did something together a while ago and like i had known him since like the probably like the late 90s or something so but i hadn't like i had never had a thing that could fit like i never had like the right part for him and this is like really like this is the thing well now when you talk

about liquid narrative and about an assault on the senses like when you like with with spring breakers so what are you thinking about when when you're putting that movie together you know i know you've got the an acting force in franco and you've got you know he's going to the wall with that character but like what's what's the energy that you saw as the creator pushing through that whole movie is it yeah um i just really honestly like with that film it was i had this idea of i was like looking at all this like co-ed like porn and stuff at the time and like i my girl's gone wild shit yeah and just like i was like i was kind of trying to using it more for like the idea for some art i was gonna artworks and things that i was was i was contemplating and like i had i had like lots of yeah it was just

like pictures of like it was like just debauchery spring break debauchery it was like you know uh kids on the beach puking and kegs and like this all the stuff and i started to see there was like this kind of inner when i looked at all the imagery and i probably collected stuff from like for a couple years when i looked at it all together i started to see like colors and like things and um there was more like inner kind of coded vernacular like more things that like with that i thought were interesting they were speaking to me the colors of the skies the the bikinis the white sand the just that that world was like you know i was like and i also remembered it from growing up in the south the spring break was had been this big thing and like culturally and and so i just had an image

honestly of like girls the whole movie started just had an image, honestly, of like girls. The whole movie started just like a dream type of image of just girls in bikinis with ski masks. Like thugs use. Yeah. Those like ski masks. And like I had an image of girls in bikinis robbing tourists. And that was like really like girls, bikinis, and guns on the beach. And like from there, I just started kind of i was like if that

was it really is that simple like if that's gonna if that were to happen in real life how would that happen type of thing like it and sometimes that's the way so you had an image and you retrofitted the story a lot of the movies that's the way it happens for me it's more like you become obsessed with like or i become obsessed with like a specific image there's like one or two things that i for i don't even really know why i want to see them past the point of just wanting them to exist and then i start to create a story or some type of a narrative around that so you would be like well if i'm going to get to this point how would how would it begin do you know what i mean like when did you come up with the franco character what um i think probably that was just a natural thing growing up like white dudes with cornrows on the going to school on the bus in the south was like very you know it was like

a real kind of a kind of a classic american archetype did some guy claim that he was the guy um i think there yeah there was like a there were like a couple of people that were saying that that is and and the truth is it was really just it wasn't based on anything specific it was based on an amalgamation of a lot of right there were a lot of different it's like you know yeah a lot of different guy but that that is a kind of a person yeah yeah and um and then at the same time um we know franco's process with that was very specific. It's more like because he's so busy, I would just send him for a year, I think, probably just clips of things, audio clips. I like the way this guy speaks. And he would just write, great, peace.

I sent him a video clip of girls in a 7-Eleven getting in a fight that would go on for five minutes. I was just like, I don't know. I just think this somehow relates to your character. And he'd be like, great. And I would just send him things that felt tangentially connected or emotionally connected. You just wanted him to load up.

Yeah, exactly, to get it in. And I never, to be honest, really knew if he was even getting it all. Yeah, I just like, you know, past the point of just like, cool. Like, I never knew

if it was like, and then when it was time to do the film, we pretty much just like walked off that, got out of the, like, got out of the airplane,

got into this, we had the costumes and the whole thing ready. I'd been talking to him for a while. What he, he'd come down, you know,

a big thing for me with movies is like, I would try to, I spend a lot of time had come down. You know, a big thing for me with movies is, like, I would try to – I spend a lot of time even before I make the film, even before prep, just, like, alone in the place driving around. Just, like, looking at locations. I'm trying to, like – because the tone of the movies is, like, such a – the ambience in the film is, in some ways, as big and as important for me as anything else.

I want you to, like – I really like the way things look and feel and so a lot of it is like me getting lost in places um and like the geography of places and and because you feel like in movies a lot of times energy is kind of like a tangible thing like you could tell when a movie just stops when a movie when i can always tell when a director just picks locations based on what would uh look like a locations person photograph the first photos oh this looks good let's shoot it there like i i hate that well it seems like you're you're working in an opposite way it seems like a a a lot of directors want to totally control the environment, and you want to let the environment have a bigger part than that.

Well, also, I've always felt like the environment is also the movie. So it's as much a character as the actual characters. Sure. So with Franco, he would come, and honestly, we would just get in a car and he would just, I would just turn the music on and we would just drive through neighborhoods. We wouldn't even really speak that much. And I would just say, this is where you grew up. This was your house. It was really like that.

I was just making things up. I would just be like, this is where you grew up. This is where you sold your first dime bag. This is the pier that you robbed. This was like where your dad got shot this is and i just kind of like that and just like uh and then just like let the air come into the car just breathe it in soak it up look at the way the light lights in the gas stations and and dudes playing dominoes in backyards and just like you know just like where people like who those guys just feel yeah i'm sure

they thought were super like narcs whocs. Who are those honkies? Yeah. And did he have the cornrows at that point or this before? No, that was before, I think. That was like... And did you feel that, you know, in his performance that he had absorbed everything you wanted him to? Yeah, because it's like an absorbed...

Because even like with that, my expectations with actors is a different thing. It's not a specific thing. I want to get... It's like anything. it's like i want to be surprised right so you want to i want to load them up on as much stuff as i can details looks sounds things like that and then put it inside and then and then walk away and like let them take it to another place that's always what you dream or at least what you right you want to be surprised because i don't have an end game with them other than just to be great i never have like a specific it's never like ultimately like like this is it i don't even know it's more of an abstract

idea you just want them to be like to light it on fire you know what i mean like you just want it to like yeah to be to be great and you hope that you can that you can inspire them with the character with the idea of who this person is yeah enough that then they go and like they invent it and there's always the way i felt with even acting it's almost like with acting and directing actors and stuff it's more like when you um when you become believable right yeah when you become the person that you're supposed to be when you believe that that person is really who he is, then there's really no right or wrong, right? There's no, like, when you are that character, you become the human. Every single gesture, every single thing becomes real.

It either is, but it's either good or bad. Authentic or not authentic. Or it's exciting or not exciting. So you can be authentic but not you're not saying there's you're saying there's no you can't make any mistakes if you become the character exactly but but there is a moral universe you can't make the mistakes once you become the character but you can be good and bad you can be exciting right i don't even mean good and bad like morally i mean just like to watch you can be exciting or boring like you could still be

authentic and awful yeah i think do you know what i mean like and i think you can be inauthentic and and x and exciting sure like gary oldman's character in in true romance or something like that yeah that's not really an authentic character like it's like a really heightened version but it's so thoroughly enjoyable right to watch it's it there's so much magnetism right and it's such this kind of creation and this swirl you're like just taken by it you don't even question it yeah it's like it's like logic sometimes i'll get in arguments with them or debates with actors about like logic in movies right like how why would i do that yeah like why you do it and i understand why they want to know because it informs their character and they need a sense.

But I'm always thinking you want to go a little bit beyond just logic. I'm like, well, if you're robbing this house at five in the morning as opposed to five in the afternoon, it doesn't matter. If you're thinking as an audience, if you're thinking about that logic, the movie's not working. You want something and I just do it because it looks good you know what i mean like why is it there well it's there because it looks good and it feels good and and it's like something amazing right but past that i don't care about the law necessarily like the the logic of it sure well that well i mean i think but that by using narrative the way you use it i i think it's people like uh viewers should be more forgiving in the sense like you're right if they're saying like that could never happen yeah then then you you

failed yeah because because that's not the kind of movie you're making yeah and that's right exactly and it's like star wars can never happen yeah i don't know do you know what i mean i mean i don't know it's just a strange like true but different films and different times but when you present something it's extra tricky when you're presenting things in the real world as if they were real, but they're also heightened. It becomes like a whole other. Well, shit, this new movie sounds amazing. Miami as a backdrop.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I've been living in Miami for a while, so it's like good. It's crazy down there, dude. Yeah. Isn't it? I love it. I mean, I.

Yeah, my mother lives in Hollywood, Florida. Yeah, it's close by but i used to have this weird judgment of florida but now i'm sort of like this is the weirdest place in the fucking world yeah it's weird it is that's it's almost its own i kind of probably i i live between i have a daughter now and she and in the summers and stuff and my wife and we all like live there and um what part um um miami beach like we live in like the mid beach close to south beach and like god we have like a house there and like i probably would just move there like you know full time but like there's something also like makes me nervous about the idea of like only being there do you know what i mean like i could just end up in some like weird vortex yeah do you

know what i mean like i feel like a retreat yeah or just like you know you know what it is i don't know i enjoy it because it's its own country and it definitely works in its own logic it's no it's more like latin it's a kind of more thing and i kind of i'm like into like the rhythms of that place but also i guess being i like the way this i do i'm affected by the way things look architecturally like the lights and and palm trees like i love those things they make me really happy so i kind of just like ended up there uh so you're really living there yeah part time yeah half and half between nashville and my you got a house in nashville that's nice why can't you just leave it at that i am i am that's good and i'll be i'm shooting the movie there no it's it's it's it's great i hate winters now yeah so winter in nashville is it bad yeah

it's pretty really it's not like new york but it's pretty yeah it's pretty it's weird as you get older and you can make choices where you're sort of like yeah i don't have to do that anymore you know yeah and also just like think yeah, exactly. That's like, that's like a nice thing about it. Exactly. But also it's just like, like I didn't use to mind, I thought like the suffering from the cold

was a good thing. Right, right. You know what I mean? Like you just are like, hey, it's part of like the whole. I came back here, I was here like maybe for two days of the fucking winter.

Yeah. And I was like, this is good for two days. It's a reminder. I do miss seasons sometimes. Yeah, LA, you don't have seasons. In Miami, not really either. Yeah, I mean, a little bit.

I mean, like winter, it's pretty nice. And then summer, it's really hot. But seasonal, yes. You don't have seasons. Time just becomes this weird thing when you don't have seasons. Time is what's the scary part. And in California, it's like that. It's like we're just like you don't even like every day.

It's the same. It doesn't even rain for like a year. Yeah, it's just a little weird. And you can't really, if you grew up around seasons, it's like a strange thing. You can't judge life based on your time based on the seasons. A little bit. I think that's normal. And so that's the scary part

about it because even out there you're just like wow it's just all like maybe it was all just one day yeah exactly how many years went by yeah so uh all right one other one other question about uh like we're talking about technology and and uh and and killing story anyways because there's no one can get lost anymore did you ever shoot anything on on film everything you do only film i i have this thing like i shoot mostly on shoot features mostly on film and um but i also don't really i also i would don't necessarily have a pure allegiance only towards that for that but i i feel i've always kind of felt like it's there that that video film that vhs is all whatever it's they're almost like instruments they all have a tone there's like a place for them they're like a they all have like a sound but there's an argument

now i talked to uh who did i talk to vince gilligan um because he shot he shot all of Breaking Bad on film because he wanted that feeling. But they did the Coke-Pepsi test. Someone did the test with him where he had some editors say, we can do exactly the same thing. Yeah, that's what they try to do on every film. So I shoot all my movies on. Everyone shot on.

I've only used film for for the for the movies except when i made a movie that was a dog movie that we shot originally on video and then which one was that that was julian yeah right right the um the and lars von truers was okay with it yeah yeah no that was that that was that was part of it um the but film it is like a big debate it is like that is like a big argument it is like, that is like a big argument. I pretty much would like only, for these last couple movies, I pretty much won't make the movie unless I can shoot it on film. But don't you think that film, like, because you're a guy that wants to get more and more and more, that it imposes limitations?

Yeah. Well, in some ways, it really depends how you look at it. There's this idea that, like, because can shoot unlimited in a way that's unlimited using video that that's better and i feel like i don't necessarily agree with that i don't think just because you can i actually feel like there's no kind of decision making with a lot of that type of like directing i feel like you just leave the camera on you just let it go, whatever happens, happens, and then you like try to make sense of it in the edit.

Like I like the idea of like being forced to decide, having a limited time. It makes me, again, maybe it makes me more uncomfortable because I know that like the mag is going to run out soon or whatever it is, or you're burning film, it's money. There's a magic to,

even when they always make the argument where you say like nobody notices anymore right they always say like like usually they say well audience can't tell the difference between film and not and other medium yeah but i i like i don't think that's true i think i think maybe they don't i think maybe they can't articulate it but i think film it's a kind of, it's something, there's a psychology to the grain structure, and there's an emotional component to it that maybe you aren't aware of as you're watching it. Do you know what I'm saying?

So it's something that, again, it's more, it's working on you in a way that you're not even sure it's working. Right. Like, I don't like the idea of, like, treating video or, like, making things. You're like, well, we can make this look like that. But then why not just use what really looks like that? And also, there's no way you can create, I think, if I understand it correctly, you create a facsimile of of what the film looks like but the actual grain on film has a chaos to it that can't be immediately replicated and there's

just a truth in it and it's a truth in it that you don't it's also just something that there's a kind of there's like a magic in that dissidence in that the fog of analog there is like this thing to it that you know um this is it's more like alchemy as opposed to like me like sitting down with an app, putting on like, you know, this is 16 millimeter app. Right. That's going to make it look like that. Well, maybe it'll like in a superficial way, it will do that. But it's different like like actual like 35 millimeter it is like even 60 millimeter and 70 millimeter it there is like a weird magic to it sure you're like um there i always say that

like film is like romance or i've always felt that like there's like a romance to film and that like video it's like reality and i also like the idea of like the actors i also like it when the actors think that they have a limited amount of time to do it and that they have to i like that there's like a decisiveness to it you have to be in the moment and it forces a point of view in a way that like i hate this whole like modern photography this thing where it's just like you leave the camera on yeah it becomes all about post-production where you just like leave the cameras on forever. You shoot like for two hours and then you pick like the, like, you know, you send an editor to go back and you pick the best light, you know.

Yeah. Where's the risk? There's no point of view. There's just no like. Right. There's nothing like exciting about that. Right. You don't, there's no sense of risk.

It becomes like the corporatization of the artwork. Sure you know what i mean it becomes homogenization too and you're like making the studios happy because you're giving them all these decisions all these choices i don't want a lot of choices yeah i don't necessarily i want to like you know i just like the feeling of being connected to that, like having started out making movies in that way and using that now, it's still, it feels right to me. Good. Also with film, on every movie, I feel like it could be the last movie that I get to do.

You know what I mean? Because there's not many labs anymore. It's really difficult now. It costs a lot more money. You don't get to see, you know, sometimes it's like you have to really wait before you It costs a lot more money. Sometimes it's like you have to really wait before you can see the... Do you edit on the film too? No, no, no.

That would be crazy. I mean, people are like, that's like, no, I could never do that again. No, no, no. Are you sitting there cutting? No, no, I'm not even up. It's not anything even necessarily about being a purist or anything

because I still will use other things. I'll incorporate. It's more just like... No, I understand. There's a magic to film. It's undeniable. That's really like the thing. Yeah. thing because i still will use other things i'll incorporate it's more just like uh no i understand there's a magic to film yeah it's undeniable that's really like the thing yeah well what do you have a title for the new movie can you do that the trap okay cool well it's great talking to you man you too man that was awesome okay that was uh interesting there's a it was a a talk about film unlike i've had before,

and it was great talking to Harmony and great meeting him. And you can go to WTFpod.com, specifically the calendar section, to see my dates. I've got dates coming up in Ireland and in London. And you can go to WTFpod.com for all your WTFpod needs. Get a little linky to JustCoffee.coop. Get on the mailing list. I write a thing. I'm going to write it today.

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