THE FOG OF ANALOGHarmony Korine Makes Love to GarbagePublished November, 2009 INTERVIEW BY LIZ ARMSTRONG PORTRAIT BY RACHEL KORINE
When I saw Harmony Korine’s newest film, Trash Humpers, during the New York Film Festival, the theater smelled like farts and stinky feet, which makes sense because I was sitting on the floor and people around me had their shoes off. My neighbor on the filthy carpet actually tooted out loud. It was the perfect setting for Trash Humpers, a series of shittily videotaped, broken vignettes of degenerates in masks that look like a cross between old people and herpes. They stumble around, grossly mistreat everything they have, hoot and screech, senselessly murder their “normal” neighbors after half-listening to their bad poetry, and then tap-dance. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel bad about the human race. And true to the title, they mount garbage like horny animals. People like to rub their dicks on any ole thing, don’t they? And they don’t even have to be guys to do it.
I sat down to talk with Harmony, and of course our conversation did meander into the outré, with tales of the latest Baton Rouge craze of dudes popping E into girls’ buttholes and a freak-show strip club where there was a dancer with an elongated coccyx that looked like a tail made of extra spine and so she tied a ribbon around it to make it look pretty. But frankly such talk is what you’d expect of him, so why not surprise you with something different? Vice: Hi Harmony. I’ve been on a 13-hour rock block of you. I saw Trash Humpers, then went to bed, had dreams about it, woke up, and now I’m talking to you.
Harmony Korine: Yeah, that’s a pretty heavy-duty thing to watch before you go to sleep. A lot of people in the theater were laughing, but I found it kind of depressing. Was it supposed to be celebratory?
I think the characters—the Humpers—are celebratory in the sense that they love vandalism. Everything that’s bad, they love. They love breaking things, smashing things, burning things, destroying things. They do it with a mixture of sadism and pure glee. In that way, it’s a kind of ode to vandalism. They’re almost artists of violence. They remind me of these kids in the late 90s/early 2000s who called themselves the Baltimore Rowdy Crew. They used to carry around suitcases of ceramics and wear tool belts around their waists and set up their figurines onstage and smash the shit out of everything.
Who let them into the club?
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Still from Trash Humpers (2009)
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What’re you gonna do, it’s Baltimore!
I wonder what happened to them. They all started “serious” boring bands.
That’s funny. But anyway, I wonder if you agree with your characters and what they’re doing.
It’s not really about me agreeing or disagreeing. I go back to the premise of the movie: It tries to mimic a found VHS tape, an artifact, something that was unearthed or dug up in a ditch. A tape that was found in a drawer somewhere, or maybe in a Ziploc bag floating in a river. The only thing I felt the need to stay true to was the sense of it being a sadistic mystical journey. As far as me agreeing, there’s certainly some things I really do admire, and then the stuff like murder and rape— That you admire as well.
No, no. I’m not condoning that. It’s just, that’s what the Humpers do. The film seems more commentary than narrative.
I don’t even know if it’s commentary. It’s a document. But you did create it—it’s not like you found these people.
What I mean is that I didn’t make the film as a commentary. Hopefully there is some kind of accidental deeper meaning—and I think there is. But I wanted to create a film that existed on the surface and anything else was accidental. How so?
In the way of, like, What does a home movie mean? What is the meaning of a home movie? Right. It seemed to me that there was quite a bit of commentary: The world is shit, doing anything about it is futile, parenthood is scary… and then there’s all kinds of mocking, of the thrill of gastronomy, the pageantry of womanhood—
Oh yeah, I’m not saying there aren’t themes; there definitely are. It’s just more like, when I was making the film, because I was also a participant as one of the Humpers, it was shot very much as you see it. You mean like with three flashlights and a 35-year-old camcorder?
Yeah, and not just that. It was also shot and made exactly in the order that you saw it. So it wasn’t like making a traditional movie in the narrative sense. There was just a collection of moments; there was no coverage. We were never going for close-ups. Was there a script?
There wasn’t what you’d really call a script. I used to walk my girlfriend’s dog—uh, I mean my wife’s dog. Sorry, I just woke up.
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2009 wrote:
Why does Vice waste its time publishing this marginally-talented writer? | | Anonymous, on Dec 5, 2009 wrote:
Korine = insurrectionist + character
Interviewer = insecure + boring
STOP deleting comments you spice bitches!
-GODBUNS + PERCY
| | Anonymous, on Dec 3, 2009 wrote:
that sh*t was lifted from adbusters | |
| swinefoo, on Nov 27, 2009 wrote:
Now it shows my name? I think Humper Humper makes a good point about one man’s trash being another man’s Real Doll. All you need is a hole punch, really. And hope for salad dressing, if you know what I’m saying. and what I’m getting at involves this: Abigail “Abby” Loraine Hensel and Britanny Lee Hensel, the dicephalic conjoined twins. These/this girl is driving now. Makes them wish they didn’t get rid of that third arm at birth, eh? They look the way 99% of the people on this planet feel. Two heads and only one set of genitals? Simple teenage masturbation becomes forced incest. I wish they’d go into porn when they’re legal. The one’s kind of cute. If I were part of dicephalic conjoined twins, I’d learn how to play the guitar and sing and form a rock band. that would be the coolest frontperson ever in the history of rock, since Corky started singing about doing the dishes for your mom and driving a Prius on the practice lot. One girl does a line of coke, the other gets the bennies. She could murder somebody and you wouldn’t be able to punish the other one for it--that would be cruel and unusual. Viva me! | | Anonymous, on Nov 27, 2009 wrote:
6.8 billion nose-pickers, ass-hair pluckers, pooping enthusiasts, rimjob rampaging, secret Santa, bearded, schweaty Benatards in dirty shirts and shit-stained panties. And you think living in space would be any better? Nose-scabs fly around in zero-G like yellow jackets. Do we have to start sleeping with filters over our mouths? Concentrating our horrid halitosis and plaque and earwax onto the humanity’s smegma handkerchief. You really think aliens want anything to do with our planet? Crop circles are them washing their damn hands of all the superheated evaporated body soil hovering in clouds above us. How can you people think about hipsters at a moment in time like this. Reptilians, sure. The Federal Reserve, okay. the Rothschilds even. But hipsters? We are ALL hipsters or else we wouldn’t be reading VICE. I a hipster. Embrace it like the blacks embraced the "N" word. And by "N" word I mean "Ne-Yo." I don’t know about you people, but I’m getting old and disgusting and the only thing I can do so I don’t feel absolutely horrible is booze and heroin. But that just leaves me broke. I end up having to steal. At least the dope keeps me chemically lobotomized and I don’t fuck trash. Small victory, but it was a rout! Viva me! | | Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2009 wrote:
the guy with his thoughts on hipster is exactly right. it’s not surprising that it angers people. and i’m sure a lot of people didn’t even read what he/she was actually saying.. merely saw the word "hipster" and that the general connotation of the comment was in a negative light, and went in attack mode.
none of you get it. we’re all the same. it’s a joke. but at least you’ll get invited to the cool parties and that girl in the corner wearing the wayfarers will wink, but what’s it all really mean?
absolutely fuck all. fuck you all for ruining so many good things, fuck you all for destroying any thread of potential you all had going for yourselves, and most of all fuck you all for bringing our society down with your immature bullshit. | | Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2009 wrote:
Uhhh...great interview...but 2 the douche that went on the Hipster rant above...my name is Jason Barr, please call me at 785-393-7193 so we can schedule a meet up...so I can fucking beat the shit out of you for being so fucking stupid and behind the curve. Really?! A hipster rant in the comment section...so fucking original. Jesus Christ....I’d love 2 just beat the shit out of you for fun....even if every point u made was accurate...it’s just so fucking late in the game...hope you feel great about your pathetic existence... | | Anonymous, on Nov 24, 2009 wrote:
this film was amazing. saw at the nyff. sheeet is freeky. | | Anonymous, on Nov 24, 2009 wrote:
Homeboy needs to get a job at once. | | Anonymous, on Nov 23, 2009 wrote:
my favorite direcor. | | Anonymous, on Nov 22, 2009 wrote:
those stills look cool...creepy as hell. | | Anonymous, on Nov 22, 2009 wrote:
i just finished jacking off and now I’m hungry for pizza | | Anonymous, on Nov 22, 2009 wrote:
has he got a bit fat? | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
he’s one of the greats i think, i can wait for this film, i hope it comes out soon. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
i cant wait for this one to come out. anyone know the release date? | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
he’s one of the greats i think, i cant wait for this film, i hope it comes out soon. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
one more thing. real tough guys use the word "queer"
fyi. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
in other words, "leave us to our hipsterdom?" | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
PPS: fag fag fag | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
allow me to retort one last time by simplifying my position: you are a stupid fag and if we were to meet in person i would physically overpower you through the use of violence.
now please, really, find a site to read that you actually enjoy and let us "dandies" have our safe space.
PS: fag. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
furthermore, the hipster clearly exists because there is a branch of commerce set up to take advantage of them.
if they make products for you, then you exist. like i said in my previous post. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
by the way, the dos and don’ts section of vice is great proof of what i’m talking about. it has a normative function for the hipster. you get to ridicule some which are truly revolting, the drunk pervs and the ridiculous girls showing their ass.
however, you must admit that there are some do’s that you thought were a don’t and vice versa. doesn’t that make you question yourself?
| | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
if only twenty something girls were interesting. as soon as they open their mouths, they are worse than grandmothers. equally full of drivel, yet less amusing because they aren’t senile.
typical hipster response. "the world belongs to the young" hahahaha. i guess that’s because you haven’t been paying bills for long enough to realize the contrary.
of course, a version of the dandy has existed in every time period, and the dandy is usually of a certain age. however, this doesn’t grant some sort of hedonistic saint hood to our current dandies. however you spell it. dandies are generally laughable because they confuse surface with substance. ahh, but the postmodern dandy now has the luxury of saying "what is substance?" hahahaha.
| | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
truth hurts? hahaha how about bitter weirdos who go tilting at windmills. what you’re talking about doesn’t even exist. hipster? more like people into so-called alternative music and art in their 20s. when has that not existed? every decade has their version of this. what else do you hate? "beatniks"? get something real to worry about.
obviously the real problem is that you’re insecure about getting old and you’re too slimy to get some o’ that hipster snatch.
please go to a different website | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
not from a thesis. just observation. i’m a dock worker....oh wait, that is a hipster response. would it be more authentic if i was a doc worker or a phd student?
preetensions? whatever. truth hurts baby. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
dear person below me,
is that from your thesis-in-progress? are you really, really serious about the total bullshit you’re putting forward? it’s shocking how pretentious you sound and how wrong you’re getting it. i mean, wow. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
he’s one of the greats i think, i cant wait for this film, i hope it comes out soon. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
hahaha. of course the hipsters love this.
if it is in vice, then they must love it.
vice is the people magazine for hipsters. hipsters are the new yuppies, being easily categorized as a commercial sub-culture whose belief in the importance of their own "uniqueness" really indicates an overwhelming insecurity about their own lack of authenticity.
the hipsters have of course taken this to a new level, since they are a later stage in the evolution of american lack of identity, and their commercial aesthetic has incorporated the notion of "marginalization".
for the hipster, inauthenticity is equated with "un-originality". hence, their quest for authenticity plays out in absurd attempts to demonstrate their own originality in terms of clothing, music, taste in literature, tattoos, etc. the more marginal the better.
what is lost on the hipsters is that almost all of their search for authenticity takes places in a commercial landscape, or within a location which is clearly circumscribed by a commercial landscape or interest.
while this may seem somewhat trite due to the fact that the western human world is essentially a commercial entity nowadays, with the phrase "existence precedes essence" being replaced by "what i can purchase determines my essence".
The particular piece of bad faith on the part of the hipster is that they believe the opposite implication to be true. That is, they believe in their case that their essence determines their purchases, or lack of. in fact, this is almost one of their central tenets. Hence the absurd conflation of originality with how they look and what they appreciate as good or bad. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
great interview, i love korine. | | Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote:
one of the most important artisits working. | | | Next 30 comments > |
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