Harmony Korine Spring Breakers Interview

Harmony Korine Spring Breakers Interview

Cast: James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, Gucci Mane
Director: Harmony Korine
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Rated: MA
Running Time: 92 minutes

Synopsis: Four sexy college girls plan to fund their spring break getaway by burglarising a fast food shack. But that's only the beginning...

At a motel room rager, fun reaches its legal limit and the girls are arrested and taken to jail. Hung-over and clad only in bikinis, the girls appear before a judge but are bailed out unexpectedly by Alien (James Franco), an infamous local thug who takes them under his wing and leads them on the wildest Spring Break trip in history. Rough on the outside but with a soft spot inside, Alien wins over the hearts of the young Spring Breakers, and leads them on a Spring Break they never could have imagined.

Spring Breakers

Release Date: May 9th, 2013

 

 

 

Interview with Harmony Korine

Question: What was the idea that started you writing this movie?

Harmony Korine: The very first image I had in mind was girls in bikinis and with guns. I then asked myself, where would you ever see a girl like that? The only place I could think of was spring break. And then I kind of laughed and thought about it a little bit – and I liked the idea about girls coming down to Florida. It started out that way, but then it moved to the fringes and became something darker, more sinister, more dangerous.


Question: A lot of your work is inspired by American culture, and you set your narratives in very specific American towns. Why did you choose St. Petersburg as the location for Spring Breakers?

Harmony Korine: Well, Saint Petersburg is not such a huge spring break destination. But you want to go to a place that's visually interesting, that's authentic, that has a certain kind of energy. I didn't want to shoot it in Miami or somewhere that seemed more common or more familiar. I'm not so interested in the tourist part of spring break. It's more the back roads, it's more when you leave the main strip, the bad neighborhoods, the houses that are falling apart on the beach – those types of things are more interesting to me. People that live in those places. There's a kind of strange feeling to a lot of that part of America. It seems like everybody is running from something or hiding from something.


Question: You seem to like hiring family members for your projects. Rachel is your wife…

Harmony Korine: Yes, I like to bring in people that I find exciting, that you know can go to places with you. I think trust is a big thing too. You bring in people you trust, that you know will bring it to that place you need it.


Question: You also cast the ATL twins for the movie, and they almost feel like they're coming straight out of your film Gummo…

Harmony Korine: Yeah, they probably exist in that world. The twins are awesome. Freaks! I've worked with them before on a Black Keys video that hasn't come out yet but this is their first movie.


Question: According to the screenplay, you will combine your footage with archive material of real spring break moments. While you did your research was there anything that surprised you about spring break?

Harmony Korine: The spring break I'm interested in is the really debauched, hardcore spring break. I like that stuff, where kids go way, way out for that one week and disappear, and then return to their world of books and bad jobs and shitty parents. I knew it existed, though, so it didn't shock me. It takes a lot to shock me but it was good.

Question: How much time did you spend down in Florida on pre-production? I heard you even rented out authentic apartments of real Spring Breakers and just used the spaces as they were for your shoot. It sounds like you did a lot of research.

Harmony Korine: I spent a few months trying to find these real locations. Just driving around late at night, jumping over fences… A lot of it comes from just being in a place for a while and observing. Just letting one situation take you into the next and then you would find a kind of location or character and that would bring you to another place. That's kind of how the movie gets built. I like it. I like making movies that start from the inside and build out.


Question: Do you set out to make films that are impossible to categorise?

Harmony Korine: I don't make genre movies. This one maybe is probably the closest to any kind of genre film. I try to make movies that exist in their own world, more than anything. I agree, they are difficult to articulate. But I think there are some genre elements in this movie: the social setting, the atmosphere, this kind of teen pop atmosphere. Even where it is shot is kind of different from my other movies. But in general I just try to make films that exist in their own world more than anything. And this one has this kind of lyrical flow, there's a poppy-ness to it, the colors, the location, the types of actors that are in the film. Obviously there are a lot of things that are more typical for me, but it is something different from what I usually do, for sure. Hopefully there's some kind of interesting commerciality to it. It will be exciting to have more people see a film like this.


Question: What do you think your typical Harmony Korine audience will think?

Harmony Korine: That's a good question. I don't really know. Hopefully there will be some stuff in there that they like.


Question: Your films are an observation of American society, but also interact greatly with the international community. How do you think Europeans - without a spring break tradition of their own - will look at this film?

Harmony Korine: I think everyone can identify with teenage debauchery. Getting in trouble, meeting bad people. And really, spring break is more of a metaphor, the movie only touches spring break before it all goes into some other direction before they meet the Alien character and the whole criminal element really starts to take hold.

Question: Music always plays a big part in your movies, and you also give clear directions in the script for certain songs that will feature. Can you talk a little about how music inspires this movie?

Harmony Korine: I will probably score the film in a way that surprises people, maybe with something more 'movie music", something more angular and ambient and kind of moody. But then there will be music that comes from within the scenes, like pop songs and rap music that would be what was really playing. It's a mix of a lot of different cultural pop iconography.


Question: Compared to some of your other movies this project has a fairly big budget. You also have actresses attached that are being chased by paparazzi while you're shooting. How do you cope with this new environment from a directorial point of view?

Harmony Korine: I'm like a warrior; I'm a soldier of cinema. So to me it's just a part of what I do, and it's all great. I just love it. I just accept and do it. Nothing really freaks me out when I make movies. The helicopters and all that shit is just part of it part of the energy of the film.


Question: As a soldier, what are you fighting for?

Harmony Korine: Just, you know, to make movies. That's the only thing.


Interview by Johannes Bonke.