Tod Lippy: You recently remarked that, “For a long time I was willing to die for film.”

Harmony Korine: I never meant that in a literal way. I have reconsidered it all, though, and I have skipped out on Ash Wednesday. At one point—the point most probably then remarked—I felt that something had to give in order to be received.

Literal or not, the comment intrigued me because I think it relates to a compulsion in your work to cross boundaries (narrative/non-narrative, art/life, objective/subjective)—to push through something finite in order to find out what’s on the other side. It’s like the kitchen scene in Gummo, where you can’t imagine how much this guy’s mastery over a wood-and-metal chair will mean until you watch him destroy it with his bare hands.

This idea of a man fighting a chair means very much to me. The outcome is central, because what would happen if the chair won? What would the man feel if the seat-cushion of the chair got the better of him, or if he got tangled up in its legs and felt that his opponent, although not necessarily alive, had been too worthy an adversary. I imagine the man’s self worth would diminish as the chair stood there, bent and laughing.

The other people in the kitchen are so invested in it, too. They’re continually upping the ante—“C’mon! Kick his fucking ass!” It’s an amazing film moment. Were you there for that? I remember reading somewhere that you wanted only Jean-Yves Escoffier in the room for a lot of that evening.

I was not in the room while the shooting was taking place. I felt that my presence would only hinder the actors, so I discussed with Escoffier the correct route. The room was lit only with strong practicals, and all the doors in the kitchen were closed so none of the crew and producers knew what was happening. It was very late at night on the last day of shooting. One of the men had just been released from prison that afternoon—I believe that’s why he beat the chair with such zest. It was a celebratory notion. I turned off my monitor and only listened to what was happening through the closed door. We would shoot every take continuous for four minutes until the mag was spent. Between takes I would run in and whisper in their ears and refill their booze. After the scene was completed I vomited in a bucket to show my appreciation.

From anxiety, inebriation or just gratitude? Does the actual directing process ever make you anxious?

No, not anxiety. When the film is completed and I must go home, then I usually feel an overwhelming sense of disgust and heartbreak.

But during production, does the responsibility you bear as director ever feel overwhelming to you?

Only if there is a calm.

You described your script for Julien Donkey-Boy as”an assortment of scenes describing what could happen, what should happen, what might happen.” That kind of reliance on chance reminds me of a certain strain of modern and contemporary art (Duchamp, Fluxus, etc.). Is that a purely personal aesthetic, or do you feel you’re coming out of a particular artistic tradition?

With Julien Donkey-Boy, I was concerned with the documentation of science proj­ects: if one actor in the film was sulphur-based, and the other actor was hydrochloric acid, then my sole duty was to shake them up and document the fizzle, the gurgle, the separation. Sometimes all things could just as easily evaporate or blow up in my face. This has more in common maybe with people like Otto Müller and Hermann Nitsch, the Aktionists from Vienna. But even these are very different; the work appears to have almost no resemblance.

But I think there’s a strain of seriousness and self-importance in Nitsch’s work that I don’t really get from your films. What about someone like Paul McCarthy, who seems to cover similar terrain but with a much better sense of humor?

I don’t really see much of either, besides a sheer performance element, and documenting a “set-up” that is manipulated to varying degrees. What is most important is the subject matter being photographed; the actual aesthetics are secondary or become more pertinent after the fact.

Speaking of “after the fact,” could you talk about how you go about editing your work? I seem to recall reading that there were something like a hundred hours of footage for Julien; how did you distill that down into a feature-length film?

With Julien, because I was working with so many cameras at once—up to fifteen—there was a lot of extra footage. I always work with a talented editor who can sort things and solidify my ideas into tangible scenarios, but I never allow the editor to watch the footage before the completion of production. This allows the editing process to follow the kinetic constructs that were laid down during the actual filming process. I guess you would call it a semi-improvised design through and through. But still the actual mystery of the process alludes me.

I thought I’d mention a couple of specific bits from your films, and, if you’re inclined, ask you to riff off of them. I wanted to start with the image of the boy in the roach-ridden house repeatedly trying to rehang the picture on the nail in Gummo.

I don’t necessarily have reasoning for the things I do, I just act upon intuition and prophetic gesture.

Speaking of prophetic gestures, how did you come up with the concept for Fight Harm, which, if I understand it correctly, consists of you picking fights with people much larger than you, and then being summarily beaten up while a hidden camera crew documents the whole thing?

I wanted to make the great American comedy. I felt that self-sacrifice in the name of a lost heathen tradition was and is the last fertile frontier. To embrace violence. To sip the blood. I felt as if I was Jolson on a unicorn. I wanted the feature film to consist only of brutality. But perhaps the film is short-lived if I want to raise my cup in the name of longer life outside the black circle.

How much of it was actually filmed? Will you ever resume work on it, or has—as you suggested a while ago—therapy permanently replaced your embrace of violence with one of self-preservation? And is that necessarily problematic for the kind of work you’re trying to do?

Approximately six fights were recorded altogether. There is no winner or loser attached to the altercation. It is not about victory, it’s more a spectacle of perseverance: how much heart does the bleeding man have. I can safely say that, for the time being, I have abandoned any and all notions of completing this film in the manner and length it was conceived. I will perhaps show it in its present form, or I might never.

When I first heard about the film, I couldn’t help but view it as a sort of stripped-down, extreme representation of the physicality of life in New York­—the fact that on any given day one literally collides with dozens of people. Would you agree, and could you talk more generally about if and how living in NYC has affected your work?

It only influenced me to move away. New York is a miserable place. I hope it burns.

But you lived here for close to ten years. Did you always have such antagonistic feelings about it?

I am not a good person to ask when it comes to geographical pleasure. I have never enjoyed living anywhere, nor have I ever thought of any place as being home.

A while ago, you said, “The most subversive thing you can do with the most radical kind of work is to place it in the most commercial venue.” You’ve had great success in finding an established producer—Cary Woods—to help you finance, make and distribute films that have done just that, at least to a limited degree. Can you talk about your relationship with him, and his commitment to your work?

I ask him for a certain amount of money and he gives me half of it. I also remind him to take his blood pressure medicine. I was his biggest supporter when he had kidney stones as well.

Do you have a particular audience in mind when you’re writing/shooting/editing your films?

No.

Does it make you uncomfortable to attend screenings of your films? Do you ever sneak into a theater to check out an audience’s response to them?

I will usually attend at least one screening in the beginning, for various reasons. Then l will never watch my movie again.

Why not?

The film becomes an annoying child that I wished my wife would have aborted, but it’s too late—it already breathes and it has a name and it will survive past my own physical death and I will be judged on the merits of its afterlife. So my only option is to continue to plant my seed again and again, continuing to procreate, all the while never being the parent a proper director is supposed to be, neglecting all post-birth glory, hating those others who languish in pride at how well their child has held up, how sturdy, how smart, and how cute it looks. While in all actuality the child for the most part has become just another piece of shit, a whore whose patrons are those bored suckers who select your box at the video store brothel, stagger home with your child under their arm, then return her. Maybe a late fee is in order. I am an abusive father who has no need for his children once the umbilical cord is severed. It’s just the fuck I’m concerned with. Copping the nut. I don’t even know why I bother in this age when one can just adopt and then return it if you don’t like it.

In your novel, Crackup at the Race Riots, you relate the anecdote of a woman on a train who notices two chow-chow dogs resting under a seat. After mentioning to her husband about how beautiful they are, she kneels down to pet them, and both dogs immediately get up and move away from her. Rejected, she says, “Snob dogs,” and then her husband, smiling, points to the dirt that’s collected on the knees of her trousers. That sense of a prideful generosity backfiring into a kind of absolute vulnerability appears again and again in your work (i.e. the “lump in your titty” scene in Gummo). Can you talk about why you’re drawn to such moments?

It just seems to me that those people who think with a certain level of depth are destined to lose. The more vulnerable your work, the more people want to trample it. If you think freely, then everyone wants your head on a platter. In essence you become the sole white sheep standing on green Astroturf roped off in an exclusive part of the yacht, far out at sea, and it is here that the aristocracy, those men who own the boat, take turns one by one on their knees fucking you in the ass because they are aware that you are the only animal god gave the automatic anal-jerk reaction to fuck back without thinking, because this is your own specific animal talent. And all the wives of the humping aristocracy blush and smile, and some giggle, standing on the other side of the roped-off area, watching the goings-on. And the bow rocks and this is how it is done.

It’s funny, but I would never think of your work as particularly “vulnerable” to attack, because it doesn’t seem at all desperate to please. Sure, a critical Janet Maslin review may affect ticket sales, but my sense is that its financial success is of little or no consequence to you. I also sense that you have an enormous amount of confidence in what you’re doing. Doesn’t that combination make you feel impervious to the “trampling”?

It depends if you are trampled on by a horse or a swine. The sigil of the cloven hoof marks thy path.

You been exhibiting work recently in galleries. How does the different context (“white cube,” rarefied demographic, etc.) affect your creative decisions? And do you think that context alters the meaning of your work?

Charles Eames was most notably an architectural engineer, a furniture designer, and a man of scientific theory, but most impressive to me were his films—films about toys, spinning tops, toy towns, toy soldiers, toy trains (most famous of the films were his two short masterpieces, Power of 10 and National Aquarium Presentation). He will be remembered first and foremost as a creator of chairs. He did not give philosophical credence to his own separate and varied modes of creation: in essence, his chairs and his films were one and the same. The content was king, thus creating a “unified aesthetic” that brought the house down, and allowed him to work free of any self-imposed constraints that most artists suffer. Personally, I have published books of fiction, books of photos, displayed my art in many galleries and in many forms, made recordings of banjo music, written and directed films, composed a symphony using only the same three black keys on the right-hand side of the piano, and, most importantly, I am now trying to revive the tap dance scene by developing an entirely new repertoire of semi-improvised, extremely technical, avant-garde dance structures. (Please do not think I am joking: it would be the deepest misunderstanding to interpret my intent, my dream, as somehow being an ironic display. I am admittedly not as advanced at the moment as I need to be before I showcase this next phase in my career. If my dream comes to fruition, and I am capable of a total tap revolution, then I declare without any hesitation or pause a complete and total abandonment of my current involvement in the cinema and all other areas of artistic contention. I need to go where I am most useful!) The point being: everything from me had been previously deposited inside of me, due to the force of a sacred entity whose identity I will take to my grave. This curse/blessing was bestowed upon my being without any previous knowledge and total disregard of personal choice in the matter, no consent. And when I am dead, perhaps I, too, will be best remembered for a chair I once built.

There’s clearly an element of religiosity—a sense of a “calling”—in the way you speak about your creativity, and in your willingness to make declarations about art and your relationship to it. In that regard, it seems like you and the Dogme movement were a perfect match. Could you talk about what appealed to you about making a Dogme film? And if you’ll do it again?

Faith is a requirement. Without belief you are lost. I need rules, I crave structure, I need to often be punished for my bad behavior: this reminds of the world’s reckoning. l work in order to redeem that which I have careened against. My work is all lies. I imagine that I am not a very good person, though not the worst of the bunch. I am sure that I have been bestowed many more faults and pains than goodness. Virtue sought through redemption. I am not a fan of life. I have never enjoyed the company of others. I continue because I know no other way. The Dogme 95 were militant in belief—a band of brothers who sought to flank the industry. Vive la revolution! Long live all the brothers everywhere in arms who resist the vortex with anger and contempt. I doubt I will return to the vow of chastity, though. Remember this, my friends: it is not enough to worship him, you must almost be him!!

How were the Oscars? I saw you on TV.

I have forgotten.

I know that you once said “I make movies because no one has made a film that I’d like to see at the cinema,” but I was wondering if there were any films (recent or not) that had been particularly influential to you. And if so, could you talk about why and how they affected you?

This question is a bit too difficult for me to respond to in full. Actually, that was not what I said. What I said was that no one at present was presenting the types of images in the way I wished to see them presented, thus: “I create what is not there for me to see at the moment.” I actually stole this point of view from a friend of mine. It is not profound, but it is the truth. It seemed to suit my views, though, so I adopted it as my own. As far as speaking of movies that have moved me, there are far too many to speak of. The history of cinema is vast and my attention is not so. Please forgive me. In order to answer this question we would have to play a lengthy guessing game.

Fair enough. Can you talk a little bit about the Jokes omnibus film? I understand Gus Van Sant is filming (or has completed filming) one segment, you’re doing one, and possibly Claire Denis the third?

Jokes is a film that I wrote about two years ago. I have always been a fan of vaudeville, and I have for a long time had the desire to direct and revive the classic black­face minstrels of yesteryear, in particular those early Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor classics that helped inspire me to become the person I am today. In fact, my two life-long dream projects are both epic in scope: the first is to star as a tap-dancing minstrel in a film called “The Grace of Blackface.” The other film would be a historical period drama, tracing in great detail the history of molestation in the Boy Scouts. I would go decade by decade, showcasing the most infamous Boy Scout molesters of the day. I would focus particularly on the evolution of the scout-master molester: how with each passing era his methods and sophistication would increase accordingly, in essence becoming more and more uniformly perverse, reflecting the times and attitudes of the day, ending up with the common flat-out pedophilic mantra that is the Boy Scouts of America. In fact I have already been working on a script that combines both themes, a period minstrel drama about the history of Boy Scout molesting. But Jokes is a separate undertaking. Written in conjunction with the former, it is a movie in three parts. Each chapter, so to speak, is based on a Milton Berle joke, usually a one-liner in the vein of Henny Youngman. Basically, I picked three separate jokes and embellished each one in order to stretch it out into a simple narrative of sorts. At the time, I was watching all the Alan Clarke films I could see, and I was very much excited by his technique: his use of long, flowing steadicam, no-frills organic filmmaking. So I was inspired to approach each joke/chapter in a similar way, a return to a place I had never before felt any interest. The idea of three different directors, including myself, came later, after the script was written. My main interest for making it an omnibus film was so that if the movie turned out terrible, I would only have to share a third of the negative critical brunt. Claire Denis is not going to direct the last installment, although I admire her extremely. Logistically it could not happen in time. The third director will not be revealed until the film’s completion.

Can you talk more about your interest in jokes? So many pages of your novel, for instance, are filled with little bits that have that “set-up, pay-off” structure found in the Berle/Youngman stand-up tradition, but often the content (murder, rape, etc.) has an interestingly dissonant relationship to the form.

I am a showman. I will paint myself black and spark a jingle. I am the last living minstrel, and trickery is part of my trade. But I also have a soft spot in my heart for those pale-faced darkies who had, before I was yet born, painted themselves negro with burnt cork and shoe polish, and the pride these men had as they hocked their asses on the bright light stages for their nickel-tossing patrons. And as such, I will dance on their graves. This, I’m sure, would make them proud.

In your novel, you place celebrity’s names (“Jessica Tandy”) in odd contexts, often giving off a weird frisson (“Jessica Tandy had an elongated vagina”). I thought that your casting of Werner Herzog as the father in Julien had a similar effect. His fame—his history—kept bouncing off his character in interesting ways. Can you talk about 1) your take on “celebrity” in this culture, and 2) your interest in playing with it in your work?

In this case, I am not sure why I do these things.

Can you name a specific film {or even a film moment) that has had an effect on you, and why?

Every Which Way But Loose, 1978, dir. James Fargo. I love when Clint Eastwood splits his beer with the chimp. This is the only movie moment that seems to be coming to my mind at the moment.