Split Screen 2000: Episode #58 - Projections: Harmony Korine

From Faber & Faber's Projections: Tod Lippy's interview with Harmony Korine

Tod Lippy: 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?

Harmony Korine: 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.

Tod Lippy: 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?

Harmony Korine: 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.

Projections 11
New York Film-Makers on Film-making
edited by Tod Lippy
faber and faber
© copyright Tod Lippy, 2000


Split Screen: Projections - Harmony Korine Credits





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