“It’s All Just Meaningless”: Inside the Based Mind of Harmony Korine

Everyone lined up outside Knockdown Center to see Baby Invasion either works extra hard to bring downtown chic to New York City’s semi-suburban Maspeth or calls to mind my favorite line from Portnoy’s Complaint: “…like the crew off a ship stricken with scurvy.” The night is semi-chilly, the closest subway is a 20-minute walk, the attraction is an avant-garde horror film perhaps better suited for an art gallery, and, once we’re inside, the vibe feels like that of a rock concert. This is the power of Harmony Korine, who’s about to take the DJ booth.

Most directors of Korine’s generation and stature have settled down, directing one feature every few years while working in television. The occasional mega-auteur commanding matinee idols and staggering budgets does nicely to even out such inequitable narratives. His combination of social influence and artistic intent blares almost as punishingly as the speakers at Knockdown Center, which left me concerned for the state of my hearing at least a few times over the film’s 80 minutes.

For all of Korine’s hijinx, he proved to be a reporter’s dream when he called from the sunny balcony of his Miami apartment a week before the event. Funny and prone to laughter, the director was willing to answer just about anything, though he won’t run afoul of his hero Terrence Malick. We discussed Baby Invasion’s primal origin and final designs, self-reflective art, the most enduring legend of his 30-year career, and—Korine being the rare Cannes-fêted filmmaker who can even answer this question—what video games he’s been playing.

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HARMONY KORINE: What’s up, bro? Nice to see you.

NICK NEWMAN: Where are you calling from?

KORINE: My condo in Miami. We’re getting ready to go to Paris to show the movies.

NEWMAN: Which movies are you showing?

KORINE: They’re going to show Aggro Dr1ft and Baby Invasion, and then I have a museum show that’s up right now. I haven’t even seen it, so I’m going to spend three days there.

NEWMAN: Oh, that sounds great. I’m very jealous. I got to watch Baby Invasion on Sunday.

KORINE: Oh, nice.

NEWMAN: Yeah, it was quite an experience. Part of me would’ve loved to see it in the theater, but I watched it on the TV that I mostly play games on, so it was kind of fitting in that way. It made it a little scarier or more compelling, maybe.

KORINE: Yeah.

NEWMAN: Is that a Cohiba?

KORINE: No, I don’t smoke Cohibas. I smoke Padron.

NEWMAN: Where’s that from?

KORINE: Nicaragua.

NEWMAN: Nicaragua, okay. I’m not enough of a cigar smoker to pretend to know much about it. But I saw you made the Cohiba cigar box.

KORINE: Yeah. I mean, I love them. Everyone gets excited. They always say, “I got this from Fidel Castro’s cousin,” and then the label falls off.

NEWMAN: So I went to a couple of parties later that night after seeing the movie and I was trying to describe it to people, but I did a very bad job, which kind of reflects what you were getting out of it. I felt very similar when I saw Aggro Dr1ft at the New York Film Festival in 2023. When I was preparing for this interview, I found an interview you did with Marc Maron in 2015 where you said something about how you can’t be like Werner Herzog, being super peripatetic. You need time between films because the movies take so much effort.

KORINE: Yeah.

NEWMAN: And now you’re moving very, very fast. Two movies in as many years, and you’re said to be working on an anime version of The Trap.

KORINE: Yes, there’s an anime version of The Trap being worked on now in Tokyo, which I think will take two years or so, but it’s in progress. We also have another animated film that I wrote called Twinkle Twinkle, which we’re creating at EDGLRD. It’s really exciting, and it should be done very soon. We’ve been working on it for the last 12 months. It’s being made on gaming engines and it’s very high-level.

NEWMAN: Oh, that’s amazing. You’re even busier than I thought. I’d like to know a bit about what accounts for this new pace and how you feel your creative expression is affected by it.

KORINE: Yeah, it’s interesting. Sometimes I feel like an overachiever, like I’ve already made too many things. Other times I feel like an underachiever, like I haven’t even lived up to the possibilities. I always bounce back and forth between thinking it’s too much and I should relax a little bit, and that I’ve barely scratched the surface. I guess I’m at that point now where, as I’ve gotten a bit older and more into technology, I’m creating things at a quicker clip. I’m not just focused on this idea of linear filmmaking. I’m trying to make things that are more experiential and go beyond simple articulation, moving in this other direction. So then, the speed of things starts to quicken. The possibilities of what films can be start to change. And then, feeling inspired, I’ve been taking on more and more projects.

NEWMAN: I wonder too if, making things that are outside the boundaries of conventional cinema, there’s a kind of incentive or even a demand for each feature to be an advancement of the prior. When you were first premiering Baby Invasion in Venice, you said that it goes further than Aggro Dr1ft. Having seen the film, I agree. It almost makes Aggro Dr1ft look like a conventional movie. So would you say that these two other films, The Trap and Twinkle Twinkle, are going even further? 

KORINE: Those movies are… Well, I’m not going to say traditional anime or animated features, but they are more linear. There are definitely more traditional scripts, storylines, and character arcs. They were written a couple of years ago, so I was still really interested in those things at that point. So those two projects will be more linear, more conventional, probably more commercial, but the visuals will be pretty stunning.

NEWMAN: Yeah, I expect so. Something that occurred to me while watching your recent films, and I understand if this is the kind of question you’d hate or shy away from, but I ask it sincerely. When I saw Aggro Dr1ft, I was struck by the story of a Miami-based professional with a wife and kids, who’s getting older, pondering his place in the world and the kind of world he’s leaving to his children. In my mind, I wondered if this is something like a self-portrait. Then, Baby Invasion is about guys in Edgelord gear robbing and killing families, filmed in the homes of friends, casting people who actually robbed your friends.

KORINE: Well, it’s not so serious. I make a lot of these things just to entertain myself, and I don’t really overthink it. I might come up with a storyline that’s really aggressive, violent, extremely transgressive, or whatever it is. It’s mostly a mood that I’m chasing, a feeling. A lot of these films, these newer films, they don’t really have a precedent as far as what’s been made or what’s come before them. I’m really trying out ideas. I have these specific ideas, visions, moods, and aggression. There’s an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, and the films can fluctuate and dance between the two worlds. There are things that are probably autobiographical to some extent, maybe, but I’m not really sure. I don’t think about them in those terms. It’s mostly that I’ll have images and sounds in my mind, wanting to see things in a specific way, always trying to go towards the light or push myself towards something more inexplicable, a kind of emotion, or something that even just vibrates. How can you be inside of a film? You know what I mean? At some point, I would love to be able to transport the movies into your mind directly. You could just drink something or stare at something, and then you just transport a full emotion, a full ride or a character, into your imagination with no screen.

NEWMAN: What was the first image, sound, or feeling from Baby Invasion that came to you?

KORINE: I mostly wanted to do a film that worked like a first-person shooter and didn’t really have a narrative other than the fact that they were just streaming crimes. Originally, I had used 100 cameras for this. We would set up these mansions with all the characters wearing cameras or GoPros, and we set up security cameras everywhere. The idea would be that you would film this like a play. There were no run-throughs; every take would be two hours long. And then you would just go through the action, the breaking in, robbing, stealing, the violence, eating a pizza, whatever happened became part of the story. It was closer to a surveillance-style play that took place over a live stream in real-time. We tried cutting it in a lot of different ways. At some point, it started to feel too manipulated or too movie-like by jumping from editing from one camera to the next. After many different versions, we kind of settled on a single point of view, which is just the point of view from the Yellow robber, and then mostly told it from a single perspective with the stream going with the chat. The whole shoot, I think, was done in just two days. But because there were so many cameras and the takes were so long, there were probably 150 hours or something.

NEWMAN: And what drew you to Yellow as a character?

KORINE: It was just the camera, the way the camera settled with that one character. I tried a bunch of different characters. We tried it just from the point of view of the duck mob, switching from character to character. We started out with a maximalist approach to surveillance, streaming, and gaming, and then I started to just strip it away until it really was just mostly one point of view.

NEWMAN: So the camera is strapped to the actor playing Yellow, correct?

KORINE: Yeah.

NEWMAN: I’m curious what the thinking was with leaving the actor who plays him anonymous.

KORINE: Well, I mean, there’s really no actors in the film. Making him anonymous in what way? Not knowing his name?

 NEWMAN: In the end credits, Yellow is credited as “Anonymous.”

KORINE: Oh, I don’t know. It’s easier to not know. [Laughs] It’s better to not know.

NEWMAN: I suppose that’s why I asked, but if it’s better to not know, I’ll take your word for it.

KORINE: Yeah.

NEWMAN: Tell me about this event you’re throwing at the Knockdown Center here in New York. I’ve heard you say in the past that you have an interest in making a kind of rave or trance. And I feel like a live remix with music playing is pretty close to that.

KORINE: Yeah. I’m going to be remixing the film. I think I’m going to just play around. I think it’ll have three projections. The center projection will be the core film. And then from the peripheral will have remixed security footage and footage that’s not in the actual film itself, and then I’ll just kind of remix and play the movie live to the Burial score.

NEWMAN: The Burial score that we heard in the movie?

KORINE: Yeah. I’ll release two versions of the film. There’s one version that we played at Venice that has the voiceover, the girl speaking and telling this long story about a rabbit. And then the version that you saw and the version that we’ll do at Knockdown, I just took away all the voiceover. I took away all the story, anything, and basically now it’s purely just the Burial sound design and the visuals.

NEWMAN: What was the thinking with taking away the voiceover? 

KORINE: Well, I liked the voiceover, but then I kind of didn’t want people to think. I was like, “Well, that’s a good version. I’ll release that version too.” It’s interesting, but it makes you draw parallels. It has this kind of tangential reasoning, the voice of the story, a story that’s being told that’s different from the visuals that you’re watching, but then you’re making connections. And then I was like, “I actually want to present this in a way where you don’t really have to think, where you actually just have to feel, where it’s more just like an experience.” You still think, I guess, but you’re not trying to draw a parallel logic.

NEWMAN: Right. Well, you kind of got me hook, line, and sinker because I saw one version. But now I’m saying to myself, “I got to know what this rabbit is.” Right?

KORINE: You see? There you go…

NEWMAN: That’s brilliant marketing. So, a couple of years ago, you revealed that Terrence Malick had written a script for you.

KORINE: Yeah.

NEWMAN: Which you called a really, really beautiful script. Now, if you know one thing about Terrence Malick, you know that he’s very private. So I understand if you can’t really answer this or you don’t want to answer this, but I’m wondering if you could talk at all about what the script is or what it’s about or–

KORINE: Yeah, I have to respect him. I would normally, but because it’s his, I can’t. I’ll just say that it’s very beautiful, and Terry is one of the greatest people that I know, for sure.

NEWMAN: Have you seen any of the Way of the Wind? Because I know he’s been very busy editing it.

KORINE: Again, I can’t say. I will always respect his sphere.

NEWMAN: I respect you respecting him. Anyway, I watched all of the interviews I could find in your recent press runs and there was a clip that went viral where you said, “I just want to make things that are based.” But around the same time, you did these two hour-long conversations with Hauser & Wirth that are extremely thoughtful and really incisive. And I wonder if you could talk about that dichotomy between being serious about your art and those times where you sort of play a character.

KORINE: Yeah, I don’t know. It’s like moods. You just feel something. I don’t really have an explanation. To be honest with you, I don’t really think about it all that much. The whole thing for me is the most important, everything that I’m making and everything I’ve tried to make since I was a kid. It’s like, “Wow, this is really the most important thing I could ever do.” And in the end, It’s all just meaningless. So it’s everything and nothing at the same time. It’s the greatest and the worst, it fulfills and it also empties. And so I just realize it’s a very quick trip I’m on, and I’m just trying to entertain myself a little bit.

NEWMAN: Of course. I want to quickly go back to The Trap, because that’s a film that you’ve been developing for a while. What is it about that particular story that has stuck with you for the better part of a decade?

KORINE: Well, it’s the best script that I’ve ever written, without question. I mean, I’ve mostly gotten to the point with these more recent ones where I don’t really use conventional scripts. I draw them out mostly, and there’s not even really dialogue written. It’s mostly freestyle. That is the most perfect script that I’ve written; the best writing, the most I’ve put into just a pure piece of screenplay. I wrote The Beach Bum really quickly because The Trap is very violent, and it’s a revenge movie. And I had been living in that headspace for a while, so I wrote The Beach Bum just so I could laugh again. So I’d started watching a lot of anime and webtoon and I was like, “Oh, this could kind of fit really well into that. It’s been a while.” So that’s really where it came from, and we kind of resurrected it.

NEWMAN: I’m a bit of a closeted weeb, so I’d love to know what anime you were watching.

KORINE: Oh, man. I don’t want to tell you because of all my influences. But we were talking to Mappa and 4C. I mean, it’s a real Japanese anime, but I don’t want to cite anything yet.

NEWMAN: All good. I know you love Miami, especially the light. Watching Baby Invasion, there’s a part where a woman is outside on her knees, crying, and a gun is being held to her head. And even in that moment, I thought, “Wow, Miami really is beautiful.” How have you sought to stay true to the Miami ambience, or if this is an opportunity to kind of diverge from it in the realm of animation?

KORINE: Even the anime will be Miami. It’ll be Florida, and even Twinkle Twinkle will be Florida. But yeah, I love the whole state. I love the way it looks. I mean, look. [Korine turns his camera around] That’s my view. It’s like the city of the future that’s built into the ocean.

NEWMAN: I know you love Grand Theft Auto. Are you excited that GTA 6 is coming soon?

KORINE: I’m so excited. I’m blocking out a full year.

NEWMAN: I’ve had some interactions with your old collaborator Anthony Dod Mantle.

KORINE: Yeah, he’s the best. I love him.

NEWMAN: He’s great. I did this interview with him where he didn’t outright say the legendary story of you getting kicked off Letterman for going through Meryl Streep’s purse is untrue, but he said, “Harmony is a master at generating these things.” I wonder if there’s any way you’d want to respond to that—how true or untrue it is.

KORINE: Yeah, you know, that’s a tricky one. Again, it’s interesting because that story, I get asked about it all the time and… this is very tricky. Because, on the one hand, I could tell you, “Well, that story Letterman tells about me is not true.” Or this, or that other thing. But then [Laughs] I kind of like the story. What no one talks about is, “What’s inside the purse?”

NEWMAN: Ah. We can print the legend.

KORINE: But what’s inside the purse was really the thing. Like, there was a Matrix-level entrance inside the purse.

NEWMAN: Okay. You’re adding wrinkles to the story. I assume you won’t tell me what was inside the purse.

KORINE: No, I can’t.

NEWMAN: What other games have you been playing recently?

KORINE: We’re on a Diablo streak in the office for a while. I love Halo. I love Elden Ring, but it’s too difficult. And I’ve been playing Wipeout a lot lately.

NEWMAN: Are you excited for Death Stranding?

KORINE: I mean, the trailer looks incredible. It’s the most Kojima-coded Kojima game. I went and visited him while he was making it and it looks great. I love that he put a ten-minute trailer out. He’s got an amazing operation, very high-level and visionary.

NEWMAN: Well, that just about does it. I like that you almost finished the whole cigar during this conversation.

KORINE: No, bro. I still got like half left. Look at it.