Harmony Korine, innovation, why David Letterman is not listening and what I’m doing now….
In one of those odd weekend mornings where you wake up too early and blindly look at your phone I got randomly served the piece of content above. And I cannot stop thinking about it.
Let’s ignore the fact the chat show host is male (like all US chat show hosts) and the format is tired and is now mostly on the way out. Let’s ignore the fact I haven’t actually seen the movie “Kids” or read Harmony’s book. Maybe I should. And we have to ignore whether HK was using or not, for now.
Firstly, I love the way Harmony wears a suit on his first appearance. It’s adorable. He’s like the kid who got the keys to the kingdom, he’s cocky, nonchalant, IDGAF. To someone like Letterman, he’s intensely annoying.
I get it, I really get it. I’ve dealt with kids like this. Gobby, loud, full of themselves. Partly defence mechanism, partly peacocking to stand out from the crowd. They are still learning to communicate in a way. Harmony is 19 or 20 in this first interview, Letterman is around 48. They are worlds apart. And Letterman takes him down immediately as HK sits down and unbuttons his suit : “I think you take a 38 medium” — about its size. Ouch.
Immediately the audience is laughing but it is nervous laughter. Harmony comes across as a geek, a boy in a big suit – a fish out of water. He goes on to tell a story about a childhood friend who almost drowned — the audience whoops and Letterman is really stuck. Harmony is not following the chat show format. He’s giving context and background but not answering the direct questions. He’s like your annoying boyfriend on Whatsapp.
At no point is Letterman listening and really commenting on what HK says, he’s determined to stick to his guns. And his statement “Oh, I could pretty much have this conversation with myself” is the killer.
Boardrooms across the globe have “Lettermans” in them. Men in their 50’s who grew up in a certain era and stuck to the script, and earned a very nice living and can see retirement on the horizon and thank you very much. And when the “Harmonys” come in and try and talk about something they believe will work or a trend they have spotted, in most of those companies, they are shouted down. Maybe they aren’t dressed right, they don’t express themselves in the same way — but their points are still valid.
In the second segment of the interview, HK discusses his next film “Gummo”. Letterman again adopts a mocking tone and says “ It’s like nothing I have ever seen before”. He then asks about where it’s been shot:
HK: “I grew up in Nashville..and I wanted to make a different film..I wanted to make a different kind of movie…’cause I don’t see cinema on the same kind of terms or the same way that narrative movies have been made for the past hundred years. I mean, we started with Griffith, and I don’t know what the hell’s going on now. But basically nothing’s changed, so I wanna see images coming from all directions.”
BOOM. This interview was in around 1997 when “Gummo” came out. Now, in 2019 all his statements are still valid.
Letterman is more supportive in this interview but there’s still an undertone of sarcasm — particularly towards the end, he does call him “prolific” but at the same time he’s sneering at him.
In the final interview he introduces him as the “pleasantly odd” Harmony Korine. And straightway comments on how he’s dressed, because Harmony by now has dispensed with the suit. And he may, or may not be on something.
Letterman compares his last feature (Gummo again) with Titanic. I mean, what? 200 million grossed at the box office.
Letterman: Now that’s a movie
HK (smart as a whip) Yeah it sank
This as a joke is perfect, and it lands with the audience so well. HK admits he hasn’t actually seen Titanic. He doesn’t need to.
In all three interviews Letterman is obsessed with his measure of success: money. He asks what the movies cost, what they grossed, how much his book is, how much it sold. HK doesn’t care – he’s an artist, he makes things, he writes and directs. He’s always got something on the go, the next thing is already planned. Letterman can’t stand that he may be successful at more than one thing. Letterman is afraid.
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In June this year, I started a new gig at Kingston School of Art. I’d sworn never to work in education again, but this opportunity was too good to pass up on: set up a creative agency out of KSA with students instead of staff. FROM SCRATCH. Win business, prove the model works, give the students experiences outside of the modules with REAL CLIENTS. Before I’d even launched the website or met any students we had three new clients and one existing.
My job, maybe even my calling is to get many more Harmony Korine’s on TV, on stages, on platforms and in places and spaces where they aren’t normally. Bridge the gap between student and professional. My job is to empower them to make people listen to them. Unlike Letterman. My god, I’ve always been listening to people younger than me. Are you?
