While the feature films of Harmony Korine have caused plenty of provocation on their own (“Gummo,” “Trash Humpers,” “Spring Breakers,” etc.) his predilection for mischief, particularly early in his career, saw the creation of some projects that just never saw the light of day. Perhaps most infamous of them all is the unfinished “Fight Harm,” which featured magician David Blaine filming Korine as he got into real life fights with random strangers. (Korine has said many times over the years he might just finish “Fight Harm” and release it, but don’t hold your breath).
Not long after, the director managed to snag Johnny Depp for the truly bizarre “The Devil, The Sinner, And His Journey,” which features Korine in black metal makeup playing O.J. Simpson, and the future star of “Pirates Of The Caribbean” as Kato Kaelin. It’s also something that you’ll likely never see, but it screened once, and Korine has a pretty crazy story that he shared with James Franco in Office, about getting tossed out of the premiere:
…it was projected at Patrick Painter gallery for six weeks on a loop. [B]ut it wasn’t released, I don’t think that thing could ever be released anywhere. What happened was, I did that, I had a camera crew follow me and film the whole thing, and then after it was done we just went to the gallery and stuck the tape in the machine, and we just projected it in its entirety over and over again. I don’t even think I’d watched it before we just projected it.
…it was done in Johnny Depp’s trailer, it was while he was filming that movie ‘Blow’? I almost can’t even describe it, it’s pretty nuts. I think there’s a picture of it somewhere, floating around. But after it was done, I forget exactly what happened, but I walked out and something happened, and some of the crew, or security attacked me. And I was wearing tap shoes, and you know, covered in paint and stuff, and I got in a fight with them, and it was that same day we went to the gallery. I had an art opening, and it was during that period when I was making those fight films, and people used to, like the Houdini thing, people used to come up and try and fight me all the time. They must have thought I had camera crews following me. So some guy, in the middle of the opening, like an hour after the fight with the thing with Depp, some guy at the opening ran up to me and punched me in the face when I wasn’t looking.
I was on crutches, and I tried to mash him with the crutches, and I ended up getting attacked again by security at my own opening. Security threw me out of my own opening.
I guess cause they said I was inciting a riot, but really it was just some guy who punched me in the face. And you know, I was pissed, I didn’t want to just sit there and take it. But I think at that point people must have thought that I had cameras following me all the time. It’s the kind of thing that makes you paranoid to go out. [laughs]
Geez. Korine should really put out a book with these stories. Anyway, as he says, no one is likely to see “The Devil, The Sinner And His Journey” so we’ll just have to imagine what that was like. Meanwhile, the director is busy finishing the script for his next feature film (which might be “Tampa“), and explains what happened to “The Trap.”
What it is is, both of these scripts grew. So, I wrote The Trap, which is a movie that we were going to make last year, and that took a couple months, it took a while but we got it all together, it was a big film—or, it is a big film—lots of actors, a pretty full-on, muscular genre film, kind of violent. Then, I think like a month out of shooting, I had an issue with one of the actors—or there was an issue with one of the actors—and I had to replace that actor, but then the person I replaced him with, I had to wait on his schedule, and in that time another actor…it was like a domino effect. So they wanted to push the film back for another year, which I’m fine with. It’s not that I completely lose interest, but in that period I was just antsy. So all last year I was like, I’m not just going to wait on that film, I’m going to write something else and see what happens. Then I wrote this movie, it’s about done now, so this one seems—it’s like anything else, whatever’s new you’re the most excited about. So I’m still going to make The Trap, I just might make it after this other film.
However this all plays out, let’s hope Korine is back behind the camera on a new film soon.