There’s a retrospective of the works of estimable cinematographer Ed Lachman (“The Virgin Suicides,”The Limey”,” “I’m Not There”) currently happening at the Brooklyn Academy Museum so we went to go check out the opening night screening of the little-seen 1995 film “Ken Park” on Friday, a flick we didn’t realize was co-directed with sleazebag degenerate director Larry Clark (well known for his proclivity for photographic young boys in their tighty-whiteys – the veritable godfather of sleazy Calvin Klein and American Apparel ads; we just thought it was a Clark film). It was the second time the film had ever been screened publicly in New York.
“Ken Park” is notoriously known for it’s graphic pornography (real sex), cum shots* – the typically provocative work of button-pusher Clark – and the fact that it was never properly released in the United States, due to the surely NC-17 or triple X rating it would have certainly received if it ever found a distributor willing to pay for it (*Ziggy from “The Wire” jerks off to screen to completion – apparently he was “emotionally spent” afterwards. We were just surprised how well hung he was).
Or so we all assumed. Lachman and Clark were on hand for a Q&A afterwards and the slippery way Clark put it, was it wasn’t cause there were censorship or distribution issues, but because the shady producers on the project – who apparently were a nightmare throughout – never cleared the music rights even when they said they were in the process of doing so.
This struck us and many others as odd. Even we assume this story is true, why not just change the songs if they couldn’t get the rights? This is what every other movie in the history of cinema has done. There’s been countless stories – some of them retold here on this blog – about the songs director’s wanted to use in their films but couldn’t because of rights issues (Wes Anderson wanting Dylan’s “Billy’s Theme” to end “Bottle Rocket,” David Gordon Green wanting to use “Cortez The Killer” in “Undertow” for just two off-the-dome examples) and what did they all do? They moved on and used other songs much to their chagrin.
Clark talked about some country songs in the films (ones by Merle Haggard and Gary Stewart) that were cost-prohibitive to clear, but again, every other filmmaker in the world will just find another song, no matter how much it kills them, so this excuse seems rather sketchy to us. Especially since Clark hopes to still release the film properly one day (the soundtrack – uncleared or otherwise – features songs by The Roots, Black Starr, Rancid, Hank Ballard, Jerry Lee Lewis and concludes in the closing credits rather brilliantly with “Who Are Parents?” by dyslexic teen trio The Shaggs). Or maybe they just ran out of cash and that’s it?
We’ve got nothing against the guy, we loved “Kids” and thought “Wassup Rockers” was a vast improvement on his shock-cinema with a much kinder and affectionate portrayal of teen life, but Clark seriously felt like the biggest scam artist in the world and we’re pretty positive we weren’t the only guys who felt that way (one guy bolted when his seemingly challenging question was ignored).
We asked Clark about the sex in the film as it wasn’t simulated (clearly), bordered on pornography (or at least begged the question: what’s the difference between art and pornography?) and seemingly done with underage teens. When we asked if the kids in the film were underage, Clark and Lachman practically gasped and with, “god, no,” and responded that that would be illegal (“You can’t do that,” Clark said) and that casting took over a year because they had to find of-age actors that could believably play 16-17-year-old kids (which we completely believed by the way, but did cross-reference on IMDB just in case – the story panned out).
But when we asked whether the authentic sex scenes might have been the reason the film might have had distribution problems in the U.S., Clark once again added it was because of the song clearances and then added, “Was their even real sex in the film? I don’t remember,” to which the audience responded with laughter (which was their response to much of the over-the-top sex, violence and “pushing-the envelope transgressivness” of the film – cue: the rolling of your eyes). Clark even leaned over to Lachman during the audience burst out and asked, “Was there sex in the film?” (we didn’t catch his response).
The rest of the audience just lobbed softballs as the filmmaker and they were only too happy to oblige as any question that seemed like a challenging one immediately got their backs against the wall. At one point a visibly annoyed Clark even abruptly muttered, “Alright, are we done yet? I’ve got to go soon. Have we done enough?”
At one point an audience member asked Clark if it was true that he had a falling out with the film’s screenwriter Harmony Korine (who wrote the story based on Clark’s diaries) and he immediately responded, “No,” followed by a long pause. “Well, we had a falling out, but not about this film.”
To be fair, Clark praised Korine’s work while candidly talking about his drug problems (“He went off to do his adventure,” was the euphemism) and then alternately gave him shit about nicking the film’s title and the play off it (the character named Ken Park, who’s nickname was that moniker backwards Krapneck) from a real life skater named Ken Park who’s nickname was krapneck (“Harmony was so pleased with himself about coming up with that. He wanted everyone to know it was genius,” later they found out the truth and thankfully, cleared with ease through the understanding skater. “Well, that was Harmony at the time,” Clark shrugged).
Clark said he’s working two films – one called, “Wild,” and one that he was unwilling to talk about (he said he had been working on it for 5 years – afterwards, outside someone asked him about it and doing our best eavesdropping, the director said he wanted to make a 24 hour movie!)
All we know is that someone should cast this dirtbag filmmaker as a bullshitting snake oil salesman, something tells us he’d do a fantastic job. Lachman on the other hand was soft-spoken and genuine, but we’re not so sure about the company he keeps.
UPDATE. The Reeler were at the same screening too and actually took better notes than we did (yeah, we should bring a recorder too). Here’s pretty much exactly what was said about our question.
ON THEIR AGES AND UNSIMULATED SEX: Larry Clark: [Shakes his head when asked if the actors were underage.] “No, no, you can’t do that. I don’t wanna go to the penitentiary. And I don’t think Ed wants to go to the penitentiary, either. Everybody has to be 18; you just get people who look really young. Which is a long search. Everyone that age wants to do it. … You say they were really having sex, but I don’t know if they were or not. I can’t remember.”
Lachman: “There’s CGI and special effects.” [ed. well played, sir]
Watch: “Ken Park” (intro to film)If you’ve never seen this movie, much of it is on YouTube, fyi.