The kids aren't all right

>> Bully marks Larry Clark's return to teen nastiness

by MATTHEW HAYS

Behold the cinematic universe of Larry Clark. In Kids, his stunning '95 directorial debut, Clark, then best known as a photographer, shot a script by then-unknown Harmony Korine. The kids in Kids were vicious, amoral, unthinking, insensitive, deeply violent and intensely carnal. The film, which Clark shot in an ultrarealistic documentary style, drew as much fire as it did praise. As undeniably praiseworthy as the performances were, detractors argued the film seemed contrived for shock value. Clearly, this was not another John Hughes movie.

Looking back on Kids in a post-Columbine world makes the film even more fascinating; in fact, it's a freakily prescient movie, laying bare the grim power struggles and nastiness which often soaks adolescent existence. Ironically enough, it was Columbine that would make Clark's most recent foray into youth-behaving-badly moviemaking, Bully, so very difficult to finance.

The film is based on the Jim Schutze book of the same name, which is based on a true '93 Florida incident. A group of teens and early twentysomethings felt that one Bobby Kent, then 20, was an evil and manipulative force. They decided to kill him, luring him to the beach with a promise of sex, where they stabbed and bludgeoned him to death. After police learned of the murder, an investigation and trial followed; all seven youth involved are now serving sentences of a few years to life in prison. The case grabbed headlines as a bizarre manifestation of the damage bullying could cause if left unchecked.

Clark's retelling of events is a mesmerizing; hypnotic, sharp and--surprisingly enough--witty take on the material. These kids have sex, rape, hustle and beat one another up with alarming regularity, all while exchanging hilarious dialogue. It's grim stuff, and the violence is unsettling. But there's much, much more to Clark's universe than simply empty sensationalism. While so many contemporary films are devoid of politics and mired in mediocrity, the same can't be said of Bully or Kids. Both films, in their own way, capture the nihilism of a wasted youth. The Mirror caught up with him at his New York home, where he is putting the finishing touches on his latest feature, Ken Park, which is also written by Korine and is based on Clark's own adolescent experiences. We talked about Bully, the controversial casting of Nick Stahl and Columbine.



Mirror: How was the reaction at the Venice Film Festival? I know some were calling Bully the most shocking film of the year...

Larry Clark: We got a standing ovation, it was kind of embarrassing. I think it was great, all the distributors were very happy. All the territories were sold--it was pretty fast.

M: Has there been a marked difference between the attitudes of Europeans and the American press?

LC: It's tough to judge, because everyone pretty much loved it in Europe. No one said they didn't like it there. In the U.S. we also got good press. Roger Ebert called it a masterpiece. But then we got a few critics who hated it. There was no middle ground. The critics who hated it who really gave slash and burn write-ups; they didn't talk about the film they talked about me. They asked how I could make films like this, calling it porn. They always prefaced it with 'I am not a prude, but...' It's not porn at all, it's not erotic at all. I just intended it to be realistic. I'm not glamourizing it or glorifying the lifestyle.

M: So these responses surprised you, even in a culture like America's that can be so puritanical?

LC: I wouldn't say surprised. Now I'm kind of past being surprised. You're always going to get some people.

Casting kudos

M: The cast of Bully is amazing. I'm interested in the choice of Nick Stahl.

LC: It's good that you brought that up. I'm casting against type, really. If you know Nick's work, you'll see that. I saw a lot of actors and I felt I really couldn't find anybody. Then Nick came in one day and, unlike so many of the exuberant people who were coming in, his eyes were shifting about and his shoulders were all hunched over. He was kind of shy and didn't make much eye contact. It was kind of weird, but I thought there was something there. There was something going on with him. I decided I wanted him to do it, and man, did I get heat. The producers were calling and saying he was all wrong for it. Someone who'd worked on the screenplay sent an e-mail to Canal+, who gave us the money for it, and said Nick was wrong for the role. They said he was weak. People think of bullies as being big muscly guys. I saw something in Nick that would work. But now everyone's liking him a lot.

M: I do think it's an intriguing choice, considering the real Bobby Kent was apparently a huge fellow, quite imposing.

LC: The actors who were physically imposing simply weren't that good. I don't want to get into names, but there were a few obvious choices and I didn't think they were that good. There's a whole other story here: the real Bobby Kent was a Persian and in the book it's noted that his parents are immigrants and he's American, but he is Persian. Bully is a great book and in it it's never mentioned that maybe there's some racism there. Bobby being ethnic, he was raised with some very old-world values. They look at America as somewhere where everyone can be a winner, and the father rules the house. And then Bobby walks out of the house, and it's America. Which is a whole other set of values, where kids say "fuck you" to their parents, and everyone can be a loser. And you have that choice of having sex, smoking pot, driving drunk, chilling out and being bored, and having nothing to do. Because we're such a rich land we can allow ourselves to have this kind of lifestyle. And we're always worried about whether or not our kids are happy or not. Whereas in third-world countries you're not worried about being happy all the time you're worried about putting food on the table. There wasn't much in the book about why Bobby was the way he was. But I couldn't find an Iranian actor. There was a whole other movie there. It was tough enough getting this movie financed without that element. Nobody wanted this movie to be made. I would have thought that with it being so topical, with all the school shootings and the shooters saying they'd been bullied, and congress talking about anti-bullying legislation, I would have thought there would have been more interest. We actually got a couple of million from the French. It's a French movie about America.

Dial M for irony

M: There's a scene in the film where Brad Renfro is singing along to an Eminem song as they watch the video. That adds a whole other layer of irony to the scene, in that Eminem has been one of a number of artists who've been blamed for being irresponsible and inspiring youth to do bad things. How do you feel about the Hollywood or Washington blame game? This attitude that we've got to blame music, the movies and video games for violence?

LC: Actually, I don't think you can blame that at all. Eminem, or Em to his friends--I actually know him and have met with him a couple of times--Em actually came over to my place a couple of times. I was talking to him about being in another film. He cleared that song for us, which we never could have gotten otherwise because he won a Grammy for it. That's a million-dollar song. Brad actually improvised that, rapping along with the video. Then I had to get the song, because that worked so well.

M: I read that you didn't do any rehearsals at all, that you simply didn't have the time. I find that amazing seeing as the film feels so real.

LC: I find it amazing too. Everybody read the book a few times. We all talked about the characters quite a bit. A lot of it is the actors being the appropriate age. They see other kids, and found it easier to get into character. We tried to make it like it was really happening. I tried to keep it spontaneous and fresh. It was very quick. They knew what I wanted, and I explained very clearly what I wanted of them. They knew my work, too, and trusted me and I trusted them. There was a lot of trust, which meant we could get to things very quickly. But it's the hardest thing I've ever done. We shot the film in 23 days.

Capturing that mob mentality

M: You mention that you have a daughter who is now 17 who was too young to see Kids when it first came out. What would you say the age is when kids are simply too young to see your movies?

LC: I think it depends on the kids and their emotional development and the parents. I took my son to see Kids when he was 12. When I went to Kids I saw that a lot of parents were with their children. And that seemed okay. Once they get a bit older, they're not going to want to go with their parents. Once they hit 16, forget it, go on your own. With Bully, I think kids should see the film, even though they won't be able to because of the rating it's received in the U.S. I don't think there's anything wrong with this.

M: When I watched the film, I thought it was like a co-ed Lord of the Flies on land, with the horrendous power struggles. It feels awfully pessimistic, as did Kids, in terms of what it appears to be saying: leave young minds alone and this is what happens. Would you say you're essentially pessimistic about human nature?

LC: There is a mob mentality I'm exploring. None of these kids would have done this alone. Because each of the kids at one point in time says, "We're not going to do this, we're not actually going to do this, are we?" And then someone in the group would say, "Yes we are," and that would reinforce it in the group. A couple of the kids didn't even know him when they murdered him. It's very extreme, but it does bring in all the different things that might have caused this. It used to be only the rich could afford to be bored and jaded. Now the middle class can too at a very early age. Parents can be very permissive; they probably don't want confrontation. They don't want to have to argue with their children. Perhaps they were avoiding calling their kids on the behaviour. And the drug ritual now is such a routine thing. The pressure to have sex at such an early age and have a lot of sex. Girls can go out now to clubs and have sex with two or three guys a night, and it's not even a big deal.

M: Hitchcock once called Psycho his funniest comedy. There's a lot of humour in Bully. Did you intend it in a sense as a comedy?

LC: I think all my films are funny. It's all black humour, it's very dark. It helps when telling a story to use humour. We improvised some of it, but much of it is in the book. That scene where the kid says "Nature sucks!" that's right out of the book.

M: Have any of the people depicted in the film seen it?

LC: I heard rumours that some of the parents have seen it. I haven't heard their responses, but I'm sure it's not good. I've heard that many of the parents and a couple of the kids have said they feel they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They're in denial. Really not taking any responsibility. The last third of the book is about the courtroom drama and about all the denial and no one taking any responsibility. All of the boys are in for life and the girls will probably get out some time this decade.

Bully opens Friday, Sept. 14 at the Cinéma du Parc