1. Daniel Potes
12/6/14
Harmony Korine Societal Conversations
Few filmmakers in modern cinema manage to create an object of art that is worth
mentioning. Michael Bay, and other modern Hollywood directors follow this trend by creating
horrible excuses for cinema time in and time out. For modern cinema to really shine, the concept
of auteurship must be revitalized and brought to the fore of the film industry and individual
directors must make their mark. One such director, writer and performer that has managed to
rekindle the spirit of the Auteur is Harmony Korine.
Harmony Korine’s films are nothing if not disputed. Throughout his professional
career Korine has been hounded by critics who didn’t understand his work and who saw only
their own biases when watching his films. However, Korine managed to do something every true
auteur attempts to do. He creates a dialogue with each viewer as they watch his work. For
instance, in Kids Korine manages to create a social commentary on the power structures of the
inner city while at the same time creating a mythos of this over exaggerated land of the Auteur.
For example, Korine uses well known film theory in Kids to indicate the societal status of the
community of “kids” in the film.
Using the theories of Giorgio Agamben, we can begin to have a look into the
mind of Harmony Korine in directing and writing his films. In Kids, Korine separates the
community of children from the societal rules and regulations of the greater city biosphere,

2. however, He not only separates the community, but he sculpts for it a new system of power.
Referencing Foucault and Deleuze, Korine brings about a modern example of the epoch of
Deductive power, the imperial power structure in which life can be taken and controlled and the
goods and services that you want, you take. By doing so and creating a sense of Homo Sacer in
the community of “kids” Korine manages to create a conversation into the modern understanding
of power, sex and “childhood”.
To Deleuze, the shift to a society of control creates entry into a never ending cycle of
control, where graduating school to join the work force is not all that different, where jail isn’t
used to discipline failing community members but instead used to maintain a form of control
over those that society has deemed unworthy to join it. This Banishment of individual or rather
“Dividual” to a state of constant control is counter to the original idea of the Homo Sacer, in
which the banned individual is beyond the control of the society and is therefore literally outside
of the law. To kill a Homo Sacer is to kill no one, this banned individual has escaped the
disciplinary society to escape into a lawless existence.
Korine introduces the Homo Sacer concept and it is immediately followed by a
comparison between the two cultures in Kids, first a community of boys is introduced, they’re
messy, doing drugs and cursing at each other, this is then contrasted with the community of girls
via a phone call scene change. The girls are in a much neater enclosure and talking about their
horrible first times, this separation of girls from boys not only is shown through the physical
separation of the locations, but also through the topics being discussed. The male community
discuss girls irreverently and the female community slowly changes their discussion from not
liking boys to talking about how much they love sex. This contrast between the two communities
is a glance into the minds of individuals, not dividuals, this means that Korine intended the

3. members of both communities to be within a greater community of youths rebelling against the
bio power of the city. By using Foucault’s epochs of power the two subcommittees of youths can
be subdivided into types. The boys operate under the epoch of deductive power, a power in
which the seizure of power and sexuality is at its core.
“Power in this instance was essentially a right of seizure: of things, time, bodies, and
ultimately life itself; it culminated in the privilege to seize hold of life in order to suppress it.”
The girls on the other hand use generative power, with which they try and control their own lives
and sexuality.
By using these classic concepts of philosophical theory to create a mythological society,
Korine does more than just bring up topics of importance in the films, but he Recreates the myth
of ancient power systems and clashes the modern system of power with that of the old. Almost
all of his films seem to have a relation to the breakdown of modern society into the recreation of
ancient deductive societies. As my title says, the importance of creating a discussion on this topic
is to me the pivotal point of Korine’s work. If he didn’t attempt to cause confusion and to make
the viewer rethink modern society, then Korine wouldn’t be an auteur and he wouldn’t have
nearly the amount of cultural clashes that occur in his films.
Another important film and example of Korine’s creation of societal conversations is
“Julian Donkey Boy”. Though on a different level of understanding, this film works with
Korine’s existing power myths and creates a conversation into the topic of schizophrenia and the
trials and tribulations that this disease, this way of thinking, can cause a family. By using actors
that do not fit into the predefined notion of “beauty” and using a method of film making that
distorts and confuses the understanding of the media (by recording in one film stock, then

4. transferring the image onto a different stock and finally locking it into a digital file) Korine
manages to distort a reality and create not only the myths of this new reality, but also to craft a
new system of power based purely on the understanding and thought process of a schizophrenic
teenager.
One of the most important scenes of male subversion and general reversal of normative
power structures is the scene in which Herzog, the father, is disciplining Chris, the son, and asks
over and over again, “do you feel like a winner?” This subversion of his male hood and the self-
doubt that this causes in Chris leads to continually doubt his ability, his manhood and his power.
By destructuring the heteronormative creation of male self-esteem Korine creates a distortion in
the societal balance in the family.
Religion in this film is also incredibly relevant, especially when it comes to the
understanding of power by Julian. During the scenes that Julian is in church, the cinematographic
technique used to capture the visual and audio feedback that Julian is witness to causes
disorientation in the viewer and a sense of fear and anxiousness. But to Julian, what makes a
viewer feel awkward and squirmy makes him feel empowered and full of “faith”. When all of
these aspects of the film are put together, what emerges is a powerful conversation into modern
society and how it deals with schizophrenia, mental disorders in general and what breaks down
society into a schizophrenic existence for everyone involved.
The final film to be mentioned is the often misunderstood Spring Breakers.
Spring breakers uses clashing communities to instill a sense of separation between characters,
this allows for the creation of separate groups of societies all within the single greater society. In
this film Korine surpasses his previous films and uses modern Hollywood to trick the viewer into
thinking the film is all about partying, while in reality, it is about the clashing societal power

5. structures and the problems and solutions that arise from the communities clashing. For
instance, Faith is a member of several communities that do not interact well. Her church group
calls her other friends “demons” and warn her of the danger of joining them. Faith however; in
her tireless search for escape from this endless society of control ignores the warnings of the
“spiritual” church community and joins another community, one that becomes just as “spiritual”
as their journey progresses.
Faith’s abandonment of her normative religious community shows a growth from Julien
Donkey Boy’s use of religion into a sort of placeholder for myths that allows for the contrast
between the communities that are constantly in tension. This Communal tension is showcased by
several scenes in Spring Breakers. The first powerful example of this clash of communities is in
the first robbery scene in which all of the rich pretty white girls go into a restaurant and assert
their non-normative deductive power over the helpless members of this overtly religious society.
By using deductive power to take that which they want and need the girls are introduced to the
myth of societal domination, a myth that Korine uses in most of his films.
The perfect example of this myth of domination comes to fruition when the final 2 girls
are with Alien in his house, surrounded by guns, money and “power”. When given the
opportunity, and set in this house of power, the girls manage to flip the situation on its back, to
subvert the heteronormative power structure and recreate a myth of female domination. Though
at first it appears that Alien has saved them and that they are in his debt, we quickly find out that
Alien is more than meets the eye and in fact is in their debt. By asserting deductive power on
Alien, especially in the double pistol blowjob scene, the two “baddest” girls manage to transcend
his level of deductive power and assert total control over him and his “shit” He wants to be

6. seized, he wants to lose his “shit” and in the end he even gives up his life for the benefit of his
two “mothafuckin soulmates”.
Harmony Korine has managed to do what was least expected of him, the director who
loves to be hated, and create a sense of auteurship so defined and so mythical that normal
viewers are totally at a loss for what to think and what to feel. Korine uses situations that would
put the normal viewer in a place of discomfort to showcase the problems with modern society
while also creating a mythology for his created vision, a myth that inevitably leads to the
destruction of the modern view of society and an evolution into the past, the past of Deductive
power and the concept of the “Sacred Man” the unkillable outlaw.
The sacred man is the one whom the people have judged on account of a crime. It is
not permitted to sacrifice this man, yet he who kills him will not be condemned for homicide;
in the first tribunitian law, in fact, it is noted that “if someone kills the one who is sacred
according to the plebiscite, it will not be considered homicide.” This is why it is customary for
a bad or impure man to be called sacred.
~ Pompeius Festus