Larry Clark

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Larry Clark

Born

Lawrence Donald Clark
1 January 1943 (age 65)
Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States

Years active

1962 - present

Awards won
Other Awards
Cannes Film Festival Nomimated: Palme d'Or 1995 Kids

Lawrence Donald Clark (born on January 1, 1943) in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is best known for the movie Kids. His most common subject is youth that casually engage in underage and illegal drug use, violence, or sex, and who are part of a subculture (such as punk or skateboarding) that "accepts" these activities.

1 Early life
2 Photography career
3 Directing career
4 Descriptions of Clark's films
5 Ken Park incidents
6 Filmography
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Early life

Clark learned photography at an early age. His mother was an itinerant baby photographer, and Clark himself was enlisted in the family business from the age of thirteen.^[1]

In his 20's, Clark began shooting amphetamines with his friends. Always armed with a camera, from 1963 to 1971 Clark produced pictures of his drug-shooting coterie that have been described by critics as "exposing the reality of American suburban life at the fringe and for shattering long-held mythical conventions that drugs and violence were an experience solely indicative of the urban landscape.".^[2]

[edit] Photography career

He attended the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he studied under Walter Sheffer and Gerard Bakker. He was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. His experiences there led him to published the book Tulsa in 1971. It was a landmark work: a photo documentary illustrating his young friends' drug use in black and white. His follow-up was Teenage Lust (1983), an "autobiography" of his teen past through the images of others. It included his family photos, more teenage drug use, graphic pictures of teenage sexual activity, and young male hustlers in Times Square, New York City. Clark constructed a photographic essay titled "The Perfect Childhood" which examined the effect of media in youth culture.

[edit] Directing career

In 1993, Clark directed Chris Isaak's music video "Solitary Man". This experience developed into an interest in directing.

After publishing other groundbreaking photographic collections, Clark met young writer Harmony Korine in New York. Together they worked on the screenplay for Kids. His first feature film was released to both controversy and widespread critical acclaim in 1995.

Larry Clark is represented by Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK.

He has one son and one daughter.

[edit] Descriptions of Clark's films

Clark's films often deal with seemingly lurid material but are told in a straightforward manner. Directors such as Gus Van Sant and Martin Scorsese have stated that they were influenced by Clark's early photography, according to Peter Biskind's book Down and Dirty Pictures.

In both his photographic and cinematic works, Clark pursues a set of related themes: the destructiveness of dysfunctional family relationships, masculinity and the roots of violence, religious intolerance and bigotry, the links between mass imagery and social behaviors, and the construction of identity and sexuality in adolescence.

Film critics that do not find social or artistic value in Clark's work have labeled his films obscene, exploitative, and even borderline child pornography because of their frequent and explicit depictions of teenagers using drugs and having sex. In Kids, Clark's most widely known film to date, boys portrayed as being as young as 12 years old are shown to be casually drinking alcohol and using drugs. The film received an NC-17 rating (but it was later released without a rating). Ken Park is a more sexually and violently graphic film than Kids, including a scene of autoerotic asphyxiation and ejaculation by an apparently young teenage boy (although the actors are all 18 and older). As of 2007, it has not been widely released nor distributed in the United States.

[edit] Ken Park incidents

In Australia, the film was banned for its graphic sexual content, although many consider the ban to have been ineffectual. A protest screening held in response was immediately shut down by the police. Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz co-host of At the Movies (1986-) was almost arrested for screening the film at a theatre.^[3]^[4]

In 2002, Clark spent several hours in a police cell after punching and trying to strangle Hamish McAlpine, the head of Metro Tartan, the UK distributor for Ken Park. According to McAlpine, who was left with a broken nose, the incident arose from an argument about Israel and the Middle East, and he claims that he did not provoke Clark. The latter dismissed this version of events as "such bullshit, such a fucking lie", stating that McAlpine had described the September 11, 2001 attacks as "the best thing to have ever happened to America" and opined that child victims of terrorist attacks in Israel "fucking deserve to die". Clark later commented: "When someone gets up in my face with bullshit like this, I’m not gonna roll over and lick my nuts."^[5]