Harmony Korine
(Credit: Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com)
- Photos:
-
“Mister Lonely,” Korine’s biggest budget and most classically narrative movie to date, tells the story of a melancholy Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) who meets a voluptuous Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) and follows her to a commune of impersonators in the Scottish highlands.
Metromix recently met up with Korine to discuss what’s required for a good MJ and why he hates spoiling a cinematic illusion.
It’s interesting to see how the ideas of acting and impersonating become overlapped in a movie about celebrity impersonators, was that your goal?
The movie was this kind of strange stew. It took me a long time to cast the parts because I wanted to mix it up with professionals and non-professionals, real actors and real impersonators. This was a movie that I didn’t do much research for. I wasn’t really trying to make a movie about real impersonators. Besides, the couple that I did meet didn’t look too much like the people they were impersonating. I realized what most [impersonators] do is will themselves to look like [their subjects], which I thought was much more interesting.
So none of the actors chose who they wanted to impersonate? The characters were already in the script and you decided, “I want this person to play Madonna,” or Curly or the Pope?
Yeah. Definitely.
Why have a Little Red Riding Hood?
I thought originally, “I need a teenage, pretty girl.” She’s actually my wife, Rachel [playing Little Red]. But there aren’t a lot of iconic teenage girls at that age. When I put [Rachel] in some kind of Britney Spears outfit she looked more like a slutty teenager than anything else. So then I went back and started talking to some of the people who ran the impersonator agencies. Little Red Riding Hood was always popping up—I guess it was for children’s parties. There was something visually interesting about her. Also I liked the idea of there being…Little Red Riding Hood. [laughs] To be honest with you, I never even thought, it never even entered my mind that she wasn’t a real person.
How did you direct the actors to become Marilyn or become Michael? I’m thinking of the elaborate opening sequence where Diego rides the little car with the monkey attached. It so feels like Michael Jackson and yet, you start thinking “Who is this person and why is he dressed this way?”
Those were just images I wanted to see. I started thinking “it would be nice to see Michael Jackson riding one of those pocket Formula One motorcycles” but then I thought what would be even better would be to have a little monkey on roller skates with a fez attached to the side. Then it’s like a painting or something. It kind of just builds. You think of something and then just start to expand upon it.
I read that the nuns jumping out of the airplane without a parachute was a shot you imagined before you even started writing the script.
Yeah, for a long time. Probably the first thing.
I thought it was really well shot, and so beautiful, though you do spend a lot of time worried that she’s going to hit the ground. How was it planning those scenes? You had actual jumpers right?
Yeah.
Did you have particular costumes for them, so that we couldn’t see their parachutes?
Well, that kind of stuff I don’t want to get too involved in.
Oh, sorry.
You don’t want to ruin it for people. It’s like, it’s nice just to think that these nuns were jumping and surviving. In my mind even, when they ride bicycles out into the clouds and they’re doing tricks in the sky, they really survive. They’re able to ride away. The rest is just technical.
That’s interesting, a lot of directors want to have a conversation about why the camera was there and how scenes were executed, but you don’t.
Not at all, I don’t have any interest in the technique.
What other things are you thinking about next? I know there’s a traveling exhibit of photographs that goes with the film, are you thinking about doing more artwork?
Yeah, I like to make things. I always did. Sometimes making films is frustrating because it takes so long and you need to get so many people involved. I’d like to get back into this mode of putting things out there. I won’t be so precious about stuff.
I’m sure your fans will be happy to hear that.
They better! I suffer for the fans. I always did.
[“Mister Lonely” is also available through “IFC In Theaters,” a video on demand service from select cable providers and DirecTV.]
