Caffeinated Clint
The talk of the town, ahem, country, at the moment is Australia’s banning of Larry Clark’s latest sex-terpiece “Ken Park”. Today, the man himself comments on the uproar.
This was forwarded on from the Ken Park Yahoo! Group.
Larry Clark, are you surprised that a film like Ken Park, which has of course been seen at the Venice Film Festival and around the world can’t get classification in Australia?
LARRY CLARK, DIRECTOR, KEN PARK (LOS ANGELES): I’m very surprised.I’m kind of astounded that this has happened, especially in Australia.
MAXINE McKEW: What about those who are defying the law in Australia and in fact showing Ken Park on illegal DVDs.
Are you supportive of that sort of activity?
LARRY CLARK: I just heard about this.I mean, it’s … sure, I mean I think that, um, these people that are censoring the film, it’s just, what, six people, who are putting themself on a pretty high pedestal to tell all of Australia what they can see and what they can’t see.I mean, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?
MAXINE McKEW: Perhaps of much greater concern, there are reports today of high school students getting bootleg copies of Ken Park off the Internet and it’s being shown to children, or certainly young teens as young as 13 and 14.
What do you think of that?
LARRY CLARK: Kids can download anything off the Internet.I mean it’s … I can’t really answer that question.I don’t think I would be comfortable with the film being shown in theatres where any kid could walk in and see the film.I think there are some scenes in the film that I wouldn’t be comfortable with my 12- and 13-year-old kids … well, my kids are a little older.My kids are 17 and 19, but I wouldn’t be comfortable with them seeing a couple of the scenes in the film when they were 12 or 13.
MAXINE McKEW: Having said that, how do you imagine that those who do watch, particularly young people, will react to scenes of excessive violence? I’m thinking of the scene of, say, a father belting the daylights out of his son, of another father sexually abusing the boy.
LARRY CLARK: It depends on the kid.I mean I don’t know … I think they’ll react fine.I mean it’s a well-done film.
It’s a drama.I mean I’ve been a visual artist for a long, long time and I think this is my best work.And it makes sense.It’s not … there’s nothing gratuitous in the film.
The film is about parents and children, it’s about families.There are some very dark stories in the film, but I think people will be able to handle it and I think probably a lot of kids will be able to handle it.
I’ve spoken to older teenagers who have seen the film – 17, 18 years old — who have thanked me for making the film, and who have related to some of the situations in the film.
I’ve spoken to a lot of young film-makers who have seen the film and just young people in general who have seen the film who have been inspired by the film and have said that it just makes them want to go work and makes them think that anything is possible.
MAXINE McKEW: You said there that you feel the film can inspire people.Do you also accept that it can do the opposite, that it may do the opposite, that in fact some young people, particularly, may copy what they see, whether it’s a scene of autoerotic asphyxiation or something worse?
LARRY CLARK: I can’t imagine anybody copying the autoerotic asphyxiation scene.That was a scene that I would find disturbing to show to young teenagers, but I can’t imagine anyone copying it.The kid who does it is obviously very disturbed, he does other disturbing things in the film … he actually kills somebody.Um, I mean, there is a scene at the end of the film where the teenagers come together and there’s a sex scene.My idea was that … it was kind of an art idea, but I think it works, in fact I know it works … that at the end of the film, after these kids have really been beat, beat up through the whole film, where the kids are getting none of their needs filled by the adults and the adults are just using the kids to try and fulfil their own emotional emptiness, that these kids come together and have sex in maybe the most innocent, maybe the best way.
When we’re kids and we’re getting nothing that we need from the grownups around us, I think the only thing which keeps us going is we have each other, we have our peers, we have each other.And my idea was to have this scene as a kind of redemption, a kind of salvation, maybe temporary redemption.In my work a lot of the time people have told me that I’m setting the bar and I think I’m setting the bar a little higher.And I think the job of an artist is to push the boundaries.
MAXINE McKEW: Well how does Ken Park, in your words, "raise the bar"?
LARRY CLARK: I think that you’re going to see things that you haven’t really seen.I think that the film is emotionally honest … and there are a lot of films that are emotionally honest, but I think this film is also visually honest.I think that what I wanted to do was to make a film that was visually honest and emotionally honest.I think as viewers we see movies and we are automatically conditioned now … there’s certain things that we can’t see.The camera pans down, it goes to the close-up, the door closes.Certain things we can’t see, we don’t think we can see ’em.But we can see anything, we can see anything.I started making films and everybody said, "Gee, there’s certain rules … there’s rules here.You can’t do this, you can’t do that, you have to do it this way." When I hear that, I say I’m not going to do it that way.
MAXINE McKEW: Do you accept that what you may see as visually honest will be seen by others as nothing more than kiddie porn?
LARRY CLARK: Well they’re wrong.And I think the vast majority of people that see the work, if they’re able to see the work, in Australia or anywhere, that the vast majority of people will know it’s not kiddie porn at all and it makes sense and it’s, you know, it’s … it’s good work.
MAXINE McKEW: Larry Clark, thank you very much indeed.
LARRY CLARK: Thank you, Maxine, and Australia, thank you.
