Sonic Youth: An Interview with Larry Clark
Issue 205 / January 2006 More from this Issue
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SLUG: (laughing) Every kid's dream!
LC: Yeah! They're up in Beverly Hills and let's say the girls' boyfriends come, and then they get in a fight. Then someone calls the cops, and they start running, and they start going into the backyards of Beverly Hills trying to get away, and they go into all these backyards and meet all these different people, and get in more and more trouble, through no fault of their own, and they get trapped in Beverly Hills and have to somehow escape back to South Central where it's safe. I thought, "That's kind of like The Warriors," which is one of my favorite movies. Then I just started thinking, "Who would be in the Beverly Hills backyards?" There's probably an aging actress who was really famous and is now 45. She's an alcoholic, she gets up, gets dressed every day to the nines, puts on her make-up and drinks and never leaves the house. I just started tripping over these different characters. I had them go to Beverly Hills Highway, and a couple of Beverly Hills girls see them and become fascinated by these Latino skaters. They meet them, the cops come and then I just made up this adventure/chase/crazy/dark comedy with a lot of social commentary. I mean, I was just throwing every genre in just to see what I could do and it just kind of came together.
SLUG: Yeah, that's kind of what it seems like. It does have a lot of different elements in it, like a lot of skating elements and stoner kid movies...
LC: After I'd done the screenplay, I remembered this one moment from an old movie with Burt Lancaster, based on a John Cheever novel, where Burt Lancaster goes to Beverly Hills and sort of swims across Beverly Hills pool by pool
SLUG: The Swimmer?
LC: Yeah, The Swimmer. So, subconsciously that must have been in there, too. It was fun to write and it was fun to have that much fun writing, figuring it out and goofing on the white people in Beverly Hills. (laughs)
SLUG: So how did you cast the film?
LC: These are just kids from South Central Los Angeles that I met over the Fourth of July weekend in 2003. These kids had never acted before, they were just wild kids, the funniest kids off the street. I've been photographing them for two-and-a-half years. It took over a year to get money for the film, and then two days before we were ready to shoot, the money disappeared, which happens.
SLUG: Of course...
LC: The movie was dead in the water. I mean, it was not going to happen and I told my manager and my agent, "I'm not going to do anything until I make this movie." I'd been getting these kids geared up for a year to do this. So I just stayed on it and another six months later we found Harry Winterstorm, this amazing guy who produced and paid for the film. He's just a real stand-up guy. Henry Winterstorm, I can't say enough about this guy. He let me make this film, and I'm really pleased with it. We previewed it in Toronto, and people are liking this film, a lot.
SLUG: Wassup Rockers definitely isn't as "dark" as your previous work.
LC: No, this one will be more accessible, I think.
SLUG: Are you fine with that?
LC: I just made Ken Park, which is very explicit to the max, you know? And I said I don't have to make Ken Park again. I just wanted to make this film about these kids who live in the ghetto and it's gang-infested. It's the most dangerous place to grow up. It's Latino, Black and Hispanic, and there are no white people there. I mean, some school teachers, but that's it. There's peer pressure to be in a gang, to cut off their hair, listen to hip-hop and smoke. These kids don't do that. These kids were growing their hair long, listening to punk rock, wearing tight clothes, skateboarding, not doing drugs, playing in a garage band and just having fun I'd never seen kids having so much fun. They also had to fight to be the way they are.
LC: Yeah! They're up in Beverly Hills and let's say the girls' boyfriends come, and then they get in a fight. Then someone calls the cops, and they start running, and they start going into the backyards of Beverly Hills trying to get away, and they go into all these backyards and meet all these different people, and get in more and more trouble, through no fault of their own, and they get trapped in Beverly Hills and have to somehow escape back to South Central where it's safe. I thought, "That's kind of like The Warriors," which is one of my favorite movies. Then I just started thinking, "Who would be in the Beverly Hills backyards?" There's probably an aging actress who was really famous and is now 45. She's an alcoholic, she gets up, gets dressed every day to the nines, puts on her make-up and drinks and never leaves the house. I just started tripping over these different characters. I had them go to Beverly Hills Highway, and a couple of Beverly Hills girls see them and become fascinated by these Latino skaters. They meet them, the cops come and then I just made up this adventure/chase/crazy/dark comedy with a lot of social commentary. I mean, I was just throwing every genre in just to see what I could do and it just kind of came together.
SLUG: Yeah, that's kind of what it seems like. It does have a lot of different elements in it, like a lot of skating elements and stoner kid movies...
LC: After I'd done the screenplay, I remembered this one moment from an old movie with Burt Lancaster, based on a John Cheever novel, where Burt Lancaster goes to Beverly Hills and sort of swims across Beverly Hills pool by pool
SLUG: The Swimmer?
LC: Yeah, The Swimmer. So, subconsciously that must have been in there, too. It was fun to write and it was fun to have that much fun writing, figuring it out and goofing on the white people in Beverly Hills. (laughs)
SLUG: So how did you cast the film?
LC: These are just kids from South Central Los Angeles that I met over the Fourth of July weekend in 2003. These kids had never acted before, they were just wild kids, the funniest kids off the street. I've been photographing them for two-and-a-half years. It took over a year to get money for the film, and then two days before we were ready to shoot, the money disappeared, which happens.
SLUG: Of course...
LC: The movie was dead in the water. I mean, it was not going to happen and I told my manager and my agent, "I'm not going to do anything until I make this movie." I'd been getting these kids geared up for a year to do this. So I just stayed on it and another six months later we found Harry Winterstorm, this amazing guy who produced and paid for the film. He's just a real stand-up guy. Henry Winterstorm, I can't say enough about this guy. He let me make this film, and I'm really pleased with it. We previewed it in Toronto, and people are liking this film, a lot.
SLUG: Wassup Rockers definitely isn't as "dark" as your previous work.
LC: No, this one will be more accessible, I think.
SLUG: Are you fine with that?
LC: I just made Ken Park, which is very explicit to the max, you know? And I said I don't have to make Ken Park again. I just wanted to make this film about these kids who live in the ghetto and it's gang-infested. It's the most dangerous place to grow up. It's Latino, Black and Hispanic, and there are no white people there. I mean, some school teachers, but that's it. There's peer pressure to be in a gang, to cut off their hair, listen to hip-hop and smoke. These kids don't do that. These kids were growing their hair long, listening to punk rock, wearing tight clothes, skateboarding, not doing drugs, playing in a garage band and just having fun I'd never seen kids having so much fun. They also had to fight to be the way they are.
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