Harmony Korine: ‘New Man scene’ (from Trash Humpers) (2009)

(The idea behind this series is to let the individual artworks speak directly to us from their own mysterious realm, rather than interpreting and ‘explaining them away’ in conventional terms.) The film Trash Humpers itself, when taken as a whole, is — to say the least — somewhat various: it certainly has longueurs and misfires and even bits of unpleasantness leading up to the real gems, such as the ‘kitchen murder’(38:10), the ‘bigoted comedian’(46:21) and best of all, the ‘new man’ section (59:24). <h1>Significant garbage ?</h1> Harmony Korine has, in interviews, said — in words to the effect that — he wants Humpers understood as footage you might discover on a cassette from a dumpster. In other words, it’s ‘found found footage’! The whole thing pretends to be throwaway material — discarded in the trash — yet it’s also intended to be characteristically American, and documentary evidence of a certain distinctive angle on a certain American cultural reality. As you can see, we’ve had to qualify the qualifications, and this means the whole discussion as to what the film ‘amounts to’ — that is, to what it means in itself — has to take place within the parameters of a very strange conceptual category, namely that of ‘significant garbage’. Is it possible for there to be such a thing ? Why not; let’s see. <a href="https://medium.com/counterarts/harmony-korine-new-man-scene-from-trash-humpers-2009-7fdbcfebb069">Visit Now</a>