If John Waters is the “King of Trash” Korine is his heir. Gummo has a good reputation (top 1000 on TSPDT) but I don’t see it — there’s some form there but it’s ugly to look- Spring Breakers on the other hand, Korine’s fifth film, is a triumph and one of the best films of 2012
It’s trash, but the form is Korine’s strongest (repetition and variation) and it’s beautiful to look at with his stunning use of neon
Rhythmically edited
Korine said himself he was influenced by Michael Mann—specifically 2006’s Miami Vice– the colors and photography—this is very Florida (pastels)—very beautiful (the boat shot at the end it’s hard not to think of Mann’s film)
It isn’t just the debauchery that’s filmed in gorgeous neons, Korine sets it up with formally/visually) with a great shot of the laptops in the classroom- again, this is clearly a photographer’s eye
Another one is the stunning stain-glass window at the church
DP is Denoit Debie from Gaspar Noe (a cousin to Korine in terms his provoker status)’s Enter the Void
The music – Cliff Martinez- would go on to work on Drive the following year—he worked with Soderbergh often prior (it’s worth noting that this film comes before Refn (another bad boy of cinema)’s exploration into neon color
Korine didn’t invent the use of neon in cinema by any means (Blade Runner, Mario Bava, Argento, WKW, Godard amongst others) but that doesn’t mean it’s beauty isn’t worthy of praise.
35mm
The style (very much like Malick actually) matches the narrative- it’s a kaleidoscope or tone poem—dream-line, repeats images, repeats lines, great photography, – clearly a film constructed in the editing room, guns, bikinis, money, literally saying lines like “spring break” and “scaredy pants” over and over
Great shot of the first robbery of the chicken restaurant form the car like Gun Crazy (1950 form Joseph Lewis)— long take, neon around the windows
Selena Gomez character (who just drops off—narratively there are some issues here) is reading her leaders to her Grandma like Charlie Sheen in Platoon
Very avant-garde—Malick, music, editing, photography— it walks that fine line of delving into parody
“American Dream” in the text a few times- De Palma’s Scarface and capitalism criticism
Wish Korine would just drop the ugly camcorder crap completely—this is from his previous films – hard to look at – he doesn’t do it much here thank god
The narrative works a little like the Big Bad Wolf with James Franco (really pretty good here though mostly Korine just needs subjects to shoot)—there couldn’t have been a script here
The last 10 minute night raid/robbery is gorgeous- pink doc, the drug-dealer’s compound is entirely lit up at night like a neon Christmas
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