As with kimchee, The Shaggs or a Joel-Peter Witkin exhibit, nobody has ever walked away from a Harmony Korine film feeling neutral about it—one reason the Nashville-raised filmmaker counts directors such as Werner Herzog and Bernardo Bertolucci among his admirers. The same holds true for his "Above the Below," screening 5:15 p.m. April 20 as part of an omnibus program entitled "Beautiful Outsiders." Korine spoke recently about the film; Jack Silverman listened and took notes.

How did the David Blaine project come about?

As with kimchee, The Shaggs or a Joel-Peter Witkin exhibit, nobody has ever walked away from a Harmony Korine film feeling neutral about it—one reason the Nashville-raised filmmaker counts directors such as Werner Herzog and Bernardo Bertolucci among his admirers. The same holds true for his "Above the Below," screening 5:15 p.m. April 20 as part of an omnibus program entitled "Beautiful Outsiders." Korine spoke recently about the film; Jack Silverman listened and took notes.

Dave and I have been friends for a long time. Right when I got back from Europe we were brainstorming a stunt for him to do. Originally, we wanted to have him in a see-through oval...like an egg, hanging a few hundred feet above the Thames from a huge crane with a see-through wire, so it would look like a guy hovering in the clouds, and swinging back and forth, but it was impossible to do. So we did the next best thing—have him hover 50 feet over the Thames in a see-through box.

How long have you know him?

About 10 years.

How many hours a day did you spend filming?

They sold the project as a stunt to Sky Television and Channel 4 in London, who gave us a budget. It was the show that was set to air the day he came out of the box. There was a live video feed inside the box 24 hours a day. So there's seven weeks of constant, 24-hour footage of him inside the box, starving. He went seven weeks without food. What became more interesting was the crowd's reactions, the people who were coming there everyday.

There were hecklers, right?

Hecklers, yeah, but there was, at least in London at the time, it caused this really strange discourse with the public. It's not really a documentary and it's not really a television show. It's more like a visual essay or something.

Are you narrating at all?

There's no narration. There are bits and pieces of David speaking that we had recorded previously—things that I had written, things that I then laid over afterwards. There's no real narration.

Did you expect hecklers?

At the beginning we didn't quite expect as hardcore of a reaction right of the bat. A lot of people got really pissed at David, and saw it as a publicity stunt, or saw it as, "while there are people starving in so-and-so, how could you make a mockery?" People were reading in a lot of political connotations.

That's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous, but at the same time, I started to realize that it's working on some level, stuff that we hadn't thought out previously. The strangest thing we saw was this woman who was about eight months pregnant—it was about 3 in the morning—that was in the bushes, right by the box, forking her anus. A drunk woman, that would come, she came a few times, and she would sit there with a plastic fork, just shoving it up her anus. Stuff like that. It became a thing for her.

There was a younger guy who would come, who had seizures every day, but he knew he would have seizures at a certain time of day, and he would come and he would have these fucking seizures. He looked like Superman on the ground, flying. His body would kind of constrict, he'd swallow his tongue. So for me there was like a carnival atmosphere.

Was there skepticism? Did people think he was cheating?

Oh yeah, the whole time. There were news shows, people thought we had lined the box with salt, or there were minerals coming in through a water tube. There's still people who think so.

Is this film the show that actually aired on British TV the day he came out?

Yeah.

Does it include any footage of him actually coming out and after he came out?

The TV show did, and the DVD that came out in Europe has all that stuff—him coming out, saying a speech, then recovery footage of him in the hospital, doctors checking him out, Flavor Flav visits him, that kind of stuff. That's not part of the film though. But it's not just him in the box; we did stuff for a month-and-a-half previous, different gags and setups and non sequiturs, different set pieces: him getting punched in the stomach by boxers, doing magic tricks for strippers. At one point he pulls his heart out of his chest for a girl on the street. You'll see.

Is he holding a real heart?

He pulls his organs out. You see him literally rip his chest open. You'll see.

What's happening with the movie you're working on now?

We start shooting in October.

And you're going to film in Iceland?

Iceland, Brazil and some in Paris, but mainly Iceland and Brazil. Hopefully, if all goes accordingly, we'll start shooting in October. I'm here now writing another script that I'd like to shoot in Nashville when I'm done with that one.

So what can you tell us about the film you're shooting in Iceland?

At this point I'll just say that it focuses on a commune in Iceland.

Can I be in it?

Yeah, why not.

So you're in Gus Van Sant's Last Days.

Yeah.

What kind of role do you have in that film?

It's just a small part, this guy Jerve, a sycophantic...leper, kind of.

You did a character named Jerve in Good Will Hunting, right?

It's kind of an extension of that character...I just to sort of run through. (laughs)

So is it a gag on the Internet Movie Database where it says you directed a film titled The Diary of Anne Frank Part II?

No, I made that! It's funny, because other people have asked that. No one ever believes that's real.

It sounds like a joke your friends would play on you. So what was that?

It was an art video I did for a museum a few years back. It was a story told in these three simultaneous projected pieces, and it's like a sequel to Anne Frank's life.

Is it serious? Is it tongue-in-cheek? Hard to say?

Uh, you know. Yeah, it's hard to say. (laughs)

Is it ever going to be released?

I'm going to probably try to put out a DVD of a lot of the stuff that I did.

Are you going to put out the Fight Harm movie?

Probably some of the Fight stuff, and this other thing I did with Johnny Depp, in blackface.

So is your ankle still hurting? Are you permanently injured from the Fight film?

Not so bad. I can show you the bone, that kind of came out of my leg. But the doctors did a pretty decent job.

How old were you at the time?

It was about six years ago, so I was about 24, something like that.

Seen any good movies lately?

Jeez, it's been an awful time. I haven't gone to the theater in like two months. I just watch older films.

Jim Ridley said he saw the Asia Argento movie The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, and said he clearly saw your influence.

Asia's been a friend for a few years. I haven't seen the movie. I saw her not too long ago, and talked about it with her.

So you probably get sick of answering this, but what the hell were you thinking with the Fight movie? Was it just "what the hell, let's see what happens"?

Kind of. To be honest, I really wanted to make the great American comedy. That's what I was striving for at the time. I was reading a lot of Milton Berle and listening to a lot of Henny Youngman, and there's always this victim concept—a guy slips on a banana peel and cracks his head. So I started to think, "What if I really slipped on that banana peel?" The first thing you think about as a director is, "well I could always find somebody who would probably be willing to go in and get themselves beaten up," but then I thought that wouldn't be nearly as funny as if I did it myself. I was just in a place in my life where it seemed like a really good idea, at that time, or it didn't seem all that strange.

So David Blaine filmed that?

Yeah, a lot of it. He did a really terrible job of filming.

So do you identify with David Blaine? You both have reputations as provocateurs.

I like Dave because he's willing to put himself in extreme situations and he's always been that way. The first time I met him he put himself in a pizza oven and turned it on, and stayed in there for half an hour. I always admired that.

What's not to admire about that.

Also, I really like magic. I like the idea of magic.

So you're really a Henny Youngman fan?

Yeah. In fact, I read his biography, Take My Life, Please. It was a really funny biography. In it, he said that his phone is not unlisted, and you can find it in the phone book, because he wants to be free to play bar mitzvahs. So I called information and got his number. When I called him, he was on his deathbed, I guess, and someone else answered, and I said, "Is Henny there?" and I made up this story about how I wanted to option his book. He asked me right off the bat how much I was paying, and said he wanted a lot of money. I think he died the next day. But I got to have this little conversation with him.

When I called him I was like, "Man, you're the greatest, Henny, you are my single greatest influence." And he goes, "If I had any blood, I'd blush." I was like, what the fuck! He's on his deathbed, and he's still doing one-liners. He also said, "My luck is so bad, aspirin gives me headaches."

So I read you're a Marx Brothers fan too?

Oh yeah. I've been a huge fan.

So which Marx Brother got laid the most?

Jesus...I don't know...Chico? They say he's named Chico because he used to chase chicks. But Zeppo was the handsome one.

But he was also the straight guy.

Right. But you never can tell what happens in private life. I think Harpo and Groucho were married really early on and had lots of kids. I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say Chico.

So it's pronounced "Chick-o"?

That's what it's supposed to be. Everyone says "Cheek-o," but it is "Chick-o." He was also a compulsive gambler.

What's your favorite Marx Brothers movie?

I'm always partial to Duck Soup. A Day at the Races is good. And Coconuts.

So you have a production company now?

Yeah—O'Salvation. With Agnes B.

Are you looking for projects?

Not really. It was basically conceived as a kind of venue for me to put out movies and books.

Do you have any books coming out?

I have one, a book of all the early fanzines I did all through the early '90s to like 2000, when I was living in New York, for different galleries at the time.

So you just did the Bonnie "Prince" Billy video. Are you working on any more music videos right now?

Maybe. We'll see. I get asked from time to time to do videos and I just always turn them down, because the people who ask me to do the videos, their budgets are never that big, so I can never make much money on them. For someone like Bonnie, whose music I love and who's a really good friend of mine, it's fun.

Maybe. We'll see. I get asked from time to time to do videos and I just always turn them down, because the people who ask me to do the videos, their budgets are never that big, so I can never make much money on them. For someone like Bonnie, whose music I love and who's a really good friend of mine, it's fun.