Director Larry Clark HFP/Lagardere Photo Archive

THE DIRECTORS: THE PUNK REBEL
Larry Clark

Cannes
Promiscuous Sex, Graphic Language, Drug Abuse And Some Violence. The reason behind the NC-17 rating that was slapped on Larry Clark's groundbreaking Kids (starring 20-year old Chloë Sevigny) sums up the popular perception that has met Clark's work. Following a career in photography, Clark crossed over to film by directing a Chris Isaac video. But it was his collaboration with Harmony Korine that led to Kids (1995) and confirmed his notoriety. Undaunted by the criticism that Kids was exploitative and borderline kiddy porn, Clark again pushed the envelope with Ken Park, another unflinching look at teenage drug use and sexual exploration, this time with controversial scenes including autoerotic asphyxiation, incest and onscreen ejaculation. Destricted, a collection of shorts from some of the world's most provocative cinematic artists and directors, includes Clark's Impaled, an investigation into the sexual fantasies of Generation Y kids who have from a young age had access to porn through DVDs and the internet.

The Sexessentials: Kids, Ken Park, Wassup Rockers, Impaled (segment of Destricted)

You are regarded as being in the forefront of real sex in films...
I've been working for a long time, and I really started because I wanted to see things I couldn't see anywhere else. I came from the '50s, which was so repressed. There were so many things that couldn't be seen. Why can't everybody see this? We're all human. And that was one of the reasons I started. If I could have seen that work in other places I wouldn't have had to make it. Ken Park was supposed to be my first film, and it took a long time to get it made. So it's out there; you can go on eBay in America and get it from many different countries. And it will always be out there because of the Internet and DVDs. You can download it from the Internet.

Ken Park HFP/Lagardere Photo Archive

Do you like any of today's porn?
I really do not like porn much at all — it's so overlit. If I was gonna make a porn I'd at least light the goddamn thing. Often the people who really watch porn are so influenced by it. Like Terry Richardson, the fashion photographer. He does work to make it look like porn. It's all overlit. It's awful. I know Terry. I like Terry. But the work is overlit. Aesthetically I don't like it. I'm not a big fan of porn just because you just see too much. Especially now, you see all the pimples and the reds spots, the razor burns where they've shaved themselves. It's just so unerotic for me, but I guess if you grow up with it, it becomes erotic for these kids. But that's just me. I'm an old guy.

Do you like any older porn then, '70s stuff?
The first porn I ever saw was when I was a kid. Once in a while somebody would have an 8mm projector and a loop, a 4 or 5 minute loop. That was the first porn I ever saw, which was amazing to see. And as a matter of fact, when I was a kid they had these things called 8-page Tijuana bibles, which were cartoons. You'd see Popeye or other cartoon characters fucking. You know, like Superman. When Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones and those original '70s porns came out, it was quite interesting because you'd never seen anything like that, and it wasn't overlit like it is now. But it was more interesting aesthetically that way, and today it's people fucking on the sand and you see sand in the dick and going into the cunt and everybody's shaved and it's just so unerotic for me.

On one hand we see a lot more porn than we used to, but on the other the climate seems to be stricter. What is that about?
That's about our fucking Republicans and our fucking President and the fucking government and the Administration. That's about the climate in America, which in my lifetime, I mean, you've seen Eisenhower and Truman, who were very, very conservative: white picket fences and mom's apple pie. And then it was so restricted. So conservative. And then the '60s it swung a whole 'nother way. The pendulum starts here and goes all the way back. Everybody thought the '60s, that was it, but that turned out to be an aberration, and then it started swinging back, and now we're at the worst point. And then it's hopefully it'll swing back because this guy in the White House is the biggest jerk... it's ridiculous.

MORE SEX ON FILM...
The Virgin: Daniel Waters
The Old Hand: Brian De Palma
The Dirty Dutchman: Paul Verhoeven
The Crossover: John Cameron Mitchell
The Big Buffalo: Vincent Gallo
The Buttoned-Up Brit: Richard Eyre
The Sophisticate: David Cronenberg
The Motherfucker: Christophe Honoré
The Shocker: Gaspar Noé