“Fight Harm,” a currently shelved project from one our favorite enfant terrible Harmony Korine, is one that fans have been curious about for years. Started in 1999, Korine with a camera crew led by magician David Blaine walked the streets of New York City trying to goad total strangers into fighting him. As Korine explained back then, “I go around provoking passers-by, trying to start a fight while the video camera follows me and films everything. It’s very brutal – I’ve already broken a collar bone and been arrested. The punches and kicks are all real, it’s one of the most disgusting things you’ll ever see. I wanted to push humour to extreme limits to demonstrate that there’s a tragic component in everything.” Needless to say the injuries sustained by Korine and threats of legal action put the kibosh on the film. Not much else is really known about the footage, but apparently photos from the film appeared in an issue of Thrasher (pictured).
Speaking with IFC (while apparently on a stakeout), Korine gave an update on the status of the movie saying, “There are nine fights in total. Once I distilled it down to the pure violence, it was a little over 17 minutes. I go back and forth. My wife is really adamant about me not showing it at this point. She thinks I need to wait another ten for it to be really funny. The only purpose of these fights was to make the world’s greatest slapstick comedy, something that Buster Keaton or The Three Stooges would have been jealous of.”
Korine goes on to describe the film as “the future comedy” but says that only when times passes will “people will see that it really is a work of true comedic magnitude.” Frankly, it already sounds fascinatingly and hilariously awesome, but wait we must. We do hope at some point, somewhere, the footage will see the light of day but we’re not going to hold our breath on it happening.
Thankfully, Korine has another in the can he is ready to show, “Trash Humpers,” which begins its limited rollout in New York City this weekend. We saw the movie last year and loved every deranged second of it. We highly recommend you seek it out if it comes to your town because it really is best experienced with an audience. You can check out the full rollout schedule here and the NSFW trailer below.
–Written by Kevin Jagernauth
