520
p
ARTISAN REVIEW
of drugs by a group of thirteen-year-old New Yorkers. The audience
greeted the film with whistles and shouts of disapproval." I could not
resist comparing the reception of this film in Europe and America.
In
all fairness, I must say that the
New York
Magazine interview took
place before director Larry Clark and screenwriter Harmony Korine de–
parted for Cannes, at a time when they were more concerned with what
they would wear, and didn't believe there was ."really going to be all
this controversy." Such focus, itself, differentiates today's European cine–
matographers from their American counterparts. Whereas here this sort
of feature article could have appeared in dozens of other popularly ori–
ented publications, their European equivalents, I believe, would have
been more concerned with the film's possible impact on its audience
rather than with the personalities, opinions and motives of the producers.
New York
Magazine's summary of the plot indicates what the Euro–
peans may be objecting to:
Kids
takes place in one day . .. and tells the story of seventeen-year–
old Telly, a so-called virgin surgeon. As the movie begins, Telly is
smoothly seducing his latest prey, a sweet-faced girl who appears to
be just out of puberty. After a lot of kissing and a lot of convincing
(Of course I care about you, he tells her, with great sensitivity), they
have sex. Afterward, Telly bounds down the posh brownstone's three
flights, meets his friend Casper, who's waiting on the stoop, and de–
scribes his conquest in intimate detail. For the rest of the movie, he
and his buddies goof around, ride the subways, talk about sex, skate–
board, talk about sex some more, go swimming, drink beer, smoke
pot, and suck nitrous oxide until they are only half-conscious.
They're casually brutal. At one point, one of the kids gets into a scrap
with a man in Washington Square Park; the group sets upon him,
punching and stomping and swinging skateboards.. . . [And] while
Telly is working on deflowering another young beauty, a former
conquest, Jenny finds out that she's
HIV
-positive.
La Repubblica's
synopsis doesn't differ. But fifty-two-year-old Clark's
Italian interviewer is less supportive than his American counterpart.
"Don't New York youngsters have values other than sex?" was his first
question. "Kids always talk about sex among themselves, and there is
much violence and use of drugs, especially in the center of New York,"
stated Clark. "That's how the young are, and we were the same way. . .
they're in their own world, a hard world."
In
answer to a question
about the reaction of the American public, Clark said that the movie
was not yet out, but that he expected it to receive an R rating, and that
