Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2013)

[HistoryProf]

Put it this way then: as a former 14 year-old boy, I probably would have wanted to see this film. But I never would have wanted to see it with my parents who would definitely have been negligent in not doing their level best to prevent me from seeing it, whether I ultimately found a way to sneak in or download the eventual video or whathaveyou. I don't know about you guys, but during my teenage years it was never a problem to be watching something that turned unexpectedly violent with the 'rents. However, anything remotely sexual was instantly embarrassing beyond belief for all of us. And Spring Breakers at its most intense is wall to wall in your face naughty bits.

i didn't mean to start a debate over violence vs. sex and which harms our children more...I was just asking if it was a hard R or something that could be considered a potential WARNING WARNING teaching tool. I certainly don't shelter her, which is impossible these days anyway. And she's utterly mortified if two people kiss on screen while we're watching something let alone a sex scene. Sounds like something that would potentially scar her for life in that respect. Thanks for the feedback.

[Finch]

Korine interview

[jindianajonz]

I was just asking if it was a hard R or something that could be considered a potential WARNING WARNING teaching tool.

Definitely a hard R, and overall a pretty poor teaching tool.

[flyonthewall2983]

It just has a directing tool instead.

[Cold Bishop]

Will try to write about this more later, but what did everyone think about the overtones of race and white privilege? Selena Gomez's "breakdown" was certainly uncomfortable for this (unspoken) tension, and Korine seems to be equal parts playing-to and subverting the latently-racist "Havoc"-genre, where nice white girls cross the "color line" and get corrupted.

[HJackson]

Will try to write about this more later, but what did everyone think about the overtones of race and white privilege? Selena Gomez's "breakdown" was certainly uncomfortable for this (unspoken) tension, and Korine seems to be equal parts playing-to and subverting the latently-racist "Havoc"-genre, where nice white girls cross the "color line" and get corrupted.

I don't know to what extent this holds. For one thing, Alien and the twins are white. Secondly, the girls were hardly innocent before meeting them.

[jindianajonz]

Will try to write about this more later, but what did everyone think about the overtones of race and white privilege? Selena Gomez's "breakdown" was certainly uncomfortable for this (unspoken) tension, and Korine seems to be equal parts playing-to and subverting the latently-racist "Havoc"-genre, where nice white girls cross the "color line" and get corrupted.

I definitely think Korine was conscious of this. Something about the way Gomez said "I don't like these people triggered it for me, but I noticed the party Gomez loved and didn't want to end was pretty much the same as the one she hated, except everyone was black and Corine didn't shoot it in a "fun" way. I also noticed that aliens rival is just a black version of alien, and because of this his harem is two fat black chicks instead of two hot white chicks.

[Cronenfly]

Will try to write about this more later, but what did everyone think about the overtones of race and white privilege? Selena Gomez's "breakdown" was certainly uncomfortable for this (unspoken) tension, and Korine seems to be equal parts playing-to and subverting the latently-racist "Havoc"-genre, where nice white girls cross the "color line" and get corrupted.

I definitely think Korine was conscious of this. Something about the way Gomez said "I don't like these people triggered it for me, but I noticed the party Gomez loved and didn't want to end was pretty much the same as the one she hated, except everyone was black and Corine didn't shoot it in a "fun" way. I also noticed that aliens rival is just a black version of alien, and because of this his harem is two fat black chicks instead of two hot white chicks.

I still think the religious elements surrounding Gomez's character feel like Korine taking easy potshots, and that having her be the only one of the four who can't deal with the film's black characters/Franco's gangsta-aping attitude and attire is very much a part of this facile critique, but the film's racial tensions/play on Havoc and co. still remain one of its more interesting elements, I think, whether there is any kind of coherent take-away or not (Korine being Korine, I'm inclined to think not).

[Brian C]

It's funny, because I thought that the Gomez character's religiosity was pretty much played straight. Far from feeling like "potshots", it made her out to basically be the most sensible person in the group.

It seems odd to say that Alien's party was pretty much the same as the white people's party, given that the white partiers were basically in town for a hedonistic week, while Alien and his crew were mainstays on the scene and bragged openly of their gangster lifestyle. Attributing Gomez's misgivings to racial anxieties seems absurd - she sensed a fundamental difference in the direction things were going in and was completely right.

[Alan Smithee]

It's funny, because I thought that the Gomez character's religiosity was pretty much played straight. Far from feeling like "potshots", it made her out to basically be the most sensible person in the group.

It seems odd to say that Alien's party was pretty much the same as the white people's party, given that the white partiers were basically in town for a hedonistic week, while Alien and his crew were mainstays on the scene and bragged openly of their gangster lifestyle. Attributing Gomez's misgivings to racial anxieties seems absurd - she sensed a fundamental difference in the direction things were going in and was completely right.

I'd agree with this. Being from the south I've always felt Korine has represented a certain aspect of that strange land very well and this is the first time he's addressed the fundamentalist Christian sect. I don't think he's poking fun. The strange "Jesus is cool" youth group is spot on and the situation she finds herself in isn't only tense because of racial difference, it's very specifically tense because she doesn't understand the motivations Alien has and the people at the pool hall all seem to be focused on the girls.

[Cronenfly]

Well, given that

SpoilerShow

all four girls survive,

I guess I felt like Korine was perhaps framing the Gomez character as less the sensible one than the hypocrite of the group, at least in some ways, willing to engage in pleasure-seeking only when it fits her narrow view of what that ought to entail, with little regard for the consequences (of the robbery that funds the trip, of the toll all the spring break BS might have on the larger community, etc). It seemed to me that the girls were treated very similarly in the pool hall and hotel/spring break scenes, and they have relatively equal agency (or lack thereof) in each situation; I admit I might be reading a bit too much into the Gomez character's motivations, but I definitely think Korine is trying to do something with race/religion here, even if it is not at an entirely conscious/fully thought-out level. I just wish he had delved a bit deeper into these kinds of issues (even if one sees the presentation of the fundamentalist scenes as being "straight", an interpretation which I don't quite buy, they still seem more like window-dressing/pseudo-profundity than an integral element of the narrative); this perhaps would have robbed the film of the modicum of crossover success it has been able to find, but it would have made for a richer, more mature work.

[knives]

Korine's never been an ironic filmmaker up to this point, so I see no reason for him to start now. Under the smoke and mirrors of his technique and lack of interest in narrative he's always been straight forward with the emotional state of his characters.

[Cold Bishop]

It seems odd to say that Alien's party was pretty much the same as the white people's party

Yes, but for the opposite reason you state: the "party" at the pool-hall was much more benign and less menacing than anything we'd seen prior. Gomez's complaint about strangers "touching her" is especially ridiculous, since the most we see is some shoulder brushing.

[jindianajonz]

It seems odd to say that Alien's party was pretty much the same as the white people's party, given that the white partiers were basically in town for a hedonistic week, while Alien and his crew were mainstays on the scene and bragged openly of their gangster lifestyle.

What I meant was both groups are a bunch of guys whose sole interest in the girls is trying to get them as naked as they can. Both of them felt predatory to me, but Gomez was only aware/scared of it when it was black guys being predatory. Korine initially shot the white party in a more glamorous way, but I think the part where a bunch of people were snorting coke of a chick's chest was way seedier than the black party. And from what I recall, this scene is accompanied by Gomez's character calling her grandmother and saying what a great time they are having.

[krnash]

It seems odd to say that Alien's party was pretty much the same as the white people's party, given that the white partiers were basically in town for a hedonistic week, while Alien and his crew were mainstays on the scene and bragged openly of their gangster lifestyle.

I pretty much agree. I took the contrast more as Gomez being the only girl that understood immediately the difference between the two parties- one was a masquerade, the other a lifestyle. However, Korine's choice in making the Spring Break party entirely white and the gangster party almost entirely black also surely isn't an accident.

[criterion10]

Korine's never been an ironic filmmaker up to this point, so I see no reason for him to start now. Under the smoke and mirrors of his technique and lack of interest in narrative he's always been straight forward with the emotional state of his characters.

I would normally agree with this statement, but in an interview recently conducted with Korine, he does mention that the racial conflicts within the film are not there by accident and are certainly an ongoing theme.

EDGE: Speaking of the youth culture, that’s what most critics seem to be latching onto here - the music, the subversion of the American dream, all that. But to me, this seems a film much more preoccupied with concepts of race than with those other ideas... is that reading too much into things?
Harmony Korine: Yeah, well, you know. It’s all by design. The patchwork of the film, it’s a cultural mashup. Race, and racial appropriation... that’s definitely a theme. I won’t talk too specifically about it because I want people to come up with their own... I want people to... look, I will say, it’s all in there.

[Jeff]

Look at my Blu-ray! I got Spring Breakers. On repeat. SPRING BREAKERS ON REPEAT. Constant, y'all!

Special Features:

Breaking it Down: Behind Spring Breakers" – A Behind-the-Scenes 3-Part Documentary
Part 1 – "Film Makers: Spring Breakers"
Part 2 – "Breaking Convention"
Part 3 – "Spring Breakers Forever"
Deleted Scene/Outtakes
"Harmony's Ear Candy" featurette – An Insightful Look at the Music of Spring Breakers
Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Harmony Korine
VICE featurettes - An Inside Look at the ATL Twins and Real Life Partying in Panama City Beach
Theatrical Trailer
TV Spots

[knives]

Korine's such a horrible public speaker that that commentary will either be unlistenable or amusingly awful.

[eerik]

Kind of lame how they have photoshopped more clothes onto Hudgens and covered Benson's cleavage, yet Franco's gun has been left untouched for the Blu-ray/DVD cover. What's up with that guns and violence = awesome!, sex and nudity = worst thing in the world mentality?

[Oedipax]

Korine gave a lovely bit of commentary on the Gummo dvd. He talks about Bresson and throwing his sister through a plate glass window on the last day of filming.

Here's the transcript, actually

[R0lf]

I thought the racial currents in the movie had more to do with American imperialism.

They go to another place, take advantage of it's resources, shirk responsibility and disassociate from the situation.

[Zot!]

I'm a big Korine fan, but I think this thing just falls flat. It's gratuitous without being either poignant or shocking. It's claims to abstraction are overstated, and I think that Larry Clark's Bully easily outgunned this on painting an alternative portrait of Florida and lost teens. I also thought the diegetic music was poorly chosen. My favorite moments were the party-goer with the raw turkey as a hat, and the chipped and broken tiles under the grand-piano at Alien's beach-house patio.

Gomez's complaint about strangers "touching her" is especially ridiculous, since the most we see is some shoulder brushing.

I think this is confusing because it is edited non-linearly, and it is Alien's touching that she's referring to. I could be wrong. I didn't really understand any of the narrative logic very well, if there was any.

[knives]

I thought the racial currents in the movie had more to do with American imperialism.

They go to another place, take advantage of it's resources, shirk responsibility and disassociate from the situation.

I have to agree with this. The four are invading a territory they don't understand and are trying to integrate themselves with their view of how the community exists only to destroy the native culture. It makes the ending oddly sad and disconcerting as if they had committed (in miniature of course) a genocide of Korine's beloved outsiders. As far as I recall their also Korine's first example of an outsider intruding on these unspoken for people making them villainous in an odd way. I wonder what it says that two of the best movies this year are set in a romantic horror Florida.

[Professor Wagstaff]

I wonder what it says that two of the best movies this year are set in a romantic horror Florida.

Florida has become a great locale for some contemporary stories dealing in greed, sex, and pleasure, particularly with the commodification of sexuality and physical beauty. Magic Mike also comes to mind.

[Luke M]

I had the pleasure of growing up near Tampa/St. Petersburg and met just about all of the character types in Spring Breakers. I thought it was pretty easily the most realistic portrait of Florida I've seen. Bully was another great one, I felt like I knew a lot of kids like those, but all those characters were pretty similar.

Curious, knives, what is the other "romantic horror Florida" movie you mention?