Harmony Korine - Early Life

Early Life

Korine was born in Bolinas, California to Eve and Sol Korine and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He is Jewish. Sol produced documentaries for PBS in the 1970s about an "array of colourful Southern characters" and taught Korine how to use a Bolex camera. As a child, Korine watched movies with his father, who rented Buster Keaton films and took him to see Even Dwarfs Started Small in the theater. Korine reminisces, "I knew there was a poetry in cinema that I had never seen before that was so powerful." Korine spent his childhood in Nashville, attending Hillsboro High School before moving to New York City to live with his grandmother. Korine also spent some time living with his parents in a commune, which helped to inspire the commune setting of Mister Lonely. As a teenager, Korine frequented revival theaters, watching classic films by John Cassavetes, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Alan Clarke. In an interview with Bruce LaBruce, Korine briefly mentioned that he studied Business Administration in college. Other sources state that he studied Dramatic Writing at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University for one semester before dropping out to pursue a career as a professional skateboarder.