Kids Director Larry Clark: ‘If I Had Lived Anywhere Else I Would Have Been Shot or Executed 40 Years Ago’

American filmmaker
Larry Clark talked to Dazed as part of its
“States of Independence” series, which the British magazine
describes as a month-long “celebration of American radicalism,
youth, and pop culture.” As the director of films like
Kids, Ken Park, and Marfa Girl, Clark
has been a celluloid celebrant of these things for a couple of
decades now. (We can thank Clark for Chloë Sevigny, though he also
brought us Harmony Korine.) Before that, he documented his own
youthful indiscretions in books such as Tulsa, which
begins with this preface: 

i was born in tulsa oklahoma in 1943. when i was sixteen i
started shooting amphetamine. i shot with my friends everyday for
three years and then left town but i’ve gone back through the
years. once the needle goes in it never comes out. L.C.

At 71, Clark is about to release his first foreign language
film,
The Smell of Us, about skate kids in Paris. He
recently sold a
series of snapshots he took of street kids and skate punks in
1990s New York City for £100 per image. (Which is apparently a
bargain.) “I photographed the skate kids so much in the early
90s and it’s almost embarrassing to tell them how much work goes
for,” he told Dazed. “It was important for me to do this
show so that the kids can have a souvenir.” More from the
interview: 

Does the American Dream still exist? 

Larry Clark: Absolutely. I always say that
if I had lived anywhere else I would have been shot or executed
forty years ago. But in America I’ve been able to have that freedom
to do what I want and say what I want, to observe and document the
world as I see it. I feel very blessed to be an American and have
that freedom.

(…) Who gave you your first break? Do you still
talk?

Larry Clark: Now, that is a question. I
really have to think about that one…actually, I think I’ve always
made my own breaks. If I look back at my life, I’m pretty satisfied
that nobody ever gave me anything. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done
myself. That makes me feel really good. I guess there is a
self-satisfaction thing there.

Read the
whole thing here. Check out more from Dazed’s American
youth-culture
love-fest here.