The Kids of 1995

Tolles Feature auf Narrative.ly über Larry Clarks Kids, einem der essenziellen 90er-Filme und vielleicht das erste Beispiel dieser NewSchool-Authentizität, die dann Jahre später (auch durch Blogs und das Netz) Mainstream wurde und die jetzt unter dem Stichwort New Sincerity dank Lena Dunhams (hervorragender) Serie Girls mal wieder die Runde macht. War damals ein ziemlicher Kulturschock, so ein bisschen wie Amy&Pink mit Eiern. Also: R.I.P. Casper, R.I.P. Harold.

Kids came from the minds of Korine, a skate kid from Tennessee whose grandmother lived in Queens and hung out with Harold and his friends, and Clark, already known for his gritty, sexualized youth photography. (Clark had started photographing the crew in the early 1990s.) It was the first film for both, and the camera barely leaves the kids, none of whom were actors at the time; all were plucked from Harold’s skater crew and elsewhere downtown.

Those of us who watched Kids as adolescents, growing up in an era before iPhones, Facebook, and Tiger Moms, had our minds blown from wherever we were watching–whether it was the Angelika Film Center on the Lower East Side or our parents’ Midwestern basements. We were captivated by the entirely unsupervised teens smoking blunts, drinking forties, hooking up, running amok and reckless through the New York City streets. Simultaneously, the driving storyline highlighted the terror of HIV and AIDS, which was at its apex in the mid-nineties.

LEGENDS NEVER DIE by Caroline Rothstein: „Two decades after a low-budget film turned Washington Square skaters into international celebrities, the kids from “Kids” struggle with lost lives, distant friendships, and the fine art of growing up.“ (via Boing Boing)