Is Larry Clark An Auteur?

Auteurism is a French term that was derived from the 1950’s when discussing the author of a film. The author of a film is always said to be the director and he is given the credit for it as he sets everything up for a film and overlooks everything. But in some cases would it be the actor’s performance, or the screenwriter’s ability to write an outstanding script that makes a film what it is. Who is to say that the director is responsible for a great film when “An expert production crew could probably cover up for a chimpanzee in the director’s chair?” (Andrew Sarris, 1962). An Auteur by definition is what puts a director in to the category of an artist. By the director making all of their films using the same techniques, themes and style, and not just being a ‘Metteurs En Scene’, making many different types of film in different ways, and not establishing a particular style. In this essay I will be exploring the advantages and disadvantages of Auteurism in relation to the controversial, but truthful director, Larry Clark.

Larry Clark was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1943. His Mother independently ran a baby photographer business, which he became a part of when he was thirteen. This sparked a huge interest for photography inside him, and is what made him go to study it at school, where he discovered there was more to photography. He returned home and over a period of nine years took photos of his peers at the time, which covered topics ranging from drug taking (amphetamines) and underage sex. These photographs were then published in Clark’s first publication entitled Tulsa (1971). He went on to publish a similar book Teenage Lust (1983), which was more explicit and raw, including biographies of New York hustlers. Clark’s photographic work is very cinematic, and went on to inspire the film Drugstore Cowboy (1989) directed by Gus Van Sant. Being the only one doing what he done at the time Clark thought, "This guy is on my turf, I should be doing this." So he was determined to make his own film. At a social gathering he met Gus Van Sant, who approached him to praise his work. He said he would be an executive producer for his first film, so that Clark could achieve funding for it, this resulted in the cult classic Kids (1995). When Clark first stepped on to his film set he said “I’m Home.”

America in the 1960’s-70’s had a widely recognised image of “Mom and apple pie” (Larry Clark, Larry Clark, Great American Rebel (2003)), and even though some other photographers touched on the tougher, grittier subjects, in magazines such as Time, Clark felt that they always stopped at a certain point, and the dark truth was always hidden. His style was to try to break social taboos, and document things as they are, and showing the consequences of the things that the youth so freely do. The themes of his work consist of adolescent’s from different social groups, from skateboarders in Kids, to his latest feature length with punk rockers in Wassup Rockers (2005). The films focus a lot on drugs, sex and getting in to some sort of trouble. Clark uses actors and actresses that are the same age as they are supposed to be in the film, to help the audience relate to the characters better. As even though they may be getting in to more extreme situations that they would, they could look at them and think ‘that’s just like me’, unlike in a of films where older actors play much younger characters such as James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause (1955) where he plays an teenager but he himself was twenty-four.

As Clarks films can be clearly identified as his own style, especially as he has photography books that fit in with his genre, it is clear that he pushes the status of his films up to art. In his particular genre of films he shows the dark truths in films as well as showing the consequences. Kids, addresses the main character Telli’s addiction to taking away younger girls virginities, which he does to two different girls in the same day (one in the opening scene, shown on the left) that the film is based on by talking them in to it. Also in the film another girl Jenni, whose virginity was taken by Telli the year before, goes to the sexual health clinic and finds out she‘s HIV positive, even though she has only had sex with him. Meaning that he is not only just taking girls virginities but also giving them aids. This shows the truths of things that happen in the real world in an extreme case, to show teenagers that they should know who they are having sex with. So as well as being a shocking story, it has morals. In Bully (2001), all of the characters have been picked on, raped or abused by Bobby. After Bobby’s best friend Marty comes in to a relationship with another character who has been abuse by Bobby, Lisa, they decide they want to get rid of him somehow. So they bring in their other friends and all come together to devise a plan what to do about him. They decide they are going to kill him, so they do so and dispose of the body. After this, they are faced with the consequences and guilt, get found out and all sent to prison for playing their part in the murder. Again it shows the large consequences, this time of taking the law in to your own hands, but in an extreme case. Wassup Rockers is about some punk rockers that want somewhere to skate, so they go to the rich part of town and get in to a scrap with the law, where they steal the policeman’s lunch and eat it in front of him and then have to run to get home. Along the way they bump in to many different groups of people, including some gay people having a party, a couple of young rich girls and a woman alone in her house, all of who want to have sex with them. However, after causing so much panic within the community, when sneaking through one mans back yard, he think they are thieves, so one gets shot and dies. This again has an underlying moral of knowing limits of what you can do, but in an extreme case. All of these are of a particular style of film, and by dedicating himself to this, it pigeon holes him as a filmmaker. This is a big weakness of auteurship, as it doesn’t allow any room for diversification.


If Larry Clark had no room for diversification in his work, it make a lot of collaborations with other artist’s in the film industry impossible. However, for Larry Clark it meant that he got to work with people that wanted to do a similar thing to him. For example his first step in to the industry was through Gus Van Sant who used a lot of Larry Clarks photography work as influence himself and therefore was a huge fan. This lead him to produce his first film Kids, so that Larry Clark got to make a film as he wanted to see it done so he supported it to his full ability. This is a big opportunity and collaboration for Larry Clark and put him in to the eyes of a more popular medium in art, cinema. Other than this he also collaborated with Stan Winston, one of Hollywood’s biggest special make up effects artists (who worked on Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)) on Clarks TV debut Teenage Caveman (2002). A collaboration like this shows that even though Larry Clark has pigeon holed himself as a director of a particular style, he can still diversify it slightly (while still including sex and drugs) and work with big names that want to do the same thing as him, and be involved with his means of cinema. Even though it has brought him to work with actors with high acclaim such as James Woods in Another Day In Paradise (1998)), more importantly than this I feel is that his new genre and ways of working with young kids has helped discover new talent, such as Rosario Dawson whose first film was Kids has gone on to work in films such as Seven Pounds (2008) and Sin City (2005). Plus building up his own camp with actors that he uses over and over again, such as Leo Fitzpatrick who appeared in Kids, Another Day In Paradise and Bully.

By being an Auteur, Larry Clark’s films will appeal to the same audiences, as when they go to see a movie with his name on it they will already know what to expect. This is due to him choosing recurring themes in his films, such as the regular casual underage sex. For example, in Kids there are 3 sex scenes, which is over the period of one day in Telli and Casper’s lives. One of these scenes is at the end when Casper is drunk at a house party, and he rapes Jenni, who is HIV positive, while she is asleep on the sofa, knocked out from a drug she took earlier in a club. Also in Bully, when Lisa calls up Ali, she is having sex and still continues to do so while on the phone, and starts to pour hot wax on the boy’s chest. Another theme that appears a lot in his films is the use of drugs by young teenagers. For example, in Kids in the house party scene at the end, four children aged about eleven are sat on the sofa and smoking weed that one of them got off of their big brother, and speaking about it as if it is something that they do regularly. This is also shown in Bully, when Donny is talking to Cousin Derek about what he does and he says he plays Mortal Kombat and Donny says that he loves to drop acid and play, so the pair casually drop acid and head over to an arcade to go and play the computer game. Themes being repeated throughout his films is good for audiences as it gets across them what they can expect from the next and his others. However, on the other hand after a few films the audiences may get bored of the same topics, and it may be very difficult to keep their interest after a large amount of similar films. But his films document certain groups of youth in the correct way for history, with issues that are actually going on rather than sweeping them under the carpet, his photography work shows that without input like this that period of time would to us seem very innocent compared to what he has shown us (displaying drug usage and incest). I do not believe that the films will get repetitive for the viewers; because as the groups change, so will the films.

Ronald Barthes, has a post-structuralist approach to this subject and argues that there is no such thing as an auteur, he says “we know that to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.” (Ronald Barthes, Death Of An Author (1967)), meaning that things are now made for audiences and no longer for the authors own wants. Therefore he can be influenced by anything and make something that is completely different to other tings that he has created as the issues risen are nothing to do with him. For example it has been argued in documentary Larry Clark, Great American Rebel that due to him showing a lot of underage sex that he is a paedophile, and they interview Tiffany Limos, Ken Park (2002), who says that he was in no way sexual with the scenes and wasn’t turned on by it all, or at least didn’t act that way towards her in the shooting of the film. This does support Barthes’ work, but as this was the life portrayed in his films, is the same sort of outlaw life that he led when he was a youngster (taking drugs and underage sex, that was displayed in his photography book Tulsa), and the fact that he hung out with kids for a long time whilst doing research for his films (therefore being in touch with the new ways of life) it is an expression of his own culture in a way. However, they are made for the reader, in this case those that are part of the cultures of teenagers he makes films about, which agrees with Barthes’ theory.


I feel that Larry Clark is a very strong auteur, of who has very clear outlined themes with in his films. He is deep in the cultures that he makes pieces about, and documents history well with the dark side of the unspoken life of teenagers day to day in America within many different social groups. Even though he is making things for audiences, and Barthes may rule him out as an author, I do feel that he does things for self-indulgence, even though his primary concern with his films is to shock adolescence with the consequences of their actions. His collaborations with other has led to a large contribution to the audiences and the film world, with his discovery of new talent and work with huge people in the business, namely Gus Van Sant and James Woods. He has broken all barriers that being an auteur can lead to and has not distanced himself from the film world and yet kept true to his original roots, and ideologies that he wanted to let loose with in his cinematic art, whether it be film or photography. He has his own style, and has shocked the world with the deep yet sincere consequences outlined in his films.