Kids Screenplay

I chose to read Kids, a screenplay by Harmony Korine. It is a screenplay about sex. It’s about the pleasures, risks, and drama that are all tied to one intimate act. For this I debated taking on the role of Director of Photography. Because how can you get a movie released about sex without showing all of the sex? Well apparently you can’t. The movie was met with accusations of pornography, exploitation, and child endangerment, and was given an NC-17 rating from the MPAA. So instead I chose to write from the point of a Set Designer.

There are some very interesting contrasts within the set of Kids. And as set designer I would want to highlight these contrasts. It opens in a girl’s room. The walls are pink, there’s a dollhouse in the corner and band posters on the wall. On the bed sit two teenagers. She’s dressed in bright colors and he is dressed in dark – the only dark thing in the room. This is so you can tell he’s out of place. He’s invading her world, and lying to get what he wants.

One thing I have learned in class that if you compare the first and last frame of a movie, something has had to change. It shows progression, and the biggest contrast is shown by comparing the first and last.

So for the last scene, it’s a living room. The furniture is cheap and stained, people are strewn about passed out wherever there was an open spot. The walls have chipped paint. The lamps give off an eerie glow because the air is full of dust and smoke.  There are empty bottles everywhere, remnants of drugs on the living room table.

So overall the set design would go from happy to bleak with no hope for Jennie. For Telly’s shots and scenes it would all be happy and bright, a continuing contrast against Jennie’s growing despair as we cut between the two. As the film progresses the audience would catch onto this and their dislike of Telly would slowly progress as they grow to understand how Telly takes what he wants then simply moves on to the next one with no concern of what happens to his previous partner.

One point in the screenplay I think is also worth mentioning is when Jennie is leaving Paul’s apartment while looking for Telly. A little girl approaches her with a ripped doll and sticks her doll out so Jennie can hold it. This is an eerie scene. The little girl is happy with her doll. The apartments are old and in disrepair. That girl is exactly as Jennie was in the beginning of the film, although of course not that young. It’s a scene of comparison of where she was then and where she is now.