For Clark, 'I think all my work has been cinematic-like, and my whole life was preparation for making this film.' Ostensibly documentary, his photographs have always had a strong narrative drive that could easily unfold into cinema. ThereВ’s always something that doesnВ’t ring true.' But ClarkВ’s work, exemplified in his now-classic books of photography, Tulsa (1971) and Teenage Lust (1983), has always been about striking a haunting, unsettling tone that often leaves the viewer moved by, but uncertain about, what one is seeing. This was, in fact, the starting point for Clark, the fact that most teenage films 'never used kids the right age, always actors playing younger. It seems impossible to watch Kids without reflecting on how pale and unremarkable most takes on kids have traditionally been. When the dust clears, what remains is a remarkable film about adolescence В– as remarkable for what it shows up as for what it shows. As for the filmmakers, stories about 20-year-old screenwriter Harmony Korine as HollywoodВ’s latest enfant terrible, terrorizing producers and agents alike, and gossip about 52-year-old director Larry ClarkВ’s antics on and off the set paint portraits of these artists as young kids themselves. And if the rating is handed down, Miramax will unsheath its newly formed subdistributor Excalibur to circumvent DisneyВ’s grounding of the film. Bob DoleВ’s recent rants about Hollywood sex and violence, will slap KidsВ’ wrist with a NC-17 rating sounds no less infantalizing. And the anticipation that the MPAA, especially in light of Senator. Speculations that Miramax is trying to breakaway from its parent company, Disney, and characterizations of MiramaxВ’s Harvey and Bob Weinstein as the 'bad boys' of film distribution strike a decidedly paternalistic tone towards independent film. Being often less about the film and more about our cultureВ’s insistence on alternately protecting and fetishizing images of childhood and adolescence, the media frenzy over Kids also demonstrates how thoroughly the language of childhood informs our business and aesthetic practices. THE LITTLE RASCALS Peter Bowen on Larry ClarkВ’s KidsДЇor all the controversy that Larry ClarkВ’s first feature, Kids, has kicked up, itВ’s easy to forget that itВ’s just a movie.

Kids 1995 cast