I would like to know why Chloë Sevigny, Rosario Dawson, and Leo Fitzpatrick were given hall passes on their culpability in the demise and deaths of Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter?
Not only did Chloë, Rosario and Leo (the only actors/stars to emerge successful out of Kids) duck out of being interviewed for this doc, but their names are not even mentioned once. And I mean literally NO mention of them AT ALL, as if they never appeared in Kids.
Instead, the producers and director chose to focus their ire and blame strictly on Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, holding the duo over the fire for abandoning their "kids" so that they could reap all the accolades and financial fruits for themselves. And in doing so - this documentary argues - Pierce and Hunter were left all alone to flounder and eventually fail (Justin later killed himself and Harold OD'd).
I don't think anyone disagrees that Clark and Korine exploited their cast of then-unknown street urchins in order to get Kids made. And after watching this doc, you'd be hard pressed to defend (or even like) Larry Clark (Korine was equally heartless in his unscrupulous treatment of the Kids cast, but unlike Clark he's still making $$$ for Hollywood, so I think people are a bit more lenient of him as Clark's former accomplice).
But it seems grossly unfair of this doc's filmmakers to have such a blatant double-standard of blame - that Clark and Korine could have but didn't help Justin and Harold get set up in Hollywood following the success of kids - all the while categorically ignoring just how huge Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson went on to become in La La Land.
Seriously, where were Chloë and Rosario when Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter were also trying to get roles? And where were they when Justin and Harold, having failed to make it in show business, fell on hard times? Sure, you could argue that Chloë and Rosario had no responsibility for them and were just looking out for themselves as they became popular in Hollywood (both actresses are now A-listers and multi-millionaires).
But then you'd need to grant Clark and Korine the exact same exemption, because they too had no obligation to help out the cast after paying them. After all, at the time Clark and Korine were just two scruffy wannabe filmmakers trying to make it in this industry. Not until years (and decades for Korine) later did they finally find some success.
In fact, if you examine and compare their respective career timelines, Chloë and Rosario were cast in big-budget Hollywood movies immediately after Kids - long before Clark or Korine found enough financing to make their second films. So who at the time really had the ability and opportunity to help out Harold and Justin?
Again I ask: why did the producers and director of "The Kids" (aka "We Were Once Kids") choose to let Chloë Sevigny, Rosario Dawson and Leo Fitzpatrick off the hook by not forcing them to face the camera and ask them the same hard questions asked of Clark and Korine? And not just let them off the hook, but completely leave them out of this doc with nary a whisper of their names? (the end of the film states in writing that Clark and Korine declined to participate; since Sevigny and Dawson also declined to participate, why doesn't it say so?).
Re-watch this documentary with all this in mind and I think their agenda/narrative will make itself more obvious to the viewer: Clark and Korine were low-hanging fruit, but to also go after Sevigny and Dawson would have risked upsetting the Hollywood powers-that-be who finance their films and have the ability to crush aspiring indie filmmakers like Eddie Martin and Hamilton Harris.
I personally think it's shameful and hypocritical, but y'know, I doubt anyone else will ever think this deep about this relatively obscure documentary...
