Harmony Korine moves into advertising

Of all the directors you'd expect to make an advert for Thorntons, how many would have guessed Harmony Korine?

If you’re going to sell out in cinema, you may as well do it in style. With the recent news that Martin Scorsese has made an advert for cava brand Freixenet, and that Wes Anderson spends most of his time between films churning out commercials , Harmony Korine – director of such offbeat, no-wave indie classics as ‘Gummo’ and ‘Julien Donkey-Boy’ – has decided to swill on the corporate buck by producing a (rather fine) TV ad for Thorntons chocolatiers.

The advert, which can be viewed here on Youtube, uses a similar technique to the one Korine developed for his music video to Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s ‘No More Workhorse Blues’, and the stylistic link would suggests that this is not some kind of sick hoax planted by Korine naysayers.

It could be easy to throw stones at the director for this odd career choice, but maybe this is just the other, modern side to the coin that saw path-finding auteurs such John Cassavetes taking on inane studio projects to be able to fund more personal work?

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