But I think he’s a very compelling presence on screen. But then Justin basically emerged out of that rubble.įilmmaker: Did you ever approach Korine about playing the role.īyington: No. And then I was also writing it for the guy who was in Registered Sex Offender, Gabriel McIver. That was blended in with seeing Justin Rice in Mutual Appreciation, and sort of writing it for him in my mind’s eye also. His demeanor in the world was one of the inspirations for the character. I had seen him at Telluride in the mid-90s, and his personality had a big impact on me. COURTESY HARMONY AND ME, LLC.įilmmaker: Before the interview started, you mentioned Harmony Korine and said that he was an inspiration for the character of Harmony.īyington: He was in my mind’s eye when I started. ![]() And though its subject matter, indie cast and loose, vérité cinematography are somewhat redolent of a mumblecore movie, its rich humor – sometimes dry, sometimes much more direct – recalls the New Hollywood comedies from the 70s.įilmmaker spoke to Byington about the inspiration Harmony Korine provided the movie, the film’s musical aspects, and his “God-imposed” hiatus.īOB BYINGTON, WRITER-DIRECTOR OF HARMONY AND ME. Harmony and Me, clocking in at a slim 75 minutes, has a real sweetness and freewheeling charm thanks to Byington’s script and Rice’s perfectly pitched lead performance. Trying to help him (or not) recover from his heartbreak are a motley cast of friends and co-workers, and the members of his oddball, dysfunctional family, with Alex Karpovsky, Kevin Corrigan, Pat Healy and Byington himself turning in great performances in these roles. The film revolves around lovelorn Harmony (Justin Rice, the Bishop Allen frontman and Bujalski regular), who is still recovering from being dumped a year previously by his ex-girlfriend Jessica (Kristin Tucker) – and lets everybody know about it. Seemingly making up for lost time, Byington has rapidly followed up RSO with Harmony and Me, an offbeat comedy which was aided by an Annenberg Film Fellowship grant from the Sundance Institute. Byington also had a cameo in Beeswax (2009), the most recent film from Andrew Bujalski, who himself had appeared in a small role in RSO. In 2008, though, he returned with the edgy comedy RSO, which premiered at SXSW 2008 before getting a roadshow release as part of Todd Sklar’s Range Life Entertainment tour. However, Byington then all but dropped off the map for a decade, only reappearing briefly in 2005, when he won the Austin Chronicle‘s short story contest. His next film, Olympia, the story of a Mexican soap star who dreams of competing in the Olympics, was the opening night movie at the SXSW film festival in 1998. In 1995, he cut his teeth as a production assistant on the indie hit The Last Supper, and the next year wrote and directed his feature debut Shameless, about an Austin-set, Generation X love triangle. ![]() A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, Byington studied at UC-Santa Cruz before going to graduate school at the University of Texas, where he used his American Studies major to indulge his newfound love for the movies. ![]() COURTESY HARMONY AND ME, LLC.įrom Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez to Bryan Poyser and the Zellner brothers, Austin is a hotbed of gifted directors, and Bob Byington now emerges from there as another talent to be reckoned with. JUSTIN RICE IN WRITER-DIRECTOR BOB BYINGTON’S HARMONY AND ME.
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