Lawrence Donald Clark (born January 19, 1943) is an American film director, photographer, writer, and film producer. He has made ten films to date.
- Kids
- Another Day in Paradise
- Bully
- Teenage Caveman (2002 film)
- Ken Park
- Wassup Rockers
- Destricted (Directed Impaled, one of the eight short films this film is comprised of)
- Marfa Girl
- The Smell of Us
- Marfa Girl 2
Clark's body of work, although very controversial with his tendency to put heavy and brutally realistic emphasis on the subject of teenage delinquency, has won numerous film awards and accolades, particularly from the independent film community. Two of his films, Ken Park and The Smell of Us, have not been released in the US.
The works of Larry Clark provide examples of the following:
- Creator's Oddball: The 2002 TV Movie Teenage Caveman lacks most of trademarks that made Larry's films controversial and is instead a straight forward sci-fi B-Movie made in the style of an American International Pictures production.
- Creator Thumbprint: Sexuality, especially of the teenage variety; shirtless teenage boys, as Richard Roeper of Ebert and Roeper scathingly pointed out in his review of Wassup Rockers; drug use, again especially of the teenage variety; skateboarding; dysfunctional families, with a particular focus on poor (or altogether absent) parenting.
- Humans Are Bastards: In most if not all of his films, teenagers are depicted as juvenile delinquents who actively engage in sex, drug use, and general debauchery. Meanwhile, the adults are either apathetic, abusive, or both.
- Punk Rock: The soundtracks of his films are often full of music from various styles of punk.
- Truth in Television: The aspects of Clark's works that are most commonly and scathingly criticized are his honest and raw depictions of the realities of adolescence, from heavy cursing to promiscuous sexuality to rampant drug use.
