Role

Director. “Kids” was Mr. Clark’s directorial debut. “My idea was to make a film that had never been made,” he said. “By hanging out with these kids so long, they finally let me into a world where no adults were allowed.” Other than the story line about Jennie, nearly everything in the film was based on events that he and Mr. Korine had witnessed.

Before “Kids”

A documentarian of youth culture, Mr. Clark first provoked controversy in 1971 when he published “Tulsa,” a harrowing photography book revealing sex, violence and drug use in his Oklahoma hometown. His next book, “Teenage Lust,” attracted the same kind of outrage that later surrounded “Kids.”

“If you look at all my work, I’m always about three years early,” Mr. Clark said. “So the kids who saw the film said: ‘Gee, man, this gets what’s happening. This is real.’ Whereas a lot of parents said, ‘It’s a dirty old man’s fantasy.’ All you had to do was read the newspapers over the next few years, and everything was true.”

Memorable Scene

Telly and Casper arrive at Washington Square Park, which spurs a montage of ritualistic handshakes, dice rolling and marijuana smoking. It faithfully evoked the world in which Mr. Clark had immersed himself on a daily basis; he even learned to skate in order to keep up. “I broke my shoulder,” he said. “My knees are messed up like crazy today. I paid the price, but I really, really wanted to do it. Finally they accepted me. I was like one of the kids, even though I was almost 50.”

After “Kids”

Mr. Clark followed “Kids” with other films that depicted wayward youth subculture, including “Bully,” “Ken Park” and “Wassup Rockers.” In 2014, he revisited skate culture, this time adding modernities like online pornography, in the film “The Smell of Us.” “I don’t know if any other adults give kids the same respect that Larry does,” said Mr. Fitzpatrick, who organized a 2014 gallery show of Mr. Clark’s snapshots, which sold for $100 each. “Larry is a kid at heart. He just happens to be a lot older than them.”