Last night, Scott Feinberg interviewed Bong Joon Ho in Santa Barbara as he accepted the award for Outstanding Director. A wonderfully humble and very talented man, that Bong Joon Ho. Here are a few highlights:
- On news around a small screen adaption of Parasite: “The TV series with HBO and Adam McKay is something that I’ve been thinking of for a long time, since I started writing the script. I had all these ideas accumulated about the characters and the hidden backstories that I couldn’t include in the two-hour running time of the film, so I just want to spread them all out through this limited series. More than being a TV show, I really think of it as a six-hour expanded film.”
- On the critical and box office success of the film: “I didn’t anticipate it all. I never imagined that I would be here with an audience in Santa Barbara. I just shot the film as I’ve always done with my previous works. But last March when I completed the film I did realize that I had little regrets with Parasite. Whenever I finish a film I’m always entangled in all these regrets, but relatively I didn’t have as many. But obviously everything that happened since Cannes to now the [Academy Awards] and right now in Santa Barbara, I never imagined any of this. It is all very new and surprising.”
- On finding the perfect cast through untraditional means: “Personally, I don’t like auditions. I find them very awkward. Calling the actors into an office and have them perform…it makes me feel uncomfortable watching them, and for me it’s just difficult to get over how awkward the entire situation is. Personally, I love to watch their previous works, shorts, indie films, and if they’re performing onstage I try to go to the shows myself, and that’s how I form the cast one by one.”
- On art imitating life: “Coincidentally, I first came up with the idea for this film in the winter of 2013, which was when I was working on the post-production of Snowpiercer— and the themes are connected. They’re both about the rich and poor. But I wanted to explore a similar theme, not through sci-fi and action, but through characters that I can see around me in my daily life…When I was in college I also taught math for a middle school boy for a very rich family, and at the time my girlfriend was teaching the same boy Korean. He needed a math tutor, so she introduced me into the family. So you can say that she and I infiltrated their home one by one. I also wanted to introduce another friend into the family as an art teacher, but we weren’t able to proceed with the plan because I was fired after two months.”
And here are the videos:
« I had all these ideas accumulated about the characters and the hidden backstories that I couldn’t include in the two-hour running time of the film, so I just want to spread them all out through this limited series. »
It’s all fine and dandy and I’m eager to discover the extra material and see how it ends for the family (does the wishful sequence ever come true? will the children end up like their parents or will they manage to carve better lives for themselves?) but there’s no need to make an American remake for that. It would be much better to reunite the Korean cast and film the additional scenes in the same settings before it’s too late and the original cast grows to old. In fact the young boy might’ve grown up too much already to film additional scenes unless they’re set in the future when he’s not necessary anyway, though it could also be interesting to see the Parks several year in the future and have them meet their former servants again somehow.
Especially as Bong’s American films have been less impressive than his Korean ones (personally my argument is that what Bong does is built so fully on confidence and fluency that even the slightest disconnect with the culture or the language breaks the movies) and thus it’s probably going to at best be a longer Parasite-lite
I have only seen The Host, Snowpiercer and Parasite, the latter being the only one I truly enjoyed, so I wouldn’t speculate on Bong’s ability to make a good film in the English language, but yes, its Korean identity not only gives the film (clearly made with western audiences in mind) its distinctive, pleasant flavor (such as when the Park mother says “is it ok with you?” with her cute accent), but it is also essential to the story as we are witnessing a confrontation between the characters’ aspirations to a modern, westernized way of life (wi-fi, pizza, english lessons) and the comfort they draw from reverting back to Asian traditions when things get tough (lucky rock, ramen noodles).
So yes, an extended English remake, as exciting as it sounds to learn more about the story, would not only mean losing the flavor but also the depth of the original film, and it would also be an insult to the excellent original cast (I mean their SAG ensemble win was more than just a way to reward the film somewhere) and the excellent production design which combined perfectly to make this film the international success it became.
Exactly Brett who was Bong up against? Not much of a story without knowing who he beat anyway I don’t trust judgement of Santa Barbara film festival if I like Cannes and palm deor which academy need learn not take so seriously
Apologize in advance for posting this to as many threads as possible, for obvious reasons! It’s easy to skip over, though, once voted.
All who have seen each of the nine Best Picture nominees at the Oscars this year (give or take a Ford v Ferrari, which clearly cannot win either the online simulation or the Oscar, and maybe also Marriage Story, for the same reason, although I’m less decided in that case) are invited to post their ranked ballots in reply to this comment – with sincere thanks in advance -, for my 9th Annual Best Picture Preferential Ballot Simulation!
Since I myself haven’t seen Little Women (or Parasite or Jojo Rabbit – but at least the first of these I’m seeing very soon) and won’t be able to until the 7th or 8th (which is when it premieres over here), I will refrain from voting this year. (My mom also won’t be able to vote, for similar reasons.) Unofficially, here is my ranking of the six movies I’ve seen thus far:
1. Marriage Story
2. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
3. 1917
4. The Irishman
5. Joker
6. Ford v Ferrari
(I also didn’t vote last year, as I didn’t see The Favourite in time. My mom did, though.)
The interesting thing about this is that there is now a six-year streak going of the likely runner-up for Best Picture at the Oscars finishing either runner-up or, in one case, tied for second place, in this simulation (as Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was eliminated in third place only after a tie with Call Me By Your Name). The beginning of this streak coincides with when I started holding these at both Awards Daily and the now defunct IMDb Message Boards. (The first two years I only did it on IMDb.) So, perhaps, with everybody’s help, we can once more get a not insignificant clue about which of the contenders will NOT win Best Picture…
The history:
2011 The Social Network —– details not saved (second place was Black Swan, I believe)
2012 – not held –
2013 Zero Dark Thirty ——— 37-24 over Silver Linings Playbook
2014 Her ————————– 33-33 tied with Gravity, won 19-18 on total first place votes
2015 Birdman ——————– 62-61 over Boyhood
2016 Mad Max: Fury Road — 51-37 over The Revenant
2017 Moonlight —————— 41-32 over La La Land
2018 Phantom Thread ——— 39-33 over Call Me By Your Name
2019 The Favourite ————- 45-30 over Roma
I will more than likely both tally the votes and announce the results on Monday.
Apologize in advance for posting this to as many threads as possible, for obvious reasons! It’s easy to skip over, though, once voted.
All who have seen each of the nine Best Picture nominees at the Oscars this year (give or take a Ford v Ferrari, which clearly cannot win either the online simulation or the Oscar, and maybe also Marriage Story, for the same reason, although I’m less decided in that case) are invited to post their ranked ballots in reply to this comment – with sincere thanks in advance -, for my 9th Annual Best Picture Preferential Ballot Simulation!
Since I myself haven’t seen Little Women (or Parasite or Jojo Rabbit – but at least the first of these I’m seeing very soon) and won’t be able to until the 7th or 8th (which is when it premieres over here), I will refrain from voting this year. (My mom also won’t be able to vote, for similar reasons.) Unofficially, here is my ranking of the six movies I’ve seen thus far:
1. Marriage Story
2. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
3. 1917
4. The Irishman
5. Joker
6. Ford v Ferrari
(I also didn’t vote last year, as I didn’t see The Favourite in time. My mom did, though.)
The interesting thing about this is that there is now a six-year streak going of the likely runner-up for Best Picture at the Oscars finishing either runner-up or, in one case, tied for second place, in this simulation (as Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was eliminated in third place only after a tie with Call Me By Your Name). The beginning of this streak coincides with when I started holding these at both Awards Daily and the now defunct IMDb Message Boards. (The first two years I only did it on IMDb.) So, perhaps, with everybody’s help, we can once more get a not insignificant clue about which of the contenders will NOT win Best Picture…
The history:
2011 The Social Network —– details not saved (second place was Black Swan, I believe)
2012 – not held –
2013 Zero Dark Thirty ——— 37-24 over Silver Linings Playbook
2014 Her ————————– 33-33 tied with Gravity, won 19-18 on total first place votes
2015 Birdman ——————– 62-61 over Boyhood
2016 Mad Max: Fury Road — 51-37 over The Revenant
2017 Moonlight —————— 41-32 over La La Land
2018 Phantom Thread ——— 39-33 over Call Me By Your Name
2019 The Favourite ————- 45-30 over Roma
I will more than likely both tally the votes and announce the results on Monday.