I have a complex feeling about genre. I love it, but I hate it at the same time. I have the urge to make audiences thrill with the excitement of a genre, but I also try to betray and destroy the expectations placed on that genre.
Interpretation
This quote expresses a love-hate relationship with genre in filmmaking, highlighting the tension between following and subverting genre expectations.
Bong Joon-Ho articulates a duality in his approach to genre: he appreciates the thrill and excitement that genres can bring to audiences, yet he also feels compelled to challenge and redefine those very expectations. This creative tension allows him to innovate within his work, making it both familiar and surprising for viewers, thus deepening their engagement with the narrative.
In practice
In a film workshop, discussing how to balance genre conventions in storytelling.
I think when one becomes very close to another person, it can mean loving and intimacy, but on the other hand, there's also the danger of one destructing another under the name of love. I think that is the scariest thing for me in various relationships.
People have said, 'Why don't you make your own company like Chan-wook Park has his own company,' but my head is full of writing and directing and I don't feel like I want to run a company. That's not really within my personality as well.
There is a lot of extreme emotion in Korean film. It's because there are a lot of extremes in Korean society.
No matter where I am working, I cannot make a film without 100% creative control and final cut. If there is such a guarantee, I can work anywhere.
Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.
I'm always aware of writing around things I can't do, and I've come to think that that's actually what 'style' is - an avoidance of your deficiencies.
It doesn't matter if you use a box camera or you use a Leica; the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing.
Whatever happens in my life, whether I stand up or I fall down, whatever the case, I'm going to use it in my art. Why? Because I'm an artist and I have to.
Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul
This profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock is not a drop scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of reality.
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