"Lee Chang Dong Retrospective 4K" Directed by Lee Chang Dong I want you to feel what you can't see on the screen [Director's Interview Vol.344]

Films, novels, creative approaches

Q: In Japan, the director's collection of novels, `` Shikagawa is Covered in Shit, '' which was released 30 years ago, has also been translated into Japanese. Why did you start writing novels in the first place before becoming a film director?

Lee: Ever since I was little, I've been writing like doodling. I'm sure there was a desire to connect with someone. I grew up in the post-war era, when everyone was living a difficult life, and I had to move a lot during my childhood due to family circumstances, so I didn't fit in well with the people around me. My sister, who is seven years older than me, has cerebral palsy and was always teased by the people around her, so I often got into fights with other children. So I always felt alienated.

In the midst of such loneliness, I had a desire to communicate with people whose faces and names I didn't know, but who thought and felt the same way as me, and I think that's what led me to write. This led to his path to becoming a writer, and later laid the groundwork for him to become a film director. Even now, when I make a film, I want to communicate with the audience. No matter what kind of movies I make in the future or whether I ever write a novel again, this will remain the same.

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Q: From novels to movies, directors always carefully look at their characters and their surroundings. The urban spaces are particularly impressive in all of your works. Are you interested in cities as reflections of society and the times, or are you attracted to cities themselves?

Lee: Personally, I don't really make any distinctions between spaces, such as ``Let's shoot this movie in a city'' or ``This movie should be shot in a rural or rural area.'' As you just said, my interests lie in the characters in movies and the space surrounding them. However, since I photograph people and spaces in South Korea, I naturally end up showing spaces that have become urbanized and urbanized.

Still, when I choose a space for myself, I never think about making it look cool or special in a cinematic way. When depicting the lives of the characters, I want to show the space in which modern Koreans live their lives as it is. In order to prevent the audience from thinking, ``This is a made-up composition,'' I want to show what is already present in the space itself - nature, as it is. I think that by doing so, we can convey a lot of things cinematically.

I want you to feel what you can't see on the screen.