Cover News Reporter Zhang Jie
During the Spring Festival holiday, many people go into the cinema to watch the latest Chinese New Year movies. But there are also many people who choose to relive a beloved art film at home, such as "Poetry" by Korean film director Lee Cangdong.
Poetry: Original Screenplay
Miko, a 66-year-old lady, lives with her grandson and usually supports her family by working as a home caregiver. She was dressed and behaved elegantly, like a girl. The days seemed peaceful, but she found that her memory was slowly declining. Miko attended a local poetry lecture out of interest, and later learned that her grandson was related to a tragic incident with a girl from the same school...... "Poem" tells the story of Miko's life process while learning to write poetry, while facing all kinds of painful impacts, with a timeless poetic style and care for reality, it was well received, and won the Best Screenplay Award at the 63rd Cannes International Film Festival.
Manuscript for the creation of the film "Poems".
The film "Poetry" (released in 2010) is Li Cangdong's fifth original feature film since he joined the film industry, and was rated as "the quietest but most complete film in Li Cangdong's works" and "a work with a high degree of narrative completion", and won the Best Screenplay Award at the 63rd Cannes International Film Festival. At the same time, the film has also won many awards such as Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress at well-known film festivals in Korea and abroad, and is recognized as the best Korean film work in the 2010s.
Director and actress "Miko" actor Yoon Jeong-hee
Born in Daegu, South Korea in 1954, film director, screenwriter, and novelist Lee Chang-dong is one of the most high-profile Korean creators of our time. He started as a writer, using profound and realistic sentences to depict the painful life of ordinary people and the trust in human love, and then entered the film industry, and has written and directed 6 feature films, the camera is still aimed at the bottom of the society and even the marginal groups, with a poetic style that blends pain and beauty and strong humanistic care, and is well received, known as "realist master", won many awards in the world, and quickly became a world-class famous director.
After watching a good film, there is always a desire to know more and understand the story behind the film. At the beginning of 2024, the documentary "Poetry: Original Script" of the movie "Poetry" will be introduced and published by Houlang Publishing Company. This book contains original scripts written by director Li Cangdong himself, unpublished stills, many in-depth interviews with directors and comments from cultural experts, and other rich content. The beautiful and penetrating essays by poet Park Jun and literary critic Shin Hyung-cheol, the five-hour in-depth interview with film critic Lee Dong-jin and director Lee Chang-dong, and the director's interview with French poet Claude Mushar in Cannes all help readers understand all aspects of the film and its significance to the present.
In the book, you can get a glimpse of the notes and sketches of director Li Cangdong's initial conception, the filming storyboard of the famous scene sketched by the director himself, the scene stills of the famous actor Yoon Jinghee's amazing acting skills, and the director's preface to "To Chinese Readers" specially written for the Chinese Simplified edition...... For fans who love director Li Cangdong's works, this is an incomparably precious gift. By flipping through this book, readers can reminisce about the afterglow of the film with the director, and this book can also be regarded as a top masterclass for sharing creative experiences, which is worth reading and learning about.
Miko is taking a poetry class (screenshot from the movie "Poetry")
In the "Author's Words" section of the book, Li Cangdong writes that it is not common to publish a script in book form. Because the script is like a draft of a movie, after it is made into a movie, it seems that there is no need to read the script again. However, reading the script is arguably the best way to understand some movies (and perhaps most of them). "Cinema is based on the script, the dedication and creativity of the behind-the-scenes crew and actors, as well as the production and selection of space, weather, and sunlight during the filming process. From this point of view, cinema is more fateful than any creation. It's not that it's running towards a predetermined outcome, but that it has gone through countless accidents and finally reached an inevitable outcome that we can't predict. Therefore, reading the script after the film is completed will give you a better understanding of how the film creates its own destiny after the script is completed. ”
The screenplay for "Poems" began in 2004 when teenage boys in Miryang, South Korea, committed mass sexual violence against female junior high school students. "I think this incident is a question about the everyday morality of our society, and I personally extend this question to a question about the role of art such as literature and cinema, if cinema can be counted as art. This question can be said to be the essence of the question that I have never stopped asking myself as a writer and a film director: what is the relationship between art and the pain of reality, and whether art can change reality. Li Cangdong wrote, "If you are a reader interested in narrative, this film can also be seen as an adventure story." Wanting to write poetry for the first time in her life is like a journey to find the Holy Grail for Miko, a hard and blind adventure, but also an adventure that must be morally tested at the risk of everything she has.
The elements that affect the fate of a film, in addition to the screenwriter and director, all the actors and crew involved in the film are also the subjects that affect this fate. In the movie "Poetry", Yoon Jeong-hee, the actor who played the protagonist Miko and gave life to the character in the movie, played a decisive role. "Heart-wrenchingly, it is speculated that Ms. Yoon Jung-hee was already showing early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease when she was filming the film. Like the protagonist in the film, she has developed Alzheimer's disease without knowing it. This is the terrible fate of Ms. Yoon Jinghee, and at the same time the fate of the movie "Poetry". Li Cangdong revealed in the book.
Miko is writing poetry (screenshot from the movie "Poetry")
Although from the beginning of writing the script, Lee Chang-dong considered letting Ms. Yoon Jing-hee play it, and Ms. Yoon Jing-hee herself said that she has many striking similarities with the protagonist Miko, but in fact, Miko in the script is a character created based on interviews with the director team. "Even much later, I was surprised to learn that even the name Miko was the same as Ms. Yoon Jeong-hee's real name. Li Cangdong said.
On the occasion of the publication of Poems: Original Screenplays in China, in the words "To Chinese Readers", Li Cangdong wrote, "I am really happy and grateful that Poems: Original Screenplays has been published in China and that I am very grateful to meet Chinese film lovers and readers. I also read a lot of poems by great Chinese poets since I was a student and grew up in them. These readings inspired my feelings about literature and gave me an eye for beauty. The movie "Poetry" tells the story of a woman who wants to write a poem for the first time in her life. She came to understand how hard and mindless it was to write a poem, but it wasn't just because she had Alzheimer's disease and was gradually forgetting words. She tries to find the true beauty that makes people write poetry, but she has to face the reality of dirt and ugliness. How to find true beauty in the squalor and pain of reality, and what is the meaning of this beauty? This is the essential question I have been asking myself since I was a literature student. Perhaps, this is also a question for all artists: What can my art do to combat the absolute misfortune of the world or the evil of human nature? How can I find true beauty? In this film, I ask the audience a question that they can find out. In the movie, the poet says it's important to look closely. I think this is true not only for writing poetry, but also for how to observe the world is also the essence of creating films. Movies show the world in place of the audience's eyes. But what kind of perspective does the film we create show the world to the audience? This is a question that filmmakers can't avoid. I hope that Chinese readers and viewers will think with us after reading this script. ”
(Except for remarks, photos provided by the publisher)
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