During the week of its release, I had the amazing opportunity to sit at the same table as the great Park Chan-wook, the director of Stoker as well as the notorious Vengeance Trilogy (that includes Oldboy). It was an incredible experience to be sitting directly across from one of my favorite directors working today and hearing him speak about filming his first English language film.
Below are the questions that I, and a few other members of the press, asked Director Park and the answers that he gave about his stylish and twisted fairytale, Stoker.
What was it about Wentworth Miller’s script that convinced you it was the right time and right film to make your English language debut?
Well in terms of timing, the script came just on the heels of completing my Korean film, Thirst. That was a film that was 10 years in the making, it was something I really wanted to do for a long time and I really pushed myself in what I could achieve cinematically with that film. I gave it my all and so in a way it was a cathartic experience, at the same time I felt a little empty after that, thinking that a chapter in my career had come to a close. It was at this point that the script came to me, so in terms of timing I thought it was the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter in my career.
And in terms of the material, Wentworth’s script, it has to do with a family of three, the mother, the father and an 18 year old daughter, the make of which is exactly the same as my family. So that and the way it took a very familiar family relationship, turned it on its head and interpreted in a very fresh way, is what sparked my interest in the script.
I know Tony Scott was one of the producers, I was wondering how much interaction was there and what was it like to be around him and work with him?
Well it goes for Ridley as well, both Ridley and Tony were frightfully busy with their own projects as you can imagine, so there weren’t many sessions of long conversations or prolonged interaction between either of the Scott brothers and myself. However, but more importantly, the fact they have seen my previous work and hold them in high regard and the very fact that they selected him to direct this film was the biggest help and I can’t think of more help that they could have given me beyond basic fact. That’s also something that made me very excited to be involved and one of the decisive factors coming onboard the project.
There were a lot of symbolic visuals in the film, how many of those were in the script and how many of them did you add yourself?
Well, where to begin. This whole concept, the idea of a hunter, the symbolism of it, the predator element, is something I brought to the script. The sailor shoes were already there in the original script but the history behind how she would get a new pair of sailor shoes every year and on her 18th birthday she would get high heels and this mystery gift giver is revealed to be her uncle. All that history, that back story is something I brought to the table and also this whole metaphor with the egg, the breaking of the egg shell, the chick inside the egg shell pecking to break out and the mother hen equivalent pecking from the outside to help her break out of her shell is also something I brought to the table. The spider, well, in the original script Wentworth has India stomping on the spider and killing it off, an early exit from the film, but I linked the spider and turned it into another symbol to link back to the character of Uncle Charlie to show how it would crawl into her skirt and would crawl out of uncle Charlie after his demise. All of that is something I added.
I feel I will have to clarify because I don’t want to discount the great work Wentworth has already done because a lot of these ideas, rather than to say I have come up with them from scratch, I was inspired y what Wentworth had written in the page and I developed these ideas. Of course there other elements that were entirely new, for instance Uncle Charlie’s belt, how it would be his signature weapon and that was handed down, as it were, from his brother, he went to his brother’s closet to find this belt and started using it as a weapon. That was something I came up with entirely on my own. This idea of the spider and India stomping on the spider, of course I get how it’s a foreshadow of what India does to Uncle Charlie later in the film and, in that way, there is already an established link between the spider and Uncle Charlie already, and of course with the egg as well, in the original script there was this idea of devilled eggs already there but I felt that what I did was to take that, and be inspired by that and take those steps further.
I was wondering, as striking as the visuals are, the sound I found quite moving too, and I was wondering what you wanted to achieve with sound?
One of the reasons why I chose to do this script because when I was reading the script, when you read something you visualize or you imagine what you’re reading right? Well I could hear, when I was reading all these sounds, how in this isolated and quiet mansion there are only a small number of people inhabiting this space, only three people in this family. I could imagine picking out and hearing all these small sounds that you would not usually be able to identity in a big city like this because it is buried under all these sounds. Let’s say these sounds stand out especially in this quiet and isolated mansion, footsteps falling on the wood board creaking. Also, I really liked that there wasn’t a lot of dialogue in the script; I loved it because instead of people talking I could hear people breathing. All of these small sounds they would stand out to me as I was reading this script and that was one of the best things about the script, making me want to do this film and, because of this, in making the film, I wanted to focus in on that and bring out those sonic elements and creating the soundscape for this film. To use the sound to stimulate, to provoke and to get on your nerves and that’s why when Uncle Charlie is pushing the glass of wine across the table you would hear how it scrapes against the wood and you would hear how India’s breathing gets trapped inside the wine glass and swirls around in it. And how India would pick up the sound of Auntie Gin’s mobile phone ringing from under the ground, all these things are great opportunities I wanted to build into the film so that I, in turn, revised the script in order to reflect the development of the soundscape of this film.
In your film, sex and violence are empirically lacerated in a time when the world is becoming more and more conservative, as an artist how do those elements speak to you?
But conversely, there are aspects of sex and violence and my use of it where I am exercising restraint. Let’s take Stoker for instance, the piano scene where Uncle Charlie puts the high heels on India, in a different film they may be expressed in an explicit way and in another film they might have shown Uncle Charlie in bed, literally with India. The same goes with violence, for instance when Uncle Charlie is out taking Auntie Gin, at the very critical moment he just cuts out of the scene and the fact that she is dead is implicit from the phone ringing from the grave. So in these aspects I am exercising restraint with my expression and there are many other instances to be found not only in Stoker but in my previous films too.
So no matter how people may say I’m bold in my expression of violence or sex, for me I feel I’m exercising enough restraint so that it does not appear gratuitious.
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