Interview (Written): Bong Joon Ho and Kelly Reichardt

A conversation between two uniquely independent filmmakers who admire each other’s work.

Bong Joon Ho’s movie Parasite recently won four Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay and Best Director. Kelly Reichardt’s movies have been nominated for four Film Independent Spirit Awards. They are fans of each other’s work.

Here are excerpts from a videochat moderated by The Atlantic’s David Sims.

Reichardt: It was perfect timing. Can I ask, Bong, if it hadn’t been for the Oscars, how would you usually write? Do you work by yourself?

Bong: Even when I have a co-writer, I don’t really discuss things with them. I let them do their own drafts, and then I take over and spend five to six months producing the final draft on my own. I have an iPad and a wireless keyboard that I always take to coffee shops, and I just hide in a corner and write by myself. I have to be at a coffee shop with noise around me; I always end up sleeping if I write at home.

Reichardt: Oh, I understand. But you can’t go sit in a coffee shop now! You’re too famous! You blew it!

Bong: There’s always corners where I can hide!

Sims: Did you follow your usual writing process for Parasite and First Cow?

Reichardt: I write often with my friend Jonathan Raymond. Usually he does the first draft, and then, like [Bong], I take it and break it apart. But I like to start scouting while I’m writing. Do you know your locations when you’re going to shoot?

Bong: Like Oregon is to you, I’m very familiar with Seoul as a city, and a lot of my films feature Seoul. Parasite was such an interior story, taking place inside homes and buildings, so the rich house was a mix of soundstages and a set we built outdoors, and we built the entire poor neighborhood in a water tank.

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Sims: Director Bong, I know you’re developing two projects right now — one English-language and one Korean. Can you work on multiple scripts at the same time?

Bong: Only in the very early stages. Once I start writing, I can only work on one project, and the same goes for preproduction. I’m always jealous of directors who can do projects in between TV shows. How about you, Kelly?

Reichardt: One project for me, too. I teach in the fall every year, and I make my class somehow wrap around all the things I want to research for the film I’m making. For this, I was showing them Ugetsu and The Apu Trilogy and Woman in the Dunes, because I wanted to look at [films] where people are [living in hutches and] on dirt floors.

Here is a trailer for Reichardt’s new movie First Cow which debuts in North America this weekend:

For the rest of The Atlantic interview, go here.

For another interview with Reichardt, go here.

For more interviews with Joon Ho, go here.

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