Beautiful’. The director looked at the actor on stage and thought, “He’s beautiful. After the play ended, he went home and couldn’t get the actor’s performance out of his mind. The director wondered. What kind of person is this actor who deviates from the norm and makes me feel uncomfortable?
The relationship between director Kim Ji-woon and actor Song Kang-ho, whose film Spider House was in the Un Certain Regard section at the 76th Cannes International Film Festival, began with ‘honesty’. Kim Ji-woon’s film, which captures Song Kang-ho’s honesty and his performance, has become a favorite of movie fans around the world.
<On the 26th (local time), the two actors, who have worked together on five films from A Quiet Family (1998) to The Cheating King (2000), The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (2008), Confidential (2016), and Spider House (2017), met on the red carpet in Cannes for the second time.
<Spider House is a black comedy set in the movie industry during the early 1970s. Director Kim (Song Kang-ho) believes that if he changes the ending of the movie he has already shot, it will definitely become a masterpiece. The movie follows the director’s insistence on reshooting the movie under adverse circumstances, including actors and producers who don’t understand the changes, and the government, which claims the ending is “subversive.
Director Kim Ji-woon came up with the story during the pandemic. The parallels between the early 1970s, when censorship and control of movies were tightened, and the 2020s, when the pandemic brought the movie scene to a halt, are striking. “We went from 100 movies a year in the 1960s to half that in the 1970s. It was similar during the pandemic, as the film industry shrank, making it harder to take risks. It’s another form of censorship by capital.”
When everything stopped, he pondered the essence. “I thought about what movies meant to me and why I was fascinated by them,” says Kim, “and I thought it would be meaningful to tell the story of the movie scene in the 1970s.”
<The character of “Director Kim” in “Spider House” was created by mixing and matching the characteristics of real directors who were active during that time, such as Kim 먹튀검증Ki-young and Lee Man-hee. He pursues exploratory visuals, and when he gets stuck on something, he makes it happen. However, the only person who understands Kim is the producer’s niece, Mido (Jeon Yeo-bin). Reshoots are difficult for each of them for their own reasons, including busy schedules and secret love affairs.
“Even though I was acting, I was lonely (laughs).”
Song Kang-ho, who played the role of Director Kim, shared his thoughts on playing a movie director for the first time in his acting career. “Actors can express their resentment and dissatisfaction with the director even during the movie, but directors can’t,” he said, “It’s a very lonely job that requires constant self-censorship.” <The fact that The Spider’s Nest is a “grueling fable” appealed to Song. “It was interesting to see how the desires of each character in the movie, including director Kim, intertwine and eventually lead to the ending.”
Director Kim Ji-woon said that Song Kang-ho went beyond the role of “Director Kim” and showed a presence like a director or producer on set. “Song Kang-ho doesn’t just look at his own thing (acting), he looks at the whole thing with a director’s eye. For example, he says, ‘I need to organize that thing at the entrance,’ and that’s the mindset of a producer or director.”
It was natural for the director to rely on such an actor. “I realized that when a good actor has a lot of experience, it’s like having another producer or director,” says Kim Ji-woon.
When Song Kang-ho won the Best Actor award at Cannes last year for Broker, he was in the middle of filming Spider House. For director Kim Ji-woon, the award was “long overdue. “For us, Song Kang-ho has always been the best actor, so we thought, ‘Why now?’ It was a confirmation that we weren’t wrong.”
This is the second time Kim Ji-woon and Song Kang-ho have traveled to Cannes as a result of their collaboration. The first time was in 2008, when their acclaimed “Kimchi Western” The Good, the Bad, and the Weird was invited to screen in the non-competition section.
It’s an honor I’m sure, but I don’t remember much about it. Their stay was short, and they didn’t really enjoy walking the red carpet. But they both agree that this visit had a different vibe. “This year, it’s relatively long, and there are a lot of actors, so it’s a busy schedule, but it holds a lot of memories.” (Song Kang-ho)
“The actors who came with me were amazing, like they’ve been to Cannes a few times before, and they’re skilled, seasoned, and elegant. It was a great feeling to work with them.” (Kim Ji-woon)
The day before, the official screening of “The Spider’s Nest” at the Lumiere Grand Theater drew 2,300 people, including movie fans and insiders from around the world. Fans went wild as the director and actors appeared on the red carpet. The cheers were especially loud for Song Kang-ho, who won the Best Actor award for Broker last year. After two hours of crying, laughing, and being immersed in the movie, the audience gave a standing ovation for about 12 minutes when the end credits rolled. “I’m going home from Cannes with more love for cinema,” Kim said, expressing his excitement and gratitude.
“It’s my movie, but I liked the fact that I could see all the actors from big roles to small roles,” he said, “If there’s anything I did well, it’s casting the actors well, and the ensemble itself made an interesting movie.”
What the Korean film industry needs more than anything is a love of movies. After the pandemic, the number of moviegoers has plummeted, and there is a growing sense of crisis as one highly anticipated film after another flops at the box office. “The way to get audiences to love movies again is to make better movies,” Kim said, “and I hope ‘Spider House’ will give people a chance to love Korean movies.”