- I feel like in some ways, you can only feel absence if you really appreciate presence and vice versa. And if you don't really appreciate presence, then absence is not gonna hit you as hard. And vice versa.
- The conversation of cinema for me, beyond the technical and historical aspects, is a conversation of time, existence, and humanity. It's deeply philosophical, but in a way that is fleshed out and materialized-philosophy as a kind of temporal experience. I've always struggled a bit existentially in regard to meaning, which can be somewhat amplified when you're younger. During a particularly dark period, when certain foundations seemed to be crumbling, I encountered a form of cinema that moved me, and I began to engage the ongoing conversation. It gave me space to breathe, to think, to question. It changed me.
- [on Columbus] I think the question for me that has always haunted me is: How can you be modern in this world with some kind of meaningfulness? Modern art, in general, has spoken to me quite a bit. Architecture is also one of the forms that has helped me think through this question. I think of cinema as the art of time. Architecture is the art of space. It also constructs our sense of emptiness. It makes us see nothingness and absence in a way that, without it, is almost invisible to us. Once I discovered the architecture in Columbus, I deeply wanted it to be a part of the first film that I made.
- [on Ozu] Ozu gave you a sense of time and duration but in a way that wasn't just trying to feel it.... I think he mixes that with a slow care for the people who inhabit these spaces, so that by the time you're done watching one of his films, their presence makes you miss them more deeply in their absence. So there's something very fundamental where he creates enough warmth and connection and humanity that he makes you care about this time that's passing. He makes you feel sad when it feels like something is ending. So there's something about the stories he was telling, which were largely about goodbyes.
- [on After Yang] As much as After Yang is sci-fi, it still belongs to the world of everyday life. I didn't imagine that my next film would be in the sci-fi genre. That wasn't something that was on my mind. When I watch blockbuster sci-fi movies where the whole world is at stake, I'm often curious about the people in the background who have to make a living-what are they doing within that landscape? What are their families like?
- [on his identity] I like Chris Marker's idea about your work being your work. I've also never identified much with my American name, which always feels a little strange to see or hear. My family uses a nickname that I've had since I was a kid. I also went by a different name during my academic phase. And I'm quite fond of heteronyms.
- [on the inspiration for After Yang] I read a lovely, futuristic short story about loss ("Saying Goodbye to Yang," by Alexander Weinstein). I was taken by the domesticity of it, as well as the inherent questions of attachment and the politics of being. I was also interested in exploring a form of loss that emerges retroactively.
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