Themes, imagery, and obsessions in the director’s filmography.
Thomas Flight looks at recurring themes and stylistic flourishes across the director’s filmography, up to and including Parasite (2019):
Every Frame a Painting examines the ensemble staging in Memories of Murder (2003):
The director’s interest in class commentary isn’t restricted to his scriptwriting, but can also be found in his camera work. Insider identifies the director’s unique establishment of the 180 line, and his strategic breaking of it, “when characters first break across, or sabotage, systems of class heirarchy“:
The video above compares more conventional positioning of actors and camera in car dialogue scenes…
… with the pointedly unconventional composition in Parasite:
Further Viewing
Our Parasite Film School is a collection of videos from filmmakers, analysts and essayists, examining the film as a case study in film pre-production, production and post-production:
Learn more in Memories of Murder Film School:
What is ‘the 180 line’? Dialogue is conventionally covered with mirroring shots, known as shot / reverse shot – here’s a roundup of explainers and examples: