Before the South Korean director's work on the AppleTV+ show After Yang, Kogonada studied the art of film and created several video documentary shorts for the likes of the British Film Institute and Criterion.
In his minimal filmography, it is evident that Kogonada is influenced by the techniques of the masters he has studied and applied them to his work. He clearly takes the lessons he's learned and tries to push the filmmaking medium forward. Luckily, Kogonada shares his wealth of knowledge through these video essays that make viewers open their world to more cinema.
Linklater // On Cinema & Time (2016)
In Boyhood, where he shot the movie over a course of one month every year, for 12 years, to show a story of a whole childhood as opposed to selecting a section of it.
It is said that cinema is the art of time, as it has been experimented with through movies and the conversations of film itself. Some of these films are highlighted among Linklater's filmography, while the audio snippet of the interview plays.
What Is Neorealism? (2013)
The Italian Neorealism movement was popular in the 1940s and 1950s and implemented honest portrayals of life, holding a mirror to society, especially with the struggles after World War II. Kogonada puts two different cuts of Vittorio De Sica's 1953 film Train Station, or as it is known in the U.S., Indiscretion of an American Wife, side by side. The film was cut and condensed by American producer David O. Selznick (who goes uncredited) to 63 minutes.
Compared to one another, Kogonada reveals Selznick's opposition of De Sica's lingering takes that make in-between moments feel extra essential and vital to the film's world and neorealism. Selznick removes most of these shots to create a more straightforward movie that only included critical moments of the plot and story. Kogonada ends the video stating that by asking what neorealism is, you also ask what cinema is.
Godard In Fragments (2016)
Kogonada created a montage of Jean-Luc Godard's storied filmography in fragments of time, themes, and aesthetics that have appeared throughout his films. As a pioneer of the French New Wave, Godard has cemented his name in the depths of filmmaking with films like Breathless and Vivre Sa Vie.
Through the fragmentations, Kogonada displays the many lenses Godard used to try to make sense of the non-sense reality everyone lives in. Chronologically in the montage, the fragments of the films develop ideologies on philosophies of life, death, and resistance through the lens of film, which is ultimately the core of the French New Wave.
Eyes Of Hitchcock (2014)
Alfred Hitchcock had once said that suspense is when the audience knows more than the characters on screen. The filmmaker puts his characters into dire situations, and because spectators can anticipate what will happen, the frames focus on the reaction of the actors who even stare into the camera sometimes with a gaze that is usually associated with threats to a character's life.
Kogonada assembles these shots to highlight the performance in the eyes of the actors in face of danger. Hitchcock's focus on character expressions leaves the events up to the viewer's imagination, which is a reason why he is the undisputed master of suspense.
Trick Or Truth (2014)
On the surface, Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's House may only seem like an experimental horror movie about a group of girls in a haunted house. The director has stated he wanted to create a fantasy using the atomic bomb as the theme with House being the end result.
In this video essay, Kogonada revisits the film with a critical eye to engage this theme and how it presents itself throughout the movie, looking over the absurdity of it all. However, looking over the ludicrousness would prove to be worthless because they believed that telling a fiction so outlandish was the only way to sufficiently approximate the absurdity of true horror.
Auteur In Space (2015)
In a criticism of Solaris, a science fiction movie with the same scale as Kubrick's. Kogonada's video essay on the film talks about how grounded Solaris is in comparison because of the choices Tarkovsky makes in production.
As isolating space may be, Tarkovsky spends moments on the characters and the occupation of the natural things of earth to ground the picture. The science and the art of fiction are used together as a metaphor for staying human in the face of technological advancements and the unknown.
Mirrors Of Bergman (2015)
With Sylvia Plath writing basing her poem "Three Women" on Ingmar Bergman's Brink of Life, it's fitting for Kogonada to have Plath's "Mirrors" play through a montage of women in mirrors in Bergman's films. The poem is from the point of view of a personified mirror and a reflection from a lake who are revealers of truths on mortality to a woman who looks at herself every day.
The sequence of women looking at themselves shows that they all seem to be contemplating their lives because of the nature of the poem. This appropriately matches Bergman's rich filmography, as his movies are said to be artistic meditations for soul-searching.
Hands Of Bresson (2014)
Robert Bresson inspired many filmmakers of the French New Wave with films like Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne and Diary of a Country Priest. While creating films from the '40s to the early '80s, Bresson was able to champion his own filmmaking style and language, with the likes of François Truffaut labeling him as a true auteur.
This Kogonada montage showcases the details in hand gestures, movements, and touches in Bresson's films. These hand gesticulations become just as vocal as his dialogue, perhaps even saying more, proving that hands are capable of expressing a lot about a character.
The World According To Koreeda Hirokazu (2013)
The world is a complicated place where people make choices to try to find meaning in life. This Kogonada video essay uncovers Koreeda Hirokazu's value of the smaller everyday moments in life that feel familiar. An example is used from his film After Life, where people who have just ed away are given an option to choose a memory in their life to take with them to the beyond. The characters ultimately end up choosing the familiar over the spectacular because those are the more cherished memories in hindsight.
The essay also comments on the role of cinema as a way of escaping from reality and an entrance into a new world. And in Koreeda's films, it's the smaller details in life that could mean everything.
Way Of Ozu (2016)
In this video essay, scenes from different Yasujirô Ozu films are played three at a time, simultaneously to showcase the similarities in his movies and in the everyday mundane details he tended to focus on (like cooking, eating, and crying). Putting three scenes together concurrently makes for an examination of the meaning in the smaller details of life. Ozu's films, though appearing to be all the same, to some, expresses different ideas and interests when dealing with themes of the home, family, and everyday life.
Watching his movies allows audiences to reflect on their daily routines because they profoundly highlight these moments of intimacy allowing a deeper connection with the characters.
