GOOSE FATHER BY KRYS LEE

Short Story Turned Into Visual Scenes

Who: Gilhou and Wuseong

Where: outskirts of Seoul, South Korea

When: 1990

·      Scene of inside condominium located in Seoul, South Korea; urban area

·      New tenant, Wuseong, sitting on doormat with suitcases and goose

·      Close up shot of goose with a birthmark on the cheek

·      Gilhou; main character, welcomes new tenant inside the space

·      Visuals of family pictures everywhere

·      Goose is kept on the balcony with the garden

·      Next morning, tenant cooks traditional Korean breakfast

·      Scene talking about poetry

MONTH PASSES

·      Scenes of the two getting to know each other; talking, reading, cooking

·      Intimate conversation about the goose being Wuseong’s mom

·      Gilhou gets frustrated at Wuseong’s silliness

     TWO MONTHS PASS

·      The two visit the song room

·      Scene of Wuseong singing romantic song to Gilhou

·      Scene of Gilhou getting close to Wuseong then slaps him

·      Wuseong runs out of the song room and goes missing

·      Gilhou returns to the condo; thinks Wuseong’s in his room sleeping

·      Gilhou goes to sleep

NEXT MORNING

·      Gilhou notices Wuseong’s missing along with the goose

·      Madly scavenges through his room

·      Roams downtown looking for him frantically

·      Eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner alone for the next couple days

COUPLE DAYS LATER

·      Gilhou ends up going out with friends to a bar

·      Brings drunk friend home

·      Wuseong shows up with goose

·      Gilhou confronts Wuseong about where he’s been

·      Drunk friend tries to pluck goose

·      House quiets down, everyone goes to sleep

·      Gilhou wakes up in the middle of the night, there’s a full moon

·      Goes out to the balcony where Wuseong is accompanied by a woman

·      The woman has the same birthmark on her cheek as the goose did

·      The goose has transformed into Wuseong’s mom

·      Gilhou feels guilty for not believing Wuseong

·      Gilhou realizes his love for Wuseong

·      Leans in for a kiss

SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPES

Set Design

Therapist Office

The office is simple and bright, it has a single Eames lounge chair where the therapist sits. The Eames chair by the far left corner of the office. The left wall of the office is a large window that has a view of the city. The back wall of the office is an entire wall of opening shelving with books and other decorative objects. The wall to the right has a large painting resembling a post impressionist work with thick brush strokes and bright colors of a calming nature scene. Under the large painting a square black leather sofa sits with a glass coffee table in front of it.        

John and Ann House

There house is a large craftsman in the suburbs outside the city of Seattle. The inside of the house is spotless everything is organized and has a designated place. Near the front door a you are greeted with a seating room. The room has built-in shelving on either side of the fireplace original to the house. Two large flower arrangements sit on top of the built-ins. Two identical lounge chairs sit in front of the built-ins, across from them is a sofa with the same fabric. Behind the sofa is a console table with three smaller flower arrangements evenly spaced on the table. In front of the sofa a glass coffee table that matches the console table. Behind the sitting area a dining room with original chair rail that covers three fourths of the walls. A medium sized wood  dining table is in the center of the room, above it is a silver chandelier. Towards the back of the house is a kitchen that looks out to the backyard. The whole house is flooded with natural light.         

John’s Office

His office is wood paneled. His desk faces the door, behind him is a large window with views of the city in front of the window is a wood shelf the spans the whole wall. The shelf is filled with paperwork organized into neat piles. The chair behind the desk is a large leather one, the ones in front of the desk are smaller and look less unmovable.     

Cynthia’s Apartment

The apartment is a studio has an eclectic taste, it has a mix of objects from different places and not one piece of furniture matches the other. It’s messy there are clothes and leftover food sitting out on the kitchen table. The bed is unmade, and a open clothing rack sits in between two windows.

 

Graham's Apartment

The apartment is practically empty. The front door and the kitchen are separated by a small wall. The kitchen opens up to the rest of the apartment. A four person table sits in between the kitchen and the living room. Where a simple sofa and a tv are sitting on opposite sides of the room. The whole apartment has wood flooring, there are no area rugs and only a couple floor lamps light the space.

 

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

Both the movie and the book had call to nostalgia. In the beginning of the book the Stefan talks about Austria in a very glorified way that paints a perfect picture that was full of nostalgia and wanting for a simpler time. Wes Anderson’s movies does the same, he creates this perfect scene that look like still shots. Because everything is controlled and beautifully balanced, Wes also paints aggrandised vision of the past making the viewer long for it. I think Wes borrowed the idea very authentic nostalgia that transports the viewer. But both Stefan and Wes create a different world where they’re strange character can live and not be compared or run into the world we live in. The characters deal with real issues but they do in a straight way without showing a lot of emotion.

The overall mood of Wes movies are melancholy a specially in The Grand Budapest Hotel there is a lot of death but also a lot of funny moments which evens out the mood to melancholy and not sad. I think Wes pulls that melancholy tone from Stefan's books, like in The Journey to the Past. There is an overall sadness and dislike for from the author's life and a yearning for the past. I think because someone is telling the story of the past and looking back in the beginning of The Grand Budapest Hotel the same yearning is happening.   

I think what sets Stefan and Wes apart is the way they capture a setting. The set design for Wes Anderson films are something of great beauty, everything places carefully and nothing is left in chance. The unique monochromatic color scheme of pastel color and the use of symmetry and asymmetry throughout the film makes his films feel very two dimensional. When reading Stefan books that same carefully contested set design of Wes Anderson does not transfer over.

DEWBREAKER

And how are we the viewer or reader or player connected to the world?In the first story in Dewbreaker, The Book of The Dead, the reader is just dropped into the middle of a serious conversation that immediately makes us ask questions about the context of the story. Because the reader is dropped into the story they have an instant connection to the story line and the viewpoint of Ka. The reader sees the world through Ka eyes, and start to mimics the emotions of Ka, all the fears and anger.

If you think about it this isn’t Ka usually world either. She’s in a different state, away from her home. She’s from a lower middle class family, living in an apartment in Brooklyn, were both her parents work blue collar jobs. And now she stuck in a crappy hotel room and the one person that is from her world is nowhere to be found.   

Because the story is told in the perceptive of Ka the reader is submerged in the world of the story. The way the text is laid out the thoughts of the narrator and the conversations stand out more and are easier to digest and process. It also slows the past, which in turn makes the short story’s world more realistic, and builds anxiety in the reader. The way the story is set up the reader and Ka wait for the answer to what happen to Ka’s dad together. The world of the story feels like it’s happening in real time, the reader is watching the events unfold. There is no context about what year this story takes place that's what makes it feel timeless. When I was reading I imagined it taking place in the 70’s, but I could also imagine it happening in the present too.  

Like Ka at the end of the first short story we have a lot more questions about her father, who she thought she know well. Everything is new to both Ka and reader, the setting and the new emotions/information about her father. Her world his completely changed before the reader's eyes.

LUST

Lust

How are male and female roles defined?

In Lust it’s written in the author's perceptive of how interaction between her and different guys have gone. Each paragraph there is a little taste of each guy’s and what the writer thinks about them and time she spend with them. But we don’t really get to know her. Both the males and the writer seem to have the same role, both are mystery and only small parts show a glimpse of who they are. Even though this short story is about the writer, she seem to viewing it in an out of body way. Or she’s looking back on some of these memories and trying to figure out why.   

Even from the women’s perspective of tell the story, her role still feel secondary. At the end, the writer seem unsure about the relationships she’s had with these men and unsure of who she is as a person. All of the boys in the story don’t really have personality they seem like props that want to have sex then leave after, or are an asshole or the writer stops talking about them. The writer doesn’t give us the opinion of the men in this situation. The writer doesn’t really have a hard opinion on men. She just shares her experiences with different ones and leaves the decision of what to think of men to the reader.

Some of the paragraphs the writer see what men do to her like when she writes “I could do some things well. Some things I was good at, like math or painting or even sports, but the second a boy put his arm around me, I forgot about wanting to do anything else, which felt like a relief at first until it became like sinking into a muck”. I think it brings up the point of losing one's self in a relationship, in cases of both men and women you as a person become secondary. I think what says trying to she is that her role as a female and her self interests change when a man is in her life, how every short a period it is.    

WONDER WOMAN

Lotus

Lotus doesn’t hide behind a disguise or alter ego, she lives among monks in the mountains of Nepal. Where is practices finding inner peace and perfecting her Kung Fu training. She is a wise, intelligent, funny character, who can read other people's minds and move things with her own. She’s passionate about equality for all and saving humanity from their destructive ways.

Lotus doesn’t hide from the world because she knows who she is and she embraces her differences. But she lives a humble life and doesn’t like the attention of the public life. That’s why she lives with monks in Nepal because she can live in peace. She believes she is a civil servant and her gifts are used for the good of the public. But she doesn’t work for a government agency, she is an independent servant that helps people across the world. Because she tries to remain unbiased and uses her wisdom and own moral compass to try a resolve problems without resorting to violence first.     

She practices meditation because it helps her clear her head and blocks out the voices of the people's thoughts. Her practice of finding inner peace also helps with strengthening the able to move things with her mind. The reason she can read minds is so no one can lie to her, she can see all people for their true selves. Make her an excellent judge of character which lets her decide who she is going to help.

To make her more of a badass she is fluent in Kung Fu. So when she isn’t kicking ass with her mind she can mess you up with her sweet moves. This combination makes Lotus both physically and mentally strong. Which makes her in balance with her the mind, body, and spirit.   

Because she lives a life of simple means and is often burdened with difficult decisions and emotions and worries of others so she keeps it light with humor. She is very funny but most people don’t get her humor, but she makes herself laugh.

She helps people all around the world with terrorism, natural disasters, war, and unsafe living conditions. She cares about all humanity and she goes up against people who don’t. People who are driven by greed and money.      

TRUE GRIT

The values of the book and movie from 2010 are very similar. It focus on this idea of strength and what it takes to survive this idea of the Wild West. The American mythology about the Wild West is that it is so untameable and unpredictable. You either get killed by men or the wilderness. This world of the Wild West only real has one type of person, there is no room for weakness (only in women). He is American Adam who is smart, strong, and brave. It’s very bad when man don’t do manly things, that make them brave and tough. They can’t be embarrassed or seen as a joke; which makes everything a pissing contest to show all the other men that you’re American Adam too. A good example of this the scene when LaBeouf gets mad a Rooster for making him look stupid in front of Mattie, which then turns into a shooting contest with cornbread. But this book is also about revenge. If you piss off the wrong people, revenge is inevitable because the West is about justice in the eye of the beholder. But If you're the opposite of the American Adam you’re an Eve or someone that deserve to be taken advantage of. I think the mainstream population of a Western culture is about perception of toughness and heroics. Which gives some of the characters like LaBeouf a fakeness which rubs people the wrong way, he tries to be the American Adam. I think both Mattie and Rooster cut through that idea of mainstream. Mattie is shown as mentally strong and smart busnesswomen at only 14. She is not the typical female role of a western. She's not put in a box of a gender role which goes against the mainstream. She's just has characteristics not specific to a gender. She is a child savior but also the American hero. She’s the one with the grit she seeks for her revenge for her father's murder.