Celine Song, Past Lives, Best Original Screenplay Nominee
My Oscar Book:
Past Lives has just won the Best Picture of 2023 by the National Society of Film Critics (NSFC), of which I have been a proud member for the past three decades.
World premiering at the Sundance Film Fest (in January), the film was released to great acclaim by A24 in June as counter-programming, proving there’s audience for such mature and intimate indie fare.
Made on a budget of $12 million, it was moderately popular at the box-office, earning more than $26 million.
Structured as a romantic triangle, Song’s semi-autobiographical Past Lives centers on a woman in love with two men, the Korean classmate she met as a child, and the American husband she marries in adulthood.
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Theatrical release poster
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The tale started in the screenwriting process for Song with a bar scene that she would depict from multiple perspectives.
“The thing that really cracked it for me is the thought that it would be the first scene of the film, but we won’t get to hear what the conversation at the end is going to be,” Song says.
“We’re making the audience a part of the story right away by asking them a question that a detective might ask: who are these three people to each other?”
Drawing from her personal life, Song was determined to tell an authentic story: “There was no delicateness around the personal in turning it into a script. But that part of the objectification of it is to not also dismiss the part of the story that is personal, just because it is personal.”
The juxtaposition gave her an opportunity to inject imto the story both dramatic urgency and lyrical poetry.
“The fantasy of ‘Past Lives’ is that we are able to be so caring and articulate in our conversations with each other. The thing that I was navigating in the writing is for them to be real and actually speak about what the movie’s about, but yet taking care of each other.”
The two versions of the same events gave Song a place to start and a place to end up, both narratively and thematically.
Meaning of Home
“Home for this movie is in the scene at the bar,” she says. “It’s like salmon heading upstream… you’re following your instinct, and you have to just make sure that every scene is about home.”
Credits:
Directed, written by Celine Song
Produced by David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler
Cinematography Shabier Kirchner
Edited by Keith Fraase
Music by Christopher Bear, Daniel Rossen
Production companies: CJ ENM, Killer Films, 2AM
Distributed by A24
Release dates: Jan 21, 2023 (Sundance); June 2, 2023 (US)
Running time: 106 minutes
Languages: English, Korean
Budget $12 million
Box office $26.6 million
