Looking at a Memory: How I Decided on a Story

 I've always been acutely interested in domesticity. Lots of people think the most ripe subjects for drama are the climactic things we see in life but the truth, I think, is that true drama lies in what we rarely see. For instance, the first two godfather films. 

Michael asks his mother in the second film, "can a man lose his family?" Well...he sure can, Michael.

The genius of the Godfather films lie outside the realm of mob violence. Sure, it's a spectacle that appeals to the primal instinct of people who want to see the Corleone victory visualized through visceral imagery  but the violence in the films are mostly a vehicle for tension and the release of that tension. When hitmen try to kill Michael outside of his home in Part 2, it serves to be the first event that drives Michael away from his family as Kay begins to realize that the family business isn't redeemable in the slightest. The Godfather is obviously a spin on American capitalism with its striking parallels between Cosa Nostra and corporate greed but how it most poignantly influenced me (besides just how visually beautiful the films are) is how it interplays stories of greed, power struggles, and family. 

Michael is chiefly concerned with keeping his family apart. It's what makes the otherwise slightly glorified mafia piece into a sweeping family epic full of emotional peaks that turn on the waterworks. 

It doesn't get more emotional than this

Sure, it's an Epic trilogy (though we all ignore the third film) only because it can use many different storylines with such powerful effect but I feel the family aspects of the Godfather films are easily the strongest. 

As for how that relates to my film, I just wanted to make the point that even in a movie where murder happens, a lot of moral ambiguity is up in the air, and general mafia drama ensues, the family still somehow shines through in the end. My own life is filled with problems revolving around domesticity and that's probably why I'm ultimately so darn in love with films that center on it.

My film is a family drama which depicts the shaky relationship between a father and a son soon to go to college. When the son finds a photo album with unseen pictures from his childhood, he begins to reflect on the 18 years spend in the household. It's obviously strongly influenced from my own life, some might even call it semi auto-biographical but as Scorsese said (and later Bong Joon-Ho reiterated): "The most personal is the most creative". 

I want to tell a story only I can tell, but a story that a lot of people can identify with. Family is complex, and everyone has one. I can't encompass the entire breadth of familial experiences but I'm aiming to accurately grasp the feelings related to the ones like mine, the nostalgia, the beauty, and the anguish, all in one short film.