The star and director of 'Past Lives,' one of the year’s best films, take us to where they shot its pivotal scenes, from Nora’s stoop to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge
“The film aspect was because it’s about time and places,” Song admits. “The fact that Seoul and New York are not just so far apart but so distinct — that’s a fundamental part of why Hae Sung and Nora can’t be together in their twenties. So yourecreate that in a theater, but with film, you’d get audience members to really see and hear the difference. I sent sound teams to here and Seoul, and just the sounds of each city — they’re worlds apart.
So that first take is the one in the film? “No, I used the second one,” Song says. “It turned out better.” She and Lee both simultaneously crack up.We move on toward the next location, which is the East Village apartment where Nora and her husband Arthur, played by John Magaro live.
“I did something similar with the first time Hae Sung and Nora’s husband meet at their place,” Song says, as she and Lee stop to take a few pictures on the stoop. “I sort of purposefully kept them apart, and Greta would talk to Teo and John about what it was like to rehearse with the other. They developed this separate chemistry with her, and a sort of respective jealousy around the other.
“I’ve said this before, but there were two divas on the set, and neither were actors,” Song says. “It was our 35mm camera, and New York. There’s so much planning you need to do for a film to work, all those trucks and lights and the crew, and this city fucking thrives on unpredictability. But this is also a place with such incredible charisma. I compare living and working in New York to having a relationship with a volatile, amazing, really hot musician.
The subject of crying, not surprisingly, leads them to talk about what may be the most notable sequence in: a long tracking shot that comes right before the end credits, in which Nora and Teo wait for a car. It goes from the doorway to Nora’s apartment to roughly 100 yards away and back again — the “this was our” bit of everyday NYC that Lee referred to earlier.
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