Mickey 17 with Bong Joon Ho

Director Joseph Losey’s first of three collaborations with writer Harold Pinter was this adaptation of Robin Maugham’s 1948 novella. Focusing on social class and interpersonal relationships, the story follows Barrett (Dirk Bogarde) who is hired as manservant when the wealthy Tony (James Fox) moves into a new house. The two form a bond, but Tony is unaware of Barrett’s ulterior motive to gain the upper hand in their relationship. To further his goals, Barrett convinces Tony to hire a maid and brings his lover (Sara Miles) into the home under the guise that they are siblings.

Radical and uncompromising, Kim Ki-young’s Housemaid trilogy starts in 1960 with a first chapter that continues to influence new generations of filmmakers more than 60 years later. A deep survey on desire, obsession, and ego-driven revenge, this domestic horror film follows a bourgeois family who hires Myung-sook (Lee Eun-shim), an unsophisticated young woman, as their housemaid. When she becomes smitten with patriarch Dong-sik Kim, a series of strange episodes unfold, and Myung-sook’s catastrophic infatuation threatens the family bond. Kim’s unconventional language of cinema depicts a bleak reality that is borderline ludicrous, in an unconventional blend of genres that redefined filmmaking in Korea.

“I’ve always been drawn to the Coen Brothers,” Bong Joon Ho says in the catalog for the exhibition Director’s Inspiration: Bong Joon Ho. “Their movies are full of misunderstandings and misinterpretations.” Set in 1941, Barton Fink is the story of the titular East Coast transplant (played by John Turturro) who abandons his playwrighting career to try his hand in Hollywood. During a bout of writer’s block in his dilapidated hotel, Fink becomes acquainted with his noisy neighbor (John Goodman), an insurance salesman whose affable appearance belies his true nature. The fourth feature by the Coens was also the first to win all three major prizes—Best Director, Best Actor, and the Palme d’Or—at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was nominated at the 64th Academy Awards for Supporting Actor (Michael Lerner), Art Direction, and Costume Design.