Park Chan-wook says he never intentionally channeled Hitchcock for Decision To Leave

There’s been one name—and in particular one film—that has been paired with Park Chan-wook’s noir romance thriller Decision To Leave, over and over again: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. However, in an interview with A.V. Club, The Handmaiden director says the auteur’s film never explicitly came to mind when crafting his newest feature.

When asked about the specific references he turned to when writing Decision To Leave, Park says, “I never thought about Vertigo or Hitchcock when I was making the film. Not just for this film, but generally in my creative process, I don’t do that. I’m never thinking about a particular film or filmmaker.”

Like most of us, Park does not remember every detail of every movie he’s ever seen, and cannot sort through them like a Rolodex in his mind for inspiration.

“I think it’s related to the fact that I have bad memory,” Park continues. “I don’t clearly remember the films that I’ve watched, so it’s difficult to pull out of those.”

Instead, the films he’s seen become enmeshed among other sources of inspiration, including his real-life experiences. All of these things piece together and emerge throughout the writing process.

“The many films that I have watched throughout my life are all jumbled up in my subconscious,” Park says. “And I think that’s what resurfaces when I’m making my movies. It works the same way for pieces of literature as well. I take inspiration from all of those things. To expand even further, the inspiration also comes from people I’ve met, or the news footages I could have watched. So from Vertigo all the way to casual conversations with my daughter. All of these are equally important sources of my inspiration.”

But, Hitchcock’s influence on Park should not be disregarded. In another interview with the Los Angeles Times, Park says Vertigo made him want to become a filmmaker, with Hitchcock’s films providing the educational foundation. However, any reference to the hallmark thriller is purely coincidental.

“That influence definitely does exist, but I didn’t think of Vertigo when I was writing Decision To Leave. Reading the articles by Western critics mentioning that film I did understand where they came from.”

Decision To Leave is currently available for viewing in theaters.