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10The Pragmatic Poetics ofHong Sangsoo’s The Day a PigFell into a WellMarshall DeutelbaumDespite the apparent promise of its title, there is neither a pig nor awell in Hong Sangsoo’s first film, The Day a Pig Fell into a Well (Doejigaumul-e ppajin nal, 1996).Hong appropriated the title from a short story by John Cheever originallypublished in the October 23, 1954 issue of The New Yorker magazineand later included in a collection of the author’s short stories. The storybegins:In the summer, when the Nudd family gathered at Whitebeach Camp, inthe Adirondacks, there was always a night when one of them would ask“Remember the day the pig fell into the well?” Then as if the opening noteof a sextet had been sounded, the others would all rush in to take their familiarparts, like those families who sing Gilbert and Sullivan, and the recitalwould go on for an hour or more. (Cheever, p. 219)Hong has never explained his reason for adopting the title, though it seemslikely that the way in which the story of the unfortunate pig is related piecemealby Cheever’s characters mirrors how the film was written. Just as therecital of the events that happened on that singular day is stitched togetherfrom the specific detail supplied by each family member, Hong’s film isthe result of the combination of four scripts by four writers – supposedlystudents he assigned to the project – each of whom created a character anddescribed the events the character experienced over the course of a day.Making adjustments as he saw fit to connect the characters to one another,Hong then edited the four accounts into the single script that became theblueprint for his multi-character/multi-plot film. The film, reflecting its