New Korean Cinema: Mourning to Regeneration
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NEW KOREAN CINEMA: MOURNING TO REGENERATION by Seung-hwan Shin B. A. in English Literature, Yonsei University, Seoul, 1999 M. A. in Comparative Literature, Yonsei University, Seoul, 2003 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in English/Film Studies University of Pittsburgh 2014 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Seung-hwan Shin It was defended on March 3, 2014 and approved by Colin MacCabe, Distinguished Professor, English/Film Studies Adam Lowenstein, Associate Professor, Film Studies Kyung Hyun Kim, Associate Professor, Film & Media Studies, UC Irvine Dissertation Advisor: Marcia Landy, Distinguished Professor, Film Studies ii Copyright © by Seung-hwan Shin 2014 iii NEW KOREAN CINEMA: MOURNING TO REGENERATION Seung-hwan Shin, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2014 The past two decades saw Korean cinema establishing itself as one of the most vibrant national cinemas in the world. Scholars have often sought clues in democratization in the early 1990s. Yet, the overall condition of Korean cinema had remained hardly promising until the late 1990s, which urges us to rethink the euphoria over democratization. In an effort to find a better account for its stunning and provocative revival, this dissertation challenges the custom of associating the resurgence of Korean cinema with democratization and contends that Korean cinema has gained its novelty and vitality, above all, by confronting the abortive nature of democratic transitions. The overarching concern of this study is thus elucidating the piquant tastes of the thematics and the styles Korean cinema has developed to articulate public discontents with recent historical changes. Chapter one revisits the New Wave era (the late 1980s to the early 1990s) and employs the notion of ssitkim (mourning) to probe how New Wave filmmakers maneuvered between legacies of the democracy movement and public/industrial demands and between historical trauma and rapid changes in the wake of democratization. Chapter two discusses Korean cinema’s reorientations in the second half of the 1990s through films by Lee Chang-dong and Hong Sang-soo. Lee’s investment in the non-linear time narrative offers a notable instance of renegotiations over national history at a time of troubled historical transition. Hong’s rediscovery of everyday life without good sense and depth presents an eloquent commentary on the post-epic milieu. Chapter three adopts Deleuze’s notion of the originary to explain how the iv revenge narrative and the theme of violence in Park Chan-wook’s films provide a significant critique of the democratized and neo-liberalizing milieu where the faculty of action becomes further frustrated. Chapter four looks to the Manchurian Western, a vernacular hybrid film genre, to investigate how the Western has been integral part of sociocultural formations in South Korea and thereby to demonstrate the need to step beyond restrictive frameworks such as historical and cultural authenticity for a greater understanding of the complex dynamic in transnational uses of popular genres. v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION: IMPOSSIBLE MOURNING AND PROVOCATIVE REGENERATION ........................................................................................................................ 1 2.0 SSITKIM AND AFTER: THE KOREAN NEW WAVE AND ITS LEGACIES . 20 2.1 SOPYONJE: NATIONAL HISTORY AND TECHNICAL REPRODUCTION .. 27 2.2 CHILSU AND MANSU: INSIDE/OUTSIDE MINJUNG DISCOURSE ....... 41 2.3 A PETAL: SSITKIM AND COUNTER HISTORY ........................................ 55 3.0 REORIENTATIONS IN THE POST-SSITKIM ERA ............................................ 65 3.1 LEE CHANG-DONG: NARRATIVE IN/OF A TIME OUT OF JOINT .... 69 3.2 HONG SANG-SOO: PARADOX OF DEPTHLESS EVERYDAY LIFE .... 88 4.0 THE CINEMA OF VIOLENCE: PARK CHAN-WOOK AND NATURALISM ... 107 4.1 JSA: RECONFIGURING POST-DIVISION IMAGINATION .................. 113 4.2 “VENGEANCE IS MINE”: ACTION IN CRISIS AND SYMPATHY FOR VIOLENCE ....................................................................................................................... 135 4.3 IMAGING THE ORIGINARY: SPACE, TIME, AND BECOMING ........ 152 4.4 VIOLENCE AS A PROBLEMATIC ............................................................. 158 5.0 THEY WENT NORTH BY WEST: THE MANCHURIAN WESTERN AND GENRE IN TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ................................................................ 160 5.1 HISTORY OF/IN GENRE CRITICISM....................................................... 167 vi 5.1.1 Genre in phenomenological perspective .................................................... 168 5.1.2 The structural/post-structural turn ........................................................... 170 5.1.3 The historical-cultural approach and transnational Westerns ............... 178 5.1.4 Transpositional thinking: Historicizing “other histories” ....................... 184 5.2 VIRTUAL WESTS AND VERNACULAR MODERNITIES ..................... 190 5.2.1 Westerns of Scheherazades ......................................................................... 192 5.2.2 An epic cinema without epic history? ........................................................ 196 5.2.3 A Korean case: The West as the transcendental outside ......................... 202 5.3 NORTH BY WEST: MANCHURIA AND THE HWALGUK ..................... 205 5.3.1 The West (the frontier) to Manchuria (an exclave) .................................. 205 5.3.2 Manchuria in the hwalguk imagination ..................................................... 208 5.3.3 Disenchanted Manchuria ............................................................................ 210 5.3.4 Reenchanting Manchuria............................................................................ 212 5.4 BACK TO MANCHURIA: REDISCOVERING THE HWALGUK ........... 216 5.4.1 The hwalguk in camp perspective .............................................................. 217 5.4.2 Regenerating the hwalguk ........................................................................... 219 5.4.3 The optics of hwal: Style, details, game, and the childlike ....................... 223 5.4.4 Myth against itself ....................................................................................... 228 5.5 A CRITICAL USE OF MONUMENTAL (OR MYTHICAL) HISTORY 231 6.0 CONCLUSION: THE PRINCIPLE OF HOPE .................................................... 237 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................ 244 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 246 vii PREFACE This dissertation could not have been brought to life without the guidance and support I have received from a number of people over many years. I owe an inestimable debt of gratitude to them. Foremost, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with truly extraordinary scholars for this project. They have each played a decisive role in the development of this study. Marcia Landy, my dissertation chair, has been an invaluable and enduring source of inspiration. Many of the core ideas that inform this study grew out of dialogue I had with her through her written work, seminars, comments on my drafts, and one-on-one conferences. Her ability to orchestrate many complex issues into an original perspective has been truly fascinating and essential to enriching my understanding of cinema. I am deeply grateful to Colin MacCabe for motivating me to write on Korean cinema, without which I would not have embarked on this project. I also cannot thank him enough for stimulating discussions, which carried me through many moments of blockage in my thinking, and for opening doors to Asian cinema scholars beyond the University of Pittsburgh, which was instrumental to broadening my vision. I would like to thank Adam Lowenstein whose instruction has been vital to my film education. He has taught me, through challenging questions and constructive criticism, what it means to be a film scholar. His careful reading of my chapters was extremely helpful in refining my thoughts. Kyung Hyun Kim, my outside reader, has always been somewhere inside my mind as I have navigated Korean cinema. He has shown me the way through his pioneering work, detailed viii feedback, and heartening conversation, which has been crucial to the maturation of my perspective on Korean cinema. I wish to extend my appreciation to Neepa Majumdar; her seminar on Indian cinema was of particular help in polishing my questions on Asian cinema. This study has also benefited from Tony Rayns, conversations with whom afforded me precious and little-known information about Asian cinemas, and Christina Klein, who kindly read a chapter and offered valuable comments. I also owe enormous gratitude to my professors in South Korea, Chol-kyu Yim, Kyung-won Lee, and Mun-im Paik for their advice and moral support at the early stages of my intellectual career. I am also appreciative of the Department of English and the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh for providing a warm and inspiring intellectual community. I am particularly grateful to the Director of Graduate Studies in English, Nancy Glazener, for her sage advice and support, which were crucial for me to finish my race. The travel grants from these programs enabled