The Meaning of Newness in Korean Cinema: Korean New Wave and After 37
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The Meaning of Newness in Korean Cinema: Korean New Wave and After 37 The Meaning of Newness in Korean Cinema: Desire for Newness and “Korean New Wave” Korean New Wave and After Newness and innovation has been largely welcomed throughout film history, whatever its country of origin. Generally, in the writings of most film histories, each period has been represented by aesthetic Moon Jae-cheol advances. However, passion for change in Korean cinema is distinct in that a compelling and even obsessive drive toward innovation has undergirded the entire history of the film industry. This Korea cinema’s distinctiveness originates in its embattled Abstract modern history, which spans Japanese colonization, war, and military dictatorships. During these times the Korean film industry had diffi- Contemporary Korean cinema is both innovative and industrially suc- cessful. Its historic achievement dates back to the cinema movement culty acquiring a secure financial base, which resulted in the release from the 1980s to the mid-1990s and its effect, the so-called “Korean of mostly small-scale and crude films. Film content was not artistic or New Wave.” The Korean New Wave films tried to overcome the limita- thoughtful enough to interest intellectuals. In a culture that esteemed tions of modern Korean movies with auteurism and realism, showing a letters over images, moreover, it was difficult for film to achieve a departure in its criticism of mainstream movies and oppressive social position in high culture. Critics called Korean movies vulgar and conditions. cheap and saw the industry as an embarrassment when compared Since the mid-1990s, however, Korean films have diverged again from the Korean New Wave. While critical attitudes and a search for with well-made films of the West. In the late 1970s, film critic and realism significantly waned, an ironic tendency and interests in genre director Ha Gil-jong excoriated the Korean film industry: “Where does and mass culture grew. Post-Korean New Wave films now focus on Korean film stand in the world? Nowhere. It’s neither alive nor dead. image more than on theme, which tells us that the newness of today’s It’s no more than a half-baked imitation with a dirty commercial spir- Korean cinema only functions as a stylistic strategy used to distinguish it.”1 The weaknesses of Korean cinema had to be overcome by inno- themselves from other films. Closely related to changes in Korean poli- vation, which had been the historical task of Korean filmmakers. tics, economy, and culture are those of the meaning, role, and function of newness in Korean films, through which we can understand the cir- This ambition for innovation went hand-in-hand with the desire cumstances and trends of Korean films today. for modernization. Modernization and innovation were the dearest wish of a country like Korea that had undergone colonization. If Keywords: Korean cinema, Korean New Wave, auteurism, realism, irony, spectacle innovation in the film meant striving to strengthen business and to construct a more efficient industry, as well as establishing Korean cinema as an independent art form, all this devolved to the problem Moon Jae-cheol (Mun, Jae-cheol) is Assistant Professor of Film and Multimedia at of how to overcome the premodernity of Korean film. At the same Graduate School of Advanced Imaging Science, Multimedia and Film, Chung-Ang Uni- versity. He received his Ph.D. in film theory from Chung-Ang University. His publica- time, filmmakers hoped to move film from a peripheral status to a tions include “Hanguk yeonghwa-eseo jakga(juui) damnon-ui yeokhal-e daehan focal one. In sum, the desire for change was equivalent to the desire yeongu” (A Study on the Function of Auteur(ism) in Korean Cinema) (2004) and “Hyeondae yeonghwa-eseo naereotibeu-wa seupekteokeul-ui gwan-gye” (A Study on the Relationship between Narrative and Spectacle in Contemporary Cinema) (2004). E-mail: [email protected]. 1. Ha (1981, 345). 38 KOREA JOURNAL / SPRING 2006 The Meaning of Newness in Korean Cinema: Korean New Wave and After 39 for recognition. Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo. The cinema world as well was not free Recent efforts in Korean film have almost satisfied this desire. from these social conditions. As Yi Hyo-in pointed out, “The new The success of Korean films in the past few years has been surpris- trend of 1980s Korean film formed when external influence sparked ing. Korean films have exceeded 50% of the domestic film market the dormant inner will of our cinema.”2 share, and some films have drawn in over ten million viewers. Not The vanguard of change consisted of a fresh young generation, only that, but films like Swiri (1999) and Taegukgi (Taegeukgi hwinal- many of whom were cinephiles or student activists from divergent limyeo, 2004) became Korean sell-outs in the style of the Hollywood backgrounds. They held in common, though not as a group, certain blockbuster. Today Korean films are no longer understood only with- attitudes towards cinema. Many had been greatly influenced by in the borders of Korea. As films like Chihwaseon (2002), Oasis Marxist political movements and believed that film should be used as (Oasiseu, 2002), Old Boy (Oldeu boi, 2003), and 3-Iron (Binjip, 2004) a tool for social change. This group generally worked outside the win awards at international film festivals and receive accolades by mainstream, seeking an alternative cinema under the rubric of art international film critics, they are becoming objects of global interest. film. But this was either connected with Korean movements for soci- Korean film no longer occupies a peripheral status. Within country, etal change or aimed to intervene critically in the mainstream of Korean film seems to take the place of literature and has become a Korean film that was represented by “Chungmuro.”3 The innovations popular subject of scholarly research as it leads the field of visual of this new generation led to the independent cinema movement of entertainment. Not long ago all this would have seemed impossible. the 1980s and, moving into the mainstream of the 1990s, led to the These changes have been generally estimated to begin to take changes in Korean cinema. hold in the mid-1990s. The structure of film culture and film industry From the late 1980s, the so-called “Korean New Wave” (here- was revamped and a new generation of directors and viewers after New Wave) began with figures like Park Kwang-su, Jang Sun- emerged. The drive for these changes that had existed before led to woo, and Lee Myung-se. The strategy of New Wave for implementing Korea films’ success in the mid- and late-1990s conditions, including change was to combine auteurism with realism, thus creating a new policy-level support from the government; a change in the constitu- approach to film they called auteur-realism. While the Western con- tion of the filmmaking industry with a new sociocultural atmosphere cept of auteurism emphasized film as art, auteur-realism in Korea due to economic progress and the advance of democratization; the operated as a practical strategy for challenging every facet of the emergence of new directors and viewers known as the screening gen- Korean film institution. Film critics began to criticize the production eration; and the opening of various film festivals, starting with the of cheap films for mass opportunism and emphasized the director’s Pusan (Busan) International Film Festival. Analysis of these changes creative consciousness and film’s social responsibilities. should be based on an understanding of their relations with the cine- The New Wave films were also critical of social reality. Repre- ma movement and New Wave in the 1980s and early 1990s because sentative ones that captured the political tension and social contra- contemporary Korean films have a tendency both to depart from as well as rely on the foundations that New Wave laid down. 2. Yi H. (1989, 21-51). The decade from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s marked the era 3. Chungmuro is an area between Toegyero and Myeongdong in Seoul. “Chung- of the greatest fervor and energy for change in Korean film history. muro,” a cluster of Korean film companies after the mid-1950s, had represented Film critic Yi Jeong-ha called this “the era of struggle and the new,” Korean mass films by its name. The age of “Chungmuro,” however, ended in the mid-1990s when conglomerates and finance capital entered the film industry, and yet it was also an era of repression under military dictators Chun film companies moved out to Gangnam-gu in Seoul. 40 KOREA JOURNAL / SPRING 2006 The Meaning of Newness in Korean Cinema: Korean New Wave and After 41 dictions of the era include director Park Kwang-su’s Chil-su and Wave directors. Even the directors called auteurs show a different Man-su (Chilsu-wa Mansu, 1988), Black Republic (Geudeul-do uri- consciousness from that of the New Wave directors whose desire for cheoreom, 1990), and Berlin Report (Bereullin ripoteu, 1991); Jang newness originated from criticism of premodernity, ahistory, and Sun-woo’s The Age of Success (Seonggong sidae, 1988); and Bak commercialism. Jong-won’s Guro arirang (1989). As filmmakers probed society’s What is the desire for and substance of newness? What is the complexity, class struggle and postcoloniality were the issues they meaning of newness and which imagination makes it? This paper most often brought into relief. Through film, they challenged the gov- tries to uncover the meaning of the newness of contemporary Korean erning powers and tried to redefine traditional national values with films in an historical context by examining the trends of recently the aim of redefining their history and identity by rediscovering pre- spotlighted Korean film directors and comparing them to the New sent experience.