Korean Cinema in the Colonial Era: 1910-1945
| Darcy Paquet | |
| |
| Name in Latin Alphabet: | Darcy Paquet |
|---|---|
| Nationality: | USA |
| Affiliation: | Kyung Hee University |
강연 소개
The films of the colonial period, including the legendary, lost Arirang (1926), have long been considered a missing chapter in the history of Korean film. This era's cinema is missing in several senses of the word, including the literal one: with few exceptions, the vast majority of the 160+ films produced in the colonial era have disappeared due to neglect, disintegrating negatives or the destruction brought on by the Korean War. Except for a small number of recovered works, we cannot today experience the breadth of films produced in this era.
The colonial period was also a time of missed opportunities. Strict censorship on the part of the Japanese colonial government made it difficult for Korean filmmakers to present an honest depiction of society as they experienced it. In addition, heavy-handed regulation and the concentration of capital in the hands of Japanese businessmen hampered the development of a proper infrastructure to support the making of Korean films. Towards the latter end of the colonial era, authorities began to mobilize filmmakers to support the war effort, and local films were increasingly shot in Japanese. By the early to mid-1940s, the Korean film industry had become nothing more than an arm of the wartime propaganda campaign.
Up until the end of the 20th century, the only colonial-era films that survived in complete form were several features from the 1940s that could be classified as pro-Japanese. However a series of exciting discoveries over the last decade have provided film scholars and audiences the opportunity to view films from a previously lost era in Korean cinematic history. These works, such as Crossroads of Youth (1934), Sweet Dream (1936), and Spring of the Korean Peninsula (1941) have not only provided insight into the films of that period, but also given us fascinating new perspectives on the culture in general.
강연 영상
Korean Cinema in the Colonial Era: 1910-1945
