This dissertation aims to historically study Joseon silent film style during the colonial era. I divide the Joseon silent film era into three periods: the ‘early cinema’ period shows Joseon's responses and practices towards Western moving pictures...
This dissertation aims to historically study Joseon silent film style during the colonial era. I divide the Joseon silent film era into three periods: the ‘early cinema’ period shows Joseon's responses and practices towards Western moving pictures; in the early silent film period, Joseon cinema sought to develop cinematic styles based on Japanese new school (Shinpa) film and Western films; in the late silent film period, Joseon silent film styles were built, while showing affinity with Japanese films pivoting on Soviet Montage theory instead of Hollywood cinema. These periods are to be examined in light of contexts, discourses and texts. The salient question to be cast in this thesis is how Joseon filmmakers cognized and practiced cinematic styles during each period.
Attempting to study comparative study of early Joseon film history with early Japanese film history, I stipulate that Joseon cinema's practice is the production process from a play with Kineorama (電氣應用劇) to a combination play (a cinema and real drama combined, 連鎖劇) around 1919. The key figures who took the lead of this change were Park Seung-pil (朴承弼), the owner of Dan-seong-sa (團成社); Lim Seong-gu (林聖九), the leader of Hyeok-shin-dan (革新團); and Kim Do-san (金陶山), the leader of Shin-keuk-jwa (新劇座). Hyeok-shin-dan and Shin-Keuk-jwa were new school troupes affiliated with Dan-seong-sa. It is apparent that these figures acquired their technology from Japan, which had imported and established various visual attractions from the West. Combination plays and Western serial films were the two most prominent types of shows in theaters for Joseon viewers. Plays with Kineorama and combination plays belong to the preliminary stage of Joseon's filmmaking, before the advent of feature filmmaking; such films were Joseon's reaction to popular Western serial films in theaters for Joseon viewers.
The designation of Joseon's combination play as 'Shinpa (new school drama) Combination play' also proves that it was a reaction to Western moving pictures. Joseon's combination play was one of the closest formats to the film among various performances of those plays. It inserted some attractions mimicking Western action film styles and actual images into a combination play, while some actualities were part of one program. Joseon's first cinematography and its context, in which film was combined with performance, can be interpreted as the Western early cinematic style which Tom Gunning called the 'cinema of attraction.' Meanwhile, the elements of action films in combination plays are derived from the effect which Western serial films exerted on Japanese combination plays/new school films.
challenge established Korean film history on the beginnings of Joseon silent feature films by re-examining the relationship between Joseon and Japanese filmmakers who worked on the Korean peninsula. Japanese organizations including Hayakawa Koshu (早川孤舟)'s Dong-ah Culture Association and Takasa Kancho (高佐貫長)'s Joseon Kinema Corporation, established in Busan, led the early production of feature films in Joseon. However, Kim Jo-seong (金肇盛) of the Dong-ah Culture Association, and Yoon Baek-nam (尹白南) and Lee Kyung-son (李慶孫) of Joseon Kinema Corporation provided assistance that was as important as Japanese capital and technology. After 1926, Japanese film productions including Joseon Kinema Productions, Deok-young Productions, Daeryuk Kinema Productions and Wonsan Productions which shot at Kyeongseong Studio were the mainstays of silent film productions in Joseon. It is significant that the operation of Joseon cinema was done through Joseon filmmakers' action, competition, and negotiation with and against Japanese capital and technology.
The early silent cinema period of Joseon film was the time to discover 'cinematic' film styles and approaches to practice, which can be seen in the film style reviews written by Lee Gu-young, Yoon Gap-yong and others. Joseon cinema well understood the contemporary world film strategy which searched for representability of the film medium. For the mere three years between 1923 and 1926, Joseon silent films embraced early cinematic practices such as the 'tableau shot' and even French impressionist styles including the 'flash' and 'close-up.'
It is apparent from the advertisement of Arirang in Kinema Junpo on December 11, 1926 that Joseon silent films were textured with several influences including Japanese new school films, which in turn had taken from Western films, American action films, and European art cinema. Katyusha, 'a film within a film (劇中劇)' shown in this advertisement proves that Arirang was positioned within the sphere of influence of the new school film genre; the new school film genre means Japanese films with unique characteristics which was influenced by Western cinema. Moreover, Son of the Sheik the advertisement mentions was analyzed that Arirang was directly influenced by Western films such as American action films and European art cinema. This also symbolizes the two properties of tragedy and action in the Japanese/Joseon shinpa film genre.
A study of the linkage between Joseon and Japanese films leads to the probing of second generation filmmakers who experienced and learned at Japanese studios in the early and middle 1930s. Existing Korean film history tells that the second generation filmmakers, including Joseon filmmakers experiencing in Japan, tried to unite film production companies as a corporation and took the lead the sphere of Joseon talkie films, but that they were integrated into the war basis during the late Japanese colonial period. This dissertation restores the activities of Joseon filmmakers learning in Japan, including Lee Kyu-hwan, Bang Han-joon, Park Gi-chae and Shin Kyeong-kyun, especially at film studios in Kyoto from the late 1920s to the early 1930s. It can also be seen that their activities were connected with Joseon’s silent film from the age of its maturity.
Based on their actual experience and acquisition of directing approaches from Japanese studios, the second generation filmmakers led the style discourse in the Joseon film scene during the early and middle 1930s. The importance of 'continuity,' they argued, was connected to the montage discourse they practiced and perceived as a Joseon silent film grammar. They were the most valuable asset of the industry which could not construct its own studio system, since the Joseon film scene should overcome a poor production environment only with them.
Through the acquisition and settlement of a cinematic grammar, the Joseon silent film style in the mid-1930s was built in accordance with Joseon's film industry and technological environment. The screenplays and shooting scripts (continuities) at that time demonstrate that Joseon cinema used and translated Western filmmaking terminology from Japan, which is similar to that of contemporary films. The directing terminology in Joseon’s screenplays is evidence for understanding Joseon cinematic grammar and visual styles.
By analyzing the screenplays of Joseon silent films and the film texts including Turning Point of the Youngsters in 1934, I argue that Joseon films partly borrowed classical Hollywood cinema styles, but were also interested in the aesthetics of individual shots and connections among them through the sense of montage, rather than in Hollywood decoupage which practices an analytic approach to space. This shows that the Joseon silent film entered the stage of 'cinematic' film in its own way, which is a consequence of its wide selection of styles including Hollywood cinema, European art cinema, and Japanese cinema. The Joseon silent film is located in the field of various practices of ‘the crestline films’ which Noel Burch mentioned. Especially, as a result of a comparative analysis of Joseon silent films with Japanese silent films, I find common ground of Joseon and Japanese silent films in that they used part of classical Hollywood film styles. As seen in the Joseon talkie Shim Cheong in 1937, Joseon film styles were constructed and superimposed on various levels: the modes of world film styles, the technological environment of Joseon cinema, Joseon’s industrial logics, and the way of speaking to a Joseon audience.