IM Kwon-taek

By CHUNG Sung-ill

For almost 50 years, master director IM Kwon-taek has chronicled the tremendous events of Korea's twentieth century through the detached lens of the camera. This comprehensive volume of essays, interviews and biographical information from renowned film critic CHUNG Sung-ill delves deeply into the man behind the epics "Sopyonje," "The Taebaek Mountain," and "Chihwaseon." IM was born in 1934 in Jangseong, Jeolla Province, and lived through Japanese colonial occupation, the polarization of the political factions that led to the Korean War, decades of dictatorship, the dawn of democracy, and a rapidly changing society forgetting its past. This volume is a brilliant orchestration of the historical backdrop for IM's works with insight into the film director's psychology and personal experience.

Korean Film Directors

Created by the Korean Film Council, this series offers deep insight into key directors in Korean film, figures who are not only broadening the range of art and creativity found in Korean-produced commercial films but also gaining increasingly strong footholds in international markets.

Each volume features:
- critical commentary on films
- extensive interview
- biography
- complete filmography

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seoul Selection
• Release date: Dec 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9788991913936

Book preview

Preface

The first time I met Mr. IM Kwon-taek was in a November afternoon in 1986, at a coffee shop named Nan-da-rang in Namsan¹². At that time, IM’s film Ticket had just been released and he was in the middle of preparing for the next film, Surrogate Mother. That winter, I had a long interview with him and was able to publish the first collection of interviews with IM. Many people had predicted that the book will be the final edition of interviews with IM not because it was well-written but because IM had come a long way as a director and that he wouldn’t be able to go much further from that point. However, those predictions were very incorrect. IM went further, or I would rather say that he set out for his long journey from that point and started to produce outstanding films since then.

In those days of interviewing IM, I watched his movies again. I paid very close attention to his worlds. I hadn’t realized at first but at some point, it struck me that understanding IM’s works means not just comprehending his movies, but the historical background of Korean cinema; which leads me further to understand my father and my grandfather.

I was able to perceive the scenes, shots, stories, and the main characters which I couldn’t understand before by recollecting the logics of his words while watching his movies again. Just then, I became aware that I was watching the life of the time which my father couldn’t dare talk to me about. History of modern Korea consists of many fetters, in which different generations live with very different experiences; Japanese colonization, confusion after the liberation, the Korean War, division of North and South, the dictatorship of PARK Chung-hee, the Gwangju Massacre in May 1980, pro-democracy movements in 1987, the International Monetary Fund bailout in 1997, and the 21st century. Many artists left records of their generations but IM is the only one who has truly embraced all the events of the 20th century and is conveying a message to us now. Just looking at the result, he is nearly the most miraculous survivor but when the personal story of his survival comes to light, the miracle is a record of the tears of a tragic history. After all, I think Korean cinema is the director, IM Kwon-taek. I am not implying that he is the best director in Korea. Describing IM is recording the history of Korean movies and, furthermore, explaining the history of modern Korea.

To write this book, I used some quotes from previous interviews with IM but I met him again in October 2006 to hear more about his thoughts specifically for this book. During the recent interview, he showed some changes on some of his opinions from before. Therefore, I can say that IM’s thoughts on films in this book are his most recent ones. However, we must not stop here because IM is a cineaste whose biggest fear is to stop at a place. He repeatedly makes pledges to himself even in his films. In his movie Chihwaseon, JANG Seung-up runs to his teacher with his painting of Sehando¹⁶ and proudly says, Teacher, I completed the picture. But the teacher scolds him fiercely saying, You fool, there is no completion when painting. IM will never complete his movie. This book will also be a temporary writing piece in this world, while it waits for IM’s next movie.

CHUNG Sung-ill

Early Winter, 2006

His Thoughts 1

Eyewitness to History (1962-1992)

1 History, System, Writer: IM Kwon-taek, as a Genealogy, IM Kwon-taek in Context

Discussing IM Kwon-taek means talking about Korean movies as well as the way Koreans lived during the 20th century. Godard said that if German music is Mozart, German cinema is Fritz Lang. Likewise, if Korean music is the pansori¹³ Chunhyang-jeon³, Korean cinema is IM Kwon-taek. In more humorous but theoretical detail, talking about IM means restructuring Korean movies into a concept of national cinema. However, it comes with a history of bloody tears. I am not saying this as a figure of speech, but as the only expression that can best describe the history of IM’s time. Although history sheds tears IM’s movies are about people, and the history which can only be seen through their tears. Therefore, we must not only question the tears but the process that caused the tears. And through those tears, we must be able to see the original state of the distorted figure.

The most ineffective way to discuss IM is to choose a period among his movies, ignore what had happened before, and talk about his works from that period on, in which case the gap isn’t the only problem. Perhaps talking about all his movies, that add up to almost a hundred, seems like a burden. However, if we ignore the past and restore IM to forms, we are inevitably confronted with the problems of ignoring the impurities; which are variations in story, attitudes of heroes, scenery, pansori, historical background, classical Korean architecture in the scenes, and intentional shots that embrace all of the above. However, I believe that there is the essence of IM in those impurities. IM was never driven by the form. He always adapted the camera His Thoughts to the forms his main characters requested for and questioned the forms over and over to find the best scenes for the story, and not the reverse! In that sense, IM’s forms were always incomplete and at the same time atypical. Form and content are not separated into two different segments for him but are an unbalanced combination of understated forms and overstated content. The most absurd expression in movies is the term universal forms. Every movie is always a special exception. IM is an exception among exceptions, but he isn’t trying to say something through the exceptions. His exception of forms is always restricted to exception of content. The stories of his movies, at a certain point, is the world that can only be explained in the content of Korean history. Therefore we must acknowledge the fact that the reason IM’s exceptions of forms are filled with impurities is due to the content. The impurities in his movies desperately require explanation. The impurity is the tears in IM’s movie but who is shedding the tears? History must endure the events modern Korea is inevitably creating in reality. We must understand this rhetorical cycle.

Another way to explain IM is that his name is a common denominator in Korean movies, while being different from all others due to three reasons. The first is biographical explanation. IM lived in three different historical eras, meaning that he lived through every tragic episode in modern Korean history. He was born and raised during the Japanese colonial period, just after the Joseon period. Then liberation came all of a sudden, leaving confrontations between the right-and left-wing. His parents supported the left-wing and went into the mountains to become partisans. The Korean War broke out but ended in truce. IM’s hometown is at the very southern end of the Korean Peninsula. The South Korean government established anti-communist ideology and began to hunt out leftists. He was placed under the implicative system and ran away from home in his teens. After much hardship, he landed in movie production. He lived in South Korea through 18 years of the PARK Chung-hee dictatorship; the assassination of the dictator on October 26 1979 (due to power struggle within the government); the Gwangju Massacre of 1980, followed by the military rules by CHUN Doo-hwan and ROH Tae-woo, the pro-democracy movements in 1987, and the birth of democracy in the 1990s. IM lived with the burden of his parents’ deeds. As I write this book in October 2006, the biggest issue in South Korea is North Korea’s nuclear testing. Living in South Korea after the Korean War can’t be explained in any way without North Korea. IM is a man who spent his life through the course of modern Korean history. His father supported communism and IM had to find a way to live in South Korea. The nation still isn’t free from anti-communist ideology. It must not be forgotten that the war in Korea did not end but temporarily ceased. IM’s films were made in this historical context.

The second explanation lies in a system. Since making a debut in 1962 with Farewell to Tuman River, IM has been making films non-stop and without rest. For me, the filming location is my workplace, where I go every morning when I wake up. If I’m halfway through the shooting of a movie but don’t have a contract for the next one, I get nervous and hesitate to finish the one in progress. That’s the way I’ve been making films for 40 years. During that period, Korean movies have been constantly changing. The history of Korean movies is more related to the history of political policies rather than the market. Right after the Korean War, when almost everything was destroyed, people went to theaters for the only means of entertainment. At that time, motion pictures were not just entertainment but also news media (along with the radio), a platform for the blossoming of popular culture, and the window to the outside world, or the only breath of freedom for South Korean society. In the 1960s, the Korean movie industry faced a golden period. IM made films of almost every genre in those days. Among the ones he made, historical movies and tachimawari action films were the most successful.

However, the golden age of Korean cinema suddenly came to an end in 1972 with the advent of the Yusin²⁰ system. The government controlled films through double-censorship of evaluating the script first then checking the completed version again. On the other hand, government promoted TV entertainment at home, causing film viewers to abandon the cinema. Furthermore, the government only subsidized government policy movies such as the Saemaul¹⁵ movement and anti-communist films which all the production companies tried to benefit from. The masters of Korean movies couldn’t survive the cruelty of the times. The industry collapsed and tragic melodramas, romances, and pornography became the main His Thoughts genres of Korean film. Korean cinema during this era became the byword for low-quality popular culture. IM, however, dealt with the situation in a different manner. Without reluctance, he made government policy movies and freed himself from the market’s collapse, while finding his own artistic world in it.

Mandara, 1981

In 1981, CHUN Doo-hwan’s military government lifted censorship restrictions as a carrot or incentive policy. Just then, IM’s films began to come into full bloom. The milestone was Mandara, after which, he kept a proximal distance from the world and created his own world. For the first time, IM became the center of Korean movies. Intellectuals in their arguments, movie critiques, new generation directors and producers focused on IM and were interested in his moves. In 1987, Surrogate Mother won the best lead actress award at the Venice International Film Festival. KANG Soo-yeon was the recipient but in Korea, the merits went to the director, IM. (This was KANG’s first movie as an adult character who had been a child actress until then.) The following year, SHIN Hye-soo also received the best lead actress award at the Montreal World Film Festival for Adada, followed by KANG Soo-yeon again at the Moscow International Film Festival for Come, Come, Come, Upward. Korean films had been neglected in world cinema, but these sequential award winning events were great encouragements, and IM opened the possibilities for Korean movies.

Although Korea is passing through modernization, Confucianism still lies beneath the ethical values. On this religious basis, IM became the elder in the Korean movie industry and all others (people in the industry and the public as well) paid respects for his work and his position. A bit surprisingly in the 1990s, IM released films that recorded top box-office hits one after another. The General’s Son became a No.1 box-office hit and Sopyonje set a new record for most viewers in the history of Korean films. (This record was renewed three years later by Swiri, directed by KANG Je-kyu.) Again in 2000, IM’s Chunhyang was the first Korean film to be invited to compete at the Cannes International Film Festival. The following year, IM won the best director award at the same festival for his movie Chihwaseon. In those days, Korean movies were getting spotlights at European film festivals, while raising a boom in Asia under the name "Hallyu, meaning Korean wave." Discussion of IM’s paths becomes a genealogy of Korean film history because he always remained within the boundaries of a system, and made films through the system, but at the same time, was looking for his own voice.

The third reason IM is a common denominator in Korean movies while being different from all the others can be explained in hindsight. One of the most tragic facts of the Korean movie industry at present is that since IM’s debut in 1962, quality films were not produced for 20 years. There can be two reasons for it; one is not being able to pass the system, and the other is not being able to survive in the market. As a result, among the directors who debuted in the 1960s, IM is the only one who still sits behind the camera. Even the directors from the 1970s aren’t in the industry anymore.

Only a few directors who premiered their films in the 1980s are still in the filmmaking business. They are; BAE Chang-ho, People of Ko-bang Neighborhood in 1982; JANG Sun-woo, Seoul Jesus in 1988; PARK Kwang-su, Chil-su and Man-su in 1988; LEE Myung-se, Gagman in 1988; KANG Woo-suk, Sweet Brides in 1988. (These aren’t even the representative directors!) The rest of the directors working now began to make films in the 1990s. PARK Chan-wook made a debut in 1992 with The Moon is What the Sun Dreams of, HONG Sang-soo in 1996 with The Day A Pig Fell Into A Well, KIM Ki-duk also in 1996 with Crocodile, KANG Je-kyu in the same year with The Ginkgo Bed, LEE Chang-dong in 1997 with Green Fish, HUR Jin-ho also in 1997 with Christmas in August, and IM Sang-soo in 1998 with Girls' Night Out.

Lack of balance is a problem here. IM’s films contain all the past eras in our history but at the same time they are a kind of an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) in Korean movies because younger directors only read about the history IM lived through in textbooks. Therefore, these newcomers respect IM but are unacquainted with the movies he makes, they think he is outdated. Based on the conditions of the past 40 years of Korean movies, though IM holds the place of a common denominator, he is situated at a spot where no one from his generation has survived in this industry and must produce films that are different from anyone else’s. It is neither because he is an older director nor a coincidence that IM is the only one who has been making films continuously in Korean history, directly meeting his historical characters, and investigating Korea before modern times. It is because only he had lived through history. Without exception, everyone who was born after the Korean War had been easily attracted by modernization and became interested in the problems of post-modernism. However, IM knows that it is due to discords between Korea and modernization. He doesn’t just know it, he experienced it, had to live in it and survived through it. Going back to those days in his films and facing them is questioning what living in the Korean Peninsula as a Korean means. I used the word what, not how. IM asks not how we lived but as what we lived.

2 Joseon Period and Gangs, History Drama and Action: IM’s two genres in the 1960s, or Mother and Men

IM made a debut in 1962 with Farewell to Tuman River. In the same year, Ozu