Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:35:11.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Living with a Postcolonial Conundrum: Yi Yŏngil and Korean Film Historiography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2019

Hieyoon Kim
Hieyoon Kim*
Affiliation:
Hieyoon Kim ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Get access

Abstract

Since its publication, Yi Yŏngil's Complete history of Korean cinema (1969) has remained a seminal work of film historiography. A critical rereading of the work is required, however, to capture the paradoxes of postcolonial historiography that are created by the spatial-temporal orders of modernity in a decolonizing, non-Western society. By examining Yi's creative use of historical documentation, such as oral testimonies of filmmakers, this article considers how he offers a counter-narrative against colonialist historiography that denies Korea's agency to transform itself into a modern nation-state without Japanese annexation. However, despite his decolonizing endeavor, his work cannot fully eradicate the colonial effects that inevitably shape postcolonial subjectivity in the globalizing world. In reassessing the possibilities and predicaments of his work, this article reveals Yi's fundamental conundrum as a postcolonial writer living with the effects of colonialism, ultimately challenging the imagination of the postcolonial experience as an uninterrupted struggle to establish an autonomous nation.

Keywords

archivecolonialismComplete history of Korean cinemadecolonizationfilmKoreaoral historypostcolonial historiographyYi Yŏngil
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 78 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 601 - 620
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

An Chonghwa, . 1962. Han'guk yŏnghwa ch’ŭkmyŏnpisa [The bypaths and hidden history of Korean cinema]. Seoul: Ch'unch'ukak.Google Scholar
Atkins, E. Taylor. 2010. Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Baek Moonim, . 2015. Im Hwaŭi yŏnghwa [Im Hwa's cinema]. Seoul: Somyŏng.Google Scholar
Cazdyn, Eric. 2002. The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2010. “Decolonization: The Legacy of Bandung.” In Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives, ed. Lee, Christopher, 46–63. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. “Whose Imagined Community?” In The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, 3–13. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chŏng Haegu, . 1995. “Hanil hoedamgwa Pak Chonghui” [Korea-Japan negotiations and Park Chung Hee]. In Hyondaesa kangjwa (Lectures on modern history), 6:187–96. Seoul: Minŭmsa.Google Scholar
Chung, Steven. 2014. Split Screen Korea: Shin Sang-ok and Postwar Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Duara, Prasenjit, ed. 2004. Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Em, Henry. 2013. The Great Enterprise: Sovereignty and Historiography in Modern Korea. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz. 2004. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Philcox, Richard. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Frisch, Michael. 1979. “Oral History and ‘Hard Times.’” Oral History Review 7:70–79.Google Scholar
Gerow, Aaron. 2010. Visions of Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship, 1895–1925. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart. 2017. Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands. Edited by Schwarz, Bill. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Ham Hanhŭi, . 2010. “Kusulsayŏnkuŭi saeloun p'aelŏtaim moseak” [Searching for a new paradigm in oral history]. Kusulsayŏnku 1(1):7–47.Google Scholar
Harootunian, Harry. 2002. Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Heo Eun, . 2007. “1960nyŏndae huban ‘chogukkŭndaehwa’ ideollogi chujowa tamdang chishiginŭi inshik” [The formation of the “modernization of the fatherland” ideology during the 1960s and the perception of the intellectuals who oversaw the process]. Yŏksayŏnku 86:247–91.Google Scholar
Hong, Guo-Juin. 2011. Taiwan Cinema: A Contested Nation on Screen. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hughes, Theodore. 2012. Literature and Film in Cold War South Korea: Freedom's Frontier. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Im Hwa, . 1941a. “On the History of Korean Cinema's Development.” Samcholli 13(6).Google Scholar
Im Hwa, . 1941b. “On Korean Cinema.” C'hunchu, November.Google Scholar
Kim Chongwon, . 2001. “Iyŏngilŭi salmkwa kwechŏk” [Yi Yŏngil's life and trajectory]. Performing Arts and Film Review 32(4):20–32.Google Scholar
Kim Hyŏn, . [1970] 1991. “Han'guksosŏlŭi kanŭngsŏng” [The possibility of Korean fiction]. In Kim Hyŏn munhakchŏnjip [An anthology of Kim Hyŏn], 2:70–94. Seoul: Literature and Intellect.Google Scholar
Kim Hyŏn, and Kim Yunsik, . 1973. Han'gukmunhaksa [The history of Korean literature]. Seoul: Minŭmsa.Google Scholar
Kim Sŏngchun, . 2003. Yi Yŏngilŭi Han'guk yŏnghwasarŭl wihan chŭngŏnnok [Yi Yŏngil's oral testimony for Korean film history]. Edited by Yŏn'guso, Han'guk Yesul. Vol. 4. Seoul: Sodo.Google Scholar
Kim Soyoung, . 2010. Kŭndaeŭi wŏnch'ogyŏng: Poijiannŭn yŏnghwarŭl poda [A primal scene of modernity: Looking at invisible cinema]. Seoul: Hyŏnsil munhwa.Google Scholar
Kim Won, . 2012. “Han'gukchŏgin kŏsŭi chŏnyurŭl tullŏssan kyŏngjaeng” [The competition concerning appropriation of the ‘Koreanness’]. Sahoewayŏksa 93:185–234.Google Scholar
Kim Yŏsil, . 2006. T'usa hanŭn cheguk t'uyŏng hanŭn singminji [Projecting empire, reflected colony]. Seoul: Samin.Google Scholar
Lim, Bliss Cua. 2010. “Pepot and the Archive: Cinephilia and the Archive Crisis of Philippine Cinema.” Flow 12(3). http://www.flowjournal.org/2010/07/pepotem-and-the-archive/ (accessed January 20, 2019).Google Scholar
Mignolo, Walter D. 2007. “Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality and the Grammar of De-coloniality.” Cultural Studies 21 (2–3):449–514.Google Scholar
Pang Kie-Chung, and Shin, Michael D., eds. 2007. Landlords, Peasants and Intellectuals in Modern Korea. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Park Taegyun, . 2004. “Rosŭt'ou che3segye kŭndaehwaron'gwa Han'guk” [Rostow's modernization theory and South Korea]. Yŏksabip'yŏng 66:136–66.Google Scholar
Portelli, Alessandro. 1991. The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Rostow, Walt. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-communist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schmid, Andre. 2002. Korea between Empires, 1895–1919. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, David. 2005. Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Stoler, Ann Laura. 2016. Duress: Imperial Durabilities in Our Times. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Suh, Serk-bae. 2013. Treacherous Translation: Culture, Nationalism, and Colonialism in Korea and Japan from the 1910s to the 1960s. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Thomson, Alistair. 2007. “Four Paradigm Transformations in Oral History.” Oral History Review 34(1):49–70.Google Scholar
Thomson, Paul. 1978. The Voice of the Past: Oral History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Yi Hwajin, . 2011. “’Hankukyŏnghwachŏnsa,’ kŭ ihu: Ch'oekŭn sikminchi malki yŏnghwa yŏnkuŭi sŏngkwawa hankye” [After Complete History: Accomplishments and confinements of the recent study of late colonial cinema]. Sai 11:239–61.Google Scholar
Yi Hyoin, . 1992. Han'guk yŏnghwa yŏksa kangŭi 1 [A lecture on Korean film history 1]. Seoul: Ironkwasilch'ŏn.Google Scholar
Yi Hyŏnsŏk, . 2015. “Kŭndaehwalonkwa 1970nyŏntae munhaksasŏsul” [On the modernization theory and literary historiography in the 1970s]. Han'guk kŭndae munhak yŏn'gu 47(4):481–560.Google Scholar
Yi Kyuhwan, . 2003. Yi Yŏngilŭi Han'guk yŏnghwasarŭl wihan chŭngŏnnok [Yi Yŏngil's oral testimony for Korean film history]. Edited by Yŏn'guso, Han'guk Yesul. Vol. 5. Seoul: Sodo.Google Scholar
Yi P'iru, . 2003. Yi Yŏngilŭi Han'guk yŏnghwasarŭl wihan chŭngŏnnok [Yi Yŏngil's oral testimony for Korean film history]. Edited by Yŏn'guso, Han'guk Yesul. Vol. 3. Seoul: Sodo.Google Scholar
Sŏnju, Yi. 2006. “1950, 60nyŏndae Han'gukyŏnghwaŭi riŏllijŭm pip'yŏngsa yŏngu” [A study of the history of Korean film criticism in the 1950s and 1960s]. Taejungsŏsayŏn'gu 12(2):195–223.Google Scholar
Sunjin, Yi. 2004. “Han'gukyŏnghwasa yŏn'guŭi hyŏndan'gye: Shinp'a, mellodŭrama, riŏllijŭm tamnonŭl chungshimŭro” [The current stage of Korean film history]. Taejungsŏsayŏn'gu 10(2):187–224.Google Scholar
Sunjin, Yi. 2005. “Sikminchikyŏnghŏmkwa haepangchikhuŭi yŏnghwamantŭlki: Ch'oe Inkyuwa Yun Pongch'un” [Colonial experience and filmmaking in the post-liberation era: Ch'oe Inkyu and Yun Pongch'un]. Taejungsŏsayŏn'gu 11(4):107–43.Google Scholar
Sunjin, Yi. 2014. “Yŏnghwasa sŏlsulgwa kusulsa pangbŏmnon” [Film historiography and oral history as method]. In Han'guk munhwa, munhakwa kusulsa [Korean culture, literature and oral history], eds. Sŏngsu, Kim et al. , 79–118. Seoul: Dongguk University Press.Google Scholar
[Yi Yŏngil] Association of Korean Film Personnel. 1969. Han'guk yŏnghwa chŏnsa [Complete history of Korean cinema]. Seoul: Samaesa.Google Scholar
Yŏngil, Yi. 2000. “Yŏksaran chukŭn namurŭl toesallinŭn il” [To write history is to revive a dead tree]. In TRANS, 1:158–69. Seoul: Korea National University of Arts.Google Scholar
Yŏngil, Yi. 2002a. Yi Yŏngil ak'aibŭ ch'ong mongnok [A catalogue of the Yi Yŏngil archive]. Edited by Yŏn'guso, Han'guk Yesul. Seoul: Sodo.Google Scholar
Yŏngil, Yi. 2002b. Yi Yŏngilŭi Han'guk yŏnghwasa kangŭirok [Yi Yŏngil's lecture on Korean film history]. Edited by Yŏn'guso, Han'guk Yesul. Seoul: Sodo.Google Scholar
Yŏngil, Yi. 2004. Han'guk yŏnghwa chŏnsa [Complete history of Korean cinema]. Seoul: Sodo.Google Scholar
Yi Yŏngjae, . 2008. Cheguk ilbonŭi chosŏnyŏnghwa [Korean cinema of Japanese empire]. Seoul: Hyŏnsil munhwa.Google Scholar
Yu Changsan, . 2003. Yi Yŏngilŭi Han'guk yŏnghwasarŭl wihan chŭngŏnnok [Yi Yŏngil's oral testimony for Korean film history]. Edited by Yŏn'guso, Han'guk Yesul. Vol. 3. Seoul: Sodo.Google Scholar
Yun P'ongchun, . 2004. Yi Yŏngilŭi Han'guk yŏnghwasarŭl wihan chŭngŏnnok [Yi Yŏngil's oral testimony for Korean film history]. Edited by Yŏn'guso, Han'guk Yesul. Vol. 6. Seoul: Sodo.Google Scholar
Zhang Zhen, . 2005. An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896–1937. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar