The Masterpieces of Yesterday, the Forgotten Today: The Short Life of the Korean New Wave
Korean New Wave refers to South Korean films from the 1980s and 1990s that focus on social issues and reimagine genre film. This category was formalized at the first Busan International Film Festival in 1996. As it gained recognition by society, South Korean cinema, long despised even by domestic au...
Salvato in:
| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/map, |
|---|---|
| Autore principale: | |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lingua: | Anglais |
| Pubblicazione: |
Mise au point
2022
|
| Soggetti: | |
| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Riassunto: | Korean New Wave refers to South Korean films from the 1980s and 1990s that focus on social issues and reimagine genre film. This category was formalized at the first Busan International Film Festival in 1996. As it gained recognition by society, South Korean cinema, long despised even by domestic audiences, rose to the level of art. However, this first South Korean New Wave was quickly forgotten, shortly after its formalization. In order to better understand this transformation, this research draws attention to the evolution of cinephilias in South Korea.The pursuit of “critical realism” and the search for cinema’s artistic value has underpinned the identity of the Korean New Wave. These central criteria for attaining the status of a new-wave masterpiece stem from the two ambitions of alternative cinema discourse: the aesthetic ambition to establish South Korea’s seventh art, and the political ambition to present itself as a counterweight to a political system deemed corrupt. This new wave is thus the result of the convergence of two opposing ambitions during the democratization movement of the 1980s. However, this did not put an end to the duel between these two ambitions. With the cultural legitimization of South Korean cinema in the 1990s, aesthetic ambition took over, putting an end to the precarious equilibrium upon which the Korean New Wave had been established. |
|---|