1970년대 영화 검열의 신문(訊問)구조와 욕동의 향배: 여인잔혹사극 <마님>(1970)을 중심으로

Abstract

This study aims to capture changes to South Korean films in the 1970s, focusing on Mistress[Manim], which tells the “cruel story of a woman in the form of historical drama” and was ranked No. 2 at the domestic box office in 1970. A”cruel story of a woman in the form of historical drama” was a type of period drama that depicted the cruel fate of a woman in the second half of Joseon and her sexual love. It has been considered a representative genre of the 1980s in South Korean film history. This genre began with Women of Yi Dynasty [Ijo Yeoin Janhogsa](1969) and revealed its aspect of a hybrid erotic historical drama in Mistress(1970). Starting in the early 1980s, erotic historical dramas became prevalent, but the hybrid tendency combined with comedy was manifested in Mulberry[Ppong](1984). In this sense, Mistress displayed such tendencies earlier than Mulberry. Amid the reinforced censorship of the 1970s, this film was criticized as a “low-grade” work for its entertaining and unfettered vitality and revised to embody “sublimation.” By examining this process, one could effectively capture changes to South Korean films in the 1970s and further identify a crack in the narrative composition of South Korean film history during the decade that was called an “era of low-grade films due to the recession and censorship.” Censorship forced filmmakers to choose between “sublimation and obscenity.” However, only what was sublimated could be externalized, meaning that censorship had a discourse structure similar to an interrogation in which a question, with a pre-determined answer, was asked. Films could only be produced under censorship in those days; thus, the interrogative structure of censorship placed a limit on governing South Korean films in the 1970s. The structure did not allow obscenity, which should not be visible, to be sublimated, preventing any connections between obscenity and sublimation. The subjects of production had to explore approaches to obscenity while meeting the requirements of censorship. In this process, cruelty for sublimation was rationalized. Even though cruelty―along with pornography―was an obscene and low-grade element, a paradox occurred wherein sublimation recommended by censorship and low-grade nature prohibited by it became symbiotic. In this triangle of obscenity, sublimation, and cruelty, excessive, dislocated, and perverted inventions emerged. A grotesque vitality was revealed. This vitality, exhibited by Mistress, however, gradually weakened in later films telling the cruel story of a woman in the form of historical drama. Instead, the rationalization of cruelty for sublimation became more prominent in films encouraged by a national policy. These findings raise a need to reconsider the dichotomy of “excellent/art/policies vs. low-grade/entertainment/commerce,” which has divided the evaluations and descriptions of South Korean films in the 1970s and stipulation of the decade as an era of darkness and stagnation.