일제말기 통제영화사의 배우에 관한 연구

Abstract

For quite a some time, a film had been taken advantage by a nation, used as a mean of propaganda. At the end of the Japanese colonial period of Chosun, a controlled film company through which the government-general could control all productions and distributions was founded. Propaganda films of this company delivered the pro-war ideology of Japan to audiences of Chosun. For Colonial Chosun was regarded as a crucial source of war resources as the war was being escalated, it was needed that inculcation the ideology upon people of Chosun to mobilize the human and material resources. Cho Young, the controlled film company, was aware of the importance of a role of actors who embodied the ideology in its propaganda films at the inception of the foundation. When the actors were employed, it was required to be tested all the preconditions such as a certain level of learning, command of Japanese, career, stardom, and a thorough personal reference. The propaganda films of Cho Young were sugarcoated by stories of family. Most of them were about a volunteer and his family. They didn’t deal with a dichotomy between good and evil which had been mainly conducted in existing films of Chosun anymore. Instead, there were only the volunteer in agony who needed to make a choice between his social duty and love to the family and supporting roles who helped the main character to solve his problem. Because of this feature of the propaganda films, the actors of Cho Young underwent ups and downs of stardom. To begin with, actors whose images as a star fell in with the character in the films, such as Moon Ye Bong-the good wife and wise mother and Kim Sin Jae-the cheerful little sister, continued to take main roles and jumped to stardom. On the contrary, Kim Han famous for the role of the villain and the action star Lee Won Yong whose role had been to defeat the villains only played minor parts because there were no roles fit for their star images anymore. Additionally, young and new faces who had a command of Japanese were promoted to leading actors. It’s because Cho Young produced the films in Japanese Language and mobilization of young people to the war became the major role of screening the films. Lastly, Japanese stars played the role of generous Japanese who led the way of people of Chosun. In the propaganda films, people of Chosun could solve problems only with the help of Japanese. It is a cinematic presentation of colonial state of Chosun under Japanese reign. As Cho Young controlled all the productions in Chosun and produced the propaganda films in the same pattern repetitively, actors experienced changes of their stardom. This indicates that the star image was one of the important considerations when a nation used films as the mean of propaganda.