멜로드라마와 한(恨)의 미학 - 「갯마을」과 「월하의 공동묘지」를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper examines the Characteristics of Han(恨) in 1960s’ films. As a term that indicates the sensations of sorrow and regret, Han was categorized in the 1950s as a Korean traditional artistic flavor that has been expressed in various literary texts. This concept was at the core of cultural discourse from the 1960s to the early 1990s, and popularized in the cinematic genres of Literary Adaptations(文藝映畵) and horror. This paper accounts for how these genres deal with this crucial cultural concept in different ways.Here, the relationship between Han and melodramatic imagination is shown to be unique in that the two were intertwined with each other to represent an emotional response to abrupt modernization process. The concepts have two common features; the mourning of the defeat of the modernization process, and the yearning to reconstruct national identity after the Korean War, which seemingly destroy many traditional values. Literary Adaptations and horror movies were prominent genres that were based on these features, and they shaped Han with their specific thematic and stylistic conventions.In Literary Adaptations, which was the main genre supporting the artistic values of cinema, Han was adopted as a way of presenting national identity through visual and auditory images. Meanwhile in horror movies, which was received as low-brow, B films, Han was characterized as begrudged sorrow(怨恨), portrayed through female ghosts’ vengeance against their victimizers.