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Supply-driven fim industry system in 1960s-70s and dual position of screening sector : Focused on first-run movie theatre in Seoul

Junhyoung Cho 1

1한국영상자료원 한국영화사연구소

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ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the movie screening sector in 1960s-1970s, the most important era in Korean film history. Traditionally, the movie screening sector has not been valued as much as it deserves in Korean film industry. That is because official viewpoint, discussion and policy for Korean films have been oriented toward 'production' of the 'national art'. The film production industry was recognized as having a role in the creation of the national art due to its productive nature. On the other hand, theater business and movie screening was stigmatized as a decadent business that often involved law manipulation and deviation and theater owners (and local film distributors) as businessmen with no understanding of art hindering the development and modernization of the film industry. However, after 1960s, the movie screening sector in fact had held a powerful position in the film industry. Mass production system of films, which was enforced by Park Jung-hee regime from the early 1960s, led to oversupply. The number of theaters, especially those in Seoul, was relatively fewer than the films produced, so the theater owners occupied dominant positions over producers. This kind of gap between official aim and reality hindered accurate analysis of problems in the film industry and impeded efforts for rational progress of Korean film industry. As a result, Korean film industry went into stagnation for 20 years from early 1970s. This article describes the change of dynamics between the movie screening sector and other sectors in Korean film industry. It also looks into the collapse process of the screening system unique to Korea that specified Korean-film-only theaters and foreign-film-only theaters, especially from late 1960s to early 1970s during which the Korean film boom was on the wane. By examining these points, this article explains the origins of the deep-rooted conflicts between production and screening and between production capital and commercial capital and describes the tradition of supply oriented ‘national films’that were the cause of the conflicts.

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