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The Reached Critical Point and the Preserved Future ―The Settlement of Talkie and the Chain Reaction of Theaters for Joseon People in Kyungseong

  • The Journal of Korean drama and theatre
  • 2021, (74), pp.13-66
  • DOI : 10.17938/tjkdat.2021..74.13
  • Publisher : The Learned Society Of Korean Drama And Theatre
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Other Arts and Kinesiology
  • Received : October 26, 2021
  • Accepted : November 27, 2021
  • Published : December 31, 2021

Lee Kwang ouk 1

1건국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

While paying attention to the coexistence of media in colonial theaters, this paper attempted to sequentially review the chain reactions and inflection points of major production caused by the settlement of talkie. It was the distribution and theater workers who played a leading role in the history of theater culture in the early 1930s, and the gradual and careful conversion of talkie was the result of their hostile coexistence. And the rental business was a factor that allowed theater workers to have bargaining power over distributors. Meanwhile, imported talkie, which generalized the screening method using super imposed subtitles in Japanese, created audiences excluded from watching due to language barriers, and the boundaries of ethnic spaces became increasingly ambiguous. The quota system, which took effect in 1934, was recognized as an opportunity for producers of Joseon films, and the first Korean talkie Chunhyangjeon was an attempt to acquire Korean speakers who turned their backs on the film thanks to institutional guarantees. However, the "Joseon-style" pursued by Chunhyangjeon was bound to deteriorate in the process of Joseon films starting to keep the export market in mind. Furthermore, the desire of the Korean audience identified in Chunhyangjeon also provided a driving force for the birth of the Dongyang Theater. The Dongyang Theater, which advocated a exclusive theater for the play, provided a stage for theater artists who had difficulty renting after the transition to talkie. In addition, this place continues the reputation of the Joseon language oral space facing threats, and at the same time functions as a space to preserve the expected horizon that has been formed since the 1920s. The horizon of expectations based on a sense of unity and emotional interaction as a community declines with the settlement of talkie. However, this was still preserved through the play, and the birth of the Dongyang Theater, which gathered the capabilities of the popular theater industry, provided a base for this horizon of expectations to return.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.