Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-239), filmography (pages 241-244) and index.
Contents:
Introduction -- Mood and montage in the total work of art -- Melodramatic moods from socialist realism to juche realism -- Fantastic folk : beyond realism -- National cinema and the melancholy of liberation -- Realism and melodrama in the Golden Age -- Melodrama and art cinema -- Epilogue.
Summary:
"Melodrama films dominated the North and South Korean industries in the period between liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and the hardening of dictatorship in the 1970s. The films of each industry are often read as direct reflections of Cold War and Korean War political ideologies and national historical experiences, and therefore as aesthetically and politically opposed to each other. However, Political Moods develops a comparative analysis across the Cold War divide, analyzing how films in both North and South Korea convey political and moral ideas through the sentimentality of the melodramatic mode. Travis Workman reveals that the melancholic moods of film melodrama express the somatic and social conflicts between political ideologies and excesses of affect, meaning, and historical references. These moods dramatize the tension between the language of Cold War politics and the negative affects that connect cinema to what it cannot fully represent. The result is a new way of historicizing the cinema of the two Koreas in relation to colonialism, postcolonialism, war, and nation building"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.