A court's judgment about the new film "The President's Last Bang" is truly dumbfounding. It seemed like things were opening up, so it is frustrating to have it seem like the judiciary is instigating a conservative lockdown on art and culture. Put simply, this is a political decision disguised as law that tramples on the ability of audiences to make their own cultural judgment.
All works of art are the product of an artist's unique imagination. Themes found in the real world are deconstructed and reinterpreted within that imagination. Works of art are re-compositions that take place through various artistic languages during that process. The same goes for movies that deal with historical incidents. It is not right to cut out a part of such a movie because it resembles reality. Including a particular scene that one would associate with a historical incident can happen because the film is a product of that artistic imagination, as reality deconstructed is re-composed.
That is why the court's ruling that the scenes from documentaries have to be removed is absurd. You're just shocked at the cultural crudeness that looks down on audiences and their discernment, since the reason for the judgment is that people might forget that the film is fiction. The documentary footage is a valuable device in guaranteeing the film, which is a black comedy, carries artistic authenticity. It is about the assassination of a president and the fateful actions of his aides, and only by having the documentary footage inserted before and after the event itself is it able to be a caricature in the form of black comedy. The director, furthermore, confesses that those scenes were his "psychological motivation for starting" the film. Such is the situation, and yet the court ordered that the film meet its audience with those scenes cut out. That is arrogance on the part of the judge, for thinking judgment needs to be made on behalf of the director and moviegoers. It might as well have used the 20th century method of prohibiting the whole film from being shown.
Today's audiences are well beyond the point where they would forget that a feature film is fiction just because it has scenes from a documentary. Is it not time Korean courts also mature beyond that cultural backwardness and show some modernity?
The Hankyoreh, 2 February 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] The Court's Cultural Backwardness |
