Im Kwon-Taek: Master Korean Filmmaker
February 5–27, 2004
Im Kwon-Taek (born in 1936 in Jangsung), South
Korea’s most celebrated filmmaker, has made close to one hundred
films since his first, Farewell Duman River, in 1962. His
direct, fluid work covers the extraordinary history and culture
of the Korean peninsula. Whether investigating contemporary morality,
Buddhism, the social restrictions constraining women, Korea’s
civil war, Japan’s occupation of Korea, the customs of past
Korean dynasties, or the practice of art, Im’s films map popular
sentiment and illuminate national concerns. Most important, they
tell good stories. The Museum of Modern Art salutes one of international
cinema’s great directors with a fifteen-film selection from
his comprehensive body of work, including his most recent film,
Chihwaseon, for which he was awarded the prize for Best
Director at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator,
Department of Film and Media, and Dong-Sin Hahn, Director, Open
Work, New York, in association with the Korean Cultural Service,
New York (Yang-Woo Park, Director). This exhibition is presented
with the assistance of the Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism,
the Korean Film Commission, and the Korean Film Archive, all in
Seoul.
.
1996. Screenplay by Yook Sang-Hyo. With Ahn Seong-Ki, Oh Jung-Hae,
Jung Kyung-Soon. The “festival” of the title is a funeral,
and the lack of solemnity at first puzzles Jun-Sup, a writer who
has returned to his hometown to bury his mother. Adding to the curious
celebration is the presence of a reporter covering Jun-Sup’s
reactions, and a prodigal granddaughter whose arrival brings chaos.
Im Kwon-Taek fashions a bittersweet portrait of traditional and
modern Korean values. In Korean, English subtitles. 108 min.
.
1986. Screenplay by Song Kil-Han. With Kim Ji-Mi, Ahn So-Young,
Lee Hae-Young. When Im Kwon-Taek’s tough-as-nails melodrama
about prostitution opened in South Korea, it carried the then shocking
tagline, “A cup of tea, a ticket to bed!” The film takes
place in a seaside coffeehouse, where waitresses provide customers
with refreshments and sex. It was considered sensational less for
its subject matter than for the filmmaker’s sympathetic treatment
of women with few options in life. In Korean, English subtitles.
100 min.
.
1993. Screenplay by Kim Myong-Gon, based on the novel by Lee Cheong-Jun.
With Kim Myong-Gon, Oh Jung-Hae, Kim Kyu-Chul. For many Americans,
this sublime film was their introduction to P’ansori,
a Korean art form in which a singer, accompanied by a musician,
tells folk stories. One day in the 1930s, an itinerant father and
daughter P’ansori team meets a young man and his
widowed mother; when the performers leave, they take the youngster
with them. In Korean, English subtitles. 112 min.
. 1989. Screenplay by Han
Sung-Won. With Kang Soo-Yeon, Jin Young-Mi. Seeking to escape her
troubled home life, a student takes refuge in a Buddhist temple
and studies to become a nun. Deeming herself unworthy after a young
monk makes advances toward her, she leaves the temple. Following
a life of some turbulence as both a wife and mother, she returns
to the priesthood. In Korean, English subtitles. 125 min.
. 2002. Screenplay by
Kim Young-Ok, Im Kwon-Taek. With Choi Min-Shik, Ahn Sung-Ki, Yoo
Ho-Jung. A portrait of Jang Seung-Up, a nineteenth-century painter
who lived like a vagabond and whose career was cut short by his
mysterious disappearance. Born a commoner, and discovered as a boy
by a sympathetic aristocrat, the artist dazzled and scandalized
the Chosun Dynasty’s ruling class with his delicate, vibrant
compositions and wanton behavior. In Korean, English subtitles.
Courtesy Kino International, New York. 117 min.
.
1987. Screenplay by Song Kil-Han. With Kang Soo-Yeon, Kim Hyung-Ja,
Lee Gu-Soon. During the Chosun Dynasty, the wife of the eldest son
of a good family cannot conceive. Her mother-in-law, determined
that her family line continue, arranges for a surrogate woman to
give birth to her grandchild. The emotional ties of the birthing
mother complicate the unhappy situation. In Korean, English subtitles.
94 min.
.
2000. Screenplay by Kim Myong-Gon. With Yi Hyo-Jeong, Cho Seung-Woo,
Kim Sung-Nyu. Based on a celebrated P’ansori (sung
narrative), Chun hyang is a popular folk story about two
lovers who are secretly wed and then separated. The young woman,
who resists the advances of a powerful man, is threatened with death.
Will her husband come to her rescue? In Korean, English subtitles.
136 min.
. 1994. Screenplay by Song
Neung-Han. With Ahn Seong-Ki, Kim Myong-Gon, Kim Kap-Soo. A portrait
of Korea’s epic civil war (1948–1953), which split families
apart and turned brother against brother. In the town of Bulkyo,
young men representing different political and social parties and
a woman who is a shaman are caught up in the maelstrom of events
that eventually sundered Korea. In Korean, English subtitles. 168
min.
.
1982. Screenplay by Song Kil-Han. With Ahn Seong-Ki, Jeong Yoon-Hee.
Im Kwon-Taek looks at village life and discovers its quiet rhythms,
modest aspirations, and hypocrisies. A young teacher is appointed
to a provincial school, where she meets someone who may not be as
simpleminded as her new neighbors would have her believe. In Korean,
English subtitles. 91 min.
.
1981. Screenplay by Kim Sung-Dong, based on his novel. With Ahn
Seong-Ki, Chun Moo-Song. Pobun, a Buddhist monk for six years, finds
it difficult to break with his past. He meets Jisan, an unorthodox
holy man who seems to have attained enlightenment, and the two men
decide to journey together. Im Kwon-Taek’s film is a rumination
on the illusion of self. In Korean, English subtitles. 117 min.
.
1987. Screenplay by Yun Sam-Yuk. With Shin Hye-Soo, Han Ji-Il, Lee
Kyung-Young. An adaptation of a popular Korean novel that follows
the sad life of a stuttering woman with a large dowry. At first
welcomed by her poorer in-laws, she is later rejected, not only
by the family into which she has married, but by her own, too. Adada
is one of Im Kwon-Taek’s strongest indictments on the position
of women in Korean society. In Korean, English subtitles. 120 min.
. 1990. Screenplay by Yun Sam-Yuk. With
Park Sang-Min, Lee Il-Jae, Shin Hyun-Joon. During the Japanese occupation
of Korea, yakuza tried to turn Seoul into a center of crime.
In resisting the gangsters, a young underground fighter—the
son of a celebrated Korean general—distinguished himself and
became a national hero. Im Kwon-Taek’s boisterous history
proved so successful that two sequels were made. In Korean, English
subtitles. 130 min.
.
1978. Screenplay by Han Eun-Sa, based on the novel by Keiji Kajiyama.
With Joo Sun-Tae, Ha Myong-Joong, Han Hye-Sook. Despite the entreaties
of a young, sympathetic official, a proud Korean patriarch refuses
to adopt a Japanese family name during Japan’s occupation
of Korea. In Korean, English subtitles. 106 min.
.
1985. Screenplay by Song Kil-Han. With Kim Ji-Mi, Shin Sung-Yil.
Two young people in the peaceful village of Gilsodom fall in love
but are separated by the Korean War. More than thirty years later
they are reunited by chance, and must decide if they can—or
want to—create the life that history denied them. In Korean,
English subtitles. 105 min.
.
1980. Screenplay by Song Kil-Han. With Kim Hee-Ra, Bang-Hee. Im
Kwon-Taek’s melodrama about national reconciliation imagines
a South Korean soldier accused of letting a North Korean guerrilla
escape toward the end of the Korean War. Obsessed for thirty years
with finding the fugitive, the soldier is finally committed by his
family to an asylum, where he finds his prey. Together, the former
enemies plan an escape. In Korean, English subtitles. 110 min.
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