Shin Sang-ok was a controversial film maker who produced movies in both North and South Korea during the Cold War from the 1950s to the 1980s. Shin ran ‘Shin film’ with the strong support of then Korean president Park Chung-hee, and made films with the full cooperation of and support by North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-il, under the same name of ‘Shin Film’. Yet, intriguingly, Shin Sang-ok himself said, “Although I have made numerous works in a wide range of genres, there isn’t a single movie that I was forced to make-I have always made films that I want to.” How could it be possible to produce only movies that he wanted to, and yet satisfy two opposing systems? This question begs another question on the aesthetics that moved his movies and how this quality could stir both systems at the same time.
The prominent trait of Shin Sang-ok films is the desire for creating scenes. Shin established new scenes that were not attempted in previous Korean movies. What is revealed through this is fierce pathos and resultant futility. The esthetic tendency from the early films’ experimental images, the pursuit of tragedy that collapses everything in splendid flames and the mise-en-scene that is sought after to offset the vanity and futility afterward were the elements that Shin Sang-ok desired when he created scenes.
So the spirit of the author is not related to ‘ethnic spirit’ or ‘spirit of class’. It is a ‘fierce pathos that is about to rip and jump out of the screen’, and the ‘strength that sweeps the emotion of the audience. The reason he was so absorbed in fierce scenes was that it was the art and spirit of author he believed. The immersion in the scenes that resemble a strong flame, indulgence in beauty, and pursuit for even stronger scenes to endure the vanity and futility that is left after the absorption and indulgence, was the spirit of art that dominated the entire life of Shin Sang-ok. It was a self-driven desire that could only strive for more beauty, intensity, and stimulation. In order to satisfy that desire, capital and technology were necessary. In his prime, those who held the greatest dominance over capital and technology were dictators.
Yet the self-driven desire never stops. When this becomes impossible, an artist obsessed with that desire can either die or look for other ways. That is why the close relationship between Park Chung-hee and Shin Sang-ok could only end, which came when censorship was intensified after the mid 1960s. Moreover, although Kim Jong-il invested considerable capital and technology, it only led to heroic epics based on the same pattern, and further suppressed the self-driven desire of creating scenes, making it even more difficult for Shin Sang-ok to create films under the North Korean system.