Naeseon Ilche and Nazi medievalism: making nation, history, and film

ABSTRACT

The present study aims to compare the cinematic propaganda of colonial Korea and Nazi Germany, revealing how the two countries used film to construct narratives of nationalism. Furthermore, this study will aid our recognition and understanding of the similarities and differences between victims and aggressors in spreading nationalist propaganda. Despite the similarities between the colonial Korean and Nazi German film industries in spreading nationalist propaganda, there are significant differences between these two countries’ ways of promoting national values: the colonial Koreans adopted transcolonial nationhood (i.e. the strategy of integrating nations), whereas the Nazis excluded minorities, such as Jews. Therefore, dichotomous evaluations of the victim and the aggressor are inconsistent with existing standard interpretations. Colonial Korea, generally known as having experienced the trauma of colonization, also engaged in cinematic fabrication and the weaponization of history, as Nazi Germany did. Propaganda films in both colonial Korea and Nazi Germany played a significant role in reconstructing their national identities. Regarding the cinematic reinvention of these national identities, we should eschew the artificial dichotomy between victims and aggressors.

KEYWORDS:

• Film propaganda
• colonial Korea
• Nazi Germany
• collective memory
• Naeseon Ilche
• medievalism

Notes

1 In the literature, researchers such as Takashi Fujitani, Nayoung Aimee Kwon, and Travis Workman have studied the connection between nation-building and cinema (Fujitani and Kwon 2013; Kwon 2013; Workman 2014). With that as the focus, the two films in this article, which have been rediscovered and made available in the past two decades, are analyzed in connection to the processes of colonial nation-making. According to Takashi Fujitani and Nayoung Aimee Kwon, “Korean filmmakers always faced the enormous challenge of realizing their artistic creativity even as they confronted the demands imposed upon them by the need to negotiate and work with Japanese filmmakers, technology, and capital” (Fujitani and Kwon 2013, 5). In such ways, like many film producers in colonized nations, Choi In Gyu worked within the imperial system and negotiated imperial policies. Two of his films, Suicide Squad at the Watchtower (1943) and Love and the Vow (1945), were collaborative efforts where he codirected with the Japanese director Imai Tadashi (Watanabe 2013). Accordingly, we must recognize their different background compared to his previous works, such as Tuition and Homeless Angels, which were produced solely by Choi In Gyu. The main characters in those earlier films were colonial children who were educated to become imperial citizens. Meanwhile, Suicide Squad at the Watchtower and Love and the Vow depicted the unity of Japan and Korea as fulfilled. Such films with so-called transcolonial coproduction warrant a careful reevaluation today, considering the need and justification for their depictions of colonial nation-making.

2 Travis Workman (2014) conducted a comparative study of late colonial Korean films, which includes in the discussions references to Siegfried Kracauer on Nazi propaganda films and André Bazin on the famous US war propaganda film Why We Fight.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yongku Cha

Yongku Cha is Professor of History in the Department of History at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, Korea. He has published, among other papers, “Thinking about the Films on Medieval Ages” (2004); History Reconciliation between Germany and Poland (2008); “Die Reformation in aktuellen koreanischen Schulbüchern” (2015); History of Borders: Adopting the Borderscape as Method (2022).