고전소설과 콘텐츠, 그 제작 양상과 개발의 전망 －영화콘텐츠를 중심으로

Classical Korean Novel and Its Modern Film Adaptations

Narrations of classical novels usually have provided the source for video contents in the forms of movies, TV dramas, animations. and other multi-media like comic books, games, characters, and festivals. However, the content production of classical literature has not utilized all the above means but rather been restricted to particular areas. Moreover, many of the classical novels have not experienced such productions, most of which have been applied to well-known pansori works like Chunhyang-jeon, Shimcheong-jeon, and Heungbu-jeon. Besides those pansoris, there are only two relevant novels. One is Honggildong-jeon, which projects the social issues of the time. The other is JangwhaHongryon-jeon, which deals with the family tragedy caused by a step-mother. Are there any special reasons in which these two novels have enjoyed fairly high frequency of such modifications and content productions? Above all, these works have popular narration structures so that they have not run into any serious problems with entertainment. They not only show ordinary aspects of events and characters but also describe many details of real life, both of which are quite peculiar in almost every pansori. Even in terms of modern literature, these three works stand out in successfully describing realities. As a result, the stories have been widely used as proper texts for many modifications and content productions. However, the contents of classical novels concentrate upon a couple of works. The result is that the abundance of contents would be seriously barred. It is mainly because story-telling itself will be restricted so that it does not allow the variety of stories. Although it is important to select proper works in producing contents, it is even more important to classify and categorize over 850 works of classical novels. It is possible to broadly categorize the stories of classical novels. At the same time, it is also possible to make various story-tellings by subcategorizing in terms of characters and events. The next step is to investigate various patterns of video contents of movies and dramas. Naturally, the process may reach performance contents such as changkeuk, play, madang-nori, musical, and opera. Finally, the last step is to widen the scope by including such areas as animations, characters, and games. The content development for classical novels can bear abundant fruit when it extends the depth of stories and the width of multi-media as well.