근대화의 경험

The Experience of the Modernization: Walking through the Urban Space

The experience of the city has provided important thoughts for film studies concerning how we can understand the formation of the modern world regarding the comparison between the city and cinema. I’d like to examine how the walkers moving through the city are represented in the cinemas, regarding an attitude towards modernization in terms of urban experiences focus on an Aimless Bullet(1960, Yu Hyun-mok), Homebound (1967, Lee Man-hee), and School Excursion(1969, Yu Hyun-mok). In these films, urban space is reversed into a means of expressing internal reality and the characters in tease films don't take the position of subject because of absence of gaze. I would say it is a reversed sensory discovery of the city. Only if the modernized city is being looked at they can have gaze which combined with the camera eye. By that reasons, regardless of what they take a passive or aggressive approach, the characters walking in urban space in 1960s show an attitude towards contemporary reality. modernization. An aimless bullet and Homebound are different from the School excursion in terms of cinematic forms, and way of address to the audience. But there is a common sense of reality in those films. They deny the present through their meaningless struggle to return somewhere which is always failed. I would say that this doesn’t suggest a move back to pre modern values, nor a critique of social unfairness. Rather, it seems to be surrender to the current times. We might see the origins of cinematic modernism at this point. However, whether or not it is connected to confirmation or endorsement of the modernization process is something that needs to be discussed further, taking ideological perspectives into consideration.