Even though this week's focus is on the melodrama, the focus of this comment would be from the perspective of national cinema. From the text-based approach in defining a national cinema, I think it was a great example of the Korean movie since the background and the content reflected the changes that occurred in Korean pre-modern history and how Pansori, one of our tradition, could keep its life throughout lots of changes that occurred in that era. Throughout the movie, there were two unique things that I would like to point out: long shot and the use of close-up. As from the "Christmas in August", long shots were dominant across the movie, especially while showing the road while the characters were doing Pansori. The use of long shot was effective in a sense that it showed the happiness in the characters while doing Pansori, but also reflected the relaxed attitude of our previous generation, compared to the current image that Korea has in the 21st century. Another camera technique that reached out to me as brilliant was the use of close-up. At the last part of the scene when Song-hwa and Dong-ho finally met each other and did Pansori together, it was almost the first time when close-up was used to these characters, while mostly medium shots were used throughout the movie. This close-up gave me the impression that finally by reuniting with her brother, Song-hwa was able to reach to the level of voice that her father wanted, getting over the "han"(sorrowness) while singing. For Dong-ho as well, by reuniting with his sister, he was able to realize the true happiness from Pansori that his father wanted him to learn. These impressions I got was confirmed by the conversation between Song-hwa and the man who was providing her the shelter and possibly her short-term husband. Via these two techniques, long shot and close up, this movie was the best and most representative Korean movie as a national cinema.
(I am originally a student who is suppoed to comment on Monday, and writing this comment instead of the next week's comment).
[Please read this comment instead of the original one. Thank you!]
Hae Jung, Min
Even though this week's focus is on the melodrama, the focus of this comment would be from the perspective of national cinema. From the text-based approach in defining a national cinema, I think it was a great example of the Korean movie since the background and the content reflected the changes that occurred in Korean pre-modern history and how Pansori, one of our tradition, could keep its life throughout lots of changes that occurred in that era. Throughout the movie, there were two unique things that I would like to point out: long takes and the use of close-up. As from the "Christmas in August", long takes were dominant across the movie, especially while showing the road while the characters were doing Pansori. The use of long take was effective in a sense that it showed the happiness in the characters while doing Pansori, but also reflected the relaxed attitude of our previous generation, compared to the current image that Korea has in the 21st century. Another camera technique that reached out to me as brilliant was the use of close-up. At the last part of the scene when Song-hwa and Dong-ho finally met each other and did Pansori together, it was almost the first time when close-up was used to these characters, while mostly medium shots were used throughout the movie. This close-up gave me the impression that finally by reuniting with her brother, Song-hwa was able to reach to the level of voice that her father wanted, getting over the "han"(sorrow) while singing. For Dong-ho as well, by reuniting with his sister, he was able to realize the true happiness from Pansori that his father wanted him to learn. These impressions I got was confirmed by the conversation between Song-hwa and the man who was providing her the shelter and possibly her short-term husband. Via these two techniques, long take shot and close up, this movie was the best and most representative Korean movie as a national cinema.
(I am originally a student who is suppoed to comment on Monday, and writing this comment instead of the next week's comment).
Sopyonje is a story about the passion of a father who went through extreme lengths to have his daughter Yong haw achieve perfection in the art of pansori in a time of shifting attitudes and cultural values. As a viewer, I was disgusted by the treatment the daughter went through to have her father achieve his dream through her. A failure in his lifetime, and realizing that he would never achieve greatness as a pansori performer, Yu Bong pushed Yong hwa to the extremes because he believed that only through the accumulation of grief and suffering can a true pansori come through. Although Yu Bong cherished art form bonded the family together in the beginning of the film, it has also become a dividing factor within it effectively splitting the family. His efforts to make Yong hwa a perfect pansori artist appeared vain against the backdrop of a changing Korean society who was embracing more western ideals and entertainment with pansori becoming a relic of a more traditional society that did not quite fit in with the modern society that Korea was rapidly becoming. It would seem that isolation had a lot to do with the camera work as well.
Within the film, there were many still long distance shots of the characters walking through barren agricultural land and even through snow. The shots seem to represent a constant feeling of loneliness and detachment from the world with the characters traveling from one abandoned house to the next. There was also a long distance shot of Yong hwa as she watches Dong ho run away from the family beneath the tree and another scene which we presume is days or months after with her sitting beneath the same tree awaiting his return under the dead leafless tree. The scene appeared to shadow her future. She would constantly be alone, waiting until his return to her.
“Sopyonje” is a traditional Korean film that is centered around the historic Korean music genre of Pansori. This movie is interesting in that sound plays an essential role. The significance of sound in “Sopyonje” is discovered through two major means: 1) the background score which signifies time-passing and 2) the Pansori the characters perform, through which the characters are able to deliver their emotions to the audience.
First, the audience can hear the major film score of the movie when there is a transition in the time sequence. For instance, after the scene where Yubong has a quarrel with his old friends, we encounter “the three” (namely Yubong, Dongho, and Songhwa) walking along a path through the mountains. During the walking scene, we hear the background score, and suddenly the children have grown up as they are still walking behind their father. Here, the background music serves as a smooth signal to transition from one specific point of time to another, maybe about 10 years later. The role of this score at this moment is vital because without it the transition would have been rough without any melody accompanying it. This score signals time-passing in other scenes as well, such as when Dongho and Songhwa are talking about their father. The conversation topic begins with Dongho blaming his father, but as time passes, it gets to Songhwa understanding father’s situation and taking pity on him for all that he must have went through. In this case, the score is played to signify the mental growth the children are going through. As shown, the background score successfully smoothens out such scenes and aids the audience to better tune into the significant scenes involving transition in time.
Second, the Pansori sung and played by the characters is highly significant in that it tells the characters’ emotion states and allows them to communicate with the audience. Take the famous path scene for example, where the three are singing along a long path after they are kicked out of their rent house. In this unusually long scene, first the three begin walking from very far out, singing Pansori. We can feel in their Pansori that they are not in a very good mood because they just lost a place of living. However, as they approach the foreground, they begin singing louder and more joyfully as Dongho plays the drum, and they suddenly understand that they are enjoying the very moment they are singing Pansori – that what happened is not important any more. The audience here can understand the emotions of the three characters very well through the singing sound that overall plays an important role throughout the film. The traditional score with such touching melody that plucks the audience’s heartstrings and the Pansori that well-represents Korean history are significant elements of the film as a whole in “Sopyonje.”
Christine Kim I found Sopyonje very interesting. I enjoyed watching Sopyonje more than Christmas in August. This movie is such a great example of Korean cinema. The Korean elements in this movie make Sopyonje so unique. The obvious Korean element is Pansori music. The Korean traditional singing and drums gave me a great sense of culture. I personally loved the pansori singing. I’d but the movie soundtrack and listen to pansori in the car. The hanboks, foods, mannerisms (serving alcohol), way of living, and scenery all reflect on Korean culture.
The filming and camerawork of Sopyonje is very different from other movies. There are a good amount of close-ups and extreme long shots, both at opposite ends of the shot spectrum. I found the close-ups very important in the movie. Many of the close-ups appeared when the character was singing or listening to someone singing. The close-ups allowed the audience to identify the character’s emotion. In the beginning when there was a close-up on Dongoh’s face, you can see sadness and reminisce. At the very end when you see the close-up on Sunghwa’s face, you can identify that she knows the drummer is her brother. The extreme show the exact opposite, it focuses on the scenery and music rather than the character. I believe the director wanted to direct our attention to the emotion in the voice, and not on the character.
Compared to the other films we have viewed, I have the impression that Im Kwon Taek uses canted tilts and tracking shots uniquely - in particular during scenes in which characters are performing, the camera often pans around, in an even motion, to each character and shows us their changing emotions. There are also several instances during which the camera approaches from above and then lowers to eye-level, moving into a close-shot of particular characters (most often the performers). Though the camera movement in this film seems more unusual in this regard, the film nonetheless progresses very evenly and calmly. The overall calm proceeds from the fact that Im Kwon Taek, rather than use a moving camera, also frequently shoots long takes in which the camera is nearly still. For instance, during the tense exchange between father and former friend, their one-on-one conversation occurs in one take, nearly two minutes long, in which the composition of the shot doesn’t change. In other films we have seen, and quite generally in tense scenes, the heightened emotion is usually complemented with ever quickening shots depicting the characters involved. What a contrast then, that Im focuses almost entirely on Songhwa during her father’s confession that he blinded her! It takes a full minute before we even catch a glimpse of him. The longest uninterrupted scene is probably the 4-minute take/scene shown in class with the trio walking along the path singing Arirang. In Sopyonje, the camera either moves quite distinctly or not at all. As such, even the camera work subtly complements the film’s overarching themes and visual contradictions. Though Korea is busily moving ahead in time, the seasons change, styles change, tastes change, in Sopyonje we follow this man stuck in the past. Perhaps this was not intentional, but even the audio had a old-fashioned quality to it.
The film Sopyonje contains lots of korean historical background and social background. Though Pansori is one of korean folk music but it is not familiar to my generation. However, it was not at all uncomfortable to listen during the film. Also I realize that Pansori includes 'power' which conveys lots of meaning inside of it. That's the main concept of the film that director want to show to modernized people of today.
Yubong is one of old Korean father who is patriarch and conservative. He never changes his mind about Pansori and believes Pansori will dominate Korean culture in one day. However, the time is rapidly changing and modernizing. After the lost of son Dong-ho, he made his daughter blind and teach Pansori until his death. For Yubong mastering Pansori is preventing the disappearance of Pansori. So, it makes me think what we should prevent from now in our present day.
Songhwa said "I love Pansori because it makes me happy when I sing." For Songhwa, pansori is only path and purpose of her life. Unlike Yubong, she never gives up Pansori in any circumstances. The things that support her are waiting her brother and love of her brother. At Yubong's death, Yubong tell her to keep her grief in her mind to master Sopyonje. However,she release her grief after meeting her brother that represent as only defiance towards her father. Also Yubong and Sonhwa wonder aimlessly from place to place which is similar to present day of life because people today do not stay in one place but moving somewhere to success. The director might want to say the only place we can. Take a rest is our home and want people to think about necessity of being happy by ourselves.
Many things have changed and still in process of changing today. Also, lots of valuable things like Pansori or cultural asserts disappear in certain. The film Sopyonje tells looking back of past days' memorable and valuable things which created by our ancestors. Therefore, the film greatly presenting that our ancestors' passion of preserving culture of Korea.
To begin,the director’s use of long takes and close ups do a good job capturing the overall emotion and message of the story as well as the characters’ emotions. The repeated long takes of the family treading across land alone in different weathers really bring out the family’s persistence and illustrate post-war Korea’s struggle to rediscover their culture and masculinity. The addition of pansori in the longest take when they were walking through a path surprised me; the unity and happiness of the family was spontaneous and memorable despite their ongoing failed performances and journeys. Family and tradition are powerful factors that drive people forward. On the other hand, extreme close ups shots that also lasted quite long brought out the emotions within the family members. Dongho had the same sad expression everytime he played the drum, but the last time he played it with his sister was very powerful—the tears that welled up expressed his contained guilt and sorrow for his sister and the downfall of pansori. Close up shots of Songhwa also help us see her loyalty to her father and determination to preserve Korean identity; we see that tears never formed until the end when she played with her brother—showing her strength as well as the painful obstacles Korean culture has gone through.
Throughout the film, I noticed contradicting elements in scenes, sometimes subtle, that reminded us of the interaction between Korean culture and Western influence. When Yubong is drinking with his old friends, they are all wearing suits while he wears old-fashioned clothes; when Songhwa and Yubong are performing pansori, a western band disrupts their performance on a busy street; a shot showing old Korean houses in silence is disrupted by a bus driving on the street; when Yubong seeks his old pansori friend to help him sing a certain song, he is sober and drinking tea while his friend is distraught and addicted to foreign drugs. Furthermore, Yubong ignores outsiders and focuses only on pansori even though his neighbors are yelling/insulting him about “loud, annoying” pansori and when he was beaten severely for stealing a hen. The simultaneous presence of Korean and Western objects and the stubbornness of Yubong successfully represent inevitable Westernization with the remaining traces of Korean culture that will someday find way in Koreans’ lives again.
Overall, I enjoyed this film and thought it was powerful in the way it illustrated post-war Korea. It took me a while to get used to pansori, but I appreciate it more and recognize its beauty after watching “Sopyonje.”
Sopyonje focuses on the time period where Korea was going through drastic changes. Thus, we can sense that Traditional Korean culture is fading away. Clear evidence of this is portrayed through “pansori” music in the film which is a traditional music of Korea, but pansori artists are losing opportunity to perform due to the emerge of jazz music. However, by focusing on the life of a family so dependent on pansori, the movie portrays the possibility of keeping cultural aspect of the nation throughout these on-going changes. I think a specific point of the film we need to take note of is the use of the camera.
The director uses close-up on limited occasions, and they do this so when the characters are performing pansori. Particularly, they focus on the character’s face to convey the emotional aspect of the music to the audience, as Pansori is a very emotional music. Also, the close up was used towards the end when the brother and the sister finally met and performed pansori together. I believe that this decision of the director was intended to demonstrate the satisfaction and achievement felt by the brothers and sisters because they have reached their best level of pansori music. However, majority of the time, the director uses the long shot to show the full landscape and the scene. This is probably to show the Korean tradition.
Another aspect I found interesting was the change in colours of the clothes that the characters were wearing. As Yubong was reaching his death, his clothes was becoming grayer, and the daughter, Songhwa’s clothes changed from bright Orange into White both demonstrating their grief, and sorrowfulness.
The movie, Sopyonje, was directed by famous director, Im Kwon-taek. He investigates the expression of emotion through scores also known as Pansori in the film. This movie is almost like a music video which the storyline flows with the music. The long take when Dongho reminds us of his past while playing the drum in the Pansori sung by the tavern’s owner. The camera slowly pans from the tavern’s owner to Dongho’s back finally changing to a close up of Dongho’s face. He does not say anything while he listens to her songs but we notice by his facial expression that the song reminds him of something. Another example, when Dongho’s mother dies, a very long touching song sets as the background music. It’s almost like the Pansori is narrating the feelings and replacing their dialogues. Even though Pansori is usually a song made with old tales and some of them not having any lyrics the music played from the Pansori sounds like the humming and wailing of a human. Just like in any melodramas, the background music takes a big role in setting the mood of the movie even if there are no dialogues. The Pansori takes the role of narrator and director in that it directs the emotions of the characters and makes a cohesive story out of them.
Sopyonje encompassed some of the very basic and reoccurring aspects of melodrama. There is the general feeling throughout the movie of 'han', some incredible sorrow that cannot be expressed through words alone. We start with Dongho, who we can tell is searching for someone. From the closeups we get of his face while he listens to the inn keeper sing, this separation from his past has caused him a lot of pain. From here the story unfolds with tragedy after tragedy being laid out before us. Yubong's second wife dies in childbirth, two adopted children grow up with a harsh spartan father, the family is constantly in poverty, the future of pansori seems bleak, Dongho runs away, Songhwa is blinded by her own father, and finally Songhwa and Dongho find each other, only to decide that leaving the han there is what is best. All this han would cause many people to break, but particularly for Songhwa, this han has brought her what she has been striving for all her life. Incredible pansori talent. In my mind, I related this to the resilience of the Korean people. Being victims of war, colonization, and separation, Korea is no stranger to han. However, those incredibly difficult times as explained by Bruce Cumings, were what inevitably made Korea the powerhouse it is today. If any movie can claim to be an example of national Korean cinema, I would say Sopyonje would be a great pick. Sopyonje satisfies all four ways of defining national cinema according to Higson: in economic terms, in stylistic terms, the audience, and the immersion of heritage into the film. The film managed to bring the Korean people back to its roots by selling just as well as the inflow of Hollywood flicks and also taking some of the spotlight away from the growing realm of kpop. The cinematography of the movie is quite simple compared to those of the movies we have watched so far. I cannot recall any sort of special effects or particularly fancy camera work. The film sticks mainly with long shots, particularly those of the family walking to and from their destinations and very simple soundscapes, the actors' voices usually being the main source of music. This way of using the camera allows the audience to focus on the mise-en-scene of each carefully thought out frame and highlights the talents of the actors rather than the film effects, which I think was an asset of Sopyonje.
In Im Kwon-Taek’s 1993 film "Sopyonje" a common theme of old vs. new arises throughout the film. In 1990’s Korea, the old ways of life are now being met with new western ideals and rapid development. Traditions such as “pansori” are being forgotten, and in their place are new innovations and technology. In the film this can actively be seen when the family of three are singing in the streets and a band of brass instruments walks by, completely drowning out the noise of the singers. These instruments are common in the western culture and are used to represent a literal fading of Korean traditions.
Another interesting scene that shows this fading of the past is when the family must find refuge and a place to practice in a worn down home on the outskirts of town. The home is missing walls and parts of its roof. Clearly run down and unfit to live in, it is the only place where their “pansori” music still lives. When the film begins, there are long scenes of nature shots, showing the beauty of Korea, but towards the end of the film, these scenes are replaced with shots of ships and cars, representing the rapid development of the small nation. The filming style also recalls an earlier time in Korean cinema, and left me feeling that the film was even older than 1993.
Single parenting is not easy. Of course I have never had a child but from what I hear and notice, raising a child is not a simple task especially if you have two children to take care of by yourself. Yubong’s heavy duties of being the father of Songhwa and Dongho is clearly portrayed through the economic hardships the family faces in Sopyonje. The burden is further emphasized as we find out neither child is actually related by blood to Yubong since both kids each came from different mothers that had previously gave birth to them. Personally, this was the only aspect of the movie that allowed me to sympathize Yubong’s situation. Who cares about stepchildren? Why the need for time and effort to nurture children that are not of your ‘own’? These questions are obviously not ethically acceptable. Yet as an audience watching this movie, I felt that it was the only answer to why Yubong becomes outrageous when he is not impressed with Songhwa and Dongho. What kind of a parent slaps his daughter’s face just because she does not behave ‘correctly’ when being cornered with no other option but to pour drinks to an adult? Perhaps this may not be true with the kind of characteristics that Yubong convey, but had Songhwa been blood-related to Yubong, consequences might have been different for her. Physical abuse such as spanking and whipping has been a great part of Korean parenting. However, Yubong’s violent behavior of slapping his daughter’s face certainly seems controversial. Moreover, ‘alcoholic fathers’ tend to be a reoccurring motif. Although the scene of Yubong and his ex-colleague’s gathering at the local bar does not include Songhwa and Dongho being directly influenced, the troublesome situation takes place when Yubong returns home. While throwing the bag of oranges on the floor to tell his children to eat, Yubong arrogantly lectures at Dongho’s lack of rhythmical and technical skiills when playing the drum. From what we see, Dongho is a young and naïve kid that has no other choice but to play the drum since this role is the only way he can help out the family. Thus should a child so young, already accomplishing his duties, not be complimented for this? Coming home drunk like an animal and yelling at your child is definitely not the best attitude a parent can deliver. Adults are known to set examples especially in times of adversity, yet Yubog’s stubborn characteristic ultimately leads Dongho to run away from home.
The film Sopyonje shows tradition of old Korea very well. The setting of this film is around early 1960’s which is after Japanese colonial period. The director of this film, Kwon Taek Lim, is trying to show progression and unity of people and Songhwa's family through 'Pansori'. The starting scene of the film Sopyonje is where the protagonist Yu Bong is singing Pansori at local noble’s birthday. In this scene, camera holds variety of people from each social classes all together enjoying Pansori, through pan movement. This film definitely contains a lot of detail which can only be noticed by older generations and those who are interested in Korean history. These details would be such as medicine man (Yakjangsu), difference in social classes and the word 'han', which was translated grief in the movie. The word 'han' has much more meaning than grief. It is like a rock placed in the chest built over time with tears. The female protagonist , Songhwa, tries to embrace her ‘han’ to have the best mind moving voice.
In this particular film, there are quite a number of distance shots with and without pan movement of camera. A very long take was used when family of Songhwa is dancing down the dirt road singing 'Arirang', the most famous traditional Korean song. This is the only scene where all three of them are smiling and actually enjoying Pansori regardless of getting true sound by overcoming the grief, han. The most of long takes with distance shot is used when Songhwa's family is moving from places to places to look for job or to train for Pansori. The backgrounds of these distance shots show beautiful landscapes of Korea and the protagonists are the only one walking down that road. I believe this symbolizes Yu Bong and Songhwa's decision to keep traditional Korean sound, Pansori, when others adapt to new culture that comes from Japan and US such as suits and pop songs.
In the film, Sopyonje, important camera techniques and themes can be found.
One of the noteworthy camera techniques utilized in the film is extended use of extreme long shots. In a way, the shots attempt to create enough time to illustrate the scene (as well as the sound of pansori) and to delineate a long, empty journey. As the scene is seen from afar in a relatively lengthy period, it becomes easier to sense the long and empty field as well as to appreciate pansori. One can conjecture that the scene is foreshadowing the difficulties that may arise with practicing the music. Another example of the use of extreme long shots is when Dong-ho is running away from his family. From a distance, the viewer can see Dong-ho’s sister, who has no option but to weep as her brother runs away. In the scene, Dong-ho looks back every now and then to see if his sister is still there. The shot takes time to clearly express a mood of loss and grief stemming from the tragic separation.
An interesting theme shown in the film is Korean society’s ‘obsession’ with inmaek or in English, connections. The reason why Yu-bong cannot succeed is that he was abandoned by his mentor, who assumedly had profound influence in the pansori community. In Korean society, where connections are quite important in getting into a particular field of profession, a quarrel with a guru will undoubtedly mar one’s career in that industry. The fact that Yu-bong was caught sleeping with his mentor’s mistress was more than enough to have his reputation tarnished. In the end, he was forced to leave and could not complete his training to become a professional.
In addition, there is a recurring theme of the phasing out of pansori. This is first established through the extreme close-up of the calligraphy. The purpose of this shot is later explicated when a friend of Yu-bong, a calligrapher, comments that pansori is losing out to Japanese Enka and American popular music. Another instance where this theme is displayed is when Yu-bong disrupts his children’s performance, an event aimed to attract buyers of a newly released medicine. His employer shouts in contempt that he has already planned to replace the pansori performance with that of violin. The overshadowing of pansori is foretold when Yu-bong and his children move to a new village. On the first day of their arrival, they witness a large troop of modern instrument player, garnering many enthusiastic audiences. Again, there is a sense of bitterness over the fact that pansori is no longer popular.
Upon watching Im Kwon-taek’s Sopyonje today, I found it very tedious yet interesting. First of all, the film is very long and slow. There aren’t too many characters in the film and the story is relatively predictable with couple exceptions, which I thought was interesting. I have also learned a lot about my culture through this film. I didn’t even know Korean traditional folk songs were called “pansori”, which doesn’t sound Korean at all. The period is set long time ago after Korea was free from Japanese sovereignty and when Korea was going through rapid growth of modernization; we could see people wear the old hanboks and obviously the performances of pansori, slowly fading away. I think Im Kwon-taek wanted to emphasize the values of tradition specifically, passion through the film. The film was made in 1993, where Korea was going through extreme modernization. As in the film, the tradition of pansori has been going old fashioned yet the director wanted to show audiences the passion created via Yubong and Songhwa. As for the directing, Im Kwon-taek has used many of the basic but unique camera works.
One of the most common camera works the director uses is long shots and close ups. Throughout the film, long shots are taken when Yubong, Songhwa and Dongho are travelling. It’s sort of like a side way or panoramic shot when they are walking on the fields as the audiences are exposed to a sideway perspective; it is an extreme long shot because the camera is not moving. Another common and unique technique the director uses is a zoomed out shot of a scene, where only the surroundings are shown and then almost immediately a character appears. The director also uses close up shots. One example is towards the end when Dongho finally finds Songhwa and they both do the pansori. During this scene, we can see the camera closing up on Shonghwa’s face and also Dongho’s face. One of the best shots in the film is when the director uses a long take shot. It’s the scene where Yubong, Dongho and Songhwa are walking down a path while singing as a united family. Here, the director uses a long take until the song is completely finished, which then cuts off and continues with a different scene. Overall, the film is a unique piece because the camera works are different than the other films we have seen. It’s not really my type of film, but I did enjoy learning about my own culture.
June Wie Sopyonje was an interesting film that revolves its characters aroung "pansori". This film seemed to have lots of traditional Korean aspects. The most obvious would be the pansori singing, but there were other cultural aspects such as the hanbok or the calligraphy that made appearances throughout the movie. There were definitely cultural changes that were occuring during this time period. The calligrapher at one point says that pansori is dying and although the main characters wore traditional clothing many people around them wore western styled clothing. When Song-hwa asks the callligrapher for a drawing near the end of the movie I thought it was symbolic of her love for tradition and pansori. Song-hwa's father Yu-bong was a very powerful character that seemed to have many flaws that I disliked but at the same time I didnot hate him because his passion and desire to keep pansori alive was so strong. However, making Song-hwa blind or using much of the family money on alcohol were obvious mistakes that he made. I thought it was interesting that he talks to Song-hwa about making her go blind when he is nearing death. And of course he talks about pansori until his last moments. This movie was very interesting and I felt that there was so much emotion in the pansori and the expressions of the characters.
In the movie "Sopyonje," several things stood out to me. I was quite surprised to see that there was a sex scene, and a child-birthing scene in this movie. I thought that movies filmed during the late 1900s were still relatively conservative, so considering the time period during which this movie was filmed and shown, I thought those scenes were out of place. Furthermore, I don't think the sex scene furthered the plot, or showed anything relevant to the story, especially since little Dongho watched on while it happened. This scene was unnecessary.
There were many extremely long takes in this movie, whether it was just of a close-up on someone's face, or of the scenery. I think the director used these to emphasize the "pansori" music, because during many of the long takes, the characters were singing. Also, the long takes of scenery, during which the characters were walking or singing, showed a contrast to the city life that they didn't have. "Pansori" is considered an old type of singing, and they were shown walking in the countryside hills, which is considered old when compared to city life with buildings.
Songhwa's clothing color also changed during this movie. In the beginning when she was singing happily with her brother and father, her clothing was quite colorful and bright, and fit her well. After a while, the clothing was too short on her, and after her brother left, her hanboks were black and white. It was only after her father died and she sang in restaurants that her clothing changed back to colors, albiet dark ones. Perhaps this symbolizes her feelings for "pansori" music. In the beginning, she said she loved to sing because she felt happy when she sang, and happiness is usually indicated by bright colors. However, after her brother left, she stopped singing and even refused to eat. This could be symbolized by black. Lastly, in the end she finally achieved her father's goal for her of overcoming her grief to become the best pansori singer. She had experienced so much grief in her life, and had learned to overcome it in life and in her singing, so this could be represented by dark colors.
The film ‘Sepyeonje’ was an old movie mainly contains the story about pansori. The movie is mostly showing the scene of characters singing, not the acting part. It was a good movie in the way that expressed Korean’s soul and feelings by pansori which is one of the traditional things in Korea. I did feel touched in some part from protagonists singing with having resentment In the movie, the unique kind of technique was outstanding. There were a lot of remarkable long take shot in the movie. The scene where the family is walking down the field while singing, camera absolutely showed the great skill of a long take shot. Without moving a camera around, it just captured the movement of the characters. Camera is shooting at the end of the road and the characters are on the beginning of the road. It made me to concentrate more on the singing which acts as important factor in the movie as well it expanded the sadness of the song. This effect did make more precise emotional response to the movie I think. Additionally, even this quite long scene did not show any particular actions, it was not boring at all surprisingly. One more interesting things was that camera remains until the character disappears and to continue their trip. The long take shot appears not only in this part but also appears in many scenes of the movie. For example, when Dongho leaves the family and when Songhwa is practicing her pansori skills with Yubong, camera captures the all three people together from long distance. Long take shots in this movie absolutely stands out which might have made the movie boring. The interesting factor of this movie is the way how story unfolds. It starts with the main character Dongho in the present, looking for his sister that he left a long time ago. He meets the woman in the inn and hears the news about her sister. The recall of woman’s memory leads to the flashback of Dongho and the scene moves to the past. It takes the form of rahmennovelle which shows the past and the present back and forth. With retrospection, the story goes over and over which even gave the tension since the ending comes close. The movie mostly goes along with the recalling of memories leading to another recall of memories. Overall, the film had lots of interesting factors over boring settings.
“Sopyonje” was an emotionally appealing melodramatic movie that consisted of limited number of camera techniques and slow progress of the plot. Throughout the movie, I noticed how the director incorporated a lot of static and extreme long shots while using close-up shots only for several key moments. Even when the characters are singing Pansori together or engaging in a conversation, there are not many close-up shots used. Most of them are usually medium or two/three shots as the director did not wanted to put audience’s focus on one character. I believe that he wanted to highlight how the characters interacted with each other and how their surrounding looked like rather than focusing on each character’s emotional development. Not only are long-shots used to show the audiences and the atmosphere of the event during Songhwa’s Pansori singing, but also extreme long shots are used in times when the family travels to a different place. There is one long take where both Songhwa and Yubong sing Pansori together. Even though the camera remains static, the characters move closer and closer to the camera as they sing while walking through the maze. I find this long scene interesting as the camera remains motionless while the characters continue to walk and eventually pass the camera. In many of the scenes, I see how not many shots are included in one scene. Rather, the camera does not move and is usually positioned in a way so that all the characters can be seen from that location. For instance, in the scene with the men and two women drinking, we see how the camera remains unchanging for a very long time until one of his friends leave. This seemed interesting as many of the modern films today incorporate various shots in one scene to show the lively and dynamic nature of the movie. The director may have purposely included few shots in one scene as it ties well with the slow progress of the storyline and the gloomy and melodramatic nature of the movie overall. In one of the family’s travel scene, I noticed motivated camera movement in which the camera does not stay static but rather follows the movement or walking of the characters. Close-shots are used very few times throughout the movie when the characters are engaged in a serious conversation or at one moment when Songhwa sings Pansori the whole night with Dongho beating the drum. When she sings alone in the beginning of the film or when with her father, close-shots are never used to show her facial expressions. Rather, the audiences and her surrounding are filmed. However, in this scene towards the end, extreme close shots are used as her emotions showed her inner grief, cries, and a slight happiness that were considered more important than her surroundings. In terms of the audio part of the movie, since it is a kind of a musical film, most of the sounds included are diegetic in which they are from the objects or people from the movie. I thought that Pansori only meant a dream, goal, hope, and happiness to Songhwa. It was something that she wanted to continuously learn and improve on. It was something that brightened her life and kept her living as she seemed most happy and serious while singing. Also, in the scene where she sings Pansori together with her father while traveling to a different place, I realized how it played as a unifying factor that connected them together. However, after she becomes blind from her father’s intentional malicious act, Pansori seemed to represent cure and elimination of inner grief. It was something that helped her forget about her inner sadness for a moment. It helped heal her as the lyrics mostly reflected her feelings toward her father.
One of the continuing motifs used by Im Kwon-Taek in the film Sopyonje, is the constant usage of long shots to show off Korean scenery. Korea is quite famous of its beautiful historic sceneries, such as mountains and natural landscapes, and this films heavy usage of long shots clearly depict the remarkable beauty of the nation. At the beginning of the film there is a large presence of old traditional Korean culture and pansori as depicted by the han-boks worn, the straw huts, and farming techniques. It’s as though the film was set in ancient Korea and not the 1900’s. As the film progresses, modernization and industrialized society begins to overshadow traditional aspects, such as in the restaurant when there are several people wearing modern clothing in the sea of han-boks, the marching band drowning out the pansori singers, and even transportation methods. The long shot of their crumbling house when Dongho runs away and when father and daughter are unable to perform at a party is the full transition of the “death” of pansori. The passion that fueled pansori as burned out, along with the daughter’s sight. As pansori has died out, so has traditional Korea and this is represented in the scene where the once famous pansori singer is now an opium addict.
At the end of the film when Dongho and his blind sister are singing the ballad of Sim Chung, the close-up shots of their faces reveal the intense emotions and internal grief both characters are feeling. This scene reveals the “rebirth” of pansori as both brother and sister overcome their grief and allow their past experiences to take center stage and convey the emotional turmoil of the Korean people and the turbulent history that embodies the true nature of pansori.
In “Sopyonje,” director Im Kwon-taek successfully uses many static and long-shots to show the struggle of maintaining cultural nationalism versus the adaptation to the ever modernizing country. To me, the nationalism that was portrayed throughout the film struck out far more than the film being a melodrama. Through the use of pansori as a medium, the director was able to show the nationalistic pride of Korea’s culture and traditions despite the modernization and westernization of Korea. This theme of national pride and traditional cultures needing to strive and survive stuck out the most to me as pansori was clearly a huge part of the film. It was so important to Yu-bong that he went as far as making Song-hwa blind to make her feel so much grief that when she successfully overcame it, her sound when she sang would be his idealized pansori sound.
The long shots of the family traveling also stuck out to me. Not only did it show the traditional houses and fields of Korea, it showed a family full of perseverance fighting to maintain the traditions of pansori alive. I felt like his message was clear in these scenes, that nationalism and tradition of the Korean culture should not be forgotten due to the changes of the modernized country. Another long-take that clearly showed this struggle between tradition and the “old” culture versus the “new” was perfectly depicted by the scene when Yu-bong, Dong-ho, and Song-hwa are performing on the streets and the few audience members they have leave to watch a group of performers playing western instruments come strolling through the street. This obvious struggle with the pansori losing show that the country is slowly moving away from not only pansori but the “old” culture in general. He shows through Yu-bong’s perseverance that this culture should be remembered and preserved as it is a part of Korea. Overall I enjoyed the film, but I felt that the pansori sound that was played throughout the film was a little hard to digest as it is not the type of music that I am used to.
In Sopyonje, long, static shots were frequently used throughout the film in a manner that helped emphasize one of the major themes that dealt with a loss of tradition in a world with a mentality of out with the old and in with the new. Pansori is the symbol of Korean tradition that Yubong tries to preserve by teaching the recitation to Songhwa and the drums to Dongho. Many of the long shots consisted of farmlands and agricultural areas through which Yubong,Dongho, and Songhwa wander through from job to job. Initially, the scenery long shots of the family walking start off very picturesque and serene, but gradually as time passes, each scene with the group wandering gets darker, the background scenery becomes more barren, and the seasons change from what seems to be spring or summer to fall and winter. The most obvious change visually between the long, static walking scenes, is between the scene, which is quite possibly the longest take in the entire film, in which the whole family is happily singing an arirang pansori song together through a field on a sunny day, and a later scene in which only Yubong and Songhwa are walking on a cold, snowy winter day.
In the first scene, both Yubong and Songhwa are happily singing a Pansori song together while Dongho plays the drum to their singing. The length of this scene emphasizes a sort of perfect picture of the family and how singing together and performing together is the only source of happiness required. In addition, they're singing the first song that Yubong taught them when they were children. This scene represents a rather innocent outlook that the family has initially of being able to make a living through traditional singing. One of the lyrics of the song that both represents this family's attitude as well as foreshadows a bleak future is something along the lines of "it's an unhappy world, but we keep smiling." It's essentially the attitude that Yubong, Songhwa, and Dongho have in an ever-changing world that's phasing out tradition for newer trends, Pansori might be less and less popular over time, but if they continue to perform and do it well, they could still be happy. This changes completely by the latter scene in which there is both an absence of song as well as Dongho. The meaning of the song lyrics changes as well. What once was an unhappy world that the three Pansori performers could face together, that world became an unhappy reality for Songhwa and Yubong after Dongho left after deciding there was no future in Pansori anymore.
Sopyonje made use of Pansori music, a tradition of Korea to reflect how much the era has changed since then. Sopyonje talks about how the father uses different ways to improve his daughter skills in Pansori. I personally felt that the method that the father used towards his daughter was too extreme. The treatment of the father towards his daughter eventually results the brother, Dong Ho to leave and cause a division in the family. The movie has showed how fast the Korean society is evolving from a traditional society to a modern society.
Throughout this movie, the director makes use of long distance shots to express the emotions of the characters. In the movie, there was one really long scene that lasted for a few minutes where Song Hwa, Dong Ho and Yubong were on a big path and they just got kicked out of their previous house. At the beginning of the path, only the father, Yu Bong was singing the Pandori, as they approached nearer to the camera, Song Hwa started joining in the Pandori and Dong Ho started playing the drums. The scene actually helped to reflect how much they enjoyed Pandori together. There were also long distance shots of them shifting from one house to another. These shots actually gave the feeling of abandoned, coldness and disappointment in them.
Furthermore, the director also makes use of close up shots to emphasize on certain moments. At the last few minutes of the movie where Dong Ho finally found Song Hwa and started playing the drums and singing together. The director make use of close up shots to express the feelings that Dong Ho have for being able to find Song Hwa after a long time. The shots help to show the amount of energy they put into the singing, which allow us to feel how much they enjoyed doing this together. The lyrics being sang by the characters reflected a lot about their emotions and allowed the audience watching to relate and understand better about the movie.
The film Sopyonje by director Im Kwon-taek narrates the story of a brother, Dong-ho, who is in search of his sister, Songhwa. During the trajectory of Dong-ho finding his sister, their story of how they grew up is being told in a series of memories.
These memories begin not far from the initiation of the film. The first scene in this movie is an establishing shot that captures the setting of the film. In that establishing shot there is the view of a peasant village. Having this village as the establishing shot is important because it provides information of the people’s economic status, way of living, and culture. Moreover, the color filter utilized in this establishing shot, which can be described as high-key lighting, is used to portray the essence of a historical period/past. As the moving camera pans to a long shot, the audience can see more clearly the village. However, the importance of this is that the camera moves in into Dong-ho’s face, which tells the audience that he is one of the protagonists of the film. As of now, the film has stayed in the present time, but once the camera is taken to inside the room where Dong-ho sits with a Pansori singer, the memories of Dong-ho and Songhwa’s childhood begin to be told.
In this scene the director utilizes a warm color filter that is used to separate the transition from the present and the past. As the story returns to the past, the color filter changes to a high-key lighting. This scene begins with Dong-ho asking the Pansori if she knows how to sing Pansori, as a return she begins signing the story of Dong-ho’s life. As she begins to sign, the camera slowly begins to pan around the actors. Until the camera turns into the close up of Dong-ho’s face, does the audience begins to experience a sense of flashback. After the close-up there is a cut to the follow-up shot of Dong-ho’s face when he was a little child. At this moment, the color filter of the film changes to a high-key lighting. In conclusion, this is the first moment where the audience experiences the way the film is going to be structure; structure as a series of flashback memories.
This film generally gives a lot of attention on the traditional Korean art of Pansori and this Pansori is somehow symbolic for South Korea, which is a part of South Korea’s history, symbolizing that South Korea has overcome a history of suffering to achieve the status that they have now presently. It is similar to how Yu Bong believes that “You must suffer a lot to be a Pansori musician”. In general, the film also emphasizes on Yu Bong’s status in the family as a father and how he exerts patriarchial power by forcing his children to learn the art of Pansori. This is even more evident in the way he trains his daughter, Song Hwa. The director, Im Kwon-taek, explicitly lets the audience know that this film’s main attention is on Pansori in the shot that is just minutes into the film, where the lady boss of the inn at which Dong Ho goes to sings Pansori and tells him that she learned this art from Song Hwa. There is a transition back to the past as she sings the Pansori and the audience is introduced to Yu Bong, who is seen to take a lot of pride in this art that he is practicing as during the shot where he performs the Pansori, there is a close-up shot of his side-view, emphasizing on the beads of sweat trickling down his face and signifying how much effort he puts into carrying out this form of art. It also symbolizes how tiring this art actually is and requires so much of his effort.
Later on in the film, when Song Hwa and Dong Ho have both grown into adults, there is a scene in which Song Hwa performs to a group of men with seemingly higher social status. In this scene, there is an emphasis on the actual status of women, who are just objects in which men show sexual desires and not appreciating her for her actual talent as an entertainer. This once again brings out the gender and social status of women in society, which also resonates throughout the entire film, where Yu Bong intentionally makes Song Hwa lose her sense of sight and making her all dependent on him. This portrays Song Hwa as a helpless lady who is dependent on her father, being led by her father using a rope, which reminds me of an image of a master leading a servant or even a dog. In addition, in the shot where Yu Bong, Dong Ho and Song Hwa sing the Pansori together while they walk down the path, the shot is extremely long and at the end, even after all three characters leave the scene, there is a lingering of the shot which seems to signify the bleak fate of this art and symbolizes that this form of art is disappearing. There is a certain sense of powerlessness in them as they are also seen to be travelling around and during such scenes, they are filmed at a very long distance against the vast surroundings, which make them seem small and powerless. This also serves to bring out the fact that this art is indeed dying off.
The movie Sopyonje has various interesting visuals throughout the film that enhances the manner in which the script is being told. Right away we are thrown into this conflict during Dongho’s childhood of his innocence being taken away by the sight of his mother and Yu-bong getting sexually active with no concern of his presence. It was interesting to see that even though Dong-ho is a short little kid, the camera is tilted downward from his perspective giving us this frame of curiosity, discomfort, or possibly even shame that the two adults awoke him from his sleep for their selfish desires. However, I found it ironic that later on he questioned Songhwa about a verse having to deal with getting pregnant and the obvious manner of sex. The awkward moment between the two “siblings” gave us this illusion of two children who have lived a sheltered life instead of the two adult present. It seems that when growing up, the focus of Pansori was so important that Yu-bong neglected to introduce anything that may have been considered a distraction such as love.
Another repeating theme that I commonly noted throughout the film was the extreme long shots during their journeys. The long takes of the three just crossing the screen seemed almost as though they were continuously walking through a straight hallway. Yet, every time that the family was fired or had to leave from a job we were still given a long shot but the family would be walking downhill. It seems that this walk down the hill created this boundary of class, separating the modern money dwellers from those in the low-class trying to keep tradition alive. It also became a symbol for every time the three performers hit a new low; the slow loss of their pride and glory that led to their separation.
Throughout Sopyonje, Director Im Kwon-Taek explores the growing obsolescence of a pastime in a new age. Through the combined usage of extreme long shots and long takes, Im establishes a powerful connection between nature and pansori, which represents a lifestyle of a passing time. In one scene, when Yubong, Dongho, and Songhwa are travelling on a road through a hilly field, Im chooses to film an extreme long shot in one long take, which emphasizes not only the breath-taking expanse of the landscape, but also the magnified voices of pansori. Through this, Im creates a sense of peace and tranquility, fostering a sense of nostalgia for a time when things were simple and art could be pursued not for the sake of food and money, but for the satisfaction of the art itself.
The nostalgia is fully culminated in the scene directly following this journey, in which the modern lifestyle of the drinking men clashes with the more traditional values of the pansori singers. The juxtaposition between these two worlds is ironic because even though the modern men are supposed to represent a new time period, Yubong is the one who embraces a more liberal idea of equality between “noblemen and peasants”. Yet as we see, the modern men confirm the fact that social classes will always exist, regardless of time and place. This discordance is a literal and figurative expression of the incompatibility between two different time periods and lifestyles, which further establishes the chasm growing between pansori and the present world. In turn, this disconnect further proves that this nostalgic lifestyle and art form is becoming obsolete.
"Sopyonje" is one of the early films that deal with a very Korean traditional subject of Pansori. As shown in the film, pansori is closely related to the Korean concept of "Han" which is the feeling that stands in between anger and regret. Han is often characterized by some experience or incident that makes a person extremely sad and difficult to live the rest of her life. Pansori songs are often sad stories or narratives of those experiences, and, therefore, han is treated as an essential element of the song. Like the Father in the movie, han often naturally arises in the minds of pansori singers, who are homeless and constantly wandering around and being treated like animals. However, as the daughter seems to lack such a soul in her singing, the father assumes that it is because she has had a satisfying life and decides to make her blind to add up her han. In the end, nevertheless, what really fills her han into pansori is the missing of her brother and father and her loneliness. There are numerous scenes throughout the film that capture the path, moving, and the endless journey of the pansori family. In fact, the film opens with the scene of the father arriving in a new town and closes with the scene of the brother leaving a town. These symbolize the lives of wandering pansori singers. Through the rivers, forests, and various towns, they constantaly move around, no matter what season it is: spring, summer, fall, and winter as well. They are not obsessed with the "modern" idea of earning as much money as possible. Instead, they rather see themselves as professionals who carry out a valuable Korean traditional music that should be heard by many others. Nonetheless, as depicted in the scene in one of the towns, many Korean traditions, including pansori, have begun to receive less respect and attention and to even disappear gradually by Westernization or Modernization. The overkill of the music band over pansori with its loud instruments from the West such as drums and trumpets demonstrates that pitiable phenomenon.
Sopyonje A director of Sopyonje, Kwon-Taek Im succeeded in depicting a beautiful sound of the traditional Korean music called Pansori to the audiences through Sopyonje. After watching the film, I felt the director Im’s admiration and pity for Pansori which was losing its place in music industry and Korean people’s interest in 1990s when the film was released. I think the film very well conveyed Pansori’s beauty and Koreans’ grief of life back then. Sopyonje suggests and describes a sense of Korean nationalism as well as Korean native culture and sentiment. The whole setting including the landscape, costumes, and houses in the film builds up the importance of the Korean culture and tradition, particularly Pansori. Youbong’s passion, love, and dedication to Pansori led him to teach Pansori to his son and daughter for rest of his life. Through continuation of wandering and singing Pansori, they had to endure harsh conditions such as disdain/ignorance from people, appearance of popular Western music, and failure to earn lots of money. After Dongho runs away from his, Youbong makes Songhwa blind to keep her with him and give a grief to her so that she can sound better and express sincere emotions when singing Pansori. Youbong’s such behavior implies how he cares about Pansori and how he wants Pansori to be passed down through the generations in Korea. Throughout the film, there are many songs of Pansori such as simchungjeon, prison song, arirang, sopyonje, and so on. Pansori plays a remarkable and pivotal role in providing a joy to a desperate family and in delivering one’s emotion without conversation. A long-take scene where the family in a desperate situation walks and sings continuously is a very remarkable scene in that it illustrated Pansori creating a joyful and lively mood to the family. Also, surprisingly, arirang, a song that they sing along for more than 5 minutes straight in the film did not bore me out. I think this is what Im tried to tell the audiences: that Pansori is a beautiful and precious sound that is unique in Korean tradition. The other scene that depicts Pansori’s own beauty is a scene where Dongho and Songhwa sing simchungjeon together after they were separate for many years. While singing simchugjeon, Songhwa notices it is Dongho who plays a drum and they both express their emotions through singing with both of their eyes filled with tears. They are able to communicate and deliver their feelings to each other just by singing Pansori. Also, Songhwa feels an ease to her grief while singing. Im’s attempt to show the greatness and beauty of Pansori succeeded throughout the film. Another thing which I think is important in the film is the meanings of the road. Youbong’s family walks the road years and years, wandering and seeking for opportunities to deliver Pansori’s beauty to many people. The long road where the long take scene is taken has many rocks that might make the road tiring to be walked. Such condition represents what the family is going through: no house, no money, and no hope. However, if one takes a close look on the road, the road seems to be warm and cozy. Despite the hard circumstances, there are warmth and happiness within the family by singing Pansori. I think the road represents a lonely and effortful journey of keeping Korean traditional culture and turning a grief into an artistic and touching sound of music. A last scene of the film where the blind Songhwa and her daughter walks a road in the cold winter foreshadows a continual effort of passing down Pansori to another generation. This is Im’s intention of telling the audiences that they should not lose this beautiful Korean traditional music, Pansori and keep passing it down to generations in Korea.
In Sopyonje, Im Kwon-taek illustrates differences within South Korean society. The film draws upon the gaps between social classes as one of its sources of conflict. During the beginning of the film, Yu-bong’s girlfriend’s family did not approve of him for their daughter because he was a low class musician, implying that their daughter was too good for him because of their wealth and standing. This situation demonstrates the universal theme of how differing social classes is a barrier in relationships. This gap between social classes is again displayed during one of their pansori performances. When the men hit on Song-hwa and make her pour one of them a drink as well as drink one herself, Dong-ho and Yu-bong clearly want to protect her from them but know doing so would not be socially acceptable. It is also clear that Song-hwa does not want anything to do with them either, but she gives in because of her lower place in their social strata. That audience’s power and authority over them conveys the social structure of Korean society at the time.
In addition, Im Kwon-taek illustrates the transition from older, more traditional Korean society to a newer, more Westernized society. In particular, the film frequently draws upon how musical practice was changing in Korea at the time. First, Yu-bong’s calligraphy friend mentioned how he should let Dong-ho and Yu-bong learn his craft because they won’t survive off performing pansori. Later, when the salesman they were staying and performing with kicked them out, he said he’ll hire a violinist instead. Toward the end, the musical group that walked through the town as they were performing further emphasized the change away from traditional Korean pansori. The musical instruments of “new Korea” overpowered Song-hwa’s voice and Dong-ho’s drum and their audience moved their attention to the new group without question, accentuating how new musical practice was taking over.
Daniel Rhee Sopyonje One thing that stood out while watching Sopyonje was the constant mobility of every character. From Yubong all the way down to even the calligrapher and Yubong's old friends, the characters all start out in one place and end up elsewhere. Pansori, a traditional Korean music genre that consists of a sorrikun, singer, and a gosu, drummer, was a dying Korean tradition and was slowly being overtaken by a more upbeat music form. Because Pansori was not as popular as it used to be, Yubong and his two children, Songhwa and Dongho, have always been moving around from place to place to find work as entertainers. In the movie, many scenes have some mode of transportation that catches the audience's attention. There are times when future Dongho is riding a bus or a bus is in the background, and there are times when the younger Dongho would be walking from town to town with Songhwa and Yubong. The constant reminder of physical mobility of the characters serve as a parallel to the Pansori itself. Pansori in the movie portrays this satirical stance on society as all the lyrics that we hear from Songhwa are about grief. But we learn from Yubong that grief is not procured unless a person has truly experienced heartbreak. And once Songhwa could master Sopyonje with Dopyonje, she would have essentially mastered Pansori. The extremely long takes that the director takes in many of the scenes parallel the journey that Songhwa takes in order to continue learning Pansori. For example, in the scene after Yubong gets fired, Songhwa and Yubong are singing Pansori and Dongho accompanies them with the drums. The camera in that scene was static and gradually, the characters in the scene approached the center of the scene from the distant road. The progression that the director illustrated in that scene complements all the other scenes where Songhwa or Yubong is singing a different Pansori tune. The constant movement of the characters alongside the changing Pansori lyrics emphasizes that nothing can remain the same. Just like how Pansori was transitioning, Songhwa and her journey to master Pansori was clearly displayed through the long takes that the director took to mirror the journey of a Pansori artist.
"Sopyonje" is a film based on the obstacles that a traditional Korean family faces due to their relationship with the traditional Korean opera known as Pansori. Unlike many other films, the music used in this film centers solely on Pansori, even when the characters are not the ones performing it, highlighting the significance of this music to the basis of the film.
Also in this film, rather than relying on the use of extreme close-ups to display the emotions felt by the characters, the director chose to use extremely long scenes that center around the music made by the characters' voices and instruments. For example, after losing his temper while visiting Seoul with his kids, Youbong is seen singing happily and loudly alongside his children. The extreme long shot used in this scene allows the audience to see the beauty of nature in the background while also providing a sense of peace and happiness that cannot be felt with just a close up of an actor's face. Rather than showing a few seconds of this scene, it takes up a very significant bulk of the film. There are quite a few other times where Pansori is set as the main focal point. One of the most prominent scenes comes at the end of the film where Dong-ho finally finds Songhwa and they both perform Pansori through the rest of the night. Here, Pansori acts as a source of reuniting a family while also acting as the sole reason why a blind Songhwa realizes that it is her brother that she is performing with. Rather than reuniting indefinitely after this realization, the two allow their relationship to end with their final performance with another. It is because of this that Pansori embraces the importance of family in this film by allowing all types of emotions to be expressed within its musical sound.
In the film, Sopyonje, directed by Im Kwon Taek, Yubong raises two children, Dongho and Songhwa who are blood-related to him. Yubong’s greed of creating an excellent Pansori singer results in the separation of the family and loose of Songhwa’s eyesight. This film is narrated through the alternation of the present and the flashback of Dongho’s memory.
The film starts with the long take of the nature with the pathway in the middle of the mountains. The director of this film uses a lot of long shot and often static throughout this film. The nature with the pathway appears a lot since the family does not have a specific place to live and does migrate around the villages finding places to stay and sell their talent, Pansori. The extremely long take of the pathway scene shows the endless hardship and the loneliness of the family as a Pansori singer in a transforming and modernizing era of Korea. Also, the transformation of the conditions of the pathway is remarkable as the life of the family gets harder and harder; the flowers and the greenness existed in the beginning of the film, next the red leaves then towards the end the snowstorms and the unsmooth ground.
Also, this film composes a lot of symbols such as Simchunga for the sister’s life and so on. The parrot in a cage, in the middle of the film, symbolizes the life of the sister and the brother under the suppression of the father. The parrot follows after what the people says, and the sister and the brother follows what their dad does. Also, those birds in a cage always desire to run away from the cage like the brother wanting to run away from his dad; and the brother did run away.
This film is very academically structured like current moment then flashback and ends with the current moment. For me living in a modern life, Im Kwon Taek’s filming technique was very interesting since a lot of recent popular movies tend to avoid a lot of long and static shots; but his film is full of the long and static shots.
The movie Sopyeonje seems to reflect the transitioning of old to new, the change from traditional to modern times, and the pain of doing so. The pride of the father in sticking to what is a dying trade for what seems to be a love and loyalty to this traditional art results in Dong Ho running away, him blinding his Song Hwa and this grief that is the undercurrent of the entire movie. One point where old and new meet is when they are performing at one village and the sound of a music band with trumpets and other ‘modern’ instruments come, frustrating/angering the father. Extreme long shots are a characteristic of this movie. They represent the loneliness and constant wandering the family go through. At one point, a pansori about the changing of seasons is sung while the family walks through fall to winter, signifying a never ending journey to nowhere. Most of the long shots are also static and not motivated. A long shot is used to show Song Hwa waiting by the tree for Dong Ho to return. A long shot instead of a close up here gives the feeling of longing and being very far away, that Dong Ho is far away and won’t return. Also of significance are the lyrics of the pansori. The songs are not only a part of the family’s work but are reflective of their lives. Each song sung reflects a certain point in their story. The father learns the ‘prison song’ and teaches it to Song Hwa day and night yet Dong Ho remarks that she doesn’t have energy to sing because she barely eats properly; they are living life like the wandering spirits in the song. Also, she learns the sopyeonje, a “sori that must break one’s heart” as described by the father. The amount of grief and pain in Song Hwa’s life comes together in this one song. Also she sings of a “shrimp flapping on the ground beating his chest” which signals the father’s death.
Sopyonje centers on traditional Korean song, pansori, after the Japanese colonization of Korea. It shows the importance of pansori in Korean culture as the film develops the relationship between pansori and the protagonists. Through pansori, the protagonists reveal their emotions to communicate with audience. They do not simply express their feelings verbatim. Rather, they use their voice, hand gestures, and facial expressions to create a full sentimental emotion. Another unique way that the audience is able to relate to the characters is through camera technique. In the scene where Hwasong, Dongho, and Yubong walk as they sing the traditional folk song, Arirang, the three-minute long shot grabs the audience to experience the same emotion as the characters are feeling at that moment. It is a single-angled long shot, which lets the audience to focus only on Arirang and the characters’ sorrow. Some of the major themes introduced in this film are nationalist sentiments, class issues, and urban versus rural. In the film, Yubong constantly reminds of the word han, which means grief and sorrow. This word internalizes national sentiment at that period of time, which was post colonialism. Although it centralizes the theme of nationalism, it also encapsulates the destruction of Korean tradition. As Yubong and Songhwa perform in a town, a band composed of western instruments interrupts them, and the attention is tilted towards the brass band. This blatantly portrays how modernity has changed the Korean society. Although at first Yubong was confident that Japanese and Western cultures cannot beat the beauty of pansori, the changing world leaves Yubong and Songhwa abandoned and powerless.
This movie, Sopyonje, is one of the well made Korean films, in terms of getting understading from various generations of audiences. The time period setting and the main theme, Pansori, is not the one that my generation can easily understand and enjoy. However, Sopyonje not only arouse an interest about Pansori, but also it deeply impressed me. Sopyonje shows Korea's changing perspective as disappearance of Pansori. Yubong wants his belief and passion to revive Pansori goes down to Songhwa and his afraid of losing her turned out as making her as blind. Songhwa's respect and loving him turned out as forgiveness and she became one of the best Pansori singers. The last scene that Dongho and Songhwa meet and permorm Shimchungga released their 'Han' resentment. Before I watched this film, I thought it'll be a boring one. However, it was one of the best Korean movie and touched me.
Director Im Kwon-taek's Sopyonje reveals the conflicts Koreans had to undergo post Korean War. The wave of imported goods and conventional thinkers who tried to perserve what they had had, in this case, Pansori represents not only the tragedy of a family, but also the confusion South Korea had to deal with during that time period. Never had been exposed to Pansori, I was not enjoying the bare sound, unique pitch, and absence of soft melody in the beginning, but as the movie proceeded, the irritation disappeared and started to empath the song with the characters. Although the movie was made in 1993, the details director constructed made the film realistic. Yubong and Songhwa walked the path of preservation and the others who sell drugs, wearing contemporary Western suits tried to adopt to Western culture. However, the dialogue that Yubong and suited men had when the men kicked Yubong out calling him "Sangnom" reveals that even though people were dressed like a modernised men, their ideology was still embedded with traditional Korean values. Beside emphasising on traditional class difference, the gender roles and age hierarchy system demonstrate the Korean virtues were preserved even after everything had been destroyed by colonial and civil war era.
The movie also contains many details such as pathway and houses to embody understanding of audiences what it was like to be in that era. The camera takes a long shot when the Yubong family moves to another place. It shows their relationship by the distance and order they are walking. Yubong leads in the front, Songhwa follows him closely, and Dongho reluctantly walks in the end of the line with more distance. The pathway always does not have anyone around, showing their loneliness throughout the film. The pathway with dol-dam (walls made with stones), by the rice plantation, and a vast field of weeds add the traditional ideas of Korea relating to the main characters. Houses in the movie illuminates the emotional stages of the protagonists. Especially when Dongho left, the house they were staying was partially sustained and extremely aged and broken. The destructed half of the house reflects Dongho's ran-away which stopped Songhwa to sing Sori.
Sopyonje is a movie that strongly demonstrates Korean culture, especially pansori. The lyrics of pansori are mostly sad and for this reason pansori creates a sad atmosphere throughout the movie. Sopyonje, a kind of pansori that involves much grief, conveys and focuses on protagonists' emotions. The conveyance of emotion is well achieved through frequent use of close-ups and even an extreme long shot. First of all, extreme close-ups are used in scenes in which singers and Dongho make a harmony. These extreme close-up shots are alternated between singers and Dongho. (First in Sorije Inn and later with his sister) This alternating extreme close-up shots not only illustrate the protagonists' emotions, but also the communication achieved between them. The extreme long shot was used after Dongho's family is kicked out of their room. The three characters approach toward the camera from considerably long distance. As they increase in size in the screen, their significance gradually increases. As they sing Arirang on their way, the song that started with much grief develops into a joyful song. By the time the characters are close to the camera, they are conveying joy and possibly the overall theme of the movie, overcoming grief. The long shot in which Arirang is sung is at the same time a very long take. It takes much time and thus effectively expresses gradual changes in the characters' emotions. This kind of long take is often used throughout the movie along with long pansori songs. Pansori's long notes match well with these long takes in the movie. For Yongsu and his children are wanderers, the movie shows many scenes in which the characters simply walk using pan. While these walking scenes seem to be trivial in terms of plot, these scenes very effectively construct the sad and heavy atmosphere that runs throughout the movie. I personally could relate Sopyonje to a novel 'Beddaragi' or '배따라기' by Dong In Kim. This famous literary work was written in 1921. The story in short is that two brothers have a conflict and split. Later on, one of the brothers look for the other, following 'Beddaragi', a traditional Korean song. A similar story line and a similar atmosphere though in different forms make me wonder if the director was inspired by this literary work in a way. At least they seem to share common theme of overcoming grief through traditional Korean songs that greatly affect the tone and atmosphere in them.
I was not very exciting about this movie at first, because it came out pretty long times ago and seems like the topic is too heavy for me. After the first 30 minutes of watching this movie, I was getting annoyed by the gloomy and boring atmosphere of the 50s, and becoming impatient to watch it. I thought that the story line will be flat all the way to the end. However, I was totally wrong. This movie is one of the best Korean movies I ever watched and is not one of the typical contemporary flicks, hyped and high-budgeted, only to deliver shallow entertainment to the audience. The film, Sopyonje, directed by Im Kwon Taek, talks about pain, longing, passion and fortitude without much talking and melodrama. The actors' portrayals of their characters are unaffected and what are typical of real life. Their gestures, singing and expressions fit so perfectly that there needed to be not anything more to communicate what they needed to communicate. The singing is by far the key element of the film, being a musical and one centered on Pansori, a traditional Korean folk music. The culmination of Pansori art, as explained in the movie, is attained by overcoming grief and suffering. I can't help but be sympathetic about Songhwa (the female lead character) and her plight, but as she reached the peak of her art, my sympathy changed into admiration and the once annoying sound of Pansori transformed into a sublime and haunting melody to my ears. I truly believe that Sopyonje is such a masterwork. This film is characteristically sad and somber but all at once beautiful, emotional and moving.
The movie Sopyonje is very sorrowful impression which represents Yu-Bong’s deep sorrow with Pansori. originally based on Korean literature. Pansori is a very valuable Korean culture of “Han” and it makes beautiful combination of Pansori with 북 and 소리. Yu-bong tries to develop the Pansori with his siblings who are DongHo, SongHwa. They follow to sing a YuBong’s Pansori.. YuBong has self esteem about that he effort to develop Pansori. DongHo and SongHwa’s ‘소리’ and ‘북’ make great collaboration. However, DongHo gives up Pansori and left sister and father. Also, even SongHwa blinds because of YuBong. When Dongho accomplishes the success life, he tries to find Songhwa. They finally meet but they pretend not to know. Sopyonje based on Korean valuable culture, is concept of pursue the best Pansori which is not possible without experience of deep sorrow. I could know they try to develop Korean traditional cultures and values but is really hard to reach the successful with Pansori. Striking was the long take where the tree of them are walking on the ground as they usually are singing the Arirang. The director used zoom in techniques on the character’s face, and by that audiences are more impressed by their song. This scene gives me big impressions that they are just singing instead of talking. She said that they resolve their deep sorrows with Pansori. Also interesting was the director describes landscape with Sori. It takes landscape with large setting that shows Korean tradition activities.
Pansori is Korean traditional music which is originated from southern part of Korea. Pansori is one of the representative Korean music but nowadays people barely listen to Pansori and no longer care about it. Some young people consider pansori as old-fashioned music. The movie sets from 1930 to 1960. During this period, Japanese and western music were introduced in Korea and lots of traditional musicians couldn't live on pansori and gave up performing traditional music. Yubong, the protagonist of the movie, stresses 'Han' which is Korean's collective grief in the movie. He said keeping and overcoming Han is important to become a great pansori musician. And in the movie, Han contains the sorrow and hardship of pansori musician. Han also contains the sorrow and sufferings of Korean who had suffered from the colonial rule under Japan and Korean war. To sum, the movie not only conveys the beauty of Korean traditional art but also implies all the sufferings that Korean had suffered during the hard time.
Im-Kwon taek uses lots of long shots in the movie. The scene where Yubong, Songhwa and Dongho singing Jindo Arirang is over 5 minutes long. By using long shot, the movie evokes a sense of peace and tranquility. Also this scene shows the beauty of Korean traditional music.
Sopyonje is a film about the past struggling to survive the present. Through the context of national cinema, the film is definitely one that establishes a very traditional Korean medium of entertainment that is endangered by the newer, Western modes of entertainment. The film casts a positive light on the dying art, but also has a slightly negative light towards some of the characters who both try to save and run away from the art.
Through the context of cinematography, the camera work used in the movie is very unique, and fits in perfectly with the atmosphere of the film. The very long takes show the length of the different Pansori songs the family sings, and the long takes made me enjoy the music, which I at first found to be annoying but I grew an appreciation for it. The extreme close-ups also showed how intense Pansori can be by focusing on the characters' faces as they sang. The unique combination of long takes and close-ups made for a very powerful film.
Sopyonje is a movie that is very uniquely Korean, as the main part of its storyline focuses on the dying art of Pansori. While Pansori is beautiful and a traditional part of Korean culture, in the movie it was shown to be overshadowed by newer, shiny brass instruments from the West. The family is shown to suffer, both from trying to make a living out Pansori and also from dealing with an abusive father.
The movie utilizes a lot of long scenes, sometimes showing the same scenery for a long period of time without changing. For instance, in the scene where the whole family is singing together in a rare moment of content and happiness, the camera doesn't move its focus from the scenery even when the characters are not in view. Instead the viewers can hear them singing from a distance until the family finally comes into view from down the road, and then disappears out of view. Sopyonje also tends to show the viewer the entire duration of a Pansori song. This was especially efficient towards the end when brother and sister are reunited and perform together. By allowing the viewers to experience the entire song, from the buildup to the climax, as well as showing a close-up of the siblings' tear-streaked faces, adds to the deeply emotional (melodramatic) scene.
Korean Cinema Professor Steven Chung Jun Seong Ahn
Sopyonje (1993)
To tell the truth, this Movie was sort of boring to me due to a sleepy background music. I know that the music is one of the most important part in this film since the music represents traditional Korean instruments and sound. I couldn’t bear with it. But, I did find out the importance of this film. I already know about this film that not only with movie, but also there are published as a novel, musical and several genres of art that Sopyonje is very popular in Korea. I have encountered Sopyonje when I was in middle school grade 8. I really don’t remember during my middle school age that I saw this, but after the film today, I had a nostalgic feeling after watching this. Pansori, a traditional Korean mixed music & voice, was not that interesting to me but I definitely knew that it is one of the most important substances in this film since it holds a tremendous idea and story. I guess it didn’t sound well to me since I was very tired today, but it should’ve been sounded very gorgeous and pretty. There is a reason why elders speak about Pansori that it’s something that Korea should carry on forever. Not only me, but also most of people are exposed to fast beat such as pop, electronic, and all other fast tempo genres. So that being bored and exhausted to Pansori isn’t unusual. But after somehow listening to some of the lyrics in Pansori, I again realized how it woke me up from sleeping due to its fun part. There is definitely a main characteristic that absorbs listeners’ attention.
Also, I felt a pride from Korean Sorikun and professionalism. Even the person was in a situation of having not enough money, he couldn’t get over being insulted about sound, and blinding his daughter’s eyes for her grudge. This surely shows his pride about the path he has been walking through in his life. Blinding her eyes seems unreasonable, but since he had love towards sound, Pansori is still loved by many people in this world of western music.
Even this film was made when I was in age of three, the story was sort of interesting and had a great experience by hearing to various sounds of Pansori. After watching this film, I did sort of change my stereotype towards Pansori that it should be existing for a long time, or even forever, at least in Korea and spread the words about the beauty of Pansori.
Sopyonje's subject involves a very culturally specific theme as it's about Korean traditional music, Pansori. The movie is set on Korea's transitional period to "modernity" after liberation from Japan. As different life styles and music flood from foreign countries, Pansori dies away from the trend by Japanese Enkas and American Pop music.
As the professional Pansori singing family fades and wanders around the country, the camera buries them in the environment with multiple extreme long shots. Since the singing characters are often hard to find at first glance, we need to find them from the vast environment surrounding them. They are also often taken in long takes with a still camera, so we have to trace their movements with our eyes and wander around the picturesque frame with them. Sounds of wind and other street sounds are often audible along with Pansori. Although multiple sounds of Pansori almost incessantly plays one after another, Pansori is often disturbed by extraneous noises from the environment. Through these camera distances and sounds, the scenes themselves replicate the demising state of the Pansori in Korea, wandering like a vagabond.
Sopyonje portrays Korea in the 1960s, when old cultural values are slowly forgotten. With the rapid economic growth, Korea undergoes modernization. As a result, people start to focus on making new changes rather than valuing old cultural values. These include Pansori. The director effectively reminds the audience that Pansori used to be a method of musical expression. Frequently, there are scenes where minutes of Pansori are shown. Before we paid attention to Pansori, many would felt that Pansori is a boring and agonizing performance. However, because the audience have the context of the Pansori performers and their life stories, we begin to recognize the grandeur impact of Pansori on our cultural soul. Pansori discusses the complex emotions of Koreans. Ancient and modern Korean history was oftentimes tarnished by foreign invasions and poverty. Therefore, Koreans expressed their resentments with a simple drum and two pansori Kkun. Overall, the movie reflects the significane of Pansori in Korean cultural soul. Since the movie was made in the early 1990s, when young generations hardly remember hardships in Korean history, the director wants us to reflect on the footprints of older generations and appreciate ancestors' achievements to build a successful nation in Eastern Asia.
Seopyunjae was very meaningful and important movie in 1960s and until now. Even though pansori is Korean traditional performance, Korean people cannot easily find a change to watch the live performance. Because even for Korean themselves, although pansori is their tradition music, they find it boring and uninteresting. Therefore, these days not so many people look for pansori, so we are now not able to find a chance to see a performance of pansori often. Traditional culture is forgotten. Seopyunjae seems like a musical movie. Such as ‘Le miserable’ and ‘mamamia’, there are so many popular musical movies in western. Director Im made a musical movie with our own music, pansori. It is very unique and special.
Pansori should have ‘sorrow regret’. That’s what Yoo-Bong mainly says about pansori when he teaches pansori to his daughter. The whole movie is showing Yoo-Bong’s and his daughter, Song-hwa’s ‘sorrow regret’. ‘sorrow regret’ is a life, that is what Yoo-Bong says. There is a long scene, Yoo-Bong, Song-Hwa and her brother, Dong-Ho, walk from far away to the camera while they are singing pansori. The road they walk on is very long. Some shots could be cut off or speedy up, but Director Im simply shows whole shots of the family’s walk. The pathway they are walking implies life. This scene is the happiest moment through this movie.
Mainly this movie is using a long shot. It is a good way to show the picture of beautiful landscape of Korea. Sometimes camera even pan. Long shots with landscape and pansori is very beautiful.
Throughout Seopyonje, Director Kwon-Taek Im creates a great film with a harmonious combination of beautiful scenes and story-telling musics. These scenes and musics in this film play roles to indirectly depict a contrast between the father's extreme selfishness for money and a protagonist's steady passion for music. Especially, the long-take shots taking a protagonist's singing scenes describe how much the protagonist loves the music from her heart. Analyzing the internal meaning of various scenes in the film, I found that the long roads in the mountain were focused and shown for a relatively long time. From the aspect of plot, the audience must read that the long roads in the mountain indirectly mean how the wandering singers had to follow rough and curvy life. So, for this scene, the long-take shots give us a clear representation on Korean traditional singers' hard lives. Thus, I can conclude that the long-take shots can be useful in describing a meaningful sequence of scenes in one big picture.
I think that Sopyonje is very good example of Korea’s historical music film. It was very interesting to me and reminds me to think about historical music again. Most Korean people are only enthusiastic to K-pop. Korean needs to keep their original music, which is Pansori. Sopyonje is a story about Pansori. In the past, Pansori was popular music that people enjoyed listening before K-pop boomed. Pansori is also cultural property that has high value.
Pansori can be seemed strange to contemporary people, but I very loved to listen it from the film. Sopyonje is very different from other films. There are many used close-up and extreme long shots. In this movie, close-up shots are used a lot in order to film the person singing Pansori. Therefore, close-up shots are very important in this movie. Besides, when the person is singing pansori, the person is closed up to the camera and audience can feel the singer’s emotion as well.
Melody Chi 7-17-13 Korean Cinema YISS, Summer 2013 Prof. Steven Chung Movie Response #2: Sopyonje
Sopyonje confused me in several ways. The ending, in which Songhwa is travelling while being led by a young child, seems to indicate that Songhwa is going to continue Youbong's legacy of leading a nomadic life and raising a child to become a pansori singer. However, is this only because that is the only life she has ever known and has actually accepted because she loves pansori? I didn't fully understand why Songhwa meekly continued to obey and follow Youbong throughout the movie, especially so much so that she allows him to blind her and then mirrors his legacy of training a child in pansori. Youbong's blinding of Songhwa, however, I feel is a metaphor for how she is trapped in the life of a pansori singer because it is her only skill. Furthermore, the fact that Songhwa knew Youbong was blinding her on purpose, and yet still allowed him to indicates that she has accepted the pansori path that has been unchangeably laid out for her.
This entrapment within the obsolete and nomadic life of a pansori singer is portrayed throughout the movie by various closed off settings. For instance, Youbong, Songhwa, and Dong-ho practice their pansori in a single small hotel room with the door closed; they are cut off from the world that is evolving around them as they desperately hang on to the archaic pansori craft. Similarly, after Dong-ho finally escapes from the pansori lifestyle, Youbong and Songhwa still clearly remain on that path. This is shown by how they practice in abandoned, broken down buildings far outside of towns.
Hae Jung, Min
ReplyDeleteEven though this week's focus is on the melodrama, the focus of this comment would be from the perspective of national cinema. From the text-based approach in defining a national cinema, I think it was a great example of the Korean movie since the background and the content reflected the changes that occurred in Korean pre-modern history and how Pansori, one of our tradition, could keep its life throughout lots of changes that occurred in that era. Throughout the movie, there were two unique things that I would like to point out: long shot and the use of close-up.
As from the "Christmas in August", long shots were dominant across the movie, especially while showing the road while the characters were doing Pansori. The use of long shot was effective in a sense that it showed the happiness in the characters while doing Pansori, but also reflected the relaxed attitude of our previous generation, compared to the current image that Korea has in the 21st century. Another camera technique that reached out to me as brilliant was the use of close-up. At the last part of the scene when Song-hwa and Dong-ho finally met each other and did Pansori together, it was almost the first time when close-up was used to these characters, while mostly medium shots were used throughout the movie. This close-up gave me the impression that finally by reuniting with her brother, Song-hwa was able to reach to the level of voice that her father wanted, getting over the "han"(sorrowness) while singing. For Dong-ho as well, by reuniting with his sister, he was able to realize the true happiness from Pansori that his father wanted him to learn. These impressions I got was confirmed by the conversation between Song-hwa and the man who was providing her the shelter and possibly her short-term husband. Via these two techniques, long shot and close up, this movie was the best and most representative Korean movie as a national cinema.
(I am originally a student who is suppoed to comment on Monday, and writing this comment instead of the next week's comment).
[Please read this comment instead of the original one. Thank you!]
DeleteHae Jung, Min
Even though this week's focus is on the melodrama, the focus of this comment would be from the perspective of national cinema. From the text-based approach in defining a national cinema, I think it was a great example of the Korean movie since the background and the content reflected the changes that occurred in Korean pre-modern history and how Pansori, one of our tradition, could keep its life throughout lots of changes that occurred in that era. Throughout the movie, there were two unique things that I would like to point out: long takes and the use of close-up.
As from the "Christmas in August", long takes were dominant across the movie, especially while showing the road while the characters were doing Pansori. The use of long take was effective in a sense that it showed the happiness in the characters while doing Pansori, but also reflected the relaxed attitude of our previous generation, compared to the current image that Korea has in the 21st century. Another camera technique that reached out to me as brilliant was the use of close-up. At the last part of the scene when Song-hwa and Dong-ho finally met each other and did Pansori together, it was almost the first time when close-up was used to these characters, while mostly medium shots were used throughout the movie. This close-up gave me the impression that finally by reuniting with her brother, Song-hwa was able to reach to the level of voice that her father wanted, getting over the "han"(sorrow) while singing. For Dong-ho as well, by reuniting with his sister, he was able to realize the true happiness from Pansori that his father wanted him to learn. These impressions I got was confirmed by the conversation between Song-hwa and the man who was providing her the shelter and possibly her short-term husband. Via these two techniques, long take shot and close up, this movie was the best and most representative Korean movie as a national cinema.
(I am originally a student who is suppoed to comment on Monday, and writing this comment instead of the next week's comment).
Tina Nguyen
ReplyDeleteSopyonje
Sopyonje is a story about the passion of a father who went through extreme lengths to have his daughter Yong haw achieve perfection in the art of pansori in a time of shifting attitudes and cultural values. As a viewer, I was disgusted by the treatment the daughter went through to have her father achieve his dream through her. A failure in his lifetime, and realizing that he would never achieve greatness as a pansori performer, Yu Bong pushed Yong hwa to the extremes because he believed that only through the accumulation of grief and suffering can a true pansori come through. Although Yu Bong cherished art form bonded the family together in the beginning of the film, it has also become a dividing factor within it effectively splitting the family. His efforts to make Yong hwa a perfect pansori artist appeared vain against the backdrop of a changing Korean society who was embracing more western ideals and entertainment with pansori becoming a relic of a more traditional society that did not quite fit in with the modern society that Korea was rapidly becoming. It would seem that isolation had a lot to do with the camera work as well.
Within the film, there were many still long distance shots of the characters walking through barren agricultural land and even through snow. The shots seem to represent a constant feeling of loneliness and detachment from the world with the characters traveling from one abandoned house to the next. There was also a long distance shot of Yong hwa as she watches Dong ho run away from the family beneath the tree and another scene which we presume is days or months after with her sitting beneath the same tree awaiting his return under the dead leafless tree. The scene appeared to shadow her future. She would constantly be alone, waiting until his return to her.
Byeong Wan (Danny) Kim
ReplyDeleteSopyonje (1993)
“Sopyonje” is a traditional Korean film that is centered around the historic Korean music genre of Pansori. This movie is interesting in that sound plays an essential role. The significance of sound in “Sopyonje” is discovered through two major means: 1) the background score which signifies time-passing and 2) the Pansori the characters perform, through which the characters are able to deliver their emotions to the audience.
First, the audience can hear the major film score of the movie when there is a transition in the time sequence. For instance, after the scene where Yubong has a quarrel with his old friends, we encounter “the three” (namely Yubong, Dongho, and Songhwa) walking along a path through the mountains. During the walking scene, we hear the background score, and suddenly the children have grown up as they are still walking behind their father. Here, the background music serves as a smooth signal to transition from one specific point of time to another, maybe about 10 years later. The role of this score at this moment is vital because without it the transition would have been rough without any melody accompanying it. This score signals time-passing in other scenes as well, such as when Dongho and Songhwa are talking about their father. The conversation topic begins with Dongho blaming his father, but as time passes, it gets to Songhwa understanding father’s situation and taking pity on him for all that he must have went through. In this case, the score is played to signify the mental growth the children are going through. As shown, the background score successfully smoothens out such scenes and aids the audience to better tune into the significant scenes involving transition in time.
Second, the Pansori sung and played by the characters is highly significant in that it tells the characters’ emotion states and allows them to communicate with the audience. Take the famous path scene for example, where the three are singing along a long path after they are kicked out of their rent house. In this unusually long scene, first the three begin walking from very far out, singing Pansori. We can feel in their Pansori that they are not in a very good mood because they just lost a place of living. However, as they approach the foreground, they begin singing louder and more joyfully as Dongho plays the drum, and they suddenly understand that they are enjoying the very moment they are singing Pansori – that what happened is not important any more. The audience here can understand the emotions of the three characters very well through the singing sound that overall plays an important role throughout the film. The traditional score with such touching melody that plucks the audience’s heartstrings and the Pansori that well-represents Korean history are significant elements of the film as a whole in “Sopyonje.”
Christine Kim
ReplyDeleteI found Sopyonje very interesting. I enjoyed watching Sopyonje more than Christmas in August. This movie is such a great example of Korean cinema. The Korean elements in this movie make Sopyonje so unique. The obvious Korean element is Pansori music. The Korean traditional singing and drums gave me a great sense of culture. I personally loved the pansori singing. I’d but the movie soundtrack and listen to pansori in the car. The hanboks, foods, mannerisms (serving alcohol), way of living, and scenery all reflect on Korean culture.
The filming and camerawork of Sopyonje is very different from other movies. There are a good amount of close-ups and extreme long shots, both at opposite ends of the shot spectrum. I found the close-ups very important in the movie. Many of the close-ups appeared when the character was singing or listening to someone singing. The close-ups allowed the audience to identify the character’s emotion. In the beginning when there was a close-up on Dongoh’s face, you can see sadness and reminisce. At the very end when you see the close-up on Sunghwa’s face, you can identify that she knows the drummer is her brother. The extreme show the exact opposite, it focuses on the scenery and music rather than the character. I believe the director wanted to direct our attention to the emotion in the voice, and not on the character.
Charlotte Fitzek
ReplyDeleteCompared to the other films we have viewed, I have the impression that Im Kwon Taek uses canted tilts and tracking shots uniquely - in particular during scenes in which characters are performing, the camera often pans around, in an even motion, to each character and shows us their changing emotions. There are also several instances during which the camera approaches from above and then lowers to eye-level, moving into a close-shot of particular characters (most often the performers). Though the camera movement in this film seems more unusual in this regard, the film nonetheless progresses very evenly and calmly. The overall calm proceeds from the fact that Im Kwon Taek, rather than use a moving camera, also frequently shoots long takes in which the camera is nearly still. For instance, during the tense exchange between father and former friend, their one-on-one conversation occurs in one take, nearly two minutes long, in which the composition of the shot doesn’t change. In other films we have seen, and quite generally in tense scenes, the heightened emotion is usually complemented with ever quickening shots depicting the characters involved. What a contrast then, that Im focuses almost entirely on Songhwa during her father’s confession that he blinded her! It takes a full minute before we even catch a glimpse of him. The longest uninterrupted scene is probably the 4-minute take/scene shown in class with the trio walking along the path singing Arirang.
In Sopyonje, the camera either moves quite distinctly or not at all. As such, even the camera work subtly complements the film’s overarching themes and visual contradictions. Though Korea is busily moving ahead in time, the seasons change, styles change, tastes change, in Sopyonje we follow this man stuck in the past. Perhaps this was not intentional, but even the audio had a old-fashioned quality to it.
Charlotte Fitzek
Sopyonje
ReplyDeleteThe film Sopyonje contains lots of korean historical background and social background. Though Pansori is one of korean folk music but it is not familiar to my generation. However, it was not at all uncomfortable to listen during the film. Also I realize that Pansori includes 'power' which conveys lots of meaning inside of it. That's the main concept of the film that director want to show to modernized people of today.
Yubong is one of old Korean father who is patriarch and conservative. He never changes his mind about Pansori and believes Pansori will dominate Korean culture in one day. However, the time is rapidly changing and modernizing. After the lost of son Dong-ho, he made his daughter blind and teach Pansori until his death. For Yubong mastering Pansori is preventing the disappearance of Pansori. So, it makes me think what we should prevent from now in our present day.
Songhwa said "I love Pansori because it makes me happy when I sing." For Songhwa, pansori is only path and purpose of her life. Unlike Yubong, she never gives up Pansori in any circumstances. The things that support her are waiting her brother and love of her brother. At Yubong's death, Yubong tell her to keep her grief in her mind to master Sopyonje. However,she release her grief after meeting her brother that represent as only defiance towards her father. Also Yubong and Sonhwa wonder aimlessly from place to place which is similar to present day of life because people today do not stay in one place but moving somewhere to success. The director might want to say the only place we can. Take a rest is our home and want people to think about necessity of being happy by ourselves.
Many things have changed and still in process of changing today. Also, lots of valuable things like Pansori or cultural asserts disappear in certain. The film Sopyonje tells looking back of past days' memorable and valuable things which created by our ancestors. Therefore, the film greatly presenting that our ancestors' passion of preserving culture of Korea.
Jasmine Tat
ReplyDeleteTo begin,the director’s use of long takes and close ups do a good job capturing the overall emotion and message of the story as well as the characters’ emotions. The repeated long takes of the family treading across land alone in different weathers really bring out the family’s persistence and illustrate post-war Korea’s struggle to rediscover their culture and masculinity. The addition of pansori in the longest take when they were walking through a path surprised me; the unity and happiness of the family was spontaneous and memorable despite their ongoing failed performances and journeys. Family and tradition are powerful factors that drive people forward. On the other hand, extreme close ups shots that also lasted quite long brought out the emotions within the family members. Dongho had the same sad expression everytime he played the drum, but the last time he played it with his sister was very powerful—the tears that welled up expressed his contained guilt and sorrow for his sister and the downfall of pansori. Close up shots of Songhwa also help us see her loyalty to her father and determination to preserve Korean identity; we see that tears never formed until the end when she played with her brother—showing her strength as well as the painful obstacles Korean culture has gone through.
Throughout the film, I noticed contradicting elements in scenes, sometimes subtle, that reminded us of the interaction between Korean culture and Western influence. When Yubong is drinking with his old friends, they are all wearing suits while he wears old-fashioned clothes; when Songhwa and Yubong are performing pansori, a western band disrupts their performance on a busy street; a shot showing old Korean houses in silence is disrupted by a bus driving on the street; when Yubong seeks his old pansori friend to help him sing a certain song, he is sober and drinking tea while his friend is distraught and addicted to foreign drugs. Furthermore, Yubong ignores outsiders and focuses only on pansori even though his neighbors are yelling/insulting him about “loud, annoying” pansori and when he was beaten severely for stealing a hen. The simultaneous presence of Korean and Western objects and the stubbornness of Yubong successfully represent inevitable Westernization with the remaining traces of Korean culture that will someday find way in Koreans’ lives again.
Overall, I enjoyed this film and thought it was powerful in the way it illustrated post-war Korea. It took me a while to get used to pansori, but I appreciate it more and recognize its beauty after watching “Sopyonje.”
MinJoon Choi,
ReplyDeleteSopyonje focuses on the time period where Korea was going through drastic changes. Thus, we can sense that Traditional Korean culture is fading away. Clear evidence of this is portrayed through “pansori” music in the film which is a traditional music of Korea, but pansori artists are losing opportunity to perform due to the emerge of jazz music. However, by focusing on the life of a family so dependent on pansori, the movie portrays the possibility of keeping cultural aspect of the nation throughout these on-going changes. I think a specific point of the film we need to take note of is the use of the camera.
The director uses close-up on limited occasions, and they do this so when the characters are performing pansori. Particularly, they focus on the character’s face to convey the emotional aspect of the music to the audience, as Pansori is a very emotional music. Also, the close up was used towards the end when the brother and the sister finally met and performed pansori together. I believe that this decision of the director was intended to demonstrate the satisfaction and achievement felt by the brothers and sisters because they have reached their best level of pansori music. However, majority of the time, the director uses the long shot to show the full landscape and the scene. This is probably to show the Korean tradition.
Another aspect I found interesting was the change in colours of the clothes that the characters were wearing. As Yubong was reaching his death, his clothes was becoming grayer, and the daughter, Songhwa’s clothes changed from bright Orange into White both demonstrating their grief, and sorrowfulness.
Mia Inhwan Choi
ReplyDeleteThe movie, Sopyonje, was directed by famous director, Im Kwon-taek. He investigates the expression of emotion through scores also known as Pansori in the film. This movie is almost like a music video which the storyline flows with the music. The long take when Dongho reminds us of his past while playing the drum in the Pansori sung by the tavern’s owner. The camera slowly pans from the tavern’s owner to Dongho’s back finally changing to a close up of Dongho’s face. He does not say anything while he listens to her songs but we notice by his facial expression that the song reminds him of something. Another example, when Dongho’s mother dies, a very long touching song sets as the background music. It’s almost like the Pansori is narrating the feelings and replacing their dialogues. Even though Pansori is usually a song made with old tales and some of them not having any lyrics the music played from the Pansori sounds like the humming and wailing of a human. Just like in any melodramas, the background music takes a big role in setting the mood of the movie even if there are no dialogues. The Pansori takes the role of narrator and director in that it directs the emotions of the characters and makes a cohesive story out of them.
Sopyonje encompassed some of the very basic and reoccurring aspects of melodrama. There is the general feeling throughout the movie of 'han', some incredible sorrow that cannot be expressed through words alone. We start with Dongho, who we can tell is searching for someone. From the closeups we get of his face while he listens to the inn keeper sing, this separation from his past has caused him a lot of pain. From here the story unfolds with tragedy after tragedy being laid out before us. Yubong's second wife dies in childbirth, two adopted children grow up with a harsh spartan father, the family is constantly in poverty, the future of pansori seems bleak, Dongho runs away, Songhwa is blinded by her own father, and finally Songhwa and Dongho find each other, only to decide that leaving the han there is what is best. All this han would cause many people to break, but particularly for Songhwa, this han has brought her what she has been striving for all her life. Incredible pansori talent. In my mind, I related this to the resilience of the Korean people. Being victims of war, colonization, and separation, Korea is no stranger to han. However, those incredibly difficult times as explained by Bruce Cumings, were what inevitably made Korea the powerhouse it is today. If any movie can claim to be an example of national Korean cinema, I would say Sopyonje would be a great pick. Sopyonje satisfies all four ways of defining national cinema according to Higson: in economic terms, in stylistic terms, the audience, and the immersion of heritage into the film. The film managed to bring the Korean people back to its roots by selling just as well as the inflow of Hollywood flicks and also taking some of the spotlight away from the growing realm of kpop.
ReplyDeleteThe cinematography of the movie is quite simple compared to those of the movies we have watched so far. I cannot recall any sort of special effects or particularly fancy camera work. The film sticks mainly with long shots, particularly those of the family walking to and from their destinations and very simple soundscapes, the actors' voices usually being the main source of music. This way of using the camera allows the audience to focus on the mise-en-scene of each carefully thought out frame and highlights the talents of the actors rather than the film effects, which I think was an asset of Sopyonje.
In Im Kwon-Taek’s 1993 film "Sopyonje" a common theme of old vs. new arises throughout the film. In 1990’s Korea, the old ways of life are now being met with new western ideals and rapid development. Traditions such as “pansori” are being forgotten, and in their place are new innovations and technology. In the film this can actively be seen when the family of three are singing in the streets and a band of brass instruments walks by, completely drowning out the noise of the singers. These instruments are common in the western culture and are used to represent a literal fading of Korean traditions.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting scene that shows this fading of the past is when the family must find refuge and a place to practice in a worn down home on the outskirts of town. The home is missing walls and parts of its roof. Clearly run down and unfit to live in, it is the only place where their “pansori” music still lives. When the film begins, there are long scenes of nature shots, showing the beauty of Korea, but towards the end of the film, these scenes are replaced with shots of ships and cars, representing the rapid development of the small nation. The filming style also recalls an earlier time in Korean cinema, and left me feeling that the film was even older than 1993.
Dong Eun (Agnes) Lee
ReplyDeleteSingle parenting is not easy. Of course I have never had a child but from what I hear and notice, raising a child is not a simple task especially if you have two children to take care of by yourself. Yubong’s heavy duties of being the father of Songhwa and Dongho is clearly portrayed through the economic hardships the family faces in Sopyonje. The burden is further emphasized as we find out neither child is actually related by blood to Yubong since both kids each came from different mothers that had previously gave birth to them. Personally, this was the only aspect of the movie that allowed me to sympathize Yubong’s situation. Who cares about stepchildren? Why the need for time and effort to nurture children that are not of your ‘own’? These questions are obviously not ethically acceptable. Yet as an audience watching this movie, I felt that it was the only answer to why Yubong becomes outrageous when he is not impressed with Songhwa and Dongho. What kind of a parent slaps his daughter’s face just because she does not behave ‘correctly’ when being cornered with no other option but to pour drinks to an adult? Perhaps this may not be true with the kind of characteristics that Yubong convey, but had Songhwa been blood-related to Yubong, consequences might have been different for her. Physical abuse such as spanking and whipping has been a great part of Korean parenting. However, Yubong’s violent behavior of slapping his daughter’s face certainly seems controversial. Moreover, ‘alcoholic fathers’ tend to be a reoccurring motif. Although the scene of Yubong and his ex-colleague’s gathering at the local bar does not include Songhwa and Dongho being directly influenced, the troublesome situation takes place when Yubong returns home. While throwing the bag of oranges on the floor to tell his children to eat, Yubong arrogantly lectures at Dongho’s lack of rhythmical and technical skiills when playing the drum. From what we see, Dongho is a young and naïve kid that has no other choice but to play the drum since this role is the only way he can help out the family. Thus should a child so young, already accomplishing his duties, not be complimented for this? Coming home drunk like an animal and yelling at your child is definitely not the best attitude a parent can deliver. Adults are known to set examples especially in times of adversity, yet Yubog’s stubborn characteristic ultimately leads Dongho to run away from home.
The film Sopyonje shows tradition of old Korea very well. The setting of this film is around early 1960’s which is after Japanese colonial period. The director of this film, Kwon Taek Lim, is trying to show progression and unity of people and Songhwa's family through 'Pansori'. The starting scene of the film Sopyonje is where the protagonist Yu Bong is singing Pansori at local noble’s birthday. In this scene, camera holds variety of people from each social classes all together enjoying Pansori, through pan movement. This film definitely contains a lot of detail which can only be noticed by older generations and those who are interested in Korean history. These details would be such as medicine man (Yakjangsu), difference in social classes and the word 'han', which was translated grief in the movie. The word 'han' has much more meaning than grief. It is like a rock placed in the chest built over time with tears. The female protagonist , Songhwa, tries to embrace her ‘han’ to have the best mind moving voice.
ReplyDeleteIn this particular film, there are quite a number of distance shots with and without pan movement of camera. A very long take was used when family of Songhwa is dancing down the dirt road singing 'Arirang', the most famous traditional Korean song. This is the only scene where all three of them are smiling and actually enjoying Pansori regardless of getting true sound by overcoming the grief, han. The most of long takes with distance shot is used when Songhwa's family is moving from places to places to look for job or to train for Pansori. The backgrounds of these distance shots show beautiful landscapes of Korea and the protagonists are the only one walking down that road. I believe this symbolizes Yu Bong and Songhwa's decision to keep traditional Korean sound, Pansori, when others adapt to new culture that comes from Japan and US such as suits and pop songs.
Seung Hyun Koh
ReplyDeleteIn the film, Sopyonje, important camera techniques and themes can be found.
One of the noteworthy camera techniques utilized in the film is extended use of extreme long shots. In a way, the shots attempt to create enough time to illustrate the scene (as well as the sound of pansori) and to delineate a long, empty journey. As the scene is seen from afar in a relatively lengthy period, it becomes easier to sense the long and empty field as well as to appreciate pansori. One can conjecture that the scene is foreshadowing the difficulties that may arise with practicing the music. Another example of the use of extreme long shots is when Dong-ho is running away from his family. From a distance, the viewer can see Dong-ho’s sister, who has no option but to weep as her brother runs away. In the scene, Dong-ho looks back every now and then to see if his sister is still there. The shot takes time to clearly express a mood of loss and grief stemming from the tragic separation.
An interesting theme shown in the film is Korean society’s ‘obsession’ with inmaek or in English, connections. The reason why Yu-bong cannot succeed is that he was abandoned by his mentor, who assumedly had profound influence in the pansori community. In Korean society, where connections are quite important in getting into a particular field of profession, a quarrel with a guru will undoubtedly mar one’s career in that industry. The fact that Yu-bong was caught sleeping with his mentor’s mistress was more than enough to have his reputation tarnished. In the end, he was forced to leave and could not complete his training to become a professional.
In addition, there is a recurring theme of the phasing out of pansori. This is first established through the extreme close-up of the calligraphy. The purpose of this shot is later explicated when a friend of Yu-bong, a calligrapher, comments that pansori is losing out to Japanese Enka and American popular music. Another instance where this theme is displayed is when Yu-bong disrupts his children’s performance, an event aimed to attract buyers of a newly released medicine. His employer shouts in contempt that he has already planned to replace the pansori performance with that of violin. The overshadowing of pansori is foretold when Yu-bong and his children move to a new village. On the first day of their arrival, they witness a large troop of modern instrument player, garnering many enthusiastic audiences. Again, there is a sense of bitterness over the fact that pansori is no longer popular.
Tae Kyu Kim
ReplyDeleteSopyonje
Upon watching Im Kwon-taek’s Sopyonje today, I found it very tedious yet interesting. First of all, the film is very long and slow. There aren’t too many characters in the film and the story is relatively predictable with couple exceptions, which I thought was interesting. I have also learned a lot about my culture through this film. I didn’t even know Korean traditional folk songs were called “pansori”, which doesn’t sound Korean at all. The period is set long time ago after Korea was free from Japanese sovereignty and when Korea was going through rapid growth of modernization; we could see people wear the old hanboks and obviously the performances of pansori, slowly fading away. I think Im Kwon-taek wanted to emphasize the values of tradition specifically, passion through the film. The film was made in 1993, where Korea was going through extreme modernization. As in the film, the tradition of pansori has been going old fashioned yet the director wanted to show audiences the passion created via Yubong and Songhwa. As for the directing, Im Kwon-taek has used many of the basic but unique camera works.
One of the most common camera works the director uses is long shots and close ups. Throughout the film, long shots are taken when Yubong, Songhwa and Dongho are travelling. It’s sort of like a side way or panoramic shot when they are walking on the fields as the audiences are exposed to a sideway perspective; it is an extreme long shot because the camera is not moving. Another common and unique technique the director uses is a zoomed out shot of a scene, where only the surroundings are shown and then almost immediately a character appears. The director also uses close up shots. One example is towards the end when Dongho finally finds Songhwa and they both do the pansori. During this scene, we can see the camera closing up on Shonghwa’s face and also Dongho’s face. One of the best shots in the film is when the director uses a long take shot. It’s the scene where Yubong, Dongho and Songhwa are walking down a path while singing as a united family. Here, the director uses a long take until the song is completely finished, which then cuts off and continues with a different scene. Overall, the film is a unique piece because the camera works are different than the other films we have seen. It’s not really my type of film, but I did enjoy learning about my own culture.
June Wie
ReplyDeleteSopyonje was an interesting film that revolves its characters aroung "pansori". This film seemed to have lots of traditional Korean aspects. The most obvious would be the pansori singing, but there were other cultural aspects such as the hanbok or the calligraphy that made appearances throughout the movie. There were definitely cultural changes that were occuring during this time period. The calligrapher at one point says that pansori is dying and although the main characters wore traditional clothing many people around them wore western styled clothing. When Song-hwa asks the callligrapher for a drawing near the end of the movie I thought it was symbolic of her love for tradition and pansori.
Song-hwa's father Yu-bong was a very powerful character that seemed to have many flaws that I disliked but at the same time I didnot hate him because his passion and desire to keep pansori alive was so strong. However, making Song-hwa blind or using much of the family money on alcohol were obvious mistakes that he made. I thought it was interesting that he talks to Song-hwa about making her go blind when he is nearing death. And of course he talks about pansori until his last moments. This movie was very interesting and I felt that there was so much emotion in the pansori and the expressions of the characters.
Karen Lam
ReplyDeleteIn the movie "Sopyonje," several things stood out to me. I was quite surprised to see that there was a sex scene, and a child-birthing scene in this movie. I thought that movies filmed during the late 1900s were still relatively conservative, so considering the time period during which this movie was filmed and shown, I thought those scenes were out of place. Furthermore, I don't think the sex scene furthered the plot, or showed anything relevant to the story, especially since little Dongho watched on while it happened. This scene was unnecessary.
There were many extremely long takes in this movie, whether it was just of a close-up on someone's face, or of the scenery. I think the director used these to emphasize the "pansori" music, because during many of the long takes, the characters were singing. Also, the long takes of scenery, during which the characters were walking or singing, showed a contrast to the city life that they didn't have. "Pansori" is considered an old type of singing, and they were shown walking in the countryside hills, which is considered old when compared to city life with buildings.
Songhwa's clothing color also changed during this movie. In the beginning when she was singing happily with her brother and father, her clothing was quite colorful and bright, and fit her well. After a while, the clothing was too short on her, and after her brother left, her hanboks were black and white. It was only after her father died and she sang in restaurants that her clothing changed back to colors, albiet dark ones. Perhaps this symbolizes her feelings for "pansori" music. In the beginning, she said she loved to sing because she felt happy when she sang, and happiness is usually indicated by bright colors. However, after her brother left, she stopped singing and even refused to eat. This could be symbolized by black. Lastly, in the end she finally achieved her father's goal for her of overcoming her grief to become the best pansori singer. She had experienced so much grief in her life, and had learned to overcome it in life and in her singing, so this could be represented by dark colors.
The film ‘Sepyeonje’ was an old movie mainly contains the story about pansori. The movie is mostly showing the scene of characters singing, not the acting part. It was a good movie in the way that expressed Korean’s soul and feelings by pansori which is one of the traditional things in Korea. I did feel touched in some part from protagonists singing with having resentment
ReplyDeleteIn the movie, the unique kind of technique was outstanding. There were a lot of remarkable long take shot in the movie. The scene where the family is walking down the field while singing, camera absolutely showed the great skill of a long take shot. Without moving a camera around, it just captured the movement of the characters. Camera is shooting at the end of the road and the characters are on the beginning of the road. It made me to concentrate more on the singing which acts as important factor in the movie as well it expanded the sadness of the song. This effect did make more precise emotional response to the movie I think. Additionally, even this quite long scene did not show any particular actions, it was not boring at all surprisingly. One more interesting things was that camera remains until the character disappears and to continue their trip. The long take shot appears not only in this part but also appears in many scenes of the movie. For example, when Dongho leaves the family and when Songhwa is practicing her pansori skills with Yubong, camera captures the all three people together from long distance. Long take shots in this movie absolutely stands out which might have made the movie boring.
The interesting factor of this movie is the way how story unfolds. It starts with the main character Dongho in the present, looking for his sister that he left a long time ago. He meets the woman in the inn and hears the news about her sister. The recall of woman’s memory leads to the flashback of Dongho and the scene moves to the past. It takes the form of rahmennovelle which shows the past and the present back and forth. With retrospection, the story goes over and over which even gave the tension since the ending comes close. The movie mostly goes along with the recalling of memories leading to another recall of memories. Overall, the film had lots of interesting factors over boring settings.
“Sopyonje” was an emotionally appealing melodramatic movie that consisted of limited number of camera techniques and slow progress of the plot. Throughout the movie, I noticed how the director incorporated a lot of static and extreme long shots while using close-up shots only for several key moments. Even when the characters are singing Pansori together or engaging in a conversation, there are not many close-up shots used. Most of them are usually medium or two/three shots as the director did not wanted to put audience’s focus on one character. I believe that he wanted to highlight how the characters interacted with each other and how their surrounding looked like rather than focusing on each character’s emotional development. Not only are long-shots used to show the audiences and the atmosphere of the event during Songhwa’s Pansori singing, but also extreme long shots are used in times when the family travels to a different place. There is one long take where both Songhwa and Yubong sing Pansori together. Even though the camera remains static, the characters move closer and closer to the camera as they sing while walking through the maze. I find this long scene interesting as the camera remains motionless while the characters continue to walk and eventually pass the camera. In many of the scenes, I see how not many shots are included in one scene. Rather, the camera does not move and is usually positioned in a way so that all the characters can be seen from that location. For instance, in the scene with the men and two women drinking, we see how the camera remains unchanging for a very long time until one of his friends leave. This seemed interesting as many of the modern films today incorporate various shots in one scene to show the lively and dynamic nature of the movie. The director may have purposely included few shots in one scene as it ties well with the slow progress of the storyline and the gloomy and melodramatic nature of the movie overall. In one of the family’s travel scene, I noticed motivated camera movement in which the camera does not stay static but rather follows the movement or walking of the characters. Close-shots are used very few times throughout the movie when the characters are engaged in a serious conversation or at one moment when Songhwa sings Pansori the whole night with Dongho beating the drum. When she sings alone in the beginning of the film or when with her father, close-shots are never used to show her facial expressions. Rather, the audiences and her surrounding are filmed. However, in this scene towards the end, extreme close shots are used as her emotions showed her inner grief, cries, and a slight happiness that were considered more important than her surroundings. In terms of the audio part of the movie, since it is a kind of a musical film, most of the sounds included are diegetic in which they are from the objects or people from the movie.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Pansori only meant a dream, goal, hope, and happiness to Songhwa. It was something that she wanted to continuously learn and improve on. It was something that brightened her life and kept her living as she seemed most happy and serious while singing. Also, in the scene where she sings Pansori together with her father while traveling to a different place, I realized how it played as a unifying factor that connected them together. However, after she becomes blind from her father’s intentional malicious act, Pansori seemed to represent cure and elimination of inner grief. It was something that helped her forget about her inner sadness for a moment. It helped heal her as the lyrics mostly reflected her feelings toward her father.
One of the continuing motifs used by Im Kwon-Taek in the film Sopyonje, is the constant usage of long shots to show off Korean scenery. Korea is quite famous of its beautiful historic sceneries, such as mountains and natural landscapes, and this films heavy usage of long shots clearly depict the remarkable beauty of the nation. At the beginning of the film there is a large presence of old traditional Korean culture and pansori as depicted by the han-boks worn, the straw huts, and farming techniques. It’s as though the film was set in ancient Korea and not the 1900’s. As the film progresses, modernization and industrialized society begins to overshadow traditional aspects, such as in the restaurant when there are several people wearing modern clothing in the sea of han-boks, the marching band drowning out the pansori singers, and even transportation methods. The long shot of their crumbling house when Dongho runs away and when father and daughter are unable to perform at a party is the full transition of the “death” of pansori. The passion that fueled pansori as burned out, along with the daughter’s sight. As pansori has died out, so has traditional Korea and this is represented in the scene where the once famous pansori singer is now an opium addict.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the film when Dongho and his blind sister are singing the ballad of Sim Chung, the close-up shots of their faces reveal the intense emotions and internal grief both characters are feeling. This scene reveals the “rebirth” of pansori as both brother and sister overcome their grief and allow their past experiences to take center stage and convey the emotional turmoil of the Korean people and the turbulent history that embodies the true nature of pansori.
Julia Wong
ReplyDeleteIn “Sopyonje,” director Im Kwon-taek successfully uses many static and long-shots to show the struggle of maintaining cultural nationalism versus the adaptation to the ever modernizing country. To me, the nationalism that was portrayed throughout the film struck out far more than the film being a melodrama. Through the use of pansori as a medium, the director was able to show the nationalistic pride of Korea’s culture and traditions despite the modernization and westernization of Korea. This theme of national pride and traditional cultures needing to strive and survive stuck out the most to me as pansori was clearly a huge part of the film. It was so important to Yu-bong that he went as far as making Song-hwa blind to make her feel so much grief that when she successfully overcame it, her sound when she sang would be his idealized pansori sound.
The long shots of the family traveling also stuck out to me. Not only did it show the traditional houses and fields of Korea, it showed a family full of perseverance fighting to maintain the traditions of pansori alive. I felt like his message was clear in these scenes, that nationalism and tradition of the Korean culture should not be forgotten due to the changes of the modernized country. Another long-take that clearly showed this struggle between tradition and the “old” culture versus the “new” was perfectly depicted by the scene when Yu-bong, Dong-ho, and Song-hwa are performing on the streets and the few audience members they have leave to watch a group of performers playing western instruments come strolling through the street. This obvious struggle with the pansori losing show that the country is slowly moving away from not only pansori but the “old” culture in general. He shows through Yu-bong’s perseverance that this culture should be remembered and preserved as it is a part of Korea. Overall I enjoyed the film, but I felt that the pansori sound that was played throughout the film was a little hard to digest as it is not the type of music that I am used to.
Janet Tang
ReplyDeleteIn Sopyonje, long, static shots were frequently used throughout the film in a manner that helped emphasize one of the major themes that dealt with a loss of tradition in a world with a mentality of out with the old and in with the new. Pansori is the symbol of Korean tradition that Yubong tries to preserve by teaching the recitation to Songhwa and the drums to Dongho. Many of the long shots consisted of farmlands and agricultural areas through which Yubong,Dongho, and Songhwa wander through from job to job. Initially, the scenery long shots of the family walking start off very picturesque and serene, but gradually as time passes, each scene with the group wandering gets darker, the background scenery becomes more barren, and the seasons change from what seems to be spring or summer to fall and winter. The most obvious change visually between the long, static walking scenes, is between the scene, which is quite possibly the longest take in the entire film, in which the whole family is happily singing an arirang pansori song together through a field on a sunny day, and a later scene in which only Yubong and Songhwa are walking on a cold, snowy winter day.
In the first scene, both Yubong and Songhwa are happily singing a Pansori song together while Dongho plays the drum to their singing. The length of this scene emphasizes a sort of perfect picture of the family and how singing together and performing together is the only source of happiness required. In addition, they're singing the first song that Yubong taught them when they were children. This scene represents a rather innocent outlook that the family has initially of being able to make a living through traditional singing. One of the lyrics of the song that both represents this family's attitude as well as foreshadows a bleak future is something along the lines of "it's an unhappy world, but we keep smiling." It's essentially the attitude that Yubong, Songhwa, and Dongho have in an ever-changing world that's phasing out tradition for newer trends, Pansori might be less and less popular over time, but if they continue to perform and do it well, they could still be happy. This changes completely by the latter scene in which there is both an absence of song as well as Dongho. The meaning of the song lyrics changes as well. What once was an unhappy world that the three Pansori performers could face together, that world became an unhappy reality for Songhwa and Yubong after Dongho left after deciding there was no future in Pansori anymore.
Joey Tay Hui Lin
ReplyDeleteSopyonje
Sopyonje made use of Pansori music, a tradition of Korea to reflect how much the era has changed since then. Sopyonje talks about how the father uses different ways to improve his daughter skills in Pansori. I personally felt that the method that the father used towards his daughter was too extreme. The treatment of the father towards his daughter eventually results the brother, Dong Ho to leave and cause a division in the family. The movie has showed how fast the Korean society is evolving from a traditional society to a modern society.
Throughout this movie, the director makes use of long distance shots to express the emotions of the characters. In the movie, there was one really long scene that lasted for a few minutes where Song Hwa, Dong Ho and Yubong were on a big path and they just got kicked out of their previous house. At the beginning of the path, only the father, Yu Bong was singing the Pandori, as they approached nearer to the camera, Song Hwa started joining in the Pandori and Dong Ho started playing the drums. The scene actually helped to reflect how much they enjoyed Pandori together. There were also long distance shots of them shifting from one house to another. These shots actually gave the feeling of abandoned, coldness and disappointment in them.
Furthermore, the director also makes use of close up shots to emphasize on certain moments. At the last few minutes of the movie where Dong Ho finally found Song Hwa and started playing the drums and singing together. The director make use of close up shots to express the feelings that Dong Ho have for being able to find Song Hwa after a long time. The shots help to show the amount of energy they put into the singing, which allow us to feel how much they enjoyed doing this together. The lyrics being sang by the characters reflected a lot about their emotions and allowed the audience watching to relate and understand better about the movie.
The film Sopyonje by director Im Kwon-taek narrates the story of a brother, Dong-ho, who is in search of his sister, Songhwa. During the trajectory of Dong-ho finding his sister, their story of how they grew up is being told in a series of memories.
ReplyDeleteThese memories begin not far from the initiation of the film. The first scene in this movie is an establishing shot that captures the setting of the film. In that establishing shot there is the view of a peasant village. Having this village as the establishing shot is important because it provides information of the people’s economic status, way of living, and culture. Moreover, the color filter utilized in this establishing shot, which can be described as high-key lighting, is used to portray the essence of a historical period/past. As the moving camera pans to a long shot, the audience can see more clearly the village. However, the importance of this is that the camera moves in into Dong-ho’s face, which tells the audience that he is one of the protagonists of the film. As of now, the film has stayed in the present time, but once the camera is taken to inside the room where Dong-ho sits with a Pansori singer, the memories of Dong-ho and Songhwa’s childhood begin to be told.
In this scene the director utilizes a warm color filter that is used to separate the transition from the present and the past. As the story returns to the past, the color filter changes to a high-key lighting. This scene begins with Dong-ho asking the Pansori if she knows how to sing Pansori, as a return she begins signing the story of Dong-ho’s life. As she begins to sign, the camera slowly begins to pan around the actors. Until the camera turns into the close up of Dong-ho’s face, does the audience begins to experience a sense of flashback. After the close-up there is a cut to the follow-up shot of Dong-ho’s face when he was a little child. At this moment, the color filter of the film changes to a high-key lighting. In conclusion, this is the first moment where the audience experiences the way the film is going to be structure; structure as a series of flashback memories.
Angela Rivera
Sopyonje (1993)
ReplyDeleteThis film generally gives a lot of attention on the traditional Korean art of Pansori and this Pansori is somehow symbolic for South Korea, which is a part of South Korea’s history, symbolizing that South Korea has overcome a history of suffering to achieve the status that they have now presently. It is similar to how Yu Bong believes that “You must suffer a lot to be a Pansori musician”. In general, the film also emphasizes on Yu Bong’s status in the family as a father and how he exerts patriarchial power by forcing his children to learn the art of Pansori. This is even more evident in the way he trains his daughter, Song Hwa. The director, Im Kwon-taek, explicitly lets the audience know that this film’s main attention is on Pansori in the shot that is just minutes into the film, where the lady boss of the inn at which Dong Ho goes to sings Pansori and tells him that she learned this art from Song Hwa. There is a transition back to the past as she sings the Pansori and the audience is introduced to Yu Bong, who is seen to take a lot of pride in this art that he is practicing as during the shot where he performs the Pansori, there is a close-up shot of his side-view, emphasizing on the beads of sweat trickling down his face and signifying how much effort he puts into carrying out this form of art. It also symbolizes how tiring this art actually is and requires so much of his effort.
Later on in the film, when Song Hwa and Dong Ho have both grown into adults, there is a scene in which Song Hwa performs to a group of men with seemingly higher social status. In this scene, there is an emphasis on the actual status of women, who are just objects in which men show sexual desires and not appreciating her for her actual talent as an entertainer. This once again brings out the gender and social status of women in society, which also resonates throughout the entire film, where Yu Bong intentionally makes Song Hwa lose her sense of sight and making her all dependent on him. This portrays Song Hwa as a helpless lady who is dependent on her father, being led by her father using a rope, which reminds me of an image of a master leading a servant or even a dog. In addition, in the shot where Yu Bong, Dong Ho and Song Hwa sing the Pansori together while they walk down the path, the shot is extremely long and at the end, even after all three characters leave the scene, there is a lingering of the shot which seems to signify the bleak fate of this art and symbolizes that this form of art is disappearing. There is a certain sense of powerlessness in them as they are also seen to be travelling around and during such scenes, they are filmed at a very long distance against the vast surroundings, which make them seem small and powerless. This also serves to bring out the fact that this art is indeed dying off.
Felicia Chay
The movie Sopyonje has various interesting visuals throughout the film that enhances the manner in which the script is being told. Right away we are thrown into this conflict during Dongho’s childhood of his innocence being taken away by the sight of his mother and Yu-bong getting sexually active with no concern of his presence. It was interesting to see that even though Dong-ho is a short little kid, the camera is tilted downward from his perspective giving us this frame of curiosity, discomfort, or possibly even shame that the two adults awoke him from his sleep for their selfish desires. However, I found it ironic that later on he questioned Songhwa about a verse having to deal with getting pregnant and the obvious manner of sex. The awkward moment between the two “siblings” gave us this illusion of two children who have lived a sheltered life instead of the two adult present. It seems that when growing up, the focus of Pansori was so important that Yu-bong neglected to introduce anything that may have been considered a distraction such as love.
ReplyDeleteAnother repeating theme that I commonly noted throughout the film was the extreme long shots during their journeys. The long takes of the three just crossing the screen seemed almost as though they were continuously walking through a straight hallway. Yet, every time that the family was fired or had to leave from a job we were still given a long shot but the family would be walking downhill. It seems that this walk down the hill created this boundary of class, separating the modern money dwellers from those in the low-class trying to keep tradition alive. It also became a symbol for every time the three performers hit a new low; the slow loss of their pride and glory that led to their separation.
Stacey Hahn
ReplyDeleteThroughout Sopyonje, Director Im Kwon-Taek explores the growing obsolescence of a pastime in a new age. Through the combined usage of extreme long shots and long takes, Im establishes a powerful connection between nature and pansori, which represents a lifestyle of a passing time. In one scene, when Yubong, Dongho, and Songhwa are travelling on a road through a hilly field, Im chooses to film an extreme long shot in one long take, which emphasizes not only the breath-taking expanse of the landscape, but also the magnified voices of pansori. Through this, Im creates a sense of peace and tranquility, fostering a sense of nostalgia for a time when things were simple and art could be pursued not for the sake of food and money, but for the satisfaction of the art itself.
The nostalgia is fully culminated in the scene directly following this journey, in which the modern lifestyle of the drinking men clashes with the more traditional values of the pansori singers. The juxtaposition between these two worlds is ironic because even though the modern men are supposed to represent a new time period, Yubong is the one who embraces a more liberal idea of equality between “noblemen and peasants”. Yet as we see, the modern men confirm the fact that social classes will always exist, regardless of time and place. This discordance is a literal and figurative expression of the incompatibility between two different time periods and lifestyles, which further establishes the chasm growing between pansori and the present world. In turn, this disconnect further proves that this nostalgic lifestyle and art form is becoming obsolete.
"Sopyonje" is one of the early films that deal with a very Korean traditional subject of Pansori. As shown in the film, pansori is closely related to the Korean concept of "Han" which is the feeling that stands in between anger and regret. Han is often characterized by some experience or incident that makes a person extremely sad and difficult to live the rest of her life. Pansori songs are often sad stories or narratives of those experiences, and, therefore, han is treated as an essential element of the song. Like the Father in the movie, han often naturally arises in the minds of pansori singers, who are homeless and constantly wandering around and being treated like animals. However, as the daughter seems to lack such a soul in her singing, the father assumes that it is because she has had a satisfying life and decides to make her blind to add up her han. In the end, nevertheless, what really fills her han into pansori is the missing of her brother and father and her loneliness.
ReplyDeleteThere are numerous scenes throughout the film that capture the path, moving, and the endless journey of the pansori family. In fact, the film opens with the scene of the father arriving in a new town and closes with the scene of the brother leaving a town. These symbolize the lives of wandering pansori singers. Through the rivers, forests, and various towns, they constantaly move around, no matter what season it is: spring, summer, fall, and winter as well. They are not obsessed with the "modern" idea of earning as much money as possible. Instead, they rather see themselves as professionals who carry out a valuable Korean traditional music that should be heard by many others. Nonetheless, as depicted in the scene in one of the towns, many Korean traditions, including pansori, have begun to receive less respect and attention and to even disappear gradually by Westernization or Modernization. The overkill of the music band over pansori with its loud instruments from the West such as drums and trumpets demonstrates that pitiable phenomenon.
Sopyonje
ReplyDeleteA director of Sopyonje, Kwon-Taek Im succeeded in depicting a beautiful sound of the traditional Korean music called Pansori to the audiences through Sopyonje. After watching the film, I felt the director Im’s admiration and pity for Pansori which was losing its place in music industry and Korean people’s interest in 1990s when the film was released. I think the film very well conveyed Pansori’s beauty and Koreans’ grief of life back then. Sopyonje suggests and describes a sense of Korean nationalism as well as Korean native culture and sentiment. The whole setting including the landscape, costumes, and houses in the film builds up the importance of the Korean culture and tradition, particularly Pansori. Youbong’s passion, love, and dedication to Pansori led him to teach Pansori to his son and daughter for rest of his life. Through continuation of wandering and singing Pansori, they had to endure harsh conditions such as disdain/ignorance from people, appearance of popular Western music, and failure to earn lots of money. After Dongho runs away from his, Youbong makes Songhwa blind to keep her with him and give a grief to her so that she can sound better and express sincere emotions when singing Pansori. Youbong’s such behavior implies how he cares about Pansori and how he wants Pansori to be passed down through the generations in Korea. Throughout the film, there are many songs of Pansori such as simchungjeon, prison song, arirang, sopyonje, and so on. Pansori plays a remarkable and pivotal role in providing a joy to a desperate family and in delivering one’s emotion without conversation. A long-take scene where the family in a desperate situation walks and sings continuously is a very remarkable scene in that it illustrated Pansori creating a joyful and lively mood to the family. Also, surprisingly, arirang, a song that they sing along for more than 5 minutes straight in the film did not bore me out. I think this is what Im tried to tell the audiences: that Pansori is a beautiful and precious sound that is unique in Korean tradition. The other scene that depicts Pansori’s own beauty is a scene where Dongho and Songhwa sing simchungjeon together after they were separate for many years. While singing simchugjeon, Songhwa notices it is Dongho who plays a drum and they both express their emotions through singing with both of their eyes filled with tears. They are able to communicate and deliver their feelings to each other just by singing Pansori. Also, Songhwa feels an ease to her grief while singing. Im’s attempt to show the greatness and beauty of Pansori succeeded throughout the film.
Another thing which I think is important in the film is the meanings of the road. Youbong’s family walks the road years and years, wandering and seeking for opportunities to deliver Pansori’s beauty to many people. The long road where the long take scene is taken has many rocks that might make the road tiring to be walked. Such condition represents what the family is going through: no house, no money, and no hope. However, if one takes a close look on the road, the road seems to be warm and cozy. Despite the hard circumstances, there are warmth and happiness within the family by singing Pansori. I think the road represents a lonely and effortful journey of keeping Korean traditional culture and turning a grief into an artistic and touching sound of music. A last scene of the film where the blind Songhwa and her daughter walks a road in the cold winter foreshadows a continual effort of passing down Pansori to another generation. This is Im’s intention of telling the audiences that they should not lose this beautiful Korean traditional music, Pansori and keep passing it down to generations in Korea.
In Sopyonje, Im Kwon-taek illustrates differences within South Korean society. The film draws upon the gaps between social classes as one of its sources of conflict. During the beginning of the film, Yu-bong’s girlfriend’s family did not approve of him for their daughter because he was a low class musician, implying that their daughter was too good for him because of their wealth and standing. This situation demonstrates the universal theme of how differing social classes is a barrier in relationships. This gap between social classes is again displayed during one of their pansori performances. When the men hit on Song-hwa and make her pour one of them a drink as well as drink one herself, Dong-ho and Yu-bong clearly want to protect her from them but know doing so would not be socially acceptable. It is also clear that Song-hwa does not want anything to do with them either, but she gives in because of her lower place in their social strata. That audience’s power and authority over them conveys the social structure of Korean society at the time.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, Im Kwon-taek illustrates the transition from older, more traditional Korean society to a newer, more Westernized society. In particular, the film frequently draws upon how musical practice was changing in Korea at the time. First, Yu-bong’s calligraphy friend mentioned how he should let Dong-ho and Yu-bong learn his craft because they won’t survive off performing pansori. Later, when the salesman they were staying and performing with kicked them out, he said he’ll hire a violinist instead. Toward the end, the musical group that walked through the town as they were performing further emphasized the change away from traditional Korean pansori. The musical instruments of “new Korea” overpowered Song-hwa’s voice and Dong-ho’s drum and their audience moved their attention to the new group without question, accentuating how new musical practice was taking over.
Caitlin Omai
Daniel Rhee
ReplyDeleteSopyonje
One thing that stood out while watching Sopyonje was the constant mobility of every character. From Yubong all the way down to even the calligrapher and Yubong's old friends, the characters all start out in one place and end up elsewhere. Pansori, a traditional Korean music genre that consists of a sorrikun, singer, and a gosu, drummer, was a dying Korean tradition and was slowly being overtaken by a more upbeat music form. Because Pansori was not as popular as it used to be, Yubong and his two children, Songhwa and Dongho, have always been moving around from place to place to find work as entertainers. In the movie, many scenes have some mode of transportation that catches the audience's attention. There are times when future Dongho is riding a bus or a bus is in the background, and there are times when the younger Dongho would be walking from town to town with Songhwa and Yubong. The constant reminder of physical mobility of the characters serve as a parallel to the Pansori itself.
Pansori in the movie portrays this satirical stance on society as all the lyrics that we hear from Songhwa are about grief. But we learn from Yubong that grief is not procured unless a person has truly experienced heartbreak. And once Songhwa could master Sopyonje with Dopyonje, she would have essentially mastered Pansori. The extremely long takes that the director takes in many of the scenes parallel the journey that Songhwa takes in order to continue learning Pansori. For example, in the scene after Yubong gets fired, Songhwa and Yubong are singing Pansori and Dongho accompanies them with the drums. The camera in that scene was static and gradually, the characters in the scene approached the center of the scene from the distant road. The progression that the director illustrated in that scene complements all the other scenes where Songhwa or Yubong is singing a different Pansori tune. The constant movement of the characters alongside the changing Pansori lyrics emphasizes that nothing can remain the same. Just like how Pansori was transitioning, Songhwa and her journey to master Pansori was clearly displayed through the long takes that the director took to mirror the journey of a Pansori artist.
(Julie) Jiong Yi Huang
ReplyDelete"Sopyonje" is a film based on the obstacles that a traditional Korean family faces due to their relationship with the traditional Korean opera known as Pansori. Unlike many other films, the music used in this film centers solely on Pansori, even when the characters are not the ones performing it, highlighting the significance of this music to the basis of the film.
Also in this film, rather than relying on the use of extreme close-ups to display the emotions felt by the characters, the director chose to use extremely long scenes that center around the music made by the characters' voices and instruments. For example, after losing his temper while visiting Seoul with his kids, Youbong is seen singing happily and loudly alongside his children. The extreme long shot used in this scene allows the audience to see the beauty of nature in the background while also providing a sense of peace and happiness that cannot be felt with just a close up of an actor's face. Rather than showing a few seconds of this scene, it takes up a very significant bulk of the film. There are quite a few other times where Pansori is set as the main focal point. One of the most prominent scenes comes at the end of the film where Dong-ho finally finds Songhwa and they both perform Pansori through the rest of the night. Here, Pansori acts as a source of reuniting a family while also acting as the sole reason why a blind Songhwa realizes that it is her brother that she is performing with. Rather than reuniting indefinitely after this realization, the two allow their relationship to end with their final performance with another. It is because of this that Pansori embraces the importance of family in this film by allowing all types of emotions to be expressed within its musical sound.
In the film, Sopyonje, directed by Im Kwon Taek, Yubong raises two children, Dongho and Songhwa who are blood-related to him. Yubong’s greed of creating an excellent Pansori singer results in the separation of the family and loose of Songhwa’s eyesight. This film is narrated through the alternation of the present and the flashback of Dongho’s memory.
ReplyDeleteThe film starts with the long take of the nature with the pathway in the middle of the mountains. The director of this film uses a lot of long shot and often static throughout this film. The nature with the pathway appears a lot since the family does not have a specific place to live and does migrate around the villages finding places to stay and sell their talent, Pansori. The extremely long take of the pathway scene shows the endless hardship and the loneliness of the family as a Pansori singer in a transforming and modernizing era of Korea. Also, the transformation of the conditions of the pathway is remarkable as the life of the family gets harder and harder; the flowers and the greenness existed in the beginning of the film, next the red leaves then towards the end the snowstorms and the unsmooth ground.
Also, this film composes a lot of symbols such as Simchunga for the sister’s life and so on. The parrot in a cage, in the middle of the film, symbolizes the life of the sister and the brother under the suppression of the father. The parrot follows after what the people says, and the sister and the brother follows what their dad does. Also, those birds in a cage always desire to run away from the cage like the brother wanting to run away from his dad; and the brother did run away.
This film is very academically structured like current moment then flashback and ends with the current moment. For me living in a modern life, Im Kwon Taek’s filming technique was very interesting since a lot of recent popular movies tend to avoid a lot of long and static shots; but his film is full of the long and static shots.
Somin Seong.
The movie Sopyeonje seems to reflect the transitioning of old to new, the change from traditional to modern times, and the pain of doing so. The pride of the father in sticking to what is a dying trade for what seems to be a love and loyalty to this traditional art results in Dong Ho running away, him blinding his Song Hwa and this grief that is the undercurrent of the entire movie. One point where old and new meet is when they are performing at one village and the sound of a music band with trumpets and other ‘modern’ instruments come, frustrating/angering the father.
ReplyDeleteExtreme long shots are a characteristic of this movie. They represent the loneliness and constant wandering the family go through. At one point, a pansori about the changing of seasons is sung while the family walks through fall to winter, signifying a never ending journey to nowhere. Most of the long shots are also static and not motivated. A long shot is used to show Song Hwa waiting by the tree for Dong Ho to return. A long shot instead of a close up here gives the feeling of longing and being very far away, that Dong Ho is far away and won’t return.
Also of significance are the lyrics of the pansori. The songs are not only a part of the family’s work but are reflective of their lives. Each song sung reflects a certain point in their story. The father learns the ‘prison song’ and teaches it to Song Hwa day and night yet Dong Ho remarks that she doesn’t have energy to sing because she barely eats properly; they are living life like the wandering spirits in the song. Also, she learns the sopyeonje, a “sori that must break one’s heart” as described by the father. The amount of grief and pain in Song Hwa’s life comes together in this one song. Also she sings of a “shrimp flapping on the ground beating his chest” which signals the father’s death.
Miwon Kim
ReplyDeleteKorean Cinema: Sopyonje
Sopyonje centers on traditional Korean song, pansori, after the Japanese colonization of Korea. It shows the importance of pansori in Korean culture as the film develops the relationship between pansori and the protagonists. Through pansori, the protagonists reveal their emotions to communicate with audience. They do not simply express their feelings verbatim. Rather, they use their voice, hand gestures, and facial expressions to create a full sentimental emotion. Another unique way that the audience is able to relate to the characters is through camera technique. In the scene where Hwasong, Dongho, and Yubong walk as they sing the traditional folk song, Arirang, the three-minute long shot grabs the audience to experience the same emotion as the characters are feeling at that moment. It is a single-angled long shot, which lets the audience to focus only on Arirang and the characters’ sorrow.
Some of the major themes introduced in this film are nationalist sentiments, class issues, and urban versus rural. In the film, Yubong constantly reminds of the word han, which means grief and sorrow. This word internalizes national sentiment at that period of time, which was post colonialism. Although it centralizes the theme of nationalism, it also encapsulates the destruction of Korean tradition. As Yubong and Songhwa perform in a town, a band composed of western instruments interrupts them, and the attention is tilted towards the brass band. This blatantly portrays how modernity has changed the Korean society. Although at first Yubong was confident that Japanese and Western cultures cannot beat the beauty of pansori, the changing world leaves Yubong and Songhwa abandoned and powerless.
Jieun Yoon
ReplyDeleteSopyonje
This movie, Sopyonje, is one of the well made Korean films, in terms of getting understading from various generations of audiences. The time period setting and the main theme, Pansori, is not the one that my generation can easily understand and enjoy. However, Sopyonje not only arouse an interest about Pansori, but also it deeply impressed me.
Sopyonje shows Korea's changing perspective as disappearance of Pansori. Yubong wants his belief and passion to revive Pansori goes down to Songhwa and his afraid of losing her turned out as making her as blind. Songhwa's respect and loving him turned out as forgiveness and she became one of the best Pansori singers. The last scene that Dongho and Songhwa meet and permorm Shimchungga released their 'Han' resentment.
Before I watched this film, I thought it'll be a boring one. However, it was one of the best Korean movie and touched me.
Woo Yeon Park
ReplyDeleteDirector Im Kwon-taek's Sopyonje reveals the conflicts Koreans had to undergo post Korean War. The wave of imported goods and conventional thinkers who tried to perserve what they had had, in this case, Pansori represents not only the tragedy of a family, but also the confusion South Korea had to deal with during that time period. Never had been exposed to Pansori, I was not enjoying the bare sound, unique pitch, and absence of soft melody in the beginning, but as the movie proceeded, the irritation disappeared and started to empath the song with the characters. Although the movie was made in 1993, the details director constructed made the film realistic. Yubong and Songhwa walked the path of preservation and the others who sell drugs, wearing contemporary Western suits tried to adopt to Western culture. However, the dialogue that Yubong and suited men had when the men kicked Yubong out calling him "Sangnom" reveals that even though people were dressed like a modernised men, their ideology was still embedded with traditional Korean values. Beside emphasising on traditional class difference, the gender roles and age hierarchy system demonstrate the Korean virtues were preserved even after everything had been destroyed by colonial and civil war era.
The movie also contains many details such as pathway and houses to embody understanding of audiences what it was like to be in that era. The camera takes a long shot when the Yubong family moves to another place. It shows their relationship by the distance and order they are walking. Yubong leads in the front, Songhwa follows him closely, and Dongho reluctantly walks in the end of the line with more distance. The pathway always does not have anyone around, showing their loneliness throughout the film. The pathway with dol-dam (walls made with stones), by the rice plantation, and a vast field of weeds add the traditional ideas of Korea relating to the main characters. Houses in the movie illuminates the emotional stages of the protagonists. Especially when Dongho left, the house they were staying was partially sustained and extremely aged and broken. The destructed half of the house reflects Dongho's ran-away which stopped Songhwa to sing Sori.
Sopyonje is a movie that strongly demonstrates Korean culture, especially pansori. The lyrics of pansori are mostly sad and for this reason pansori creates a sad atmosphere throughout the movie.
ReplyDeleteSopyonje, a kind of pansori that involves much grief, conveys and focuses on protagonists' emotions. The conveyance of emotion is well achieved through frequent use of close-ups and even an extreme long shot. First of all, extreme close-ups are used in scenes in which singers and Dongho make a harmony. These extreme close-up shots are alternated between singers and Dongho. (First in Sorije Inn and later with his sister) This alternating extreme close-up shots not only illustrate the protagonists' emotions, but also the communication achieved between them. The extreme long shot was used after Dongho's family is kicked out of their room. The three characters approach toward the camera from considerably long distance. As they increase in size in the screen, their significance gradually increases. As they sing Arirang on their way, the song that started with much grief develops into a joyful song. By the time the characters are close to the camera, they are conveying joy and possibly the overall theme of the movie, overcoming grief.
The long shot in which Arirang is sung is at the same time a very long take. It takes much time and thus effectively expresses gradual changes in the characters' emotions. This kind of long take is often used throughout the movie along with long pansori songs. Pansori's long notes match well with these long takes in the movie. For Yongsu and his children are wanderers, the movie shows many scenes in which the characters simply walk using pan. While these walking scenes seem to be trivial in terms of plot, these scenes very effectively construct the sad and heavy atmosphere that runs throughout the movie.
I personally could relate Sopyonje to a novel 'Beddaragi' or '배따라기' by Dong In Kim. This famous literary work was written in 1921. The story in short is that two brothers have a conflict and split. Later on, one of the brothers look for the other, following 'Beddaragi', a traditional Korean song. A similar story line and a similar atmosphere though in different forms make me wonder if the director was inspired by this literary work in a way. At least they seem to share common theme of overcoming grief through traditional Korean songs that greatly affect the tone and atmosphere in them.
Myoung Su Ko
ReplyDeleteKorean Cinema
I was not very exciting about this movie at first, because it came out pretty long times ago and seems like the topic is too heavy for me. After the first 30 minutes of watching this movie, I was getting annoyed by the gloomy and boring atmosphere of the 50s, and becoming impatient to watch it. I thought that the story line will be flat all the way to the end. However, I was totally wrong. This movie is one of the best Korean movies I ever watched and is not one of the typical contemporary flicks, hyped and high-budgeted, only to deliver shallow entertainment to the audience.
The film, Sopyonje, directed by Im Kwon Taek, talks about pain, longing, passion and fortitude without much talking and melodrama. The actors' portrayals of their characters are unaffected and what are typical of real life. Their gestures, singing and expressions fit so perfectly that there needed to be not anything more to communicate what they needed to communicate. The singing is by far the key element of the film, being a musical and one centered on Pansori, a traditional Korean folk music. The culmination of Pansori art, as explained in the movie, is attained by overcoming grief and suffering. I can't help but be sympathetic about Songhwa (the female lead character) and her plight, but as she reached the peak of her art, my sympathy changed into admiration and the once annoying sound of Pansori transformed into a sublime and haunting melody to my ears.
I truly believe that Sopyonje is such a masterwork. This film is characteristically sad and somber but all at once beautiful, emotional and moving.
The movie Sopyonje is very sorrowful impression which represents Yu-Bong’s deep sorrow with Pansori. originally based on Korean literature. Pansori is a very valuable Korean culture of “Han” and it makes beautiful combination of Pansori with 북 and 소리. Yu-bong tries to develop the Pansori with his siblings who are DongHo, SongHwa. They follow to sing a YuBong’s Pansori.. YuBong has self esteem about that he effort to develop Pansori. DongHo and SongHwa’s ‘소리’ and ‘북’ make great collaboration. However, DongHo gives up Pansori and left sister and father. Also, even SongHwa blinds because of YuBong. When Dongho accomplishes the success life, he tries to find Songhwa. They finally meet but they pretend not to know. Sopyonje based on Korean valuable culture, is concept of pursue the best Pansori which is not possible without experience of deep sorrow. I could know they try to develop Korean traditional cultures and values but is really hard to reach the successful with Pansori. Striking was the long take where the tree of them are walking on the ground as they usually are singing the Arirang. The director used zoom in techniques on the character’s face, and by that audiences are more impressed by their song. This scene gives me big impressions that they are just singing instead of talking. She said that they resolve their deep sorrows with Pansori. Also interesting was the director describes landscape with Sori. It takes landscape with large setting that shows Korean tradition activities.
ReplyDeleteChankyung Jung
Saewon Kim
ReplyDeletePansori is Korean traditional music which is originated from southern part of Korea. Pansori is one of the representative Korean music
but nowadays people barely listen to Pansori and no longer care about it. Some young people consider pansori as old-fashioned music.
The movie sets from 1930 to 1960. During this period, Japanese and western music were introduced in Korea and lots of traditional musicians
couldn't live on pansori and gave up performing traditional music. Yubong, the protagonist of the movie, stresses 'Han' which is Korean's collective grief in the movie. He said keeping and overcoming Han is important to become a great pansori musician. And in the movie, Han contains the sorrow and hardship of pansori musician. Han also contains the sorrow and sufferings of Korean who had suffered from the colonial rule under Japan and Korean war. To sum, the movie not only conveys the beauty of Korean traditional art but also implies all the sufferings that Korean had suffered during the hard time.
Im-Kwon taek uses lots of long shots in the movie. The scene where Yubong, Songhwa and Dongho singing Jindo Arirang is over 5 minutes long.
By using long shot, the movie evokes a sense of peace and tranquility. Also this scene shows the beauty of Korean traditional music.
Ryan Chang
ReplyDeleteSopyonje is a film about the past struggling to survive the present. Through the context of national cinema, the film is definitely one that establishes a very traditional Korean medium of entertainment that is endangered by the newer, Western modes of entertainment. The film casts a positive light on the dying art, but also has a slightly negative light towards some of the characters who both try to save and run away from the art.
Through the context of cinematography, the camera work used in the movie is very unique, and fits in perfectly with the atmosphere of the film. The very long takes show the length of the different Pansori songs the family sings, and the long takes made me enjoy the music, which I at first found to be annoying but I grew an appreciation for it. The extreme close-ups also showed how intense Pansori can be by focusing on the characters' faces as they sang. The unique combination of long takes and close-ups made for a very powerful film.
Sojung Lee
ReplyDeleteSopyonje is a movie that is very uniquely Korean, as the main part of its storyline focuses on the dying art of Pansori. While Pansori is beautiful and a traditional part of Korean culture, in the movie it was shown to be overshadowed by newer, shiny brass instruments from the West. The family is shown to suffer, both from trying to make a living out Pansori and also from dealing with an abusive father.
The movie utilizes a lot of long scenes, sometimes showing the same scenery for a long period of time without changing. For instance, in the scene where the whole family is singing together in a rare moment of content and happiness, the camera doesn't move its focus from the scenery even when the characters are not in view. Instead the viewers can hear them singing from a distance until the family finally comes into view from down the road, and then disappears out of view. Sopyonje also tends to show the viewer the entire duration of a Pansori song. This was especially efficient towards the end when brother and sister are reunited and perform together. By allowing the viewers to experience the entire song, from the buildup to the climax, as well as showing a close-up of the siblings' tear-streaked faces, adds to the deeply emotional (melodramatic) scene.
Korean Cinema
ReplyDeleteProfessor Steven Chung
Jun Seong Ahn
Sopyonje (1993)
To tell the truth, this Movie was sort of boring to me due to a sleepy background music. I know that the music is one of the most important part in this film since the music represents traditional Korean instruments and sound. I couldn’t bear with it. But, I did find out the importance of this film.
I already know about this film that not only with movie, but also there are published as a novel, musical and several genres of art that Sopyonje is very popular in Korea. I have encountered Sopyonje when I was in middle school grade 8. I really don’t remember during my middle school age that I saw this, but after the film today, I had a nostalgic feeling after watching this. Pansori, a traditional Korean mixed music & voice, was not that interesting to me but I definitely knew that it is one of the most important substances in this film since it holds a tremendous idea and story. I guess it didn’t sound well to me since I was very tired today, but it should’ve been sounded very gorgeous and pretty. There is a reason why elders speak about Pansori that it’s something that Korea should carry on forever. Not only me, but also most of people are exposed to fast beat such as pop, electronic, and all other fast tempo genres. So that being bored and exhausted to Pansori isn’t unusual. But after somehow listening to some of the lyrics in Pansori, I again realized how it woke me up from sleeping due to its fun part. There is definitely a main characteristic that absorbs listeners’ attention.
Also, I felt a pride from Korean Sorikun and professionalism. Even the person was in a situation of having not enough money, he couldn’t get over being insulted about sound, and blinding his daughter’s eyes for her grudge. This surely shows his pride about the path he has been walking through in his life. Blinding her eyes seems unreasonable, but since he had love towards sound, Pansori is still loved by many people in this world of western music.
Even this film was made when I was in age of three, the story was sort of interesting and had a great experience by hearing to various sounds of Pansori. After watching this film, I did sort of change my stereotype towards Pansori that it should be existing for a long time, or even forever, at least in Korea and spread the words about the beauty of Pansori.
Dong Min Shin
ReplyDeleteSopyonje's subject involves a very culturally specific theme as it's about Korean traditional music, Pansori. The movie is set on Korea's transitional period to "modernity" after liberation from Japan. As different life styles and music flood from foreign countries, Pansori dies away from the trend by Japanese Enkas and American Pop music.
As the professional Pansori singing family fades and wanders around the country, the camera buries them in the environment with multiple extreme long shots. Since the singing characters are often hard to find at first glance, we need to find them from the vast environment surrounding them. They are also often taken in long takes with a still camera, so we have to trace their movements with our eyes and wander around the picturesque frame with them. Sounds of wind and other street sounds are often audible along with Pansori. Although multiple sounds of Pansori almost incessantly plays one after another, Pansori is often disturbed by extraneous noises from the environment.
Through these camera distances and sounds, the scenes themselves replicate the demising state of the Pansori in Korea, wandering like a vagabond.
Sopyonje portrays Korea in the 1960s, when old cultural values are slowly forgotten. With the rapid economic growth, Korea undergoes modernization. As a result, people start to focus on making new changes rather than valuing old cultural values. These include Pansori. The director effectively reminds the audience that Pansori used to be a method of musical expression. Frequently, there are scenes where minutes of Pansori are shown. Before we paid attention to Pansori, many would felt that Pansori is a boring and agonizing performance. However, because the audience have the context of the Pansori performers and their life stories, we begin to recognize the grandeur impact of Pansori on our cultural soul.
ReplyDeletePansori discusses the complex emotions of Koreans. Ancient and modern Korean history was oftentimes tarnished by foreign invasions and poverty. Therefore, Koreans expressed their resentments with a simple drum and two pansori Kkun. Overall, the movie reflects the significane of Pansori in Korean cultural soul. Since the movie was made in the early 1990s, when young generations hardly remember hardships in Korean history, the director wants us to reflect on the footprints of older generations and appreciate ancestors' achievements to build a successful nation in Eastern Asia.
Seopyunjae was very meaningful and important movie in 1960s and until now. Even though pansori is Korean traditional performance, Korean people cannot easily find a change to watch the live performance. Because even for Korean themselves, although pansori is their tradition music, they find it boring and uninteresting. Therefore, these days not so many people look for pansori, so we are now not able to find a chance to see a performance of pansori often. Traditional culture is forgotten. Seopyunjae seems like a musical movie. Such as ‘Le miserable’ and ‘mamamia’, there are so many popular musical movies in western. Director Im made a musical movie with our own music, pansori. It is very unique and special.
ReplyDeletePansori should have ‘sorrow regret’. That’s what Yoo-Bong mainly says about pansori when he teaches pansori to his daughter. The whole movie is showing Yoo-Bong’s and his daughter, Song-hwa’s ‘sorrow regret’. ‘sorrow regret’ is a life, that is what Yoo-Bong says. There is a long scene, Yoo-Bong, Song-Hwa and her brother, Dong-Ho, walk from far away to the camera while they are singing pansori. The road they walk on is very long. Some shots could be cut off or speedy up, but Director Im simply shows whole shots of the family’s walk. The pathway they are walking implies life. This scene is the happiest moment through this movie.
Mainly this movie is using a long shot. It is a good way to show the picture of beautiful landscape of Korea. Sometimes camera even pan. Long shots with landscape and pansori is very beautiful.
Throughout Seopyonje, Director Kwon-Taek Im creates a great film with a harmonious combination of beautiful scenes and story-telling musics. These scenes and musics in this film play roles to indirectly depict a contrast between the father's extreme selfishness for money and a protagonist's steady passion for music. Especially, the long-take shots taking a protagonist's singing scenes describe how much the protagonist loves the music from her heart.
ReplyDeleteAnalyzing the internal meaning of various scenes in the film, I found that the long roads in the mountain were focused and shown for a relatively long time. From the aspect of plot, the audience must read that the long roads in the mountain indirectly mean how the wandering singers had to follow rough and curvy life. So, for this scene, the long-take shots give us a clear representation on Korean traditional singers' hard lives. Thus, I can conclude that the long-take shots can be useful in describing a meaningful sequence of scenes in one big picture.
Jae Young Lee
ReplyDeleteI think that Sopyonje is very good example of Korea’s historical music film. It was very interesting to me and reminds me to think about historical music again. Most Korean people are only enthusiastic to K-pop. Korean needs to keep their original music, which is Pansori. Sopyonje is a story about Pansori. In the past, Pansori was popular music that people enjoyed listening before K-pop boomed. Pansori is also cultural property that has high value.
Pansori can be seemed strange to contemporary people, but I very loved to listen it from the film. Sopyonje is very different from other films. There are many used close-up and extreme long shots. In this movie, close-up shots are used a lot in order to film the person singing Pansori. Therefore, close-up shots are very important in this movie. Besides, when the person is singing pansori, the person is closed up to the camera and audience can feel the singer’s emotion as well.
Melody Chi
ReplyDelete7-17-13
Korean Cinema
YISS, Summer 2013
Prof. Steven Chung
Movie Response #2: Sopyonje
Sopyonje confused me in several ways. The ending, in which Songhwa is travelling while being led by a young child, seems to indicate that Songhwa is going to continue Youbong's legacy of leading a nomadic life and raising a child to become a pansori singer. However, is this only because that is the only life she has ever known and has actually accepted because she loves pansori? I didn't fully understand why Songhwa meekly continued to obey and follow Youbong throughout the movie, especially so much so that she allows him to blind her and then mirrors his legacy of training a child in pansori. Youbong's blinding of Songhwa, however, I feel is a metaphor for how she is trapped in the life of a pansori singer because it is her only skill. Furthermore, the fact that Songhwa knew Youbong was blinding her on purpose, and yet still allowed him to indicates that she has accepted the pansori path that has been unchangeably laid out for her.
This entrapment within the obsolete and nomadic life of a pansori singer is portrayed throughout the movie by various closed off settings. For instance, Youbong, Songhwa, and Dong-ho practice their pansori in a single small hotel room with the door closed; they are cut off from the world that is evolving around them as they desperately hang on to the archaic pansori craft. Similarly, after Dong-ho finally escapes from the pansori lifestyle, Youbong and Songhwa still clearly remain on that path. This is shown by how they practice in abandoned, broken down buildings far outside of towns.