Ellie Loethen

Intern Editor, GSIS Newsletter

This month's book selection is Travis Workman's Political Moods: Film Melodrama and the Cold War in the Two Koreas (2023). While it delves into significant theory, the book offers a unique perspective on Korean cinema from the 1950s to the 1970s. Workman analyzes films from both North and South Korea, exploring themes, mise-en-scene, and melancholy to demonstrate a shared history between the two Koreas, despite their different political paths. The book compares how both film industries interpret and grapple with the tensions arising from the Japanese Colonial period (1919-1945), the Korean War (1950-53), and the Post-WWII Cold War. 

The first half of the book describes the film industry in North Korea and while it heavily leans into the cult-of-personality of Kim Il-Sung propaganda, there are recurring motifs such as mountain landscapes that are representative of North Korean nostalgia and nationalism.  It spends a great deal of time working to describe the concept of “affect theory,” which is a media related theory about how audiences process emotions.  In short, affect is the visceral response one has to an event before the actual emotion is formed.  Workman leans heavily into this theory to prove that North and South Korean audiences experience similar affects that draw from their shared lived history. 

The second half discusses the same theories but applies them to South Korean films.  Here, Workman discusses melodrama not only as a genre but as a catalyst to describe social and familial issues.   These films attempt to process the social post-war state that the country was left in.  Post-Korean War, melancholy melodrama is representative of national identity and is a way for audiences to process the trauma of the past decade, of not the previous fifty years. 

The book's theoretical framework is notably dense, making it challenging for readers without a strong background in media or social theory to fully grasp. Furthermore, the extensive film analysis relies heavily on Workman's interpretations, which can be difficult for readers to evaluate without having seen the many films he discusses. Workman shows a particular interest in North Korean cinema, even dedicating a several-page synopsis and shot-by-shot analysis of a North Korean film within the second half of the book, which focuses on South Korea. His descriptions of the films are notably vivid and detailed.

In conclusion, Travis Workman's analysis successfully navigates the complex social and political landscape of the Korean film industry, connecting the colonial period to the 1972 Yushin Constitution. By tracing the shared industrial history of North and South Korea, the book effectively explores how the film cultures of both nations confront the profound melancholy of their divided past, albeit requiring the reader to engage with theoretical concepts like affect and melodrama.