One writer raised his hand. “He could have married a virgin instead.” “That’s right,” I said. “I showed this book to the Great Leader and he pointed out that, in this case, even an old maid would do. ‘Everyone wants pure water,’ as he put it. Literature which eggs people on to degradation, despair, hatred, plunder and queer tastes cannot be said to be literature in the true sense of the word. We need to provide a striking contrast with capitalist art. Their art justifies the oppression and exploitation of man. It preaches obedience, approves of vices and stirs up crime-consciousness. Our art must give the people something to live for and teach them how to lead an honest life.”
“How realistic should the characters be?” asked one writer.
“I understand that our spirit should be our country’s if we read foreign literature,” said another. “So can we use foreign ideas as inspiration, reworking them in a Korean context? Wouldn’t familiar old, say, Chinese stories make them easier for the reader to understand, as is the goal?”
Unfortunately the writers asked me question after question, and I didn’t have the answers that I needed. I was young and with no special experience to take charge of the literature and art department. The veteran writers, on the other hand, had an awfully strong sense of self-assurance. Working with them wasn’t an easy task at all. These seasoned writers felt that the arts should be reserved for professionals with specialized expertise, leaving little room for action by political activists. I had a firm understanding of the Juche idea, but as to creating art I was still relatively ignorant.
The writers wouldn’t take my direction seriously if I simply tried to wield Party power over them. But if I worked from my own real ability, I knew that I’d be able to establish my authority as their leader. They’d follow my advice because they respected me, not because of a kind of obligation or because they were afraid of my position.
So the more specific their questions became, the greater I analyzed things. I was forced to confront the most basic elements of the creation of, not just literature, but any great work of art. With my brilliant intelligence and keen insight, I made an in-depth analysis of the artistic process.
For the first time in history, I discovered the nucleus of any work of art. The basis of a work was what I called the “seed” (chongja). My discovery of the seed gave a shock to the literary theories of the world. It could be said its discovery had the same place in art history that the discovery of fire held in man’s history.
THE SEED THEORY OF ART
The seed is the essence of a work and constitutes the ideological core of how life is described. It is that which unifies the material, theme and thought into an organic correlation. It also contains within itself both the writer’s message and the elements necessary to develop the work. It is the embryo which blends an idea with artistry, and is the decisive factor determining the value of a work of art. The organic integration of plot, theme and message all emerge from the seed.
A good seed is therefore of great political and artistic value. A work of art imbued with revolutionary consciousness and artistic quality must have a good seed as a prerequisite. In order to select such a seed, the artist must find one that accords with Party policy and yet can still be subject to a new and unique portrayal.
Slowly but surely, the writers saw the wisdom to my seed theory. Finally it reached the point where my suggestions were regarded as wise, instead of some sort of challenge for them to confront or even defy. They now asked for my input where they once had scorned it. With our new understanding of one another, it soon became unanimous that General Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary career would be the seed for the first Juche novel. But try as they might, the writers couldn’t figure out how to portray it in such a limited work. One book or even a trilogy was hardly enough. They decided to ask for my opinion, a bit scared to admit that such veterans of the written word couldn’t solve the predicament of their accord.
Rather than chastise them, I wanted to praise them so that they wouldn’t feel ashamed to ask for my assistance in the future. “You’re right to wonder how to proceed,” I said. “An artistic depiction of the leader belongs to an order totally different from that of any individual, no matter how outstanding he may be. The leader is the personification and representative of the will of the whole people. He lives as an incarnation of the time and of the currents of history. No existing novel is equal to the task of narrating the leader’s life. His career can’t be depicted properly by prevailing methods.”
“Then what choice do we have?” one writer asked.
“The Prime Minister has brought about a fundamental change in the destiny of the nation. His revolutionary activities have lasted nearly half a century. It’s out of the question to complete an appropriate artistic presentation simply in a few novels. I have a better idea: writing a cycle of historical novels.”
“A...cycle?” The writers all looked at one another. This was something which no writer had ever previously thought of.
“Let’s have the overall title for the series be ‘Immortal History.’ But each book in the cycle should have its own subtitle according to its own particular message, and they each should be written in chronological order.”
The writers were excited to be entrusted with such a great responsibility. They worked so hard for the following several weeks that a couple of them even required extensive medical attention. Finally, however, the manuscripts were delivered to me for my feedback and I read the voluminous books that very night. Fifteen thousand pages later, I was delighted with the first draft. I even visited the writers in the hospital to commend their good beginning. There and then, we proceeded to go over the edits that I had.
In honor of the Great Leader’s date of birth, the writers began to call themselves “The April 15th Creative Group.” Work on the Immortal History series proceeded consistently and successfully. Eventually the writers produced such widely-read classics as The Year 1932, The Arduous March and The Foot of Mt. Paektu. They also novelized plays that had been personally written by General Kim Il Sung during the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle.
But literature also encompassed books for children. I had to consider the contemporary generation that was born after the fatherland had been liberated. These youngsters had grown happily under the socialist system, with no experience of living as homeless people deprived of their fatherland. They’d never experienced the oppression and exploitation of a class society.
It was never too early to educate our youth as to the greatness of Prime Minister Kim Il Sung. In order for them to become reliable revolutionaries, it was necessary to tell these young people of the difficulties that the Korean masses had undergone—and how the Great Leader had surmounted them all. I therefore planned a revolution in illustrated children’s books, so as to imbue the Korean youth with revolutionary consciousness.
I knew well that children’s books weren’t very highly regarded in Western culture. There, introducing political themes in such books is regarded as “brainwashing”. How depraved and filthy the West is—especially America—that a “washing” can be used as a term of approbation! It’s no wonder that their children grow up to become degenerates, hooligans and hellions. But even in Korea, nobody had ever considered illustrated books as worthy of being a lasting heritage for posterity. They were usually passed from one child to another and kept in poor condition before being discarded as literal and figurative rubbish. The “illustrators” weren’t regarded as worthy of the term. But I found great value in picture tales. They were a powerful ideological weapon for the young.
IDLE PIG: A DPRK CHILDREN’S STORY
On his birthday one year, a farmer decided to slaughter one of his animals for the supper table. The animals all got together to decide who contributed the least and therefore deserved to be killed.
The horse said, “I carry the farmer, so it can’t be me.”
The bull said, “I plow the field, so it can’t be me.”
The cat said, “I
guard against mice, so it can’t be me.”
The chicken said, “I lay eggs, so it can’t be me.”
The pig got up and started to cry. “All I do is eat. It is I who will have to die.”
Thus it was decided to offer up the pig to be slaughtered for the birthday feast.
THE END
Concurrent with the literary revolution was effecting a profound change in the cinema. At the time, the film industry was in chaotic turmoil throughout the world—including the socialist nations. The imperialists had reduced films to a state of utter degeneration. Film companies had become among the most profitable enterprises in America, causing motion pictures to become viewed as mere commodities. Such profit-seeking films dealt with the glorification of the bizarre and the propagation of erotic subjects, and were only meant for lowbrow audiences. Little to no attention was paid to the education of the masses. On the other hand, dogmatists abroad cried for movies filled with naive political slogans. Under the pretext of opposing bourgeois culture, they only succeeded in emasculating cinematic art. Both of these tendencies were completely inimical to the development of proper filmmaking.
I didn’t view the cinema as a means of making money but as a way of creating “visual textbooks” for revolution. From my perspective, movie producers could be regarded as vanguard soldiers who were spearheading social reform. Unfortunately, the producers I worked with at the Propaganda and Agitation Department didn’t see themselves as soldiers. No, they saw themselves as generals, each and every one of them. And if the writers had originally been averse to receiving my leadership, the film producers were downright hostile.
The issues weren’t completely clear-cut. As the 1960s drew to a close, there was no question that films from abroad were superior in a technical sense to the Korean ones. Because the producers understood these foreign films, they considered themselves part of some internationalist cultural elite. It was appalling, but I couldn’t very well send them all off to be enlightened in the countryside. I had to work with what I had.
The producers used to sporadically gather for “aesthetic review” meetings. I sat in on one and could barely keep my rage in check. Basically, these gatherings were a platform for babblers to demonstrate their alleged intelligence by discussing the aesthetic theories prevalent in other countries. The producers fell over themselves in recommending this European style of direction or that American style of acting. There was no political direction to the meetings whatsoever, and the producers didn’t even pretend to study Prime Minister Kim Il Sung’s thoughts on art.
I didn’t hold my tongue at the next such scheduled meeting. Instead, I walked in the room and immediately put my foot down. “From now on,” I said, “you must not use the words ‘aesthetic review.’ Instead we’ll hold ‘meetings for the study of the Great Leader’s artistic and literary thoughts.’ From this point forward, your sole yardstick in creative work shall be Prime Minister Kim Il Sung’s teachings as expressed via Party policy.”
I looked at each one of the producers. They were all befuddled, and didn’t know what to make of what I’d just said. But if they’d spent as much time reading the Great Leader’s words as they had spent watching foreign films, nothing that I’d said would have come as a surprise at all.
Knowing that each of them always prepared notes for discussion, I called on one producer at random to read whatever it was that he had brought. The man stood up and cleared his throat, uncertain as to whether his topic was still appropriate. He kept referring to a certain film’s “moral”—he actually used the English word—while simultaneously trying to appease me, awkwardly forcing Juche principles into his analysis.
Not one person in the room was surprised by his use of foreign jargon. They’d become so accustomed to it that they didn’t even register that he was making a bad pun: The English word “moral” sounds like the Korean term for sand, “mo rae al.” Acting the fool, I raised my hand to question him about his choice of language. “What is this term you keep using?” I said. “‘Moral’?”
He paused, unsure if I was joking—and if not, what my intentions were. “A film’s moral,” he explained, “concerns the ethos which is incorporated into a work by its author.”
“And what does that have to do with sand?”
“Pardon?”
“The mo rae al of the Taedong River won’t do, eh?”
He forced a weak smile, barely hiding his irritation. “Oh, I understand. How droll.”
I smiled right back at him, though it was not a smile of kindness. “I didn’t ask you that question because I hadn’t known the dictionary definition. I asked it to show you how silly it is to use foreign terminology when there are good enough Korean words to express the concepts. Or are you telling me there is nothing ‘moral’ about the Korean language?”
“No!” he quickly said. “Of course not!”
After that, the producers and I developed quite an understanding. They knew that I was on to them, and they knew it was in their best interests to follow my direction. After this little back-and-forth, the discussion turned to what film should be produced next, the first under my leadership. “Not only the Korean people,” I pointed out, “but also progressive people in many countries of the world have wished for the history of General Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary activities to be recounted on the screen.”
Not surprising, everyone unanimously agreed that this should be the new direction for the Korean cinema. The first such movie would be Sea of Blood (“Pibada” in Korean), adapted from a play that had been written and staged by the Great Leader during the days of anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle.
SEA OF BLOOD
A Japanese slaughter brings a sea of blood to a farm community in northern Jiandao, with the heroine’s husband among the many victims. Later, her younger son is also murdered by the enemy. Resisting the depths of despair, this ordinary woman rises with indignation. She goes among the workers, organizes a women’s association and gathers explosives. She eventually leads a popular uprising in support of an attack by the guerrilla army, which she thereupon joins. Speaking to the masses of the truths that she has learned, she makes an enthusiastic appeal for them to rise for the revolution.
By narrating her growth as a revolutionary in an artistic way, the film put forth the idea that there’s popular resistance wherever there’s oppression, and that the only way for the oppressed to survive is by making revolution.
Producing the film was a battle in and of itself. But, like most battles, the difficult work had positive consequences. In this case, the producers steadily transitioned from generals to soldiers during production. As the Great Leader’s words returned to life after decades, as the scenes he wrote sparkled on film, everyone on the staff knew that they were a part of a wondrous event that would change the world of cinema forever.
One day as the shooting drew to a close, an aide came by and pulled me aside from the set. One of the producers, it seemed, was in the hospital. “How bad is it?” I asked.
“Very bad,” he told me. “He’s in a critical condition. The prospects are bleak. He only wants to see you before he goes.”
I handed over my shooting notes to him, then hurried to my car to go visit the hospital. I spent the entire drive there tightly clenching my fists, terrified that my comrade would pass away before I got to see him. When we arrived at the hospital I ran past everyone, only pausing at the admission desk to find out what room the producer was in.
I burst in to see him and found the man unconscious on his bed. He had the same deathly pallor that I’d seen when the Yank bastards had killed people during the Fatherland Liberation War. Still, I noticed that his chest was moving up and down. From my medical expertise I knew that meant that he was still with us.
The producer’s wife was holding his hand while his son and daughter were at bedside, trying to make sure he didn’t leave us for good. “Daddy! Daddy!” yelled his children. Yet he didn’t respond at all.
His wife then
gently rocked him by the shoulders. “Husband, wake up. The person you wanted to see so much has come here.”
I slowly walked up to the bed and grasped his hand. I flinched for a second; his grip was ice-cold. I rubbed his hand in between mine to try to give him warmth. “Can you hear me?” I asked. “Don’t you see me?”
Suddenly the producer opened his eyes, slightly turning his head to look directly at me. From the small nod he gave, I understood that he recognized me. I couldn’t believe that my now-loyal soldier was breathing his last. I tried to be as resolute as I could so that he’d gain strength from my manly example. Indeed, the sight of my affection brought the entire family to tears.
No one in the world values and loves man as I do. In Korea many anecdotes can be heard about how my love for people miraculously brought them back to life from serious illness or from critical conditions caused by accidents. But in this case my love was not strong enough. With a long breath, we lost the producer minutes after I arrived. It was as if he’d been holding on so that he could see me one last time.
Now the film could truly be called revolutionary, because every revolution has its casualties.
The release of Sea of Blood was an enormous success in every way. After that, I worked on developing a system for future filmmaking. I had “location” streets constructed, first-rate mock-ups of typical Korean, Japanese and Chinese cities. These reproductions were so permeated with my warm kindness that the actors and producers soon referred to them as “Streets of Love.”
I went on to film The Fate of a Self-Defense Corps Man, another of the General’s plays from the colonial days. Having the experience of Sea of Blood under my belt, I introduced enormous efficiencies into the filmmaking process with the use of what I called the “speed campaign.” Previously, it had been thought that working quickly inevitably resulted in lowering quality. But I thought that working quicker simply made things more difficult, not impossible. Thanks to my principles, a shoot that previously would have taken a year was completed in a mere forty days. I had turned an art into a science.
Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il Page 15