Spotlight on a Life (The Story of a Family in 20th Century Korea)
- 632
• Original title : 인생극장: 막이 내리고 비로소 시작되는 아버지, 어머니의 인생 이야기
• Price : 17,800KRW
• Product Dimensions :
140x210, 448pages
• Publication Date : 2018-01-26
• ISBN : 9791160943320
Book Information & Summary
Written by Nho Myungwoo
This book is a biography of sociologist Nho Myungwoo's parents told through Korean film history.
How can the lives of ordinary individuals, whom no one remembers except for their families, be restored? How can their lives be extended in the name of history? To restore the lives of his parents, who left no records of their own, sociologist Nho Myungwoo used popular Korean movies from the 1920s to 1970s as source material. This is because, at one time, movies were the most common way that ordinary people who were mostly illiterate interpreted and responded to their realities.
Nho's father was born in a small rural village during the Japanese occupation of Korea, and he journeyed through Manchuria and Nagoya to end up running a club near an American military base in Paju. Meanwhile, Nho's mother was born to a poor household in Changsin-dong, Seoul and became an orphan during the Korean War. Afterward, she worked at a beauty salon near a military base, styling the hair of Korean prostitutes for the U.S. military. The two people's lives converge through scenes from popular movies of the time and extend to all those who lived in that era. "We do the things we do to survive," "We must study to succeed," and "Family is the only thing we can rely on." The Korean values that permeate through the lives of Nho's parents unfold in each old film.
Nho affectionately illustrates how the major points of modern Korean history reveal themselves in his parents' lives, from Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War to military dictatorship and industrialization. This book shows readers that popular films can be a very useful tool for revealing the values of the world that people of the time use as their life philosophies. As stated by sociologist Eva Illouz, the popular appeal is created when "the values of a society, fear in looking at a particular problem, and the excitement of imagination" all come together. Through the films covered in this book, readers can gain insight into the hopes, dreams, anxieties, fears, pains, and frustrations that ordinary people of the era had and felt.
This book is a biography of sociologist Nho Myungwoo's parents told through Korean film history.
How can the lives of ordinary individuals, whom no one remembers except for their families, be restored? How can their lives be extended in the name of history? To restore the lives of his parents, who left no records of their own, sociologist Nho Myungwoo used popular Korean movies from the 1920s to 1970s as source material. This is because, at one time, movies were the most common way that ordinary people who were mostly illiterate interpreted and responded to their realities.
Nho's father was born in a small rural village during the Japanese occupation of Korea, and he journeyed through Manchuria and Nagoya to end up running a club near an American military base in Paju. Meanwhile, Nho's mother was born to a poor household in Changsin-dong, Seoul and became an orphan during the Korean War. Afterward, she worked at a beauty salon near a military base, styling the hair of Korean prostitutes for the U.S. military. The two people's lives converge through scenes from popular movies of the time and extend to all those who lived in that era. "We do the things we do to survive," "We must study to succeed," and "Family is the only thing we can rely on." The Korean values that permeate through the lives of Nho's parents unfold in each old film.
Nho affectionately illustrates how the major points of modern Korean history reveal themselves in his parents' lives, from Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War to military dictatorship and industrialization. This book shows readers that popular films can be a very useful tool for revealing the values of the world that people of the time use as their life philosophies. As stated by sociologist Eva Illouz, the popular appeal is created when "the values of a society, fear in looking at a particular problem, and the excitement of imagination" all come together. Through the films covered in this book, readers can gain insight into the hopes, dreams, anxieties, fears, pains, and frustrations that ordinary people of the era had and felt.