205-631: The term " Cinema of Korea " (or " Korean cinema ") encompasses the motion picture industries of North and South Korea . As with all aspects of Korean life during the past century, the film industry has often been at the mercy of political events, from the late Joseon dynasty to the Korean War to domestic governmental interference. While both countries have relatively robust film industries today, only South Korean films have achieved wide international acclaim. North Korean films tend to portray their communist or revolutionary themes. South Korean films enjoyed
410-470: A Pathé -Natan film, it is generally regarded as the initial French feature talkie, though it was shot, like Blackmail , at the Elstree studio , just outside London. The production company had contracted with RCA Photophone and Britain then had the nearest facility with the system. The Braunberger-Richebé talkie La Route est belle ( The Road Is Fine ), also shot at Elstree, followed a few weeks later. Before
615-580: A United Nations Environmental Programme report in 2003, forest covers over 70 percent of the country, mostly on steep slopes. North Korea had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.02/10, ranking it 28th globally out of 172 countries. The longest river is the Amnok (Yalu) River which flows for 790 kilometers (491 mi). The country contains three terrestrial ecoregions: Central Korean deciduous forests , Changbai Mountains mixed forests , and Manchurian mixed forests . North Korea experiences
820-510: A détente developed. A series of summits took place between Kim Jong Un of North Korea, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, and President Trump. On 10 January 2021, Kim Jong Un was formally elected as the General Secretary in 8th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea , a title previously held by Kim Jong Il. On 24 March 2022, North Korea conducted a successful ICBM test launch for
1025-937: A humid continental climate within the Köppen climate classification scheme. Winters bring clear weather interspersed with snow storms as a result of northern and northwestern winds that blow from Siberia . Summer tends to be by far the hottest, most humid, and rainiest time of year because of the southern and southeastern monsoon winds that carry moist air from the Pacific Ocean . Approximately 60 percent of all precipitation occurs from June to September. Spring and autumn are transitional seasons between summer and winter. The daily average high and low temperatures for Pyongyang are −3 and −13 °C (27 and 9 °F) in January and 29 and 20 °C (84 and 68 °F) in August. North Korea functions as
1230-570: A hydrogen bomb and a missile capable of reaching the United States. Throughout 2017, following Donald Trump 's ascension to the US presidency, tensions between the United States and North Korea increased, and there was heightened rhetoric between the two, with Trump threatening "fire and fury" if North Korea ever attacked U.S. territory amid North Korean threats to test missiles that would land near Guam . The tensions substantially decreased in 2018, and
1435-692: A " military first " policy which prioritizes the Korean People's Army in state affairs and the allocation of resources. It possesses nuclear weapons . Its active-duty army of 1.28 million soldiers is the fourth-largest in the world. In addition to being a member of the United Nations since 1991, North Korea is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement , G77 , and the ASEAN Regional Forum . The modern spelling of Korea first appeared in 1671 in
1640-521: A "Golden age" during the late 1950s and 1960s, but by the 1970s had become generally considered to be of low quality. Nonetheless, by 2005 South Korea became a nation that watched more domestic than imported films in theatres. This was partially a result of laws placing limits on the number of foreign films able to be shown per theatre per year, but this was mostly due to the growth of the Korean entertainment industry, which quadrupled in size during this period. In
1845-444: A "musical." (Griffith's Dream Street had essentially been a "goat gland.") Expectations swiftly changed, and the sound "fad" of 1927 became standard procedure by 1929. In February 1929, sixteen months after The Jazz Singer' s debut, Columbia Pictures became the last of the eight studios that would be known as " majors " during Hollywood's Golden Age to release its first part-talking feature, The Lone Wolf's Daughter . In late May,
2050-514: A Warner Bros. movie. This second Jolson screen smash demonstrated the movie musical's ability to turn a song into a national hit: inside of nine months, the Jolson number " Sonny Boy " had racked up 2 million record and 1.25 million sheet music sales. September 1928 also saw the release of Paul Terry 's Dinner Time , among the first animated cartoons produced with synchronized sound. Soon after he saw it, Walt Disney released his first sound picture,
2255-464: A Western Electric sound-on-film system. None of these pictures made much impact. The first successful European dramatic talkie was the all-British Blackmail . Directed by twenty-nine-year-old Alfred Hitchcock , the movie had its London debut June 21, 1929. Originally shot as a silent, Blackmail was restaged to include dialogue sequences, along with a score and sound effects, before its premiere. A British International Pictures (BIP) production, it
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#17328759429682460-524: A contract with Warner Brothers and W. J. Rich, a financier, giving them an exclusive license for recording and reproducing sound pictures under the Western Electric system. To exploit this license the Vitaphone Corporation was organized with Samuel L. Warner as its president. Vitaphone , as this system was now called, was publicly introduced on August 6, 1926, with the premiere of Don Juan ;
2665-695: A country located in the Far East. At the beginning of October 1897, motion pictures were screened for the public in Jingogae, Bukchon, in a shabby barrack that was borrowed from its Chinese owner for three days. The works screened included short films and actuality films produced by France's Pathe Pictures ". There are reports of another showing of a film to the public in 1898 near Namdaemun in Seoul . However, these claims have been refuted by researcher Brian Yecies, who says that he
2870-428: A cult of personality closely tied to the state philosophy of Juche, which was later passed on to his successors: his son Kim Jong Il in 1994 and grandson Kim Jong Un in 2011. In 2013, Clause 2 of Article 10 of the newly edited Ten Fundamental Principles of the Workers' Party of Korea stated that the party and revolution must be carried "eternally" by the "Mount Paektu Bloodline". According to New Focus International ,
3075-607: A demonstration of the Western Electric sound-on-disc system and was sufficiently impressed to persuade his brothers to agree to experiment with using this system at New York City's Vitagraph Studios , which they had recently purchased. The tests were convincing to the Warner Brothers, if not to the executives of some other picture companies who witnessed them. Consequently, in April 1926 the Western Electric Company entered into
3280-670: A few songs performed by Richard Tauber . The movie was made with the sound-on-film system controlled by the German-Dutch firm Tobis , corporate heirs to the Tri-Ergon concern. With an eye toward commanding the emerging European market for sound film, Tobis entered into a compact with its chief competitor, Klangfilm, a joint subsidiary of Germany's two leading electrical manufacturers. Early in 1929, Tobis and Klangfilm began comarketing their recording and playback technologies. As ERPI began to wire theaters around Europe, Tobis-Klangfilm claimed that
3485-592: A film backdrop) is widely considered the first Korean film, although this label is disputed. It premiered at Dansungsa, on the same day and just after the premiere of the companion documentary film Panoramic View of the Whole City of Gyeongseong . The anniversary of its release is now considered Korean Film Day in South Korea. For the next few years, film production in Korea consisted of the kino dramas and documentaries. As with
3690-515: A furious pace on sophisticated sound amplification technology that would allow recordings to be played back over loudspeakers at theater-filling volume. The new moving-coil speaker system was installed in New York's Warners Theatre at the end of July and its patent submission, for what Western Electric called the No. 555 Receiver, was filed on August 4, just two days before the premiere of Don Juan . Late in
3895-456: A generation. The primary issue was synchronization: pictures and sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, which were difficult to start and maintain in tandem. Sufficient playback volume was also hard to achieve. While motion picture projectors soon allowed film to be shown to large theater audiences, audio technology before the development of electric amplification could not project satisfactorily to fill large spaces. Finally, there
4100-413: A gradual transition to sound—allowing the studios to spread out the capital costs of conversion and their directors and technical crews time to become familiar with the new technology. The Mandarin-language Gēnǚ hóng mǔdān ( 歌 女 紅 牡 丹 , Singsong Girl Red Peony ), starring Butterfly Wu, premiered as China's first feature talkie in 1930. By February of that year, production was apparently completed on
4305-549: A heart attack in 1994 ; Kim Jong Il declared a three-year period of national mourning, afterward officially announcing his position as the new leader. North Korea promised to halt its development of nuclear weapons under the Agreed Framework , negotiated with U.S. president Bill Clinton and signed in 1994. Building on Nordpolitik , South Korea began to engage with the North as part of its Sunshine Policy . Kim Jong Il instituted
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#17328759429684510-528: A highly centralized, one-party totalitarian dictatorship. According to its constitution , it is a self-described revolutionary and socialist state "guided in its building and activities only by great Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism". In addition to the constitution, North Korea is governed by the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System (also known as the "Ten Principles of
4715-574: A huge success in the box office, followed by Lee Gu-young's Records of Ahn Jung-geun ( 안중근 사기 ), Yoon Bong-chun's Matyr Yunbong Gil ( 윤봉길 의사 ), Jeon Chang-geun's My liberated Hometown ( 해방된 내 고향 ), and Lee Kyu-hwan's Adventures of Ddol-ddol ( 똘똘이의 모험 ). Then in 1947, Yun Bong-chun's Yu Gwan-sun ( 유관순 ) and Shin Kyung-kyun's The New Oath ( 새로운 맹세 ) were released. The following year, in 1948, Choi In-kyu's Innocent Prisoner ( 죄없는 죄인 ), Lee Kyu-hwan's Seagulls ( 갈매기 ), and Han Hyung-mo's Break
4920-456: A large section of the industry still saw the silent as a viable artistic and commercial prospect till about 1935." The situation was particularly acute in the Soviet Union; as of May 1933, fewer than one out of every hundred film projectors in the country was as yet equipped for sound. During the 1920s and 1930s, Japan was one of the world's two largest producers of motion pictures, along with
5125-735: A leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and promoting the ideology of Juche . In United States policymaking, North Korea was considered among the Captive Nations . Despite its efforts to break out of the Soviet and Chinese spheres of influence, North Korea remained closely aligned with both countries throughout the Cold War. Industry was the favored sector in North Korea. Industrial production returned to pre-war levels by 1957. In 1959, relations with Japan had improved somewhat, and North Korea began allowing
5330-406: A light valve, a thin ribbon of sensitive metal over a tiny slit. The sound reaching this ribbon would be converted into light by the shivering of the diaphragm, focusing the resulting light waves through the slit, where it would be photographed on the side of the film, on a strip about a tenth of an inch wide. In 1908, Lauste purchased a photographophone from Ruhmer, with the intention of perfecting
5535-668: A major Hollywood studio. The Jazz Singer had its European sound premiere at the Piccadilly Theatre in London on September 27, 1928. According to film historian Rachael Low , "Many in the industry realized at once that a change to sound production was inevitable." On January 16, 1929, the first European feature film with a synchronized vocal performance and recorded score premiered: the German production Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame ( I Kiss Your Hand, Madame ). Dialogueless, it contains only
5740-562: A number of companies were making progress with systems that recorded movie sound on phonograph discs. In sound-on-disc technology from the era, a phonograph turntable is connected by a mechanical interlock to a specially modified film projector , allowing for synchronization. In 1921, the Photokinema sound-on-disc system developed by Orlando Kellum was employed to add synchronized sound sequences to D. W. Griffith 's failed silent film Dream Street . A love song, performed by star Ralph Graves,
5945-593: A number of its embassies. At the same time, North Korea sought to build relations with developed free market countries. North Korea joined the United Nations in 1991 together with South Korea . North Korea is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement , G77 and the ASEAN Regional Forum . As of 2015 , North Korea had diplomatic relations with 166 countries and embassies in 47 countries. North Korea does not have diplomatic relations with Argentina , Botswana , Estonia , France , Iraq , Israel , Japan , Taiwan ,
6150-455: A policy called Songun , or "military first". Flooding in the mid-1990s exacerbated the economic crisis, severely damaging crops and infrastructure and leading to widespread famine that the government proved incapable of curtailing, resulting in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people. Which led many North Koreans to flee into China, South Korea and neighboring countries. In China, these illegal North Korea child immigrants are called
6355-550: A policy of "strategic patience", resisting making deals with North Korea. Tensions with South Korea and the United States increased in 2010 with the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan and North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island . On 17 December 2011, Kim Jong Il died from a heart attack . His youngest son Kim Jong Un was announced as his successor. In the face of international condemnation, North Korea continued to develop its nuclear arsenal, possibly including
Cinema of Korea - Misplaced Pages Continue
6560-399: A result of the war, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed. Some have referred to the conflict as a civil war, with other factors involved. A heavily guarded demilitarized zone (DMZ) still divides the peninsula, and an anti-communist and anti-North Korea sentiment remains in South Korea. Since the war, the United States has maintained a strong military presence in
6765-410: A result, 65% of Korea's heavy industry was located in the north, but, due to the rugged terrain, only 37% of its agriculture. Northern Korea had little exposure to modern, Western ideas. One partial exception was the penetration of religion. Since the arrival of missionaries in the late nineteenth century, the northwest of Korea, and Pyongyang in particular, had been a stronghold of Christianity. As
6970-741: A result, Pyongyang was called the "Jerusalem of the East". A Korean guerrilla movement emerged in the mountainous interior and in Manchuria, harassing the Japanese imperial authorities. One of the most prominent guerrilla leaders was the Communist Kim Il Sung . After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, the Korean Peninsula was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel , with
7175-485: A screen. The phonograph was connected by an intricate arrangement of pulleys to the film projector, allowing—under ideal conditions—for synchronization. However, conditions were rarely ideal, and the new, improved Kinetophone was retired after little more than a year. By the mid-1910s, the groundswell in commercial sound motion picture exhibition had subsided. Beginning in 1914, The Photo-Drama of Creation , promoting Jehovah's Witnesses ' conception of humankind's genesis,
7380-445: A sound version of The Devil's Playground , arguably qualifying it as the first Australian talking motion picture; however, the May press screening of Commonwealth Film Contest prizewinner Fellers is the first verifiable public exhibition of an Australian talkie. In September 1930, a song performed by Indian star Sulochana , excerpted from the silent feature Madhuri (1928), was released as
7585-476: A subsidiary of British Talking Pictures, which purchased the primary Phonofilm assets. By the end of 1930, the Phonofilm business would be liquidated. In Europe, others were also working on the development of sound-on-film. In 1919, the same year that DeForest received his first patents in the field, three German inventors, Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957), patented
7790-559: A synchronized-sound short, the country's first. The following year, Ardeshir Irani directed the first Indian talking feature, the Hindi-Urdu Alam Ara , and produced Kalidas , primarily in Tamil with some Telugu. Nineteen-thirty-one also saw the first Bengali-language film, Jamai Sasthi , and the first movie fully spoken in Telugu, Bhakta Prahlada . In 1932, Ayodhyecha Raja became
7995-550: A system that recorded sound on a separate filmstrip running parallel with the image reel. Gaumont licensed the technology and briefly put it to commercial use under the name Cinéphone. US competition eclipsed Phonofilm. By September 1925, De Forest and Case's working arrangement had fallen through. The following July, Case joined Fox Film , Hollywood's third largest studio , to found the Fox-Case Corporation. The system developed by Case and his assistant, Earl Sponable, given
8200-438: A talkie (although it had only limited sound sequences) was The Jazz Singer , which premiered on October 6, 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone , which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would soon become the standard for talking pictures. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon. In the United States, they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of
8405-407: A talkie: G'schichten aus der Steiermark ( Stories from Styria ), an Eagle Film–Ottoton Film production. On September 30, the first entirely German-made feature-length dramatic talkie, Das Land ohne Frauen ( Land Without Women ), premiered. A Tobis Filmkunst production, about one-quarter of the movie contained dialogue, which was strictly segregated from the special effects and music. The response
Cinema of Korea - Misplaced Pages Continue
8610-455: A third of all movies produced in Japan were shot without dialogue. The enduring popularity of the silent medium in Japanese cinema owed in great part to the tradition of the benshi , a live narrator who performed as accompaniment to a film screening. As director Akira Kurosawa later described, the benshi "not only recounted the plot of the films, they enhanced the emotional content by performing
8815-415: A variety of ways. An increasing number of motion picture systems relied on gramophone records —known as sound-on-disc technology. The records themselves were often referred to as "Berliner discs", after one of the primary inventors in the field, German-American Emile Berliner . In 1902, Léon Gaumont demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, to
9020-462: Is Paektu Mountain , a volcanic mountain with an elevation of 2,744 meters (9,003 ft) above sea level. Considered a sacred place by North Koreans, Mount Paektu holds significance in Korean culture and has been incorporated in the elaborate folklore and personality cult around the Kim family. For example, the song, "We Will Go To Mount Paektu" sings in praise of Kim Jong Un and describes a symbolic trek to
9225-527: Is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film . The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to
9430-619: Is formed by the Yellow Sea , while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan . North Korea, like its southern counterpart , claims to be the sole legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands . Pyongyang is the capital and largest city. The Korean Peninsula was first inhabited as early as the Lower Paleolithic period. Its first kingdom was noted in Chinese records in
9635-464: Is now available for free online. Korean film studios at this time were Japanese-operated. A hat-merchant known as Yodo Orajo established a film company called Choson Kinema Productions. After appearing in the Choson Kinema's 1926 production Nongjungjo , the young actor Na Woon-gyu got the chance to write, direct and star in his own film. The release of Na's film, Arirang (1926) is the start of
9840-402: Is the cornerstone of party works and government operations. Juche , part of the larger Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism along with Songun under Kim Jong Un, is viewed by the official North Korean line as an embodiment of Kim Il Sung's wisdom, an expression of his leadership, and an idea which provides "a complete answer to any question that arises in the struggle for national liberation". Juche
10045-404: Is the ruling party of North Korea. According to Article 3 of the constitution, Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism is the official ideology of North Korea. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises and collectivized farms . Most services—such as healthcare , education , housing , and food production —are subsidized or state-funded. North Korea follows Songun ,
10250-502: The 38th parallel , with the north occupied by the Soviet Union and the south occupied by the United States . In 1948, separate governments were formed in Korea: the socialist and Soviet-aligned Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the capitalist, Western-aligned Republic of Korea in the south. North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950 started the Korean War . In 1953,
10455-681: The French Photographic Society . Four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons. Despite high expectations, Gaumont's sound innovations had only limited commercial success. Despite some improvements, they still did not satisfactorily address the three basic issues with sound film and were expensive as well. For some years, American inventor E. E. Norton's Cameraphone
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#173287594296810660-685: The Joseon dynasty (1392–1897). In 1897, King Gojong proclaimed the Korean Empire , which was annexed by the Empire of Japan in 1910. From 1910 to the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was under Japanese rule . Most Koreans were peasants engaged in subsistence farming . In the 1930s, Japan developed mines, hydro-electric dams, steel mills, and manufacturing plants in northern Korea and neighboring Manchuria . The Korean industrial working class expanded rapidly, and many Koreans went to work in Manchuria. As
10865-513: The Kim family is the current Supreme Leader or Suryeong of North Korea. He heads all major governing structures: he is the general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs . His grandfather Kim Il Sung, the founder and leader of North Korea until his death in 1994, is the country's " eternal President ", while his father Kim Jong Il who succeeded Kim Il Sung as
11070-402: The Kim family . Amnesty International considers the country to have the worst human rights record in the world. Officially, North Korea is an "independent socialist state " which holds democratic elections ; however, outside observers have described the elections as unfair, uncompetitive, and pre-determined, in a manner similar to elections in the Soviet Union . The Workers' Party of Korea
11275-554: The Kinetophone in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection. In 1899, a projected sound-film system known as Cinemacrophonograph or Phonorama, based primarily on the work of Swiss-born inventor François Dussaud, was exhibited in Paris; similar to the Kinetophone, the system required individual use of earphones. An improved cylinder-based system, Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre,
11480-524: The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire and established a demilitarized zone (DMZ), but no formal peace treaty has ever been signed. Post-war North Korea benefited greatly from economic aid and expertise provided by other Eastern Bloc countries. However, Kim Il Sung , North Korea's first leader, promoted his personal philosophy of Juche as the state ideology . Pyongyang's international isolation sharply accelerated from
11685-769: The Kotjebi . In 1996, the government accepted UN food aid. The international environment changed once George W. Bush became U.S. President in 2001. His administration rejected South Korea's Sunshine Policy and the Agreed Framework. Bush included North Korea in his axis of evil in his 2002 State of the Union Address . The U.S. government accordingly treated North Korea as a rogue state , while North Korea redoubled its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. On 9 October 2006, North Korea announced it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test . U.S. President Barack Obama adopted
11890-457: The Mickey Mouse short Steamboat Willie . Over the course of 1928, as Warner Bros. began to rake in huge profits due to the popularity of its sound films , the other studios quickened the pace of their conversion to the new technology. Paramount, the industry leader, put out its first talkie in late September, Beggars of Life ; though it had just a few lines of dialogue, it demonstrated
12095-526: The Motion Picture Association of America , all with live-recorded sound. These were the first true sound films exhibited by a Hollywood studio. Warner Bros.' The Better 'Ole , technically similar to Don Juan , followed in October. Sound-on-film would ultimately win out over sound-on-disc because of a number of fundamental technical advantages: Nonetheless, in the early years, sound-on-disc had
12300-522: The People's Republic of China . The UNC, led by the United States, intervened to defend the South, and rapidly advanced into North Korea. As they neared the border with China, Chinese forces intervened on behalf of North Korea, shifting the balance of the war again. Fighting ended on 27 July 1953, with an armistice that approximately restored the original boundaries between North and South Korea, but no peace treaty
12505-747: The South on 25 June 1950, and swiftly overran most of the country. The United Nations Command (UNC) was subsequently established following the UN Security Council 's recognition of North Korean aggression against South Korea. The motion passed because the Soviet Union , a close ally of North Korea and a member of the UN Security Council, was boycotting the UN over its recognition of the Republic of China rather than
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#173287594296812710-563: The Tri-Ergon sound system. On September 17, 1922, the Tri-Ergon group gave a public screening of sound-on-film productions—including a dramatic talkie, Der Brandstifter ( The Arsonist ) —before an invited audience at the Alhambra Kino in Berlin. By the end of the decade, Tri-Ergon would be the dominant European sound system. In 1923, two Danish engineers, Axel Petersen and Arnold Poulsen, patented
12915-629: The United States , and Ukraine . Germany is unusual in maintaining a North Korean embassy. German Ambassador Friedrich Lohr says most of his time in North Korea involved facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid and agricultural assistance to a population plagued by food shortages. North Korea enjoys a close relationship with China which is often called North Korea's closest ally. Relations were strained beginning in 2006 because of China's concerns about North Korea's nuclear program. Relations improved after Xi Jinping , General Secretary of
13120-527: The Yellow Sea and Korea Bay , and to its east lies Japan across the Sea of Japan . Early European visitors to Korea remarked that the country resembled "a sea in a heavy gale" because of the many successive mountain ranges that crisscross the peninsula. Some 80 percent of North Korea is composed of mountains and uplands, separated by deep and narrow valleys. All of the Korean Peninsula's mountains with elevations of 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) or more are located in North Korea. The highest point in North Korea
13325-428: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when all Soviet aid was suddenly halted. An internal CIA study acknowledged various achievements of the North Korean government post-war: compassionate care for war orphans and children in general, a radical improvement in the status of women, free housing, free healthcare, and health statistics particularly in life expectancy and infant mortality that were comparable to even
13530-526: The 1972 July 4 South–North Joint Statement that established principles of working toward peaceful reunification. The talks ultimately failed because in 1973, South Korea declared its preference that the two Koreas should seek separate memberships in international organizations. The Soviet Union was dissolved on 26 December 1991, ending its aid and support to North Korea. In 1992, as Kim Il Sung's health began deteriorating, his son Kim Jong Il slowly began taking over various state tasks. Kim Il Sung died of
13735-441: The 1980s onwards as the Cold War came to an end. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 then brought about a sharp decline to the North Korean economy. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered a famine with the population continuing to suffer from malnutrition. In 2024, the DPRK formally abandoned efforts to peacefully reunify Korea . North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship with a comprehensive cult of personality around
13940-458: The 70s was part of a generational shift in directors and a prediction of the young directors with new senses. In 1974, director Lee Jang-ho's Heavenly homecoming of Stars attracted as many as 470,000 viewers alone at Kuk-do theater in Seoul and marked sixth place in the box office among all films released in the 70s. In 1975, director Kim Ho-seon's Yeong-ja's Heydays ( 영자의 전성시대 ) was also a huge box office hit, attracting 360,000 viewers. March of
14145-435: The Allied Military Government . In April 1948, an uprising of the Jeju islanders was violently crushed. The South declared its statehood in May 1948 and two months later the ardent anti-communist Syngman Rhee became its ruler. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the North on 9 September 1948. Shtykov served as the first Soviet ambassador, while Kim Il Sung became premier. Soviet forces withdrew from
14350-469: The American silent film Ben Hur (1927) into Korea. While Japanese colonial censors failed to find anything possibly inflammatory about the film, the byeonsa immediately recognized and alerted audiences to the obvious parallels between the conditions of the Jews onscreen with those of the Koreans under Japanese colonial rule resulting in the film setting off a near riot. Japanese film censors replaced American and European films with Japanese films as part of
14555-464: The Chinese Communist Party and Chinese President visited North Korea in June 2019. North Korea continues to have strong ties with several Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam , Laos , Cambodia , and Indonesia . Relations with Malaysia were strained in 2017 by the assassination of Kim Jong-nam . North Korea has a close relationship with Russia and has voiced support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine . Sound film A sound film
14760-661: The Dongdaemun Electric Company, the price for admission to the viewing of scenic photography was 10 jeon (coin). Korea's first film studio, Dongdaemun Motion Picture Studio, was opened in 1903. There are several competing claims for which is the first movie theater in the country. Dansungsa , which opened in Seoul in November 1907, is widely considered the first theater. However, a 2021 article in The Hankyoreh claims that
14965-448: The Fools ( 바보들의 행진 ) directed by Ha Gil-jong was highly acclaimed for its sensuous portrayal of the romance and wandering of youth with college students in 1975. The introduction of the import quota system for foreign films and the consequent import regulations under the 1970s prompted fierce competition to win the right to import foreign films rather than the development of Korean films, and
15170-568: The Gallows ). Several European nations with minor positions in the field also produced their first talking pictures—Belgium (in French), Denmark, Greece, and Romania. The Soviet Union's robust film industry came out with its first sound features in December 1930: Dziga Vertov 's nonfiction Enthusiasm had an experimental, dialogueless soundtrack; Abram Room 's documentary Plan velikikh rabot ( The Plan of
15375-731: The Great Works ) had music and spoken voiceovers. Both were made with locally developed sound-on-film systems, two of the two hundred or so movie sound systems then available somewhere in the world. In June 1931, the Nikolai Ekk drama Putevka v zhizn ( The Road to Life or A Start in Life ), premiered as the Soviet Union's first true talking picture. Throughout much of Europe, conversion of exhibition venues lagged well behind production capacity, requiring talkies to be produced in parallel silent versions or simply shown without sound in many places. While
15580-728: The Incheon-based Ae Kwan Theater , which first opened as Hyŏmnyulsa ( 협률사 ; 協律舍 ) in 1895, is the first. Before the creation of a domestic film industry, films imported from Europe and the United States were shown in Korean theaters. Some of the imported films of the era most popular with Korean audiences were D. W. Griffith 's Broken Blossoms (1919) and Way Down East (1920), Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (1922), and Fritz Lang 's Nibelungen films, Siegfried and Kriemhilds Rache (both 1924). Righteous Revenge , an October 27, 1919 kino-drama (stageplay with
15785-574: The Japanese colonization. He then returned to Bavaria and edited the footage into a feature-length documentary, Im Lande der Morgenstille (lit. In the Land of the Morning Calm ), as well as five other short films. The documentary aired until the 1930s in Germany and Austria, and was largely forgotten about until it was rediscovered in the late 1970s by South Korean researchers. The film has since been digitized and
15990-407: The Japanese. Coming as they did during the mid- to late-1930s, sound films in Korea faced much harsher censorship from the Japanese government-General than did the silent films before them. Also, the loss of the byeonsa narrators with the coming of sound film meant that anti-authority messages could no longer be sneaked around the censors in this way. On such example occurred with the importation of
16195-497: The Japanese. After the war, he changed his name to Dr. Huyung, married an Indonesian woman with whom he had two sons, and produced three important Indonesian films. Before his death in 1952, he told a close friend, "If I returned to Japan now there wouldn't be any jobs for me and if I returned to Korea, I'd most likely be branded a Japanese collaborator." Although the Japanese Colonial Administration officially banned
16400-520: The Korean film industry under the Japanese would not begin until after Japan's full-scale invasion of China in 1937. Film was an important way by which the Japanese maintained colonial control in Korea through the promotion of assimilationist policies. For example, in 1941 Japan's Shochiku Studios together with the Japanese-sponsored Korean Military Information Division co-produced the film You and I (君と僕). The film
16605-462: The Korean language, the Japanese film studios operating in Korea continued to make films with characters who spoke it until the end of the war. Most of the movies in 1946 and 1947 right after Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule were films that expressed the thrill of Korea's liberation. In 1946, Choi In-kyu founded the Goryeo Film Company and released Free Manse ( 자유만세 ), which was
16810-455: The Mouse (31 minutes of dialogue) in May. On July 6, 1928, the first all-talking feature, Lights of New York , premiered. The film cost Warner Bros. only $ 23,000 to produce, but grossed $ 1,252,000, a record rate of return surpassing 5,000%. In September, the studio released another Al Jolson part-talking picture, The Singing Fool , which more than doubled The Jazz Singer' s earnings record for
17015-413: The North in 1948, and most American forces withdrew from the South in 1949. Ambassador Shtykov suspected Rhee was planning to invade the North and was sympathetic to Kim's goal of Korean unification under socialism. The two successfully lobbied Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to support a quick war against the South, which culminated in the outbreak of the Korean War. The military of North Korea invaded
17220-612: The One-Ideology System") which establishes standards for governance and a guide for the behaviors of North Koreans. The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), a communist party led by a member of the Kim family , has an estimated 6.5 million members and is in control of North Korean politics. It has two satellite parties, the Korean Social Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongu Party . Kim Jong Un of
17425-432: The Paris studios were fully sound-equipped—a process that stretched well into 1930—a number of other early French talkies were shot in Germany. The first all-talking German feature, Atlantik , had premiered in Berlin on October 28. Yet another Elstree-made movie, it was rather less German at heart than Les Trois masques and La Route est belle were French; a BIP production with a British scenarist and German director, it
17630-521: The Royal Hungarian Patent Court in 1918; the patent award was published four years later. Whether sound was captured on cylinder, disc, or film, none of the available technology was adequate for big-league commercial purposes, and for many years the heads of the major Hollywood film studios saw little benefit in producing sound motion pictures. A number of technological developments contributed to making sound cinema commercially viable by
17835-527: The SPA Standing Committee, whose Chairman ( Choe Ryong-hae since 2019) is the third-ranking official in North Korea. Deputies formally elect the chairman, the vice chairpersons and members of the Standing Committee and take part in the constitutionally appointed activities of the legislature: pass laws, establish domestic and foreign policies, appoint members of the cabinet, review and approve
18040-556: The South which is depicted by the North Korean government as an imperialist occupation force. It claims that the Korean War was caused by the United States and South Korea. In October 2024, North Korea claims that 1.4 million people have joined its military after accusing South Korea of a drone intrusion. In response, South Korea is restricting leaflet launches near the border to prevent potential conflict, while both sides engage in psychological warfare, including disturbing broadcasts at
18245-520: The State, including major policies of the State, and to carry out the directions of the president of the commission, Kim Jong Un. The SAC also directly supervises the Ministry of Defence , Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Social Security . Legislative power is held by the unicameral Supreme People's Assembly (SPA). Its 687 members are elected every five years by universal suffrage , though
18450-469: The United States. By 1930, only half of the theaters had been wired for sound. Initially, all ERPI-wired theaters were made Vitaphone-compatible; most were equipped to project Movietone reels as well. However, even with access to both technologies, most of the Hollywood companies remained slow to produce talking features of their own. No studio besides Warner Bros. released even a part-talking feature until
18655-601: The United States. Though the country's film industry was among the first to produce both sound and talking features, the full changeover to sound proceeded much more slowly than in the West. It appears that the first Japanese sound film, Reimai ( Dawn ), was made in 1926 with the De Forest Phonofilm system. Using the sound-on-disc Minatoki system, the leading Nikkatsu studio produced a pair of talkies in 1929: Taii no musume ( The Captain's Daughter ) and Furusato ( Hometown ),
18860-456: The Vitaphone system, most of the film does not contain live-recorded audio, relying, like Sunrise and Don Juan , on a score and effects. When the movie's star, Al Jolson , sings, however, the film shifts to sound recorded on the set, including both his musical performances and two scenes with ad-libbed speech—one of Jolson's character, Jakie Rabinowitz (Jack Robin), addressing a cabaret audience;
19065-502: The Wall ( 성벽을 뚫고 ) were produced. During the Korean War in 1950, the filmmakers were once again in a time of hardship, but in 1952 a number of films were produced, including Jeon Chang-geun's Nakdong River ( 낙동강 ), Lee Man-heung's Affectionate Mountains ( 애정산맥 ), Shin Sang-ok's Devil's Night ( 악야 ), and Jeong Chang-hwa's The Last Temptation ( 최후의 유혹 ). Returning to the capital in 1954,
19270-649: The Western Electric system infringed on the Tri-Ergon patents, stalling the introduction of American technology in many places. Just as RCA had entered the movie business to maximize its recording system's value, Tobis also established its own production operations. During 1929, most of the major European filmmaking countries began joining Hollywood in the changeover to sound. Many of the trend-setting European talkies were shot abroad as production companies leased studios while their own were being converted or as they deliberately targeted markets speaking different languages. One of Europe's first two feature-length dramatic talkies
19475-451: The all-talking Niebezpieczny romans ( Dangerous Love Affair ) in October. In Italy, whose once vibrant film industry had become moribund by the late 1920s, the first talkie, La Canzone dell'amore ( The Song of Love ), also came out in October; within two years, Italian cinema would be enjoying a revival. The first movie spoken in Czech debuted in 1930 as well, Tonka Šibenice ( Tonka of
19680-613: The armistice was interrupted by border skirmishes, celebrity abductions, and assassination attempts. The North failed in several assassination attempts on South Korean leaders, such as in 1968 , 1974, and the Rangoon bombing in 1983; tunnels were found under the DMZ and tensions flared over the axe murder incident at Panmunjom in 1976. For almost two decades after the war, the two states did not seek to negotiate with one another. In 1971, secret, high-level contacts began to be conducted culminating in
19885-476: The banner of De Forest Phonofilms . The set included the 11-minute short film From far Seville starring Concha Piquer . In 2010, a copy of the tape was found in the U.S. Library of Congress , where it is currently preserved. Critics attending the event praised the novelty but not the sound quality which received negative reviews in general. That June, De Forest entered into an extended legal battle with an employee, Freeman Harrison Owens , for title to one of
20090-444: The border. The post-war 1950s and 1960s saw an ideological shift in North Korea, as Kim Il Sung sought to consolidate his power. Kim Il Sung was highly critical of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and his de-Stalinization policies and critiqued Khrushchev as revisionist. During the 1956 August Faction Incident , Kim Il Sung successfully resisted efforts by the Soviet Union and China to depose him in favor of Soviet Koreans or
20295-417: The camera for particular shots. The necessity of staying within range of still microphones meant that actors also often had to limit their movements unnaturally. Show Girl in Hollywood (1930), from First National Pictures (which Warner Bros. had taken control of thanks to its profitable adventure into sound), gives a behind-the-scenes look at some of the techniques involved in shooting early talkies. Several of
20500-414: The conflict with pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese dissenters, and Korea's centuries-long struggle for independence. Juche was introduced into the constitution in 1972. Juche was initially promoted as a "creative application" of Marxism–Leninism , but in the mid-1970s, it was described by state propaganda as "the only scientific thought... and most effective revolutionary theoretical structure that leads to
20705-707: The crucial Phonofilm patents. Although De Forest ultimately won the case in the courts, Owens is today recognized as a central innovator in the field. The following year, De Forest's studio released the first commercial dramatic film shot as a talking picture—the two-reeler Love's Old Sweet Song , directed by J. Searle Dawley and featuring Una Merkel . However, phonofilm's stock in trade was not original dramas but celebrity documentaries, popular music acts, and comedy performances. President Calvin Coolidge , opera singer Abbie Mitchell , and vaudeville stars such as Phil Baker , Ben Bernie , Eddie Cantor and Oscar Levant appeared in
20910-505: The cult of personality, particularly surrounding Kim Il Sung, has been crucial for legitimizing the family's hereditary succession. The control the North Korean government exercises over many aspects of the nation's culture is used to perpetuate the cult of personality surrounding Kim Il Sung, and Kim Jong Il. While visiting North Korea in 1979, journalist Bradley Martin wrote that nearly all music, art, and sculpture that he observed glorified "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung, whose personality cult
21115-531: The device into a commercial product. Though sound-on-film would eventually become the universal standard for synchronized sound cinema, Lauste never successfully exploited his innovations, which came to an effective dead end. In 1914, Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt was granted German patent 309,536 for his sound-on-film work; that same year, he apparently demonstrated a film made with the process to an audience of scientists in Berlin. Hungarian engineer Denes Mihaly submitted his sound-on-film Projectofon concept to
21320-533: The early 7th century BCE. Following the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea into Silla and Balhae in the late 7th century, Korea was ruled by the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) and the Joseon dynasty (1392–1897). The succeeding Korean Empire (1897–1910) was annexed in 1910 into the Empire of Japan . In 1945, after the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II , Korea was divided into two zones along
21525-404: The edge over sound-on-film in two substantial ways: As sound-on-film technology improved, both of these disadvantages were overcome. The third crucial set of innovations marked a major step forward in both the live recording of sound and its effective playback: In 1913, Western Electric , the manufacturing division of AT&T, acquired the rights to the de Forest audion , the forerunner of
21730-501: The elections have been described by outside observers as similar to elections in the Soviet Union . Elections in North Korea have also been described as a form of government census, due to the near 100% turnout. Although the elections are not pluralistic , North Korean state media describes the elections as "an expression of the absolute support and trust of all voters in the DPRK government". Supreme People's Assembly sessions are convened by
21935-461: The era of silent film in Korea. Like the folksong " Arirang ", on which its title was based, Na Woon-gyu's Arirang did not have an overtly political theme. However hidden or subtle messages could be magnified through the common use of a live narrator at the theater. A newspaper article of 1908 shows that this tradition of byeonsa ( benshi in Japanese) appeared in Korea almost from the beginning of
22140-716: The fall of Korean films began slowly in the mid-70s. North Korea North Korea , officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( DPRK ), is a country in East Asia . It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen rivers, and South Korea to the south at the Korean Demilitarized Zone . The country's western border
22345-603: The famine of the 1990s was partially caused by natural disasters out of Kim Jong Il's control. The song " No Motherland Without You ", sung by the North Korean army choir, was created especially for Kim Jong Il and is one of the most popular tunes in the country. Kim Il Sung is still officially revered as the nation's "Eternal President". Several landmarks in North Korea are named for Kim Il Sung , including Kim Il Sung University , Kim Il Sung Stadium , and Kim Il Sung Square . Defectors have been quoted as saying that North Korean schools deify both father and son. Kim Il Sung rejected
22550-435: The film "a good gimmick, but that's all it was." Not until May 1928 did the group of four big studios (PDC had dropped out of the alliance), along with United Artists and others, sign with ERPI for conversion of production facilities and theaters for sound film. It was a daunting commitment; revamping a single theater cost as much as $ 15,000 (the equivalent of $ 220,000 in 2019), and there were more than 20,000 movie theaters in
22755-476: The film narrative, giving the film a political subtext invisible to Japanese government censors. The byeonsa operated as "a narrator that introduces the characters and the setting, and explains the physical actions and psychological dilemmas during silent film screenings." The byeonsa also functioned "as a cultural intermediary during the Korean audience's film-viewing experience, and utilized his narration to complement censorship or technological limitations during
22960-434: The film's soundtrack consisted of a musical score and sound effects (including, in a couple of crowd scenes, "wild", nonspecific vocals). Then, on October 6, 1927, Warner Bros.' The Jazz Singer premiered. It was a smash box office success for the mid-level studio, earning a total of $ 2.625 million in the United States and abroad, almost a million dollars more than the previous record for a Warner Bros. film. Produced with
23165-434: The filmmakers made the film persistently despite the new challenge of flooding foreign films. In 1954, Kim Seong-min's 41 degrees north latitude ( 북위 41도 ), Yun Bong-chun's Song of the hometown ( 고향의 노래 ), Hong Sung-ki's Sortie ( 출격명령 ), and Shin Sang-ok's Korea ( 코리아 ) were produced. In May 1955, tax exemption measures were implemented for Korean films, which later served as a major occasion for Korean films to enjoy
23370-538: The firm's pictures. Hollywood remained suspicious, even fearful, of the new technology. As Photoplay editor James Quirk put it in March 1924, "Talking pictures are perfected, says Dr. Lee De Forest. So is castor oil ." De Forest's process continued to be used through 1927 in the United States for dozens of short Phonofilms; in the UK it was employed a few years longer for both shorts and features by British Sound Film Productions,
23575-507: The first all-color, all-talking feature, Warner Bros.' On with the Show! , premiered. Yet most American movie theaters, especially outside of urban areas, were still not equipped for sound: while the number of sound cinemas grew from 100 to 800 between 1928 and 1929, they were still vastly outnumbered by silent theaters, which had actually grown in number as well, from 22,204 to 22,544. The studios, in parallel, were still not entirely convinced of
23780-465: The first commercial motion picture exhibition, he proposed a scheme for sound cinema that would combine his image-casting zoopraxiscope with Edison's recorded-sound technology. No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the Kinetoscope , essentially a "peep-show" system, as a visual complement to his cylinder phonograph . The two devices were brought together as
23985-594: The first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. Before sound-on-film technology became viable, soundtracks for films were commonly played live with organs or pianos. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid-to-late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as " talking pictures ", or " talkies ", were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as
24190-423: The first feature-length movie to employ a synchronized sound system of any type throughout, its soundtrack contained a musical score and added sound effects , but no recorded dialogue—in other words, it had been staged and shot as a silent film. Accompanying Don Juan , however, were eight shorts of musical performances, mostly classical, as well as a four-minute filmed introduction by Will H. Hays , president of
24395-570: The first movie in which Marathi was spoken to be released (though Sant Tukaram was the first to go through the official censorship process); the first Gujarati-language film, Narsimha Mehta , and all-Tamil talkie, Kalava , debuted as well. The next year, Ardeshir Irani produced the first Persian-language talkie, Dukhtar-e-loor . Also in 1933, the first Cantonese-language films were produced in Hong Kong— Sha zai dongfang ( The Idiot's Wedding Night ) and Liang xing ( Conscience ); within two years,
24600-542: The first reported U.S. demonstration of a sound-on-film motion picture to members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers . As with Lauste and Tigerstedt, Tykociner's system would never be taken advantage of commercially; however, De Forest's soon would. On April 15, 1923, at the New York City's Rivoli Theater, the first commercial screening of motion pictures with sound-on-film took place. This would become
24805-490: The first showing of a film in Korea, the first feature film produced in Korea also appears to be unclear. Some name a filming of Chunhyang-Jeon ( 춘향전 ) in 1921 (released in 1922) as the first Korean feature film. The traditional story, Chunhyang , was to become Korea's most-filmed story later. It was possibly the first Korean feature film, and was certainly the first Korean sound film , color film and widescreen film. Im Kwon-taek 's 2000 pansori version of Chunhyang brought
25010-403: The first time since the 2017 crisis. In September 2022, North Korea passed a law that declared itself a nuclear state . On December 30, 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un provocatively declared South Korea a "colonial vassal state", marking a significant departure from the longstanding position of mutual claims over the entire Korean Peninsula by both North and South Korea. This statement
25215-568: The foreign embassies accredited to North Korea are located in Beijing rather than in Pyongyang . In the 1960s and 1970s, it pursued an independent foreign policy, established relations with many developing countries, and joined the Non-Aligned Movement . In the late 1980s and the 1990s its foreign policy was thrown into turmoil with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc . Suffering an economic crisis, it closed
25420-526: The front-runners came up with. In May, Warner Bros. sold back its exclusivity rights to ERPI (along with the Fox-Case sublicense) and signed a new royalty contract similar to Fox's for use of Western Electric technology. Fox and Warners pressed forward with sound cinema, moving in different directions both technologically and commercially: Fox moved into newsreels and then scored dramas, while Warners concentrated on talking features. Meanwhile, ERPI sought to corner
25625-420: The fundamental problems caused by the transition to sound were soon solved with new camera casings, known as " blimps ", designed to suppress noise and boom microphones that could be held just out of frame and moved with the actors. In 1931, a major improvement in playback fidelity was introduced: three-way speaker systems in which sound was separated into low, medium, and high frequencies and sent respectively to
25830-604: The future of communist society". Juche eventually replaced Marxism–Leninism entirely by the 1980s, and in 1992 references to the latter were omitted from the constitution. The 2009 constitution dropped references to communism and elevated the Songun military first policy while explicitly confirming the position of Kim Jong Il. However, the constitution retains references to socialism. The WPK reasserted its commitment to communism in 2021. Juche ' s concepts of self-reliance have evolved with time and circumstances, but still provide
26035-411: The future standard. It consisted of a set of short films varying in length and featuring some of the most popular stars of the 1920s (including Eddie Cantor , Harry Richman , Sophie Tucker , and George Jessel among others) doing stage performances such as vaudevilles , musical acts, and speeches which accompanied the screening of the silent feature film Bella Donna . All of them were presented under
26240-572: The groundwork for the spartan austerity, sacrifice, and discipline demanded by the party. Since the founding of the nation, North Korea's supreme leadership has stayed within the Kim family, which in North Korea is referred to as the Mount Paektu Bloodline . It is a three-generation lineage descending from the country's first leader, Kim Il Sung, who developed North Korea around the Juche ideology , and stayed in power until his death. Kim developed
26445-401: The heyday. Lee Kyu-hwan's Chunhyangjeon ( 춘향전 ) was released in 1955 and caused the renaissance of Korean films. In a comparison of the number of films produced in Korea, there were 166 films produced in the early period from 1919 to 1945, 86 films produced in the period from 1946 to 1953 and 2,021 films produced in the period from 1954 to 1970. The tax exemption measures, the introduction of
26650-501: The larger colonial project to culturally colonize Korea. Japanese films set in Korea appealed to audiences in Japan as a form of exotica. Suicide Troops of the Watchtower (望楼の決死隊, 1943), for instance, was one of several propaganda features that promoted the Japanese occupation notion of naisen ittai or "Japan and Korea as one body." Although Japanese film production in Korea began in the early 1930s, total mobilization and consolidation of
26855-531: The last pre- liberation film to present a significant nationalistic message. Korea's first sound film was Lee Myeong-woo's 1935 Chunhyang-jeon . The sound technique was reportedly poor, but Korean audiences appreciated hearing their own language in the cinema. The number of films produced increased during the latter part of the decade. Na Woon-gyu began making a larger number of films again with significant works like Kanggeonneo maeul (1935), and Oh Mong-nyeo (1937), before his premature death in 1937. Korea
27060-476: The late 1920s. Two involved contrasting approaches to synchronized sound reproduction, or playback: In 1919, American inventor Lee De Forest was awarded several patents that would lead to the first optical sound -on-film technology with commercial application. In De Forest's system, the sound track was photographically recorded onto the side of the strip of motion picture film to create a composite, or "married", print. If proper synchronization of sound and picture
27265-695: The latest film making machine and increase of movie goers greatly encouraged filmmakers. New genres such as teen movies and literary films emerged from the early to the mid-1960s. Kim Ki-young's The Housemaid was released in 1960. Shin Seong-il earned stardom through films such as The Barefooted Youth ( 맨발의 청춘 ), Youth Classroom ( 청춘교실 ) and Rye ( 흑맥 ) around this time. In 1961, Shin Sang-ok's The Houseguest and My Mother ( 사랑방 손님과 어머니 ) and Yu Hyun-mok's Aimless Bullet ( Obaltan , 오발탄) were produced. Lee Man-hee's Late Autumn ( 만추 ) in 1966 and Choi Ha-won's The Old Pottery Maker ( 독 짓는 늙은이 ) in 1969 improved
27470-456: The latter directed by Kenji Mizoguchi . The rival Shochiku studio began the successful production of sound-on-film talkies in 1931 using a variable-density process called Tsuchibashi. Two years later, however, more than 80 percent of movies made in the country were still silents. Two of the country's leading directors, Mikio Naruse and Yasujirō Ozu , did not make their first sound films until 1935 and 1936, respectively. As late as 1938, over
27675-566: The leader was announced "Eternal General Secretary" and "Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission" after his death in 2011. According to the constitution, there are officially three main branches of government. The first of these is the State Affairs Commission (SAC), which acts as "the supreme national guidance organ of state sovereignty". Its role is to deliberate and decide the work on defense building of
27880-447: The legitimate government of the entire Korean Peninsula and adjacent islands. Despite its official title as the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", some observers have described North Korea's political system as a "hereditary dictatorship". It has also been described as a Stalinist dictatorship . Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism is the official ideology of North Korea and the WPK, and
28085-535: The lines are of varying width.) By October, the FBO-RCA alliance would lead to the creation of Hollywood's newest major studio, RKO Pictures . Meanwhile, Warner Bros. had released three more talkies, all profitable, if not at the level of The Jazz Singer : In March, Tenderloin appeared; it was billed by Warners as the first feature in which characters spoke their parts, though only 15 of its 88 minutes had dialogue. Glorious Betsy followed in April, and The Lion and
28290-481: The local film industry had fully converted to sound. Korea, where pyonsa (or byun-sa ) held a role and status similar to that of the Japanese benshi, in 1935 became the last country with a significant film industry to produce its first talking picture: Chunhyangjeon ( Korean : 춘향전 ; Hanja : 春香傳 ) is based on the seventeenth-century pansori folktale " Chunhyangga ", of which as many as fifteen film versions have been made through 2009. In
28495-439: The low-budget-oriented Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) premiered The Perfect Crime on June 17, 1928, eight months after The Jazz Singer . FBO had come under the effective control of a Western Electric competitor, General Electric 's RCA division, which was looking to market its new sound-on-film system, Photophone . Unlike Fox-Case's Movietone and De Forest's Phonofilm, which were variable-density systems, Photophone
28700-424: The market by signing up the five allied studios. The big sound film sensations of the year all took advantage of preexisting celebrity. On May 20, 1927, at New York City's Roxy Theater , Fox Movietone presented a sound film of the takeoff of Charles Lindbergh 's celebrated flight to Paris, recorded earlier that day. In June, a Fox sound newsreel depicting his return welcomes in New York City and Washington, D.C.,
28905-470: The most advanced nations up until the North Korean famine . Life expectancy in the North was 72 before the famine which was only marginally lower than in the South. The country once boasted a comparatively developed healthcare system; pre-famine North Korea had a network of nearly 45,000 family practitioners with some 800 hospitals and 1,000 clinics. The relative peace between the North and South following
29110-606: The mountain. Other prominent ranges are the Hamgyong Range in the extreme northeast and the Rangrim Mountains , which are located in the north-central part of North Korea. Mount Kumgang in the Taebaek Range , which extends into South Korea, is famous for its scenic beauty. The coastal plains are wide in the west and discontinuous in the east. A great majority of the population lives in the plains and lowlands. According to
29315-582: The name Movietone , thus became the first viable sound-on-film technology controlled by a Hollywood movie studio. The following year, Fox purchased the North American rights to the Tri-Ergon system, though the company found it inferior to Movietone and virtually impossible to integrate the two different systems to advantage. In 1927, as well, Fox retained the services of Freeman Owens, who had particular expertise in constructing cameras for synch-sound film. Parallel with improvements in sound-on-film technology,
29520-628: The northern half of the peninsula occupied by the Soviet Union and the southern half by the United States . Negotiations on reunification failed. Soviet general Terenty Shtykov recommended the establishment of the Soviet Civil Administration in October 1945, and supported Kim Il Sung as chairman of the Provisional People's Committee of North Korea , established in February 1946. In September 1946, South Korean citizens rose up against
29725-425: The notion that he had created a cult around himself and accused those who suggested this of " factionalism ". Following the death of Kim Il Sung, North Koreans were prostrating and weeping to a bronze statue of him in an organized event; similar scenes were broadcast by state television following the death of Kim Jong Il. Critics maintain that Kim Jong Il's personality cult was inherited from his father. Kim Jong Il
29930-450: The number of films based on Chunyang to 14. Other sources, however, name Yun Baek-nam's Ulha ui Mengse ("Plighted Love Under the Moon"), released in April, 1923, as the first Korean feature film. In 1925, the German priest Norbert Weber captured some of the most footage of Korea ever by a single person by that point. He did this in order to document Korean culture in case it was wiped out by
30135-529: The occupying authorities played a part in reducing the number of films produced at this time to only two or three per year, and some filmmakers fled Korea for the more robust film-industry in Shanghai at this time. Imported films largely replaced domestic films, although with Korean General Law No. 40 of 1933, the Japanese mandated that all foreign films distributed in Korea should be imported through Japan. "Although some of them were very popular with Korean audiences,
30340-403: The other an exchange between him and his mother. The "natural" sounds of the settings were also audible. Though the success of The Jazz Singer was due largely to Jolson, already established as one of U.S. biggest music stars, and its limited use of synchronized sound hardly qualified it as an innovative sound film (let alone the "first"), the movie's profits were proof enough to the industry that
30545-521: The pace of conversion was relatively swift in Britain—with over 60 percent of theaters equipped for sound by the end of 1930, similar to the U.S. figure—in France, by contrast, more than half of theaters nationwide were still projecting in silence by late 1932. According to scholar Colin G. Crisp, "Anxiety about resuscitating the flow of silent films was frequently expressed in the [French] industrial press, and
30750-437: The pro-Chinese Yan'an faction . Some scholars believe that the 1956 August incident was an example of North Korea demonstrating political independence. However, most scholars consider the final withdrawal of Chinese troops from North Korea in October 1958 to be the latest date when North Korea became effectively independent. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, North Korea sought to distinguish itself internationally by becoming
30955-400: The purpose of producing films by Koreans for Koreans. Though this company was short-lived, it produced important films like Jalitgeola (or Good bye ; 1927), Beongeoli Sam-ryong (or Mute Samryong ) ; 1929), and Salangeul chajaseo ( Finding Love ; 1929). Another important director of this period, Shim Hun , directed only one film, Mondongi Tultte (먼동이 틀 때; At Daybreak ). Though
31160-413: The quality of Korean films. Jung So-young's Love Me Once Again ( 미워도 다시 한번 ) earned a huge success in the box office. In the 1970s, however, the Korean film industry again faced a recession and began to look for breakthroughs with Lee Jang-ho's Heavenly Homecoming of Stars ( 별들의 고향 ) in 1974 and Kim Ho-sun's Winter Woman ( 겨울여자 ) in 1977. The emergence of Lee Jang-ho, Kim Ho-seon and Ha Gil-jong in
31365-466: The redubbed Vitaphone operation, leading to the production of Don Juan and its accompanying shorts over the following months. During the period when Vitaphone had exclusive access to the patents, the fidelity of recordings made for Warners films was markedly superior to those made for the company's sound-on-film competitors. Meanwhile, Bell Labs —the new name for the AT&;T research operation—was working at
31570-463: The repatriation of Japanese citizens in the country. The same year, North Korea revalued the North Korean won , which held greater value than its South Korean counterpart. Until the 1960s, economic growth was higher than in South Korea, and North Korean GDP per capita was equal to that of its southern neighbor as late as 1976. However, by the 1980s, the economy had begun to stagnate; it started its long decline in 1987 and almost completely collapsed after
31775-403: The reviews for this film were as strong as those for Arirang, Shim died at the age of 35 while directing his second film, based on his own novel, Sangroksu (상록수; The Evergreens ). The novel was later filmed by director Shin Sang-ok in 1961 and by Im Kwon-taek in 1978. The first half of the 1930s saw a decline in the domestic film industry in Korea. Censorship and oppression on the part of
31980-431: The running time of 1000 ft of film at 90 ft/min (24 frames/s). Because of the larger diameter the minimum groove velocity of 70 ft/min (14 inches or 356 mm/s) was only slightly less than that of a standard 10-inch 78 rpm commercial disc. In 1925, the company publicly introduced a greatly improved system of electronic audio, including sensitive condenser microphones and rubber-line recorders (named after
32185-511: The same divided country as their compatriots in the South, and foreign visitors are discouraged from using the former term. According to Korean mythology in 2333 BCE, the Gojoseon Kingdom was established by the god-king Dangun . Following the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea under the name Unified Silla in 668 AD, Korea was subsequently ruled by the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) and
32390-593: The second-ranking official after Kim Jong Un. The Premier represents the government and functions independently. His authority extends over two vice premiers, 30 ministers , two cabinet commission chairmen, the cabinet chief secretary, the president of the Central Bank , the director of the Central Bureau of Statistics and the president of the Academy of Sciences . North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be
32595-562: The selenium's resistance to electrical currents, which was used to modulate the sound produced in a telephone receiver. He called this invention the photographophone , which he summarized as: "It is truly a wonderful process: sound becomes electricity, becomes light, causes chemical actions, becomes light and electricity again, and finally sound." Ruhmer began a correspondence with the French-born, London-based Eugene Lauste , who had worked at Edison's lab between 1886 and 1892. In 1907, Lauste
32800-457: The short term, the introduction of live sound recording caused major difficulties in production. Cameras were noisy, so a soundproofed cabinet was used in many of the earliest talkies to isolate the loud equipment from the actors, at the expense of a drastic reduction in the ability to move the camera. For a time, multiple-camera shooting was used to compensate for the loss of mobility and innovative studio technicians could often find ways to liberate
33005-418: The showing of film in the country. As in Japan, this became an integral part to the showing of silent films, especially for imported films, where the byeonsa provided an economical and entertaining alternative to translating intertitles . In an interesting aspect of the byeonsa tradition in Korea, when Japanese authorities were not present the narrators could inject satire and criticism of the occupation into
33210-597: The silent film period." Some of the more popular byeonsa were better-paid than the film actors. The success of Arirang inspired a burst of activity in the Korean film industry in the late 1920s, causing this period to become known as "The Golden Era of Silent Films". More than seventy films were produced at this time, and the quality of film improved as well as the quantity. Na Un-gyu followed Arirang with popular and critically respected films like Punguna (or Person of Destiny ; 1926) and Deuljwi (or Vole ; 1927). He formed Na Un-gyu Productions with Bak Seong-pil for
33415-666: The sound quality was very poor and no other theaters could show the sound version of the film as no one had the Photokinema sound system installed. On Sunday, May 29, Dream Street opened at the Shubert Crescent Theater in Brooklyn with a program of short films made in Phonokinema. However, business was poor, and the program soon closed. In 1925, Sam Warner of Warner Bros. , then a small Hollywood studio with big ambitions, saw
33620-473: The sound-on-disc system were able to draw on expertise that Western Electric already had in electrical disc recording and were thus able to make faster initial progress. The main change required was to increase the playing time of the disc so that it could match that of a standard 1,000 ft (300 m) reel of 35 mm film. The chosen design used a disc nearly 16 inches (about 40 cm) in diameter rotating at 33 1/3 rpm. This could play for 11 minutes,
33825-514: The state economic plan, among others. The SPA itself cannot initiate any legislation independently of party or state organs. It is unknown whether it has ever criticized or amended bills placed before it, and the elections are based around a single list of WPK-approved candidates who stand without opposition. Executive power is vested in the Cabinet of North Korea , which has been headed by Premier Kim Tok Hun since 14 August 2020, who's officially
34030-411: The studio's recognition of the new medium's power. Interference , Paramount's first all-talker, debuted in November. The process known as "goat glanding" briefly became widespread: soundtracks, sometimes including a smatter of post-dubbed dialogue or song, were added to movies that had been shot, and in some cases released, as silents. A few minutes of singing could qualify such a newly endowed film as
34235-466: The sublicense, both Warners and ERPI received a share of Fox's related revenues. The patents of all three concerns were cross-licensed. Superior recording and amplification technology was now available to two Hollywood studios, pursuing two very different methods of sound reproduction. The new year would finally see the emergence of sound cinema as a significant commercial medium. In 1929 a "new RCA Photophone portable sound and picture reproducing system"
34440-500: The supply was limited overall, and some of those coming from Japan were so worn-out that the facial expressions of the actors were blurred. Narrators could nevertheless make even worn-out movies interesting and make up for a cinema's poor offer." Perhaps the most important film of this era was Imjaeobtneun naleutbae ( Ferryboat with no Ferryman ) (1932), directed by Lee Gyu-hwan (1904–1981), starred Na Woon-gyu . Increasing governmental censorship meant that commentators have called this
34645-430: The talkies' universal appeal—until mid-1930, the majority of Hollywood movies were produced in dual versions, silent as well as talking. Though few in the industry predicted it, silent film as a viable commercial medium in the United States would soon be little more than a memory. Points West , a Hoot Gibson Western released by Universal Pictures in August 1929, was the last purely silent mainstream feature put out by
34850-437: The technology was worth investing in. The development of commercial sound cinema had proceeded in fits and starts before The Jazz Singer , and the film's success did not change things overnight. Influential gossip columnist Louella Parsons ' reaction to The Jazz Singer was badly off the mark: "I have no fear that the screeching sound film will ever disturb our theaters," while MGM head of production Irving Thalberg called
35055-468: The theaters, Korean films must be played for 73 days per year since 2006, a similar restriction that exists in countries like the UK and France. On cable TV 25% domestic film quota will be reduced to 20% after KOR-US FTA. It has been noted that Korean movies have consistently outperformed foreign with very few exceptions in the Korean box office. According to the October 19, 1897 issue of The Times , "Motion pictures have finally been introduced into Joseon,
35260-407: The transmitting arc-light as varying shades of light and dark bands onto a continuous roll of photographic film. He then determined that he could reverse the process and reproduce the recorded sound from this photographic strip by shining a bright light through the running filmstrip, with the resulting varying light illuminating a selenium cell. The changes in brightness caused a corresponding change to
35465-568: The travel writings of the Dutch East India Company 's Hendrick Hamel . After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea: Chosun or Joseon ( 조선 ) in North Korea, and Hanguk ( 한국 ) in South Korea. In 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( Korean : 조선민주주의인민공화국 , Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk ; listen ) as its official name. In
35670-567: The triode vacuum tube . Over the next few years they developed it into a predictable and reliable device that made electronic amplification possible for the first time. Western Electric then branched-out into developing uses for the vacuum tube including public address systems and an electrical recording system for the recording industry. Beginning in 1922, the research branch of Western Electric began working intensively on recording technology for both sound-on-disc and sound-on film synchronised sound systems for motion-pictures. The engineers working on
35875-415: The use of a rubber damping band for recording with better frequency response onto a wax master disc ). That May, the company licensed entrepreneur Walter J. Rich to exploit the system for commercial motion pictures; he founded Vitagraph, in which Warner Bros. acquired a half interest, just one month later. In April 1926, Warners signed a contract with AT&T for exclusive use of its film sound technology for
36080-421: The voices and sound effects and providing evocative descriptions of events and images on the screen.... The most popular narrators were stars in their own right, solely responsible for the patronage of a particular theatre." Film historian Mariann Lewinsky argues, The end of silent film in the West and in Japan was imposed by the industry and the market, not by any inner need or natural evolution.... Silent cinema
36285-466: The wider world, because its government controls the northern part of the Korean Peninsula , it is commonly called North Korea to distinguish it from South Korea, which is officially called the Republic of Korea in English. Both governments consider themselves to be the legitimate government of the whole of Korea . For this reason, the people do not consider themselves as 'North Koreans' but as Koreans in
36490-556: The world's most powerful cultural/commercial centers of influence (see Cinema of the United States ). In Europe (and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere), the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, who worried that a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of silent cinema. In Japan , where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance ( benshi ), talking pictures were slow to take root. Conversely, in India, sound
36695-474: The year, AT&T/Western Electric created a licensing division, Electrical Research Products Inc. (ERPI), to handle rights to the company's film-related audio technology. Vitaphone still had legal exclusivity, but having lapsed in its royalty payments, effective control of the rights was in ERPI's hands. On December 31, 1926, Warners granted Fox-Case a sublicense for the use of the Western Electric system; in exchange for
36900-425: Was a highly pleasurable and fully mature form. It didn't lack anything, least in Japan, where there was always the human voice doing the dialogues and the commentary. Sound films were not better, just more economical. As a cinema owner you didn't have to pay the wages of musicians and benshi any more. And a good benshi was a star demanding star payment. By the same token, the viability of the benshi system facilitated
37105-416: Was a variable-area system—a refinement in the way the audio signal was inscribed on film that would ultimately become the standard. (In both sorts of systems, a specially-designed lamp, whose exposure to the film is determined by the audio input, is used to record sound photographically as a series of minuscule lines. In a variable-density process, the lines are of varying darkness; in a variable-area process,
37310-453: Was achieved in recording, it could be absolutely counted on in playback. Over the next four years, he improved his system with the help of equipment and patents licensed from another American inventor in the field, Theodore Case . At the University of Illinois , Polish-born research engineer Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner was working independently on a similar process. On June 9, 1922, he gave
37515-447: Was also shot in English as Atlantic . The entirely German Aafa-Film production It's You I Have Loved ( Dich hab ich geliebt ) opened three and a half weeks later. It was not "Germany's First Talking Film", as the marketing had it, but it was the first to be released in the United States. In 1930, the first Polish talkies premiered, using sound-on-disc systems: Moralność pani Dulskiej ( The Morality of Mrs. Dulska ) in March and
37720-400: Was awarded the first patent for sound-on-film technology, involving the transformation of sound into light waves that are photographically recorded direct onto celluloid . As described by historian Scott Eyman, It was a double system, that is, the sound was on a different piece of film from the picture.... In essence, the sound was captured by a microphone and translated into light waves via
37925-449: Was created in still a different sort of twist on multinational moviemaking: The Crimson Circle was a coproduction between director Friedrich Zelnik 's Efzet-Film company and British Sound Film Productions (BSFP). In 1928, the film had been released as the silent Der Rote Kreis in Germany, where it was shot; English dialogue was apparently dubbed in much later using the De Forest Phonofilm process controlled by BSFP's corporate parent. It
38130-813: Was described in the industry journal Projection Engineering. In Australia, Hoyts and Gilby Talkies Pty., Ltd were touring talking pictures to country towns. The same year the White Star Line installed talking picture equipment on the s.s. Majestic. The features shown on the first voyage were Show Boat and Broadway . In February 1927, an agreement was signed by five leading Hollywood movie companies: Famous Players–Lasky (soon to be part of Paramount ), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , Universal , First National , and Cecil B. DeMille 's small but prestigious Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC). The five studios agreed to collectively select just one provider for sound conversion, and then waited to see what sort of results
38335-609: Was developed by Clément-Maurice Gratioulet and Henri Lioret of France, allowing short films of theater, opera, and ballet excerpts to be presented at the Paris Exposition in 1900. These appear to be the first publicly exhibited films with projection of both image and recorded sound. Phonorama and yet another sound-film system—Théâtroscope—were also presented at the Exposition. Three major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for
38540-413: Was directed by a Korean Hae Yeong who had worked extensively in the Japanese film industry using the name "Hinatsu Eitaro". You and I promoted the "volunteer" enlistment of Koreans into the imperial Japanese Army and carried as a subplot the interracial marriage between a Japanese woman and a Korean man. After the film was completed, Hae went to Java in Indonesia where he continued to make documentaries for
38745-562: Was followed by a call on January 15, 2024, for a constitutional amendment to redefine the boundary with South Korea as the 'Southern National Borderline,' further intensifying the rhetoric against South Korea. Kim Jong-un also stated that in the event of a war, North Korea would seek to annex the entirety of South Korea. North Korea occupies the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula , lying between latitudes 37° and 43°N , and longitudes 124° and 131°E . It covers an area of 120,540 square kilometers (46,541 sq mi). To its west are
38950-404: Was given a British trade screening in March 1929, as was a part-talking film made entirely in the UK: The Clue of the New Pin , a British Lion production using the sound-on-disc British Photophone system. In May, Black Waters , which British and Dominions Film Corporation promoted as the first UK all-talker, received its initial trade screening; it had been shot completely in Hollywood with
39155-399: Was often the center of attention throughout ordinary life. His birthday is one of the most important public holidays in the country . On his 60th birthday (based on his official date of birth), mass celebrations occurred throughout the country. Kim Jong Il's personality cult, although significant, was not as extensive as his father's. One point of view is that Kim Jong Il's cult of personality
39360-412: Was one of Japan's first and most important centers of colonial film production. Japanese-sponsored shorts, newsreels, and feature films heavily promoted cultural assimilation to colonized Korean audiences. To this end the Korean Colonial Cinema Unit (朝鮮総督府キネマ) was established to produce and distribute a mixture of films that promoted Japanese culture and customs as well as the benefits of modernization under
39565-403: Was pronounced in December 1955 in a speech called On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work in order to emphasize a Korea-centered revolution. Its core tenets are economic self-sufficiency , military self-reliance and an independent foreign policy. The roots of Juche were made up of a complex mixture of factors, including the popularity of Kim Il Sung,
39770-404: Was recorded on RCA Photophone, General Electric having bought a share of AEG so they could access the Tobis-Klangfilm markets. Blackmail was a substantial hit; critical response was also positive—notorious curmudgeon Hugh Castle, for example, called it "perhaps the most intelligent mixture of sound and silence we have yet seen." On August 23, the modest-sized Austrian film industry came out with
39975-422: Was recorded, as was a sequence of live vocal effects. Apparently, dialogue scenes were also recorded, but the results were unsatisfactory and the film was never publicly screened incorporating them. On May 1, 1921, Dream Street was re-released, with love song added, at New York City's Town Hall theater, qualifying it—however haphazardly—as the first feature-length film with a live-recorded vocal sequence. However,
40180-418: Was screened around the United States: eight hours worth of projected visuals involving both slides and live action, synchronized with separately recorded lectures and musical performances played back on phonograph. Meanwhile, innovations continued on another significant front. In 1900, as part of the research he was conducting on the photophone , the German physicist Ernst Ruhmer recorded the fluctuations of
40385-507: Was shown. These were the two most acclaimed sound motion pictures to date. In May, as well, Fox had released the first Hollywood fiction film with synchronized dialogue: the short They're Coming to Get Me , starring comedian Chic Sale . After rereleasing a few silent feature hits, such as Seventh Heaven , with recorded music, Fox came out with its first original Movietone feature on September 23: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans , by acclaimed German director F. W. Murnau . As with Don Juan ,
40590-494: Was signed. Approximately 3 million people died in the Korean War, with a higher proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam War . In both per capita and absolute terms, North Korea was the country most devastated by the war, which resulted in the death of an estimated 12–15% of the North Korean population ( c. 10 million), "a figure close to or surpassing the proportion of Soviet citizens killed in World War II ," according to Charles K. Armstrong . As
40795-462: Was solely out of respect for Kim Il Sung or out of fear of punishment for failure to pay homage, while North Korean government sources consider it genuine hero worship. As a result of its isolation, North Korea is sometimes known as the " hermit kingdom ", a term that originally referred to the isolationism in the latter part of the Joseon Dynasty . Initially, North Korea had diplomatic ties only with other communist countries, and even today, most of
41000-420: Was the challenge of recording fidelity. The primitive systems of the era produced sound of very low quality unless the performers were stationed directly in front of the cumbersome recording devices (acoustical horns, for the most part), imposing severe limits on the sort of films that could be created with live-recorded sound. Cinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in
41205-438: Was the primary competitor to the Gaumont system (sources differ on whether the Cameraphone was disc- or cylinder-based); it ultimately failed for many of the same reasons that held back the Chronophone. In 1913, Edison introduced a new cylinder-based synch-sound apparatus known, just like his 1895 system, as the Kinetophone. Instead of films being shown to individual viewers in the Kinetoscope cabinet, they were now projected onto
41410-452: Was the transformative element that led to the rapid expansion of the nation's film industry . The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27, 1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of Thomas Edison , the two inventors met privately. Muybridge later claimed that on this occasion, six years before
41615-494: Was then being extended to his son, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il. Claims that the family has been deified are contested by B. R. Myers: "Divine powers have never been attributed to either of the two Kims. In fact, the propaganda apparatus in Pyongyang has generally been careful not to make claims that run directly counter to citizens' experience or common sense." He further explains that the state propaganda painted Kim Jong Il as someone whose expertise lay in military matters and that
41820-488: Was unable to locate such an issue of The Times , or any similar article, and considers the 1897 introduction date a myth. American traveler and lecturer Burton Holmes was the first to film in Korea as part of his travelogue programs. In addition to displaying his films abroad, he showed them to the Korean royal family in 1899. An announcement in the contemporary newspaper, Hwangseong sinmun ( The Imperial ), names another early public screening on June 23, 1903. Advertised by
42025-465: Was underwhelming. Sweden's first talkie, Konstgjorda Svensson ( Artificial Svensson ), premiered on October 14. Eight days later, Aubert Franco-Film came out with Le Collier de la reine ( The Queen's Necklace ), shot at the Épinay studio near Paris. Conceived as a silent film, it was given a Tobis-recorded score and a single talking sequence—the first dialogue scene in a French feature. On October 31, Les Trois masques ( The Three Masks ) debuted;
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