Defending the Island: On North Korean Film Music
This paper traces the evolution of film music composition in North Korea through three films dealing with the Korean War: “Young Partisans” (1951), “Wolmi Island” (1982), and “Meet in Pyongyang” (2012). The outer two films allow for framing of North Korena cinema and cinematic music in international socialist context, demonstrating both the country’s confidence in advancing their musical production as well as a general climate of shortage. Ra Kuk’s orchestral score for “Wolmi Island” forms the heart of the paper, demonstrating motivic unity, feminine virtue, patriotic sacrifice and the illumination of the distant (yet always present) leader, doing so with a sophistication of tonal choices. North Korean film composers’ interrelationship with art song and political mobilization is discussed alongside ideological imperatives and comparative aspects. The discussion concludes with a musical investigation of a 2012 co-production with Chinese state film studios, a process whose relative transparency sheds light on the limitations of North Korean film music, state framing of Korean War memory, and artistic expression generally.
Adam Cathcart is lecturer in Chinese history at the University of Leeds with research interests in culture and politics in the Mao era, North Korean music and graphic arts, and the Korean War. He has published articles on music diplomacy with North Korea, the Moranbong Band, Korean War music in the PRC, and the history of song in North Korea. With Pekka Korhonen, he won the R. Serge Denisoff Award from the journal Popular Music and Society for the 2017 article “Death and Transfiguration: The Late Kim Jong-Il Aesthetic in North Korean Cultural Production.” His most recent edited book is Decoding the Sino-North Korean Borderlands (Amsterdam University Press, 2021).He holds a B.M. in cello from the Cleveland Institute of Music, has performed as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, and has recorded works for cello and piano by contemporary Chinese composers.
