Estratto di the Art of Cinema

Autore: Kim Jong-il
Prima pubblicazione: On the Art of Cinema, Pyongyang, Corea del Nord, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Per approfondire: Cronologia del cinema Volume 2 Dal 1961 al 1990

Categoria: Manifesti cinematografici

Estratto di the Art of Cinema

If cinematic art is to be developed to meet the requirements of the Juche age, it is necessary to bring about a fundamental change in film-making. From the time of the emergence of cinema art to this day, many changes and advances have been made in artistic and technical matters, as a result of the changes in the times and social institutions, but the vestiges of the old system and methods have not yet been overcome in creative work.
There still remain remnants of capitalist and dogmatic ideas to a considerable extent, particularly in the system and methods of direction, which constitutes the nucleus of film-making. Unless the old pattern is broken completely and a new system and methods of creation are established in direction, it will be impossible to accomplish the tasks set before the cinema, which has entered a new stage of development.
Today the cinema has the task of contributing to the development of people to be true communists and to the revolutionization and working-classization of the whole of society.
In order to carry out this historic task successfully, it is necessary, above all, to revolutionize direction, which holds the reins of film-making.
To revolutionize direction means to completely eradicate capitalist elements and the remaining dogmatism from the realm of directing and establish a new Juche-inspired system and methods of directing.
In establishing the new system and methods of directing it is particularly important to clarify the duty of the director and continually enhance his role in keeping with the intrinsic nature of socialist society and the character of revolutionary cinema.
The director is the commander of the creative group. He should have the overall responsibility for artistic creation, production organization and ideological education and guide all the members of the creative team in film-making.
The director in the socialist system of film-making is fundamentally different from the “director” in capitalist society.
In the capitalist system of film-making the director is called “director” but, in fact, the right of supervision and control over film production is entirely in the hands of the tycoons of the film-making industry who have the money, whereas the directors are nothing but their agents.
In capitalist society the director is shackled by the reactionary governmental policy of commercializing the cinema and by the capitalists’ money, so that he is a mere worker who obeys the will of the film-making industrialists whether he likes it or not.
On the other hand, in socialist society the director is an independent and creative artist who is responsible to the Party and the people for the cinema. Therefore, in the socialist system of film-making the director is not a mere worker who makes films but the commander, the chief who assumes full responsibility for everything ranging from the film itself to the political and ideological life of those who take part in filmmaking. The director should be the commander of the creative group because of the characteristic features of direction. In the cinema, which is a comprehensive art, directing is an art of guidance which coordinates the creativity of all the artists to make an integrated interpretation.
Just as victory in battle depends on the leadership ability of the commander, so the fate of the film depends on the director’s art of guidance. Even though he works to make a good film, the director cannot do so if he has no ability to guide the creative team in a coordinated way to realize his creative conceptions. The film is conceived and completed by the director, but it cannot be created without the collective efforts and wisdom of the creative team. Therefore, success in film-making depends on how the director works with all the artists, technicians and production and supply personnel in the creative group.
If the director is to unite the creative group with one ideology and one purpose and make an excellent film of high ideological and artistic value, he must free himself once and for all from the old domineering and bureaucratic system and methods of direction, under which the direction-first policy is pursued, the boss-gang relationship within the creative group is established, arbitrary decisions are made and creative workers are dealt with through orders and commands. If the director resorts to bureaucracy and shouts down or ignores the creative team, it will break their unity and cohesion in ideology and purpose which constitute the basis of collective creation, and deprive him of his potential to create films and bind him hand and foot. The old system and methods of directing not only do not conform with the intrinsic nature of our socialist system, where the unity and cohesion of the popular masses underlie social relations, but also do not conform with the collectivity of film-making and the intrinsic nature of direction.
In film directing, the basic factor is also to work well with the artists, technicians and production and supply personnel who are directly involved in film-making. This is the essential requirement of the Juche-inspired system of directing. This system is our system of directing under which the director becomes the commander of the creative group and pushes ahead with creative work as a whole in a coordinated way, giving precedence to political work and putting the main emphasis on working with the people who make films. This system embodies the fundamental features of the socialist system and the basic principle of the Juche idea that man is the master of everything and decides everything. Hence, it fully conforms with the collective nature of film-making and the characteristic features of direction.
Since the film is made through the joint efforts and wisdom of many people, every participant in the production should fulfi l his role and responsibility like the master he is, and this collective should firmly unite with one ideology and will in order to perform creative assignments jointly. This fundamental requirement which emanates from the characteristic features of film-making can never be met by the old system of directing; it can be properly met only by the system which attaches basic importance to working with people, working with the creative team.
Under the new system of direction, film-making becomes the work of the director himself as well as the joint work of the entire creative group, and both the director and creative team assume the responsibility for creation. Therefore, everybody buckles down to creation voluntarily. Also, while making films, the director helps and leads all the members of the collective, and the creative staff learn from one another in the course of their work. Such communist ethics in creation and the revolutionary way of life are demonstrated to the full. Thus everybody is closely knit in the collectivist spirit and rises up as one in the creative work to attain the common objectives.
Under the new system of direction, the director is responsible not only for the creative work of the team but also for their political and ideological life. Therefore, he regularly conducts political work and ideological education closely combined with their creative activities and, accordingly, the process of creation becomes that of revolutionizing and working-classizing them.
In short, the system of directing based on working with people not only accords with the intrinsic nature of film-making and direction, but also enables the director to extricate himself from domineering and bureaucratic tendencies and decisively improve his ability to guide creation; it also enables him to eradicate deviation towards the idea of art for art’s sake, which gives exclusive precedence to artistic creation and to advance both creative work and the work of making the collective revolutionary.
The strength of the new system lies in the fact that it guarantees the solid unity and cohesion of the creative group based on the Juche idea and gives full play to the awareness and creativity of all the members, and the director’s guidance goes deep into the creative work and life so as to bring about an uninterrupted fl ow of innovation.
Under the new system the director should emphasize artistic guidance to the creative workers.
The basic duty of the creative group is to make revolutionary films of high ideological and artistic value, which make an effective contribution to arming people fully with the Party’s monolithic ideology and which imbue the whole of society with the great Juche idea. Whether this duty is carried out at the right time and properly depends on how the director works with the members of the creative team.
The creative workers are the main figures who directly execute the revolutionary tasks devolving on their group. The director’s plan is realized through these workers and all assignments of presentation arising in the course of creation are also carried out by them.
Therefore, the director should work well with the creative workers and improve his role as their guide. Then, the creative group will be able to carry out the revolutionary tasks facing it successfully.
The first thing the director must do in his work with the creative workers is to bring about a consensus of opinion with regard to the production. This is the basic guarantee for successful creation and is the starting point of the director’s work. If each creative worker has his own views on the production, the director cannot lead them to perform the same presentation assignment and creative activities are thrown into confusion from the outset.
The director must carefully analyse the general characteristics of the content and form of a production, so that the creative workers can all understand and accept it.
In analysing and considering a production the director should not be too egotistical.
Every artist has his own creative individuality and may have different views on a production. If the director does not take this into account and holds to his own views and ignores the opinions of other creative workers, it will be difficult to establish a uniform view on a production.
The interpretation of a production should be understood by everybody and win their consent; when it is accepted by everyone as their own, the work will be done effectively.
The director must always put forward his opinions on a production and create an atmosphere of free discussion so that many constructive views can be voiced, and he must sincerely accept the views of the creative workers. Once agreement is reached in discussion, the director must quickly act on it and base the production on it firmly and, then, must never deviate from it, whatever happens. If the director falters, the whole collective will do so and, if this happens, the production will fail.
When all the creative workers fully understand the production, the director must begin to work with each person individually.
Artistic guidance to individual creative workers must always be specific. If the director only gives general guidance and indications, he cannot give them any substantial help or lead them confidently to achieve his aims.
Taking into consideration the characteristic features and requirements of a production, the director should clearly tell the creative workers their assignments for its representation and the ways and means of carrying them out and consult them on problems which they may come across in the course of their work. Only then can his guidance conform with their work.
For example, take guidance to the acting. The role and position of the characters to be represented by actors and actresses throughout the presentation and their personalities should be analysed and, on this basis, the direction of acting should be set and the tasks of presentation and methods of acting for each stage and situation of the drama should be specifically taught. When the director’s guidance is precise, then his plan will agree with that of the creative team and their work will proceed smoothly.
The important factor in the director’s guidance of the interpretation is to help the creative workers to have a clear understanding of the seed of a given production and present it well.
The ideological kernel of a production is the seed which the director and all the other creative workers should bring into flower through their collective efforts and wisdom. It is not only the basis of the interpretation by individual creative workers, but also the foundation on which they all combine to produce one single cinematic presentation.
When all interpretations are conducted on the basis of one seed, they form the components of one cinematic presentation because they are built on the same foundation, although various forms of presentation are created by different artists with different personalities. Therefore, the director should be very careful that none of the creative team loses the seed or introduces anything which has nothing to do with it.
Another aspect in which the director must make a great effort in his guidance to the presentation is to ensure that the creative interaction between artists is efficient and to lead their teamwork correctly.
Basically, a comprehensive artistic presentation cannot be achieved properly by the talents or efforts of individual artists. When every artist establishes a close working relationship with the others and carries out the teamwork efficiently, the different elements which make up the comprehensive presentation will harmonize well with each other.
The director should always be in the centre of creative operations and provide a close link between the activities of individual members of the creative team, taking care to prevent possible friction and departmentalist tendencies amongst them.
The director should guide the artists correctly so that they exhibit a high degree of independence and initiative in the course of creation. Giving full play to their independence and initiative is the main factor which increases their sense of responsibility and rouses their creative ardour and imagination. Creative cooperation between the director and the creative workers and amongst the workers themselves is only successfully achieved when each plays his part properly in his appointed post.
The director must guide the creative workers in a very strict yet enlightened manner.
For their part, the creative workers have to accept and understand each of his plans and carry them out in a creative manner. In this way the director should give guidance on the principle of making the creative workers in charge of individual fields of presentation assume full responsibility for their own creative work. This is effective artistic guidance.
The original ideas of creative workers in film-making should be used to perfect the harmony of a comprehensive interpretation, while at the same time giving life to the personality of individual artistic portrayals. The director should be talented enough to maintain the originality of the creative workers and raise the level of interpretation in each field and, on this basis, achieve the harmony of the whole film. This is creation in the true sense of the word.
In his efforts to ensure that the creative workers express their original ideas, the director should not allow the harmony of the overall interpretation to be destroyed, nor should he suppress this originality in order to guarantee the harmony of interpretation.
The director, the commander of the creative group, should also work well with the production and supply personnel.
The director should be responsible for the production of films and must advance this work in a coordinated manner.
Film-making, which is complex in content and large in scale, cannot move forward unless it is flawlessly supported by production organization. In film-making the processes of creation and production are inseparably linked. If production is not well organized, the whole process of creation and production cannot run smoothly. It is only when production is well organized that it is possible to make an excellent film in a short time and with a small amount of manpower, funds and materials.
Production organization helps to ensure success in film-making. It moves the creative group in a unified and planned way so that all fields and units are well geared to each other, observing strict order and discipline, and it also makes rational use of materials and technical means and controls financial and supply activities. This is an important task which the director must control in a responsible manner.
The director should not work with production, technical and supply personnel in an administrative and technical manner just because production organization is administrative and technical in content. Administrative and technical guidance runs counter to the intrinsic nature of the Juche-inspired system of directing, and prevents production, technical and supply personnel from being actively drawn into filmmaking. In his guidance of production organization the director should work with people sincerely.
One of the major criteria for the new type of director is that he is the ideological educator of the creative group. The director should be responsible for their politico-ideological life and keep intensifying their politico-ideological education, so as to lead them to perform their mission conscientiously as revolutionary artists.
The unity of ideology and purpose of the creative team is a major factor for ensuring the successful completion of a film. Even if the director has the talent and skill to fuse together the diverse elements of interpretation organically, a harmonious film cannot be made with this alone. No production of high ideological and artistic value can evolve out of a creative group whose members are not united ideologically and in which discipline and order have not been established.
The unity of ideology and purpose of the creative team is not only a basic requirement for maintaining consistency throughout a film but it also has an important bearing on waging the speed campaign, establishing a revolutionary spirit of creation and hastening the revolutionization and working-classization of all the personnel.
Education in the Party’s monolithic ideology is basic to the ideological education of the creative team. This work should always precede creative work and should be conducted forcefully throughout the creative battle.
Ideological education by the director is aimed at equipping the creative team fully with the Party’s lines and policies so as to make better revolutionary films more rapidly. So, when ideological education is combined with creative work, great vitality can be demonstrated and artists can be roused to the creative battle.
The director must keep a grip on ideological education throughout the whole course of creative work, and give absolute priority to political work at each stage of the creative process. The new system of directing proves effective only when the director gives absolute priority to political work in everything that is done. The system is meaningless if the director neglects political work and remains as bureaucratic as ever.
To give priority to political work and keep raising the political awareness of the creative staff so that they willingly participate in film-making is an application in film-making of the fundamental requirements of our Party’s traditional revolutionary work method. The director should fully adhere to this revolutionary method of creation. Whatever he produces, the director must thoroughly explain its ideological content and artistic features to all the creative staff and tell them in full about the purpose and significance of the production, so as to encourage them to take part in creative work with great revolutionary zeal.
The director should take control of working with the creative team and energetically conduct political work prior to all other work. It is only then that he can satisfactorily perform his role as artistic leader, production organizer and ideological educator and become a distinguished commander of the creative group.

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