Abstract

This historical examination of film exhibition practices investigates “military movie theaters” in non-urban areas of Gwangwon-do in northeastern Korea. Gwangwon-do contained a few cities and many rural areas, isolated by mountains; thus, its rural inhabitants had little access to urban movie theaters. In several parts of this region, massive military camps were established near the DMZ, the military border with North Korea. In these camps, the army’s corps set up several military movie theaters from 1959 to the mid-1970s, with the financial support of the U.S. military. This paper explores three dimensions of the military movie theater. First, I examine the management of the movie theaters, including their openings, functions, roles, and audiences. Second, I look at the movie theaters in the contexts of the film industry from the late 1950s to the 1970s. Third, I study the meaning of the movie theaters in the contexts of society and the Cold War. As part of my study, I analyze written documents published by a film studies organization, oral testimonies from people involved in the movie theaters, and the Seoul and Gwangwon-do daily newspapers from the post-Korean War period. I conclude this study as follows: First, the management of the military movie theaters did not differ from urban ones that were more profit oriented. The films and the audiences of both types of theaters were quite similar. Propaganda and commercial films were screened for soldiers and rural civilians, including female prostitutes, at the military camps. Second, the movie theaters functioned as arenas for government policies by showing propaganda films and, at the same time, as substitute places for urban culture, which the rural people had not experienced because of the inaccessibility of mass media. Third, they provided entertainment for soldiers and their families. However, the movie theaters also earned profits for each army corps, since they showed commercial films to the civilians in their regions. Finally, the military movie theaters resulted in the eventual disappearance of temporary movie theaters and mobile film units in rural communities, leading to the reconstruction of film exhibition practices in non-urban areas. Accordingly, the movie theaters diffused culture and shaped public opinion by unifying the channels of film exhibition in many rural areas of Gwangwon-do.