This question actually resolves itself into the question of form and content in art and literature in general, and their relationship in a
masterpiece in particular.
In works of art and literature, as in everything else, form and content are in dialectical relationship. Just as form is inconceivable without content, so is content without form. The content determines and restricts the form and the form follows and expresses the content. In the relationship between the two, the content is decisive, but the primary of the content does not mean that the form can be ignored.
The content can only be expressed correctly through an appropriate form, and a good form that suits the content positively reacts back on the latter by expressing it clearly.
Good art and literary works are marked by a perfect unity between elevated content and pure form, with the content satisfying the requirements of the period and the people's aspirations. Only works whose content and form are well harmonized can rouse people's sympathy and make an effective contribution to their ideological and emotional education.
A correct adjustment of the relationship between content and form is one of the essential elements of realism in art. It can be said that the history of art and literature, when viewed in the context of content and form, is a continuous process of seeking and creating new content and new form. Fixing the relationship between artistic content and form in accordance with correct principles is precisely what distinguishes realism from formalism.
to these principles and this is the essential expression of formalism. A preference for large and complex works over those which have a valuable and profound content is also a manifestation of formalism. For example, in describing the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle4 or the Fatherland Liberation War, there is a tendency to deal with the whole course of the hero's struggle, from its beginning to its victorious end, in a single work, as though it was a biography or a chronicle. There is also a tendency to collect a number of apparently good story lines from here and there and put them together as one work. The fondness for colossal blockbuster films also springs from the desire to seek fame by producing a huge work which opens with a pretentious title announcing an epic theme, then goes on to introduce problems of revolutionary strategy and deal with turbulent historical events with an enormous cast of characters.
In fact, it is wrong to attempt to produce a film which contains the whole history of a revolutionary struggle or to show people everything that they need to shape their revolutionary world outlook. It is perfectly possible to single out one event from the armed struggle against the Japanese or the Fatherland Liberation War and write a fairly large piece which can be highly influential in people's revolutionary education. If a literary work tries to deal with the whole process of a revolutionary struggle, it will be compelled to do no more than assemble facts or simply record them, and the result will be a large piece devoid of content. All these tendencies are a far cry from the writer's basic duty and mission, which is to deal seriously
with socially important problems in order to further people's revolutionary education.
Works of art and literature must express profound content if they are to instil revolutionary thoughts in people's minds and portray the experiences and methods of struggle. When the Five Guerrilla Brothers was being filmed, I asked the writers: "Which makes a work a masterpiece—its scale or its content?" I pointed out that if they wanted to produce a masterpiece they should treat the content with philosophical depth rather than focus on slickness of form.
A masterpiece is not something with a special form. There is no special form for a masterpiece in art and literature even in the areas of characterization or plot. When people say that a certain work is a masterpiece or a great work, they are referring to the high level of its ideological and artistic qualities, and not to the special features of its form.
A masterpiece is distinguished essentially by the philosophical depth of its ideological content. So we can say that a masterpiece is a work which provides a complete solution to a socially important problem on a high ideological and artistic plane and makes a substantial contribution to people's revolutionary education.
Into the category of masterpieces fall such multipart works as the films The Sea of Blood and Five Guerrilla Brothers, which, following a sequence of historical events, depict the essence of the revolutionary struggle through the images of heroes who grow up in the course of that straggle, as the revolution itself develops. The
category also includes shorter narratives like the film The Flower
Girl which creates a profound image by examining the broader
implications of a small event. In each case the value of the work is assessed on the basis of its content. No matter how great an event and how wide the scope of life depicted in a work, it will not be a masterpiece unless its content is profound and rich. On the contrary, a work with profound and rich ideological content is fully entitled to be called a masterpiece even if its dimensions are small.
The Flower Girl is a masterpiece even though it is a small-scale
work. By means of an extensive and detailed description of a commonplace situation in the Korean countryside in the old days—the misfortunes and sufferings of a servant's family—and through the life-story of the warmhearted heroine Kkotpun, it states the important idea that the revolution is the only path to survival. This is a perfect example in that it unfolds an important problem and develops a momentous idea from a small event, plainly demonstrating the inevitability of the revolution through the growth of an ordinary person.
A writer can create a great work which runs into many volumes and deals with an enormous number of facts, following the course of historical events over a long period, or a masterpiece which sketches one phase of a revolutionary war or economic construction—it depends on the requirements of the seed and the particular events to be dealt with. The scale and form of a great work must always be determined by its content.
If he is to write a masterpiece in terms of content, a writer must choose the appropriate seed, one which will have a great revolutionary impact on people, a seed which will germinate into an important philosophical idea. If he fails to select the right seed, not only will he be unable to develop the work's ideological content in a comprehensive fashion, he will also have to rely for effect on the work's bulk and his creative endeavour will degenerate into formalism. This is the failing that produces works dealing with the events of life on a huge scale through ostentatious forms devoid of any substantial content.
A seed capable of expressing an important idea can be found in the context of typical events which express the essence of life's development at a particular time. Therefore, writers who wish to create masterpieces must be able to identify the main current of the revolution, which destroys every outmoded, conservative and reactionary, aspect of social life, replacing it with something new, advanced and progressive.
In general, works of art and literature can deal with a diversity of problems arising in the course of the revolutionary struggle. They can deal not only with the basic problems of social revolution but also with contingent problems. In other words, they can deal with any problems at all which, although they may not be basic to the revolution, are nevertheless important for its advancement. However, since masterpieces have to show people the revolution's development and impart the experience and methods of revolutionary struggle, they must always deal with basic problems arising in the
course of the revolution.
The films The Sea of Blood and The Fate of a Self-defence Corps
Man, which were adapted from literary classics, provide detailed
and highly artistic solutions to the vital problems arising in the revolutionary struggle which the masses are waging for their national and class emancipation. These works pose the basic problems of social revolution in an original way and demonstrate the great truth that where there is oppression, there is always resistance and the oppressed people can only liberate themselves and secure a happy future through armed struggle.
This shows us that a masterpiece ought to concern itself with the indispensable theme of the basic problems of the revolutionary cause of the working class. This principle concerns the content of literary works, not their form. It is one reason why the content, and not the form, makes a work a masterpiece.
The basic problems of the revolution dealt with by a masterpiece can only be correctly resolved by describing typical lives which express the nature of society. Masterpieces have to provide comprehensive and profound accounts of many aspects of life which represent the essence of the society of a particular period. Only then will they be able to clarify the nature of the developing revolution, and the basic problems arising from it.
In order to produce a masterpiece in terms of content it is also necessary to represent the nature of the developing revolution truthfully and clearly through the development of the characters and,
in particular, the process of the shaping of the hero's revolutionary world outlook.
It is impossible for works of art and literature to describe the process of revolutionary development clearly, except through the development of their characters. The basic problems of a work become more clearly defined and acquire greater depth and richness of ideological content as the characters grow and develop in the course of the fight, gradually acquiring a deeper understanding of the truth of the revolution and the inevitability of its victory. The process by which a work's basic problems are comprehensively developed into a great ideological content is intimately linked with the process of development of the hero's revolutionary world outlook. The hero deepens his or her understanding of the nature of the revolutionary struggle as the struggle itself develops, and he or she battles on with a clear sense of purpose and an optimistic belief in the future. The true content of a masterpiece consists of a broad and comprehensive depiction of the ideological consciousness and emotions of the hero as he matures with the development of the revolutionary struggle.
The film Five Guerrilla Brothers is a masterpiece because it reveals the essence of the armed struggle against the Japanese through the process by which the heroes establish their revolutionary world outlook. If its authors had not illustrated the essence of the armed straggle through the images of the heroes maturing into revolutionaries as the struggle proceeded, the work would not have
been a masterpiece, despite all the tremendous events it contains and its epic time-frame.
One of the principal methods for creating a masterpiece based upon content is tightly-focused description.
Unless a work focuses attention on the fundamental motive power which gives impetus and direction to a person's ideological progress and the revolutionary movement, it will be impossible to depict correctly the formative process of the hero's revolutionary world outlook or the law of development of the revolution, nor will the work fulfil its role of equipping people with the concept of the revolution and educating them to work consciously and actively in its cause.
It is important, therefore, to focus on a single character or event, examine it in depth and create a detailed picture. In practice, penetrating into the content means creating a profound and exhaustive depiction, from various viewpoints, of the event, the life or the character the writer has chosen.
The requirement of a broad and profound elaboration of content cannot be used to justify the weaving of a complex web of events, constantly drawing in innumerable new aspects of life and new characters. Some writers have a tendency to grapple simultaneously with many events and lives, describing none of them profoundly, often producing works which are complex and rambling, almost devoid of content that actually moves people.
he must intermingle the strands of action well so that they will be welded dramatically into the structure of a human relationship, and he must carefully define the characters' attitude to life-events so as to reveal their disposition. If he is to develop his plot in depth, without enlarging its scope, a writer must ensure that events are carefully interlinked as the dramatic expression of the formation and development of relationships between people. He will only be able to create interesting characters, without extending the action so far as to become boring, if the plot is carefully constructed so as to reveal the characters' deepest thoughts from various angles. He must not include events which have no dramatic impact, nor lives devoid of content. These will only increase the scale and extend the form of the work.
The intensification and close concentration of descriptive elements means that every single event or life which is dealt with must be portrayed in depth from various angles without over-extending the story-line, so that many different things can be sensed and understood through that single event. In fundamental terms, the essence of description lies in presenting vivid and profound pictures of people and events exactly as they really are, so that people can see these pictures with their own eyes and feel their meaning in their hearts. The more intense and precise a portrayal is, the more profound will be its ideological content, and the more deeply will it move people, though the story-line may be neither complex nor long.
must be concisely realized. The dramatic concentration of description enhances the harmony of the work's form, whereas flat, inflated description can result in undesirable complication and length. But this does not mean that a work of great dimensions cannot be well-constructed or that it is devoid of harmonious form. There are many films in which content and form are in perfect harmony, despite their great dimensions.
People who judge masterpieces solely by the criterion of form, give it priority over content and consider that works dealing with small events will suffice, even though their content is so much simpler and smaller.
Writers have to present a diversified picture of our people's revolutionary struggle and constructive endeavours, based on a correct understanding of what constitutes a masterpiece.
At the present time, some writers pay no attention at all to our working people's present struggle and their everyday lives, because they believe that masterpieces must necessarily deal with the lives of people who fight battles against the enemy, with the armed struggle against the Japanese or the Fatherland Liberation War. Our art and literature must produce masterpieces based on both the revolutionary struggle and socialist construction. To be masterpieces, works need not necessarily deal with revolutionary wars or class struggles, nor are these all that is required.
Our Party and people are still engaged in the revolution. The struggle to eliminate the vestiges of outmoded ideas from people's
minds and reeducate them to become true communists of the Juche type, the struggle to free people once and for all from backbreaking toil, to make work easy and pleasant and increase production, and the struggle to build socialist and communist culture—all these are difficult but important revolutions. Describe the noble lives and inspiring struggles of our people properly, and you will be creating genuinely revolutionary works and masterpieces.
The relationship of content and form is also of vital importance in the creation of small-scale works, indeed, it is a matter of fundamental principle for all works of art and literature. It is also important to represent the ideological content positively and in detail, even in shorter pieces dealing with events and lives on a smaller scale.
Writers must produce masterpieces, but they must not follow the practice of searching for what they consider to be large-scale works. If they do, they will be unable to produce successful works of high ideological and artistic merit, nor will they be able to respond adequately to the needs of the people.
If scriptwriters were to follow this practice, then directors would clearly tend to seek still more tempestuous events, larger crowds and more colossal subjects, and camera-work would be concentrated on the shooting of literally large-scale films, for the wide screen. The artistic results would be minimal compared with the large amounts of manpower and funds expended on the production of the film.