♥기타♥ 워싱턴 포스트 - 버지니아텍 총기사건의 원인은 '올드보이'가 아니라 오우삼 영화?

[poirot]

미국 언론과 여론이 한편에선 우리도 놀랄 만큼 성숙한 모습을 보여주는가 하면,

또다른 한편에선 이 기사처럼 역시 놀랄 만큼 수준 낮은 글이

버젓이 메이저 언론에 기사로 실리고 있습니다.

기사가 너무 길어서 다 번역하기는 무리고, 그 내용만 간추리면:

▲ '올드보이'는 폭력을 미화하는게 아니라 반대로 얼마나 추하고 끔찍한 것인지를 보여주는 영화이기 때문에 이번 사건의 원인을 제공했다고 볼 수 없다. (어이구 이렇게 고마울 데가 있나.. -_-)

▲ 오히려 기자는 범인이 NBC에 보낸 사진들을 보고 오우삼의 영화들을 떠올렸다. 특히 '첩혈쌍웅'은 여러가지 면에서 범인의 행동과 놀랍게 흡사하다. (1. 빠르게 움직이며 희생자들을 가까이에서 총격한 점, 2. 총기의 종류가 유사하고 양손에 총을 들었다는 점, 3. 종교적인 뉘앙스가 있다는 점)

대략 이런 내용인데, 그 상세한 내용보다는

이번 사건의 원인을 영화, 그것도 아시아 영화에서 찾으려고 했다는 것 자체가

기자의 얄팍한 의식 수준을 적나라하게 드러내주고 있습니다.

아래 굵은 글씨로 표시했듯이, '아마(may, perhaps 등)'라는 표현을 수도 없이 쓰고 있는데,

그토록 허술하기 짝이 없는 '추정'을 바탕으로 이렇게 위험한 발상을,

그것도 손에 꼽는 유력지인 워싱턴 포스트에서 기사화했다는 사실이 참 놀라울 따름..

기사 주소:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041901817.html

Cinematic Clues To Understand The Slaughter

이번 총기 사건을 이해하기 위한 영화 속 실마리

Did Asian Thrillers Like 'Oldboy' Influence the Va. Tech Shooter?

'올드보이'를 비롯한 아시아 스릴러 영화들이 버지니아텍 총기사건의 원인이 되었는가? (지금 이딴걸 질문이라고.. -_-)

By Stephen Hunter

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 20, 2007; Page C01

Much has been made of the frightening similarity between "Oldboy," Park Chan Wook's dark 2003 movie thriller, and the deeds of Cho Seung Hui, who shot to death 32 people on Monday at Virginia Tech.

The search for movie influences is part of the search for the explanation behind the frenzy: We need to understand what caused this young man to step off into the oblivion of nihilism on a massive scale. What was the mechanism -- or was there even one? Too many movies? Too many video games? Too many rude shoves in the locker room? A genetic predisposition for mass murder? Too many date-night turndowns? Why?

(영화가 범죄의 원인이 된다는걸 굳게 믿고 있는 사람임을 알수 있음)

So the movies seem like a propitious place to start, given the photographs in the package Cho sent to NBC News in his now infamous posthumous statement of principles. Thus "Oldboy" must feature prominently in the discussion, even if no one has yet confirmed that Cho saw it.

범인이 과연 '올드보이'를 봤는지는 확실치 않지만 (-_-) NBC에서 공개한 사진들과의 유사성을 고려할 때 '올드보이'가 논란의 중심에 서는 건 당연한 일이다. (과연?)

On the surface, it seems a natural fit, at least in the way it can be presumed that Cho's hyper-fervid brain worked. It's a Korean story -- he would have passed on the subtitles and listened to it in his native language -- of unjust persecution and bloody revenge. A narcissist with a persecution complex would identify with its plot: A man named Oh Dae Su is simply snatched off the streets and made to endure 20 years in a cell without explanation. Released to the rubble of a life interrupted, he begins a quest to understand and achieve vengeance, which he finally does with a great spurt of violence, most of it employed with a hammer in extreme close quarters.

(억울하게 고통받은 자가 잔인하게 복수하는 내용의) 한국 영화이므로 범인은 아마 자막을 볼 필요없이 모국어로 들었을 것이다 (8살때 미국으로 이민간 사람이 그 정도로 한국어를 잘할 리가 있냐? -_- 은근슬쩍 어느새 올드보이를 본게 기정사실화)

Among Cho's photos were close-ups of himself clenching a hammer in a pose that recalled the pose of the persecuted man in "Oldboy."

But there are problems as well. For one, "Oldboy" wasn't a gun picture. The only gun in it is a derringer that figures in the denouement. It's a movie about the bone-shattering force of hammers on limbs and skulls and the physical exhaustion of fighting. Its violence, though pervasive, is never beautiful or graceful. The violence is never idealized; you cannot look at it and be seduced by it. The capacity of a movie to enthrall, then gull, and finally seduce is not deployed. For that we must turn to other sources.

그러나 '올드보이'는 총이 아니라 망치가 흉기로 사용된 영화이고 (마치 망치가 영화의 전부인양..) 폭력을 아름답게 묘사한 것이 아니라 반대로 혐오스럽게 느껴지도록 하는 영화이므로, 우린 범죄의 원인을 다른 곳에서 찾아야 한다.

Many of Cho's pictures -- 11 out of 43 -- featured guns. And when I looked at them, another name struck me as far more relevant than Park Chan Wook. That's John Woo.

(그리고선 기껏 찾았다는 것이..) 범인의 사진을 보고 내가 떠올린 이름은 박찬욱이 아니라 오우삼이었다. (그러니까 왜 꼭 아시아 영화여야 하냐고?)

Woo, the Hong Kong director now working in the United States ("Face/Off" was one of his most successful films), almost redefined the action genre with a series of Hong Kong gangster movies made in the late '80s and early '90s, starring the Chinese actor Chow Yun-Fat and virtually every Beretta ever shipped to the Far East. As with the Park movie, it is not certain that Cho saw Woo's films, though any kid taken by violent popular culture in the past 15 or 20 years almost certainly would have, on DVD, alone in the dark, in his bedroom or downstairs after the family's gone to bed. They're not family fare; they're dreamy, angry adolescent fare. They were gun-crazed ballets, full of whirling imagery, grace, masculine power and a strange but perhaps not irrelevant religiosity. They were close to outlaw works of art: They celebrated violence even as they aesthetized it, streamlined it and made it seem fabulous fun. Their possible influence on Cho can be clearly seen in 11 of the photos that feature handguns.

박찬욱 영화와 마찬가지로 범인이 오우삼의 영화를 봤다는 증거는 없다... 범인에게 끼쳤을 "수도 있는" 영향... (확실하지 않으면 애초에 기사를 쓰지 말아야지)

Woo pioneered postures with guns not seen in movies until that time (discounting cornball pre-World War II westerns). He was the first modern filmmaker (though there was Don Siegel's "Madigan" of 1968) to embrace the stylistic advantages of putting a gun in both hands of his hero, which became almost his signature. So when you see any of the famous photos of Cho with his arms outstretched and a gun in each hand, you cannot help but think, if you've seen any of them, of the Hong Kong gangster movies and the super-cool Chow.

오우삼 영화가 스타일리쉬한 폭력묘사의 새로운 장을 열었고.. 어쩌고 저쩌고..

But it goes even further than the resemblance between the photos of the blasphemy and the movies of the '80s. In at least three regards, Cho's activities so closely reflect the Woo oeuvre that it seems somewhat fair to conclude that in his last moments, before he blew his brains out, he was shooting a John Woo movie in his head.

단순히 사진상의 유사점에 그치는 것이 아니라, 크게 세가지 측면에서 조승희의 범행은 오우삼의 영화와 너무나 흡사하다. 그가 스스로 목숨을 끊는 마지막 순간에 자신의 머리 속에서 오우삼의 영화를 찍고 있었다고 봐도 무방할 정도로 (-_-;;;;;;;;;;;)

First is the peculiar nature of the gun violence. Cho, it seems, wasn't a sniper, a marksman. He wasn't shooting carefully, at a distance. He wasn't, one can assume, aiming. He was shooting very much like Chow in the Woo pictures, with a gun in each hand, as witnesses state, up close, very fast. Woo saw gunfights in musical terms: His primary conceit was the shootout as dance number, with great attention paid to choreography, the movement of both actors within the frame. He loved to send his shooters flying through the air in surprising ways, far more poetically than in any real-life scenario. He frequently diverted to slow motion and he specialized in shooting not merely to kill, but to riddle -- his shooters often blast their opponents five and six times. Perhaps all that was at play in Cho's mind as well.

오우삼 영화에서 주윤발은 양손에 총을 들고 희생자들 사이를 민첩하게 움직이며 마치 춤을 추듯 사격한다. 조승희 역시 멀리서 신중히 조준해서 사격한 것이 아니라 이와 비슷하게 행동했다. "아마도" 조승희의 마음 속에는 영화속 주윤발의 총격 장면이 있었을 것이다. (-_- 아주 소설을 쓰십니다)

But it gets stranger: The first gunfight in Woo's most famous movie, "The Killer," is an almost eerie anticipation of the Cho attack. Chow's professional assassin moves stealthily down a corridor, approaches a door, knocks. Once it is opened, he dispatches the opener, then steps in to confront seated human figures. He darts among them, a gun in each hand, blazing away as they rise and flee. They're playing cards, not sitting in a classroom, and the setting is a nightclub backroom, not a school. But the kinetics of the remarkable encounter are strikingly similar to what must have happened Monday.

Second is the nature of the guns themselves. Cho's choice of weapons may well have been based on movie influences. The first and most famous was the Glock 19. This is the mid-size Glock, not the smallest for deep concealment (in pockets or under shirts), not the largest for maximum firepower, but basically a service automatic for undercover men who can carry guns comfortably in holsters, with a 15-shot magazine. The Glock, of course, is ubiquitous in popular culture as the firearm of choice of both the police and the bad guys, but it doesn't figure much, if at all, in the works of Woo, which were made before the Glock really took over. But the Beretta is about $200 more expensive than a Glock, and when Cho went to the Roanoke gun store, he may well have found it beyond his budget. Both guns fire 9mm cartridges; at the receiving end, the impact is the same.

두번째 유사점.. 총 자체가 비슷하다. 범인은 (또) "아마도" 영화를 보고 총을 골랐을 것이다.

His second gun is clearly another budget choice, a .22-caliber pistol that sells for about $300 and most closely replicates the plasticized aesthetic of the modern service pistol, the Glock, the Beretta or the Sig Sauer. It's a Walther P22 -- its design derived from a larger Walther 9mm service pistol, called a P99 -- a gun that looks more powerful than it is (it's still extremely lethal). Perhaps he chose it to resemble Chow in the photos he knew he would be taking of himself.

"아마" 범인은 주윤발의 사진과 비슷한 사진을 나중에 찍으려고 그 총을 골랐을 것이다.

There are other weird handgun concordances in the work of Woo and the frenzy of Cho. For example, many have noted the peculiarity of the young man's careful removal of the serial numbers from the two pistols. What was the point of that? The point may be found in "The Killer," Woo's greatest movie, where the hero Jeffrey Chow (Chow Yun-Fat) is handed guns by his best friend before going off on a terrible job that will result in tragedy for all: "They're clean guns. No serial numbers. Untraceable." When he ground off the serial numbers, Cho may have been turning himself into Jeffrey Chow.

범인은 "아마" 스스로 '첩혈쌍웅' 속의 Jeffrey Chow(주윤발)가 되려고 했던 것 같다.

Then there's the issue of the two guns, one for each hand. Cho could certainly have done as much damage with the single Glock, given how quickly one can learn (and you strongly suspect he practiced) to reload them proficiently. That answer comes from Woo's 1992 "Hard-Boiled," or rather it is codified there, while evident in all the gangster pictures: "Give a guy a gun, he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God."

The third weird Woo vibration echoing through the Cho madness is thematic. "The Killer," for example, is almost lush with religious themes, as it tells a story of redemption through sacrifice. In the film, Jeffrey Chow has accidentally blinded a singer in an assassination. Consumed with guilt, he becomes her guardian and sets out to raise money to get her a restorative operation, which compels him to take on yet crazier and less survivable jobs. In a wild finish, he and a police officer, who's become his only ally, engage in a massive gunfight against evil gangsters in a church, through which, like symbols of Christian grace, doves flap majestically. Jeffrey Chow dies, saving the singer's life, and the money he's secured restores her vision. Many critics noted Jeffrey Chow's initials -- J.C. -- and that he is frequently seen in Christlike postures of the sort Cho later affected in at least one of his photos.

"The Killer" also features an intellectual posture that might have been extremely attractive to Cho's mental state. In it, the killer is presented as both hero and victim, rather than villain. His difference from other men, his moral nature, is repeatedly stressed. "He's no ordinary assassin," a cop says almost lovingly about him. "Fate controls everything," the killer muses, seeing himself as a puppet reacting to the larger forces beyond his control. "I always save the last bullet either for myself or my enemy."

'첩혈쌍웅' 주인공이 지적이고, 무조건적인 악역이 아닌 영웅이자 희생자로 묘사되었다는 점도 범인에게 매력적으로 다가왔"을 것이다".

These similarities between fact and fiction, of course, raise striking issues that all creative artists -- but especially those who deal in stories that offer visceral violence as part of their pleasure principle -- must deal with. Woo built engines of excitement and stimulation that pleased millions and made him a wealthy, internationally known man. Yet now, all these years later, a young man might have used them as the vessel of his rage and alienation, taken the icon of the movie gun and moved from the intimacy of the DVD player and the arena of his imagination to the public arena, and there reenacted the ritual. This time the carnage is for real.

이 뭐.. 무슨 고등학생 일기장도 아니고... -_-

유구무언..

워싱턴 포스트 겨우 이 정도였어?

그나마 다행이라면 독자 댓글란에 기자를 성토하는 글이 많이 올라와 있다는 점:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/comments/display?contentID=AR2007041901817

[풍부한감성]

그만좀해..

[냄새마트로가요]

진짜 할 말이 없다....

[신들린예언가]

워싱턴 포스트 문선명꺼 아닌감?

[VOGUE에디터]

그건 워싱턴 타임즈

[순수한여자]

쫌 이제 별로 말도 안되는 얘기 고만좀 갖다붙혀라. -_-

[하트뿅뿅♡♡]

여기 기자도 기사 인터넷에서 주워담기 하나?? 이제 그만좀 발로써라. 손에 펜잡는 연습 좀 해