Seung-hoon Jeong, "Biopolitical Ethics in Global Cinema" (Oxford UP, 2023)
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looks at what Seung-eun, you call a post-political situation, thinking about the, let's say that we can call it the transformation or shifting from politics, the representation of politics, you know, in cinema towards, we can think about a kind of logic of ethics

It's a book that really draws from a huge range of theorists of historical contexts and a huge range of films.

encompassing commercial films, art films, things like the Batman series, Mad Max, but also The Act of Killing, Snowpiercer, Edge of Heaven. So it's the amount of work that was put into this book, the amount of thinking is so impressive. I think that this book will have incredible value

resonance beyond just film studies obviously the thinking um the political the ethical the the thinking around the kind of contemporary psyche uh you know i these there's resonances i see that's um with events that are unfolding right now as we speak um uh so when you're a uh

Currently an associate professor at CSU Long Beach, and you've been working on these ideas. You've published work on spectatorship, on what you call interfaces. You've done work on world cinema. You've been thinking about Korean cinema as well, of course. And I'm really thrilled to have this opportunity to talk to you.

So how about we begin just by talking, you know, almost casually about how this book was conceived. Why did you want to write this book? Where did the ideas come from? Let's start there.

Okay, thank you so much for inviting me. Steve, it's nice to meet you and talk about my book with you, whose work I also admire a lot. And then we definitely see some kind of overlap of our interests in this area. So it'll be great to have some time to discuss some issues related to that.

I am still an assistant professor of cinematic arts at CSULB, which is okay. Hopefully, I know my status will be changing very soon. As you mentioned, I first worked on cinematic interfaces as like a film theory in the age of

digital cinema, that was my first book topic. But since then, I have been working on global cinema for almost a decade. And as far as I remember, my very first initiation of inception of this idea of global cinema in this framework

May have started during my graduate student days when I took some seminars from Dudley Andrew and Thomas Elsasser. There were courses on world cinema, East Asian cinema, and I especially was a TA for the course World Cinema by Dudley Andrew.

at Yale University. And that was the beginning of my questions about the concept of world cinema as different from global cinema, which was an emerging term. And I wanted to reframe it in my own way while watching several new films discussed in that course and other courses like that too. And especially Thomas Asselt taught a few courses specifically on the contemporary cinema

without any specific region or area boundaries which opened my eyes onto very hot but important films around the world. And I even remember I saw for the first time Gran Torino, The Edge of Heaven on Children of Man through that seminar course and I

watched them based on some materials in that seminar offered by Jacques Ranciere among others and actually his critique on the post-political tone of politics, post-political

What is that? Ethics itself inspired me a lot to think about what are the main issues in the age of globalization and how can we address them from a post-political, yet still an important ethical perspective. And that was probably the beginning of this conceptualization.

And by extension, there was the period of globalization in the second phase, as I briefly noted in the introduction of my book, which means it was toward the end of the 2000s and before 2010s.

And in my brief history of globalization, I addressed it as the kind of global phenomena of the age that is defined by the end of the Cold War around 1990. And so the 1990s was kind of characterized as a rosy period of globalization. Everything can be integrated into a new homogeneous world.

planetary system of capitalism, including the issues of diversity, and then social equality and something like that too. And the multiculturalism was there. But then the 2000s, the decade of 2000 started with the, you know, the 9/11 terrorist attack, which kind of showed the reverse side of globalization. It was not simply rosy, it had a lot of cracks and problems.

And so that during those past two decades, many films somehow reflect these double-sided globalization. On one hand, you have a lot of connections, on the other hand, you have a lot of catastrophes.

So catastrophes could be characterized in terms of this globalization effects. So it's not simply about the natural or national catastrophe that could be handled somehow in the name of disaster, you know, that leads back to our normal reality, but then catastrophe in the sense that it just, you know, goes beyond any capacities in our existing, you know, political and social framework.

So when it comes to global catastrophe, cinema was very apt and then, how can I say, responsive to this new change. There were so many disaster films that resonate with the idea of this catastrophe that I wanted to address further. And I even say, you know,

The contemporary world cinema since around 2000 has the single most important genre, which is the disaster genre, or in my terms, the cinema of catastrophe.

So how can I address this catastrophe from cinematic or political point of view? That was an issue. And then I got my first job at NYU Abu Dhabi and then it gave me some room for teaching some interdisciplinary courses and I created the catastrophe as my own course.

And it was not simply about film, but also literature, politics, critical theory, as well as comics and other media and so on and so forth. So that, you know, how global catastrophe have been represented and reflected, especially in cinema, but also in other media, and how can we address them critically, conceptually. That was at the beginning of my specific conceptualization of this book.

And then there was the concept like ethics and the object and our objection related to this issue. So that was another aspect of my research there. And finally, I would have to mention that since I lived in Abu Dhabi while teaching at NYU Abu Dhabi, my

own existential life itself changed a lot because I was in the middle of this globalization threatened by the rise of new terrorism, refugee crisis throughout the whole 2010s, as you may remember. Right now, you know, the conflict between Palestine and Israel is still going on, even though there's some ceasefire, ceasefire

agreement recently. But then its initial impact occurrence was in 2014, almost a decade ago. And there was a huge issue about the Gaza conflict and then

Abu Dhabi was very close to that area in the Middle East. So that I, in some sense, leave the double side of globalization in both ways. And Abu Dhabi was perfectly multicultural and very open to all diversity and so on. But nonetheless, it was surrounded by all these symptoms of globalization in the negative sense of the term. So I had to deal with both sides.

are in a cinematic framework. So it seems part of dealing with these both sides has to do with coming up with terms like soft ethics and hard ethics. I mean, and these two categories are

very important throughout the entire book. Soft ethics seems to be this kind of discourse of multiculturalism that's aligned with neoliberal capitalism. And hard ethics is really the kind of the logic of sovereignty creating

you know, spaces or figures of exception. Can you talk about the importance of those two categories for you?

Yes, definitely. As I briefly mentioned, Jacques Rancière was an inspiring philosopher in this regard. But usually in film studies, his work has been addressed in terms of aesthetics a lot and its relationship with the politics. And it's also very inspiring. And then I got into that history of art field.

addressed by him and it's very broad actually. It starts with the representative regime in the Western history of art and it's changing into the aesthetic regime in the 19th century and to the 20th century and so on and so forth. But then when it comes to cinema, he wrote some books about cinema too while resonating with his history of art and then how those, you know, representative and aesthetic regimes

were reconceptualized in cinemastic studies. For example, Schildt-Ruz's two cinema books somehow corresponded to those aesthetic and representative and aesthetic regimes in historic art.

from Jacques Rance's point of view. And that was great, while at the same time, since he was very political and especially leftist radical thinker, he also talked a lot about the current phase of the leftist ideas or its demise in terms of what he calls the ethical turnover parties around 1998.

at the end of the corridor, as I briefly mentioned too. So basically the idea is that when it comes to politics, it could be still regarded, characterized as the active, how can I say, passionate force to change the system in the sense that the notion of the whole of the community itself could be redistributed, readdressed, reconstructed by

redistributing the senses that were allowed in the society. So in that regard, he was very powerful in expanding the notion of the sense and aesthetics, not based on the cultural and material products, but rather what can be seen, what can be heard, and what can be spoken in society in general.

So it is more about, you know, what kind of marginalized people, you know, can be readdressed with their own voices to be heard in a new public sphere so that the public sphere itself is changed in the sense that the notion of the whole community itself can be, you know, updated with integrating more other voices like that.

So that was the sense of the redistribution of the senses, according to him. But then, according to his view of the contemporary period, that kind of politics has been integrated into what he calls the soft ethics, as you briefly mentioned, especially after the end of the Cold War.

Because the end of the Cold War, which is the beginning of globalization, means that there is no longer fundamental opposition between the ideological differences, but rather there's just one big system into which every difference is already registered. Theoretically, already given the right to equal education and education

freedom and so on and so forth. So it's something that is no longer a political goal hard to achieve, you know, through these political activities, changing the sense of community, but rather it is given ethically correct so that, you know, once you are in this system, you are given this kind of thing. So it's, it's based on the kind of human rights, uh,

related to this sort of soft ethics in the sense that everything is already integrated and they kind of all the political values are already default ethical values.

In some sense, this is inevitable. So in my view, when we pursue politics, it leads to this soft ethical phase as far as we can be perfect integrating all the different voices into this multi-national, multi-racial society. The thing is that the very original sense of politics itself is somehow

flattened into this soft ethical attitude toward the others. So I respect your culture, you respect my culture. But then the thing is that, you know, Jacques-Paul Rangseller, I think, suggests that there's another aspect of this soft ethics,

And that is called hard ethical in the sense that, as I just mentioned, we respect our culture respectively. But still, in this global system, there is some sense of the difference between the subject of this tolerance and the object of tolerances.

And historically speaking, still the subject of tolerance, the subject of this multiculturalism itself is still the Western-based hegemonic society, and in which I as a multiculturalist can tolerate you as somebody who is different in terms of race, gender, and whatever to be in our system. But insofar as you follow my rules,

Otherwise, you know, I have the whole my own human right to defend myself by excluding you. And that kind of thing itself is related to what is called abjection.

and i will probably elaborate on it and that is related to hard ethics so hard ethics itself is a some uh way of um i'm gonna say using the concept of justice in a brutal violent way in order to defend my own soft ethical security and pleasure and you know uh uh

how can I say, sense of living and something like that too. But then it means that soft ethical globalization always entails the hard ethical aspect of brutality and violence so that we have global catastrophes including terrorism, refugee crisis and all those chaotic things we have witnessed so far around this kind of conflict between two ethical phases.

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So is there some sense that the default of soft ethics always already contains within it the possibility of this hard ethical stance that's

You know, when one finds oneself in the logic of hard ethics, which is violent, truly exclusionary, and at stake is the, let's say, the sovereignty or the supremacy of the subject that can name, you know, the other as, you

included or not at stake is there kind of almost we can think of it almost perhaps a universal humanist or eurocentric subject um so it seems like what is um the relationship is that hard ethics pushes soft ethics to its limit um and shows the um the the points where um

the abject is almost necessarily produced as because soft ethics fails to capture that type of, let's say, decision or exclusionary naming of the other.

Yes, in some sense, you know, that's kind of the dilemma of this globalization ethics, if you want. So what is post-political ethics, according to Ranser, in my own understanding and rephrasing, is that

there is some deadlock or interlocking of these two phases, soft and hard ethical phases. Even for the soft ethical society to defend itself, it inevitably needs some sort of hard ethical operations that are related to all these kind of exclusionary measures and so on and so forth. But I would want to also note that

the inclusion exclusion in this case is not especially specifically oppositional but rather they are already entangled with each other in the sense that the notion of objection itself is very ambivalent it is not like you know I can make a clear boundary between inside and outside us and them but

rather there is always some ambivalent included exclusion all the other way around so that it is on the edge of this kind of boundary which is not always specific but somehow permeable so that you know even if we have a strong security system in our society nonetheless you know there is some sort of imminently produced excluded people or

they can be more vital radicalized through their own exclusion turning into some sort of brutal inclusion in their own way as well so there's the complexity of this concept and then especially what I see as global cinema deals with this kind of paradox and contradiction in a very concrete way

Yeah, I mean, maybe we could turn to cinema and if there are any specific examples where you see this played out, it might be

interesting. You know, it strikes me that the films that you choose are some of the biggest blockbusters like Mad Max or Batman, all of the Batman films. And then also less successful films like Edge of Heaven, Gran Torino, Source Code. These are films that

Are you saying play out this, let's say, dialectic of hard and soft ethics? And what is it doing? Is it showing audiences that there is this post-political neoliberal logic that's at work? I mean, why is it so compelling as, you know, narrative? Yeah.

Yes, I think that as you just mentioned, I wanted to cover not only the mainstream big budget blockbuster films, but also some kind of festival circuit oriented art films.

but without making any sort of hierarchy or distinction between them in terms of nature. And that is my own new approach to global cinema. Probably I could talk more about that later. The thing is that I think, so in my framework of global cinema, basically it's contemporary cinema reflecting the contradictions of globalization, as Avery mentioned, in terms of these ethics related to biopolitics and so on and so forth.

And I think this is a pretty universal within this framework so that it can apply to any sort of movie in this case, you know, regardless of genre, you know, budget, nationality, whatever. You could still find this sort of conflict thematically and conceptually in many, many areas of world cinema. And that's why I want to address them almost indiscriminately.

But of course, there are some nuance the difference between these films. And as you mentioned, for example, the Big Buzzing Breakfast film still resonates with some sort of mainstream hegemonic way of understanding this globalization and its crisis too.

So you mentioned the Batman film and especially of course I addressed the Dark Knight Rises and Dark Knight series in some chapters, well in chapter four I think. And because I think it's interesting because you know Christopher Nolan was very smart to address all current social political issues while

hypothetically depicting them in a goddamn city that doesn't exist in the world. But then still, of course, we can see how realistically it resonates, the series resonates with our globalization period and so on and so forth. And that's the thing. The thing is that in the end, you know, for example, The Dark Knight Rises shows the conflict between, of course, the Batman figure and then the protagonist, the antagonist, the

Bain figure who is a terrorist right and then the terrorist does not simply reflect uh the 9/11 style terrorism you know back against the backdrop of New York Manhattan you know the stock market and so on and so forth but then once he you know takes over the New York City uh

New York City, he actually wants to create his own kind of a communist community, you know, using summary executions in the name of the power of the people, you know, going against the 1% elite, you know, group resonating with the Occupy movement and so on and so forth. And that's really great because it means that even such a big budget mainstream Hollywood blockbuster action film

also addresses the most critical issue of globalization, you know, regarding neoliberalization, its impact in, you know, polarization and social, what is that, pest division and whatever.

The ultimate narrative shows that this is defined as infinite evil, the axis of evil, so that Batman comes back as our superhero.

enacting his own sovereign power beyond the normal law, creating a certain state of exception in terms of the garden bands by practice, as you know, so that he sees way of using his own violence against these excesses of evil itself can be justified in the name of infinite justice. And that's exactly, you know, the war on terror logic that has been very powerful throughout the last two decades and also

So in the end, you know, he wins the battle. So we can resume, I mean, restore our normal reality in which, you know, there is no longer terrorist attack anymore. And then we kind of pay attention, tribute to our superheroes with dignity and so on and so forth. But the thing is that, of course, in this restored society, nothing really changed in terms of social system itself.

And then it is somehow emotionally just recovered so that as if we got back something great and then it gives a good feeling. But then realistically speaking, it is the very way of, you know, Hollywood using ideology in its own way.

still endorsing this neoliberal state school in a way of preserving it against any kind of threats, you know, like terrorism. And then, you know, Hollywood movies does a great job in this kind of ideological function.

Of course. And of course, there are other Hollywood movies that are addressed in slightly different ways. So I wouldn't want to generalize this as just Hollywood. Of course, Hollywood is very complex. But nonetheless, you know, as you briefly mentioned, this film, it has its own way of dealing with all these crises, restoring sovereignty on the side of soft ethics,

and then how that is the backbone of this kind of supporting system. But then all other films, for example, you mentioned something like The Edge of Heaven, where I could talk about it later probably, it has different way of dealing with this kind of conflict and so on and so forth. Yeah, it's striking that these superheroes are invested with huge sympathy by audiences, but of course, Batman, Bourne,

Mad Max. These are kind of figures that are, you know, the abject in relation to the law. You know, they are figures, the only figures, the last hope, let's say, because

the institution, the regular institutions of the juridical institution, the legal institution, the police institution, sometimes, you know, in some sense, they're not adequate to eliminating terrorism. But all we have are these kinds of vigilante heroes, you know, and so they become the focus of

Um, they become here, um, lionized, um, and of course, within the diegesis of these films there, um, there's a hugely ambivalent status that they have, uh, in terms of, um, you know, the legal status, their moral status, um, um,

So, yeah, it's really curious, you know, that you kind of draw this out. And these are all the top films that, specifically in these cases from Hollywood, but they're all kind of maybe unconsciously reflecting, you know, some condition with regard to capitalism, globalization, biopolitics, you know,

It's just incredible how you're able to kind of draw this out. And like you said, each one of these series is nuanced in any case, but they do kind of follow a similar logic of lionizing the abject. It's only the abject in our current state or in our current post-political global moment

it's only the object that can actually change, make change within society. And as you're saying, actually, the change is actually kind of, it's just returning back to the status quo. So it's, I mean, what if, from just a kind of the standpoint of like, you know, an allegorical or a Marxist standpoint, I mean, is there, do you think that there's something within society

the structure of film industries, the way film industries and Hollywood has had to contend with the challenges of globalization. Do you think that there's some sense that the films are dealing with an expression of that industrial condition?

I think that's a very interesting and profound question I may need to think more about. But then I think your comment makes sense. As far as I can tell, based on my own book's framework, as you say, this kind of narrative structure of somebody becoming an abject, but then that turns into some sort of agent who deals with the very

loss of identity, community, society, and so on and so forth. And of course, you know, I kind of developed my idea of abject agency in this regard. But the thing is, it has different directions, right? So the mainstream Hollywood movie usually takes the direction number one,

in the sense of regaining the lost subjectivity and identity and society. So that, as I say, superheroes are usually working as like vigilante figures who can restore the normal society against the axis of evil, as I said too. But the process always involves the sovereign use of violence in the state of exception, which is somehow justified. And that's the thing, right? And in this case,

One more further relation to the contemporary period of globalization, its relevance to Hollywood industry is that I think at least, you know, these big-budget blockbuster action movies also now show the main protagonists who are actual superheroes.

In the framework in which they also undergo objection to. So the objection has no exception and it can apply to anybody. And especially now the main characters like James Bond, Jason Bourne, the Batman figure himself, where they are not...

you know, natural born real elite leaders, rather they somehow lose their own power at certain points. So that this kind of objection is the backbone of this narrative strategy, but also it is in some sense universally related to the current period in which everybody can become an object in the sense that there is no permanent, you know, how can I say,

fundamental security of our identity, job, you know, community, family, whatever. Okay. So once you lose something like that, you know, even if you are a millionaire or CEO of the Wayne Enterprise Company, which is actually the Batman's own job, you know, he does some wrong investment and he loses his own power. And actually, the Dark Knight Rises shows that he's already kind of retired the figure.

But then again, you know, in many Hollywood, you know, even Western films, you usually see main protagonist becomes kind of a retired abject figure. But then there is one final mission given so that he takes over becoming another like a hero figure once again and so on and so forth.

But then this is the one direction. The other direction is, of course, you know, there was a terrorism itself. So Jason Bourne is very interesting figure in this Hollywood, you know, atmosphere because he becomes an ex-CIA agent, but does not want to get back to CIA, but rather investigates its own like dirty sides and then, you know, crimes and so on and so forth so that he can investigate

be awakened to be sort of a pure abject agent who goes against the very agency that he belonged to. So it does not simply pursue the reintegration into the normal society, but rather what would be the crack within it and how can you survive on the edge of the very system and that kind of issue continues and then it is in some sense, how can I say, the

motivation of the synchronization of the franchise itself. So in some sense, as you say, when it comes to the industrial motivation or allegory in the cinema, for example, somehow these films reflect global catastrophes, which are more or less like a

at the end of each furan but nonetheless you know the potential symptoms and cracks are continuing so that you know you can continue to this you know to conduct this kind of battle so it means that you know you can have you know the batman number two batman three and so on and so forth so all this kind of franchise logic itself is related to the continuation of this contradiction in our reality as such in some sense and then uh

the final message in this case would be that probably these firms, you know, even if they reflect this contradiction in a very brutal and graphic way, you know, it also somehow, how can I say, negotiate with its own status quo to, you

rather than simply suggesting any change. Well, one thing I have to say that we wouldn't simply, we couldn't expect film to change the world and then give some solution, right? So it's in terms of inevitable limitation of any cinema. It's not simply like a

in order to change the world with the critical issues. But its reflection itself has its own political way. But nonetheless, you know, Hollywood has its own large use of industrial continuation of, you know, depicting these things while somehow endorsing its status quo as well so that it can continue the business as usual. And that may be probably related to this industrial question.

Well, I am on this thought because I'm just thinking about a different phase of capitalism in Hollywood, and that's just the late 60s, early 70s, when the rise of so-called new Hollywood comes into being. And so we talk about that in terms of capitalism.

certain politics, the Vietnam War, Nixon, the identity politics, and a new generation, a younger generation coming into Hollywood.

But it's about Hollywood also restructuring itself and the kind of first phase of globalization where the dollar becomes a floating currency, where there's more in Hollywood itself, there's more subcontracting, sub-subcontracting, and the whole vertical structure of Hollywood becomes flattened and horizontal.

So, you know, there's arguments that describe the kinds of antiheroes that you get in 70s American cinema, like The Godfather, like in The French Connection, you know, there, our advisor Thomas Alsacer spoke about this. There's a bunch of losers, there's a bunch of criminals,

And they're not simply antiheroes in the traditional sense, but in any case, it goes back to, and we can think maybe from a Marxist perspective, it goes back to the ways in which the structure of Hollywood has changed. And of course, with the rise of franchises in the 70s, you have the beginnings of this type of

this logic that generation who uh baby boomers who were um starting to introduce new ideas into hollywood but also to uh but they were given all this money to do so and it seems like um what you're describing here

And particularly with the Hollywood movies that you're discussing, not just the superhero films, but also Gran Torino, for example, that it's almost the tail end of that development that started in the 70s, where you have, yeah, characters, heroes that are legally questionable, you know, who within the old...

system of the production code, these are characters that should not be depicted as sympathetic, for example, or morally uplifting. But now we have a dark knight. We have the Clint Eastwood character in Gran Torino who's kind of a racist, but he's actually like a good guy. There's a justification for

Matt Damon's character in the Bourne trilogy for

Even though they're criminals, they're kind of morally questionable. And when I was reading this, I just thought about that history that kind of goes back. And I think it's interesting that you point to 1990 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 as a kind of point where maybe, I don't know if you would agree with this, where this

these types of representations become accelerated and the issues of hard and soft ethics become intensified. And because it's not just, you know,

New Hollywood thinking about it, but we're all dealing with it globally on a global scale. These issues of how to deal with the other tolerance. What is multiculturalism? What is justice? You know, um, how, to what extent can we, um, rely on our institutions? Um, but these films, um, uh,

seem to appeal to global audiences that are living through this much more accelerated situation of the old, the world of old Hollywood or the worlds of old national cinemas collapsing. They're all kind of disintegrating in some way. What do you think about that?

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I think that's very good historical overview of this concept to the abject and its development in cinema definitely. Well, there was a brief mention in my preface that the

The final manuscript reviewer gave me a very rich comment and feedback, which was very excellent. But there was a question about, you know, the possibility of historicizing the concept to the objects, you know, back to 1980s and 60s and 70s, as you mentioned, isn't right there too.

So anti-heroes were always there and you know, they are not simply cinematic. You can find them in literature and even before the police and media and so on like that too. And in that sense, even in my own chapter, I think it's chapter two, I wanted to theorize briefly

the narrative of the double death. So a subject undergoes abjection as the symbolic death, and then he gains a certain agency until he physically dies, which is the real death, or somehow survives and so on and so forth. And this kind of narrative itself even can be found in the Bible, and especially this biblical, you know, how can I say,

and then redemption story could be broadly applied to this abstract agency narrative, as you may see. So definitely there's some larger historical universal framework in which we can reorganize and then remap all these materials definitely. And then I think in that regard, I think my approach to global cinema itself is very,

can be more than simply about the contemporary cinema. And then I am interested in further developing, you know, this historicization of the abstract especially, and how is it different from the previous anti-hero figures in the 1960s, when there was still some sort of political agency and its resistance and then kind of disillusionment and so on and so forth. But then nonetheless, there is some sort of a universality of this concept, definitely.

But as you say, my book itself focuses on, you know, the contemporary period after 1990. And especially as you say, this sort of abject agency in the backdrop of globalization has been intensified rather than simply too much radicalized. So this intensification itself is the very feature that I want to focus on and highlight while analyzing so many different films, not only Hollywood, but also

from all over the world, as you say. But as you mentioned, Gran Torino, for example, I think that's very interesting. Well, some people say it's a little naive and then still like stereotypical in terms of depicting the Hong,

people from Southeast Asia, still slightly Orientalist, still based on the white savior myth. And of course, he's definitely there. So, Trinity stood as the final, as they say, as a retired gunman given another mission finally to sustain his own community and he sacrificed himself in the closed form so that he's Jesus Christ, whatever.

But then the thing is that, you know, in some sense, it opens another, how can I say, phase in history too. So at the sacrifice of his life, you know,

You are not going back to the previous society that is depicted in the film. Rather, it's, in my view, the real beginning of the birth of multicultural America that goes beyond the soft ethical sense of multiculturalism, which was actually depicted in the earlier part of the film.

It's based on just like a give and take relationship with some social distancing based on some respect for the other culture, right? But then throughout the whole narrative, what we can see is that there is some sort of gift-giving exchange between the Clint Eastwood figure and then the other boy in the Hmong community that goes beyond the kind of calculation and then neoliberal logic of treating

others in this multicultural way, but rather there's some sort of existential gift giving in the sense that it cannot be even recognized as a gift by other side. And then that goes back to the Derridian idea of pure gift that I wanted to develop further in my own ethical direction so that there is something emerging

in this kind of global cinema that slightly suggests some alternative path way in understanding ethics that is not just the soft and hard ethics but rather what I call

at this that cannot be placed in any system but rather nonetheless you know it can emerge between the objects figures in the sense of giving themselves to others as if my own being itself is gifted but then when it is given you know it is not recognized as a gift so that it cannot be returned

Only once you lose that person, in this case, once the boy loses, you know, the Clint Eastwood figure, then he recognizes that was his, you know, gift in life in some sense.

but then there was no return there. So that it is like a shift to another phase in which now he is a newborn American, you know, as a person of color, but then with the legacy of the old white generation, you know, in terms of the car, Grand Tour in the 1970s, Simba, and then his dog there,

So that nonetheless, you know, it doesn't mean that it is fixed and anchored, but rather, you know, the last scene itself is his driving, the son's driving himself. We don't know where he goes and then how happy he will be in this new society. But then it still opens this unknown. And I think that's just something different from the previous, you know, films about antiheroes and politics.

So the last scene in the film where the Hmong character drives Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino and with the dog in the passenger seat, you write, "Walt himself, before any gift exchanged and even unknown to himself, was a gift whose pure meaning is only retroactively redeemed through its metonymic trace.

Therefore, the car is a simulacrum of the pure gift that only Walt's death can evoke as impossible to grasp among actual gifts. So you're pointing to this gift giving or giving of oneself without the expectation of return. And you're kind of rereading the Marcel Mauss poem.

ethnography of gift giving that's typically and there he argues that society is bound through the exchange of gifts. But a true gift is one that has no expectation of a return gift. And so you're reading the last scene of Gran Torino as this alternative ethics, this

The delineation of hard and soft ethics shows us the limits of getting along, tolerance, multiculturalism, which contains within it always already this false gift of tolerance.

you know, exchange with the expectation of return. I give you, I do this for you. And then in the back of my mind, I expect that they're going to do this to me, or I do this violence to you. I know that maybe they deserve to do the equal and opposite violence to me.

But here in this, you know, it's a smaller budget Hollywood movie, but still there's a kind of profound reading here. And of this alternative ethics, this atopia, as you call it. And as you know, it's almost a prototypical Western in a way. He kind of goes off, drives off into the sunset or something. But it's not...

Clint Eastwood, the, uh, the cowboy, um, you know, full of resentment or something, but it's, uh, a, um, among immigrants. And here it's almost, as you say, it's really, um, wonderful that the kind of the birth of multicultural America, you know, almost in an authentic sense, um, beyond, um,

uh, you know, without expectation of return beyond the logic of exchange. Exactly. So, yeah, it's, you know, over and over again, you know, these kinds of moments I just find throughout the book so compelling and it's pulling out of, yeah, at the end of Gran Torino, you, it's finished watching it and you feel kind of like, um,

whatever, the movie's over and wow, that's interesting. But the analysis here pulls out these really, these details that really underpin that sense of,

you know, something that's a logic that's already there, but, you know, you're just really kind of bringing that out. In Gran Torino, in Life of Pi, in Edge of Heaven, you know, again, a really wide range. The Promise, Children of Men, a really wide, wide range of films. It's really kind of very impressive and just really wonderful the way that, you know, these films are brought forth to

work through these ideas of the world in which they live and the world in which we live right now. An always already global world where we have to tolerate, we have to deal with and be challenged by others.

Yes, thank you so much for your appreciation. And that's exactly what I want to point out at the end of the book in a way of suggesting this alternative ethics based on the notion of abject agency as gift-giving existential, let's say, agency, if you want, in an atopian way. And I wanted to formulate this term in a little theoretical way at the end, as you see.

so atopia is a topos that is detached in the sense that it's like the abject mode of topos a place which is it is never anchored and it is not even utopia right utopia still kind of envisions a certain fixed point of your dream coming true

Rather, atopia means that without any hope for such a utopia, but without any, how can I say, resignation or abandon of your life, you continue your abject life along with other abject lives, walking side by side rather than simply facing each other, as in the Levinasian sense of the term, so that this accompaniment

itself as the ongoing agency of continuing our belief in the potential sanctity of life. And actually, that is my probably most philosophical aspect of the conceptualization in the book.

Which means that, you know, well, the abject itself is, you know, again, ambivalent in many ways. But the fundamental thing is that, as I say, everybody can be an abject in the sense that your life dignity can be completely demolished, you are deprived of your human rights legally, and so on and so forth. So you that, of course, you know, you spontaneously want to get back all your, you know, existing and pre-existing identity, you know, kind of security, right?

So the abstract itself is in some sense assumed to be negative, to be overcome in this way of thinking. But on the other hand, the abstract means it's the bottom of every life in some sense. It's like the universal condition of life in the sense that human life itself is basically a naked life like the animal to be killed with impunity as Agamben says. But then

Then what is the difference between the human life and the animal life as we usually think? How can we think about the sanctity of life only in humans rather than in animals? At the bottom, we are also animal lives. Then how can we understand the beginning of the concept of the dignity of life in human that is not always given to

So it's a very fundamental question, and in the sense that being an object itself, in some sense, explores your own potential to think about this fundamental question of life's own sanctity, if you want. Then there's no real, how can I say, formulaic conclusion in this regard, but I wanted to think about it in the way of proposing that

There is no absolute, you know, objectively grounded sense of dignity in human life itself, just like anyone lives.

But nonetheless, we still believe in its potential sanctity of life as specific to humans. But without this kind of potential belief, I would say it's like illusion. Our human life is nothing but just like the animal life, the mere life, the abject life itself. So the abject life itself is always the ground of this kind of a self-overcoming or self-exceeding belief.

in our potential rather than just the given entity of this entity itself. But then this belief actually makes our life human in the sense that we can still treat the other object as potentially dignified so that we don't simply kill them, we don't remove them, but with them we can continue. And that's, I think, the most important aspect. It makes me think about how soft ethics depends so much on

these, let's say, discursive categories of nation, of ethnicity, that draws boundaries, really. And there's always this reintroduction of the possibility of hard ethics as soon as we create these geopolitical boundaries.

I mean, to think about the possibility of a gift without return within current geopolitics seems almost impossible because it's so much is at stake, I guess, in wars and in political factions, you know, delineated through, you know, along...

lines of nationality and ethnicity. I mean, I'm thinking about this in terms of how you're approaching the idea of global cinema without boundaries, just generally speaking. And so it seems like that approach already gives you access to this kind of fundamental ground of the act of objection. But

within the realm of just practical geopolitics it seems so impossible now to uh to do the the gesture for example at the end of gran torino um because it's the most vulnerable

situation to expose oneself to give without any expectation of return. I mean, even some, in some sense, as Derrida says, you know, self-sacrifice, self-sacrifice is also a kind of, reinstates this kind of logic of exchange. So the kind of the secret, the secretive logic of gift giving, it's very, very difficult to find. I mean,

I guess I'm just thinking about current things happening in politics, you know, just bringing this idea, its relevance to how we as citizens of different nations consume the news and observe things that are happening far away from us.

It's always already framed in terms of nations, ethnicities, things like this. I mean, what is the practical, let's say, lesson of this book, do you think? What's the practical lesson that we can learn from global cinema?

Yes, well, I think you actually hit the point in the sense that it's very hard to find this kind of thing in our reality. But that's why we still need cinema in some sense. You know, as I say, this is a post-political cinema in the sense that it does not really exist.

aim to suggest any sort of solution to this whole global catastrophe and conundrums or change the system in its own way. The filmmakers themselves don't have them, just like us. But then nonetheless, it doesn't mean that the cinema can only recuperate all the lost identity and subjectivity of the status quo. There is one direction, but then there are

directions of object agency that are somehow developed here and there in a very marginal way, but nonetheless very inspiring and precious way. And so we talked a lot about Hollywood films, but as you mentioned, you know, there are so many other non-Hollywood films that I wanted to address from the French film to Korean film to, you know, Middle East films and so on and so forth later and some East Asians. South Asian film.

Right, definitely. And then my final chapter also, after dealing with the children of man, the last example is Himiju. It's a Japanese cinema, a film. It's based on the story

the Fukushima disaster, the tsunami and then the earthquake that devastated the whole area in which everybody's abject. But then there is like a boy and a girl who are pushed toward almost like a self-explosive in the sense of killing themselves or terrorizing the society. But at the end, you see the ending in which the boy and the girl

you know, walk side by side in an atopian way of, you know, giving themselves to each other as if they were like an existential gift, as I say, too. And that kind of ending is also found at the end of The Promise, which was discussed in Chapter 11, along with The Edge of Heaven as well. And both films, you know, show that

a similar ending in which two abject figures walk side by side, as I say, without any promise of finding a utopia. But nonetheless, they continue to relay the potential sanctity of life, if you want to.

The thing is that, of course, realistically speaking, it means nothing. I mean, they cannot change their own lives immediately, practically. They cannot change the society either, of course, you know. But I think that this is what we can expect from the cinema from an ethical point of view as well.

And I don't think cinema is a political medium in the end. There have been some very politically radical and experimental films throughout the whole history of cinema, which I briefly mentioned at the end of my chapter and conclusion too. But then...

the majority of films are about individual dramas. There may be some kind of background of political, social turmoil or whatever, but nonetheless, we see a few characters own personal handling of their own life situations. That's a cinema, basically.

I would say. So in that regard, with this limitation, nonetheless, what we can see from contemporary global cinema is that it still pays attention to or sheds light on such objects, marginalized the precious potentiality of gift-giving and something like that too.

And then if that is still a sort of alternative ethical way beyond the soft and hard ethical phase of globalization, I think that's great in some sense. It's enough, yeah.

Yeah, we cannot simply dismiss it, even though it is still impotent in the practical sense of term, if you want. There is still like a potential aesthetic, artistic way of thinking about ethics in this way. And then it has its own, how can I say, value. And then we appreciate that in some sense. I would finally say that...

Of course, this is not the end of global cinema. Global cinema itself has been evolving. As you briefly mentioned, right now, the current, you know, social political situations are also very complex and more problematic than 10, two decades ago, in some sense, you know, many cases, right? And I guess that, of course, cinema will continue to its own exploration of potentials.

know each decade and each historical change as well so I'm not simply pessimistic even though I'm not always optimistic just as you know global cinema has been evolving in its own way there may be some nuanced approach to some issues and I sometimes see already you know important and interesting films in this regard as well

So my book itself is in some sense bracketed by two decades, especially the 1990s and the 2000s. But then since 2010 and onward, you know, right now, especially, we see more advanced phases of globalization with more advanced nuanced problems. So I guess there will be some updates in my work as well.

I wonder what you think about the updating of our approaches, academic approaches towards cinema. You know, these are readings that there's some kind of established close reading that we have as a very key technique in film studies. And then there's kind of showing the limits or even kind of pushing the

that approach in itself to a kind of breaking point in a way. I wonder what you think about just not only the idea of a kind of post-political cinema, but a post-political cinema studies as well, you know, our, our methods and especially with the, the challenge of digital media, obviously, and the fact that, you know, in the academy, you know,

it's not just film anymore, but it's really looking at, we're really looking at media writ large almost. And that word does so much work in our field. What do you think about the methods, the interesting texts that are worthy of analysis within film studies? Is there something in which...

this kind of post-political cinema is showing us the way, some direction in our own field? Well, it's a very difficult and wide question. We could talk about it in many different ways, but from my own work, I would say, first of all, I want to...

update my own global cinema research focusing on the current phase which is sometimes called deglobalization including a lot of backlashes against globalization which have been appearing in the leftist and rightist forms both and especially with Trump's return now we already see you know

the strongest nationalistic backlash against this kind of a rosy period integrating everything right so how can we redress the wars newly in a more inefficient you know way for their own communities that's big agenda of course you know there are a lot of problems so that i guess cinema will be responding to all these things in its own ways and then i have you know seen

uh, some sort of, uh, new tendencies in global cinema in this regard as well. Of course, there are some other tendencies that I want to focus on, especially in terms of the mind game film, uh, that depicts such contradictory aspects, but in a hypothetical setting, uh, including time travel, you know, a multiple universes and something like that too. Uh, but then on the other end, now there's some tendency to realistically depicting such hypothetical questions, uh,

as well. And then this is related to what I want to call smart movies.

And as you also know, the concept itself is in some sense very powerful and then, I can say, relevant to the current period of global cinema in which the cinema itself wants to sometimes criticize the system it belongs to only to change nothing. But nonetheless, you know, it does everything smart to address issues critically, including even criticizing itself in a self-reflective way.

So, all of these things are entangled with the globalization's own updates and its new phases too.

The ultimate point is that there is no outside, so that everything, including the resistance to the system itself, is done within the system, using the system, creating some unknown potential to discuss things in different ways and so on and so forth. And then these things are all going on, so that what would be probably needed would be to take a kind of a broad, but

But still, historical point of view on these changes so that film studies can be always, how can I say, developed along with the social developments. And then we shouldn't be probably limited to simply like the media aesthetics and the film studies in the old fashioned way, but rather always put it in the current critical theory and then other disciplines from humanities and social sciences, especially in technology as well.

And then that is, in some sense, how can I say, how can be effectively synthetic? That would be an important approach, I guess. And then regard, as you mentioned, you know, it doesn't have to be always, and it cannot be simply about cinema, right? Its own boundaries are itself converse,

So that there are a lot of cinematic forms including, you know, like Netflix series and then other short forms and so on and so forth. But as I did in my own book, probably in terms of, you know, the territorial rising

the global world of cinema not going back to Hollywood and its outside. In some sense, you know, we could address the cinematic forms in general rather than being too much medium specific. Well, at least when it comes to the kind of thematic or global issues. So now,

Even today's obsession with the deep seek as threatened to the US development AI system itself is privileged related to deglobalization, new Cold War, the next phase of globalization in terms of technology now

taking over the territory of humanity. And then of course, you know, we can address it not only politically, socially, economically, but also technologically and then philosophically in the sense that what is human in this case, then how cinema reflected and so on and so forth. So I think there are a lot of questions will be, you know, that

that will come. The thing is, how can we... I mean, it's very difficult, you know. In some sense, I don't like multitasking of today's culture, but nonetheless, we are almost like, you know, how can I say, pushed towards, you know, becoming a multitask in the sense that we look at the cinema while, you know, always remapping it from a bigger perspective, you know, catching up with what's going on outside.

Yeah, I mean, just hearing you talk and after having read your book, I mean, one of the things that I admire so much is just your courage in creating new concepts, new categories that are appropriate towards capturing what cinema, what media is doing right now. For example, the smart film you just mentioned,

The word smart obviously has some baggage and already some associations with it, but you're directing and mobilizing those meanings towards as an analytical category. And it does capture something while at the same time taking with it some of the

um, techniques that we've been trained in, in film and media studies. Um, so it's, it's very admirable. And, you know, I, I hope, um, this is a book that I will, um, assign in chapters all assigned in my classes. And I just hope that it's widely read. It's, it's a, quite a profound book, I, I think. And, um, I'm really thrilled to have read it. Um,

What, just as a last question here, maybe what book-length project are you working on now? And, you know, just in terms of what we can expect in terms of publications?

Yeah, well, as I just mentioned, all these topics are related to what I want to do and then what I will do. But just one more comment about your own comment, back to my own comment.

What I wanted to do is, in some sense, you know, what can be done in film studies? Well, I don't think that, you know, textual analysis can be simply dismissed. It is always important. But in the sense of making a very dynamic and productive conversation between seeker

cinema and theory if you want to, and film text and then its contexts or other media and so on, as you say. And then as you briefly mentioned, yes, I mean, it's great that I'm grateful to you for understanding my struggle in the sense of creating new concepts.

So I started with Ranciere's soft-card ethics, if you want, as I said. But then actually Ranciere, by diagnosing this globalization in these terms, he still sticks to politics, actually. He says, "This is post-political, we need still politics." And that is, in one word, what I can see from his own radical politics.

But my point is that, you know, it is already a little beyond that point so that, you know, if these soft and hard ethics is our kind of impasse, then what would be another ethics? And that was what I wanted to pursue in terms of developing the concepts like abstract agency world as a matter of the two. And I think that we can still do this kind of thing with the new topics and new films as well.

So cinema itself is not simply like copying other concepts from outside, but rather we can rewrite and recreate concepts from cinematic point of view by looking at especially specific film texts, but in a larger synthetic framework and so on and so forth. And this kind of thing, well, it may be still abstract, but then I think it's still very important rather than being so much abstract.

marginalized and specific in some sense. And in that regard, I want to finish my own global Korean cinema book, which has been like a

done mostly based on my own earlier pieces of writing, but in the same global framework. It is only about Korean cinema. That's the, as far as I can finish, probably within a few months, I am now co-editing a book on theorizing globalizations

from multiple perspectives, this is tentative title. The thing is that I will focus on deglobalization, as I say. So how, for example, the new Cold War has been reshaped in cinema in both Hollywood and China as well. And then now China has been developing its own mainstream industry enormously and very impressively, even though it is not yet globalized.

but then something that is very Chinese in terms of politics and aesthetics is there while still copying Hollywood grammar of filmmaking as well. So this is not simply about deep-seek and then open AI, but also it's about Chinese and American cinema and what can we see in terms of cinematic negotiations with the

all these current issues will be very interesting. The other thing is, as I say, a smart movie topic that I want to develop, including probably some directions of new mind game films and some other things as well.

And recently my latest film that fits in this category is "The Substance" and I enjoyed it a lot. Maybe you could talk about it later. Anyway, something like that inspires me to think further about what can be smart in cinema in dealing with the critical issues, but in a kind of mind gaming way and so on and so forth. So, I will see.

Just wonderful. Thank you so much, Seung-Hoon. I really enjoyed this conversation and just hearing you speak about your own work in this way, it's just very inspiring. So thank you so much. And, you know, I look forward to

reading and studying your work for years to come. So thanks so much. Thank you so much for your wonderful interlocution discussion. You are such a great, you know, discussant for me, Steve. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. I'll see you later.