This study set out to examine the examples of "literary film" in journalism around daily newspapers and to explore its implications and contexts. It was an effort to critically accept the previous studies on "literary film" that were conducted sporadically according to the periods and works and the research findings about literature and film and, at the same time, to review the contexts diachronically. Its ultimate goal was to investigate the topography and changes of modern Korean culture through the relationships between literature and film.
The process of the term "literary film" emerging, prospering, and falling is the process of film dreaming of joining the status of art and then realizing that it is "popular art" different from literature. In the process, "literary film" went through an array of meanings including "film based on literary works," "quality film of broad significance," "film of scale and spectacle," "film that has a different form from literature and the same artistry as literature," "artistic film close to the level of western film," "artistic film based on modern short stories," and "film to stir the public's nostalgia through local esthetics." In the end, it ended up being trapped in "policy meanings" and deteriorated, being distant from both artistry and popularity. Although literary film was a genre that could be autonomous given the characteristics of Korean culture, it underwent excessive prosperity and distortion due to the aggressive interventions of policies.
Those findings show that the implications of "literary film" we take for granted today went through changes and ups and downs in the competition and tension of its driving forces. And the process reveals the desire for the modernization of film, the history of bonds, the changes to the media hegemony between literature and film, and the resulting changes to the scene of Korea's culture and art community.