I'd recommend you ask it in /r/NorthKorea, because that's where you'll find the most people who know about the issue.

But are you sure you mean Kim Jong-Il? He ruled North Korea from 1994 to 2011. Pre-1994, he was less involved and his father, Kim Il-Sung, would be the ultimate authority. So you you mean Kim Il-Sung? Kim Il-Sung ruled with an iron fist, brutally suppressing dissent and controlling people down to the smallest details of their lives, so he pretty much was ultimately to blame for everything about the country, as it wasn't possible to act without his authority.

Kim Il-Sung treated Kim Jong-Il in a similar manner that Kim Jong-Il treated his own successor, Kim Jong-Un. Kim Jong-Il had a high-ranking position in the North Korean government, and was responsible for a large portion of propaganda films and television. At one point, he had, at the behest of his father, his own, fairly large, film studio and lot, and would regularly use kidnapped actors and directors, usually from South Korea and Japan, though for some "American Imperialist" roles, soldiers who had defected to North Korea (Yes, there are actually soldiers who defected into the DPRK) would be used and demonized in said propaganda films, though in reality they were treated very highly in comparison to your typical North Korean citizen.

Anyway, I digress. To sum it up with my limited knowledge, Kim Jong-Il was a high-ranking member in the DPRK, with a heavy focus on propaganda, art, and entertainment. With his fathers death, he ascended to the head of the government in much of the same fashion as Kim Jong-Un.

A question like this might be a bit too current to fall under the realm of "history."