Ideology in Turkish Cinema

by Mustafa Mencutekin

Overview

Mencutekin takes on the role of ideology in the history of Turkish cinema critically analyzing the values and ideas that have shaped the message and stories of Turkish movies. This study is based on the thesis that to truly explore the specific issues currently vexing Turkish cinema, one has to confront the aesthetic, technological, and ideological assumptions in the deeply nationalistic and secular approach to Turkish cinema and how they engage with the real social values of Turkish society. If one hopes to attain a cinema purified from all kinds of crisis, more democracy is required to create a cinema that is at peace with the past, present, and future of Turkish society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935295501
Publisher:	Blue Dome Press
Publication date:	07/16/2014
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Mustafa Mencutekin finished his PhD on cinema at Istanbul University, School of Communication, in 2001. He has penned and published several articles in Turkish and English about the communicative and morphological sides of film and cinema. His personal hobbies include active guitar playing, studying new cultures, philosophy of visuality, languages, poetry and screen writing.

Table of Contents

Introduction: To Somewhere Where the Last Word Does Not Exist 1

Ideology: Towards a Quest for Definition and Functionality 7

Marx and Bourgeois Ideology 9

Althusser Tracing Marx: The Godfather in the Sphere of Ideology 10

Gramsci and Hegemony 12

Foucault, Logocentrism, and Other Prospects 12

Ideology and Art: Two Cognitive Aludels 15

Ideology and Cinema: A Never-ending Story of Two Coats of Paint 19

Turkish Cinema: Lingering around the Limbo of Non/Existence 31

Cinema on the Last Days of the Ottoman Magnificence 31

The Single-Party Period till 1950, the Beginning of the Multi-Party Democracy 34

M. Kemal Ataturk's Personal Attitude towards Cinema 38

Early Days of Cinema of the Republic and Muhsin Ertugrul, the Dictatorial Director of the Single-Party Period 39

Public Houses and Village Chambers 44

1950-1960: Multi-Party System and Coup D'état 45

1960-12 September 1980: An Era of Polarization and Confusion 48

The Yesilçam Legend: More than a Street of Film and Cinema 51

National (Milli) Cinema: The Conservative Emphasis on Theological and Ethical Values 54

National (Ulusal) Cinema: A Quest to Overcome Ages-Long Identity Crisis 57

The Cinema of Turkish-Style Social Realism: On the Borderline of a Socialist Simulacrum and Communist Utopia 61

The Revolutionist Cinema, Sinematek and the Case of Yimaz Güney 64

12 September 1980-1990: Marching Boots Leading to the Tunnel of Horror 69

After 90's: Same Old Same Old, towards a New Millennium 72

Instead of an Epilogue 77

Re-reading Kemalist Ideology and Turkish Modernization Story: Attacking to the Past for Favoring the New 80

The Name of the Hope: The Conservative Turkish Cinema-The Efforts of Yücel Çakmakli and His Disciples 89

References 95