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Poetics of Slow Cinema pp 161–219Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Nuri Bilge Ceylan: An Aesthetics of Boredom

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Abstract

Çağlayan offers an analysis of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films in relation to slow cinema and contextual dynamics of filmmaking in Turkey. The chapter begins with an institutional history of cinema in Turkey and discusses the critical intervention by which Ceylan and New Turkish Cinema brought newer ways of telling stories. Following an overview of the production methods Ceylan borrows from the traditional film industry, the chapter moves to investigate boredom as the underpinning aesthetic strategy that is responsible for the filmmaker’s departure from those very customs. With extended analyses of Distant (2002) and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011), Çağlayan argues that slow cinema has the potential to transform boredom into an aesthetically engrossing and politically liberating experience.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although the majority of scholars argue that Yeşilçam cinema was officially terminated, Engin Ayça argued in 1994 that “ Yeşilçam is not over but has changed its medium” (quoted in Arslan 2011, 247), suggesting that the very same aesthetic sensibility that defined Yeşilçam is now present in Turkish television serials. Given the enormous success and global spread of these serials since 1994, examining the aesthetic continuation of Yeşilçam in television could be a fruitful inquiry.

  2. 2.

    Many of the elective courses offered at this university eventually evolved into the Mithat Alam Film Centre, founded in 2000, an extremely influential institute for filmmakers and cinephiles alike, which is not only the closest thing to a Cinematheque in İstanbul but is an environment that fosters a rich film culture through its publication organ Altyazı (literally, Subtitle).

  3. 3.

    I should note here that for Turkish speakers the term özenti might evoke a negative, perhaps even offensive and demeaning, characterization of a cultural activity. I am not attempting to designate Ceylan’s films or the New Turkish Cinema movement as özenti. Rather, I claim that özenti , as a defining aspect of Yeşilçam cinema, has the potential to inform the ways in which art cinema in Turkey relates to Western culture broadly speaking, in the sense that there is, implicitly, a “desire” to be like the other—an other who is perceived as more progressive and innovative. Indeed, this is all the more relevant given that culture in Turkey has been going—and continues to go—through a crisis of identity. In this respect, the intention here is not to challenge the originality of the films, nor to relegate them to purely imitative works.

  4. 4.

    Numbers sourced from http://www.boxofficeturkiye.com/, accessed October 31, 2017, a website that collates Turkish box-office statistics. Unfortunately these records begin only in 2006, so earlier numbers were approximated from journalistic sources.

  5. 5.

    It is worth noting here that Once Upon a Time in Anatolia was adapted from the real-life experiences of a doctor, Ercan Kesal, Ceylan’s co-scriptwriter, who takes on a cameo role as the muhtar. Kesal spent years in an Anatolian province carrying out his national service as a qualified doctor and witnessed a similar series of events, in which he and other government officials set out in search of a dead body during a whole night. Much of this main arch-story was complemented with quotes from and allusions to the stories of Anton Chekhov and a poem by Mikhail Lermontov. See Andrew (2012).

  6. 6.

    Onur Civelek (2011) notes that these photographs are from the series The Country Doctor (1948), shot by W. Eugene Smith, in which he shadowed a real US country doctor, Dr. Ernest G. Ceriani, in his daily tasks. Civelek considers this more than a basic reference to Ceylan’s previous profession: not only is Dr. Ceriani an alter-ego model for Cemal, but this is an indication that Cemal is becoming a spectator himself, just like us watching the film, and although he tries to convince himself otherwise by keeping the photograph on his desk, he has succumbed to being a permanent spectator by accepting provincial mores.

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  1. School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

    Emre Çağlayan

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Çağlayan, E. (2018). Nuri Bilge Ceylan: An Aesthetics of Boredom. In: Poetics of Slow Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96872-8_4

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