Copyright by Ali Fuat Sengul 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Ali Fuat Sengul Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Cinema, Space and Nation: The Production of Doğu in Cinema in Turkey Committee: Shanti Kumar, Supervisor Kamran A. Ali Lalitha Gopalan Joseph D. Straubhaar Karin G. Wilkins Cinema, Space and Nation: The Production of Doğu in Cinema in Turkey by Ali Fuat Sengul, Lisans Dip.; M.S. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2012 Dedication To my family who gave me strength and love to survive the Ph.D.. Acknowledgements This work benefitted from the generous support of many friends, colleagues, and mentors who contributed to its current shape and form in ways I cannot measure. My supervisor and mentor, Shanti Kumar, has been extremely helpful and inspirational. His intellectual guidance and scholarly investment in this project has not wavered throughout the writing process despite my time consuming and at times frustrating methodological detours. Our meetings have been a crucial part of my life at UT. I would also like to thank my committee members Kamran Asdar Ali, Joe Straubhaar, and Karin Wilkins for their support and encouragement throughout my Ph.D. years. I feel very fortunate to have had Lalitha Gopalan as a mentor and friend. Her presence in Austin contributed importantly to my life and to this project. Thanks are also due to my teachers in Turkey, Necati Polat and the late Hasan Unal Nalbantoğlu. They taught me a better way of being a scholar. I also thank Zeynel Dogan for his generosity in sharing his archive of Kurdish films. Ruken Ozturk and Ali Karadogan from Ankara University also deserve thanks for letting me access the media library. Special thanks go to Ruken Sengul and Siyar Ozsoy who provided me the comfort and safety of family during my stay in Austin. You two have been truly helpful in every imaginable way. My brother, Serdar, though far from Austin, provided invaluable insight on the films of this project. My friends and colleagues, John Jirik, Tarik Elseewi, Assem Nasr, Naminata Diabate, Lisa Schmidt, Kristen Warner, Kwang-Suk Lee, Sharon Shahaf, Adel Iskandar, Sonia Seeman, Nancy Schiesari, Robin Dougherty, Mubbashir Rizvi, Can v Açıksöz, Ufuk Soyöz, Halide Velioğlu, Adam Irving, Aun Ali, Jaime Alves, Dharitri Bhattacharjee, Arup Chakraborty, Asiya Alam, Imran Khan, Stuart Davis, Jacob Hustedt, Daniel Mauro, and Josh Gleich, made my stay in Austin intellectually nourishing and joyful. And thanks to my comrades Omer Ozcan, Raja Swami, and Abdul Haque Chang with whom I tasted many joys in Austin. My beloved parents, Anne and Baba, I thank you for your affection and support, and for putting up with my film obsession. And, finally, I thank my partner Suzanne. I learned every day from your passion and vision for a brighter life. Thank you for being a wonderful friend, colleague, and lover. I could not have made it without you! vi Cinema, Space and Nation: The Production of Doğu in Cinema in Turkey Ali Fuat Sengul, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Shanti Kumar From social realism and socialist cinema, to the Turkish ‘new wave’ and the nascent Kurdish cinema, this dissertation traces the mutual implication of the production of Turkish national space and of Doğu (“The East”) as cinematic space. Doğu emerged as part of a discursive formation within the Turkish state’s address to eastern Turkey; it entered national cinema as a result of the journey of social realism to the region in the aftermath of the military coup in 1960, which allowed for the bourgeoning of the socialist public sphere and enabled filmmakers to cinematically reflect on the region. However, the state’s renewed security-oriented interests, triggered by the resurgent Kurdish movement within both Turkey and Iraq, permeated the region and enforced limits on the representation of Doğu as a new cinematic space. Although in its cinematic incarnation ‘Doğu’ was hardly a perpetuation of state ideology, a cartographic anxiety—informed by the desire for spatial modernization—shaped the politico-aesthetic parameters of the region’s cinematic presence. In recent years, the representation of the region within the nascent Kurdish cinema can be understood as a deconstructive turn problematizing the foundation of Turkish national space and the cinematic Doğu. vii Table of Contents CHAPTER I – CINEMA SPACE NATION ........................................................ 1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Historical Background: Nation-State, The East and Doğu ......................... 11 Doğu as Discursive Space ......................................................................... 14 Research Methodology ............................................................................. 17 Literature Review: Spatial turn, Critical geography and the Nation ........... 19 Cinema of Contested Space(s) .................................................................. 23 Cinema Studies in Turkey and the Films of Doğu ..................................... 27 Chapter Outlines ....................................................................................... 30 Chapter II: Social Realism, Borderland and Nation-Space ................ 32 Chapter III: Socialism and Farmland: Doğu as Space of Revolution . 33 Chapter IV: The Long 1990s and the Empty, Flooded village: War and the Spatial Politics of New Turkish Cinema .................................. 34 Chapter V: Kurdish Cinema, Remapping National Space ................. 35 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER II: REALIST CINEMA, DOĞU, AND NATION-SPACE .............. 38 Introduction .............................................................................................. 38 Realist Turn, Cinema and Nation .............................................................. 44 Realism Space and Nation ........................................................................ 49 The Coup, Social Realism and the National Cinema Debate ..................... 55 State Realism: Doğu as Space of National Reality .................................... 58 Spatial Modernization on the Border of the Nation: The Blood of the Earth and the Law of the Borders ..................................................................... 61 Seyyit Han and the Limits of Cinematic Realism....................................... 69 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 71 CHAPTER III: CINEMA, SOCIALISM, AND DOĞU ..................................... 73 Introduction .............................................................................................. 74 Archeology of Doğu as Socialist Cinematic Space .................................... 77 viii A Historical Background: End of Social Realism and Redefining Reality . 81 Socialism, Eastern Problem and Cinema ................................................... 88 The ‘Skills of Salako’: Socialism Comes to Doğu ..................................... 92 Maraba, the Revolutionary Agent of Doğu ................................................ 97 Kibar Feyzo and Socialist Revolution in Doğu .........................................103 Sürü/The Herd and Hazal: Doğu’s Encounter with National Modernity ...108 The Disappearance of Doğu in Post-1980 Turkish Cinema ......................112 Conclusion ..............................................................................................116 CHAPTER IV: THE LONG 1990s: WAR, DOĞU AND THE POLITICS OF SPACE IN NEW TURKISH CINEMA ................................................................119 Introduction: The Long 1990s ..................................................................119 Forced Migration and the New Cinematic Space ......................................127 Güneşe Yolculuk: Multiple spaces of Doğu .....................................133 Discovering the Kurds: Personal Encounters in the City ..................136 Going ‘Back’ to the East: Spatial Claims in the Name of the State ...........138 Crazy at Heart: Fantastical Encounters in the Southeast ..................138 Going ‘Back in Space’: Traumatic Encounters with the Invisible Kind in Büyü ......................................................................................144 Vizontele: Media, Nation-space and Variations on the War .....................147 Conclusion ..............................................................................................151 CHAPTER V – KURDISH CINEMA AND REMAPPING NATION-SPACE .153 Introduction .............................................................................................153 The Road To ‘Kurdistan’: The Space of Kurdish Cinema .........................155 International Kurdish Cinema Conference ...............................................164 Kurdish Cinema and ‘Kurdistan’ as Cinematic Space ..............................167 Borders of Kurdish Cinema .............................................................169 Claiming the space-time of the city: Min Dȋt and Press ...................175 Village as Nation-space: Iki Dil Bir Bavul and Ax ...........................182 Conclusion ..............................................................................................188