Locating Turkish Cinema: Traditional Eastern Aesthetics to Western Modernity

Akser looks at the establishing factors of the production mode in Turkish cinema from the perspective of finance, production regime, the role of the screenwriter, and presentation of stars. Focusing on the organization and production of the Turkish film industry, this chapter also draws attention to the change within Turkish cinema from an artisanal, local Asian aesthetic to its reemergence as a televisual western artifact of modernity. Akser later explores the use of traditional Turkish art forms in the creation of a film aesthetics within the production modes of the 1960s–1970s Turkish cinema. “Locating Turkish Cinema” concludes with a discussion of how the production modes, narrative forms, genres, and acting styles borrowed from Western cinema conform to Turkish traditional arts.