415

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONCEPT OF LAND IN THE PERIOD
OF SOCIAL REALISTIC FILMS IN TURKISH CINEMA

This thesis examines the idea and importance of land during the social realism period in
Turkish Cinema mostly years between 1960 to 1980. While examining the land it also
takes a brief look at that period from social and political effects in Turkey. The importance
of the idea of land during that period is analyzed through Metin Erksan’s Dry Summer
(1963), Revenge of The Snakes (1962) and The Wheel (1968) The developing conflicts
of the Social realistic period in Turkey tried to be explained by analyzing the recent
political and economic development of Turkey during that period of time.
Key Words: Land, Property, Social Realism, Social Realistic films
v

Bu tezde Türk Sineması’nda toplumsal gerçekçilik dönemini 1960-1980 arasındaki
toprak kavramı ve önemi üzerinden incelemeye çalışılmaktadır. Bunu yaparken dönemin
önemli yönetmenlerinden Metin Erksan’ın Susuz Yaz (1963), Yılanların Öcü (1962) ve
Kuyu (1968) filmleri incelenmektedir. Türkiye’de toplumsal gerçekçi dönemin
çatışmaları, ülkenin bu dönemdeki siyasi, ekonomik ve sanatsal gelişimi analiz edilerek
açıklanmaya çalışılmıştır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Toprak, Mülkiyet, Sosyal Gerçekçilik, Toplumsal Gerçekçi
sinema
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ETHICAL CONDUCT .................................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... iv
ÖZET ................................................................................................................................ v
TABLE OF CONTENT ................................................................................................... vi
Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 2: Relationship between People, Land and Space: Turkey's Economic Policy
Between 1960-1980 .......................................................................................................... 3
2.1. An Overview on Turkey between 1960-1980 ................................................... 7
2.2. Periodic View of the Concept of Land and Property ...................................... 12
2.2.1. The concept of land from a feudal perspective. ........................................... 14
2.3. The Reflection of the Political Changes in 1960-1980 on Art in Turkey ....... 23
Chapter 3: Rise of Social Realism in Turkish Cinema between 1960-1980 .................. 28
3.1. The Rise and Fall of Yeşilçam ........................................................................ 28
3.2. The Rise of Land in Social Realistic Films .................................................... 32
Chapter 4: Analysis of Films of Metin Erksan: “SUSUZ YAZ”, “YILANLARIN ÖCÜ”
AND “KUYU” ................................................................................................................ 36
4.1. Information About Director ............................................................................ 38
4.2. The Plot of Dry Summer (Susuz Yaz) ............................................................. 41
4.3 The Plot of Revenge of the Snakes (Yılanların Öcü) ...................................... 45
4.3.1. Revenge of the snakes in context of land ownership. .................................. 46
4.4. The Plot of Well (Kuyu) ................................................................................. 51
Chapter 5: Discussion & Conclusion .............................................................................. 58
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………60
1
Chapter 1
Introduction
Cinema is a branch of art that constantly interacts with the social structure and
may reflect the culture it emerges from. Society has a dynamic structure and cinema It is
constantly changing and transforming with its cultural characteristics. Althoughas the
societies dynamic structure evolves. Even though it is consideredthought that everything
about the cinema directly reflects the society and gives the message, the message is in the
cinema, what is meant to be told is actually encrypted in a way that is intended to be
explained and is conveyed with the discursive integrity indiscursively through the
language of cinema induring the production process. Cinema, whose source is society,
can only reflect its own situation to society with this method or develop various discourses
in order to transform society (Güçhan, 1992a: 9). This situation of reciprocity and
parallelism between social structure and cinema can also be observed in the relationship
between Turkish society and Turkish Cinema (Ryan and Kellner, 1997: 35). Especially
the reflections of economic, political and social changes in the 1960s can be seen in the
films of Metin Erksan (Uslu, 2007: 23).
Films shot in a relatively free environment presented by the new constitution in
the early 60s attract attention with their original contents (Yaylagül, 2004: 233). It can be
seen that Metin Erksan, who was engaged in activities aimed at understanding society by
explaining cultural concepts in this period, shifted his gaze from social to individual with
the effect of the turbulent period that Turkey entered and the liberal atmosphere of the
1961 Constitution redeeming in the mid-60s, and turned towards a more conceptual and
abstract cinema (Koncavar, 2000: 73). Although there are various orientations in cinema,
it is understood that the elements of passion, sexuality, crime and property form the basis
of both individual and socially oriented films of Erksan (Atak, 1995: 277).
As a result of the realisticreflective relationship that art has established with
society, the phenomenon of Social Realism emerges. In this context, Social Realism
means that art is in the society and reflects it as it is.the movement in any art form that
aims to attract attention to the socio-politic situation between classes in society. This
relationship between society and art is based on the concept of realism. This view is not
far from the realities in the society and serves to explain all the realities experienced
2
within the framework of social benefit anxiety. In this context, art should never be
considered separately from the reality of society.
With this research, I will try to define the rise of social realist cinema and the
emergence of the concept of land as a main character in the films. To do this, I will first
overview Turkey's economic policy between 1960 and 1980. While doing this, I will take
a look at the concept of land and property starting from feudal angle to relationship
between identity, belonging. After analyzing what all these bring to art, I will examine
the reflections of the social realism movement on Turkish Cinema from Rise and fall of
Yeşilçam to the arrival of the social realist cinema movement in our country. And finally
by the help of formalist approach, I will analyze That periods most awarded and
controversial director of this period, Metin Erksan’s “the ownership trilogy” Dry
Summer, Revenge of the Snakes and Well to underline my theory that the concept of land
being one of the main characters in the period of social realistic films in Turkish Cinema.
3
Chapter 2
Relationship between People, Land and Space: Turkey's Economic Policy Between
1960-1980
Throughout history, a challenging effort made by searching for the answer to the
question of what or where is the space/place in different forms and many social
academicians such as anthropologists, historians, architects, sociologists, philosophers
influence each other with the various space concepts of their own, questioning the space,
constructing the space and thinking through the space. However, studies related to
environment vs. human relations and human perception of the environment are carried
out in order to determine the principles of learning the natural environment, people and
human natural environment until the 1960s and to codify the environment of life by
learning (Göregenli, 2010: 18).
These studies are mostly carried out by architects and cultural geographers.
However, physical, sociological, cultural, geographical and intellectual conditions shape
individuals, societies and land. The diversity of these elements is within the field of
interest of many disciplines ranging from psychology to urban sciences, from sociology
to literature, and causes the relationship between people and their environment to become
multidisciplinary (Hisarlıgil, 2007:19).
Studies on the understanding and interpretation of land and its interaction with
people are discussed under many headings such as phenomenological, psychological,
structuralist, symbolic, historical, anthropological, transformational, contextual,
organismic, hermeneutic. The main reason why so many titles are used in this relationship
is the differences in the emphasis of disciplines on the objects they care about. For
example, structuralist and symbolic studies accept that space occurs with a symbolic
production and seek the meaning of space in this symbolic world. Psychological
approaches accept that space is the data in identity formation and emphasize a
sociocultural structure (Köktürk, 2010:2).
While the word "mekan” (meaning space, which is of ancient Greek origin and
passed from Arabic to our language, consists of the meanings of "being the place where
something is formed", it is now used in the meanings of "homeland, home, place of
residence" (sozluk.gov.tr). Today, the concept of space is used in similar meanings with
4
concepts such as space, space and place in fields such as architecture and design.
According to Schick, the use of space and place as different phenomena is older in
Turkish compared to European languages. While the phenomenon of place does not
contain the equivalent of experience, the phenomenon of "space", derived from "kevn",
which means "to be" in Arabic, is included in the meaning treasure (Schick, 2002).
"With the simplest definition, space is the place of a person or group. What is
determined according to the character and structure of the organization in which the
people, human relations and the reinforcements of these relations are located and cover
the borders is empty. In this context, the position differs from the domain of sovereignty,
place and environment." (Gür, 1996:44).
Shelter can be defined as safe and healthy areas that individuals take shelter from
climate conditions, rain, snow, heat and cold after meeting their daily needs. Shelter
should not be considered only from a climatic perspective. Today, people can have shelter
spaces with advanced technologies that are monitored with cameras, hot and cold airconditioned.
The shelter spaces to be designed should be in a nature that provides contact
with the land, attaches importance to natural life, and produces enough organic fruits and
vegetables for itself. It seems impossible to achieve organic nutrition and natural life in
the current chaos environment in cities. Shelter and natural life can only be solved by
architecture (Urry, 1999:47).
Considering the history of humanity, it is seen that the goals of creating the space
have changed over time. The space, which was previously organized for housing
purposes, adds new ones to this purpose over time. Spaces with living spaces are
transformed into areas where decoration and ornamental objects are exhibited in addition
to objects. Shelter loses its living space with the effect of the capitalist system. Space is
transformed into a tool of self-promotion, rent resource and saving money with goods
(Ellialtıoğlu, 2007:1).
As a member of the human familysociety, it is necessary to enable the training
oftrain highly awareresponsive designers who act fairly, respect nature, design shelters
withand has the awareness that the future generations have also rights in the resources
inof the world.
5
First of all, there is a space, and there is a person who has all the habitable features.
As in the first occurrence, people and space need to be handled together. In order to make
an accurate space analysis and improve it, it is necessary to recognize the person and
define the space with all its parameters. People often allocate large areas of space to visual
perceptions and stimuli in their brains. First, an object is seen, and it is perceived with all
its features. In this process, it is determined by many experiments and observations that
it causes emotional changes as well as perception, sensation and any stimulus sensation
and perception. Therefore, the space where people live and contain visual perceptions is
important for people (Canbeyli, 2002:48).
Space and people are intertwined and there is physical interaction. Where there is
physical interaction, it can continue its vitality with social structures that cause beauty,
cooperation and justice. While there are still warm relations in the villages, the fact that
the people living in the same apartment in the city do not know each other shows that
those who share the space need to socialize again. Due to the pace in today's business and
city life, people become alienated from the place they live in, nature and the society they
live in (Maalouf, 2004:79).
It is only human who aims to organize, evaluate and create artificial and new
environments with the elements he/she has made by not accepting the existing
environmental conditions, by making efforts and controlling those conditions with active
initiatives, and who does so with his/her behavior. People are separated from other living
things in this way, and they are separated from each other with their relationships and
differentiated perceptions. For this reason, designing for human beings is not only
connected with basic needs. Because each person is different from each other and their
personal needs vary in this context (İzgi, 1999:49).
The social aspect of a person consists of basic personal phenomena such as
identity, sense of self, personality and character, and the person's having special thoughts,
ideas, culture and experiences. When human spaces are designed, surrendering the space
to aesthetic and prestige concerns causes the meaning of the space phenomenon to be
sufficient. In order to make aesthetics rational, proportion, harmony, environmental
sensitivity, analysis, individual and functional design should be sought (Göka, 2001:68).
6
At the point of evaluating the continuous interaction process of people with space,
all parameters of the environment and people make this relationship integrative and
complex (Newell &Caness, 2018).
As can be understood from the philosophical and conceptual readings of the space,
it is a formation in which the space creates itself as a subject rather than a static structure,
is associated with its experiences and senses and makes sense after this multi-input
perception process. The space, which is formed as a result of the relationship of the person
with the space, has an objective organizational structure that is formed by the elements
that make up the space itself outside of the subjective reality that expresses the person.
The meanings attributed to living spaces are one of the most important factors in
the communication between society and individuals and in the interaction between the
environment and people. The physical environment is an environment that affects and
conveys the worldviews, judgments, values, cultures and traditions of those who live in
it and contains many meanings. In other words, the interaction with the living space is
individual. For this reason, the meanings attributed to the space may change over time,
depending on people and situations (Rapoport, 1990: 15).
The meaning of the space usually emerges with the effects of physical signs,
material, colors, shapes, sizes, furniture, etc. and concrete elements. While these concrete
elements take their place in mental maps, they are interpreted with psycho-social
situations and create the meaning of space in the cities and collective memory. The spaces
that occur and are interpreted as a result of a two-way process that operates between the
person and his/her environment turn into environmental images. The environmental
image consists of meaning, structure and identity (Lynch, 2010: 8).
Considering all these, we see that space is one of the main elements that change
people sociologically and lead the way in building character. So, land as a space, like
society and the human environment, emerges as an evolving material that affects and
changes people.
7
2.1. An Overview on Turkey between 1960-1980
With the changing politics and transforming tendencies in Turkey between the
years of 60-80, the village-based perspective left its place to a city-centered system. The
masses who moved from the village to the city left their lands behind. With that, they
have been stripped of their ground on which they have been reconciling themselves for
centuries. This, in turn, has completely changed the relationship of Turkish society with
the land. In this section, I will examine how the general socio-political situation of Turkey
between the years of 60-80 changed the society's view of the concept of land and then I
will periodically view the concept of land and property. I will try to explain property land
and landlessness and finally I will discuss its reflections on the art of the period.
The 1960s are the scene of the May 27, Revolution, which left permanent political
and social traces in our countryTurkey. The rule of the Democratic Party, which was
currently in power, is ended by military forces. With this movement, new and different
democratic units begin to form. However, while these are being done, previous ideas such
as communist, socialist perspectives considered as dangerous and prohibited ideas before
are no longer restricted. Suppressed opinions and emotions are emerging with a great pace
(Batur, 1983:1405). s a result of the accumulation of these factors, the door is opened to
the next dark times with internal and external supported movements. The May 27, 1960
coup is a fruit of the transition to a multi-party system in Turkey (Belge, 1983:846).
In the multiparty system, the phenomena of freedom and democracy bring a
different word from every angle and partisanship begins. This, in turns, helps imperialism
and capitalism to be seen in various forms. In the 1960s-70s, the industry started to
progress, and the consumption culture started to be adopted excessively (Belge,
1983:846). The foundations of the "consumption=presence" mentality are laid in this
period and maintained with a great supply at the beginning of the 21st century.
It can be said that the majority democracy entered Turkey in 1961. Because for
the first time in Turkey, such a comprehensive constitution is made in "rights and
freedoms" (Bozdemir, 1983:2656).
The coup, also referred to as the May 27 Revolution, leaves deep traces in social
and psychological terms in the people. In 1968, it was quite eventful and youth revolted.
8
Intensive discussions occur over the phenomenon of socialism, and the capitalist effects
of external forces on Turkish youth are dominant. Raids are carried out on the faculties;
bombs are exploding in the cities and student incidents continue without interruption.
These were followed by the Memorandum of March 12, 1971, followed by the events of
September 12 in 1980. The turmoil in the society leads the country to disaster in the social,
political and economic spheres. After 1960 and 1971, there was also the third open
military coup in the country in 1980. These coups have serious negative effects on the
society in terms of conscience, opinion and science (Bozdemir, 1983:2656).
In times of divisions in society, great fights are given with ideologies such as some
socialists, some nationalists, some populists, etc. As a matter of fact, this result is a result
desired by capitalist countries. While Turkish youth is struggling with terms such as
fascism, communism, socialism and capitalism by external forces, great concessions are
made with the "right-left" fight from brotherhood, unity-togetherness and national
existence (Tokgöz: 1998: 25). This is why events occur, and why people are killed. At
this point, among the young people; siblings can kill siblings, and they do this under the
name of "the search for democracy and freedom". Such group distinctions still continue
symbolically in the form of a memory of the 1980s (Sayın, 2002: 2486).
The important social, cultural, economic and political developments that
determined the 70s included a process that started with the seizure of the government by
the army on March 12, 1971 and ended with the military intervention on September 12,
1980. The political developments in the 70s are closely related to the military intervention
on May 27, 1960, which is a very important turning point in Turkish politics. The events
that caused the intervention stem from the attitude of the DP (Democratic Party), which
was in power on May 14, 1950, in implementing the reforms it aimed at (Kongar 2002:
14; Zürcher 2000 : 321; Ahmad 1992 : 46 ; 1999 : 133).
The fact that the Democratic Party, which censored the press, pressured the
unions, did not allow the left parties to express themselves and ignored the opposition,
continued this approach by increasing it in the late 1950s makes its job difficult with the
deteriorating economic situation. The protests against the government are increasing
significantly in this period, and unrest begins in the society and army. DP's policy, which
9
weakens the country politically and economically, ends with the military intervention in
60 (Ahmad, 1999: 143; Toprak, (1998) 2002: 380).
The 1960 intervention, which took place with the seizure of the current
administration by the National Unity Committee, is referred to as the period of freedoms
in Turkish political history, especially due to the Constitution issued in 1961. In this
period, students and intellectuals have the opportunity to make politics with the working
class, especially with the concepts of left-wing ideas, social justice and rapid economic
development, it begins to affect the masses. These developments on the left, which were
subjected to intense criticism of the Justice Party, which came to power in 1965, turn into
one of the dominant elements of the 1970s in both intellectual and political terms
(Özdemir 2000: 228; Tunçay (1983) 2002b: 1983).
The libertarian environment created until the second half of the 1960s is gaining
a new direction with the change of political balances. The American intervention in
Vietnam in 1968 and the protests and reactions from the people of Europe and the USA
to this intervention, the student and worker movements that started in France in 1968, led
to the escalation of worker movements and student events in Turkey in the 1968-1970
period, and pointed to the beginning of a troubled process in the social, economic and
political field (Roberts 2003: 599 – 618; Zürcher 2000: 372; Ahmad 1999: 175; Toprak
(1998) 2002: 188 – 189; Tunçay (1983) 2002b: 1986; Althusser 1975: 39 – 49).
The "1968 Youth Movement", which was called the "May 68" uprising and lasted
until the early 1970s in Paris, affected the countries in Middle East, Latin America, North
America, West Europe and some Eastern Bloc countries. For example, it refers to the
uprising of african-americans, workers and students due to the social crisis and economic
instability in the USA, the strikes called the "Red Years" in Italy, the worker and peasant
uprising, the student movements in many cities in Germany, and the conflicts that caused
street invasions and boycotts in the UK (Çubukçu 1999: 21- 22; Toprak (1998) 2002: 190
– 192; Belge (1983) 2002: 810).
This mobility, which is happening all over the world, also increases the student
actions that started in the previous years in Turkey, and the students who marched from
Istanbul to Ankara with the request for the nationalization of private colleges by
protesting the arrival of US Fleet 6 in Istanbul in 1967, occupy and carry out many
10
universities in May and June 1968. The youth, who acted again with the arrival of the
Fleet 6 in Istanbul, generally combined their actions against imperialism, especially US
policies, with their demands for the solution of the country's problems, and express these
requests in different ways in the universities they study at (Çubukçu 1999: 21 – 22;
Toprak (1998) 2002: 190 – 192).
In the early 60s, there were formations such as the Turkish National Youth
Organization, the National Turkish Student Union and the Turkish National Student
Federation, while in 1965, the Federation of Idea Clubs took the name of the Turkish
Revolutionary Youth Federation after the change of management in 1969, and after this
date, the politization process of student movements began. In the same period, it is seen
that the "right" ideas, which defined themselves as "Socialist-Nationalist", came together
with organizations such as the Young Idealists Organization, the Union of Idealistic
Quarries and the Associations of Idealistic Quarries and formed the segment called
"commando" in the 70s (Bakınd, 2001: 27 – 31; Çavdar, (1983) 2002a: 810 – 811).
Youth movements, which are focused on extremes with the guidance of the
abovementioned factions and groups, have been transformed into an armed propaganda
and struggle since the early 1970s, including actions such as kidnapping and bank
robberies, and on June 15-16, the events prepared by the AP and CHP, in which the draft
law restricting union work is protested, escalate the tension between workers and the state
(Zürcher, 2000: 72, Ahmad, 1999: 175; Çavdar, (1983) 2002a: 810 – 811).
While these were happening on the street, the Demirel Government, which could
not show an economic and social presence in the country's administration, constantly lost
trust in the eyes of the people and the Armed Forces and is declared responsible for social
events, as a result, the government is seized on March 12, 1971 (Zürcher, 2000: 375;
Ahmad, 1999: 176).
As in politics, the developments experienced after 1950 are decisive in the
economy. Industrialization in one-party power is largely carried out by the state, private
enterprise is strengthened with policies towards capitalism in the 1950s, and private
enterprise investments increase in the 60s when planned economy and industrialization
increased (Belge, 2002: 846).
11
It is stated that the "planned economy" process in the Turkish economy was
initiated for the first time by the administration of May 27, 1960 in the 1960s (Akat, 2002:
1105; Çavdar, 2002: 1082; Keyder, 2002: 1070; Ergün, 1990: 262). As a matter of fact,
the problems experienced since the mid-1950s are attributed to arbitrary economic
decisions, therefore, the idea of coordinated and planned development in the economy,
And became operational with the establishment of the State Planning Organization in
1960 (Zürcher, 2000: 385; Ergün 1990: 262).
The first "five-year development plan", which started in 1963 and was managed
by the State Planning Organization, is carried out consistently with the second and annual
price increases are realized at 6% until the 1970s (Ergün, 1990: 262). However, in the
late 60s, as a result of resorting to open finance routes again, an increase in prices is
observed and problems are experienced in the balance of payments. With the stability
package implemented, resource-enhancing methods are being developed under the
financing law. These methods started to give good results in the early 70s (Ergün, 1990:
262).
Bringing the exchange rate to a realistic level increases the export revenues and
workers' remittances. Workers' remittances, which were 100 million dollars in the period
between 1965 and 969, reached 1000000 dollars in the 1970s (Boratav, 2000: 356). The
masses formed by the member segment and the worker segment, which have a high level
of income living in the city, constitute an efficient market for the capital as the buyer of
consumer goods (Keyder, 2002: 1071).
The establishment of the consumption culture and the understanding of "existing
as much as human consumption" became evident in the 1960-1970 period with the effect
of industrialization. The masses who want to look at the future with an optimistic
perspective, nevertheless, constituted a generation that seeks identity, denies traditional
values and experiences a kind of identity crisis (Document, (1983) 2002b:846; (1983),
2002c: 1304). This situation paves the way for the formation and adoption of the
arabesque culture by the masses in the 70s. The most important development affecting
social life in the 70s is that television, which started to broadcast for the first time in 1968,
reached a level that would affect social life in the 1970s (Toprak, (1998) 2002: 378).
12
The increasing migration from the village to the city in the 1960s accelerated even
more in the 70s, and the concept of slumming turned into an important problem. The
practice of sending workers abroad, which was initiated by the Turkish Employment
Agency in 1961, continued to be in high demand in the early 1970s, but this process lost
its pace when the recruitment of workers in European countries is stopped (Apak et al.,
2002: 187).
As I overviewed above, the changing politics in Turkey between the years of 60-
80 had evolved the Turkey’s sociologic perspective permanently. The migration from the
village to city, due to the new development perspective of the politics, had demolished
the concept of land and property, which has been adopted for centuries by the Turkish
society. And when the people lost their land, they lost their purpose and belonging too.
2.2. Periodic View of the Concept of Land and Property
Land is the most basic and oldest element that people live and depend on. In
mythology, land is seen as an element of the creation of the world. The economic systems
of the Middle Ages develop depending on the land.
People shape their stories with the philosophy of coming from land ending up in
land This philosophy causes the relationship between land and people to take the form of
nails with meat. The most striking form of the relationship between people and land is
found in the verses of Tanpınar with the expression "these two from Cinis came to me as
the triumphant, divine crops of a purification made by human beings only by contacting
the land" (Altüngök, 2015:71).
Land is a food and business area in the Middle Ages. It is stated in the scriptures
that people should cultivate and cultivate the land due to the efforts of the religion to
sustain the human generation. It is possible for people to feed, protect their life and
continue their generation with those from the land.
Ownership is the relationship between the commodification item and the owner.
The owner constitutes the primary element of the property relationship. The owner can
be a private legal entity and a private person. The commodification item is the second
element of the property relationship. Movable and immovable goods are certain reificated
13
items. The relationship between owner and the reificated item is settled over time (Örücü,
1976:4-5).
The phenomenon of mülkiyet (property) derives from the Arabic word "property".
The property is used in the sense of disposition and memorandum of something with a
provision. In Latin, there are two words that mean property: proprietas and dominion. The
word dominion comes from dominius. Dominius also means ruler, master. Therefore, as
in Arabic, it can be concluded that there is a close connection between domination and
property in Latin (Güriz, 1969:12).
From the general perspective, property is a broad phenomenon that covers the
relationship between man and nature and between man and man. There is an obligation
to obtain the necessary objects in order to maintain human existence. What people need
to survive is limited in nature. It is also up to the people ability and intelligence to
transform the objects in nature into usable ones. This interaction between people and
nature forms the basis of the property problem (Güriz, 1976:12).
In every age, ownership leads to various struggles between states, societies and
individuals. The main reason for political and economic competition lies in the power
provided by property and ownership. Property-induced ideology, war and conflict
differences affect the lives of people while shaping states and societies (Göze, 1998:15).
The property's property being the same right provides the user with the
opportunity to dominate the property in a wide way. Within the framework of the current
legal order, the owner of the goods can assert this power against everyone (Oğuzman,
Seliçi and Özdemir, 2020:313). Even if a property is not used for a long time, the right to
property does not expire. Since it is a monopolistic right, the recognized powers are used
by the owner except for the exceptions. Since property has an economic value, it
constitutes the assets of the individual and can be subject to death-related savings. The
classical concept of ownership, which grants unlimited, untouchable and absolute rights
to the owner of the property right, is criticized with social thoughts and replaced by
modern understanding. Although this view is accepted as an identical right that provides
various powers on the property it owns, it also imposes different duties (Tunçay,
2004:149).
14
After all, property, as a social concept, occupies a very important place in people's
lives. The phenomenon of ownership has undergone some changes along with economic,
moral and sociological developments throughout history, shaping states and determining
the developments in my society.
2.2.1. The concept of land from a feudal perspective. The word "feud", derived
from the phenomenon of feudality or feudalism, comes from the Latin word "feudum" or
"feodum" and means "donated property in return for service". Although feudalism is
generally mentioned in the Middle Ages (476-1453 or 15174 AD) with the collapse of
Western Rome, it continued its existence for many years after the end of the Middle Ages,
gradually loses its effectiveness with the emergence of Monarchic structures in Europe,
and is not mentioned with these names in the countries it is located. The phenomenon of
feudality is put forward by 18th century thinkers and academicians. Montesqieu and
Boulainvilliers were the first to use the phenomenon of feudality. According to
Montesqieu, feudality is a management system in which the powers of central
government are shared among some local focuses (Cin and Akyılmaz;1995:15).
In ancient times, civilization was shaped by land and land-related variables. The
barren or fertile state of the land is the determinant of the development of civilization.
Human living standards are also determined according to the generosity of the land. In
these times, the change in the functioning of the land also plays an important role in the
change of the direction of civilization. People resemble bees that receive a little nectar
from each flower by traveling the land with the comfort of a long-time shortage. Since
the reclamation ability was not known at that time, migration to different lands begins
when the land becomes unable to produce. The increase in the population and the fact
that the regions visited are both remote and unsuitable for agriculture make the cultivation
of the land a necessity. Thus, as a result of long experiences, agriculture is included in
human life with the Neolotic period and settled life is started (Ritter, 1962: 1, Wise, 1946:
13 and Öz, 2014: 7).
In the Middle Ages, economics was mainly based on land. In this period,
craftsmen, tradesmen and merchants owe their assets to the land as well as farmers. Raw
materials such as flax and cotton, which are among the compulsory needs of people, are
extracted from the land, and craftsmen are needed to process the raw materials that are
15
extracted from the land by the production of the tools that farmers need. Processing of
industrial products and surplus products constitute small workshops. With the farmers
leaving their surplus products in the city in order not to fall behind their jobs, a merchant
organization is formed, and the transfer of surplus products from one region to another
creates trade and merchant. Again in connection with this, activities such as livestock and
tree planting are possible based on the land, within the framework of the opportunities
provided by the land (Öz, 2014: 7).
The concept of property is shaped within the framework of divine principles in
the Middle Ages. The rulers are the trustees of the kingdom and act as its trustees.
According to this understanding, the people who cultivate the land are not the owners of
the land but their keepers. It is the duty of the state to establish order and order in the
cultivation of the land. The cost needed for the establishment and continuation of the
order is provided by giving some of the products obtained by the tillage of the land
(Astondish, 2010:1).
In the Middle Ages, the system in which the land is cultivated is also gaining
importance due to the value of the land. These systems shape not only the economy but
also the family and social structure. Land-centered administrative systems have a very
important place in the social structure. Until the industrial revolution, land is at the center
with its importance.
2.2.2. Relationship between identity, belonging and space. The factors that
determine a person’s behaviors are various requirements. Maslow explains what these
requirements are, and which requirements are the priority with the Pyramid of Needs and
examines the basis of person’s behaviors within the framework of this hierarchy. In
Maslow's Pyramid of Needs, the need for belonging comes after physiological needs and
security needs. In general terms, definitions such as who the person is, where he is from,
who he is from, etc. are directly related to the phenomenon of belonging. Belonging can
appear as a situation and emotion that occurs when the individual and society position
themselves and the individual feels themselves as belonging there. Because although the
society defines the individual with an identity, it cannot be said that the individual has
that identity if he/she does not feel that he/she belongs to the community that constitutes
16
that identity (Aydın, 1999:12). Belonging plays an important role in the formation of
personality and the definition of social and individual identity (Spencer, 2005:41).
When a person is asked the question ’Where do you feel you belong', the answers
given to this provide information about the content of the phenomenon of belonging.
Since the definition of the phenomenon of belonging may differ according to the income
levels, economic incomes, ethnic mimics, social class and gender, each definition reveals
another aspect of the phenomenon of belonging. But interestingly, the same person can
also give many separate answers to questions about belonging that are intertwined with
each other from time to time. When the concept of migration to a different place is added
to this situation, multidimensionality naturally gains different meanings.
Multidimensional belonging also has a flexible and ambiguous side. There is no common
definition of belonging, such as modernism or phenomena similar to globalization in the
field of social sciences (Croucher, 2004: 35). When a definition is needed with all this
uncertainty and multidimensionality, it is necessary to look at the concepts related to
belonging in order to answer the question of how belonging is defined.
In defining the phenomenon of "Aidiyet” (Belonging), the phenomenon of
"kendileme" (Appropriation) mentioned by Gür is also useful:
“Self-improvement is a relationship between human and nature. Selfimprovement
is an authority that emerged in the transformation of a space or place. (...)
space is also stated as the expression of the essence of the person and the realization of
self-expression. " (Gür, 1996:107).
The individual's feeling of belonging to a place can be realized with a conceptual,
functional and emotional bond. The individual can establish an emotional bond with
spaces that have value and meaning for him/her; and a functional bond to follow certain
activities (Manzo, 2003: 52).
Individuals are socially connected to spaces. In other words, places that cover
social experiences rather than physical formations bind individuals (Low and Altman,
1992, as cited in Sancar and Severcan, 2010:296). Here, the interactions associated with
each other (or perceived interrelated interactions) are more important (Milligan, 1998:2,
as cited in Sancar and Severcan, 2010:296). Attachment to space primarily refers to bonds
17
related to emotion, but also includes bonds between some places, groups and individuals
(Gustafson, 2001a: 668).
The phenomenon of belonging refers to the situation where individuals see
themselves as a part of the space when used in an urban space and therefore feel
themselves to be responsible and rightful on that space. Commitment to the place
nourishes the sense of belonging and causes the person to be a part of the settlement
he/she belongs to (Sancar and Severcan, 2010: 298).
In addition, the idea that spatial belonging is supported by a sense of security is
also stated. Because individuals feel safe in places that are familiar to them and when this
situation occurs, their sense of belonging develops (Erniş, 2012: 144).
Belonging is reinforced in that space by using objects and traces of itself. Because
the physical bonds in the environment also play an important role in the formation of
loyalty to the place, and it is emphasized that physical characteristics are the most
important factor in the researches (Şengül, 2010: 529). In this way, the person's seeing
himself/herself in the space, reflecting on the space and feeding from it, also emerges as
a result of the person's desire to be immortal with the space and reinforces his/her
existence and identity (Sancar and Severcan, 2010:298).
When it comes to belonging in many branches of social science, one of the
phenomena that is used synonymously with this phenomenon is "identity". There is a
wide literature on the parallelism between identity and belonging in geography (Veronis,
2007; Sporton and Valentine, 2007; Ehrkamp, 2005; Mackenzie, 2004; Madsen and Van
Naerssen, 2003; Armstrong, 1998). In general, the importance of space in identity
formation is emphasized in these studies.
"Identity is the emergence of the unconscious perception of the individual about
himself/herself into consciousness" (Assmann, 2001:130). One of the factors that help the
emergence of this is the ‘space‘ and ‘spaces‘ that live in the memories of the individual
or that he/she also defines for himself/herself. In this context, the relationship that man
establishes with his spaces can be defined as the zero point of human existence.
18
“According to Alan Dundes, place is a meaningful part of personal identity”
(Ryden, 1993:64-65). Proust also adds a different dimension to this definition. According
to him, " however, 'place‘ assumes the cause of people's personalities, people are also
effective in creating the characteristic and identity of the ‘place' they have lived in..."
(Malpas, 1999:5).
Another synonym for belonging is “citizenship.” Geographers such as White and
Gilmartin (2008), Winder (2007) and Ho (2006) examine the bond between immigrants
and the countries they migrate to when they acquire the right of citizenship and residence.
In general, citizenship and identity phenomena come to mind when it comes to belonging,
and these phenomena are used as an analytical framework in the studies. Croucher (2004:
12): "Belonging is a phenomenon that includes the emotional reflections of social status,
ethnicity, citizenship, homeland and love for a place". Some scientists state that there are
various forms of ‘belonging' and that the bond to cultures, communities and places can
be expressed in words other than the word belonging (Sıcakkan and Lithman, 2005: 27).
The analytical framework to be drawn on the phenomenon of belonging, which is
defined in different, uncertain and multidimensional forms, is important. Yuval-Davis
(2006) draws an analytical framework for the phenomenon of belonging, and according
to him, belonging consists of two dimensions. The first is the aspect of belonging that is
related to emotions, that is, the place where the individual feels himself/herself. The
second is the dimension in which socio-spatial relations related to belonging policies are
seen. Fenster (2005) creates the classification of belonging in a similar way and defines
belonging in two dimensions. The first is the "personal dimension", which is related to
the basics of the sense of belonging, and the second is the "public, official and institutional
dimension". This dimension is related to citizenship and whether or not it belongs to a
place.
As I analyzed the feudal perspective for land it is clearly appeared that land
directly initiates with identity and belonging. And the synonym for belonging is
“citizenship.” So that there should be a great connection between land and people.
2.2.3. People, land and landlessness. In the Middle Ages, the story of humanity
is seen as coming from the land and returning to the land. In this period, the importance
given to the land by humanity is shaped by the value it imposes in the time interval of
19
coming from the land to the land. The analogy of Aşık Veysel, that is "two-door inn”, is
the summary of the human story. Until recently, being without land is considered
equivalent to being rootless, and landlessness is described as unfortunate. Almost
everything is shaped by the land, and the role played by the land in the life of the people
during the ancient and medieval ages has an important place. The relationship between
people and land takes the form of finger and nails. This relationship continues intensively
until the industrial revolution, and with this process, even if the weight shifts in different
directions, the land maintains its importance until the technology revolution. Even
today, the relationship of the old generation of people with the land is developing
differently from the new generations, and the land is as valuable to them as their children
(Zoroastrian Spitama, 1998; Bilge, 1946; Berat, 2004).
Land is the basic element of mythology and one of the four elements of
philosophy. Due to this importance, it is included in countless literary works. In Turkish
mythology, land is included, and the formation of the world is told through the land. In
Greek mythology, the formation of the world and the universe is shaped by Gaia. (Töret,
2019: 272).
"I am the one who speaks crisply while walking/ My heart, my art, my tongue is
the land" (Asya, 1976:19). As seen in these verses of Arif Nihat Asya, man attaches
importance to land at a level that equates him with land.
"Give me land/to lie on/door window land/the land you want to caress with your
hand/the land you want to smell/the bone of your flesh is land" (İnal, 1950: 1). These
lines of Azra İnal describe the transformation of the relationship between people and land
into love.
Aşık Veysel,
"I hugged many considering them a friend.
My faithful love is the black land
I gave it a seed, it gave me four vegetable gardens.
My loyal love is black land" (Berat, 2004: 246).
20
With these series, Aşık Veysel realistically describes the loyalty of people and
land.
“They are those who work in the land, and sow and reap, and do not give thanks
to anyone for their food and drink. Thanks to them, the world is made " (Firdevsi, 1956:
40). In Firdevsi's Şehname, he presents the human perspective on the work and life of the
land.
The fact that the land is always a field of food and work results in the Holy Books
focusing on the continuation of human existence, nutrition, protection of life and the
continuation of the generation, and giving advice to people that they should value the
land. With the advice of both experience and scriptures, land determines the essence of
people's habits, life perspectives, understanding and thoughts as a culture. However, the
land becomes a measure in determining the character, personality and social behavior of
the person. The view that working in the land will save the person from gratitude is still
compatible with the understanding of gratitude. Again, the emphasis of the free individual
and the dialectic created in its contrast are of importance. The prophet Muhammad stated;
"Whoever cultivates or plants trees and people, animals and birds eat from them, this is a
charity made by that person (Marx and Engels, 1992:74).
It is the only living person in nature who determines himself/herself depending on
the land and at the same time determines the land with his/her consciousness. As a result
of one's understanding of nature, life and self with his consciousness, his integration with
land, which is the first condition of his labor, forms a strong bond between man and land.
As Adem commented on Marx's view, the fact that both the laboratory and the land, which
is the raw material warehouse of that laboratory, are owned as the first business tool on
land, is not because of the objective condition of the person's labor as his own labor
process, but because he sees the fact that he is already in nature as the inorganic nature of
his own labor. In other words, the fact that this natural object, which the person can test
his/her own labor, accepts as "natural" as a condition of his/her labor, not as a result of
his/her own labor, reveals an unnamed belonging between the person and the land (Yahya
b. Âdem, 1964: 106).
This relationship of belonging between land and people does not make it
legitimate for people to acquire land as property. On the contrary, the responsibility of
21
man towards the community of which he is a member requires to prevent man from
putting the land on his own account. Since its first existence, man has not been alone in
nature, he is also inadequate to determine nature alone and to provide living conditions
alone. As Marx stated, "Just as an isolated person cannot speak, he cannot acquire
property on the land. If anything, it makes a living out of it, as animals do. ” (Marx and
Engels, 1992:75).
Marx and Engels also writes, "If it is assumed that the objective conditions of
labor belong to him/her, he/she is assumed to belong to a community that specifically
provides his/her relationship with the objective conditions of labor. Its relationship with
the objective conditions of labor is ensured by its existence as a member of the
community; on the other hand, the real existence in the community is determined by the
specific form of its ownership in the objective conditions of labor. The property provided
due to its presence in a community can be seen as communal property that does not give
private property to the person by giving only the possession of the land;.” (Marx and
Engels, 1992:75).
The existence of human beings only with the community and their responsibility
to that community is based on the fact that people are "self-conscious and social species".
The process that constitutes this is the realization of the wishes and desires of the society
and people as a whole on a cooperative basis.
“People often define and meet their desires and needs in cooperation with others.
This makes people social species. Since each individual evaluates his/her choices and
options on the basis of his/her calculation of the results of these desires and needs, he/she
also belongs to self-conscious species." (Hahnel, 2004:19).
In addition to the transformation of people into a value only by a society in the
form of social species, the land, which is the first step of the productive abilities of
people's labor, does not have the power to create a value alone. ”The classics state that
there are three forces that create value: Anamal (Monetary Power), Labor(Manpower),
Land(Nature Power)" , Marx, on the other hand, argues that value can only be formed in
the process of combining labor and fixed capital investments (Hilton, 1984:12).
22
In this context, it is seen that the land cannot create a value with its natural power,
on the contrary, it has a use value. In this case, it can be said that the "value creation" of
the land can only be formed by the productive power of human labor in the land. This is
due to the fact that the land with a certain limit (which cannot expand by itself) meets the
labor and can be collected in the hands of those who continuously generate income from
it. J.J. Rousseau expresses his view on the subject with the words "A person who can
translate a piece of land and say ‘this is mine’ and find individuals simple enough to
believe in himself is the real founder of civilized society" (Mason, 1979:59).
It can be said that the issue of land sharing is not welcomed on the sovereign front.
The more dangerous landless peasantry is for the survival of this area, the more
indispensable it is for them to donate this land to landless heaps. In both sections, it is
seen that there is a land-induced voltage in this case. This tension, with a revolutionary
position to be directed from the peasantry front:
"Changing the attitude of a rural mass towards fate means reviving it, preventing
the total control of the city elites, the essence and the bourgeois on the political and
developmental life; this means that while there is poverty in large masses, certain groups
take power, and prevent them from living in abundance and wealth" (Albertini,
1972:224).
What will be understood by the prevention is the violation of the boundaries of
the conflict between the large landowners and the employees of these lands both at the
point of class, management and ownership from the peasantry front. The class relations
supported by the property relationship and the intertwined structure of the management
relationship supported by these relationships transform the origin of the problem into a
solution. "Whoever mentions production mentions the legal and economic relations
between producers arising from the production tools and the ownership of these tools"
(Aksoy, 1969:6). For this reason, the accumulation of land ownership in the hands of the
rulers in the countries where the production is carried out over the land or in countries
whose economy is based on the land indirectly on livestock or agriculture turns many
issues from the structure of the state to social relations in those countries into open for
discussion. It is the social, legal and commercial relations/power/rights that transform the
23
land into a problem, the economic value and this economic value feeds. If the above
rhetoric of Rousseau is to be continued:
"By filling the ditch or throwing out the stakes, the person who told his/her peers‘
Do not listen to this liar; when you forget that the land belongs to no one and the fruits
belong to everyone, you will be ruined ’would protect humanity from so many murders,
wars, crimes, horrors and miseries" (Erdost, 1988:105).
In Attila İlhan's Barakmuslu Cemetery poem the poet writes; “I know myself as
the land, the land knows me as the father, even in my village women are loved like the
land.”( İlhan, 2003: 116) Its lines are one of the most concrete depictions of how the
concept of land has been internalized in Turkey to the point of being humanized. As I
wrote in the chapter, the relationship between land and human has continued to evolve
from the early ages to the present day. We can see the reflections of this never-breaking
bond in many places, such as art. According to a definition art is a diverse range of human
activity that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency,
beauty, emotional power. Art is a reflection of society, specially emotionally sensitive
ones like Turkish society.
2.3. The Reflection of the Political Changes in 1960-1980 on Art in Turkey
Large-scale transformations in cultural and social structure, problems caused by
the concept of industrialization, migrations from villages to cities, rapid developments in
communication and technology, and other factors related to them constitute the
continuation of a formation that dates back to the 1970s (Berk and Özsezgin, 1983 : 118).
In this period, extreme ends, which aim to express themselves in different ways
with the effect of unbalanced and rapid capitalism, polarize around ideological discourses
such as "right", "left", "nationalist", "Islamist", and this division and diversity observed
before political parties are also reflected in daily life, and those who adopt the same ideas
form their own common clothing forms, theater groups, broadcasting bodies and cultural
associations (Ormanlar, 1999:73). In terms of showing the dimensions of polarization in
the society, the emergence of "rescued regions" under the control of "rightist"/"leftist"
organizations in every neighborhood towards the end of the 1970s and their easy
becoming targets due to the political views or parties preferred by people are typical
24
examples of polarization in the society. Conflicts on the streets, deaths, boycotts, protests,
martial law practices and bans on the press make the masses uneasy, and the effects of
politicization are felt intensely in all segments of society. The words revolution and
proletariat are the fashion discourses of the period of class warfare, social justice,
equality, worker anthems, revolutionary romance, national liberation, statism and
replanning, and dying for the sake of their beliefs, homeland, militancy and
internationalism are rising values (Baydar, 1978:2).
On the other hand, the 1970s can be considered as a transition period in terms of
technological developments in Turkey. Especially in the automotive industry, significant
developments such as increasing the facilities, factory equipment, machine
manufacturing, and starting domestic production such as machine tools are observed.
Industrialization, which increased in this period, not only leads to the formation of
consumption culture, but also to the acceleration of migration from the village to the city,
the increase in the population of cities such as Istanbul and Ankara and the increase in the
number of workers who want to go abroad. The most significant effect of the migration
movement from the village to the city is the increase in slum settlement and especially
the formation of "arabesque music" and "arabesque culture" in the 70s (Document, 1983:
846; Kongar 2002: 592). Arabesque culture is a result of the masses, who have left their
traditional values and feudal identity in their village, experiencing adaptation problems
to urban life and creating their own system of values (Kongar 2002: 592; Land 2002:
251).
Another factor that had an impact on social life in the 70s is the rapid spread of
television in this period. The most important effect of television's participation in social
life is that the current cultural policies of the state are conveyed to the masses in the most
practical way due to the proliferation of communication opportunities and biased
broadcasting. Television is seen as a tool in the education of the society, it is expected to
inform the public about the problems in the world and in the country and to strengthen
the public-state relations, and in particular, it is aimed to spread the television broadcast
to the most extreme points in the country in order to "expand the manners and knowledge
of the villagers" (Özsezgin, 1998: 50).
25
Television also affects the perception of the world, lifestyle and entertainment
understanding of the society, for example; domestic and mostly American foreign series
broadcast on TRT create social environments where neighbors are included as well as
watching with the family, and different lifestyles and different worlds are visible with
these series (Tunç, 2001: 122). Television also starts a new process in advertising, and
until then, the advertising in the monopoly of newspapers affects the masses much faster
through televisions (Toprak, (1998) 2002: 378).
It is seen that the cinema sector, which is struggling with censorship, which is one
of the dominant problems of the 70s, is looking for ways to cope with economic
difficulties on the one hand and to compete with television, which continues to have an
increasing impact on the masses on the other (Okan 1974: 5; Text 1975: 10). As a result
of this situation, "sex freak" begins in the cinema and causes unqualified films to be
released in theaters. The terrorist incidents that increased towards the mid-1970s and the
increasing social opposition play an important role in the increase of political discourses
in literature, cinema and other art branches, and Islam and political themes gain weight
in cinema during this period (Okan 1972:3). As a matter of fact, Yılmaz Güney, who
made his debut with the film "Umut" he made in 1970 and received three awards at the
Adana Golden Cocoon Festival in 1971, marked political cinema in this period, and the
film United Roads, which belonged to Yücel Çakmaklı in 1970, is considered as the first
example of the movement called "Islamist Cinema" (Özön, 2002: 1900).
On the other hand, the concept of arabesque, which has become widespread in the
field of music, has begun to attract attention in the field of cinema. This new narrative,
which emerged in 1971 with the film "Give a Consolation" directed by Lutfi Akad and
starring Orhan Gencebay, is the way of expression of communities that live in big cities
and rebel with the effect of economic and political crises (Evren, 1999:135).
Similar to cinema, the effects of social transformation and 12 March are seen in
the literature of the 1970s. In the period after the 1971 military intervention, the problems
caused by migration to the city and unplanned urbanization, the acceleration of the
politicalization in the society and the external migration caused by unemployment
constitute the main issues of literature (Özkırımlı, 2002:599). In these years, the most
discussed issues of novels are the political and economic situation of the country and the
26
necessity of changing the current order (Ertop, 1977:13; Özlü, 1977: 16). The most
important basis of the views that the order should change is the main texts of socialism,
which have been widely translated since the 60s.In novels, the problems of intellectuals,
working class, bourgeoisie, urbanization, and the situation of villagers and villagers are
frequently discussed (Bilir, 2001:9; Naci, 1977:17). In this period, novels examining the
relations with the system and addressing the bourgeois lifestyles of the intellectuals who
lived in the cities and were raised with the values of the West with a cynical language are
also written. Oğuz Atay's "Incapacitated" and "Dangerous Games", Çetin Altan's "A
Handful of Sky" and "Great Detention" are among the novels written within the
framework of this understanding (Naci, 2002:617).
In the music of the 1970s, polyphony dominates in a way that reflects the spirit of
time. Casinos continue to guide the entertainment sector in this period, and it is possible
to broadcast a musical work on television after the inspection of TRT (Tunç, 2001: 143).
In the 70s, it became fashionable to make "Anatolian Pop" and listen to pop. In particular,
this genre of music, which was popularized by Barış Manço and fed by proverbs, local
sayings and Anatolian folklore, is also adopted by groups such as the Modern Folk
Trinity, the Üç Hürel and the Mongols (Tunç, 2001:140; Meriç, 1999:200). In Turkey,
which first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest with Semiha Echo in 1975, the
names of today's well-known singers such as Sezen Aksu, Yeliz, Nilüfer, İlhan İrem,
Füsun Önal and Erol Büyükburç are being heard in popular music. The poor and fatalistic
masses, overwhelmed by the cost of life, migrated from the countryside to the city and
could not adapt to the city, try to relax with the songs of Ferdi Tayfur and Orhan
Gencebay, one of the most important representatives of "arabesque music". The changing
political face in Turkey is also reflected in music, and actions, boycotts and strikes lead
the vast majority of artists to take a more open attitude. Folk music also attracts attention
in this period. Folk music artists such as Neşet Ertaş, Aşık Mahzuni Şerif and Aşık İhsani
are known and watched by the masses, but they cannot go to TRT for political reasons.
Artists such as Cem Karaca, EdipAkbayram and SeldaBağcan are adopted with their
songs that express the realities of the country (Tunç, 2001:146; Meriç, 1999:200).
The change process, which spread to every field of art in Turkey, pushed people
to question the sociologic structure of the country. Inquiring people, started to produce
art that were out of the ordinary. This has completely affected the popular culture in
27
Turkey. Yeşilçam cinema system, which was built on unrealistic melodramas, also got its
share from this change. And started to produce film that reflects real problems that are
affecting the people. And one of the biggest issues that has to be deal was the land and
property struggle.
28
Chapter 3
Rise of Social Realism in Turkish Cinema between 1960-1980
3.1. The Rise and Fall of Yeşilçam
State incentives, censorship and political power changes have an important place
in the history of Turkish Cinema. One of these incentives is the reduction of the municipal
tax received from films in 1948 to 25% in domestic films and 50% in foreign films. With
this incentive, many new production companies are established in a short time and a rapid
increase in the number of domestic films produced is observed. In addition, the
developments in the Democratic Party period (1950-1960) reflect both the structure and
the content of the cinema sector. After the Second World War, economic developments
in the world are also reflected in Turkey. Investments in industry and transportation cause
the migration from the village to the cities to accelerate. Although a significant part of the
village films were shot in Istanbul, in these films, the break from the house or village is
presented as a break from the mother, and the village films movement starts in this way
(Arslan, 2004:112).
The Second World War had a profound effect on cinema in the world, especially
in Europe. The neorealism movement emerged in Italy during this period. Italian
Neorealism II. It was a product of the political, economic and social structure formed in
Italy after the World War II. “More than being a school or an art movement, neorealism
was a new way of looking at and representing the reality of war-weary Italy and the
Resistance in the cinema of the period, and part of an orientation towards reality.”
(Morandini, 411).
The 1950s was the period when migration to the city became evident and was
included in the Turkish cinema. In this period, the village stands out with its
backwardness and pressure, Istanbul is seen as the place of hope and modernity as the
opposite image, and is described as a "city with golden realm" in cinema. Although
Istanbul is seen as a symbol of a hopeful future, it also includes the meeting of the
immigrant peasant population with the urban lifestyle, tension and fear of tradition
(Suner, 2009:71).
29
Over this era, there had been three major military coups in Turkey that overthrew
constitutional governments on May 27, 1960, March 12, 1971 and September 12, 1980.
While the March 12, 1971 intervention was limited to overthrowing the government with
a military memorandum; in 1960 and 1980, the army took over for a while; political
parties, institutions and unions were closed. Another feature of these two coups is that
they prepared a new constitution (Kongar, 2000: 34). The identity and progressive
perspective adopted by the Republic have been accepted by cinema for many years.
However, as a result of the ongoing coups and economic crises, belief in modernity begins
to be damaged. Periods of pressure and crisis bring people closer to home as a safe place.
However, globalization policies implemented especially after the 1980 coup weaken not
only the borders between countries, but also the boundaries of private-publicspace.
Nurdan Gürbilek mentions, every period of pressure on the street, workplace, and
political organization inevitably forces people to lock themselves in the house. But in the
80s, this was different: It is not this kind of introversion or withdrawal from the personal
that marks this period. On the contrary, there is an explosion, and until recently, many
things that are considered confidential are presented to the public (Gürbilek, 2001:55).
The transformation of privacy into news, information and image, becoming a
matter of public opinion, causes the distinction between private and public space to
weaken. This situation causes the private and safe nature of the house to disappear and a
sense of homelessness to occur.
Each of these political traumas also seriously affects Turkish cinema. Although
the 1960 coup pioneered the start of the coup tradition, it made it possible to prepare a
more progressive constitution in 1961. With this Constitution, the right to employment,
rest, unionization, social security, collective bargaining, the right to strike and the right
to a fair wage for social justice are guaranteed. The social vitality that developed after the
coup enables the growth of cinema and different trends such as social realism in cinema.
The emergence of the period when social realistic films were made is directly related to
the termination of the Democratic Party regime by the army and the adoption of the
progressive 1961 Constitution (Daldal, 2005: 56-57).
The films of Metin Erksan could be considered as the main examples of this
situation; Gecelerin Ötesi (Beyond the Nights) (1960), which is about a group of young
30
people from the same neighborhood robbing gas stations, criticizes the Democratic Party's
slogan "A millionaire in every neighborhood". Acı Hayat (Miserable Life) (1962) tells
the story of a couple who wanted to get married but could not find a house due to financial
difficulties, in which Erksan pointed to an urban problem. The effect of Yeşilçam
melodrama is quite evident in both films. There is a homogeneous identity structure seen
in social realistic films, but on the contrary, class conflict is seen in Yeşilçam melodramas.
These films emphasize working class identity and class belonging. The house is often
under attack from the outside, from greedy bosses or from a corrupt social order. Films
address problems such as workers' working conditions, unionization, housing problems
or social problems caused by migration. Stories are shaped around rich-poor, workerboss,
landowner-village oppositions. Apart from village films that highlight problems
arising from the traditional social structure of the village, the internal-external distinction
continues and the threat often comes from outside beyond traditional belonging and
identity. In the 1950s and 60s, a generation of directors emerged, including Ömer Lütfi
Akad, Metin Erksan, Orhon Arıburnu, Atıf Yılmaz, Muharrem Gürses, Memduh Ün,
Halit Refiğ, Ertem Düzenç, Duygu Sağıroğlu and Orhan Elmas. Despite Yeşilçam's
mainstream and profit-oriented work, directors who try to create a cinematic narrative
sensitive to social problems continue to make films in difficult conditions and in a limited
way. From the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, a social realistic cinema continues to examine
economic and social distortions such as class contradictions in the East, social injustice,
rural-to-urban migration and feudal structure (Suner, 2005).
The pioneering name of social realistic cinema is undoubtedly Yılmaz Güney. In
the 1960s, he became very popular as an actor in action-focused films as an anti-hero,
nicknamed "Çirkin Kral” (The Ugly King). Güney, the pioneer of revolutionary cinema,
has become the most well-known director of Turkish cinema on the international
platform, especially with its success at the Cannes Film Festival. Yol (The Road), written
by Yılmaz Güney while he was prison and directed by Şerif Gören (1982), shares the
Golden Palm award with Costa Gavras' Kayıp (Lost) film at the 1982 Cannes Film
Festival. This film is about a group of prisoners on parole. However, the minds of the
characters coming out of the prison are imprisoned by traditions, superstitions, taboos
that dominate the outside world and society. In this film, homelessness is discussed and
the characters face fear and death in their homes. Yol, who received a 17-year ban due to
31
political pressure conditions after the coup, was released for the first time in 1999 in
Turkey. In the 1970s and 1980s, directors such as Zeki Ökten, Şerif Gören, Erden Kıral,
Ali Özgentürk, Yavuz Özkan, Ömer Kavur and Yusuf Kurçenli continued to produce
films as other important names of the political cinema movement. However, the 1980
military coup placed serious restrictions on the production and viewing conditions of such
an opposing and critical cinema.
Since the mid-1970s, Yeşilçam has been dragged into a crisis step by step. The
primary reason for this crisis is inability to keep pace with changing market conditions.
Although a large number of films are made and the number of audience is high, Yeşilçam
was never a stable sector. Instead of reinvesting the profits from the films in the film
industry, the producers invested in other sectors. Therefore, while the commercial
explosion in the 1960s and 70s made some producers wealthy, it did not constitute a
reliable film industry. As Suner points out, "Towards the end of the 1970s, the beginning
of the collapse of Yeşilçam cinema, the film sector was in a sensitive position against
fluctuations in the market and changing supply-demand balances" (Suner, 2005:13). In
addition, the transition to color film in the late 70s, the widespread use of television and
the economic crises and the increasing production costs deepen the crisis.
Finally, in parallel with the neoliberal policies after the military coup, foreign
distributors are also allowed to enter the Turkish market. In this context, Warner Bros.,
United International Pictures, opened branches in Turkey in 1989 and undertook the
distribution of American films. Another development is that private television
broadcasting, which started in the same period, brought a new understanding of
entertainment to television (Dorsay, 2004:12-13). As a result of all these developments,
film production fell to tens in the early 1990s.
As can be understood later, in parallel with the end of Yeşilçam and rise of Private
TV channels, Hollywood interventions are important developments for Turkey's New
Cinema. Even if there is an appearance that private televisions detain cinema audiences,
a large part of the new wave films are possible with the financing provided by private
televisions.
As a result, the effectiveness of Yeşilçam started to decrease in the late 70s.
Television broadcasts, which started in 68, showed their effects on the cinema sector in
32
the 70s. Since the family-centered audience moves away from the halls, the producers
invest in sex laughter for male audiences in order to produce solutions to the cinema and
make a profit. The increase in color films is another reason for the shaking of the Yeşilçam
industry. Although the increases in color films attract the audience to the cinemas, the
increase in film costs were among the reasons that negatively affect Yeşilçam. Another
event that came to the forefront in Turkish Cinema in the 70s is Yilmaz Güney's
understanding of realism, which started with the film Umut (Hope) (1970). This
understanding lead to the emergence of Young Cinematographers who prioritized social
and political issues and rural problems at the end of the 70s. Afterwards, the social and
political period experienced in the process after the 1980 military coup also had an effect
on cinema. In Scognamillo’s interpretation, the forbidden sex comedies were replaced by
arabesque films. In addition, with the effect of censorship, instead of social criticism
films, women's problems, creative aches and individual psychology were left to the films
that deal with. As a result of the amendment made in the Foreign Capital Law at the end
of the 80s, American companies entered cinema halls in Turkey and thus a new era began.
Changes in film theaters, developing cinema technology, video phenomenon and the start
of television channels cause Turkish cinema to take on a new structure in the 90s and
Yeşilçam's producer-centered cinema understanding is changing completely
(Scognamillo, 1998:191).
When Turkish cinema is examined in the general framework throughout the
period dating back to 2000, the distinction between director cinema and popular cinema
is seen. The dynamics of the Yeşilçam period were also changing. The producer-centered
economic structure in Yeşilçam today includes various financial resources together with
the producer. After the 90s, the family-centered domestic film audience of the 60s
replaced the young generation with the audience profile. The formula-based narratives in
Yeşilçam are mostly delivered to the audience through television series (Kuyucak,
2010:14).
3.2. The Rise of Land in Social Realistic Films
The environment provided by the 1961 Constitution. made the 60s in Turkey, the
most civilized and free period in the republic’s history. In anthis environment of freedom
whose boundaries are drawn within the framework of law, there iswas an enlightenment
33
period and the critical approach, which has been seen as a danger of communism for
years, is also paved the way. in cinema. Art products that contain managerial
andcontained social criticisms arewere being produced and distributed. ClassicalAlso,
classical works in world literature can be translated into our language without considering
ideology (2010:68). However, this freedom had also been seen as a danger of
communism. Pösteki describes the 1960s as a turning point for Turkish Cinema in terms
of using the cultural and social effects of cinema. Social realistic cinema emerged in these
years, Esen defines (2005:9).
The phenomenon of social realism is based on the perception of reality in the
reality-cinema relationship and is founded on the function of the camera to
reflectonlyreflect only the visible. The phenomenon of social reality, in this context,
includes local elements rather than universal elements. For this reason, Turkish social
reality includes only the concepts that Turkey has experienced throughout the social and
historical process (Daldal, 2005:36).
Land culture is a village culture and the villagers are bound to the land. Village
life requires a lifestyle that depends on the land and nature. Since most of the population
lived in the village during the Republican period, it is considered important to solve the
problems of the villagers and to find solutions to their problems, and therefore, steps are
tried to be taken to improve agriculture and to solve the land problem. Since
industrialization is seen as the cause of economic problems worldwide, the importance of
agriculture and villagers is increasing (Kaplan, 1997:278).
Socialist realism is about politics, women, low-income people in big cities,
workers and Turkish villagers. After 1923, land ownership, pressure of landowner, water
problems, land, ignorance of villagers, unemployment, poverty and the government
looking at these problems from a distance were the main issues in the novels that deal
with the village and peasantry. These works, which were criticized in later periods,
became the voice of the socialist opposition in the 1960s with the name of "village
literature" in the intellectual and political life environment of the 1950s; they also serve
as a source of socialist and opposition producers of Turkish cinema (Kalkan, 1993:67).
TheThis period in which Turkish cinema is sensitive to the folk beliefswas mostly
inspired by social realistic wave that have an effect inwas dominating the Turkish
34
literature called the village literature, especially this literary adaptation begins with films
and continues with studies inspired by these films.. Compared to otherusual Yeşilçam
formulated films, village films reflect the beliefs and natural lives of Turkish people in a
more realistic way. As a matter of fact, in terms of reflecting Turkish traditions, local
characteristics and folk beliefs, real references are seen in the films of certain writers and
directors. Examples of these films are "Susuz Yaz” (Dry Summer), "Yılanların Öcü”
(Revenge of Snakes) by Metin Erksan, "Adak” (the Vow), "Kuma” (Second Wife) by
Atıf Yılmaz, "Irmak" (River) by Lütfi Ö. Akad, "Sultan Gelin" (Sultan Wife) by Halit
Refiğ, "Toprak Ana" (The Mother Earth), "Ağrı Dağı Efsanesi” (The Legend of Mount
Ararat) and "Açlık” (Hunger) by Memduh Ün. In this period, the frequent shooting of
village films can also be attributed to the Social Realism movement. With this current
effect, village films with social content were shot in the village (Özgüç, 2009:17).
As in all branches of art, cinema is a reflection of society. especially popular
cinema. It conveys the demands of the audience by processing current issues such as
conflicts, expectations and troubles in the society. Social realism was the hot topic, and
for this reason, the concept of land was at the center of Turkish cinema between the years
of 60-80. All the popular directors of the period started to make social realistic,
land/identity based films to meet the demand from the audience. In the next part, I am
going to analyze Metin Erksan’s three films trying to center the land issue. I will benefit
from the formalist approach to analyze them.
The reason why I chose these films is that they were the most awarded and
controversial works of the period. Erksan called these three films: Property trilogy.
(Sussuz Yaz, Yılanların Öcü, Kuyu). “I was very interested in three property phenomena:
Property of land, property of water and property of man." The film deals with land
ownership and deals with rich-poor, strong-weak conflicts. For the peasant, land means
love, status, food and is therefore considered sacred. The film, which was adapted by
Metin Erksan from Necati Cumalı's novel "Susuz Yaz” (Dry Summer) with the same
name, mainly deals with water ownership and the property quarrel of the villagers who
will starve due to irrigable soil(land) in the background (Karaömeroğlu, 2003:106).. That
I dealt with in my three films" he said. but the thing that cannot be shared in these films
is the land. In addition to the male-female relationship, the land relationship is also
35
dominant. So I can say that in both three films, beside the man and woman heroes, one of
the main characters is land.
36
Chapter 4
Analysis of Films of Metin Erksan: “SUSUZ YAZ”, “YILANLARIN ÖCÜ” AND
“KUYU”
The director, known as İsmail Metin Erksan (1929-2012), was born in Çanakkale
in 1929. In Erksan’s three films, which are among the most discussed directors in the
history of Turkish cinema, both intellectual attitudes and aesthetic and philosophical
depths come to the fore (Kayalı, 2004: 20). Social realism is one of the basic factors that
affect the perspective of the director who is interested in cinema with the university years.
Erksan, who never ignored the material reality in society, made his films from this basic
perspective. This perspective not only ensures that Erksan’s films have a strong
connection with the society, but also stands out in terms of offering an aesthetic and
philosophical depth to the films.
It is possible to identify some prominent themes in the films of Metin Erksan. One
of these themesthe most dominant is the property of land problem. For the director, who
approaches the issues from a social realistic perspective, land and property is the most
basic obstacle in society, and since it is one of the realistic variables, it shapes human
relations and characters in this context center. Therefore, this attitude allows Erksan to
add a separate depth to his characters in the distinction between good and evil. However,
sexuality and the evaluation of women as a commodity also stand out as the themes
covered in Erksan’s films. No matter what the issue seems to be on the surface, there is a
deep struggle with demand or lost of land. Smilar to the Turkish sociocultural structure
of that period, Erksan’s films has the same theme.
In the themes where the concept of land is centralized, Erksan refers to people
who own and want to own land and those who cannot, and describes the people
psychologies and relationships created by this situation. Therefore, it is observed through
a general review that ownership stands out in a perspective determined by people's ethical
attitudes. This approach is also important in terms of showing his social realistic attitude.
(Altıner, 2005: 137). With this, Metin Erksan makes the land an object of desire.
37
It is seen that the theme of land ownership comes to the forefront from different
perspectives in the three sampled films (Yılanların Öcü-1962, Susuz Yaz- 1964 and
Kuyu-1968) to be examined in this study. These three films stand out as three very
important films not only for Metin Erksan's own filmography but also for the history of
Turkish cinema. In these films where property of land is centered, the change in human
relations and behaviors is also described through property (Sim, 2009: 171). Land appears
in different forms in Metin Erksan's films. Sometimes as an object that is needed,
sometimes an object that cannot be shared, and sometimes an object of desire. In all of
them people versus land. As Aron Sorkin says “Drama is intention and obstacles,
somebody wants something, something is standing in their way of getting it.” The reason
I choose these films is, in Erksan’s trilogy the land is both obstacle but also the intention.
The conflicts of the social realistic films are almost all the time “land” based. I
chose Erksan’s films because they are the most striking and significant examples that
reflects the characteristic of the social realism period in Turkish Cinema. As I said above
all three films centering the land conflict from different perspectives.
I am planning to analyze the narrative structure of these three films based on the
three-act structure of depiction of Robert McKee in his book Story. In order to create a
land-based analysis, I will examine the main conflict in the movies through the emergence
of conflict in McKee’s structure. Robert McKee defines setting in terms of period,
duration, location, and level of conflict. With these four dimensions he frames the story's
habitat (McKee, 1960:182). After that he starts to ask some basic questions such as “How
do my characters make a living, what are the politics of my world, what are the values in
my world?”. In order to surface the conflict of the story. In my analysis, I will try to
examine the subjects of the films with the answers to such questions and try to find the
inciting incident. McKee says at the beginning of the story, the protagonist is living a a
balanced life, however the inciting incident supposably radically changes the balance of
forces in the protagonist's life (McKee, 1960:188) In most cases, the Inciting Incident is
a single event that either happens directly to the protagonist or is caused by the
protagonist. Consequently, he's immediately aware that life is out of balance for better or
worse. (McKee, 1960:192) With the analysis, I will try to show that in all three films,
radical change emerges from a land-based situation and that land is at the breaking point
of the developing story.
38
According to Altıner (2005: 138), although the processing of the concept of
property is a theme that brings along the phenomenon of class, it is stated that the main
emphasis in Erksan’s cinema is not the conflict between classes. Although the property
problem is covered in the films titled Susuz Yaz (Dry Summer) and Yılanların Öcü
(Revenge of Snakes) in the study area of this research, a class distinction such as
landownership does not stand out. These films describe owners harming others in order
to protect their property.
In all three films, ownership of land comes to the fore fundamentally
problematically. Because in Erksan’s films, property is usually the source of crime and
what changes human relations. As a matter of fact, Erksan included the following
statements in his interview in the context of the property problem for the films in the
sample of this research:
“I have some thoughts on the concept of property. I'm very interested
in the concept of property. I am very interested in the three concepts of
property. Land property, water property and people property. In order to
convey my thoughts on land ownership, I adapted the film "Yılanların Öcü"
from the novel with same name by Fakir Baykurt. I chose the novel because
it is related to the theory that I will tell. This film is related to land
ownership. Then I made a film on water ownership, which was "Susuz Yaz”
(Dry Summer). There, I chose the story of Necati Cumalı to tell the idea of
ownership on the water. Thirdly, I could not find a book about my idea of
property on peoples, and I did not look for it much; therefore, I wrote and
shot the film "Kuyu" (Well) (youtube.com).
4.1. Information About Director
Metin Erksan, who was born in Çanakkale in 1929 and whose real name is İsmail
Metin Karamanbey, started to write films in 1948. The script named Binnaz written by
Erksan, who graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Literature, Department of Art
History in 1952, is transformed into a cinema film by Mumtaz Yener. His first film is
about the life of Aşık Veysel in the Dark World. This film, which faces the censorship
barrier, appears to the audience with various changes (Özgüç, 2003:75). Inner and outer
39
shots of the film are made in a village environment and based on a story that has been
lived. In this context, the film has realistic features (Battal, 2006:163).
After the Dark World, Erksan, who made commercial films called Yol Palas
Murder and Cingöz Recai, left the film called ‘Evrak-ı Metrukesi of a Dead Woman’ in
1956 and went to the army (Özön, 1995:62). During his military service, he was working
on a documentary titled ‘World Airmen in Turkey'. After the military service, in 1958,
Çakırcalı made a film called ‘The Efesi of Nine Mountains’, which describes the life of
Mehmet Efe, and this film is also stuck in censorship (Esen, 2002:67).
In 1959, Metin Erksan made the film ’Efesi of Nine Mountains'. The 1959 film
'Efesi of Nine Mountains‘ aims to ensure that it can be understood that the film ‘Dark
World’, which describes life in Anatolia in a plain language, has made a significant
technical progress compared to the previous films (Scognomillo, 1973:96).
The integrity of meaning in cinema, as well as transferring them to the audience
as the story and the way to be followed while transferring them is also very important.
When the directors tell the stories to the audience with their own unique way of telling
them, they deserve to be evaluated on their own. At this point, Metin Erksan appears in
Turkey Cinema (Bozkurt, 2000:253). While discussing how cinema should be and
presenting ideas, Metin Erksan with a visionary identity draws attention as a different and
innovative cinema eye in our country (Kuçuradi, 2018:2).
Metin Erksan not only symbolizes his stance with his cinema but also plays an
important role in the development of Turkish Cinema with his censored films, discourses
about cinema and innovative style. Erksan approaches the domestic elements with the
understanding of non-militant cinema and proceeds by producing together with this trend
based on Italian Neo-Realism (Kayalı, 1994:91-92).
Erksan adopts a cinema style that expresses the idea of populism and attaches
importance to the feelings of the people, and argues that the success of a cinema will
come from the people. The exit of Erksan cinema is quite different from Yeşilçam. It is
seen that he acted with an expression style outside the system and with his innovative
style against the unchanging patterns of Yeşilçam. Apart from the unchanging
sovereignty of Yeşilçam Cinema, Erksan follows a different path from Yeşilçam in terms
40
of narration, reproduction and story technique. As a result, it begins to produce social
realistic films (Altıner, 2005:57-58).
In Metin Erksan's book titled National Cinema Fight about his cinematic
personality, Halit Refiğ includes the following sentences:
"Metin Erksan is a passionate person. The passion to be strong, to be an important
and respectable person, to make good cinema, to tell people and to know their hometown
is strongly felt in Erksan's life and in all his works. Erksan's passions and the passions of
the characters in his works fuse to form the unique world of his films, which is not found
in the works of any other Turkish director. Erksan achieves the first condition necessary
to create a great work of art and establishes its own world. Erksan, whose restless
surroundings try all the ways to reach a conclusion, who does not give up fighting for a
certain purpose, even constantly competes with himself." (Refiğ, 2005:117).
Again, for Halit Refiğ (2001), Erksan is one of the few people who argue that
cinema is an art, he is an artist and the owner of the art of cinema is a director at a time
when cinema is not accepted as art by art circles (p.57). By not including himself, he
states that the two most important directors in Turkey are Metin Erksan and Lütfi Akad.
He states that the cinemas of Metin Erksan show deep traces of western thought and art,
but when the rebellious, troublesome and lonely people in their films are examined, shiitewestern
features emerge from beneath them rather than western individualism. He says
that Erksan's original, passionate cinema personality and his art, which is rooted in
traditional culture, should be dealt with more deeply without wasting time with the
Bergman or Fellini personalities of the Turkish filmmaker.
Metin Erksan brings sexual violence to the point she aims at in her films. Erksan
includes scenes related to sexuality in all his films. The point reached by sexuality is
violence and this violence exists among the heroes (Özgüç, 1994:85).
Metin Erksan 19. In order to reach the truth of people, as in the realistic novel
writers of the 19th century; while dealing with the people to be told, he makes a conscious
observation of their inner and outer worlds and reflects them in his films. In this context,
it is seen in Erksan's films that he was not indifferent to the events of the period (Stenier,
1971:665).
41
The property relations and social consequences of the land reform, which
belonged to Metin Erksan and was blocked by the landowners in the Revenge of the
Snakes, Dry Summer and The Well films, which are called property trilogy, can be seen.
In this order, which is beneficial to the landowners rather than the peasants, the Law on
Landing the Farmer, which was enacted in 1945, also renders it dysfunctional and the
problem of rural social order, which operates autonomously outside the sphere of
influence of the state, is conveyed to the audience by Metin Erksan with property trilogy
films (Altıner, 2005:63). In this context, the semiotic analysis of Revenge of the Snakes,
Dry Summer. And The Well films belonging to the director is carried out.
4.2. The Plot of Dry Summer (Susuz Yaz)
Susuz Yaz stands out as one of the examples of literary adaptation frequently seen
in Turkish and world cinema. Adapted to the cinema screen from Necati Cumalı's work
of the same name, it is one of the principal films processed in the context of property of
land from Metin Erksan. While Metin Erksan evaluates village life in the context of
property relations over water in this film, he also makes significant references to the
female problem in society through land ownership.
The story of Dry Summer can be briefly summarized as follows: In the film, water
comes out from the land of the two brothers. One of these brothers is Osman and the other
is Hasan. Osman is the older brother. Osman does not want to share the water with other
villagers by stating that the water belongs to them because it is coming from their land.
However, his brother Hasan does not agree with him. Osman prevents other villagers
from benefiting from the water by building a dam around the water. However, since
Hasan's power is not enough for his brother, he remains silent even if he is on the side of
the villagers. The villagers pressure Osman because they claim rights from the water.
Because the fields of the villagers have started to dry out due to drought. The villagers
start a fight against Osman. In the fight, Osman causes the death of one of the villagers.
However, his brother Hasan takes the blame and goes to jail.
Osman, who caused his brother Hasan to go to jail, rapes his wife after his brother
goes to jail. Hasan's wife's name is Bahar. One day, Osman reads in the newspaper that
someone named Hasan died in prison and shows this news to Bahar and tries to convince
him that Hasan is dead. However, the deceased Hasan is not the husband of Bahar.
42
Osman's aim is for Bahar to give up on Hasan, thus, have Bahar. However, after a while,
amnesty occurs and Hasan gets out of prison. Having learned all the facts on his way to
the village, Hasan kills his brother Osman. This scene is an important stage in terms of
describing the land property relations in the film. Because after killing Osman, Hasan
removes the set that prevents the water from passing and releases the water to the fields
and obviously to the land below. Osman's body is seen floating on the water.
4.2.1. Susuz Yaz on the problem of ownership of land, water and women.
There is a property-based relationship between water, women and land in this film by
Metin Erksan. The theme of ownership stands out as one of Erksan's frequently used
themes. However, it is observed that the subject of women and love in rural areas is also
examined in the film. As a matter of fact, Osman tries every way to have his brother's
wife., his intention is actually wants to be the only owner of both land and the woman. In
this context, the film deals with women not only in the context of love or sexuality, but
also through gender norms. Particularly, the clear demarcation of the position of women
in social life is among the important examples of this situation.
Erksan makes two center of intention. One of them is woman and the other one is
the land with the water on it.
While establishing this equation, Erksan made room for a third relationship as
well as bilateral relations and associated the concept of land here. In this context, in
addition to the female and male figures in the film, land as a strong element is integrated
into the main structure of the film as a character. Because from the beginning to the end
of the film, land ownership goes hand in hand with women's ownership.
The film, which started with the water coming out of Osman and Hasan's land,
focuses on the property of this water and the consequences that it brings. In other words,
land and its ownership are at the center of these relations.
The property problem discussed here and the people typology created by this
problem actually stand out as one of the basic problems of both philosophy and sociology.
As a matter of fact, Rousseau includes the following expressions in his work The Source
of Inequality Between People: "The first person to be able to surround a piece of land
with a fence and say ‘this belongs to me' and find pure people to believe in this has been
43
the real founder of civilized society (Rousseau, 2004 :384). Because according to
Rousseau, man is equal and free in the state of nature. However, ownership relations have
negatively affected people's nature and relationships, especially ethically corrupted them.
Also in this film, property of land is the main trigger that builds the all the
character’s attitudes. The main intention turns out to be the land that the water passes
through.
The situation of the Osman and Hasan brothers (especially the situation of Osman)
exemplifies this corruption through the ownership of water and reminds the story of Abel
and Kabul, the first two brothers expressed as good or bad. In this story, while Cain
symbolizes evil, Abel is a symbol of goodness. As here, the story of Osman and Hasan
describes the dialectics of good and evil. However, this problem of being good and evil
is only handled on the basis of property through the nature of people. This is the most
important issue. Because property is not only a simple commodity where money is
earned, but also a basic dynamic that guides social life and even relations. Possessiveness
is almost synonymous with sexuality. This situation makes the land stand out like a movie
character. Metin Erksan's description of the subject in this respect is important in order to
reveal his social realistic attitude (Battal, 2006: 174).
The film "Dry Summer" received the Golden Bear Award. According to Sim
(2009: 186), it was effective for the film to handle the story with contemporary norms in
receiving the award. Because both conflicts in village life and land ownership are known
issues. However, ownership has been considered as an important contemporary feature to
process such relationships in a decisive way. In addition, property in the film is dealt with
only in the context of the law and the law, which is not simply processed. As a matter of
fact, the gendarmes who came to the village are among the prominent examples of this
representation. Although it was not observed in any class situation between the villagers
who had water and the villagers who did not, it is obvious that this situation resulted in
Osman being selfish. However, it is also observed that there is no other class phenomenon
such as landowner (aghaism) in the film. This shows that Erksan deals with property as
property and discusses its effects on human relations.
Although ownership starts over water, it continues with land, which is another
phenomenon that water is connected to. In fact, water and land are seen as intertwined
44
phenomena here. Although water stands out in the property plan, the land issue is
processed underneath depending on it. Because, as Hasan stated in the film, water is the
blood of the land. Therefore, Osman, who does not give water to other fields, actually
causes those fields to remain cropless and enables his own field to earn more. Therefore,
it brings the importance of land ownership as well as water ownership. The depiction of
a living land with blood is one of the good examples of the ownership of the land as a
character in its own right in Turkish cinema, especially in the social realist period.
The reflection of property relations on the social field and social relations should
be emphasized both in the Dry Summer film and in other films. This problem leads us to
an understanding that although they examine the land issue from different perspectives
such as Rousseau and Marx, they agree that it affects human behavior. Because when we
foresee that there is no water in the film and that there is no property relationship, it can
be concluded that there will be no many events in the film. Of course, reducing the source
of all evil to the property problem is a very conservative approach. However, it is clear to
what extent property directs human relations. As a matter of fact, if Osman thought like
Hasan when the water emerged and shared the water with other villagers, a significant
part of the problem could be solved before it emerged. Here, just like women, land and
water are seen as commodities that cannot be shared.
Ownership and people who are firmly committed to this variable take care of their
own interests rather than seeing society and others. Because modern society, together
with its property relations, has turned into things that think about each other and compete,
not solidarity. Calling man a reificated item is the alienation of man from himself arising
from his excessive tendency towards property. Because, unlike thinkers such as Hobbes,
Rousseau emphasizes that man is good in nature and that the property relations that
emerged with civilizations corrupt him (Işık, 2017: 82). It is observed that the property
theme in Susuz Yaz film also works within this framework in general.
According to Halit Refiğ (1971: 116), the director Erksan moved to the village for
the film Susuz Yaz and examined the relations between people in a realistic way. This
gave him the opportunity to describe the film much better. . In this context, Erksan
observed not only simple human relations but also the place of women inthe land and
society relations and reflected this situation prominently in his work. As a matter of fact,
45
another problematic discussed in the context of property in the film is women. In the film,
both male and female relations are processed in a way that represents the patriarchal social
structure. Making look woman is equal to land. This also reflects the society’s look on
women. Since the film is a social realistic reflection of Turkish society, it can be said that
the similar social structure continues today, although it partially changes.
The masculine and patriarchal structure in the film manifests itself both in the
relationship between Hasan and Osman and in the relationship between Bahar and Hasan.
In the relationship between Hasan and Osman, although Hasan expresses his opinion on
the sharing of water, he says to his brother Osman, "You are my elder brother, I cannot
argue with you". However, the other scene where the patriarchal structure stands out in
the film is that Hasan takes responsibility for Osman's murder. There, Osman reveals his
patriarchal superiority by saying that he will look at the fields. The masculine dominant
attitude in the film is taught through Bahar. First of all, the title money to be paid for
Bahar is expressed in the film. This shows that women are also part of property relations.
On the other hand, Osman also means Bahar when he says that his lands have expanded
and they need people to work. However, Bahar is also a part of the classical genderist
structure that does housework. Therefore, the relationship between Bahar and Hasan is
again shaded and shunned in the context of property relations, that is, it becomes
worthless. In addition, Osman forcibly molests Bahar, the wife of his brother Hasan. In
the film, it is seen that this process is also processed through a kind of passion for
ownership (Yılmaz and VatanSever, 2019: 441).
Property relations and desire to possess cause people's behavior to change,
radicalize and become selfish. However, as it is clearly covered in the film, it causes
conflicts of interest to occur, even if not through a class conflict. As a matter of fact, in
the film, the villagers gathered and marched on Osman. Therefore, property stands out as
one of the basic dynamics that determine relationships in a social realistic sense.
4.3 The Plot of Revenge of the Snakes (Yılanların Öcü)
Adapted to cinema from the novel of the same name of Fakir Baykurt, film titled
Revenge of the Snakes is about two families and their arguments on property of the land.
The film depicts an ordinary village family with Bayram who lives on his own land with
his mother, wife and child. Bayram's mother's name is Irazca and his wife is Hatice. The
46
argument begin with emergence of Haceli, who tried to build a house in front of Bayram’s
house, causes the arguement to begin. In fact, the land Haceli wants to build a house on
is the common land of the village. The headman sells this land to Haceli and Haceli wants
to build a house on this land. However, Bayram and his family do not want a house in
front of their house, and they also question how the village headman sold the common
land of the village to Haceli. This is how the friction and arguement between the two
families begin. Although Haceli's wife once wanted to marry Bayram, this did not happen
and Bayram married someone else. When he learns this, Bayram sleeps Haceli's wife. On
the other hand, Haceli kills an animal of Bayram and attacks his mother. Therefore, it
stands out in terms of showing people's changing attitudes in the context of property and
rights seeking problem in the film. With the arrival of the district governor to village in
the film, the struggle for seeking rights in the film has gained a public and legal
dimension.
4.3.1. Revenge of the snakes in context of land ownership. As stated in the
previous titles, at the center of the film Revenge of the Snakes is centering the property
problemof land issue, and in particular the land ownership problem and the struggle to
claim rights. In other words, one of the main characters of the movie is nothing but the
land on which a war is fought. In addition, as in Susuz Yaz, how peoplepeople’s change
human relationsof behavoir in the name of property is described on a social realistic level.
Because the property relationship is not only reduced to the issue of home building in this
film, but also placed in the focus of the conflict. As a matter of fact, Irazca, who is the
mother of Bayram, at the end of the film, uses these expressions while going to the
province to complain by riding a bullock wagon: "While snakes were snakes, they took
their vengeance, we stand humbled in front of our enemy even though we are people.
Shame on us. It is beneath people dignity. We will make our complaint”.
These statements are extremely important in terms of demonstrating rights
seeking awareness in villagers. On the other hand, it is seen that the snake metaphor,
which also gives its name to the film, is part of a certain meaning. While the mother
Irazca, who went to the province to seek her rights in the final scene of the film, actually
sets a precedent in terms of seeking rights, on the other hand, this situation is reinforced
through the snake. Because in one scene of the film, Bayram's son Ahmet hit a snake with
a stick and killed it. Towards the end of the film, Ahmet's aunt was stung by a snake. The
47
mother Irazca interpreted this situation as the revenge of the snakes and emphasized that
her own family should learn from it. In addition, the snake scene is also processed on the
neighboring woman in the village. The neighboring woman says that a snake entered her
house and asks Bayram for help. He reproaches by stating that snakes have attacked here
as well. Therefore, it is stated that even snakes should not remain wimps where they are
avenged and they should give up their right-seeking struggles.
At this point, Irazca states: “Woe to us. It is unworthy of people dignity”. This has
a great importance in terms of expressing the struggle for rights brought by the propertybased
conflict in the film. Because it is not worthy of people dignity, he emphasizes that
there is a struggle for seeking rights in the heart of man. In this case, giving up this
struggle and crawling means that man is alienated from his own natural being and from
his own dignity with the expression of Irazca in the film. Therefore, Irazca struggles with
her mother and son Bayram. Because Irazca was beaten by Haceli, her daughter-in-law
lost her baby and she lost her lamb. Irazca tells this situation to the district governor. Since
the district governor is aware of the situations in the village, he cancels the right of land
purchased by Haceli.
While the issue of land ownership is discussed in the film, on the other hand, the
struggle arising from this relationship is discussed. So much so that it is not the issue of
property, but as if the practices of mutual struggle become more prominent. Since Haceli
would build a house in front of Bayram's house, the struggle is mostly fought by Bayram's
mother Irazca. In fact, Irazca herself wants it to be like this. Bayram and his family are
also struggling with each other alone. Therefore, what is important is the passion, courage
and struggle arising from this loneliness (Scognamillo, 2003: 67).
Although in both films the main intention is the ownership of land, obstacles are
slightly different. In the film "Revenge of the Snakes", land is handled differently than in
the film "Dry Summer". In Dry Summer, while property stands out with the water source,
a land-centered property problem is processed here. On the other hand, while water is a
more vital phenomenon, the land ownership in the film Revenge of the Snakes is not vital,
but also includes legal problems. Therefore, the basis of ownership is questioned again in
the film. In fact, Erksan states that he thinks about the concept of property in the
interviews he gives in different ways. In the context of Revenge of the Snakes, while
48
analyzing the concepts of deed holder or citizen, he mentions that the homeland is
common. In the thought of Metin Erksan, the situation stated by Rousseau is included in
the emergence of property as a main civilization problem. As previously stated, this
means that a place is surrounded by a fence and this place is mine. However, how the
legitimacy of saying this is your own always comes to the fore as a fundamental problem
in the context of ownership.
In Revenge of the Snakes, the land issue is actually evaluated in the context of a
struggle for rights. Because the headman and the district governor, who represent the
public sphere, also participate in the land property issue. However, Irazca, as the injured
party, also sets out to apply to the court at the end of the film. In addition, when Haceli
walks up to Irazca, Irazca again refers to the legal struggle with the expression of breaking
into this house. The district governor who came to the village also refers to a similar
situation. As a matter of fact, the district governor poses a question to the headman as
follows: "Is this house was left from Haceli's father?" The headman states “No, he bought
it”. Upon this answer, the district governor asks from where and from whom. As Altıner
(2005: 138) stated in this mutual dialogue, it can be said that it is a reference to the
variables that Rousseau questions the basis of property.
Although the struggle of Bayram and his mother Irazca is emphasized in the film,
it is necessary to look at the property problem by Haceli. As a matter of fact, Haceli wants
to buy a land by paying for it and build a house where he bought it. Therefore, he is also
right in his own right. Because he bought the land by paying money. However, these
payment transactions and the sale of the relevant place by the headman are not both ethical
and legal. It is not ethical to build a house in front of the house, nor is it legal for the
headman to arbitrarily sell a place belonging to the village. The property conflict has led
to different solutions on both sides. The bundle of relations, alienation and conflict
brought about by the property and rights conflict seen in other films are also skillfully
processed in this film (Sönmez, 2010 :125). Haceli has dug a foundation to build his
house. However, the mother Irazca refilled the foundation with the sand. In addition,
when Irazca learns that Haceli's adobe has dried up, he suggests to his son Bayram to
break these adobe and a dialogue takes place here:
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Irazca: This is the way of the world. We don't like them because they placed their
house in front of our house. But if they desist, we shall surely love them.
Hatice daughter-in-law: I don't know if we would. I wonder.
Bayram: We would love them of course.
Irazca: We would love them, one should. In the world, people have to love each
other. If they don’t, the days don't go on. If you don’t, you won't know you are alive. You
pout. Your neighbor pout. What will be the end of it? A man should make love in this
world.
In this dialogue, it is actually seen how important love and understanding are, even
if Irazca fills the foundation he dug with sand to resist Haceli or breaks its dried adobe.
Therefore, property relations change people's behaviors and attitudes.In summary, the
relationship between two people can take on a different dimension when land and
property, as another character, come into play.This applies both to Haceli and to Bayram
and Irazca. What Erksan wants to emphasize in the film is the social realities that change
depending on the property. Although it is mentioned in an Anatolian village in the film,
it can be said that the structure in Bayram's family is partially different from the
expectations. As a matter of fact, since Bayram's father passed away, he has his own
family and mother Irazca and Irazca fights directly against Haceli and does not bring his
son Bayram against Haceli.
There are two main reasons why Irazca has a say here. The first is that it has a
hard structure and the second is that despite the patriarchal structure in Anatolia, elderly
women have a say. However, on the other hand, both Irazca and her daughter-in-law
Hatice are usually an example of male-female role sharing by doing housework. A similar
situation applies to Haceli's wife. She is also in a housewife role that does mostly
housework. However, since it is a village society, women also play a role in the field.
Irazca's courageous and conscious role is also very important for the destruction of the
classical ignorant peasant woman image. She is not only courageous and stubborn, but
also a woman who seeks her right through legal means (Özgüç, 2006: 56).
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Another detail that stands out in the film is that Haceli's wife used to be in love
with Bayram. While the two families are in dispute with each other, although the
forbidden relationship between Bayram and Haceli's wife is not considered as a rematch
arising from the property conflict, it cannot be said that Bayram has a pure ethical attitude.
As a matter of fact, later, they break the adobe of Haceli with his family. Haceli steals a
lamb of Bayram and slaughters it. The headman's guidance to Haceli was also effective
in slaughtering this lamb. However, the construction of a house in front of the house has
started to alienate its people characteristics from both sides. This emphasis on alienation
stands out as one of the most important emphasis. In fact, although the concept of
alienation has not been evaluated from a socialist perspective, it can also be seen from
this perspective. Because the values Irazca stated in the conversation on love with his
own family begin to differ when there is a conflict of property and rights. This situation
causes the problem to arise when people become alienated from their own feelings and
existence.
The headman’s objective of stealing and slaughtering the lamb of Bayram is to
give a feast for the district governor who is coming to visit the village. Here, it is seen
that the management and attitude of the headman are both unethical and illegal. Therefore,
when the person who should be the eastern referee is like this, relations have become even
more harsh. Because when he learns that his adobe is broken, Haceli immediately runs to
Bayram's house and attacks Hatice, who is doing laundry in the garden of the house.
Bayram beats him, and villagers arrive and break the fight. During this fight, Haceli’s
wife miscarries her child because she is pregnant. The headman's summoning Bayram
and putting him in the falsetto as if he did not make it himself also causes the conflict to
climb. But both Bayram and her mother continue to struggle with courage. This is another
issue that Erksan dealt with together with the property problem in the film: To fight
without despair and to seek their right before the law (Teksoy, 1963: 67).
The land conflict, which forms the basis of the film, is surrounded by the themes
of justice, love and struggle. What cannot be shared is land and the obsticals are reduced
by this. At the end of the film, Bayram's relative is stung by a snake and when Irazca
goes to help the said relative, she says the following sentences as a summary of the film:
“Even when snakes are mere snakes, they take their revenge on us. We stand humbled in
front of our enemies, even though we are people. We are not as powerful as snakes. Shame
51
on us. It is beneath people dignity. A man should know his enemy and always take his
revenge. We will make our complaint”. The snake metaphor here is also one of the clues
to how land culture has penetrated into the film.
This is how the film ends and Bayram takes the path of the prosecutor with
his family. At this point, not only the situations related to ownership of land and human
relations in the film, but also the example of the struggle to claim rights stands out as an
important variable. In the film, two different perspectives, people and land, are blended
on a common denominator.
4.4. The Plot of Well (Kuyu)
The film titled Kuyu is the last link of the trilogy of Metin Erksan’s cinema on
property. In this film, the director, who describes the property on water and land in the
other two films, examines the people cruelty on peoples in the context of the property
relationship. The script of this film is based on a newspaper report. Erksan, who went to
the region where the news was reported on a news he read to the surveillance, scripted
the film as per the news. According to the news, a man falls in love with a woman. But
she does not want him. And the man rapes the woman by force and drags her through the
mountains. After the prisoner gets out of prison, he comes back and haunts the woman.
The news and the film also proceed through the narrative in general. However, Metin
Erksan did not reflect the incident on the screen in the same way. He made his own
additions. He reinterpreted the news as a scenario.
The film begins with Fatma bathing in the stream and Osman watching her
secretly. Osman is immediately impressed by Fatma and is passionately attached to her
with a sick feeling. Osman asks Fatma to come with him and marry him nicely. Since
Fatma does not accept this offer, Osman ties Fatma's hands and starts dragging her.
Although Osman gives Fatma a day to think about it, Fatma says she will not consent.
Osman rapes her forcefully.
Osman, who is tracked by the gendarmerie, starts to walk in the mountains with
Fatma. Meanwhile, Fatma's hands are tied. Even if he tries to escape, he cannot succeed.
However, Osman falls asleep one day and Fatma escapes from Osman and returns to the
village. Osman is captured by the gendarmerie and goes to jail. Osman is actually Fatma's
52
neighbor. Fatma's mother blames Osman's mother for this incident. However, since
Fatma's mother and father are both old, there is nothing they can do against Osman.
Osman asked to marry Fatma many times, but he could not convince Fatma. As soon as
Osman gets out of prison, he finds Fatma again and the story continues in a similar way.
Osman abducts Fatma to the mountain again. Fatma always looks at Osman with hatred
because she does not like Osman at all and does not want to. While walking in the
mountains, Osman is exhausted again and Fatma runs away again.
Since Osman is passionate about Fatma on the one hand, the villagers cannot
oppose Osman on the other. Fatma has to resist alone and has no backing to take care of
her. Osman does not give up his stubbornness and love. Osman, who is struggling with
heat, goes down into the well one day to get water while going to the mountain. Taking
this opportunity, Fatma immediately throws the big stones she can find into the well and
fills the well. Osman dies. Fatma, who killed Osman, then commits suicide by hanging
herself.
4.4.1. Ownership of People on People: Film titled Kuyu. As Metin Erksan
stated, the well film is the last link in the property-themed film trilogy. The film also
embodies a pathological passion on the woman along with the idea of ownership. While
Erksan deals with the property of people over people as the main theme, this time he
places the land in the background. Throughout the movie we see the land as the creative
playground .When Osman gets out of prison and abducts Fatma again, he has an
ambivalent attitude towards Fatma. On the one hand, he loves her. He wants her to love
him too. However, he uses force because he cannot find a response to his love. On the
other hand, he uses a beautiful language against Fatma from time to time and tries to show
her mercy. But Osman is a bully who tries to dominate Fatma by force. Only his passion
or love will make act humanely sometimes. As a matter of fact, in one part of the film, he
states "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a house and a fire pit?". Saying this, the script
underlines how life might be different if they actually owned land. So here, main intention
is again the land issue and this time the obstacle is not having a piece of land. All conflict
starts from this paradox.
However, although Erksan says that human ownership is emphasized on human
ownership, masculine domination is not evaluated independently from human ownership
53
on gender relations and the roles that society assigns to men and women. For example, if
the slave master relationship was described in the film, the human ownership status on
human beings could be examined more clearly and only through property. However, the
emphasis on male and female roles in this Well film should also be analyzed through
ownership. As a matter of fact, when Osman gets out of prison and abducts Fatma for the
second time, he robs her and ties her to a tree half-naked. In the meantime, there is a
conversation between them as follows:
Osman: I have slept on the roof of a prison for years for your sake. You can either
say yes to me. Or I will not let you be with anyone else. You are now my woman. Aren't
you tired of wandering these mountains? No one will marry a kidnapped girl.
Fatma: I oathe you and all men. You're not abducting me, you are abducting death.
Is it is within humanity you do? Look at the state of me. Even an animal wouldn't do this
to a person.
This dialogue depicts how gender roles affect the perception of male-female
relationships in terms of showing the ownership of the person on the person in the film.
First of all, Osman refers to the sexual intercourse that he forced on Fatma with the
sentence "You have already become my woman". In other words, the fact that a woman
being the wife of a man is determined by this sexual contact. In fact, this sexual
relationship is also explained by Osman through ownership or the theme of a film. As a
matter of fact, sexuality refers to the ownership of a man-based woman with stereotypes
such as "you are mine, you have been mine, you will be mine". In addition, Fatma and
her mother take part in another scene in which the roles of women and men are
emphasized in the film. Her mother told Fatma that there should be a man in charge of
the woman, that there is someone who wants you, a little old, but rich. Here, the approach
of the woman to have a man shows the property status of the man over the woman.
In Fatma's answers, it is shown that what Osman did for the sake of passion was
actually a kind of human exodus and alienation. Because Fatma refers to Osman's
alienation from her own human existence by saying that animals do not do what you do.
However, the fact that Osman tied Fatma to a rope and dragged her afterwards in the film
also shows that he treated her as if she was something, property, or property.
54
Although the property of a man is explained through passion, this is a pathological
feeling as well as unlawful. Therefore, the feeling that Osman has for Fatma is not a
romantic love relationship, love or a beautiful feeling, but a sick thing. What Metin Erksan
wants to emphasize in the film is this diseased property structure on human beings.
Since the film is taken from the newspaper news from a real life story, it is also
effective in describing the social realistic structure. However, both in this film and in the
other two films examined, village life was conveyed to the screen with all its reality. In
this film, where the events of the characters are handled in a very realistic way, a realistic
narration stands out. The scenes in which Osman dragged Fatma stand out in this context.
However, according to Sim (2009), the rope that Osman dragged Fatma has different
symbolic meanings. Since the director takes Fatma's draw in a wide perspective, they are
both seen separately alone.
Osman's dragging Fatma with a rope actually shows the property relationship and
shows that this property is a bodily and physical provision. As a matter of fact, Fatma told
Osman that he was abducting death not her. In fact, another important distinction emerges
here, although it is made in a simple and cliché way: spirit and body. Although there are
occasional expressions such as the owner of “my soul” in romantic relationships, the main
property is physical property. In the context of Kuyu, this property is physical property.
In this film, property is the sexual property of the man on the woman. Therefore, the rope
that holds them together is the rope of this ownership. In fact, since both the virtue and
chastity of women are evaluated in this way, women are oppressed in the context of body
and physical property. As a matter of fact, after being kidnapped for the second time,
Fatma's mother tells Fatma that she should get married and that she is in a bad spot for
the village. In addition, Osman told Fatma that no one would marry a girl who was
abducted to the mountain. However, the opposite should actually be true in itself. Because
he is a villain who raped a girl by force. But honor and morality are also mostly discussed
over women's physical property and women's property of men (Akıncı Yüksel, 2016:
131).
Fatma, who is advised by her mother that she should marry, was put into a
wedding with a person who is older than her. But Fatma runs away from the wedding.
Fatma goes to a tree and hangs herself. But at the last moment, a man comes and saves
55
her. Fatma's desire to hang herself also shows the psychological situation she is in. She
was raped as a woman and turned from her doorstep in a marriage she did not want. The
man who saved Fatma from death is also a man who escaped from prison and was
sentenced to death. This man also escapes and lives in the mountains. Now Fatma goes
after him. However, the gendarmerie is looking for Fatma. Because Fatma is about to get
married and her future husband wants her to be found. Fatma's future husband also
frequently says that his expenses are a waste. Here, too, a kind of property relationship is
established. Because this man regards the woman as a commodity. There is no romantic
element in the film, and although the woman is seen as worthless, she is reduced to a part
of the property.
Osman's mother tells what happened during her prison visit and Osman gets very
angry. Because he actually thinks that he has taken Fatma as his property. Fatma's future
husband is still after the expense he has made. Fatma's parents rejected the girls. Another
relationship emerges during this period of the film. Because Fatma went willingly with
the man who saved her. Just as Osman's Fatma relationship is a sick and property-based
relationship, the Fatma relationship with the man to be executed is not. The attitude of
human ownership over human beings - as seen in the case of Osman - causes human
instrumentalization. In other words, Osman can hardly see Fatma's emotions, her
existence, and begins to look at her as a property and a tool. This approach also results in
Osman's alienation from his own humanitarian values.
Since the gendarmerie are chasing the executioner, they shoot him and capture
both Fatma and the man. Fatma, who has been looking at Osman with hatred since the
beginning of the film, cries behind Mehmet. This is an important variable for emotion
transitions in the film. However, Fatma who comes to her house is also excluded by her
family. Her parents call their daughter a disgrace. However, Fatma was both raped and
forced into a marriage she did not want. No one cared about her human existence and
existential status. This is the conceptualization called becoming a reification.
Out of prison, Osman first finds and beats the man who wants to marry Fatma.
Meanwhile, Fatma, who was kicked out of her house, started to work in a place where
she was played. Osman finds Fatma here and smuggles her back to the mountain. In these
scenes, Osman regards Fatma as his property. Fatma, who did not say yes to Osman again,
56
starts to drift into the mountains with a rope. These scenes are like moving a person's
property or belongings. Because Osman's treating Fatma as his property has
instrumentalized her.
Fatma's hatred also increased in the last scene of the film. Since Osman is very
thirsty, he sees a well and goes down to the well. When Fatma sees Osman descending
into the well, she starts throwing the stones she takes at Osman. Even if Osman struggles,
he cannot survive and dies there. Fatma, who killed Osman, kills herself by hanging
herself on the rope.
In an interview given by Metin Erksan about this scene of the film, there is a
different evaluation. At the end of the film, Erksan says that Fatma, who committed
suicide, "I wouldn't make her commit suicide now". She would sit at the well and cried,
conveying the idea that he would finish the film like that (youtube.com).
Although there have been ideological criticisms of the well film, Metin Erksan's
main goal is to examine the theme of ownership from different perspectives in three films.
The criticisms were that the villagers should be shown ignorant and cruel (Soner, 1969:
14; Uçakan, 2010: 41). These criticisms are not criticisms in terms of cinematography
and they are irrelevant. Because the well film is scenarioed based on a real event.
However, Erksan's goal is to process the property.
In all three films, the social realistic variable manifests itself predominantly both
in the shooting locations and in the scenario itself. Relations between people are shown
to the audience with all their reality. It can be said that there is a socialist effect as the
effective ideology of the period for these three films where property is at the center.
However, Metin Erksan evaluated the property issue in terms of cinematography rather
than reducing it to a socialist context.
Another phenomenon that stands out in the films depending on ownership is the
struggle of people to seek rights and to fight with courage. The characters in this structure
are exemplified in all three films. In addition, property has been skillfully processed to
affect human relations, even to change them, to make people do things they would not
do. On the other hand, violence against women and masculine structure are clearly
processed in each inner film.
57
As a conclusion, in all three of Metin Erksan's films, we see that it is the concept
of land that creates the characters that shape human relations. Sometimes it is the way to
achieve happiness, sometimes it is a tool that enables to dominate over others, and
sometimes it appears as the main reason for struggle. The concept of land and the idea of
ownership are as central to the subject as the main characters in every film. Intention and
prevention express “conflict”. Every intention or obstacle are somehow tied to land or
landlessness. If we try to understand the subjects of the film in a single sentence, land
ownership will still be in it. The struggle of farmers to irrigate their land, a family trying
to prevent the sale of the land in front of their property, the obsessive love of a landless
peasant and a life that ends in the ground.
In all films land leads the story to a direction, So I think even that makes the land
a lead character.
58
Chapter 5
Discussion & Conclusion
Cinema, which uses a narrative language with visual content, can be seen as an
important source of transfer and information to society. It is an important guide in terms
of understanding the society both in terms of defining the time and place when it emerges
and transferring the politics, economy, history and especially culture that make up the
social structure. In doing so, it maintains its relationship with reality. It both affects and
is affected by it. This power brings about changing the thoughts, behaviors and attitudes
of the society and the individual, and allows fashion and public opinion to be created.
Cinema, which is in a strong position in terms of art, is in an effective position to
direct and reflect the society. While cinema reflects the society, it is not limited to the
facts, but it can reveal various reflections with a surrealistic view.
Social reality emerges in Turkish cinema after the Military Intervention of May
27, 1960 and loses its influence with the change of power in the elections held in 1965.
Despite the permanent traces he left in Turkish cinema and being a "heritage" for the films
to be made after him, after 1965, he could not get the necessary attention and interest
from the directors and writers with the effect of some personal and ideological conflicts,
and it was not the subject of academic studies. When examined in terms of both the
ideological period of Turkish cinema and the recent political history of Turkey, it is
revealed that social realism is almost ignored.
Directors such as Ertem Göreç, Duygu Sağıroğlu and Halit Refiğ, who are
influenced by Kemal Tahir's works and thoughts, especially Metin Erksan, constitute an
important but relatively short-lived movement.
When it comes to land, the first things that come to mind in Turkish cinema are
landowners, land deprivation and ownership, and village films. The land is treated as a
phenomenon that the peasant struggles to protect or acquire in his dramatic life, as an
indicator of the power and wealth of the landowner or agha. In general, the concepts of
land and property, which are always thought to be used as the background of the story,
are actually treated as equivalent to male and female characters in Turkish Cinema and
appear as a third leading role. It has become an indispensable character of the Social
59
Realism period, sometimes earned, sometimes killed, sometimes sold, and sometimes
turned into a desirable character.
In this study, I set out with the argument that the concept of land appears as the
third main character alongside male and female protagonists in the period of social realist
cinema in Turkey. To examine this issue in depth, I reviewed the socio-economic agenda
of Turkey of that period, I tried to portrayed the dynamics that transformed tendencies in
Turkey between the years of 60-80 and analyzed how the village-based perspective left
its place to a city-centered system. I tried to confront how this caused the migration from
the village to city and it had demolished the concept of land and property. While doing
this, I tried to underline the changes in the art movements of the period. I wanted to
explain the reflections social realism effects on art and how it pushed artists to question
the sociologic structure of the country and started to produce art that were out of the
ordinary. Due to the undeniable bond between society and cinema, it was inevitable that
the social realism movement in Turkey would also affect the mainstream cinema. In order
to state my case, I chose Metin Erksan, the most sensational and controversial director of
the period, films Dry Summer, Revenge of The Snakes and The Well by to analyze.
In all three films, I looked at the main conflict in the narrative structure that rise
above the intention and obstacle of the main characters to articulate the argument I put
forward in my thesis. In all of them, I came to a conclusion that the main conflict, whether
it is love or property quarrel, is actually land-based at the end. Therefore, it is understood
that land is the most important element of Yeşilçam's social realist films period.
As I have revealed within the framework of this research, the reason why the
concept of land emerged as the most prominent subject in Yeşilçam's social realist films
period is that cinema, like all art forms, reflects society. Cinema provides the demands of
the audience by processing current issues in society.
60
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