Turkey and Films

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 69, 8 April 1937, Page 13

Turkey and Films

Strong likes and Disllkes

rTHE flrst cinema was opened ln Turkey on tta Golden Horn in 1903. It was the enterprise of a French pompany, and proved such an tamediate success that soon afterwards a second ttaatre was opetaft ln Smyrna. But despite tta success of tta film as a novelty entertainment tta cinema did not penetrate into tta interiOr until after the Repiiblic was flrmly establistad. From 1923 to 1933 there was a remarkable growth of cinemas, ' ttaatres. being opened in seventy-nine towns of the interior.

Durlng those years, and ln splte of intense nationalism, forelgn screen "stars" gained a great number of "fans," Which resulted in the eale of 120,000 postcards ln a slngle year of such "stars" as Dougles Fairbanks, sen., Greta Garbo, Charlle Chaplln, Rudolph Valentino, and Norma Sheorer. It ls interestlng that only two of these actors had anything in common with the Orlental type or played in "Oriental" fllms. '

From tta earliest years of the cltama's appearance in Turkey there existed continual competition between foreign fllmproducing companies. Comparatively early Amerlca obtalned tta monopoly of the fllm trade, which was used, and is still bejng xised, as a market for America's old and indifferent pictures. lt is still common to flnd Fairbanks' early pictures playing to crowded houses ln the largest cinemas in Constantinople; for example, "The Thief of Bagdad" is one of the mo6t successful fllms ever shown in Turkey. A CCORDING to a fllm trade article which appeared in 1910 in the "Bio* scope," the Turkish audience was one which formed strong likes and dislikes. Above all, it was prejudiced against any film of the instructional type; while it ' was prepared to cause a riot if any management was foollsh enough to show a religious subject on the screen. In recent years Kemal Ataturk has seen the film as a means of propaganding his dual policy of nationalism and Europeanlsm. Looking towards Soviet Russia for educational ideas, his flrst atfcempts at glving Turkey a national cinema were distinctly lnfluenced by the methods employed in the early Soviet fllms. About 1930 Kemal opened negotiations with the nine Ipekcis brothers, who were the most successful Turks in the film trade. For years they had managed the best cinemas in the country, while representing at one .time or another' . most of the important American companies. The negotiations rcoulted in the Ipekcis brothers' receiving a substantial subsidy from Kemal with Which they built the flrst film studio in the Near East under the name of Ipek Films. Meanwhile other Turks in the film business went abroad to study. Several went to Hollywood as critics, while Ertogrul Muhsin worked in the studios of Paris, Berlin, and later in Moscow, where he became a great admirer of the Soviet directors Eisenstein and Pudovkin. After some time in Russia Muhsin

returned to Turkey and directed tta flrst Turkish fllm, "A Nation Awakes." As its title implies, this fllm te a "national epic" which portrays tta rise of the Young Turks party and the bverthrow of the Sultanate by the Kemalists. It is the Turkish version of "Tta End of St. Petersburg." As in the Russian film, the actors are non-professional , and, llke tta characters in the Soviet fllm, the people are only drawn from a politlcal angle. This fllm hes the same quality of stark realism and fanatlcal heroism as tta Russian revolutionary fllms, but, being to some extent a copy of them ahd nationalist ln idea, lt lacks tta emotional appeal of the eerlier Alma which had international success.. "A- Nation Awakes" has never been exported to England because its foreign policy is strongly anti-Britlsh, the British army being depicted as hardly less Villainous " than the iollowers of the Sultan, THE BLOND HERO.

'PHE fact that this style of picture has never been repeated suggesfcs that the Turks' dislike of being directly taught in the cinema has survived nationalism. The policy of Ipek Fllms changed. The change was also lnfluenced by the competition which it met from American productions. Muhsin was set to making operettas and light comedies designed to encourage the Turkish publc to take an interest in sport, ballroom dancing, European clothes, and the amenities of Western life. In both the films "If My Wife Should Cheat Me" and "My Darling Hair dresser" there appear beauty choruses and bathing belles who sing the Turkish variation of "She's My Baby." Of their kind these films are original and entertaining. In a third picture, a farce, "As God is One My Word is One," the attractions of a blond hero are stressed (many Turks are as fair as Scandinavians), while the story is a rehash of the usual international farce. NEW TYPE. TAURING the last two years, howevei, there has appeared another type of fllm, represented by "A Woman from the Mountains." This film, which was made independently by Ertogrul Muhsin, shows the transitlon which the peasant life is undergoing. It is a picture which might be compared with the new Paula Wessely film "Harvest." One of the most striking things in Turkish films is how readily the Turkish women have taken to acting. They have thrown away their traditional manners and costume and have adopted the clothes and mannerisms of the West with suave assurance. Even in 1931 it was difficult to persuade Turkish women to appear before the movie camera, for the camera-lens has been always thought of as containing the Evil Eye. But with the gradual undermining of Moliammedan belief, reticence and superstition are vanishing, and even village women are ashamed of drawing a veil over their faces at the approach of a strange man.