From Cliches to Mysticism: Evolution of Religious Motives in Turkish Cinema


Onal H.

RELIGIONS, vol.5, no.1, pp.199-218, 2014 (AHCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 5 Issue: 1
  • Publication Date: 2014
  • Doi Number: 10.3390/rel5010199
  • Journal Name: RELIGIONS
  • Journal Indexes: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.199-218
  • Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Affiliated: No

Abstract

As an art form, an academic discipline and an ideological instrument that finds a place in cultural studies and social sciences, film plays a significant role both in the creation and as a reflection of the culture in which it is produced and sustained. Within the relationship between religion and the cinema in the Turkish context, religion has ironically become an ideological discourse contrasting with the Islamic attitude prohibiting human depiction. This paper seeks to examine the transformation of both religious and secularist cliches and stereotypes in the Turkish cinema, by means of ideological and sociological critiques of some sample films.