 |
by Sherif Awad
The art of cinematography has fascinated many great directors
since their youth,
exactly as we
have seen in
the classic film,
Cinema Paradiso (1998)
by the Italian
director Giuseppe Tornatore. In this film, narrated by Tornatore, we
learn the story of one great
Italian director returning
to the small
Sicilian village where
he grew up,
to re-discover his
childhood love of
watching movies at
the little theatre
there, an experience that inspired him to become a filmmaker. An
occasion of art imitating his life,
Tornatore echoed this
theme in two later films, Malena (2000) and Baaria (2009).The Turkish director Cem
Kaya might have
a back-ground similar
that of Tornatore
and the plot
of Cinema Paradiso but Kaya
chose, instead, to
make a documentary
about the films
that influenced him
rather than providing an
autobiographical film about his own life. Kaya moved to
Germany with his
parents when he
was a child
and grew up
watching Turkish films
on VHS tapes
rented from video
clubs that were
often set in
a corner inside
Turkish grocery stores throughout German cities.Kaya later
became a film editor and then the director
of the Remake
Remix Rip-Off documentary
that shows how
Turkish films made
in the sixties
and seventies of the last century
lacked logical plots and technical
aspects. Extreme violence or exaggerated melodrama
char-acterized these Turkish films, mindlessly and laughably
imitating American films
of the era.
Kaya kept on
seeing more and
more of these films, called
Yesilcam Cinema, after a street
by the same name located at Beyoglu district of the Turkish capital Istanbul.
Filmmakers and stars of the era use to live on Yesilcam and this is where Kaya
went to meet dozens of them for the interviews of his documentary.Using a
quick editing style,
navi-gating between the
current interviews and
bits and pieces
from footage of
the films, Kaya
explains how Yesilcam
Cinema lacked the
budget to create
innovative scripts and this drove its direc-tors and
screenwriters to remake
films from all over the world. So
viewers were exposed to Turkish
versions of Tarzan, Dracula, The
Wizard of Oz,
The Exorcist, Rambo, Superman,
Star Wars, James Bond, Flash Gordon,
Zorro and many
others, readapted to
suit local audience
across rural Anatolia
districts.The proliferation of
television in Turkey
in the mid-seventies
along with the weak financial and structural aspects of
these films brought the Yesilcam genre to an end. At that time, there was no
film institute in Turkey,
no laboratories for
processing and printing
of films and
no production values
or equipment. All
the directors and
scriptwriters did was
meet the demands
of the public
by recycling the
same stories over
and over again.
Plots such as the poor
young man who
falls in love with rich girl, the story of two brothers separated
at birth or the rural
countryside boy who
comes to big
city proliferated. The
directors of Yesilcam
also benefited from the lack of copyright laws, ripping
off story lines
and music soundtracks.Among the film interviewees,
Turkish director Cetin Inanc appears and describes how he
helmed his sci-fi
Turkish movie The Man Who Saved the World (1982) with
action star of the era Cuneyt Arkin. Inanc did not have enough money to create
the visual effects for a film that mixed the plots of Star Wars and Flash
Gordon. So what did he do? He
bribed a film
theater clerk to
“lend” him the copy of Star Wars, playing locally and
sliced some scenes
featuring spaceships to
add to his
own film. Inanc,
who is quite
funny, then explains
how he was
invited to Columbia
University in New
York to talk
about this film
in par-ticular in
front of hundreds
of students of
cinema who were
eagerly asking him
about his filmmaking process. The young enthusiastic students thought
his film was a work of a genius.Yesilcam
Cinema began disap-pearing when
American films started
to dominate Turkish
theaters during the
early eighties but
was saved in
its last days
when its directors
started to produce
some musical films
starring older singers,
a subgenre that
was nick-named “Arabesque
Drama.” During the
following years, many new laws for copy-right and syndication were
implemented while new generations
of filmmakers were
born, who eventually
presented new cinematic
trends and more
mature films. However,
due the absence
of an underlying
strong production structure
and sound archival
procedures within the
Yesilcam Industry, many
film posi-tives and
negatives were lost
for various reasons
whether poor storage
or bad accidents.
The rest were
sold in quanti-ties
to several German
companies for redistribution.Cem Kaya spent seven years
making this film, in
the process meeting
dozens of Yeslicam
directors and film
stars of Yesilcam
to synthesize them
into his valuable
and quite funny
documentary, Remake, Remix,
Rip-Off.
since their youth,
exactly as we
have seen in
the classic film,
Cinema Paradiso (1998)
by the Italian
director Giuseppe Tornatore. In this film, narrated by Tornatore, we
learn the story of one great
Italian director returning
to the small
Sicilian village where
he grew up,
to re-discover his
childhood love of
watching movies at
the little theatre
there, an experience that inspired him to become a filmmaker. An
occasion of art imitating his life,
Tornatore echoed this
theme in two later films, Malena (2000) and Baaria (2009).The Turkish director Cem
Kaya might have
a back-ground similar
that of Tornatore
and the plot
of Cinema Paradiso but Kaya
chose, instead, to
make a documentary
about the films
that influenced him
rather than providing an
autobiographical film about his own life. Kaya moved to
Germany with his
parents when he
was a child
and grew up
watching Turkish films
on VHS tapes
rented from video
clubs that were
often set in
a corner inside
Turkish grocery stores throughout German cities.Kaya later
became a film editor and then the director
of the Remake
Remix Rip-Off documentary
that shows how
Turkish films made
in the sixties
and seventies of the last century
lacked logical plots and technical
aspects. Extreme violence or exaggerated melodrama
char-acterized these Turkish films, mindlessly and laughably
imitating American films
of the era.
Kaya kept on
seeing more and
more of these films, called
Yesilcam Cinema, after a street
by the same name located at Beyoglu district of the Turkish capital Istanbul.
Filmmakers and stars of the era use to live on Yesilcam and this is where Kaya
went to meet dozens of them for the interviews of his documentary.Using a
quick editing style,
navi-gating between the
current interviews and
bits and pieces
from footage of
the films, Kaya
explains how Yesilcam
Cinema lacked the
budget to create
innovative scripts and this drove its direc-tors and
screenwriters to remake
films from all over the world. So
viewers were exposed to Turkish
versions of Tarzan, Dracula, The
Wizard of Oz,
The Exorcist, Rambo, Superman,
Star Wars, James Bond, Flash Gordon,
Zorro and many
others, readapted to
suit local audience
across rural Anatolia
districts.The proliferation of
television in Turkey
in the mid-seventies
along with the weak financial and structural aspects of
these films brought the Yesilcam genre to an end. At that time, there was no
film institute in Turkey,
no laboratories for
processing and printing
of films and
no production values
or equipment. All
the directors and
scriptwriters did was
meet the demands
of the public
by recycling the
same stories over
and over again.
Plots such as the poor
young man who
falls in love with rich girl, the story of two brothers separated
at birth or the rural
countryside boy who
comes to big
city proliferated. The
directors of Yesilcam
also benefited from the lack of copyright laws, ripping
off story lines
and music soundtracks.Among the film interviewees,
Turkish director Cetin Inanc appears and describes how he
helmed his sci-fi
Turkish movie The Man Who Saved the World (1982) with
action star of the era Cuneyt Arkin. Inanc did not have enough money to create
the visual effects for a film that mixed the plots of Star Wars and Flash
Gordon. So what did he do? He
bribed a film
theater clerk to
“lend” him the copy of Star Wars, playing locally and
sliced some scenes
featuring spaceships to
add to his
own film. Inanc,
who is quite
funny, then explains
how he was
invited to Columbia
University in New
York to talk
about this film
in par-ticular in
front of hundreds
of students of
cinema who were
eagerly asking him
about his filmmaking process. The young enthusiastic students thought
his film was a work of a genius.Yesilcam
Cinema began disap-pearing when
American films started
to dominate Turkish
theaters during the
early eighties but
was saved in
its last days
when its directors
started to produce
some musical films
starring older singers,
a subgenre that
was nick-named “Arabesque
Drama.” During the
following years, many new laws for copy-right and syndication were
implemented while new generations
of filmmakers were
born, who eventually
presented new cinematic
trends and more
mature films. However,
due the absence
of an underlying
strong production structure
and sound archival
procedures within the
Yesilcam Industry, many
film posi-tives and
negatives were lost
for various reasons
whether poor storage
or bad accidents.
The rest were
sold in quanti-ties
to several German
companies for redistribution.Cem Kaya spent seven years
making this film, in
the process meeting
dozens of Yeslicam
directors and film
stars of Yesilcam
to synthesize them
into his valuable
and quite funny
documentary, Remake, Remix,
Rip-Off.
