Fatih Akin's Cinema and the New Sound of Europe

Berna Gueneli

Description

In Fatih Akın's Cinema and the New Sound of Europe, Berna Gueneli explores the transnational works of acclaimed Turkish-German filmmaker and auteur Fatih Akın. The first minority director in Germany to receive numerous national and international awards, Akın makes films that are informed by Europe's past, provide cinematic imaginations about its present and future, and engage with public discourses on minorities and migration in Europe through his treatment and representation of a diverse, multiethnic, and multilingual European citizenry. Through detailed analyses of some of Akın's key works—In July, Head-On, and The Edge of Heaven, among others—Gueneli identifies Akın's unique stylistic use of multivalent sonic and visual components and multinational characters. She argues that the soundscapes of Akın's films—including music and multiple languages, dialects, and accents—create an "aesthetic of heterogeneity" that envisions an expanded and integrated Europe and highlights the political nature of Akın's decisions regarding casting, settings, and audio. At a time when belonging and identity in Europe is complicated by questions of race, ethnicity, religion, and citizenship, Gueneli demonstrates how Akın's aesthetics intersect with politics to reshape notions of Europe, European cinema, and cinematic history.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Fatih Akın: A Contemporary Filmmaker From Germany

1. Mapping Europe: The Road Movie Genre and Transnational European Space in Film

2. The Sound of Polyphony: Multilingualism, Multiethnicity, and Linguistic Empowerment in Head-On

3. The Sound of Music: Transnational Soundscapes

4. Expanding the Scope of European Cinema: Akın's Cinematic Imagining of a Diverse Europe in Context

Conclusion: Intertextual Film—Transnational Film—Transnational Film History

Bibliography, Filmography/Discography, and Online Sources

Index

Sujets

• Histoire du cinéma
• Histoire du cinéma
• Histoire du cinéma
• Film
• ART
• Germany
• European
• History of film
• Multilingualism
• European studies
• Turks in Germany
• Transnational
• History of art
• Película fotográfica

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 09 janvier 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253037916
• Langue: English

Extrait

FATIH AKIN S CINEMA AND THE NEW SOUND OF EUROPE
NEW DIRECTIONS IN NATIONAL CINEMAS
Robert Rushing, editor
FATIH AKIN S CINEMA AND THE NEW SOUND OF EUROPE
Berna Gueneli
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2019 by Berna Gueneli
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-03788-6 (hdbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-02445-9 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-03789-3 (web PDF)
1 2 3 4 5 24 23 22 21 20 19
For Jan, Cem, and Kaya
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Fatih Ak n: A Contemporary Filmmaker from Germany
1. Mapping Europe: The Road Movie Genre and Transnational European Space in Film
2. The Sound of Polyphony: Multilingualism, Multiethnicity, and Linguistic Empowerment in Head-On
3. The Sound of Music: Transnational Soundscapes
4. Expanding the Scope of European Cinema: Ak n s Cinematic Imagining of a Diverse Europe in Context
Conclusion: Intertextual Film-Transnational Film-Transnational Film History
Filmography/Discography, Bibliography, and Online Sources
Index
Acknowledgments
S EVERAL PEOPLE HAVE generously provided academic mentorship during the intellectual journey that eventually led to this book. I would particularly like to thank Sabine Hake, Katherine Arens, and Janet Swaffar at the University of Texas for their guidance. I was able to begin writing Fatih Ak n s Cinema and the New Sound of Europe after being awarded a Harris Fellowship research leave from Grinnell College in 2015-2016, and the manuscript gradually took shape in an office provided by the Georgia Institute of Technology during my fellowship year. I would like to thank my colleagues at both Grinnell College and Georgia Tech for these resources, which were enormously helpful in bringing this project to fruition. It was also during this time that I initiated contact with the Indiana University Press. I especially thank my acquisitions editor, Janice Frisch, and the New Directions in National Cinemas series editor, Robert Rushing, for their early interest in my project and their continuous support throughout the review process. I would also like to express my thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their detailed and constructive criticism that I believe improved the book immensely. I further thank Ann-Kristin Homann and Nurhan ekerci from Bombero International, Marine Dorville from Pyramide Distribution, Anja Padge from W ste Film, and Richard Reitinger from the Hamburg Media School for their friendly support and for providing the images for this book. I would like to thank them particularly for their kindness, despite the quite excessive number of emails I sent. I also thank my new colleagues at the University of Georgia, where this manuscript received its finishing touches, for warmly welcoming me into the department and for giving me a new academic home. I am grateful for the University of Georgia s First-Book Subvention Program of the Franklin College of the Arts and Sciences, which provided generous financial support for this book. Ultimately, I would like to express my gratitude to many dear colleagues from across the country for their invaluable support and good humor. I would particularly like to thank Bradley Boovy, Gwenola Caradec, Ela Gezen, Mariana Ivanova, Werner Krauss, Matthias Rothe, Gemma Sala, and Per Urlaub for their friendship throughout the years, and for reminding me to laugh sometimes. None of my endeavors would have been possible without the unwavering support of my family: my mom and dad and my siblings, Ali and Nur, who have been so supportive in countless ways during my lifelong studies, travels, and explorations! I thank Jan Uelzmann for sharing his intellect, wit, and humor with me. And finally I would like to thank Jan, Cem, and Kaya for their unconditional love and for simply being with me, anytime and anywhere.
FATIH AKIN S CINEMA AND THE NEW SOUND OF EUROPE
Introduction
FATIH AKIN: A CONTEMPORARY FILMMAKER FROM GERMANY
And the Winner Is: Fatih Ak n 1
Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for Gegen die Wand ( Head-On ) in 2004, thirty-year-old Turkish German filmmaker Fatih Ak n quickly became one of the most prominent European directors of the new millennium. Shortly after, his international success reached new heights with Auf der anderen Seite ( The Edge of Heaven , 2007), which brought him the Best Screenplay Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the European Film Award, and the LUX Prize of the European Parliament, to name but a few of his honors. In 2008, claimed by two nations, Ak n was selected with two films in Turkey and Germany as a candidate for Academy Award nominations. 2 Perceived as a migrant, Turkish, German, and European filmmaker, Ak n is hard to pin down to a single category. He has multiple, fluid affiliations. The Douglas Sirk Award, announced at the 2014 Film Fest Hamburg in Ak n s hometown in northern Germany, highlighted the transnational aspect of Ak n s cinema. He was particularly praised for putting the city of Hamburg onto the global screen and for inspiring filmmakers in Germany and Turkey with his work as a director and producer. Ak n received the 2014 award after completing his trilogy Liebe, Tod, und Teufel ( Love, Death, and the Devil ), with The Cut (2014), joining previous award winners such as Tilda Swinton in 2013 and Andreas Dresen and Peter Rommel in 2011.
An essential aim of my book is to show that through Ak n s films, an aesthetically orchestrated multiethnicity within the context of a transnational Europe becomes increasingly audible and visible and reshapes notions of Europe, European cinema, and cinematic history. That is, Fatih Ak n s Cinema and the New Sound of Europe analyzes the aesthetic and thematic composition of Ak n s Turkey-engaged cinema, as much as it clarifies the audiovisual understanding of the changing configurations of European cinema. Through close readings of Im Juli ( In July , 2000), Head-On , and The Edge of Heaven in chapters 1 through 3 , I untangle the sonic and visual composition of multiethnicity and polyphony in Ak n s films. In so doing, I argue that Ak n audiovisually aestheticizes European diversity and complicates existing notions of the continent, its history, and its cinema. I place these inquiries into a European context by discussing European-auteur cinema in chapter 4 . The analysis of Ak n s cinematic narrative, mise-en-sc ne, and sound foregrounds his aesthetic of heterogeneity -a productive and creative interplay of diverse, transnational, and often intertextual audiovisual elements manifest in his choice of music, dialogue, setting, and cast.
Hence, I assert that with Ak n s cinema, a new and innovative diversity in terms of plot and story, aesthetics, and intertextualities has begun in German filmmaking. Additionally, a new transnational aspect of his cinema, reaching across geographical, temporal, and generic boundaries, has taken center stage. His production, method, and aesthetics reflect diversity and interact with each other. More precisely, this means that the production of Ak n s films is transnational, his method is intertextual, and the resulting aesthetics are heterogeneous. 3
As a participant and winner in festivals and award ceremonies, Ak n certainly continues in a particular German film tradition, although with a fresh twist. German cinema has been a long-standing participant in the international film circuits, be it in art house cinemas or in international film festivals and competitions in Europe and around the globe. Known especially for its so-called art house cinema of the past and present-ranging from expressionist film of the early Weimar Republic, to the New German Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, to contemporary Berlin School directors such as the prolific Christian Petzold-and the more popular, historically engaged films of the early 2000s, 4 German cinema has made its mark internationally throughout film history, although with varying intensity, especially considering the hiatus after the decline of New German Cinema. 5
Young and up-and-coming German filmmakers, including Ak n, have once more revived and increased German participation in the international film circuits. This new generation has shown the breadth and new directions of contemporary German film either by participating in alternative webfests for internet films-which defy the limitations of conventional capital- and profit-driven film production and distribution-or by participating in the more conventional film festivals that provide visibility for more traditionally produced and distributed films.
At the Melbourne Web Series Festival, for example, the Grand Jury Prize 2013 went to Mission Backup Earth , a German sci-fi production by Alexander Pfander, who uses crowd sourcing for his films. At the Webfest Berlin 2015, official selections included the locally colored Bavarian comedy Positive Sinking by Thomas Heinemann, but also Polyglot , a multilingual web series by self-taught Rwandan German director Amelia Umuhire and Turkish German cameraman Ferhat Yunus Topr