![\"Unless](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/filmmakers-in-a-hurry-for-historic-istanbul-films-2010-12-17_l.jpg\" "\\"Unless")
Unless a director is releasing a movie hoping to cash in on cheap laughs, historical movies and documentaries fall into the riskiest categories for Turkish producers to approach.<\/p>\n
Period dramas and historical movies have, in the past, been some of the most popular films to screen in Turkey.<\/p>\n
Half a century ago, they were the ultimate form of entertainment, not because of their accurate portrayal of the relevant period but for quite the opposite reason. They suffered from borderline cinema disorder, being more histrionic than historical.<\/p>\n
The notorious B-movies of the 1960s and 1970s have become history themselves, as Turkish cinema has gone through a renaissance of its own in the last two decades. Diverse examples of high caliber cinema have found their way into movie theaters but historical cinema has remained an area where not much improvement can be observed.<\/p>\n
For one, historical movies and documentaries fall into the riskiest categories for Turkish producers to approach. Unless you are releasing a movie hoping to cash in on cheap laughs (exemplified by the movies featuring the vulgar antics of Recep \u0130vedik) or hoping to hit a nation\u2019s soft spot on nationalism (for example, the \u201cValley of the Wolves\u201d series), box office gross is a pure gamble in Turkey. What producer would want to greenlight an expensive production when there is another story set in an Anatolian village in the present day?<\/p>\n
Of course there is one thematic exception in this otherwise general trend in the profitability of historical movies: Atat\u00fcrk films. Two years ago, renowned documentary director and biographer Can D\u00fcndar\u2019s intimate account of Atat\u00fcrk\u2019s life, \u201cMustafa,\u201d caused quite a stir, dividing the nation. This was good news for the box office. Last year, two quite mediocre features on Atat\u00fcrk hit the theaters. Both writer, composer, singer and filmmaker Z\u00fclf\u00fc Livaneli\u2019s \u201cVeda\u201d (Farewell) and Turgut \u00d6zakman\u2019s \u201cDersimiz Atat\u00fcrk\u201d (Today\u2019s Lesson, Atat\u00fcrk) depicted the former Turkish leader\u2019s life in dry, chronological order, merely better than a high quality middle school documentary.<\/p>\n
This week, you will see the words Ottoman and Istanbul in two movies. One of them, a high-octane action\/conspiracy\/history thriller in the line of Jerry Bruckheimer\u2019s \u201cNational Treasure\u201d series. The other, a love story set in Ottoman Istanbul.<\/p>\n
The Abd\u00fclhamid Code<\/p>\n
Director Hakan \u015eahin\u2019s \u201cSultan\u2019\u0131n S\u0131rr\u0131\u201d (Secret of the Sultan) features an American professor traveling to Istanbul to find a mysterious chest built by Sultan Abd\u00fclhamid II about a century ago. He learns the chest is somehow relevant to the present dynamics of the power games over oil and the best place to look for it is Topkap\u0131 Palace, now the Topkap\u0131 Museum.<\/p>\n
In a mixture of the \u201cNational Treasure\u201d movies and Dan Brown\u2019s \u201cThe Da Vinci Code\u201d and \u201cAngels & Demons,\u201d secret societies and historical conspiracies are revealed through by mysterious museum director (that would be historian \u0130lber Ortayl\u0131 in real life). The conspiracies go back to the Gulf Wars, the Iran-Iraq War, World War I, and finally to the final years of the Ottoman Empire, giving way to action scenes in the historic underground passages of Istanbul. The film was written by historian and journalist \u00d6mer Erbil, and features locations in many of Istanbul\u2019s historic buildings, like Y\u0131ld\u0131z Palace, Hagia Sophia and the Archaeology Museum.<\/p>\n
The other film is an unabashed promotion of Istanbul, as one of the many projects celebrating Istanbul\u2019s status as a 2010 European Capital of Culture, with the story never really given priority over the beautiful footage of the city. \u201c\u015eenlikname: Bir\u00a0Istanbul Masal\u0131\u201d (Festivities: An Istanbul Tale), directed by \u0130smail Eren, is a love story set in the Ottoman period that begins with the kidnapping of the Sultan\u2019s daughter. But which period or sultan is not very clear. The film promises to be a jumble of historical imagery from the Ottoman period, including the \u201cmehter\u201d band of musicians, pirates, and palace guardsmen.<\/p>\n
The big budgets of projects celebrating Istanbul as a 2010 European Capital of Culture have prompted many filmmakers to seek involvement in the projects set in historical Istanbul. One of these is the big budget production about the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul, anticipated by many with apprehension. \u201cFetih 1453\u201d (The Conquest 1453) has been a hot topic of debate for the last year \u2013 with its acclaimed advisors on history, costumes and architecture, its ambitious war scenes enhanced by state-of-the-art CGI technology and its mysterious casting of the role of Sultan Mehmed II, who was just 21 when he conquered Istanbul. The costume shops must now be running amok with booming demands for Ottoman dress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EMRAH G\u00dcLER ISTANBUL – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News Two films about the history of Ottoman Istanbul hit theaters this week. The big budgets of projects celebrating Istanbul as a 2010 European Capital of Culture have prompted many filmmakers to seek involvement in projects set in historical Istanbul. Wait for more movies in the near future Unless […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":29385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2939],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultureart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}