Metin Erksan (January 1, 1929 – August 4, 2012), born İsmail Metin Karamanbey, was a Turkish film director and art historian.
Now it's time to rewatch his films and LOVE Metin Erksan again!
Şimdi filmlerini tekrar izleme ve Metin Erksan’ı tekrar SEVME ZAMANI!
SOURCE IN TURKISH Gizem Ertürk – Yeşil Gazete
Sadi Çilingir –
Film Critic
Metin Erksan is
one of our cinema's most original directors. "Time to Love" alone is
enough to count him among the most important directors not only in our country
but also in world cinema. A film like "Time to Love" will never be
made again, even in world cinema.
Alper Turgut – Film Critic
Metin Erksan is undoubtedly one of the greatest losses of
Turkish cinema. If we still can't call it a national cinema, it's because he
and other talented, original directors, who were in love with the magic of
cinema, have been alienated. Censorship, the failure to establish filmmaking
laws, and the negative impacts on the industry forced Metin Erksan out of the
director's chair too early. The director of Susuz Yaz, Yılanların Öcü (Revenge
of the Snakes), and Kuyu (The Well), retired from filmmaking at his most
productive, his masterful age.
No, of course not. How could I forget Sevmek Zamanı (Time to
Love)? Selvi Boylum (The Girl with the Red Scarf) is a good love story, but
Sevmek Zamanı (Time to Love) is the most beautiful and special of our love
stories; it's the pinnacle. Akad, Güney, Yılmaz, Kavur, Refiğ, and finally
Erksan… All the colors of our cinema's past are fading. Naturally, a new
generation emerged, followed by today's directors. In Metin Erksan's absence,
the number of genres increased, and productions that surpassed mediocrity were
produced, but his absence was always felt. Yesterday, I watched "Time to
Love" again, and I fell in love with your painting, not with you, the man
said. Yesterday, as more directors fall in love with the seventh art of cinema,
not with box office or fame, future filmmakers will understand Metin Erksan
better, because he chose the difficult, not the easy, and he chose to make
films, not to make them.
Yeşim Tabak – Film Critic
More than anything else, the memory of Yeşilçam is
romanticized as a kind of "labor." By this, we mean a knack for
producing a lot in a short time, for making progress with immediate practical
solutions and compromises, simply saying "as much as it is..." Or a
Turkish "finishing" approach that doesn't distinguish an artist from
a shopkeeper, a worker, or a student of "Hababam Sınıfı." When I
think of Metin Erksan's cinema, I'm reminded of concerns and desires rarely
seen in this land (and which have drawn criticism due to their very
assertiveness): perfectionism, the quest for originality/newness, the courage
to surprise people, a celebration of the "surreal" and the poetic, a
different kind of labor spent during a long preparatory process based on
"thinking" and not limited to action on the set... I'm so glad Erksan
existed. His unique place in our cinematic history has always been a source of
inspiration and a branch of support for audiences interested in the
"avant-garde" (especially those from the generations that followed).
While I'm not going to claim he's a feminist, Metin Erksan holds an interesting
place in Turkish cinema history for his efforts to understand female
characters. In my opinion, his best film is "The Well," which
possesses an almost fairytale-like atmosphere with its effortless minimalism.
My favorites, with their peculiar "unlikeness," are "Sevmek
Zamanı" (Time to Love) and "Kadın Hamlet."
Selim Güneş – Director
As a filmmaker, my heart ached for Metin Erksan, the
director of films like "Susuz Yaz," "Sevmek Zamanı,"
"Revenge of the Snakes," and "The Well." I've said this
before in an interview: he's the director who has influenced me the most.
I remember an interview where Metin Erksan said that a
filmmaker must, above all else, be responsible. This approach is why we
recognize him as a master filmmaker.
The three films that have influenced me most are "The
Well," "The Well," and "Efesi of Dokuz Dağın." I
believe the impact of "Efesi of Dokuz Dağın" has something to do with
the era in which I watched the film. I believe Fikret Hakan was the hero of my
childhood. Fikret Hakan is the hero of my childhood.
But "The Well" and "The Well" are films
that made me say, "I want to make films like this." And the emotions
they both evoke are very powerful. For me, cinema, more than anything else, is
the "emotion of cinema." The cinematography in both films is also
impressive. Especially "The Well"...
Hasan Tolga Pulat – Director
I've always loved Turkish films... The phrase, "Whether
you turn up your nose at them as much as you like, they're always very precious
to me," is "You're as impudent as you are beautiful."
Yeşilçam's melodramatic world, with all its sincerity,
naivety, hope, and the sharp distinction between black and white, told me a
fairy tale. When I entered film school, I discovered another side of Turkish
cinema. In this world, I began to encounter the films of directors like Ömer
Lütfi Akad, Atıf Yılmaz, Yılmaz Güney, and Metin Erksan. These directors'
cinema was far beyond the fairy tales I'd heard from Turkish cinema until then.
Their detached perspectives on their stories, their realistic and harsh styles,
their antiheroes, and their unhappy endings gave me a more concrete reflection
of life. They began to create a more mature world of ideas in my mind. They
lifted me out of the naive world of my childhood and made me aware of the
existence of a challenging, uncanny world.
Thanks to these films, I began to grow. As we began to lose
these great filmmakers, one by one, we also began to lose a generation. A
generation that had managed to impose its visual and auditory worlds on Turkish
cinema and its audience without being perceived as out of place. These
individuals were not only filmmakers but also philosophers who profoundly
understood and eloquently described their society and era. When I heard the
news of the death of Metin Erksan, perhaps the last of these philosophers, I was
heartbroken to know that this generation, which had contributed so much to the
evolution of Turkish cinema, had now passed. I wish he had made more films,
that I could have been part of one of those films, and I was saddened by the
end of my dreams. I immediately thought of the film "Susuz Yaz"
(Susuz Yaz), which I saw as part of the Traveling Film Festival in Izmir. Its
profoundly realistic story reveals all the reflexes of society. Witnessing the
young Hülya Koçyiğit, in her debut, deliver a realistic performance perhaps
never achieved again in her career, experiencing the justified pride of
watching Erol Taş in the lead role, and seeing the harsh, manipulative, and
ruthless atmosphere of the world convey universal implications through the
Anatolian people, made the film an unforgettable one. I remember leaving the
festival feeling initially surprised and then thrilled by this film, which
differed from most Turkish films I'd seen. The reason why the cold, distant,
and at times surreal story in "Time to Love" transformed into a love
story that resonated with me as much as any other romantic drama was Metin
Erksan's exceptionally successful balance between modern cinematic language and
classical cinematic conventions. The fantasy universe and the eerie, unsettling
atmosphere of "The Well" were more reminiscent of European films than
Turkish ones. Losing this great master, one of the last representatives of a
generation that would always preserve its originality by breaking all the molds
of Turkish cinema, changing and transforming all the habits of the Turkish
audience, will always create a feeling of orphanhood that Turkish cinema will
always feel.
Nizam Eren – Cinema Projects and
Communications Consultant
If you're a kid, you remember the actors of a film you
watched and were captivated by, you imitate them, you can't stop thinking about
every frame, you hum the music, you rave about it to every kid in the
neighborhood. Those films were actually directed by someone, and you realize it
when you grow up.
Metin Erksan made the best of these films. He's the director
of those films that impressed you as a child. He's the man thousands of
graduating film students aspire to be.
We knew him as a man who read extensively, researched
extensively, tried the unconventional and the untried, and pioneered many
things. We also knew him as "the man who hasn't made films in 30
years."
"Revenge of the Snakes" was caught up in the censorship of the times. "Susuz Yaz" was caught up in the censorship of the times. Everything he did was somehow cut. Let me tell you what: In 1963, Metin Erksan adapted Necati Cumali's novel "DRY SUMMER" for the screen. Despite the censorship board's ban on the film's participation in the festival, it (ILLEGALLY) traveled to Berlin and won the Golden Bear.
(The film, initially allowed to go abroad, requested
permission to participate in the festival, but when the board reconvened and
banned it on the grounds that it "showed Turkey in a bad light.")
Despite this, the film smuggled into Berlin and, as is well
known, won the Golden Bear, the highest award. Upon returning home, the
Ministry of Culture threw the team a celebratory cocktail reception, as if they
hadn't banned it. Not content with the cocktail reception, they also awarded
awards to Erol Taş, Metin Erksan, and Hülya Koçyiğit.
Everyone wondered why he hadn't made films since he was 53.
He hadn't made films since he was 53, a full 30 years. That's the kind of man
Metin Erksan was. May he shine brightly...
Now it's time to rewatch his films and LOVE Metin Erksan
again!
Şimdi filmlerini tekrar izleme ve Metin Erksan’ı tekrar
SEVME ZAMANI!
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