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INTRODUCTION
Midnight Express, based on an autobiographical book by Billy Hayes, is
an unpleasant "true story" about a young American student, who in 1970,
had hashish in his possession while attempting to board a plane at Istanbul
Airport. The film details Hayes' harsh imprisonment and later escape. According
to the advertisements, the film is "the astounding true story, told in
Billy Hayes's own words, of those five years of living hell and of the
harrowing ordeal of his time on the run." [1] In an "environment of hellish
squalor" [2], Billy suffers brutality, filth and the degradation of imprisonment
at the hands of Turks.
In this study, I shall analyse the representation of the Turkish people
in Midnight Express. Such an analysis may enable us to reinterpret the
film in relation to the conditions of its production and reception, in
relation to its structural features and organization. Moreover, it may
enable us to question or revise our prior understanding of film and therefore
alter the horizons of our understanding of ourselves and others.
Methodology
In pursuing issues of methodology, I have to point out that the analysis
of symbolic forms [3] can be most appropriately conceptualised in terms
of a the framework which John B. Thompson describes as depth hermeneutics.
Thompson develops depth hermeneutics as a general methodological framework
for the investigation of cultural artefacts. For Thompson,depth hermeneutics
enables us to show how different approaches to the analysis of culture,
ideology and mass communication can be interrelated in a systematic way.
In trying to explain the reasons behind the choice of the hermeneutic tradition
of thought, he suggests they can be interrelated on two levels. On a general
level, hermeneutic tradition emphasizes "the hermeneutical conditions of
social inquiry." [4] These conditions arise from the nature of the object
domain of social-historical inquiry: The object domain of social inquiry
is also a subject domain which is made up of subjects trying to understand
themselves and other persons by creating meaningful forms and interpreting
the meaningful forms created by others. This means that the object domain
of social-historical analysis is also a pre-interpreted domain. From this
perspective,the pre-interpreted character of social-historical world differs
from the natural sciences: In making a social-historical analysis, we are
seeking to examine social phenomena which is already examined or explained
by the people who constitutes the social-historical environment in the
routine course of life. As Thompson says, we are trying "to re-interpret
a pre-interpreted domain." [5] (As we shall see below, this constitutes
starting point of our study.)
Beside this hermeneutic condition of social-historical inquiry, on a
more concrete level,hermeneutics offers us some methodological guidelines
for our inquires as we mentioned. Thompson writes as follows :
The idea of depth hermeneutics is drawn from the work of Paul
Ricour,
among others. The value of this idea is that it enables us to develop a
methodological framework which is oriented towards the interpretation (or
re-interpretation) of meaningful phenomena, but in which different types
of analysis can play legitimate and mutually supportive roles. It enables
us to see that the process of interpretation is not necessarily opposed
to types of analysis which are concerned with the structural features of
symbolic forms or with the social-historical conditions of action and interaction,
but that, on the contrary, these types of analysis can be linked together
and , construed as necessary steps along the path of interpretation.[6]
Depth hermeneutics as a general theoretical framework for the analysis
of cultural forms in structured contexts has three procedures. First of
all we have social-historical analysis. This kind of analysis deals with
social historical conditions of production circulation and interpretation
of cultural forms. The second aspect of depth hermeneutics can be regarded
as formal or discursive analysis. By formal or discursive analysis, we
refer to inquiries which aim to study cultural or symbolic forms as complex
symbolic constructions which are characterised by an articulated structure.
In this procedure, we deal primarily with the internal organisation of
symbolic forms with structural characteristics, patterns and relations.[7]
The last procedure of interpretation concerns itself with the results of
both social-historical analysis and formal-discursive analysis. As we mentioned,
the object domain of social inquiry is also a subject domain. In addition,
we must stress that the subjects who in part make up the social world are
always embedded in historical traditions. In other words, we are part of
history and historical traditions. [8] This fact not only indicates my
awareness of being Turkish during this study but also constitutes the first
step of my analysis. As J.B.Thompson states, if the object domain of our
investigation is a pre-interpreted domain, the depth hermeneutical approach
must consider the ways in which symbolic forms are interpreted by the subjects
who comprise the subject-object domain. Hence, the hermeneutics of everyday
life is the starting point of our approach. [9] In this stage, we will
take account of the ways in which Midnight Express is interpreted by the
western audience. After completing the "hermeneutics of everyday life",
we will employ three different analysis which are social-historical analysis
(in the section one), formal-discursive analysis (in the section two) and
lastly the interpretation of the results of social-historical and formal-discursive
analysis (conclusion).
Interpretation of Doxa (Hermeneutics of Everyday Life):
At this stage, an interpretation of the opinions, beliefs and understandings
which are held and shared by the individuals who comprise the social world
is revealed. In reconstructing the ways in which Midnight Express is interpreted
and understood in the varied contexts of social life, we will focus mainly
on the Western audience since the film is banned in Turkey.
After its release, people lined up at theatres to see Midnight Express.
(The film has been widely and continuously shown since its first release
in 1978) The advertisements for the movie ask that you "Walk into the incredible
true experience of Billy Hayes. And bring all the courage you can."[10]
For Pauline Kael, the people who were familiar with the book and hence
knew that most of the extreme scenes in the movie were "invented", could
still be effected emotionally, because "it's what they want to see - the
worst that could happen, and the depths to which they could be driven."[11]
In fact, when Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) attacks to one of the bad Turkish
prisoners and, in slow motion, chews off his tongue, the audience cheers.
[12] Despite its box office success, there are some who claim that Midnight
Express is a racist film [13] and its acceptance depends a lot on forgetting
several things :
[Billy] was smuggling hash; Turkey is entitled to its laws , and
is no more guilty of penal corruption and brutality than say , the US ,
UK, France, Germany, etc.; a world tourist can't assume that a helpful
father ( played well by Mike Kellin) is going to have the same clout as
with some Midwestern politicians; nor can anAmerican expect to be treated
with kid gloves everywhere. [14]
Similarly, Pat H. Broeske argues that Midnight Express offers a stern
lesson against disregard for a different country's laws and he claims that
it is a manipulative, one sided (Hayes's version), and a "modern horror
story about the nightmare of an ordeal in a foreign prison".[15] Neal Nordlinger
writes about the success of film as follows:
Midnight Express was brought in for $ 2.4 million and Columbia will
spend almost $4 million promoting it to a market which likes pictures that
pit one man against grim substantial odds; where you despair for the hero
ever surmounting those odds; and where such classic conflicts gain credence
from the fact that they are based on real life . But most viewers will
find Midnight Express a thorough visceral experience, and the credit goes
to [Alan] Parker and his ability to commingle the real and surreal visually
. [16]
Pauline Kael asks why people are lining up at the theatres to see this
picture. She assumes that there are others besides herself who felt squeezed
so much that they grew to hate the picture more and more. Moreover, Kael
adds that she didn't hope for Billy and his friends to escape "-just for
the movie to be over".[17] Similarly Mary Lee Settle who visited Turkey
and felt uncomfortable for her "misrepresentation" in the West points out
that Turkey "is known only for its mistakes and its brutalities ". [18]
She continues as follows :
The Turks I saw in Lawrence of Arabia and Midnight Express were (...)
like cartoon caricatures compared to the people I had known and lived among
for three of the happiest years of my life . [19]
Long after its release, even David Puttnam (the producer) also accepts
that the film is based on a "dishonest book".[20] For Puttnam, the story
implies that Billy was innocent; it makes much of his escape, though he
was released under an amnesty agreement. [21] Moreover, in 1986, Alan Parker
(the director) admits that it was a mistake to call Turkey "a nation of
pigs" in the film. He adds that he "should have been smart enough, intellectually
and politically, to balance that remark" [22] Roy Connolly, who interviewed
Alan Parker, writes as follows:
Alan Parker now candidly admits that he may have got some of Midnight
Express wrong."I was shocked when people said it was anti-Turk,"he says.
"We hadn't meant it to be racist. We thought we were making a film about
injustice. There are things I would change now, things to do with an intellectual
or political maturity that I don't think I had then." [23]
Similarly David Robinson states that Midnight Express is "more violent,
as a national hate-film than anything (he) can remember" -a cultural form
that "narrows horizons, confirming the audience's meanest fears and prejudices
and resentments". [24] But audiences didn't mind this kind of statements
about Midnight Express to such an extent that in two years, the film had
grossed over +15 million (1980) despite the fact that it was made at a
cost of +1.5 million. [25] Moreover the film also won six Golden Globe
Awards and an Oscar for Best Film Nomination. [26]
In spite of these contrary assessments from critics, how can we explain
the popularity of Midnight Express? At this point, it may be useful to
consider the ability of cultural commodities to satisfy some human want.
Terry Lovell argues that cultural commodities are structured with the feelings
and sensibilities which derive from collective, shared experience, individual
desires and pleasures. [27] The pleasure of the text arises from collective
utopias, social wish fulfilment and social aspirations. But when we deal
with the ability of cultural artefacts to satisfy some human want, we have
to consider the penetration of capital into cultural production. In a capitalist
society, producer makes profit by manufacturing and selling cultural objects
which possess "use value". [28] By meeting the wants which they satisfy,
cultural products generate "surplus value". [29] But those wants are not
always the independent expression of random and diverse desires of individual
consumers. On the contrary, wants in which their production is related
to the dominant mode of production are systematically produced. Lovell
continues as follows :
The market for commodities is too important to capitalism to be left
to consumer whim. Along with capitalist commodity production a whole host
of means of stimulating and proliferating wants has been developed. Wants
are not natural or eternal , (...) But it may be hazarded that the production
of wants is never fully under the control of the dominant class . [30]
In spite of the fact that there is no guarantee that cultural artefacts
will secure their ideological effects towards the masses, some of them
can be drawn from and articulated within the dominant ideology. On the
other hand, capitalism itself generates several requirements for its continuity.
Some of these requirements create their effects at the level of individuals,
while others produce them at the level of the social collectivity. "The
very concept of ideology" writes Terry Lovell "points to another area of
the requirements of capitalism". [31] Hence, in the next section of our
study, we will have a brief look at the concept of ideology since it refers
to the ways in which meaning serves to establish relations of power. [32]
During this investigation, we will emphasize that symbolic forms have been
used, and continue to be used in the service of power, whether in modern
capitalist societies or in social contexts that are removed in time and
space. For this reason we will also analyse the western conceptions of
Turks since the relationship between East and West can be regarded as an
example of relations of domination. For Edward Said, ideas, cultures and
histories can't seriously be grasped without their force or their configurations
of power also being studied. Therefore the relationship between East and
West constitutes "a varying degree of complex hegemony." [33] In the first
section, we will also take into consideration the work of Edward Said and
western conceptions of Turks. At this point, what needs to be emphasised
is that in order to take account of the ways in which Midnight Express
is structured, and of the social historical conditions in which it is embedded
we must make certain analysis which fall within the methodological framework
of depth hermeneutics. In the next section, I shall employ the first phase
of depth hermeneutics which is social- historical analysis. My aim will
be to reconstruct the social-historical conditions of the production, circulation
and reception of Midnight Express.
SECTION ONE : SOCIAL-HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
John B. Thompson points out that the ways in which social historical analysis
may be properly examined depend on the objects and circumstances of inquiry.
Then he distinguishes between four basic aspects of social contexts and
suggests that each of these four aspects defines a separate level of analysis.
For Thompson, firstly we should describe the specific spatio-temporal settings
in which symbolic form is produced and received. As he states, "Symbolic
forms are produced (uttered, enacted, inscribed) and received (seen, listened
to, read) by individuals situated in specific locales, acting and reacting
at particular times and in particular places, and the reconstruction of
those locales is an important part of social historical analysis." [34]
Secondly, we have to consider that symbolic forms are situated within certain
fields of interaction. Thirdly, we will be concerned with social institutions.
At this level of social-historical analysis, we should reconstruct the
rules, resources and relations which constitute social institutions and
then describe their historical development. On the other hand, analysis
of social structure is another part of this level of social-historical
analysis. While we describe social structure we shall focus on asymmetries,
differentials and divisions in terms of power, resources, opportunities
and life chances. Fourthly, we have to deal with social historical analysis
of technical media of inscription and transmission. Besides technical inquiry,
our analysis must include social contexts in which technical media of transmission
is embedded. [35]
Spatio-Temporal Setting
Spatio-temporal analysis aims to reconstruct the locales in which symbolic
forms are produced and received by people who act and react at particular
times and places. [36] Thompson describes this as "the cultural transmission
of symbolic forms" and distinguishes three aspects of this process. First
of all; cultural transmission entails the use of technical medium which
allows for a certain degree of fixation of meaningful content and reproduction
of symbolic forms. In cinema, the basic item for the distribution and exhibition
is the master negative and the first print. Ownership of the master negative
and first print is enough for distribution and exhibition. The mechanical
reproductibility of film creates the fundamental source of profit in cinema
industry. As we shall see later on, this characteristic of film contributes
much to the formation of the structure of film industry.
The second feature of cultural transmission deals with the institutions
in which a technical medium is deployed. Since we will analyse the institutional
context later on I will only try to give initial information about the
company which produced Midnight Express.
Midnight Express is a Columbia Pictures release of a Casablanca Filmworks
Production (1978). It is one of the first films to come from Casablanca
Records and Film Works which is noted for its pop music artists such as Cher, Donna Summer and Kiss. [37] The filmmakers are British, but they
worked with American financing. (We'll analyse the British film industry
later on). The list of moviemakers and the players who worked in the film
are as follows:
Producer : David Puttnam and Alan Marshall
Director : Alan Parker
Executive Producer : Peter Guber
Screenplay : Oliver Stone , based on the book by Billy Hayes with William
Hoffer
Camera : Eastmancolor
Cinematography : Michael Serezin
Editor : Gerry Hambling
Music : Giorgio Moroder
Production Design : Geoffrey Kirkland
Art Direction : Evan Hercules
Sound : Clive Winter
Costume : Milena Canonero, Boby Lavender
Running Time : 120 minutes
Billy Hayes : Brad Davis
Jimmy : Randy Quaid
Max : John Hurt
Tex : Bo Hopkins
Hamidou : Paul Smith
Mr Hayes : Mike Kellin
Erich : Norbert Wiesser
Susan : Irene Miracle
Rifki : Paolo Bonacelli [38]
The third aspect of cultural transmission is concerned with "space-time
distanciation". [39] By transmission, the symbolic forms reach a range
of audiences which may be located at different times and places from the
original contexts of production. This situation has a variety of dimensions,
but what we emphasize here is that mass communication generally constructs
a one way flow of messages from the producer to the receiver during the
exchange of symbolic forms. In other words, mass communication involves
an important seperation between the producer and the receiver, who has
little capacity to be a decisive agent in this communicative process. In
fact, due to transnational character of the forms of transmission, Midnight
Express had the opportunity to reach a wide audience and contribute much
to the "terrible Turk" myth as was shown before. An example which indicates
both the fundamental break between the producer and the receiver and the
relations of power is given by Pauline Kael, while she criticizes Midnight
Express. She writes as follows:
This story could have happened in almost any country , but if Billy
Hayes had planned to be arrested to get the maximum commercial benefit
from it , where else could he get the advantages of a Turkish jail? Who
wants to defend Turks? (They don't even constitute enough of a movie market
for Columbia Pictures to be concerned about how they are represented ?)
[40]
Social Institutions- Social Structure: [41]
Social institutions and social structure constitute a third level of social
historical analysis. Social institutions can be described as clusters of
rules, resources and social relations established by social institutions
themselves. In order to analyse social institutions, we have to examine
the clusters of rules, resources and relations and inquire about their
historical development. Moreover it is necessary to reconstruct the practices
and attitudes of the individuals who work for them.
On the other hand, the analysis of social structure concerns with the
relatively stable asymmetries which shape the structure of social institutions.
While we try to analyse social structure we shall focus on asymmetries
differentials and divisions. Our main purpose is to find out which asymmetries
are systematic and relatively stable in terms of resources, power and life
chances. This process also requires that we become familiar with the criteria,
categories and principles which constitute these differences. At this stage
of our study, we will pay particular attention to the relations of domination
which characterize social institutions. Thus we will also study the notion
of ideology since this approach provides us with a better understanding
of the ways in which meaning serves to establish and sustain relations
of domination.
Ideology
For John B. Thompson symbolic forms are not ideological in themselves.
The extent to which symbolic forms or symbolic systems are ideological
depends on the ways in which they are used in particular social contexts.
Thus when we study ideology we are mainly concerned with the social uses
and understanding of symbolic forms. [42] Thompson states that ideology
is meaning in the service of power. He writes as follows :
The distinctiveness of the study of ideology lies in the latter question
: It calls upon us to ask whether the meaning constructed and conveyed
by symbolic forms serves , or does not serve, to maintain systematically
asymmetrical relations of power . It calls upon us to study symbolic forms
in a certain light . In the light of the structured social relations which
their employment or deployment may serve , in specific circumstances, to
create, nourish , support and reproduce. [43]
Having said this, it is useful to mention an important point about reception
of ideology. There is a general tendency to see ideology as illusion and
distorted image of the "real". This view inclines us to discern in ideology
a cluster of ideas or images which reflect inadequately a social reality
that exists independently of such images or ideas. French Marxist philosopher
Louis Althusser opposes the notion that ideology consists of a collection
of distorting representations of reality and empirically false propositions.
[44]
Ideology for Althusser does indeed - represent - but what it represents
is the way I "live" my relations to society as a whole, which cannot be
said to be a question of truth or falsehood . Ideology for Althusser is
a particular organization of signifying practices which goes to constitute
human beings as social subjects, and which produces the lived relations
by which such subjects are connected to the dominant relations of production
in a society .As a term , it covers all the various political modalities
of such relations, from an identification with dominant power to an oppositional
stance towards it. [45]
Beside this, Althusser's well known contribution to the theory of ideology
proposes a more dynamic role for the ideological superstructure than had
hitherto been allowed. Althusser recasts the classical Marxist model of
economic base ideological superstructure and proposes a far more active
role in society for the ideological superstructure. According to this model,
ideology is "relatively autonomous" of the economic base and determined
by it only "in the last instance". Ideology may take the form of systems
of representation which can effectively play a political role of its own.
[46] In most societies, coercion is not the only way of securing political
order. Besides coercion, consent is an active element of securing the social
political order. The main agencies for organizing and holding in place
this consent are Ideological State Apparatuses. Most important of these
are the institutions such as the religious system, education system, family
and political system. Art also belongs to the domain of Ideological State
Apparatuses. Like other Ideological State Apparatuses, art also contributes
to the unconscious formation of individuals by interpellating them in various
ways and calling them to take up their role in society. [47] Here, the
stress is made upon the fact that this interpellation takes place at an
unconscious level and it is a process of socialisation, namely an important
condition of social existence within any economic system. For Althusser,
individuals are placed as social subjects in complex and imperceptible
ways. These ways provide them with the impression of being consistent,
rational and free people. [48]
Anette Kuhn states that one of the most potentially interesting and
valuable aspects of Althusser's work for a theory of cinema is that it
points out a different way of conceiving its ideological function .Firstly,
Althusser's work avoids the reductionist model of Hollywood films as mirrors
of the capitalist system which produces them. In this context, the notion
that there is a total and immediate determination between capitalism and
the Hollywood films is criticized. Secondly, Althusser's work also avoids
the essentialism involved in a belief in art for art's sake. In this case,
the notion that culture can be regarded as independent of its historical
conditions is also questioned. Anette Kuhn continues as follows:
The formulation of "relative autonomy" retains the notion of the
long term, ultimate determination of the economic ("in the last instance")
, whilst resisting a notion of simple direct reflexivity. But the difficulty
remains of understanding the precise workings of this intricate and highly
mediated relationship between base and super-structure. An objection often
made about some of the recent work on film narrative - the theory of "classic
realism" for instance- is that it tends to postpone or to ignore altogether
the moment of the "last instance", so that the autonomy of the text , in
principle "relative", is effectively seen as absolute. This results in
increasingly detailed sophisticated analysis of the formal operations of
texts which, however, fail to allow any significant role to the material
conditions under which they were produced. -a particularly questionable
omission in the case of an industrial art- form like the cinema. [49]
Having said this, we can more easily analyse the relationship between
cultural phenomena and relations of power and conflict. Following the work
of anthropologist Clifford Geertz, Thompson argues that concept of culture
can appropriately be used to refer to the symbolic character of social
life. But this statement must be supported by an emphasis on the fact that
symbolic forms are embedded in structured social contexts which involve
relations of power. For Thompson cultural phenomena are symbolic forms
in structured contexts, and cultural analysis may focus on the study of
the meaningful constitution and social contextualization of symbolic forms.
[50] Starting from this point of view, cultural phenomena can be conceived
as expressing relations of power, as serving in specific circumstances
to sustain relations of power and as subject to multiple, divergent inter-
pretations by the individuals who are effected by them. [51] As a modern
form of communication (and one of the most widespread form of communica- tion), cinema has a distinguished place in this context. Cinema is the
product of Western countries at the specific time in their history and
its emergence cannot be ascribed solely to artistic aspirations. Its emergence
is closely related to the profit motive which is expressed through the
western capitalism. [52] "Because every film is a part of the economic
system" writes Bill Nichols "it is also part of the ideological system".[53]
For this reason, it is useful to return to the commodification of cultural
forms and have a brief look to the writings of Horkheimer and Adorno.
Horkheimer and Adorno use the term "culture industry" to refer to the
commodification of cultural forms which occured in the emergence of the
entertainment industries in the West. Film, radio, TV, popular music, magazines
and newspapers are the examples they gave. They argue that standardization
of cultural forms was the result of the rise of the entertainment industries
as capitalistic enterprises. Another consequence of this process is that
it atrophied the capacity of the audience to behave in a critical and autonomous
way. Since the cultural goods are manufactured in accordance with the aims
of capitalist profit maximization they are designed for consumption by
the masses. Rather than their intrisinc characteristics as an artistic
form, the cultural goods are determined by the incentive of commodity production
and exchange. Hence the cultural goods are standardized and stereotyped
in spite of the fact that they generally affect a sign of individuality
(i.e. by the star system). [54]
This characteristic of film as a commodity defines the structure of
film industry as well. Starting from this principle, Hollywood film industry
began to exploit the world market for films from the 1920's onwards. During
the early years of cinema Hollywood studios tried to fix the production
costs at a level (by controlling all the movie stars and studios which
developed efficient and cost effective production methods) since this would
allow them to be recouped in the American market, which was biggest in
the world. On the other hand, prints sold to the external market were considered
as the source of pure profit which allowed the prices to be adjusted to
the extent that Hollywood studios could dominate the world market. [55]
But before we begin to have a look to the large scale industrialization
process of cinema we need to point out that the film industry has a three
part structure divided into production, distribution and exhibition. The
power relationship between them is not equal. Power in the film industry
concentrates on the distribution company. [56] Indeed, finance for making
a film today depends upon the negotiation of a distribution deal as a part
of a package. Roy Armes writes as follows :
The producer is forced to cede rights in his film to the distributor,
since he needs a distribution guarantee to raise the risk capital. The
distributor does not , however , need to yield these rights in turn to
the exhibitor, since the latter needs only a regular flow of assorted films
on short term hire. Power in the film industry therefore resides in the
distribution company, which , as a purely financial organization, can be
located anywhere in the world : It is an intermediary stage not bound geographically
to either studios where the films are produced or the cinemas where they
are exhibited. US -controlled distribution companies clearly have no interest
in fostering the development of rival film production industries anywhere
in the Third world. [57]
As a product of capitalism, the cinema emerged in Europe in the 1890's
in the form of a small scale industry. Despite their modest artisanal beginnings,
the first film companies competed with each other to control local and
international markets. Due to the disruption to European cinemas caused
by World War I, American films began to control the world markets. After
the War, the Hollywood film industry prepared to develop the structures
for organizing the production and merchandizing of films which would form
the oligopoly of the Hollywood Studio System .
Hollywood Studio System :
The Studio system originated with the major American film companies and
the term is often applied to a specific period of filmmaking between early
1920 until about 1960. By the 1920's, these small number of production
companies were vertically integrated [58] institutions, which also had
an interest in controlling the distribution and exhibition of films as
well. Around 1930, a number of production companies encountered financial
problems as a consequence both the economic depression and of the coming
of the sound. Due to these factors, they went bankrupt and left the field
open for domination by the majors. Between 1930 and 1948, American film
industry was controlled by eight companies. "The Big Five" (Warner Bross, RKO, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and MGM) not only had production facilities
but also distribution companies and chains of film theatres as well. "The
Little Three" (Universal, Columbia and United Artists) were not vertically
integrated but since their films had access to the first run theatres owned
by Big Five, they were also included in the list of the major film companies.
In the 1950's, the studio system began to lose its power because the rise
of TV and blacklisting of large numbers of creative personnel due to McCarthyism
had effected the structure of the studios. [59] In addition, the relatively
cheaper costs of filming on location abroad and the 1948 Supreme Court
decision forcing the majors to divest themselves of their theatres played
a significant role in this process. During this period, since the studios
couldn't meet their payrolls, they chose to divest themselves of personnel
and real estate. Furthermore they began to rent their facilities for independent
productions -including TV productions.[60]
Today, major film companies are administered by financial conglomerates
and the majors themselves play the role of producer-distributors, "financing
films produced by independent talents, sometimes renting out their own
facilities, and distributing films either financed by themselves or by
others." [61] In addition to this fact, we need to add that production,
distribution and exhibition are only one part of integrated media empires,
which also control TV production and syndication companies, cable distribution
networks, home video distribution, record companies, book and magazine
publishing, theme parks.etc [62]
A. Kuhn states that in order to draw out the implications for the nature
of the films, there are two ways of approaching the Hollywood Studio System
as a particular economic institution. First of all, one may look both at
the economic organisation and production relations of Studios. From this
perspective, we see that both the nature of capital investment and vertical
integration would play a decisive role in power relations in the industry
between 1930 and 1948: The financial requirements of equiping the studios
and theatres for sound (combined with the negative effects of depression
in the 30's) caused the producers to seek financial backing especially
from eastern banks. Indeed, during the 1930's, all the major companies
had made financial organizations and this led to the domination of the
Studios by outside finance sources. In this way, the balance of power determining
the nature and form of the films shifted to the industry's businessmen
rather than creative and technical personnel. The most important criteria
for films was that they should secure financial return from exhibition.
[63] This situation is the same today. "For Studios,"writes Alan Parker
"the dollar is everything." [64]
According to Anette Kuhn, the industry's overall economic organization
may constitute a second way of approaching the relations of film production
characteristic of the studios. Because of the reorganizations which were
made in the early 30's, the Studios organized the production process on
an assembly line basis. The industrial mass production of commodities constitutes
the model for this kind of organisation. Standardisation of the product
was the result of these developments. Indeed, a specific way of telling
a story in film in which style is subordinated to the needs of the narrative
was the first main characteristic of this kind of product standardisation.
(Since we will see the characteristics of Classical Hollywood Cinema in
Section II, we don't deal with it here.) Secondly, during this period,
genre films (gangster, western etc.) were developed as a means of securing
standardisation and guaranteeing a return on investment. [65]
Indeed, standardisation is one of the key words which provides us a
better understanding about the fact that representation of Turks in Midnight
Express is partly caused by the profit motive. On the standardisation of
the product, Douglas Gomery writes as follows:
To keep the product flowing and the theatres full, Hollywood needed
a regular source and style of films. Each one should be different enough
to attract millions of patrons, but still be easily understood and turned
out at the lowest possible cost. This regularity of feature film production
and style became the cornerstone of the Hollywood film. Historians call
this regular style of the Classical Hollywood Cinema.[66]
As we will see in the Second Section the
"standardised" Classical Hollywood
Narrative is generally motivated by a "goal-oriented individual". In this
context, we need to mention that the Classical Cinema assumes that characters
serve as the agents of action within the story. The center of the film
rests on the decisions and actions of a finite set of characters. Hence,
the narration requires goal oriented "good" characters and their counterparts,
namely "bad" characters. (i.e."bad" Turks in Midnight Express who are forces
of opposition to the central character's desires and goals) What is important
here is that the profit maximisation drive which leads to the standardisation
of the product is closely related to the negative representation of Turks
in Midnight Express. In the Second Section, we will extensively analyse
how the certain conventions of Classical Hollywood Cinema effect the narrative
style and the representation of Turks. (Having said this, we also need
to keep in mind that the profit motive is not the sole determinative factor
over the end product.)
Despite the transformations undergone in Hollywood film industry after
1960's (i.e. New trade practices, conglomerate ownership), none of these
changes have had a major effect on the mode of production.. [67] Similarly,
the classic style remained the major model for filmmaking despite the fact
that there were both recent technological innovations [68] and certain
new conventions which adopted from the narrative style of European art
cinema. Another factor which indicates that "the new Hollywood" does not
aim to change its style is that genres remain in force. [69] Gangster and
outlaw films, thrillers, westerns, musicals, science-fiction films, comedies
and melodrama are examples to those genres which remain in the "new Hollywood
cinema".[70] For Pat H. Broeske, Midnight Express is "a modern horror story".
[71] Similarly, Pauline Kael states that it is "an ultimate romantic horror
show." [72]
Columbia
Since Midnight Express is a Columbia Pictures release it is useful to have
some idea of the history and the structure of the company itself. Columbiastarted
as a distribution company in 1920 and began to produce films in 1924. But
it didn't purchase theatres like other majors in the 1920's. During the
30's Columbia produced low budget supporting features for double bills
which hadn't any big stars or prestigious production values. At this time,
around 70% of its annual production (50 to 60 films) were in the "B" category.
But in 1934, the success of "It Happened One Night" (Frank Capra) and "One
Night of Love" (Victor Schertzinger) permitted Columbia to produce "A"
feature filmmaking. (Columbia is often considered as an exponent of New
Deal type populism due to the films of Frank Capra). During the 1930's
and 1940's which were the peak years of the Studio system, (though Columbia
had players of its own) it began to contract with stars and directors from
other Studios by an arrangement for a specific number of films. It was
a leading company to use a unit production system in which several producers
controlled and supervised 6 to 8 films per year. The World War II boom
enabled Columbia to expand its assets in five years. During this time (in
the 50's), since no Studio was allowed to own theatres due to the 1948
Anti-trust decision, Columbia began to challenge the Big Five. [73] When
Columbia was confronted with fierce competition from TV in the early 1950's,
it began to produce adaptations of best selling books or Broadway hits.
Columbia was also the first of the eight majors to enter TV production
since its limited financial resources prevented it from investing in widescreen
or cinerama. On the other hand, when TV became popular and cinema attendance
began to drop by the mid 1950's, the need to differentiate films from TV
serials became an important problem to solve. Columbia attempted to solve
the problem by using technicolor and Cinema Scope, location cinematography
techniques and violence in its films . [74]
Columbia travelled a rocky road in the 1950's and 1960's. The real achievement
for it came in the mid 70's (1976-77). In 1973, the company suffered its
heaviest ever annual loss and the company changed. [75] New owners employed
diversification and moreover they produced blockbuster movies which led
the company to success [76]. One of those blockbuster movies was Midnight
Express (1978) which was made by British director Alan Parker. Since director,
producer, cinematographer, editor, art director and a number of actors
were British, before we concern ourselves with other issues, we need to
explain the reasons why British filmmakers work with American financing.
Economic Obstacles Of The British Film Industry and "Immigrant British
Filmmakers"
Since its early days, the British Cinema has been expected to survive without
important government support on a small market. For this reason, the British
film industry confronted several crisis. Two big, vertically integrated
companies (which are now Rank and Thorn-Emi) established their own studios,
but only for a very short time, in 1930's, when they dominated the British
production industry completely. Hence, the vital problem for the British
Film Industry has been Hollywood. [77] Another factor which created obstacles
for the British film industry is that since its earliest days the British
cinema market has been supplied with English speaking features from America.
This situation also hampered the industry in creating films which reflect
British culture and explore matters of concern to British people. [78]
The second big obstacle has been TV. The effect of TV has been compounded
recently by home video since Britain has one of the highest rates of video
cassette ownership in the world. Furthermore, there is an anti cinematic
intellectual climate which has failed to support the cinema, because film
has a mass culture image as opposed to theatre or opera. In sum, such economic
and cultural problems encouraged British moviemakers to leave Britain and
seek adequate economic and creative facilities in Hollywood. Tony Richardson,
Alfred Hitchcock, John Schlesinger, Karel Reisz, Peter Yates, Ridley Scott,
Tony Scott, John Boorman, Adrien Lyne, Stephen Frears, Kenneth Branagh
and Alan Parker [79] were some of those British filmmakers who went to
Hollywood. [80] Neal Nordlinger writes about how Alan Parker joined the
Midnight Express project as follows :
Imagine you're Alan Parker, the English director who did Bugsy Malone.You're
in New York to discuss a project with Columbia; and walking down the street
you run into Peter Guber,, dynamic principal in Casablanca Filmworks and
producer of the 1977 summer smash The Deep . Peter says," where are you
staying?" You reply ,"At the Plaza.But I'm here to talk about something
else".And Peter says, "Fine , I won't talk to you .I'll just send a book
over to your hotel."
The book was "Midnight Express", Bill Hayes' story of his incarceration
in a Turkish prison for attempted hash smuggling. And that is how Alan
Parker came to direct the film of the same name.Well,almost. Parker was
definitely taken by the book ("It read like a dime novel , until you realized,'my
god, it is a true story!") and drawn to the idea of making a film about
' cruel prison conditions, injustice, and man's inhumanity to man. [81]
Before he directed Midnight Express, Parker made No Hard Feeling (1973)
and Evacuees for TV. Though his third film, Bugsy Malone (1976) established
him as a feature director, the enormous success of his fourth film, Midnight
Express [82] positioned him to do almost any film he wanted. [83] Actually,
this film is "almost bewilderingly different from anything he had done
before." [84] As a result, the budget of his next film (Fame) was "eight
million dollars as opposed to the 2.8 million that Midnight Express cost
and the amazing one million Bugsy Malone was made for." [85] From this
perspective, it can be argued that one of the reasons for using excessive
levels of violence (together with the negative representation of Turks)
in the film may be explained by Alan Parker's drive to make a movie for
the international "action" market. Needless to say, Parker's personal motives
constitute only one determinant of the negative representation of Turks.
[86] It can also be stated that western conceptions of Turks play a determinative
role in the negative representation. In the next section, we'll briefly
investigate the western conceptions of the Turks which are important in
their representation. But before we begin this issue, we need to emphasize
the notion of the historicity of human experience since the western conceptions
of Turks largely depend on historical traditions. For Hans-Georg Gadamer,
human experience is always historical, to the extent that new experience
is absorbed in the "residues of what is past". [87] In order to understand
the new, our knowledge depends on what is already present. On the other
hand, another aspect of the historicity of human experience is that the
residues of the past may also provide the conditions to obscure or conceal
the present. [88] As we shall see later on, western conception of Orient
provides a basis upon which the contemporary western filmmakers assimilate
new experiences about the Orient. In the case of Midnight Express, we'll
also see that these residues function to obscure or disguise the present
.
Western Conceptions Of The Orient And The Turks :
In Marx's work class relations constitute a major criteria in the understanding
of the relations of domination in a society. According to Marx, relations
of class domination constitute the principal conditions of inequality and
exploitation in human societies in general, and in modern capitalist societies
in particular. But class relations are by no means the only form of domination
and subordination. There are other kinds of domination such as "the structured
social relations between men and women, between one ethnic group and another,
or between hegemonic nation states and those nation states located on the
margins of a global system ". [89]
The relationship between West ("Occident") and East ("Orient") is another
example of a relationship of power and domination. [90] For Edward Said,
Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological
distinction made between the Orient and the Occident. It is a Western style
of dominating, restructuring and building hegemony over the Orient.[91]
Indeed, the two geographical entities (West and East) thus support and
in a sense reflect each other. [92] But we have to avoid seeing the Orient
as an idea which has no correspondence to reality. As we mentioned before,
ideas in some particular circumstances may serve to establish and sustain
relations of domination . Edward Said writes as follows :
Orientalism ,.., is not an airy European fantasy about the Orient
, but a created body of theory and practice in which , for many generations
, there has been a considerable material investment . Continued investment
made Orientalism , as a system of knowledge about the Orient , an accepted
grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness, just
as that same investment multiplied -indeed, made truly productive -the
statements proliferating out from Orientalism into the general culture.
[93]
In order to explain the strength and durability of
Orientalism, Edward
Said employs the Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony. For Gramsci, civil
society is made up of voluntary affiliations (schools, families etc.) which
are noncoercive. On the other hand, political society is made up of state
institutions (the army, the court etc.) which may use direct domination
and violence. Culture operates within the domain of civil society since
its effects work through consent. This framework also includes the fact
that certain cultural artefacts can predominate over others. According
to Said, the form of this cultural leadership is identified as hegemony
by Gramsci. Indeed, hegemony provides Orientalism its durability and strength.
In this context, Said argues that Orientalism is never far from the idea
of Europe, namely a collective notion identifying the Europeans as against
non- Europeans who are inferior ones in comparison with all the European
cultures and people. The major component in European culture which can
be described as "superiority over others" gave this culture its hegemonic
characteristic. [94] Said continues as follows :
Under the general heading of knowledge of the Orient, and within
the umbrella of Western hegemony over the Orient during the period from
the end of the eighteenth century, there emerged a complex Orient suitable
for study (...) Additionally , the imaginative examination of things Oriental
was based more or less exclusively upon a sovereign Western consciousness
out of whose unchallenged centrality an Oriental world emerged , first
according to general ideas about who or what was an Oriental , then according
to a detailed logic governed not simply by empirical reality but by a battery
of desires, repressions , investments,and projections. [95]
Hence, the representation of Turkish people in western literature and
cinema is not different from Middle Eastern stereotype. First of all they
are attributed negative physical characteristics such as ugliness, dirtiness
and moral characteristics so that they are always lustful, fanatical, irrational,
cruel, scheming, unreliable, defeated. Their only reason for existence
is to pose challenge to the western hero. For this reason, if they have
any energy it only provides problems to the hero since the characteristics
of this energy are evil. Their countries are passive background to the
stories in which all the important and good things are done by Western
heroes like James Bond. If they have a problem they are not able to solve
it, because a western hero is necessary to solve the problem or at least
to show them the way to the solution. [96] In Western literature we can
easily find various examples in which Turks are presented in association
with negative connotations such as cruelty, religious fanaticism, espionage,
dirtiness, drug addiction etc. For example, Simon Shephard writes about
the image of the Turk during the Renaissance period as follows:
Turks, Tartars, even Persians constituted the infidel powers which
neighboured and threatened European Christiandom. The word "Turk" was mainly
used in two ways, as a generic name for an Islamic State with its own characteristic
institutions of Government and military; and as a description of behaviour
or character- the Turks 'being of nature cruel and heartless'(...) The
idea of cruelty was probably produced by the Turks' distant foreigness
combined with an absence from their lives of comprehensible Christian ethics,
but more importantly by their military threat. [97]
This trend in Early English Stage covers Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlane
the Great (1590) and the Jew of Malta (1592), Thomas Kyd's the Tragedy
of Soliman and Perseda (1599), Fulke Greville's the Tragedy of Mustapha
(1609), John Mason's the Turk (1610), Robert Daborne's Christian turn'd
Turke (1612), Thomas Goffe's the Raging Turke or Bajazet the Second (1631),
Ladowick Carlell's the Famous Tragedy of Osmand the Great Turk (1657),
Nevile Payne's the Siege of Constantinople (1675), Elkonah Settle's Ibrahim
the Illustrious Bassa (1677), and Mary Pix's Ibrahim the Thirteenth Emperor
of the Turks (1696) [98]
In these plays, one of the important Turkish stereotypes is a Turkish
tyrant who seperates two lovers by falling in love with the girl (a naive
Turkish beauty) who he has kept in his possession through force. But because
of the faithfulness to her lover who is a Christian Westerner, she is either
rewarded by God with a happy reunion, or she chooses death instead of the
Turkish Pasha's love. [99] While she analyses the general characteristics
of Elizabethan plays Rana Kabbani writes that "Shakespeare whitewashes
Othello by making him a servant of the Venetian State, a soldier fighting
for a Christian power, and most importantly, a killer of Turks..." [100]
At the 19th century, due to the cencorship of British Victorian society,
eroticism was transferred either into the world of underground pornography
or to "exotic" lands such as Ottoman Territories. Indeed, some European
writers chose Eastern settings and characters to satisfy their reader's
sexual interests. Kamil Aydin writes as follows :
In fiction, the Lustful Turk (first published in 1828) is an outstanding
example of a convention that consists largely of a series of letters written
by its heroine, Emily Barlow, to her friend Sylvia Carey. When the heroine
sails from England for India in June 1814 , their ship is attacked by Turks
and afterwards they are taken to the sumptuous harem. In this epistolary
novel, readers quickly encounter bizzare sexual scenes and stories associated
with the lechereous and cruel character of the Turkish Dey.All the erotic
fantasies are narrated through Emily as she talks to the other enslaved
girls in the harem, eg. one of the captives in the harem is a Greek girl
named , Adrianti, who tells the tragic story of how her father and brother
were slaughtered before her eyes by the Turks. [101]
Similarly Lord Byron employed a Ottoman territory for a horror story
and started to write a story about a vampire taking Izmir as the setting.
[102] In his Turkish Tales, Leile, Zuleika and Gulnare are presented as
beautiful, hopeless victims of a Turkish governor. [103] At the decline
era of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish image took another form "which is
sometimes demeaning, sometimes critically mocking and caricaturised by
Victorian figures such as Bayle St. John, Thackeray, C.Dickens and so on."
[104] In his Rowing Englishmen, Charles Dickens writes that, "Oh no! We
should have been off anywhere but in Turkey." [105]
This tradition has not changed in the 20th century. For instance, Paul
Bowles claims that "if a nation [Turks] wishes, however mistakenly to westernise
itself, first let it give up hashish." [106] Ernest Hemingway clearly states
his uneasiness with Istanbul since it is very dirty and he adds that "[minarets]
look like dirty, white candles sticking up for no apparent reason." [107]
Films have also produced and disseminated particular negative images
of Turks. For example, in Lawrence Of Arabia (David Lean) the moviemakers
present Turks as corrupt, evil, barbarian, ugly, sodomite peoples by using
the point of view of a British army officer. Similarly, in Pascali's Island
(James Dearden) Ben Kingsley plays an ugly, bold, bisexual Turkish spy
who becomes tragically involved with Charles Dancer's tricksy archaeologist
and Helen Mirren's Austrian painter in the middle. Due to his fanatical
jealousy and denunciation, the lovers (English archaeologist and Austrian
painter) are killed by the cruel, ugly, fat, bribee Turkish Pasha of the
island. In Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray,1954), the name of one of the bank
robbers is Turkey. [108]
In this context, we need to add that stereotypes about western people
are regarded as structurally central in relation with the stereotypes of
Turks because stereotypes of Turks are partially defined in terms of or
in opposition to western people. [109] For this reason, the dirty, lustful
Turk attains at least some of its meaning and force from its opposition
to the clean, rational, honest etc. characteristics of western people.
[110] In the next Section, while we will try to analyse the effects of
classical Hollywood Cinema on the representation of Turks in Midnight Express,
we will clearly observe that how certain stereotypes about Turks are employed
to contribute to the cause-effect chain in the narrative structure of this
film.
SECTION TWO : CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD CINEMA AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE REPRESENTATION
OF TURKS IN THE MIDNIGHT EXPRESS
The number of possible narratives in cinema are various, but the term of
"Classical Hollywood Cinema" refers to a specific way of telling a story
in which style is dominated by the needs of the narrative. In this section,
the main characteristics of Classical Hollywood Cinema are analysed under
subheadings. These are narrative motivated by goal-oriented individual,
closed point of view, strong closure, construction of a coherent time-space
continuum and character oriented mise en scene. In each of these subheadings,
I will try to show how the conventions of Classical Hollywood Cinema contribute
to the representation of Turks in the Midnight Express. (Some of the subheadings
-i.e. dominance of narrative, centred composition - are excluded from our
analysis since they don't provide relevant information for our subject
matter.)
Narrative Motivated By Goal Oriented Individual
According to an important assumption of Classical Hollywood Cinema, the
action springs from individual characters as causal agents. In other words,
narrative is usually motivated by goal-oriented individual and his or her
personal decisions, choices and traits of character. The desires of the
character are decisive in this context. The desires which are relevant
to the narrative set up the goals, then the characters want to achieve
these goals and the process begins. The latter goals create short term
goals along the way. But there is a counter force which creates conflict.
This counter force is another character whose traits and goals are opposed
to protagonist's traits and goals. When protagonist and other character
try to achieve their goals, they enter into conflict and contribute to
the cause -effect chain. Cause-effect implies change. Therefore, the goal
oriented individual is a strong source of causes and effects. [111]
In Midnight Express, the main character is Billy Hayes and his goals
serve as preconditions for action. Narrative is generally motivated by
Billy Hayes and his goals and desires. At the beginning of the film, the
audience see him as a slim, handsome, clean, young American who has hashish
in his possession while attempting to board a plane in Istanbul Airport.
But he is arrested at the airport and put into jail by Turkish police.
[112] After his arrest, his desire to get out from a hostile prison environment
is a strong source of causes and effects. Throughout the film, Billy Hayes
wants to get out of jail by using various methods which include finding
a way into a tunnel system running beneath the prison.
On the other hand, there is counter-force that creates conflict. Turks
(and even their customs, laws...) are considered as opposing characters
that would create conflict. For instance, in Hayes's first trial, the Turkish
prosecutor wants a sentence for smuggling rather than possession, a charge
which can result in life imprisonment. (In fact, when the sentence comes,
his Turkish lawyer tells Billy that he gets off lucky with a four year,
two months term.) But later on, the prosecutor feels uneasy with the sentence
and this new situation caused by Turkish officials contributes to the cause
-effect chain: When Hayes's sentence dwindles to only fifty-three remaining
days, a new trial is scheduled, and Hayes now faces a smuggling charge.
Speaking out at his trial Hayes states that he has spent three and half
years in the prison and he thinks that he has paid for his error. In the
same speech, he blames the Turks for wanting to make an example of him.
He continues as follows:
For nation of pigs, it sure is funny you don't eat them. Jesus Christ
forgave the bastards. But I can't. I hate them. I hate you, I hate your
nation and I hate your people and I fuck your sons and daughters. Because
they are pigs. You are all pigs.
After his speech he learns that he has received a sentence of no less
than thirty years and this means that he has no alternative but to escape.
In fact, he finds a way into a tunnel system running beneath the prison
with other western prisoners, namely Jimmy Booth (Randy Quaid) and Max
(John Hurt). After they enter into the tunnel system they learn that the
tunnel is a dead end, but they don't give up their trials with the hope
of finding another way out somewhere in the tunnel. Unfortunately, the
tunnel entrance is discovered by one of the Turkish prisoners, a man named
Rifki (Paolo Bonicelli) who is an informer eager to gain an advantage over
prisoners by learning anything that might give him leverage. Rifki tells
of the tunnel entrance to the prison officials and one of the westerners,
Jimmy Booth, is taken away for punishment. Later, Billy Hayes steals Rifki's
money for revenge. Feeling angry over the theft, Rifki accuses Max of dealing
in hashish. Like Jimmy Booth, Max is taken away by the Turkish guards.
Hayes who isn't able to control himself anymore, attacks Rifki and chews
off his tongue in slow motion. After this uncontrolled violence, Hayes
is put in Section Thirteen, the wing for criminally insane. While he is
in this section, he is visited by his girlfriend Susan (Irene Miracle)
who secretly gives him money for his escape. After receiving the money,
Hayes goes to a prison official, Hamidou (Paul Smith) and attempts to bribe
him so that he will be placed in the hospital, from which he can easily
escape. The Turkish official Hamidou makes a sexual advance on him and
for this reason Hayes pushes him against a wall where he is impaled on
a hook and dies instantly. Then Hayes puts on Hamidou's uniform and escapes.
As this synopsis of the film indicates, a goal-oriented individual is strong
source of causes and effects in the narrative structure of the Midnight
Express. In this context, if Turks are allowed the dignity of having a
trait of character in the film, it is only to pose a challenge to Billy
Hayes.
Actually, one important thing for the representation of Turks is that
Billy Hayes does not come up against a "single" character whose traits
and goals are opposed to his. Rather than a single individual, all the
Turks (both guards and prisoners) constitute the counter force who oppose
Billy Hayes. At this point, it is useful to state that Classical Hollywood
Cinema is one of several film traditions which emphasize the creation of
round characters [113] to such an extent that its narrative is largely
built upon stereotyped roles: Italian Mafia boss, the black servant, wisecracking
showgirl, Chinese cook are some examples of round characters which occur
in Hollywood films. (Furthermore, we need to add that in Classical Hollywood
Cinema, through type casting, actors are selected and directed to conform
to type.) [114] Having said this, it can be argued that Midnight Express
contributes much to the strengthening of a stereotype, namely cruel Turkish
prison guard and prisoner who are both characterized by their dirtiness,
ugliness, barbarism and sodomitic tendencies.
Before we analyse the distinguishing features of "Turkish round characters"
in Midnight Express, we need to underline that there is no single Turk
who can be regarded as an "individual". Throughout the film, we do not
have further knowledge about the social, psychological features of Turkish
people other than their negative physical or psychological attributes.
For example, the film never pauses to ask what the social background of
the Turkish prisoners is and what their punishment might mean to themselves
etc...Turks are not regarded as people who have distinguishing motivations,
goals, personal decisions, choices and traits of character which constitute
an "individual" like Billy Hayes. On the contrary, they look like each
other since all of the characteristics which they possess are restricted,
similar and negative. In Section Thirteen, while other Turkish prisoners conti- nuously turn to the right from the left around a stone, Billy Hayes
attempts to turn to the left and for this reason he is warned by one of
the Turks, Philosopher Ahmet. Philosopher Ahmet talks as follows:
There will be trouble if you turn this way. A good Turk would be
turn to the right. Left is communist, right is good. You see! You must
go the other way. The other way is good.
We have already mentioned that through type-casting Hollywood narrative
selects and directs actors to conform to type. It is interesting to know
that the grotesque Turks of Section Thirteen were drawn from real geriatrics
and sick people from a Malta hospital and they were intermixed with actors.
[115] In fact, all of the Turks in Midnight Express are ugly and dirty
types. The head-guard Hamidou is a huge, bald man with great clumps of
hair growing from the rims of his ears. He has eyebrows joining over his
nose and he is always sweating. The other guards are similarly ugly, fat,
chain- smokers who have moustaches, oily hairs and hairy nostrils. Their
clothes are usually ill-fitting. (But we notice that when Billy Hayes escapes
in Hamidou's uniform, the clothes "magically" fit his body despite that
he is much thinner than Hamidou.) Similarly, the Turkish prisoners who
have decayed teeth, unkept fingernails, torn, dirty clothes never wash
themselves like Billy and other western prisoners. But we see that Billy
and Swede make sport and wash themselves in a steaming sauna which appears
in a patch of sunlight despite the fact that they live in the filthy prison.
Due to blindness, Rifki's one eye seems to be open even when he sleeps
and for all these reasons it is obvious that the audience doesn't waste
his or her sympathy on Turkish prisoners. But dirtiness and ugliness are
not limited to the guards and prisoners. Even the rich Turkish lawyer who
is a fleshy, grinning person with heavily greased black hair can't escape
from this categorization. He is shown as a nose picker while he waits Billy
for a meeting. Furthermore, he doesn't know how to put on his cravat since
we see that his cravat is either too short or there is an ornament near
to the top of it which is obviously not at the proper place. Additionally,
Billy's father, Mr Hayes (Mike Kellin) says that he has diarrhoea because
of the Turkish food he ate and he continues as follows:
I think food is lousy. Crap they sell in those Turkish restaurants.
I ran into the toilet. You should have seen the toilets. Anyway I am not
taking any more chances. I'm gonna eat at the Hilton every night: Steak,
French fries and lots of ketchup.
Beside ugliness and dirtiness, stupidity and ignorancy are also common
in Turks. At the beginning of the film a policeman opens Billy's shoulder
bag and finds a frisbee, but doesn't understand what it is. After Billy
explains him that it is a game he bestially hits the frisbee against the
shoulder bag. In the next scenes, none of the policemen are able to write
the name of Billy Hayes since they don't know English. When they arrest
him; instead of taking Billy's photographs simply from the front and profile,
they take picture of Billy and themselves while he is standing in the middle
of them with his arms full of drugs. After this "big game hunter picture"
is taken, Billy pulls off one of his boots, bangs it on the heel and then
two plaques of hashish clatter to the floor indicating the fact that the
stupid Turkish police is incapable of finding them.
Additionally, the bestiality and insensitiveness which Billy witnesses
daily are "natural" characteristics of Turks regardless of being policemen
or prisoner. Knifings are common among the prisoners. Child prisoners are
also tortured. Jimmy Booth is given a lenghty prison sentence for stealing
candlesticks from a mosque. On his first night, Billy is hung up by the
ankles and clubbed by Hamidou. When his sentence dwindles to fifty-three
remaining days, a new trial is scheduled to make him an example to other
drug offenders. Pauline Kael writes as follows:
The director works in xenophobic, melodramatic terms: The Americans,
the Englishman and the Swede are civilized and sensitive, and the Turks
are bestial, sadistic, filthy. There are no ambiguities, there is no depth.
[116]
Sodomy is another notorious Turkish feature which is embedded in Midnight
Express. For instance, Philosopher Ahmet confess that he raped a child.
The policemen stare at Billy's naked body with sexual desire on their faces.
At the end of the film, Hamidou comes towards him with the interest of
sodomy. As he recounts prison life and Turkish culture in his letters to
his girlfriend, he clearly states that despite the fact that homosexuality
is a big crime here, most of the Turks do it every chance they get. In
fact, while his voice continues to inform us about horrors and crimes the
audience sees that child prisoners come towards each other with homosexual
interest. But we need to mention that in spite of the fact that the original
book describes Billy's homosexual affair with a Swedish prisoner; the film
shows him rejecting the Swedish prisoner's advances. [117] Parker explains
the reason of the rejection as follows:
To me it wasn't important that it was a homosexual relationship as
such. What was important was that there was a moment of tenderness and
closeness to another human being. I didn't, therefore, want to lose one
half of the audience's sympathy for that character because they thought
that he was gay. Which he wasn't. Because of the shorthand that you are
forced to use in film- you know, we're talking about a two and a half minute
scene- it wold have biased the film totally in the wrong direction to make
him gay. [118]
Lastly, we point out that one of the important factors which contributes
much to the strangeness of Turks is the fact that foreign dialogue (Turkish)
is not subtitled. The filmmakers permit players to speak in Turkish since
this situation can easily create a strong sense of the strangeness of being
in a foreign place for audience and Billy Hayes. Alan Parker points out
as follows:
Part of Billy's problem was the alienation because he was surrounded
by people speaking a strong guttural language he couldn't understand so
he did not know what was going on a good share of the time. [119]
A good example which indicates that even the Turkish language is regarded
as "disgusting" as Turks can be found in the scene in which Billy is visited
by his girlfriend. In this scene, he sees her in a small booth where the
two are separated by a plate of glass. At his urging in Turkish ("Ac"),
she unties her blouse, and as he looks at her breasts, he masturbates.
Here by letting him use Turkish, he is represented as a person who is heavily
effected by this "strange, brutal" culture. In fact, during the scene Susan
asks that what did Turks do to him.
Point Of View
In Classical Hollywood Cinema, narration uses a number of options, but
"objective" narration is relatively more important among them. A plot which
is constructed according to the conventions of this kind of narration confines
the viewer wholly to information about characters' external behaviour;
specifically what they say and do. In this structure, there is not much
to do with perceptual or mental subjectivity. In other words; the plot
does not usually reveal the events through what characters see and hear.
Moreover, even if we follow a single character, we can have information
about different events the character doesn't see. [120]
This is not always true for Midnight Express in which the narration
is relatively subjective. In order to be regarded as having relatively
subjective narrative structure, a film's plot usually provides us with
access to what characters perceive. "Point of view shots" in which we see
shots taken from character's optical position are one of the means. The
other one is "sound perspective" in which we hear the sounds as the character
would perceive them. For Thompson and Bordwell, both sound perspective
and point of view shot would offer a greater degree of subjectivity which
can be named as "perceptual subjectivity". Moreover if plot enters into
a character's mind a greater depth will be obtained. In such a case, the
audience may hear an internal commentary revealing the character's inner
thoughts or he or she may see the character's inner images. This situation
may be named "mental subjectivity". [121]
Both mental and perceptual subjectivity are widely used in Midnight
Express and furthermore they play a decisive role in the representation
of Turks since a lot of the information about Turks is presented from Billy
Hayes's point of view.
In order to see that Midnight Express would offer a great degree of
perceptual subjectivity, it is very helpful to look at how the point of
view shots and sound perspective are used: Throughout the film, we are
shown events from Billy's optical position or hear sounds as he hears them.
For example, on his first night, before he's hung up by the ankles and
clubbed by Hamidou, Billy Hayes hears trampling feet. Then we see him as
he turns his head to learn who is coming. At this point, the director employs
the point of view shot of Billy Hayes and through his point of view we
will have the information that Hamidou is coming for the first time towards
Hayes. Film is full of such perceptual subjectivity: He and the Swiss person
are at the window, watching while the Turks torture the children. We hear
Muslim prayers as he hears and wakes up from his bed. But the perceptual
subjectivity of Turks is quite restricted in the sense that we very seldom
hear or see things from the Turk's perceptual vantage point. The exceptional
cases to this are those in which they will attempt to harm somebody- especially
Billy and his western friends. In such cases we get direct access to their
minds: When Rifki reports Max to Hamidou, saying that Max has been dealing
in hashish, Hamidou looks at the side on which Max is standing. Then filmmaker
uses the point of view shot of Hamidou. Seconds later, terrified Max is
led away for punishment. Similarly, Hamidou's point of view is again used
at the end of the film when he attempts to sodomize Billy.
By plunging into Billy's mind, the plot also creates mental subjectivity:
We hear his voice as an internal commentary revealing various thoughts
and have information about his arrest, prison life and Turkish customs.
In one such scene, Hayes thoughts are as follows:
To the Turks everything is
"soyle boyle" which means like this, like
that. You'll never know what'll happen. All foreigners are "ayip". They
considered dirty. So was homosexuality. It's a big crime here. Most of
them do it every chance they get. There are about thousands of things that
are "ayip". For instance, you can stab or shoot somebody below the waist.
But not up. Because that's intent to kill. So everybody runs around stabbing
everyone else in the ass. That's what they called Turkish revenge. I know
that's all sound crazy to you, but this place is crazy.
In addition to these, we hear his father's voice, saying "We'll get
you out of here" as Billy remembers that voice. But filmmakers don't use
inner images representing Billy's fantasies, dreams or nightmares. Lastly,
I need to point out that like perceptual subjectivity, Turks don't have
any mental subjectivity either. We depend wholly upon their external behaviour,
namely what they say and do.
Strong Closure
Most Classical narrative films end when the major questions are answered.
The resolution means reconstruction of a state of equilibrium, a condition
which echoes the one which begins the film. At the beginning of the classical
films, the fictional world of film reveals a state of equilibrium. Narrative
equilibrium accepts that social life is comfortably ordered with everyone
in their position. Hence, the resolution is a confirmation of the initial
social equilibrium. [122]
The end of the Midnight Express is satisfying because the questions
which were posed have been answered. At the end of the film, Billy Hayes
escapes from prison. Closing credits report Hayes's return to the United
States, and still photographs show us him with his father, mother and Susan.
We can say that the freeze frames at the end of Midnight Express lead the
audience to approve safe, protected and civilized Western world since motion
is so essential to the screen image: When the motion suddenly stops, we
are forced to reflect upon a lifeless, still image frozen there on the
screen which only seconds before was full of terrifying moving images.
Due to this, the viewer becomes more aware of social contradictions and
how lucky he is to be an American or Westerner. In this structure, what
is implied for the representation of Turks is that they are still embedded
in their uncivilized, dirty, brutal, insensitive conditions without any
sign of changing them.
Construction of A Coherent Time Space Continuum
Continuity editing, depth of image and synchronic diegetic sound (except
music) are the elements which provide proper grounds to construct a coherent
time-space continuum in the Classical Cinema. In this section, I will try
to investigate how each one of those elements would shape the representation
of Turks in Midnight Express
Continuity editing constructs a temporal continuity and a spatial coherence
in the narrative structure of films. The 180 degree rule is one of the
main rules of continuity editing. According to the 180 degree rule; croscutting
is alternating between two different places; and framing and joining shots
so that the camera remains on one side of an imaginary line which is drawn
through characters. Moreover, continuity editing refers to matching actions
and eyeline match. Eyeline matches and point of view shots are patterns
which suggest what characters are looking at. Alternating between shots
of two characters in a dialogue is shot/reverse shot editing. [123] All
of the techniques of continuity editing are used in Midnight Express. But
in one case, the "match on action" principle is slightly underestimated,
because this modification would increase the bestiality of the Turkish
guard, Hamidou: On his first day, Billy waits for punishment since he takes
a blanket without permission. Then we see that Hamidou enters into the
jail and walks towards Hayes and stops in front of him. During this shot,
there is nothing in Hamidou's hands. Once the 180 degree line is established,
director employs the shot/reverse shot pattern (in medium close-ups) to
give the conversation between Billy and Hamidou. In the last one of these
shot/reverse shots, Hamidou suddenly hits Billy with his hand and while
Billy falls backwards, camera pans with him to show the place where he
falls. The next shot is a high angle, long shot taken from behind the Hamidou
in which we see that he suddenly has a "magical" stick in his hand. With
this "magical" stick, he begins to beat Billy.
Depth of image is another device which is used to construct a coherent
time- space continuum. Classical Cinema creates space in various planes
through various depth cues. In addition to the usual cues of visual overlap
and familiar size, the Classical Hollywood cinematographer employs pattern,
colour, texture, lighting and focus to specify depth. [124] These depth
cues are extensively used in Midnight Express, but what is important for
the representation of Turks is that various depth cues contribute much
to the sense of claustrophobia caused by Turks. In the foreground, middle
ground and background of the frame, there are various items associated
with Turks and these items may be considered as obstacles which isolate
Billy from his environment. The trial scene which is shot in a monastery
corridor [125] constitute a good example of this. There are columns, a
red Turkish flag, iron railings, a sculptured figure of the founder of
Turkish Republic, civilian Turks, guards, chairs in the corridor and all
of those transform the long corridor to a place full of obstacles. Despite
the fact that depth cues are widely used in the trial scene, since there
are a lot of items in the foreground, middle ground and background associated
with Turks, they create a strong sense of claustrophobia for the audience
and Billy Hayes as well. Moreover, the rooms of the prison (especially
the Lunatic Asylum) are cramped with beds and bodies to create a similar
effect. On the other hand, the most important depth cue in cinema is movement
and we also find various examples to the use of movement for creating a
negative association towards Turks. For instance, when the guards intent
to harm somebody, they usually walk towards the camera and their movement
not only creates various planes, but at the same time threatens the audience.
Similarly, when Billy is brought to "Sagmalcilar" jail, the police car
moves to the camera as if it will crush the audience.
Synchronic, diegetic sound is the last device which helps to construct
a coherent time-space continuum. (Diegetic refers to source of sound which
belongs to the story world of the narrative. Synchronous sound refers to
the temporal relation between sound and image. Another useful distinction
for our analysis is made between sources of sound whether they are onscreen
or offscreen.) In Midnight Express, use of sound is modelled upon Classical
Cinema's use of images. For the purpose of intensification of important
sounds and the rejection of unimportant ones, sound technicians articulate
the foreground and background voices and noises. At the same time, we need
to be aware of the fact that due to the centrality of human characters,
Classical Hollywood Cinema gives special emphasis to speech and dialogue.
[126] In this context, we will mainly focus on the offscreen, diegetic
and non-diegetic use of sound since those have significance for the representation
of Turks. In Midnight Express, we can find several examples for this synchronic,
diegetic, offscreen use of sound especially if Turks torture somebody either
psychologically or physically. For instance, when Max learns that somebody (Rifki) kills his cat, we hear Muslim prayers
offscreen. In the airport,
before Billy attempts to board the plane, we hear offscreen- diegetic voices
of Turkish policemen and assume that some harmful thing threatens Billy
and Susan. Indeed, frequent use of offscreen voices contributes much to
the feeling that Turks are everywhere and they can watch everything at
all times. [127] Beside this, there is also non-diegetic use of sound (i.e.
Turkish songs in which they contain a din of arms.) especially in violent
scenes. When Billy attacks Rifki and chews off his tongue, we hear a Turkish
song. Similarly, when Hamidou whips Jimmy with a leather belt, Jimmy's
yells of pain provide the melody to a Turkish song.
Character Oriented Mise en Scene
The term mise en scene refers to the contents of film frame and it includes
the setting, lighting, costume-make up and the behaviour of the figures.
Mise en scene produces meaning in films, even if only by providing visual
information about the fictional world of a narrative. In classical Hollywood
Cinema, mise en scene is designed to be relevant to the story and giving
information about characters. [128]
Midnight Express is largely commited to portraying Billy Hayes, who
is isolated from society by "brutal" Turks. Thus selection and construction
of setting help to enhance a sense of such a kind of isolation. For instance,
the filmmakers use the walls, ancient wire fences, doors, iron bailings,
plate of glasses to provide visual symbols for the social and cultural
barriers that separate Billy from the rest of the civilized society. Hence,
in the small booth where Billy and his girlfriend, Susan are separated
by a plate of glass, he looks at Susan's breasts and masturbates. Similarly,
in the trial sequence the scenic designer puts a ventilator in front of
a Turkish judge and when it works it resembles a guillotine. Needless to
mention, the prison is very dirty: In the Lunatic Asylum, bunks are pushed
together in clusters of three and four and a lot of men sleep together
on them. Pauline Kael writes as follows:
The prison itself is more like a brothel than a prison; the film
was shot mostly in nineteenth century British barracks in Malta, which
was turned into a setting worthy of this de Sade entertainment.(It even
has a flooded catacomb.)...Misery is so decorative it's almost Felliniesque.
[129]
Indeed, the film sometimes turns towards the "surreal" by employing
odd, bizarre images over the "realist" background and this "surrealism"
is closely associated with the Turks. The Lunatic Asylum sequence constitutes
a good example of "surrealism". But there are other scenes which help to
enhance the "surreal" feeling. For instance, on his first day in the prison
yard, Billy sees screaming little Turkish children who play soccer, wrestlers
and their spectators, gamblers, tea-sellers, a dwarf, a man who polishes
shoes, two dogs which run after a goat, peacocks, a pedlar, linen for the
wash and finally dirty looking policemen pacing back and forth. But "surrealism"
is not only restricted to the prison life. The outside world also contains
"surrealistic" images. When Billy enters the coffee- house to inform on
the drug-dealer, the moviemakers insert the cooked head of a sheep and
an old Turk who tries to eat it. At the beginning of the film, when Billy
washes his face in the toilet, the audience notices that there is a picture
of the founder of Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the wall which
refers to the myth that "Big Brother is watching you even in the toilet".
Lastly, we need to add that Billy and his friends' world are personalised
by the use of small belongings (i.e. books, a map, sunglasses, the colour
photograph of Susan). But Turkish prisoners don't posses such kind of various
small belongings (except knives) since they are not treated as "individuals"
in the film.
Hollywood Cinema uses three points lighting system in which three light
sources per shot are employed. In this system, three lights are arranged
in a near triangular position above the bodies of the actors. The backlight
comes from behind and above the player, the key light comes diagonally
from the front, and the fill light shines from near the camera. The key
light is closer to the player and also brighter than the fill light. Generally,
each player in a scene has his or her own three points lighting system.
Other fill lights (which are called background or set lighting) fall on
the setting or minor characters to illuminate them. One important demand
of this three points lighting system is that it requires the light sources
to be rearranged every time the camera changes its position to a new framing
of the scene. In other words, we have different lighting arrangements for
each camera position. Also it is useful to keep in mind that there are
various permutations in this lighting system and these are motivated by
genre conventions, aesthetic preferences and ideologies of representation.
Lastly, we need to state the difference between "high key illumination"
and "low key illumination", because these two permutations of the three
points lighting system will be very useful to analyse the representation
of Turks in the Midnight Express. High key lighting implies a lighting
arrangement in which fill and backlight sources are used to create low
contrast between brighter and darker parts of the figure. In this arrangement,
light quality is generally soft so that shadow areas are fairly transparent.
On the contrary, low key illumination creates contrasts and sharper shadows.
When we employ low key illumination lighting is hard and fill light is
either eliminated or lessened. Hence, the cinematographer produces extreme
dark and light areas in the picture if he use low key illumination. [130]
In Midnight Express, low key lighting is usually applied to Turks even
if they share the same place with Billy Hayes and other western people.
For instance, when Turkish policemen take Billy Hayes' clothes off and
stare at his naked body with a grin on their faces, high key illumination
is used for Billy. His back, fill and key lights serve to create low contrast
between brighter and darker areas on his face. Here, light quality is soft
and shadow areas are fairly transparent. On the contrary, the fill and
back lights of the policemen are considerably less intense than in high
key technique. As a result, shadow areas on their faces remain relatively
hard and sharp despite the fact that "the whole film was shot through the
(...) soft filters". [131]
In addition to soft filters, smoke is also widely used in Midnight Express
as a visual device. Alan Parker states as follows:
We used smoke in nearly every scene. I feel it is a strong visual
device; and in many ways as important as filter. In this case it was just
incense smoke shot through a special gun so it would diffuse and give a
soft feel. Sometimes we used it heavier, which gave certain scenes a feeling
of being more diffused than others. But smoke depending on how you use
it, can definitely give you a feeling of something being more or less surreal.
[132]
For Neal Nordlinger, the "surrealistic" feeling is specially pre-dominant
in the prison and in Section Thirteen when contrasted with scenes in which
Billy meets with his father. In those scenes, there is a distinguished
clarity. [133] Parker also states that he didn't use smoke in these scenes.
[134] We need to stress that these "clear scenes" are the scenes in which
there are no Turks present. Lastly, I will give an example about expressio-
nistic use of light: When Hamidou comes to punish Hayes on his "notorious"
first night, Hamidou's long shadow expressionistically casts on the wall
before he enters into the jail and this shadow creates a horror film effect.
Costume and setting are closely related to each other. Setting establishes
a more or less neutral background while costume provides the proper grounds
to pick out the character who is central to the narrative. In this context,
colour design is significantly important. [135] In Midnight Express, there
is a strong parallelism between the dark atmosphere of the prison and the
dark uniforms of the guards and dirty clothes of the prisoners. Whereas,
throughout the film Billy Hayes wears clean, colourful (yellow, orange,
blue) T-shirts which provide him traits of "individuality" which we can't
find in Turks. In addition to the wraps of Turkish women, the Judge, Prosecutor
and Lawyer wear very big rings which enhance the "surrealist" feeling.
Acting is the last element of the mise en scene. Bordwell and Thompson
states that since the performance of an actor is part of the overall mise
en scene, films contain a wide variety of acting styles. Here, instead
of assuming that acting must be realistic, we should consider what kind
of acting style the film is aiming at. For Bordwell and Thompson, in order
to determine the acting's functions, we need to specify overall formal
factors such as narrative causality and genre conventions. Additionally,
an actor's performance can be evaluated according to his or her character's
function in the context of the film: A good performance doesn't necessarily
rely on whether or not the actor looks or behaves as a real person does.
At this point, Bordwell and Thompson makes a distinction between performance
styles: The performance may be more or less individualised and it may be
more or less stylised. [136] They continue as follows:
Often we have both in mind when we think of a "realistic" performance:
It will create a unique character, and it will not seem too exaggerated
or too underplayed. Yet less individualised and more stylised performance
may also be appropriate to the context of a particular film's mise en scene.
[137]
At this point, we argue that the performances of actors who play Turks
are less individualised and more stylised if we compare them with Billy's
and other western prisoners' performances. For instance, the ghost like
Turkish prisoners of Section Thirteen don't look or behave as real persons
would. (In fact, they are real geriatrics as it is mentioned before.) On
Billy's first night in prison, Rifki looks like and talks to him as if
he is a demon from hell. In the trial scene, the performance of Turkish
prosecutor is highly stylised so that he sometimes resembles the hero of
Ivan the Terrible, Nicolai Cherkasov. Hamidou who is always sweating shakes
his head as if this is an indicator of his inner conflicts and mental illnesses.
But he is not allowed to perform more than this. The director doesn't provide
him with the means to strip away the barriers and commingle the depths
of his feelings and shape of his body and face. Like other Turkish people,
he doesn't transform his face or body into a succession of symbols even
for anger and brutality. He simply enters into the frame, walks towards
Billy and other western people, hits them, shouts at them with superior,
frightening eyes. His body doesn't assume any configurations other than
walking, standing and bending. When he moves his hands are ready near his
guns as if he will fight in a duel in a few seconds. Also, his voice is
always deep and no change occurs throughout the film.
Furthermore, Turks rarely have the chance to use various props (other
than cigarettes, guns and "falaka" sticks) in the way Billy and his friends
use during their performances: Max uses drugs, Jimmy has a map, Susan reads
a newspaper, Billy looks at her photograph to produce more or less individua-
lised performances. Indeed, the filmmaker allows them the chance to create
individualistic performances. [138] For instance, in one very lenghty shot
which shows Billy at the court he passes from anger, wonder, accusation
and tearfulness. He laughs, cries, closes his eyes, becomes morose, shakes
his head, changes his voice, looks with anger, uses his hands to accuse
etc. Similarly, there is the great scene of hysteria again performed by
Hayes when Max is taken away for punishment. When his girlfriend Susan
sees Billy in a small booth when the two are separated by a plate of glass
she also passes from wonder, sadness and tears in spite of the fact that
she is a minor character in the film. [139]
CONCLUSION
Midnight Express is a terrifying story about a young American student,Billy
Hayes who tries to smuggle hashish from Istanbul back to his home in America.
The film which is a Columbia Pictures Release (1978) narrates Hayes's arrest
and imprisonment in an environment of brutality, filth and degradation.
This harsh, violent movie won international acclaim for Alan Parker (the
director) and even its critics, who claimed that it is a racist film, could
not but admire it's brilliance as a piece of film making. [140] At this
point, it is useful to state that Alan Parker himself candidly admits that
he may have got some of Midnight Express wrong. He said that there are
things he would change now, things to do with an intellectual or political
maturity that he doesn't think he had then. [141] But despite such kind
of statements, due to the transnational character of the forms of transmission,
Midnight Express had the opportunities to reach a wide range of audience
and contribute much to the terrible Turk myth.
There are two main factors which led to the representation of Turks
as terrifying people in this film. One of those factors is Orientalism
which is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological
distinction made between the Orient (East) and Occident (West). The other
factor is the penetration of capital into cultural production. In this
context, the profit maximisation motive of Hollywood Cinema and its specific
way of telling a story play a determinative role in the negative represen-
tation of Turks in Midnight Express. (Having said this, we also need to
be aware of the dangers of "reductionism" which assumes that Hollywood
films must be regarded as mirrors of the capitalist system which produce
them. [142])
Here, it is useful to keep in mind that cultural phenomena are symbolic
forms in structured contexts, and cultural analysis may focus on the study
of the meaningful constitution and social contextualisation of symbolic
forms. [143] Starting from this point of view, cultural phenomena can be
conceived as expressing relations of power, as serving in specific circums-
tances to sustain relations of power and as subject to multiple, divergent
interpretations by the individuals who are effected by them. [144]
In this study, we have been mainly concerned with structured social
relations between East and West rather than other forms of domination (i.e.
relations between the classes, between sexes, between ethnic groups, between
individuals and the state,...) since the relationship between East and
West is not only another example of a relationship of power and domination
[145] but at the same time it is more relevant for our analysis. Edward
Said claims that Orientalism is a western style of dominating, restructuring
and building hegemony over the Orient. [146] Indeed, Orientalism considers
a collective notion identifying the Europeans as against non-Europeans
who are inferior ones in comparison with all the European cultures and
people. Thus, the major component in European culture which can be described
as "superiority over others" gave this culture its hegemonic characteristic.
[147] Hence, in this style of thought Turks are attributed negative physical
or moral characteristics so that they are always lustful, fanatical, irrational,
cruel, scheming, unreliable and defeated. Midnight Express can be interpreted
as one example of this thought.
Another important factor which plays a significant role in the negative
representation of Turks is the penetration of capital into cultural production.
As a modern and one of the most widespread form of communi- cation, cinema
is the product of western countries at specific time in their history and
its emergence is closely related to the profit motive which is expressed
through western capitalism. According to Horkheimer and Adorno, since the
cultural goods are manufactured in accordance with the aims of capitalist
profit maximisation they are designed for consumption by the masses. Rather
than intrisinc characteristics as an artistic form, cultural goods are
determined by the incentive of commodity production and exchange. Hence
cultural goods are standardized and stereotyped in spite of the fact that
they generally affect a sign of individuality. [148] For the reason of
profit maximisation, the producers of Midnight Express don't hesitate to
show excessive level of violence together with the negative representation
of Turks.
The profit maximisation motive of the Hollywood cinema and its specific
way of telling a story are closely related with each other. The Classical
Hollywood Cinema's specific way of telling a story also plays a structuring
role for the negative representation of Turks in Midnight Express. In our
study, the main characteristics of Classical Hollywood Cinema which contributed
to the representation of Turks were analysed under subheadings. These subheadings
are narrative motivated by goal oriented individual, closed point of view,
strong closure, construction of a coherent time-space continuum and character
oriented mise en scene.
The first of these subheadings, narrative motivated by goal oriented
individual, assumes that the action springs from individual characters
as causal agents. In this context, narrative is motivated by a goal-oriented
individual and his or her personal decisions, desires and traits of character.
Desires of the character serve as preconditions for the action in the sense
that the desires which are relevant to the narrative set up the goals.
Then characters attempt to achieve these goals and the process begins.
Throughout this process, there is a counter force which creates conflict.
This counter force is another character whose traits and goals are opposed
to protagonist's traits and goals. [149] In Midnight Express, the main
character is Billy Hayes and his goals serve as preconditions for action.
Narrative is usually motivated by Billy Hayes who has usually positive
virtues -other than drug smuggling .On the contrary, Turks are considered
as opposing characters that would create conflict. It can be argued that
Midnight Express contributed much to the re-inforcement of a new stereotype,
namely cruel Turkish prison guard and prisoners who are characterized by
their dirtiness, ugliness, stupidity, ignorancy, barbarism, insensitiveness
and sodomitic tendencies.
The second subheading, closed point of view refers to objective and
subjective narration in Classical Cinema. Both mental and perceptual subjectivity
are widely used in Midnight Express and they play a decisive role in the
negative representation of Turks since a lot of information about Turks
are presented from Billy Hayes's point of view. But the perceptual or mental
subjectivity of Turks is quite restricted in the sense that the audience
very seldom sees or hears things from Turk's vantage point.
According to the strong closure principle, most Classical narrative
films end when all of their questions are answered. The resolution means
reconstruction of a state of equilibrium, a condition which echoes the
one which begins the film. Narrative equilibrium accepts that social life
is comfortably ordered with everyone in their proper position. Hence, strong
closure is a confirmation of the initial social equilibrium. [150] At the
end of the film Hayes returns to civilization, but the members of the alien
culture, the Turks, are still embedded in their uncivilized, dirty, brutal,
insensitive conditions without any sign of changing them.
Continuity editing, depth of image and
synchronic-diegetic sound (except
music) are the elements which provide proper grounds for the construction
of a coherent time-space continuum in the Classical Cinema. First of those,
continuity editing constructs a temporal continuity and spatial coherence.
But at one instance, the moviemakers break the match on action rule to
further emphasize the brutality of Turks. Depth of image is the second
device which is used to construct a coherent time-space continuum in the
Classical Hollywood Cinema. What is important for our subject matter is
that those depth cues sometimes contribute much to the sense of claustrophobia
caused by Turks. Synchronic, diegetic sound (except music) is the last
device which helps to construct of a coherent time-space continuum. In
this context, we need to state that both diegetic and non-diegetic, off
screen use of sound have significance for the negative representation of
Turks in Midnight Express.
In Classical Hollywood Cinema, mise en scene is designed to be relevant
to the story and give information about characters. The term mise en scene
refers to the contents of the film frame and it includes the setting, lighting,
costume, make-up and behaviour of the figures. When we analyse the first
element of the mise en scene, we find that the selection and construction
of the setting help to enhance the sense of isolation for Billy Hayes.
Furthermore, the setting sometimes turns toward the "surreal" by employing
bizarre images over the "realist" background since "surrealism" is closely
associated with Turks. Classical Hollywood filmmaking uses three points
lighting system in which three light sources (backlight, fill-light, key-light)
per shot are employed. In Midnight Express, low key illumination is usually
attributed to Turks. The third element of mise en scene, costume, are closely
related with setting. Costume provides the proper grounds to pickup the
characters who is central for the narrative. In Midnight Express, there
is parallelism between the gray and dark walls of the prison and the dark,
dirty, torn clothes of Turks. Whereas the filmmakers allow Billy to wear
colourful T-shirts in the dark environment. Acting is the last element
of mise en scene and I need to point out that the performances of actors
who play Turks are less individualised and more stylised if we compare
them with the performances of actors who play Westerners since the Turks
are not regarded as "individual" as the western characters in the film.
On the other hand, the performances of the actors who play westerners are "individuali-
sed" to the extent that they can pass from different expressions
in a single shot.
Racist ideologies assume a set of justifications for its supporters
that "phenotypic variation has some biologically rooted (hierarchially
ordered) social and behavioral significance." [151] According to racist
ideologies, life opportunities are distributed unequally between the groups
and this situation causes racial categories. In fact, there are several
criteria of racial categorisation such as "perceived pigmentation, physique,
descent, historical or geographical origin, language and religion or other
cultural traits." [152] Racism is a system of ideas which lead to inequalities
created by above mentioned perceptions. Thus, in the last analysis, it
can be argued that Midnight Express is a racist film.
BIBLIOGRAPHY & BOOKS
Alfred W.McCoy, The Politics Of Heroin, (New York, Harper and Raw Publisher
Inc, 1991)
Anette Kuhn and Susannah
Radstone, (eds), Women's Companion To International
Film, (London, Virago, 1990)
Bill Nichols,(ed), Movies and
Methods,(California, University of California
Press, 1976)
Billy Hayes and William Hoffer, Midnight Express, (London, Sphere Books,
1977)
Canan Balkir and Allan
M.Williams,(ed), Turkey and Europe, (London,
Pinter, 1993)
David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood
Cinema, (London, Routledge, 1985)
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film art, (University Of Wisconsin,
McGraw Hill, 1993)
Douglas Gomery, Movie History: A Survey, (California, Wardworth Publishing
Co, 1991)
Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System, (London, Macmillan Publishers,
1986)
Edward Said, Orientalism, (London, Penguin, 1991)
Ira Konigsberg, The Complete Film Dictionary, (London, Bloomsbury, 1988)
J. Haberman and Jonathan
Rosenbau, Midnight Movies, (New York, Harper
and Raw Publisher, 1983)
Jim Hillier, The New Hollywood, (London, Studio Vista, 1993)
John B. Thompson, Ideology And Modern Culture, (Britain, Polity Press,
1990)
John Wakeman, (ed), World Film Directors, (New York,
T.H. W. Wilson
Co, 1988 ) vol II
Leslie Halliwell, Halliwell's Film Guide, (London, Grafton Books, 1987)
6th edition.
Martin Auty and Nick Roddick, British Cinema Now, (London, Penguin,
1991)
Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections: A Biography Of A Place (New York,
Prentice Hall Press, 1991)
Max Horkheimer and Theodor
Adorno, Dialectic Of Enlightement, (London,
Verso, 1993)
Michaele Barret, Philip Corrigan, Anette Kuhn and Janet Wolff,
(eds),
Ideology and Cultural Production, (London, Croom Helms, 1977)
Mohan J., (ed), The Political Geography Of Contemporary Britain, (London,
1989)
Pam Cook, (ed), The Cinema Book, (London, British Film Institute Publishing,
1987)
Pat H. Broeske, In Magill's American Film Guide, (New Jersey, Salem
Press, 1981) vol 3
Paul Bowles, Their Heads Are Green, (London, An Abacus Book, Peter Owen
Publishers, 1990)
Pauline Kael, When The Lights Go Down, (New York, Hall Rinehart and
Winston, 1980)
Roy Armes, The Third World Filmmaking And The West, (California, University
Of California Press, 1987)
Shipman D, The Story Of Cinema, (London, Hadder and Stoughton, 1984)
Terry Eagleton , Ideology, (London, Verso, 1991)
Terry Lovell, Pictures Of Reality, (London, British Film Institute Publishing
, 1981)
ARTICLES
Andrew Horton, Britain's Angry Young Man In Hollywood: An Interview With
Alan Parker, Cineaste, new York, vol 15, no 12 , 1986
Bobbi Leigh Zito, Interview With Alan Parker, Focus On Film, Allen Ayles
(ed), Tantivy Press , April 1980
Hamalian Leo and Ara Baliozian, Hemingway In Istanbul, Ararat, Spring
1988, vol 29
Kamil Aydin, The Good And The Bad And Ugly: Western Cinema Images, The
Fountain, vol I , no:3 , Winter 1993
Louis Althusser, Lenin And Philosophy, (New York,Monthly Review Press)
Murphy AD, Midnight Express, Variety, 1978, vol
ccxci/3 may 24
National Film Theatre Booklet,June 1982
Neal Nordlinger, The Making Of Midnight Express, Filmmaker's Monthly,
November 1978, vol 15, no 12, 1986
Roy Connoly, Observer,
Magazine,London, 30 May 1982
FOOTNOTES
[1] Billy Hayes and William Hoffer,Midnight Express (London, Sphere Books,
1977) Back Cover Advertisement.
[2] ibid
[3] According to John B. Thompson,the term "symbolic forms" comprises
a broad range of actions and utterances, images and texts , which are produced
by subjects and recognized by them and others as meaningful constructs.(See,
John. B. Thompson , Ideology And Modern Culture,(Britain, Polity Press,
1990) p.59)
[4] John B. Thompson, ibid, p.21
[5] John B.Thompson ,ibid,p.21
[6] John B. Thompson, ibid, p.21
[7] John B. Thompson, ibid,p.21
[8] J. B.Thompson ,ibid , p. 275-6
[9] J. B.Thompson ,ibid, p.279
[10] Pauline Kael, When The Lights Go Down , (New York, Hall Rinehart
and Winston ,1980 ) p.499
[11] Pauline Kael,ibid, p.499
[12] Pauline Kael,ibid, p.497
[13] J. Hoberman and Jonathan
Rosenbau, Midnight Movies, (New York ,
Harper and Raw Publisher , 1983) p.198
[14] Murphy AD, Midnight Express, Variety, 1978, vol
ccxci/3 , May,
24, p.27
[15] Pat H. Broeske, In Magill's American Film Guide, (New Jersey ,
Salem Press ,1981) vol 3 , p. 2149
[16] Neal Nordlinger , The Making Of Midnight Express , Filmmaker's
Monthly , November 1978 , vol 12 / 1 , p.21
[17] Pauline Kael ,ibid, p.499
[18] Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections:A Biography of A Place (New
York , Prentice Hall Press , 1991 ) p. 8
[19] Mary Lee Settle, ibid , p. 8
[20] Shipman D., The Story of Cinema ,( London , Hodder and Stoughton,
1984) vol 2 , p.1103
[21] Shipman D. , ibid
[22] Andrew Horton, Britain's Angry Young Man in Hollywood, an Interview
with Alan Parker, Cineaste,(New York), vol.15, no 2, (1986), p.32
[23] Roy
Connolly,Observer,(London), Magazine, 30 May 1982, p.29
[24] John Wakeman,(ed), World Film Directors,(New York, The
H.W. Wilson
Co.,1988) vol.II,p.741
[25] The response of British Press to the film was varied: "Martin Amis
found a 'rare physicality in the film which leaves you flattened, harrowed-
and fractionally unconvinced.' But Amis thought ,' Parker is not a manipulator.He
means what he says.'" (John Wakeman,ibid,p.741)
Some extracts from British press are as follows:"A harsh, violent
and compelling film which-despite the controversy it provoked- won international
acclaim for Parker and actor John Hurt, and even its critics could not
but admire its brilliance as a film-making."(National Film Theatre Booklet,
June 1982)"One of the ugliest sado-masochistic trips, with heavy homosexual
overtones, that our thoroughly nasty movie age has yet produced."(Richard
Schickel, Time)"The film details all [the horrors] so relentlessly on one
screaming note that it is rather like being hit in the gut until you no
longer feel a thing." Derek Malcolm, The Guardian. (See Leslie Halliwell,
Halliwell's Film Guide, ( London, Grafton Books, 1987) p.678
[26] Jonh Wakeman,ibid, p.741
[27] Terry Lovell , Pictures of Reality, ( London, British Film Institute
Publishing, 1981) p.61
[28] "...The most appropriate starting point for Marxist analysis of
cultural production might be Marx's own categories for the analysis of
capitalist commodity production. These are use-value , exchange value,
surplus value and commodity fetishism. Commodities have a double existence,
as repositories of use value and of value.Use value, the utility of usefulness
of a commodity to its consumer, depends on the ability of the commodity
to satisfy some human want.Marx's concept of want is not limited to material
needs.He says that wants 'may spring from the stomach or from the fancy
' " (Lovell, ibid, p. 56)
[29] Lovell, ibid, p.61
[30] Lovell, ibid, p.61-2
[31] Lovell , ibid , p. 60
[32] John B. Thompson,ibid, p.7
[33] Edward Said, Orientalism, (London , Penguin, 1991) p.5
[34] John B. Thompson, ibid,p.282
[35] John B.Thompson, ibid , p.280 -1
[36] J. B.Thompson, ibid, p.282
[37] Pat H. Broeske, ibid,p.2152
[38] Murphy AD , ibid, p. 27
[39] J.B. Thompson,ibid, p.13
[40] Pauline Kael, ibid , p.499
[41] I don't analyse fields of interaction.
[42] J. BThompson , ibid,p.8
[43] J. B.Thompson , ibid,p.7
[44] Terry Eagleton , Ideology , ( London, Verso, 1991) p. 18
[45] Eagleton, ibid , p.18
[46] Louis Athusser, Notes Toward an Investigation in Lenin and Philosophy,
(New York, Monthly Review Press, 1971) p.128-135
[47] Althusser , ibid, p. 135-141
[48] Althusser,ibid, p.135-141
[49] Anette Kuhn, In The Cinema Book, Pam Cook, (ed.) (London, British
Film Institute Publishing , 1987 ) p. 243
[50] J B.Thompson,ibid,p.12
[51] J. B.Thompson, ibid,p.135
[52] David Bordwell , in The Classical Hollywood Cinema, David
Bordwell,
Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, (London, Routledge, 1985) p. 87- 88
[53] Bill Nicholls,(ed), Movies and Methods, (California, University
of California Press, 1976) vol.1, p.24
[54] Max Horkheimer and Theodor
Adorno, "The Culture Industry:Enlightment
as Mass Deception", in Dialectic of Enlightement ,(London, Verso, 1979)
p 67-120
[55] Roy Armes, Third World Filmmaking and The West, (California, University
of California Press, 1987 ) p.37
[56] The 1948 anti-trust decision which introduced by the government
required the Big Five (Warner Bros, RKO,20th Century Fox, Paramount, MGM)
to divest their theater chains. But this situation was reversed in 1985
due to the economic changes in the Reagan period. After 1985, the majors
began to buy theatre chains and for this reason the importance of exhibition
rose again. "The acquisitions" writes Jim Hillier "helped the majors to
increse their control over which films would be shown, where and for how
long, at the expense (once again) of independent producers and distributors."
(Jim Hillier, The New Hollywood,(London, Studio Vista, 1993) p.23 )
[57] Roy Armes,ibid,p.37
[58] When a firm owns the production facility, a distribution company
and exhibition outlets, it is said to be vertically integrated.
[59] Anette Kuhn, ibid , p. 10
[60] For Douglas Gomery, the transformation of America into a land of
suburbs and drive-ins, the innovation of wide screen movies in color, and
the integration of film and television industries in the 1950s led to a
reformation of the Hollywood Studio System. He writes as follows: "No Studio
was uneffected, but only one, RKO, actually went out of business(...)All
the other Studios survived.(...) What changed were the rankings.The Big
Five and Little Three were no more. After RKO's fall, the remaining seven
were equal.They all distributed films and found independent producers to
make the films. They all expanded into Television. There was only one new
kid on the block, the Walt Disney operation".(Douglas Gomery, Movie History:
A Survey,(California, Wadsworth Publishing Co, 1991) p.296
[61] Ira Konigsberg, The Complete Film
Dictionary,(London, Bloomsbury,1988)p.158
[62] Jim Hillier, ibid,p.23
[63] Anette Kuhn, ibid , p.10
[64] Andrew Horton, Britain's Angry Young Man In Hollywood, An Interview
With Alan Parker, Cineaste, New York, Vol 15, no. 2, 1986, p.33
[65] Anette Kuhn,ibid,p.11
[66] Douglas Gomery, ibid, p.69
[67] Bordwell , ibid , p. 368-9
[68] ie. Special effects, new camera supports, TV
viewfinding, time
coded synchronisation, computer assisted storyboarding and expanded multitrack
sound recording. (Bordwell,ibid , p. 373 )
[69] Bordwell, ibid , p. 375
[70] Bordwell,ibid,p.375 (On the other hand, Douglas Gomery claims that
in the early 1970s, it seemed that the film genre was a dead form in Hollywood.
But after the success of Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) and Star Wars (George
Lucas, 1977) producers decided to make more genre films.(Gomery, ibid,
p.430))
[71] Pat H. Broeske, ibid, p.2149
[72] Pauline Kael, ibid, p.499
[73] Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System,
(London,Macmillan
Publishers Ltd, 1986) p.161, 172
[74] Anette Kuhn , ibid , p.14-17
[75] Good years of Columbia are 1955-6 and 1976-7. On the other hand,
poor years are 1958-9 and 1971-4 (a total loss of some $85.3 million. See,
Douglas Gomery, ibid, p. 172
[76] In 1982, Coca-Cola owned Columbia, but sold it in 1987. Now, Columbia
Pictures is owned by Sony. (See, Jim Hillier, ibid, p.26
[77] Martin Auty and Nick
Roddick, British Cinema Now ,(London, British
Film Institute , 1985) p.4
[78] Martin Auty and Nick Roddick , ibid , p. 5
[79] For British accusations that Alan Parker is "sold out" by going
to Hollywood, see Bobbi Leigh Zito, Interview With Alan Parker, In Focus
On Film,Allen Ayles (ed),(GB, Tantivy Press, April 1980) p.35
[80] Mike Figgis states that there is a British film industry, but it
happens to be in Hollywood. He continues as follows: "The reality is that
thousands of British artists connected with the film industry, be they
cinematographers, writers, actors, designers, now work in the context of
the American film industry. I feel that there is a very viable British
film industry, but it doesn't have a cohesive national base..." See Jim
Hillier, ibid,p.168
[81] Neal Nordlinger,ibid,p. 18
[82] Midnight Express had grossed over +15 million by 1980.
[83] Bobbi Leigh Zitto, ibid, p.5
[84] Wakeman, ibid, p.741
[85] Bobbi Leigh Zitto, ibid, p.4
[86] Alan parker states that before he began to work with Hollywood,they
never had enough money. "We always had to cheat and steal and beg and borrow."
See, Bobbi Leigh Zitto, ibid, p.5
[87] John B. Thompson ,ibid, p.277
[88] John B.Thompson, ibid , p.277
[89] John B. Thompson ,ibid , p. 58
[90] Edward Said ,Orientalism , (London, Penguin , 1991) p.5
[91] Edward Said , ibid, p. 2-3
[92] Edward Said , ibid , p. 5
[93] Edward Said , ibid , p. 6
[94] Edward Said , ibid , p. 7
[95] Edward Said ,ibid, p.7-8
[96] Kamil Aydin, The Good, and the Bad and Ugly : Western Cinema Images,The
Fountain, vol I, no:3, Winter 1993
[97] Shepherd Simon, Marlowe and The Politics Of Elizabethan
Theatre,(Sussex,
The Harvester Press, 1986) p.142
[98] Kamil Aydin,"Western Images Of The Muslim Turks Prior To The 20th
Century: A Short Outline",In Hamdard Islamicus,Winter 1993, vol xvi, no
4, p. 106
[99] Kamil Aydin ,ibid, p.107
[100] Kamil Aydin, ibid,p.107
[101] Kamil Aydin ,ibid,p.112-3
[102] Kamil Aydin ,ibid, p.113
[103] Kamil Aydin ,ibid,p.114
[104] Kamil Aydin,ibid,p.122
[105] Kamil Aydin, ibid, p.122
[106] Bowles Paul, Their Heads Are Green, (London, An Abacus Book, Peter
Owen Publishers, 1990) p.57
[107] Hamalian Leo and Ara
Baliozian, Hemingway In Istanbul, Ararat,
Spring 1988, vol.29,p.43
[108] For a better understanding of the representation of Turks in Midnight
Express, it may be useful to have brief information about relations Turkey
and Western countries in the late 1970s.According to Canan Balkir and Allan
M. Williams, Turkey's relationship with West are long rooted whether looked
at in terms of trade, military power, culture or diplomacy: "These have
not always been easy relationships, but they have been critical in shaping
the evolutions of Europe and European States, as well as of Turkey itself.
Neither symmetry nor constancy has characterised these ties, and alliance
between Turkey and Europe has taken many unexpected turns even in the mid
and late twentieth century.(...) It can be argued that developments in
Turkey, while of course influenced by events in Europe and elsewhere, were
to some extent not synchronised with these during[60s and 70s]. At a time
of unrivalled internationa-lisation of economic activities in the capitalist
world, Turkey's economic policies remained inward looking. At a time of
democratic consolidation in northern Europe,Turkey was twice subject to
military interventionism....Whereas the economies of [Western] countries
did at least decisively internationalise and industrialise during the 1960s
and early 1970s, Turkey's economic as well as its political construction
remained differentiated from that of Northern Europe."(See Canan Balkir
and Allan M. Williams, (ed), Turkey And The Europe,(London, Pinter,1993)p.3,9)
There were also shifts in Turkey's international relations: For example,in
the mid 70s, Cyprus crisis (1974) led to some cooling of relations with
US and UK.After the military intervention to Cyprus, US Government laid
an military embargo to Turkey.Another problem which effected the Turkish
American relations at the mid 1970s arised from the attemps of US government
to convince Turkey to stop growing opium poppies in spite of the fact that
the production is legitimate and "never accounted for more than 7 per cent
of world's illicit supply".(Alfred W, McCoy,The Politics Of Heroin,(New
York, Harper and Raw Publishers Inc,1991)p.19) But due to the pressures,
Turkey banned opium cultivation.
[109] T.E.Perkins suggests that the following characteristics are essential
parts of stereotypes:
"A stereotype is:
a) A group concept: It describes a group.Personality traits (broadly
defined) predominate.
b) It is held by a group:(...) Cannot have a 'private' stereotype.
c) Reflects an inferior judgemental process: (But not therefore
leading necessarily to an inaccurate conclusion.) Stereotypes short-circuit
or block capacity for objective analytic judgements in favour of
well-worn catch-all reactions.(...)
d) (b) and (c) give rise to simple structure(...) which frequently
conceals complexity. (see (e) )
e) High probability that social stereotypes will be predominantly
evaluative.
f) A concept - and like other concepts it is a selective, cognitive
organising system, and a feature of human thought.(...)
[See T.E. Perkins, Rethinking Stereotypes, In Michaele
Barret, Philip
Corrigan, Anette Kuhn and Janet Wolff,(eds), Ideology And Cultural Production,
(London, Croom Helms, 1977) p.145)
[110] T.E.Perkins,ibid,p.144
[111] David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, ( University of
Wisconsin, McGraw Hill, 1993) p.82
[112] Although this event, the audience continues to sympathise with
him since the relatively small amount of hashish he is carrying proved
that he is not in the "big leagues". Moreover, the audience also observes
that Billy Hayes feels sory about drug smuggling while he writes letters
to his family. Actually, in their first meeting, he wants to be forgiven
by his father. Additionally, he is more or less isolated from society by
force in a hostile environment in which his helplesness contributes much
to the "identification". For instance, he spends his first prison night
in a cold cell, and is punished by having his feet beaten when he takes
a blanket without permission, the first in a series of atrocities which
he will endure or witness.
[113] Beside three dimensional characters.
[114] Bordwell and Thompson, ibid, p. 160
[115] Neal Nordlinger, ibid,p.21
[116] Pauline Kael, ibid, p.498
[117] Andrew Horton, ibid, p.31
[118] Bobbi Leigh Zitto, ibid, p.8
[119] Neal Nordlinger, ibid, p.21
[120] Bordwell and Thompson, ibid, p.83
[121] Bordwell and Thompson, ibid, p.78
[122] A. Kuhn and S. Radstone, ibid, p.88
[123] D. Bordwell, J. Staiger and K. Thompson, ibid,p.55-59
[124] D. Bordwell, J. Staiger and K. Thompson, ibid, p.52
[125] Neal Nordlinger, ibid, p.20
[126] D. Bordwell, J. Staiger and K.
Thompson,ibid, p.53-54
[127] One can remember that when a young Turkish police says something
in Turkish at the airport ("Ladies and gentlemen, for your security we
have to make a search.") the western passengers show their uneasiness since
they don't understand what he says. In this scene, we hear their complaints
such as "what is he saying?","I don't know".Their feelings are same with
the audience, because the audience also doesn't understand anything from
this "guttural" language. In spite of the fact that Turkish is widely used
in the film, those parts are not subtitled as mentioned before. For this
reason, frequent use of offscreen diegetic sound (ie. songs and Muslim
prayers) further increases the strangeness of being in a foreign, brutal
culture.
[128] D. Bordwell and K. Thompson, Film Art, (University of Wisconsin,
McGraw Hill, 1993) p.145-6
[129] Pauline Kael,ibid,p.497
[130] D. Bordwell and K. Thompson, ibid, p.152-7
[131] Neal Nordlinger, ibid, p.20
[132] Neal Nordlinger, ibid,p.20
[133] Neal Nordlinger, ibid, p.20
[134] Neal Nordlinger, ibid,p.20
[135] D. Bordwell and K. Thompson, ibid, p. 151
[136] D. Bordwell and K. Thompson,ibid,p.159-160
[137] D. Bordwell and K. Thompson, ibid, p.160
[138] For further information about the performances of the western
characters, see Pauline Kael, ibid, p.498
[139] Authorship is beyond the scope and intent of this
study.But, it
is interesting to have a brief look to the other films of Alan Parker for
the representation of black characters.In Parker's next film, Fame(1980),there
are Jews, Italians, Puerto Ricans, negroes who are driven by the vanity
of success. At the end of the Fame, "Irene Cara, a racially mixed singer
who played a student named Coco Hernandez, sang a song from Fame at the
next Academy Awards ceremony, it was like a triumphant recognition of Third
world talent in the Oscar-lit, mass media mainstream (...)" (J.Haberman
and Jonathan Rosenbau, ibid, p.198) J.Haberman and Jonathan Rosenbau writes
as follows: "It was a curious fate, in a way, for a director whose previous
hit film, Midnight Express, encouraged xenophobia, self-righteous all American
patriotism, and homophobia with equal fervor. Could Fame - all proportions
guarded admittedly inflated- be read as Parker's Intolerance; that is,
his response to the outcries against the virtual racism of Midnight Express,
his Birth Of A Nation?"(Ibid,p.198) But, we observe that in his another
film, Mississippi Burning (1988), the black characters are again turned
into a two dimensional backdrop for white heroes. In other words, they
can't manage their own story and all that is good is done by the Western-white
characters.
[140] National Film Theatre Booklet, June 1982
[141] Ray Connoly, ibid,p.29
[142] Anette Kuhn,in The Cinema Book, Pam
Cook,(ed) (London, British
Film Institute Publishing, 1987) p.243
[143] J. B.Thompson, ibid, p.12
[144] J.B. Thompson,ibid,p.135
[145] Edward Said, ibid,p.5
[146] Edward Said, ibid,p.2-3
[147] Edward Said, ibid, p.7-8
[148] Max Horkheimer and Theodor
Adorno, ibid, p.67-120
[149] D.Bordwell and K. Thompson, ibid, p.82
[150] A.Kuhn and S. Radstone, ibid, p.88
[151] Susan Smith,"The Politics Of Race And New Segregation" In J. Mohan
(ed), The Political Geography Of Contemporary Britain, (London, 1989) pp
152-3
[152] Susan Smith, ibid, p153
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