Coexistence : construction of temporal and spatial experience in the films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Abstract

This study examines time and space construction in the films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan with a view to understand if and how Ceylan's movies have a potential to create long experience [Erfahrung] for the spectators, utilizing a framework derived from Walter Benjamin's thought. In terms of both form and narravite, Ceylan's film seem far away from the intention of attracting the spectators by shock effects. However, the experience lived here is not an absorption of the spectator by the artwork, either. In many scenes of the movies of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, where we move beyond the act of following the narravite, the spectator is engulfed. These movies expect the spectator to fill in the space-time vacuums with associations coming from the spectator's own 'sense memories', and thus, it is possible for them to turn into long experiences [Erfahrung].