Similar in cruelty to the reunion/departure scene from Wendy and Lucy (2008), the Winter Sleep (2014) money-burning scene was one of the few to inspire my vocal protest. Johnathan Romney describes it as a "depiction of unassuageable despair and pride" (240), an interpretation that makes sense but could also be called into question. Ismail's (Nejat Isler) reason for burning the money is never explicitly revealed, which makes the scene's seemingly random financial masochism all the more haunting. It also fits with Ceylan's assertion that "sometimes you have to know how to be a pessimist" in order to also be a realist (Barker 251). A more conventional narrative - something out of a Dickens' story - would affirm the value of charity and see its poor characters embracing the act. Not here. With these thoughts in mind, I will explore the money-burning scene from a formalist and thematic perspective.
The scene does a thorough, if somewhat obvious, job of setting up Hamdi's (Serhat Kilic) family's financial instability. However, even before the scene starts, the film establishes the family's poverty by showing several shots of the junk in their yard and having Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) comment on the family being behind on their rent. In any case, once the scene in question starts, the film further emphasizes this need by showing Hamdi's sick mother, who speaks of her need to see a doctor - and the financial inability to do so - in front of Nihal (Melisa Sozen). This moment was almost so obvious that I wondered if Hamdi and his mother had specifically planned to discuss the issue in front of Nihal, who they know has the money to make a doctor's visit happen. Later, Hamdi further emphasizes the discomfort of his family's life by commenting on how cold his room is, suggesting the family's financial troubles put even basic necessities like warmth and shelter at risk. The icing on the cake comes when Hamdi explains the debt and unemployment that have followed Ismail's release from prison. What I'm trying to say here is that the film makes the family's poverty abundantly clear. As Romney mentions, the film "plays the long game, setting up early crises that play out much later" - and setting them up in several different parts (242).
It is Ceylan's use of such a build-up that makes the money-burning moment so devastating and incomprehensible. Ismail's random acts of violence are known at this point from his criminal history and the moment he breaks his own house's window, which makes his unexpected presence in the scene a cause for unease. In fact, his entrance is a bit dramatic, as he opens the door and a light from the doorway flashes over Hamdi's face, seemingly surprising him. Nihal looks unnerved - bearing wide, wary eyes for the rest of the scene-, perhaps because she has just heard of this man's violent past. Up until Ismail's entrance, it appears as if everything is settled, with Hamdi gracious and claiming there's "enough to buy a house" here. Given Ismail's previous moment of self-destruction - willfully breaking his family's own window that they probably can't pay to fix - he constitutes a wildcard in this scene, so the atmosphere immediately changes.
The moment when these tensions are legitimized is when the camera booms up on Ismail as he stands looking at the fire with a wad of money in his hand. (This was my audible "no!" moment). This moment is preceded by one in which Ismail notes that Nihal didn't account for him being a "drunkard incapable of appreciating" the gift. Precisely then, the family's doom is sealed and any hope of the rich/poor gap being bridged is lost. As Ismail throws the money into the fire, Nihal's gasp is shown in two shots, edited together in rapid succession, the first being a medium shot and the second being much closer up for emphasis of just how horrifying this is for her.
The most unsettling moment in the scene comes when Ismail looks away from Nihal with a cold expression and seemingly stares into the camera, as if to gauge the viewer's reaction. If Nihal lacks all comprehension of why Ismail would reject such a gift, does the viewer share her position? (I did, to some extent - is Ismail too prideful to accept the money? Does he see it as conceding to his rich enemy? Is his death drive exceptionally strong because he doesn't imagine the money making his life better in a meaningful way? Is it his way of refusing a possible "peace offering?" I have many questions here!) However, Ismail evidently regrets his action - or perhaps regrets the need to do his action (predestined?) - as we can tell from his reaction to seeing that Ilyas (Emirhan Doruktutan) has seen everything. He makes eye contact with his son and cries.
There's much to be said about the relationship between love and money in this scene. Hamdi evidently needs money in order to show his family love properly, as we can see from his mother berating him for not taking her to the doctor. If taking care of a loved one's health is an act of love and money is required in order to complete that act, then money is a prerequisite for love. While, yes, it is clear Hamdi loves his mother from how he treats her, he cannot express that love fully (i.e., by taking her to a doctor) due to his poverty.
On a somewhat opposite note, the scene makes it clear that money cannot create love either. Whether or not one considers charity an act of love for the less fortunate is up for debate, but an argument could be made that it is one. However, if Nihal intends this charity as a "peace offering" and thus a step toward love, it is an unsuccessful one. There is a gap between rich and poor that cannot be simply mended through the use of money. Ismail burning Nihal's monetary "act of love" - whatever reasons he had for it - affirms the idea that love cannot be bought. There is a long history of abuse, isolation, and indifference between rich and poor that cannot be forgotten, even when money comes into play. Ismail's act may speak to that idea. It is his way of telling Nihal that the world is not so simple and that there are deeper wounds. However, Nihal only knows how to love in the way the rich do - through her money. It is a simple "solution" to a much more complex problem.
There is a laborious slowness to Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film Winter Sleep (2008). In terms of narrative, the film’s 196 minutes cover a relatively short period of time—perhaps a matter of days—and in the course of that time, nothing very extraordinary happens. Ceylan has in this film chosen to focus on the quotidian aspects of life at a fast-emptying hotel in the sparsely populated Cappadocia region of Turkey: we see characters argue, a horse is caught and released, visitors depart, money is given (and refused), and a trip to be made by the main character to Istanbul is aborted.
Ceylan has said that his films are ambiguous in that he does not impose a clear subject; that they are about “life in general” (Barker 248). This film certainly confirms his stated interest, but Winter Sleep, in focusing on the generalities of life, also examines issues of power and class via the relationship between tenant and landlord. The main character Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) is a retired actor who owns a hotel, and is now a landlord in addition to having become a writer. There is discord among he and his tenants, particularly among a family who has had difficulty in paying rent for several months; there is also friction among the members of Aydin’s own household.
What is interesting in Ceylan’s portrait of Aydin is the character’s utter disinterest in his position as landlord. He leaves all of these matters to his assistant, Hidayet (Ayberk Peckan), and is largely ignorant of his tenants’ lives. Aydin’s willful blindness and confessed cluelessness actually aggravate matters; he is unable (if he would be willing) to work with the family who has been consistently late with rent, and the family, assuming that he must be aware of their plight, feels persecuted. This disconnection is reminiscent of Bauman’s description of “mutually separate lifeworlds” (74) which Bauman claims is ubiquitous and symptomatic of liquid modernity. Ceylan also makes clear that Aydin’s willful ignorance extends to his family, social connections and, in some respects, to himself. This can be seen through his lack of awareness of his wife’s philanthropic pursuits, and, much later in the film, Aydin’s misunderstanding of Levent (Nadir Sarıbacak) at their mutual friend’s home.
What I think is most interesting about Winter Sleep, however, is what I believe is an intentional convergence between form and content. The film does offer long stretches of interesting dialogue, but Ceylan’s film could have been much shorter and dealt effectively with the same material; one has to ask why, then, has Ceylan chosen to make such a long film? Aydin casually oppresses everyone around him. I believe that part of Ceylan’s intent was to create a film that casually oppresses the viewer, thereby highlighting and imparting to the audience the experience of the characters in Aydin’s sphere.
"I believe that part of Ceylan’s intent was to create a film that casually oppresses the viewer, thereby highlighting and imparting to the audience the experience of the characters in Aydin’s sphere." Interesting point.
In many respects similar to Climates (2006) and Three Monkeys (2008), Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep (2014) again features a male character, Aydin, that begins to experience simultaneously a breakdown in financial stability and in his relationships with those whom are, ostensibly, closest to him. Again, Ceylan’s film explores in a deeply intimate and personal way the consequences of love and money being so closely tied together, or if it’s possible to even have one without the other. In sharp contrast with Three Monkeys, however, is that Aydin’s financial woes are marked by how his economic dominance over others affects his personal relationships, his ability to empathize, and, like other Ceylan films, his ability to be conscious of his own retrograded worldviews in the face of those who suffer from them. Unlike the characters in Three Monkeys, Aydin is a relatively upper-class individual; it seems like money is no problem for him whatsoever as he repeatedly insists on donating to Nihal’s charity, he owns his own seemingly successful hotel (there are two different guests shown during what seems to be not an ideal season), and he has plenty of people working under him that manage most of the business for him. In the context of our class, Aydin represents a waning, “solid” version of capitalism and ideology: he is a landowner, and his business mostly constitutes collecting money from tenants. He is a staunch traditionalist, but as his repeatedly oppressed wife Nihal points out his value set mostly serves him in a way that allows him to judge others and displace his own faults. The intensely traditional patriarchy that Aydin casts over his hotel and home suffocates the women in his life, of whom both have some financial dependence on him (a product of the political sexism that might still be at play in this rural part of Turkey) and therefore cannot necessarily walk out on him and be entirely sure of their futures.
As we have seen before in Ceylan’s films, this type of masculinity completely isolates the character as he remains resistant to change throughout the film. It appears that Aydin may have taken some of the criticism from Necla and Nihal to heart, as he does begin to write about theater as opposed to “pontificating” about morality, but we never are given proof that the words narrated in the ending frames reach Nihal or that they are necessarily sincere. Given that the rest of the film shows Aydin quite literally laughing in the face of some pretty insightful and cutthroat thoughts on the nature of his toxic personality, an audience would be hard pressed to truly believe this character would ultimately change so sharply in the final three minutes of a 196 minute film. Ceylan himself concedes that he purposefully “clouded the issue somewhat” to avoid being “too optimistic” (Cardullo 251) in his ending. In the closing moments, we merely see Aydin typing alone on his computer and a beautiful wide shot portrait of the desolate looking hotel. We are offered several periodic shots that capture the expansive wilderness that surrounds them, but in the end I believe only serve to highlight the claustrophobia of the hotel’s interior that makes this film a sort of highly intellectual chamber drama. In the same way that Ceylan uses tight spaces and movement in and out of barriers in Three Monkeys, he again places his characters in small, dimly lit rooms to hash out their grievances before, literally and figuratively, shutting the door. Ceylan hardly ever places his characters in the same frame, instead choosing to create even more of a cinematic barrier between them by cutting back and forth during arguments and reinforcing the distance that love tied to money and the passage of time creates.
"Ceylan hardly ever places his characters in the same frame, instead choosing to create even more of a cinematic barrier between them by cutting back and forth during arguments and reinforcing the distance that love tied to money and the passage of time creates." Good observation.
I am grateful to Eric for writing in-depth about the money/fire scene, because my immediate reaction was to consider it one of the darker moments in any film we’ve seen so far. Then, however, I noticed that I had been mourning currency. Sure, the money could have purchased a house and an easier situation for a family, but seeing the burning paper felt emotionally devastating. Ceylan somehow makes this fire painful to audiences, perhaps in order to make them realize their attachment to money and its possibilities. I identified greatly with Nihal in this moment, because as a teacher, sometimes it feels as though students listlessly toss your efforts into the fire. What made it a little bit worse, too, was that I knew it was going to happen. From the moment that I realized that Ceylan had intentionally placed a highly flammable promise of a new life in a room with a fire (which quickly became more of an inferno), I knew that Hamdi would never purchase the house he thought he could buy. Once Ceylan has incinerated the audience’s hope, he shows three upper-middle class men sitting around, drunk, and full, yet again a decision that makes the burning money even more painful. Once we have seen the suffering of Aydin’s wife and the family Nihal attempted to redeem, the film shows comfortable men, completely oblivious to the horrors occurring in their town. The men argue, quote Shakespeare, and one of them vomits. Their intellectual pursuits feel pointless and selfish.
Concerning love and money, I believe I have mentioned this before, but perhaps love is corruptible with too much money. Many of these films have (perhaps) established that a relationship, whether familial, friendly, or romantic, cannot flourish when there is too great a financial burden – which makes sense when one considers the hierarchy of needs. However, many of these films may also point to the issue of monetary oversaturation. Perhaps one of the largest signs of the corruptible powers of money is that Aydin, despite being a kind of “king” of the small town, alienates all those who love(d) him. Aydin’s possession of a sizable fortune causes him to feel that he almost owns his sister and his wife. When Nihal mentions wanting to leave and go to Istanbul, Aydin makes fun of her, joking that she would never succeed working a low-paying job. Because he is wealthy, he feels that he has a permanent hold over his beautiful wife.
Ultimately, Ceylan ends the film in a way that does not let us know whether or not Aydin and Nihal work on their relationship and stay together – which he said he did very intentionally in his interview. However, we get the sense that neither of them will go anywhere. Although Aydin’s speech at the end was likely a soliloquy, spoken to no one but himself, Nihal seems emotionally (and financially) trapped. In the final moments of the film, each spouse sits at his or her desk. Nihal sits quietly, doing nothing, as all of her work has turned to dust and she no longer has purpose, while Aydin begins writing a book on his laptop. Whereas Aydin, in the middle of the film, was willing to release a wild horse, in the end he decided to kill a living thing, an innocent rabbit, and watch it suffer. The rabbit, riddled with bullet holes and barely breathing (but still suffering) likely tells us that Ayden will hang on to Nihal with any financial and emotional manipulation necessary, because he is an old, bitter man.
"he shows three upper-middle class men sitting around, drunk, and full, yet again a decision that makes the burning money even more painful." I'm not sure this is entirely correct. A certainly is but his friend isn't, as is clear from the look of his place and also his comments about saving money by not heating the whole house. And the teacher is not upper middle class either--tho of course all are much better off than the family with the two brothers....
"Whereas Aydin, in the middle of the film, was willing to release a wild horse, in the end he decided to kill a living thing, an innocent rabbit, and watch it suffer. The rabbit, riddled with bullet holes and barely breathing (but still suffering) likely tells us that Ayden will hang on to Nihal with any financial and emotional manipulation necessary, because he is an old, bitter man." An interesting take on this. Good.
Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has managed to make a movie that is very slow burning, and drawn out at parts, yet also enthralling and cinematically beautiful with his film Winter Sleep. This movie is perhaps the longest I have ever seen, and it absolutely consists of the longest dialog scenes I have seen in a film, some lasting what seemed to be around 30 to 40 minutes. After reading the review online, I learned that this film found a lot of inspiration from classical theater, which would explain the long dialog scenes. This seems to be true as well. When I think back to the film, it is not far fetched to imagine that it is a play taking place with a camera on stage. As far as the question of Love and money is concerned, this film puts us in an interesting spot. In previous Ceylan films, it is easy to see that the love cannot exist without the money. Yet in this film, Aydin is a man who seems to have money yet his relationship is failing still. I believe that Ceyelan is still making a message that love cannot exist without money, yet in different ways. First is the fund raiser. Aydin donates to the fundraiser, but does so anonymously after bad mouthing the event in the first place. As far as Nihal knows Aydin doesn't care and didn't donate anything to the fund raiser, a clear scene of absence of money. Next is the more obvious scene where the money is thrown in the fire. While this scene does not take place around Aydin, it is still a clearly symbolic scene that Ceylan is using to get his overarching message across to the audience.
"it is not far fetched to imagine that it is a play taking place with a camera on stage." Fair enough--but might one also argue that the film still exceeds what the theatre could have done (with a camera filming a play on stage)? How so? And what does this add to what the theatre could have done?
When watching Winters Sleep it is hard not to notice the intriguing and odd landscapes this film explores. The film is filled with great establishing shots that give us a good idea of what the character’s environment is. Winter Sleep gives us a lot of interesting and long dialogue scenes that features a medium shot, which allows us to view both speaking characters. Many of the characters in this film are also being naturally framed in the shot either by furniture and doorways. When thinking about the character of the film, Aydin, the first thing that came to my mind that he reminded me of was a king. Aydin lives in his hotel or “castle” that is located at the top of the hill overlooking his tenants or “peasants”. He is presumed to be somewhat wealthy with the fact that he is the owner of the hotel and also the owner of the homes being rented in the town. His tenants are not wealthy at all and when rent is not paid he sends debt collectors to collect belongs as collateral. Aydin has false thoughts that his tenants are happy with the way he is treating themand by the time winter comes One scene in particular that caught my attention would have to be when Hamdi brings his nephew and forces him to kiss the hand of Aydin. Aydin at first dismisses the proposal but when he is annoyed enough he entertains Hamdi and lets his nephew kiss his hand, I think that Aydin liked this by the way he smirks and carries himself. This automatically made me think of a king because kissing the hand of the king was a sign of respect and that is what is trying to be done here. Another topic that I thought was prevalent would have to be the columns that Aydin writes. He writes these columns about issues that he finds in his everyday life and most of those problems have to do with his tenants. These articles are mere judgments made by Aydin fom his own thoughts on his renters not knowing their true struggles and thoughts. Aydin thinks his tenants enjoy these articles and is conceded enough to believe that they like him as well. At the end of Fall Aydin’s sister tells him that his columns are significant and well written and by the time winter comes she tells him the truth about his articles and what his tenants actually think.
After I began watching Winter Sleep (2014), I immediately realized how much of a hindrance reading subtitles was going to be. As has been the case with the other Nuri Bilge Ceylan films we have watched in this class, each frame is packed with information; whether in the sprawling landscape shots or the closer interior shots. I would find myself looking off to study the masks on the wall or watch Aydin’s (Haluk Bilginer) hands throughout a scene and would end up losing whole chunks of dialogue. This gave the opportunity to revisit scenes that I had just watched with my analysis of the backgrounds in mind. Ceylan knows how to compose a shot, which makes sense that we were introduced to his photography prior to this film. This was this first time rain had been used in a positive, or at least closer to positive way. The other films had used both thunder or rain to symbolize anger or devastation or loss, while the presence of rain (albeit without thunder) seems to accompany moments of connection – Aydin with his work or with another over drinks – or even reflection. The rain, as does the snow, moves everyone inside, to warmth, and this is where they converse and begin to unpack that luxury only afforded to the wealthier class, that of how life works, specifically the conversation near the beginning of the film about evil and letting evil do as it wants to inspire regret or more forethought. This film is about conversations, framed in this hotel (“Hotel Othello”), and Ceylon beautifully sets the audience up to willingly watch conversations happen. I love the way Johnathan Romney describes the scenes between Aydin and and his sister Necla (Demet Akbag), Necla “coolly demolishing her brother as he sits ensconced by the comfort of his own sofa.” “Hell is other people.” It is always increasingly harder for the characters of this film to have a profitable relationship with the others. If they could exist as just themselves, everything would be fine. Which, in some ways, is how life is. Ceylan is clear about making this known – he wants us to grab, to grapple, with what he finds important and what makes life what it is. “There is as much hope in these characters as there is in life itself,” he says in his interview with David Barker. Attempting to digest this film (or any film for that matter) in one go, even in the weird, scattered way that I had – going back to move forward – is a struggle, and even the reviewer Romney agrees. There is such a density to Ceylan’s films that makes me wish I was already on the level of thinking I needed to be at to catch what is going on as it is happening. In the review, it is described frequently as a sort of “screen novel,” and in this description I find everything that I personally wrestle with in trying to understand. There is so much, and I do not personally have the brain power to take it all in, and it feels unfair. The film continuously makes one look inward and apply these heady ideas of what you are and how what you are affects how you act, and it is a challenge to separate it out; so, in fact, it is one of the more successful films I’ve seen so far in this class (probably ever), because it triumphs in its goal of making one think.
I appreciate how you express your (positive, inspired) struggle with the film and the challenges it offers. There's no doubt that the film demands multiple viewings--even for people who don't have to rely on the subtitles, tho having to read them no doubt makes the film even more of a challenge for us non-Turkish speaking folks.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan delivers the mountainous landscape of the Cappadocia region, in the film Winter Sleep (2008). Although, the film contains more scenes indoors, in dark, illuminated rooms. The tension in the dramatic film amplifies through slow pace environment. There is not very much action that takes place in the movie, but it takes in all the situation in a different perspective because most of them a lost throughout the film. It makes it hard for the viewer to establish a sense of what is taking place; it challenges the audience to put it together and later extinguishes the reason for the event. Robert Cardullo talks about the long scenes of dialogue between Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) and Nihal (Melisa Sozen), “the emotional and intellectual shifts traced by the exchanges are not always easy to follow.” This statement changes the switch of a viewer because there are different meanings of following Winter Sleep's involved scenarios, yet the build up to the sequences of the slow dramatic film compliments the structure of the movie. The finical relevance to money and pride conflict each other. The issue presents Ismail (Nejat Isler) to display the act of throwing money into a fire. The dispense of money shows how much pride people in a Turkish community have even in a crisis. The handling of Ismail brother Handi (Serhat Must) lingers in the intention of good but ends up making the problem worsens and with the act of Nihal and the banknotes it contributed to Ismail’s pride. The scenes play out the prolonged time of the film but in reality, it’s a short period that is illustrated through the complications of the eviction and position the characters are facing.
Winter Sleep (2014) is a family drama about the beginning of the end. Aydin, the main character, is a former actor-turned-hotel manager/landlord via the death of his parents. He seems perfectly content with his money, power, and control over the tenants in his "kingdom" until one day, a child named Ilyas shatters the window of is car. According to the interview "'I Always Try To Find Something Better': Nuri Bilge Ceylan on Winter Sleep" by David Barker, this is the exact moment where the beginning of the end takes place. "The delicate balance that had allowed the characters to maintain their untenable situation now begins to crumble." (245)
When the window shatters, so does the balanced living situation that prefaces the film. Aydin goes about life as if he is the star, as if the world is his stage. In fact, one can take this point of view for the entire film. He has a major plot, turmoils, struggles, and accomplishments, just like the lead role from a play. But once the window shatters, the "fourth wall" of his stage breaks, and he begins to notice the "side characters" in his play. This is when he finally notices the "inconveniences" that the tenants, his sister, the teacher, and his wife cause for him.
His money and power over the other people in his life has caused him to distance himself. Aydin lacks empathy for others, including the side characters of this metaphorical play that he continues to act in. The pressure cooker-like situation of hotel living had built up this play, and the rock that shattered the window finally cracked Aydin's world view open.
Winter Sleep is full of Aydin's monologues and "lead actor ego" moments that keep other characters suffering and struggling throughout the entire film. By comparing Aydin's world view to that of a play, it is easy to understand his lack of empathy for the individuals around him.
In Winter Sleep, Ceylan depicts the conflict between “conscience, responsibility, and self-deception” in a soap opera-esque fashion (Cardullo, 240). The conflict between these three aspects is seen within Aydin as he interacts with different characters. While talking to Necla, they get onto a topic about “not resisting evil.” His definition to this phrase is “to remain indifferent to incidents defined as evil,” which describes some of his actions. Many times we see Aydin mask his feelings and seem indifferent to his tenants in the beginning of the film or his wife’s charity deeds. However, much of this goes to describing his decisions he makes and how his selfishness gets in the way of him helping others. This is seen when he brushes off his wife and sister and makes himself seem very important, especially through his need to help a woman after she praises him in a letter. He holds himself in such high regard and believes that he is making the right decisions, however it just hurts his relationships even more. The thoughts he has for himself evidently get in the way of what is right, which Necla immediately points out with the phrase “I wish my threshold of self-deception was as low as yours.” To this she refers to him believing that things go wrong, not because of him, but because of others. Therefore, by not realizing his affect, he aids in the deterioration of his relationships. Unlike Ceylan’s other films, dialogue is heavily used. This helped to show the melodrama happening between subplots and how emotionally tangled a character was with another, which many soap operas operate on. I also enjoyed how ironic it was for Ceylan to incorporate a soap opera feel within his film. As said in the Review, the dialogue sometimes comes off as if they are “transcribed chapters of a novel” (Cardullo 241). In one scene, Aydin expresses how proud and accomplished he felt from not participating in a single soap opera. He even criticizes his sister for watching too much soap operas due to her melodramatic view in life. Unbeknownst to Aydin, his life is a soap opera.
Similar in cruelty to the reunion/departure scene from Wendy and Lucy (2008), the Winter Sleep (2014) money-burning scene was one of the few to inspire my vocal protest. Johnathan Romney describes it as a "depiction of unassuageable despair and pride" (240), an interpretation that makes sense but could also be called into question. Ismail's (Nejat Isler) reason for burning the money is never explicitly revealed, which makes the scene's seemingly random financial masochism all the more haunting. It also fits with Ceylan's assertion that "sometimes you have to know how to be a pessimist" in order to also be a realist (Barker 251). A more conventional narrative - something out of a Dickens' story - would affirm the value of charity and see its poor characters embracing the act. Not here. With these thoughts in mind, I will explore the money-burning scene from a formalist and thematic perspective.
ReplyDeleteThe scene does a thorough, if somewhat obvious, job of setting up Hamdi's (Serhat Kilic) family's financial instability. However, even before the scene starts, the film establishes the family's poverty by showing several shots of the junk in their yard and having Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) comment on the family being behind on their rent. In any case, once the scene in question starts, the film further emphasizes this need by showing Hamdi's sick mother, who speaks of her need to see a doctor - and the financial inability to do so - in front of Nihal (Melisa Sozen). This moment was almost so obvious that I wondered if Hamdi and his mother had specifically planned to discuss the issue in front of Nihal, who they know has the money to make a doctor's visit happen. Later, Hamdi further emphasizes the discomfort of his family's life by commenting on how cold his room is, suggesting the family's financial troubles put even basic necessities like warmth and shelter at risk. The icing on the cake comes when Hamdi explains the debt and unemployment that have followed Ismail's release from prison. What I'm trying to say here is that the film makes the family's poverty abundantly clear. As Romney mentions, the film "plays the long game, setting up early crises that play out much later" - and setting them up in several different parts (242).
It is Ceylan's use of such a build-up that makes the money-burning moment so devastating and incomprehensible. Ismail's random acts of violence are known at this point from his criminal history and the moment he breaks his own house's window, which makes his unexpected presence in the scene a cause for unease. In fact, his entrance is a bit dramatic, as he opens the door and a light from the doorway flashes over Hamdi's face, seemingly surprising him. Nihal looks unnerved - bearing wide, wary eyes for the rest of the scene-, perhaps because she has just heard of this man's violent past. Up until Ismail's entrance, it appears as if everything is settled, with Hamdi gracious and claiming there's "enough to buy a house" here. Given Ismail's previous moment of self-destruction - willfully breaking his family's own window that they probably can't pay to fix - he constitutes a wildcard in this scene, so the atmosphere immediately changes.
The moment when these tensions are legitimized is when the camera booms up on Ismail as he stands looking at the fire with a wad of money in his hand. (This was my audible "no!" moment). This moment is preceded by one in which Ismail notes that Nihal didn't account for him being a "drunkard incapable of appreciating" the gift. Precisely then, the family's doom is sealed and any hope of the rich/poor gap being bridged is lost. As Ismail throws the money into the fire, Nihal's gasp is shown in two shots, edited together in rapid succession, the first being a medium shot and the second being much closer up for emphasis of just how horrifying this is for her.
The most unsettling moment in the scene comes when Ismail looks away from Nihal with a cold expression and seemingly stares into the camera, as if to gauge the viewer's reaction. If Nihal lacks all comprehension of why Ismail would reject such a gift, does the viewer share her position? (I did, to some extent - is Ismail too prideful to accept the money? Does he see it as conceding to his rich enemy? Is his death drive exceptionally strong because he doesn't imagine the money making his life better in a meaningful way? Is it his way of refusing a possible "peace offering?" I have many questions here!) However, Ismail evidently regrets his action - or perhaps regrets the need to do his action (predestined?) - as we can tell from his reaction to seeing that Ilyas (Emirhan Doruktutan) has seen everything. He makes eye contact with his son and cries.
DeleteThere's much to be said about the relationship between love and money in this scene. Hamdi evidently needs money in order to show his family love properly, as we can see from his mother berating him for not taking her to the doctor. If taking care of a loved one's health is an act of love and money is required in order to complete that act, then money is a prerequisite for love. While, yes, it is clear Hamdi loves his mother from how he treats her, he cannot express that love fully (i.e., by taking her to a doctor) due to his poverty.
On a somewhat opposite note, the scene makes it clear that money cannot create love either. Whether or not one considers charity an act of love for the less fortunate is up for debate, but an argument could be made that it is one. However, if Nihal intends this charity as a "peace offering" and thus a step toward love, it is an unsuccessful one. There is a gap between rich and poor that cannot be simply mended through the use of money. Ismail burning Nihal's monetary "act of love" - whatever reasons he had for it - affirms the idea that love cannot be bought. There is a long history of abuse, isolation, and indifference between rich and poor that cannot be forgotten, even when money comes into play. Ismail's act may speak to that idea. It is his way of telling Nihal that the world is not so simple and that there are deeper wounds. However, Nihal only knows how to love in the way the rich do - through her money. It is a simple "solution" to a much more complex problem.
There is a laborious slowness to Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film Winter Sleep (2008). In terms of narrative, the film’s 196 minutes cover a relatively short period of time—perhaps a matter of days—and in the course of that time, nothing very extraordinary happens. Ceylan has in this film chosen to focus on the quotidian aspects of life at a fast-emptying hotel in the sparsely populated Cappadocia region of Turkey: we see characters argue, a horse is caught and released, visitors depart, money is given (and refused), and a trip to be made by the main character to Istanbul is aborted.
ReplyDeleteCeylan has said that his films are ambiguous in that he does not impose a clear subject; that they are about “life in general” (Barker 248). This film certainly confirms his stated interest, but Winter Sleep, in focusing on the generalities of life, also examines issues of power and class via the relationship between tenant and landlord. The main character Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) is a retired actor who owns a hotel, and is now a landlord in addition to having become a writer. There is discord among he and his tenants, particularly among a family who has had difficulty in paying rent for several months; there is also friction among the members of Aydin’s own household.
What is interesting in Ceylan’s portrait of Aydin is the character’s utter disinterest in his position as landlord. He leaves all of these matters to his assistant, Hidayet (Ayberk Peckan), and is largely ignorant of his tenants’ lives. Aydin’s willful blindness and confessed cluelessness actually aggravate matters; he is unable (if he would be willing) to work with the family who has been consistently late with rent, and the family, assuming that he must be aware of their plight, feels persecuted. This disconnection is reminiscent of Bauman’s description of “mutually separate lifeworlds” (74) which Bauman claims is ubiquitous and symptomatic of liquid modernity. Ceylan also makes clear that Aydin’s willful ignorance extends to his family, social connections and, in some respects, to himself. This can be seen through his lack of awareness of his wife’s philanthropic pursuits, and, much later in the film, Aydin’s misunderstanding of Levent (Nadir Sarıbacak) at their mutual friend’s home.
What I think is most interesting about Winter Sleep, however, is what I believe is an intentional convergence between form and content. The film does offer long stretches of interesting dialogue, but Ceylan’s film could have been much shorter and dealt effectively with the same material; one has to ask why, then, has Ceylan chosen to make such a long film? Aydin casually oppresses everyone around him. I believe that part of Ceylan’s intent was to create a film that casually oppresses the viewer, thereby highlighting and imparting to the audience the experience of the characters in Aydin’s sphere.
"I believe that part of Ceylan’s intent was to create a film that casually oppresses the viewer, thereby highlighting and imparting to the audience the experience of the characters in Aydin’s sphere." Interesting point.
DeleteIn many respects similar to Climates (2006) and Three Monkeys (2008), Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep (2014) again features a male character, Aydin, that begins to experience simultaneously a breakdown in financial stability and in his relationships with those whom are, ostensibly, closest to him. Again, Ceylan’s film explores in a deeply intimate and personal way the consequences of love and money being so closely tied together, or if it’s possible to even have one without the other. In sharp contrast with Three Monkeys, however, is that Aydin’s financial woes are marked by how his economic dominance over others affects his personal relationships, his ability to empathize, and, like other Ceylan films, his ability to be conscious of his own retrograded worldviews in the face of those who suffer from them. Unlike the characters in Three Monkeys, Aydin is a relatively upper-class individual; it seems like money is no problem for him whatsoever as he repeatedly insists on donating to Nihal’s charity, he owns his own seemingly successful hotel (there are two different guests shown during what seems to be not an ideal season), and he has plenty of people working under him that manage most of the business for him. In the context of our class, Aydin represents a waning, “solid” version of capitalism and ideology: he is a landowner, and his business mostly constitutes collecting money from tenants. He is a staunch traditionalist, but as his repeatedly oppressed wife Nihal points out his value set mostly serves him in a way that allows him to judge others and displace his own faults. The intensely traditional patriarchy that Aydin casts over his hotel and home suffocates the women in his life, of whom both have some financial dependence on him (a product of the political sexism that might still be at play in this rural part of Turkey) and therefore cannot necessarily walk out on him and be entirely sure of their futures.
ReplyDeleteAs we have seen before in Ceylan’s films, this type of masculinity completely isolates the character as he remains resistant to change throughout the film. It appears that Aydin may have taken some of the criticism from Necla and Nihal to heart, as he does begin to write about theater as opposed to “pontificating” about morality, but we never are given proof that the words narrated in the ending frames reach Nihal or that they are necessarily sincere. Given that the rest of the film shows Aydin quite literally laughing in the face of some pretty insightful and cutthroat thoughts on the nature of his toxic personality, an audience would be hard pressed to truly believe this character would ultimately change so sharply in the final three minutes of a 196 minute film. Ceylan himself concedes that he purposefully “clouded the issue somewhat” to avoid being “too optimistic” (Cardullo 251) in his ending. In the closing moments, we merely see Aydin typing alone on his computer and a beautiful wide shot portrait of the desolate looking hotel. We are offered several periodic shots that capture the expansive wilderness that surrounds them, but in the end I believe only serve to highlight the claustrophobia of the hotel’s interior that makes this film a sort of highly intellectual chamber drama. In the same way that Ceylan uses tight spaces and movement in and out of barriers in Three Monkeys, he again places his characters in small, dimly lit rooms to hash out their grievances before, literally and figuratively, shutting the door. Ceylan hardly ever places his characters in the same frame, instead choosing to create even more of a cinematic barrier between them by cutting back and forth during arguments and reinforcing the distance that love tied to money and the passage of time creates.
"Ceylan hardly ever places his characters in the same frame, instead choosing to create even more of a cinematic barrier between them by cutting back and forth during arguments and reinforcing the distance that love tied to money and the passage of time creates." Good observation.
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ReplyDeleteI am grateful to Eric for writing in-depth about the money/fire scene, because my immediate reaction was to consider it one of the darker moments in any film we’ve seen so far. Then, however, I noticed that I had been mourning currency. Sure, the money could have purchased a house and an easier situation for a family, but seeing the burning paper felt emotionally devastating. Ceylan somehow makes this fire painful to audiences, perhaps in order to make them realize their attachment to money and its possibilities. I identified greatly with Nihal in this moment, because as a teacher, sometimes it feels as though students listlessly toss your efforts into the fire. What made it a little bit worse, too, was that I knew it was going to happen. From the moment that I realized that Ceylan had intentionally placed a highly flammable promise of a new life in a room with a fire (which quickly became more of an inferno), I knew that Hamdi would never purchase the house he thought he could buy. Once Ceylan has incinerated the audience’s hope, he shows three upper-middle class men sitting around, drunk, and full, yet again a decision that makes the burning money even more painful. Once we have seen the suffering of Aydin’s wife and the family Nihal attempted to redeem, the film shows comfortable men, completely oblivious to the horrors occurring in their town. The men argue, quote Shakespeare, and one of them vomits. Their intellectual pursuits feel pointless and selfish.
Concerning love and money, I believe I have mentioned this before, but perhaps love is corruptible with too much money. Many of these films have (perhaps) established that a relationship, whether familial, friendly, or romantic, cannot flourish when there is too great a financial burden – which makes sense when one considers the hierarchy of needs. However, many of these films may also point to the issue of monetary oversaturation. Perhaps one of the largest signs of the corruptible powers of money is that Aydin, despite being a kind of “king” of the small town, alienates all those who love(d) him. Aydin’s possession of a sizable fortune causes him to feel that he almost owns his sister and his wife. When Nihal mentions wanting to leave and go to Istanbul, Aydin makes fun of her, joking that she would never succeed working a low-paying job. Because he is wealthy, he feels that he has a permanent hold over his beautiful wife.
Ultimately, Ceylan ends the film in a way that does not let us know whether or not Aydin and Nihal work on their relationship and stay together – which he said he did very intentionally in his interview. However, we get the sense that neither of them will go anywhere. Although Aydin’s speech at the end was likely a soliloquy, spoken to no one but himself, Nihal seems emotionally (and financially) trapped. In the final moments of the film, each spouse sits at his or her desk. Nihal sits quietly, doing nothing, as all of her work has turned to dust and she no longer has purpose, while Aydin begins writing a book on his laptop. Whereas Aydin, in the middle of the film, was willing to release a wild horse, in the end he decided to kill a living thing, an innocent rabbit, and watch it suffer. The rabbit, riddled with bullet holes and barely breathing (but still suffering) likely tells us that Ayden will hang on to Nihal with any financial and emotional manipulation necessary, because he is an old, bitter man.
"he shows three upper-middle class men sitting around, drunk, and full, yet again a decision that makes the burning money even more painful." I'm not sure this is entirely correct. A certainly is but his friend isn't, as is clear from the look of his place and also his comments about saving money by not heating the whole house. And the teacher is not upper middle class either--tho of course all are much better off than the family with the two brothers....
Delete"Whereas Aydin, in the middle of the film, was willing to release a wild horse, in the end he decided to kill a living thing, an innocent rabbit, and watch it suffer. The rabbit, riddled with bullet holes and barely breathing (but still suffering) likely tells us that Ayden will hang on to Nihal with any financial and emotional manipulation necessary, because he is an old, bitter man." An interesting take on this. Good.
DeleteDirector Nuri Bilge Ceylan has managed to make a movie that is very slow burning, and drawn out at parts, yet also enthralling and cinematically beautiful with his film Winter Sleep. This movie is perhaps the longest I have ever seen, and it absolutely consists of the longest dialog scenes I have seen in a film, some lasting what seemed to be around 30 to 40 minutes. After reading the review online, I learned that this film found a lot of inspiration from classical theater, which would explain the long dialog scenes. This seems to be true as well. When I think back to the film, it is not far fetched to imagine that it is a play taking place with a camera on stage. As far as the question of Love and money is concerned, this film puts us in an interesting spot. In previous Ceylan films, it is easy to see that the love cannot exist without the money. Yet in this film, Aydin is a man who seems to have money yet his relationship is failing still. I believe that Ceyelan is still making a message that love cannot exist without money, yet in different ways. First is the fund raiser. Aydin donates to the fundraiser, but does so anonymously after bad mouthing the event in the first place. As far as Nihal knows Aydin doesn't care and didn't donate anything to the fund raiser, a clear scene of absence of money. Next is the more obvious scene where the money is thrown in the fire. While this scene does not take place around Aydin, it is still a clearly symbolic scene that Ceylan is using to get his overarching message across to the audience.
ReplyDelete"it is not far fetched to imagine that it is a play taking place with a camera on stage." Fair enough--but might one also argue that the film still exceeds what the theatre could have done (with a camera filming a play on stage)? How so? And what does this add to what the theatre could have done?
DeleteWhen watching Winters Sleep it is hard not to notice the intriguing and odd landscapes this film explores. The film is filled with great establishing shots that give us a good idea of what the character’s environment is. Winter Sleep gives us a lot of interesting and long dialogue scenes that features a medium shot, which allows us to view both speaking characters. Many of the characters in this film are also being naturally framed in the shot either by furniture and doorways. When thinking about the character of the film, Aydin, the first thing that came to my mind that he reminded me of was a king. Aydin lives in his hotel or “castle” that is located at the top of the hill overlooking his tenants or “peasants”. He is presumed to be somewhat wealthy with the fact that he is the owner of the hotel and also the owner of the homes being rented in the town. His tenants are not wealthy at all and when rent is not paid he sends debt collectors to collect belongs as collateral. Aydin has false thoughts that his tenants are happy with the way he is treating themand by the time winter comes One scene in particular that caught my attention would have to be when Hamdi brings his nephew and forces him to kiss the hand of Aydin. Aydin at first dismisses the proposal but when he is annoyed enough he entertains Hamdi and lets his nephew kiss his hand, I think that Aydin liked this by the way he smirks and carries himself. This automatically made me think of a king because kissing the hand of the king was a sign of respect and that is what is trying to be done here.
ReplyDeleteAnother topic that I thought was prevalent would have to be the columns that Aydin writes. He writes these columns about issues that he finds in his everyday life and most of those problems have to do with his tenants. These articles are mere judgments made by Aydin fom his own thoughts on his renters not knowing their true struggles and thoughts. Aydin thinks his tenants enjoy these articles and is conceded enough to believe that they like him as well. At the end of Fall Aydin’s sister tells him that his columns are significant and well written and by the time winter comes she tells him the truth about his articles and what his tenants actually think.
After I began watching Winter Sleep (2014), I immediately realized how much of a hindrance reading subtitles was going to be. As has been the case with the other Nuri Bilge Ceylan films we have watched in this class, each frame is packed with information; whether in the sprawling landscape shots or the closer interior shots. I would find myself looking off to study the masks on the wall or watch Aydin’s (Haluk Bilginer) hands throughout a scene and would end up losing whole chunks of dialogue. This gave the opportunity to revisit scenes that I had just watched with my analysis of the backgrounds in mind. Ceylan knows how to compose a shot, which makes sense that we were introduced to his photography prior to this film. This was this first time rain had been used in a positive, or at least closer to positive way. The other films had used both thunder or rain to symbolize anger or devastation or loss, while the presence of rain (albeit without thunder) seems to accompany moments of connection – Aydin with his work or with another over drinks – or even reflection. The rain, as does the snow, moves everyone inside, to warmth, and this is where they converse and begin to unpack that luxury only afforded to the wealthier class, that of how life works, specifically the conversation near the beginning of the film about evil and letting evil do as it wants to inspire regret or more forethought. This film is about conversations, framed in this hotel (“Hotel Othello”), and Ceylon beautifully sets the audience up to willingly watch conversations happen. I love the way Johnathan Romney describes the scenes between Aydin and and his sister Necla (Demet Akbag), Necla “coolly demolishing her brother as he sits ensconced by the comfort of his own sofa.”
ReplyDelete“Hell is other people.” It is always increasingly harder for the characters of this film to have a profitable relationship with the others. If they could exist as just themselves, everything would be fine. Which, in some ways, is how life is. Ceylan is clear about making this known – he wants us to grab, to grapple, with what he finds important and what makes life what it is. “There is as much hope in these characters as there is in life itself,” he says in his interview with David Barker.
Attempting to digest this film (or any film for that matter) in one go, even in the weird, scattered way that I had – going back to move forward – is a struggle, and even the reviewer Romney agrees. There is such a density to Ceylan’s films that makes me wish I was already on the level of thinking I needed to be at to catch what is going on as it is happening. In the review, it is described frequently as a sort of “screen novel,” and in this description I find everything that I personally wrestle with in trying to understand. There is so much, and I do not personally have the brain power to take it all in, and it feels unfair. The film continuously makes one look inward and apply these heady ideas of what you are and how what you are affects how you act, and it is a challenge to separate it out; so, in fact, it is one of the more successful films I’ve seen so far in this class (probably ever), because it triumphs in its goal of making one think.
I appreciate how you express your (positive, inspired) struggle with the film and the challenges it offers. There's no doubt that the film demands multiple viewings--even for people who don't have to rely on the subtitles, tho having to read them no doubt makes the film even more of a challenge for us non-Turkish speaking folks.
DeleteNuri Bilge Ceylan delivers the mountainous landscape of the Cappadocia region, in the film Winter Sleep (2008). Although, the film contains more scenes indoors, in dark, illuminated rooms. The tension in the dramatic film amplifies through slow pace environment. There is not very much action that takes place in the movie, but it takes in all the situation in a different perspective because most of them a lost throughout the film. It makes it hard for the viewer to establish a sense of what is taking place; it challenges the audience to put it together and later extinguishes the reason for the event. Robert Cardullo talks about the long scenes of dialogue between Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) and Nihal (Melisa Sozen), “the emotional and intellectual shifts traced by the exchanges are not always easy to follow.” This statement changes the switch of a viewer because there are different meanings of following Winter Sleep's involved scenarios, yet the build up to the sequences of the slow dramatic film compliments the structure of the movie.
ReplyDeleteThe finical relevance to money and pride conflict each other. The issue presents Ismail (Nejat Isler) to display the act of throwing money into a fire. The dispense of money shows how much pride people in a Turkish community have even in a crisis. The handling of Ismail brother Handi (Serhat Must) lingers in the intention of good but ends up making the problem worsens and with the act of Nihal and the banknotes it contributed to Ismail’s pride. The scenes play out the prolonged time of the film but in reality, it’s a short period that is illustrated through the complications of the eviction and position the characters are facing.
Winter Sleep (2014) is a family drama about the beginning of the end. Aydin, the main character, is a former actor-turned-hotel manager/landlord via the death of his parents. He seems perfectly content with his money, power, and control over the tenants in his "kingdom" until one day, a child named Ilyas shatters the window of is car. According to the interview "'I Always Try To Find Something Better': Nuri Bilge Ceylan on Winter Sleep" by David Barker, this is the exact moment where the beginning of the end takes place. "The delicate balance that had allowed the characters to maintain their untenable situation now begins to crumble." (245)
ReplyDeleteWhen the window shatters, so does the balanced living situation that prefaces the film. Aydin goes about life as if he is the star, as if the world is his stage. In fact, one can take this point of view for the entire film. He has a major plot, turmoils, struggles, and accomplishments, just like the lead role from a play. But once the window shatters, the "fourth wall" of his stage breaks, and he begins to notice the "side characters" in his play. This is when he finally notices the "inconveniences" that the tenants, his sister, the teacher, and his wife cause for him.
His money and power over the other people in his life has caused him to distance himself. Aydin lacks empathy for others, including the side characters of this metaphorical play that he continues to act in. The pressure cooker-like situation of hotel living had built up this play, and the rock that shattered the window finally cracked Aydin's world view open.
Winter Sleep is full of Aydin's monologues and "lead actor ego" moments that keep other characters suffering and struggling throughout the entire film. By comparing Aydin's world view to that of a play, it is easy to understand his lack of empathy for the individuals around him.
Your point that A behaves as a lead actor in his real life is a very good one.
DeleteIn Winter Sleep, Ceylan depicts the conflict between “conscience, responsibility, and self-deception” in a soap opera-esque fashion (Cardullo, 240). The conflict between these three aspects is seen within Aydin as he interacts with different characters. While talking to Necla, they get onto a topic about “not resisting evil.” His definition to this phrase is “to remain indifferent to incidents defined as evil,” which describes some of his actions. Many times we see Aydin mask his feelings and seem indifferent to his tenants in the beginning of the film or his wife’s charity deeds. However, much of this goes to describing his decisions he makes and how his selfishness gets in the way of him helping others. This is seen when he brushes off his wife and sister and makes himself seem very important, especially through his need to help a woman after she praises him in a letter. He holds himself in such high regard and believes that he is making the right decisions, however it just hurts his relationships even more. The thoughts he has for himself evidently get in the way of what is right, which Necla immediately points out with the phrase “I wish my threshold of self-deception was as low as yours.” To this she refers to him believing that things go wrong, not because of him, but because of others. Therefore, by not realizing his affect, he aids in the deterioration of his relationships.
ReplyDeleteUnlike Ceylan’s other films, dialogue is heavily used. This helped to show the melodrama happening between subplots and how emotionally tangled a character was with another, which many soap operas operate on. I also enjoyed how ironic it was for Ceylan to incorporate a soap opera feel within his film. As said in the Review, the dialogue sometimes comes off as if they are “transcribed chapters of a novel” (Cardullo 241). In one scene, Aydin expresses how proud and accomplished he felt from not participating in a single soap opera. He even criticizes his sister for watching too much soap operas due to her melodramatic view in life. Unbeknownst to Aydin, his life is a soap opera.