Between the arrival of the cinematograph in Istanbul in 1896 and the institutionalization of film culture in the 1930s, cinema attracted growing audiences, audiences that were themselves experiencing radical change, as a multi-confessional, multi-lingual Ottoman Empire gave way to a secular nation state. These intertwined narratives formed the focus of Canan Balan’s doctoral thesis, undertaken at the University of St. Andrews, and will shortly form the focus of her first book: Torn Is The Curtain: Early Film Culture In Istanbul, to be published in 2025 by Berghahn Books. In this conversation, recorded on 25 April 2024, Jon invites Canan to explain how the “curtain” operated as barrier, screen and metaphor. In Turkish, the word is still used to refer to the cinema screen. In traditional Ottoman shadow-theatre this curtain was a semi-transparent screen, made of white cloth and lit from behind by candles, rather than (as with cinema) a surface onto which images were projected from the front. In Istanbul cinemas the curtain could also serve as an opaque barrier, separating men and women spectators.

Early cinema in Istanbul was met with resistance, negotiation, appropriation and finally institutionalization, all in less than four decades. Yet it is the spectators’ state of ambivalence that lies at the core of the Istanbulite relationship with cinema during this process.

Early Turkish cinema is a challenging research topic, given that the vast majority of footage has been incinerated, while those fragments that do survive in the archive of state broadcasters are sometimes inaccessible, owing to familiar political restrictions and suspicions. Only recently have scholars begun mining the rich vein of film reviews and other printed sources, previously neglected on account of being written in Ottoman Turkish. As Canan explains, early Istanbul film culture can help us gain new insights into both familiar figures such as Halide Edip Adivar (illuminating the use of cinematic metaphors in her writing) as well as less familiar figures, such as Sebahat Filmer, whose long career saw a young intern in the Ottoman Army’s film studios become one of the Turkish film industry’s leading producers and directors. It is these and other pioneer women film professionals which will form the focus of Canan’s next book.

Episode 51 – Torn Is The Curtain

Podcasts are published by TLP for the purpose of encouraging informed debate on the legacies of the events surrounding the Lausanne Conference. The views expressed by participants do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of TLP, its partners, convenors or members.

FEATURE IMAGE: PLAN OF ISTANBUL’S FIRST PERMANENT MOVIE THEATRE, TEPEBASI MUNICIPALITY (PATHÉ FRÈRES BRANCH). FROM THE ANNUAIRE ORIENTAL DU COMMERCE DE L’INDUSTRIE, DE L’ADMINISTRATION ET DE LA MAGISTRATURE, VOL. 28 (ISTANBUL, 1908).