Çağdaş Türk Sinemasında Din Adamı Tasviri: ‘Kış Uykusu’ Filmi Örneği
Depiction of Religious Functionary in Contemporary Turkish Cinema: The case of ‘Winter Sleep’ Movie

Summary/Abstract: Religious education needs to examine and describe informal education processes along with formal ones, since informal learning effects the formation of individual's and society's meaning perspectives. The informal learning may occur through the various experiences in individual's daily life. One of the experiences that may cause informal learning is motion picture. The study aims to uncover how religious man is depicted in contemporary Turkish cinema. In this context, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep movie was analyzed through applying instrumental case study, one of qualitative research methods. Imam Hamdi character in the movie was selected as a source of data for analyses to be made about it. As a result of analyses, it was detected that Imam Hamdi, one of the movie characters, was depicted as poor person. This poverty is not only in a financial sense but encompasses all forms of capital. In other words, Imam Hamdi, as well as material poverty, has been reflected as a character ignorant and far from aesthetic sensibility. Because of these reasons, the characters in the movie do not respect him. In final section of the study, authenticity of religious man character portrayed in the movie was debated and recommendations were made in relation to this debate.Summary: Starting from the time of birth, an individual learns by way of various experiences in daily life. While certain learning experiences are taken under control and formalized with age, there are other learning experiences which have not been formalized. Educational sciences classify such uncontrolled learning as “informal learning”. Sources of informal learning may be various experiences. The individual may form a unique perspective of meaning via different experiences and at most times, he/she is not aware of these perspectives of meaning. The perspectives of meaning that have been gained by way of informal learning may cause the individual to move towards certain actions while withdrawing from others in an unconscious manner. Informal learning may emerge through various experiences. One of these experiences is movies. Thus, examination and description studies that will be carried out on movies are quite important for all areas of social sciences. In this context, the objective of this study is to examine how religious functionaries are portrayed in Turkish cinema. The movie by Nuri Bilge Ceylan entitled Winter Sleep was selected as the sample. The Imam Hamdi character in the movie, Winter Sleep, has been examined within the framework of the “performance” and “stage” concepts that Erving Goffman used to explain social behavior and the religious functionary portrayed by the director was analyzed.Winter Sleep takes place in the Cappadocia region. The lead character of the movie, Aydın, is a wealthy individual who runs a hotel in the region. The general storyline of the movie is related with issues among Aydın, Aydın’s wife Nihan and Aydın’s sister Nejla. The character of Imam Hamdi is a tenant at Aydın’s house in the region. Aydın takes him to court due to the fact that he has not been able to pay the rent for a long period of time. Ilyas, Imam Hamdi’s nephew who gets angry at Aydın because debt enforcement officers came to their house breaks the window of Aydın’s car in one of the first scenes of the movie. Aydın and his helper take the kid and go to Imam Hamdi’s house. Imam Hamdi appears for the first time in this scene.When the character of Imam Hamdi is examined within the “performance” concept used in a Goffmanian sense – an action performed by an individual in front of an audience that has an impact on the observers – the characteristics emphasized by the director are as follows: Imam Hamdi changes his attitude towards people according to their socioeconomic status. While he is acting very modest when faced with the characters of Aydın and Nihan in the movie, his attitude changes when faced with other characters.Another characteristic of Imam Hamdi emphasized by the director is that he is poor. This poverty is not only in a financial sense but encompasses all forms of capital. Since Imam Hamdi is poor in terms of both “economic capital” and “cultural capital”, Aydın has a negative impression of him. According to Aydın, Imam Hamdi is an uneducated religious functionary who does not know how to behave and who does not provide any reassurance to those around him. Hence, Aydın does not want to get involved with the Imam Hamdi character. He directs Imam Hamdi to his helper and lawyers regarding the issues between them. Imam Hamdi continues to try to meet with Aydın personally in the later scenes of the movie.Another characteristic of Imam Hamdi that attracts attention with regard to “performance” is that he describes the morning prayer time as “wee hours”. In addition, the insincerity in his tone is quite striking when referring to religious matters. In these scenes, he puts forth a “cynical” – disbelief in what he himself is doing – attitude with regard to performance.In the last scene that Imam Hamdi depicts a “performance” in the movie, he attracts attention by accepting the support provided by Aydın’s wife Nihan. He first does not want to accept the money, but takes it when he learns that no one else is aware of this. Imam Hamdi’s brother throws the money accepted by Imam Hamdi into the fire. In this scene, the drunk brother takes on a proud attitude instead of Imam Hamdi.When the characteristics of “stage” that Goffman describes as a general and unchanging section for the transmission of messages, it is possible to make a three layered evaluation. In the first layer, the garden of the house of Imam Hamdi is quite striking. The iron frame of a bed thrown away in a corner, plastic window frames, etc. along with items scattered here and there attract attention in the first shot of the garden that we see. We see nothing of aesthetic beauty in the garden. When we enter the house, unrelated objects pans, salt cellar, water pitcher, plastic washbowl scattered around on the table or here and there attract our attention. Nails have been driven on all walls in the living room and objects that result in ugly views have been hung on them. The most interesting of the items hung on the walls is a microphone. A cabled microphone is left hanging just like that on the living room wall. These images indicate that the living room is used only with an instinct of staying alive devoid of any aesthetic apprehension. After the living room, we see the room of Imam Hamdi. This is no different than the garden or the living room. There is no library in the room. Only a few books that seem as if they have been stuck together attract attention. The Qur’an has been wrapped in clothes and hung on the wall.The second layer related with the stage of Imam Hamdi is his family. Imam Hamdi lives with his mother and his brother’s family. No detail is given in the movie about Imam Hamdi’s mother and his aunt. His brother Ismail attracts attention as a drunk and quarrelsome character. Whereas Imam Hamdi’s nephew, Ilyas, had broken the window of Aydın’s car in the first scene of the movie. So, they both display negative behaviors. Imam Hamdi has had no positive impact on them. Because as was stated above, Imam Hamdi is not a religious functionary who can make sufficient impact on those around him.The “stage” in which Imam Hamdi is displayed, that is his clothing, make up the final “stage” in the movie. For instance, Imam Hamdi attracts attention with his wrinkled shirt in the first scene that he is seen. In addition, he is taken into Aydın’s study room during one of his visits to Aydın’s hotel because Aydın is not available at the time. A short while later Aydın arrives and opens the windows because he is disturbed by the odor in the room. Even though it is not put forth openly, it is implied that the feet of Imam Hamdi stink.As a result, the character of Imam Hamdi has been displayed as a very negative character in Winter Sleep. Those who are working in the field of religious education should ask themselves these questions:Are there really religious functionaries like this?If yes, the reasons that result in this should be examined and great importance should be given to the education of religious functionaries. Aesthetic sensibility that will enable them to represent the Islamic culture and civilization properly should also be among the aims of education in addition to providing professional knowledge.If there are no such religious functionaries, various councils should be established by the Presidency of Religious Affairs to get in touch with directors, producers, etc., who portray religious functionaries negatively in social and cultural media in order to learn the underlying reasons. Because all criticisms without inherent prejudice provide significant opportunities to institutions to renovate themselves.Finally, it is very important that all individuals and institutions that give importance to religious values take part in cultural productions that will result in the formation of perspectives of meaning for the society in addition to criticizing such negative depictions of people and institutions. In this manner, Muslims may find the chance to become the perpetrator of the meaning produced with regard to themselves instead of being its audience.

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