Conflicted selves: the humanist cinema of Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Abstract

The films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan are always groping for the general condition of ‘humanity’ – that vague anachronism, ever the object of contempt for contemporary philosophers. It is now commonplace to hear that authorship, modernity, subjectivity, history and humanity are outmoded concepts of a bygone era. Yet, in countless art films of recent years, we continue to note a dominant thematic preoccupation with recognition, anxiety and subjectivity, begging the question: If we have departed from the humanist regime of art and philosophy, why do its primary concerns continue to dominate? In this article, I wish to analyse Ceylan’s oeuvre as a continuation of the themes and aesthetics of humanist film-makers and philosophers. With in-depth discussion of the themes and aesthetics of the breadth of his oeuvre, I argue that Ceylan’s films are humanist because they focus on human subjectivity as a matter of conflict: between our notion of selfhood and the world around us. In opposition to claims of some flaccid ‘liberal humanism’ derided by posthumanists like Hayles (1999), I wish to argue that Ceylan’s humanism persists with a critical condition intrinsic to the human, denying an escape into a historically rupturing, post-ist logic.