Ethical memory and cinema: Confronting the past in Fatih Akın’s The Cut

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the ethical–political responsibility of constructing a memory of 1915 through Fatih Akın’s The Cut (2014). The film explores the Armenian Genocide, which Turkey’s official historiography denies, and sparked heated debates on its release in Turkey. Based on the claim that constructing a memory of genocide is an ethical–political issue, I argue that The Cut’s aesthetic of remembrance fails to lead to an ethical questioning of historical denial and it thus leaves 1915 in the past. In order to discuss the film’s failure to fulfill its ethical responsibility, I explore the following questions: What is the ethical responsibility of remembering the devastating past? What does The Cut’s way of remembering 1915 accomplish and fail to accomplish in terms of ethical memory? By examining the limitations and possibilities of cinema in memory construction, this study seeks to contribute to discussions on the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of memory studies.