Yılmaz Güney

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Yılmaz Güney
Kurdish
CitizenshipTurkey (He was stripped of his Turkish citizenship in 1983 by then-president Kenan Evren)[1]
Occupation(s)Film director, screenwriter, actor
Years active1958–1983
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1967; div. 1968)​
Fatoş Güney
​
(m. 1970)​
Children2

Yılmaz Güney (

communist political activist.[2][3][4][5] He quickly rose to prominence in the Turkish film industry. Many of his works were made from a far-left perspective and devoted to the plight of working-class people in Turkey. Güney won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1982 for the film Yol (The Road) which he co-produced with Şerif Gören
. He was at constant odds with the Turkish government over the portrayal of Kurdish culture, people and language.

After being convicted of killing judge Sefa Mutlu in 1974 (a charge which he denied[6]), Güney fled the country and was later stripped of his citizenship.[7][8] A year before his death in 1983, he co-founded the Kurdish Institute of Paris together with the Kurdish poets Cegerxwîn and Hejar among others.[9]

Early life and education

Yılmaz Güney was born in 1937 in the village

of Yenice in Adana province.[10] His father, Hamit, who was from Siverek in Şanlıurfa province, moved to Yenice after both of his brothers were murdered.[11] His mother was from Varto in Muş province.[1][7] His parents migrated to Adana to work as labourers in the cotton fields and the young Yılmaz grew up surrounded by the Kurdish working class. Besides working in the fields he had several other jobs including movie delivery boy, horse-cart driver and writing short stories for a local magazine.[12] His first article was published in August 1955 and his first poem a week later while he was still attending high school.[10] His writing brought him into difficulties with the authorities, especially for a short story he wrote about a person aiming for a better world, which was deemed Communist propaganda and for which he had to stand trial.[13] These experiences laid the ground for his future work which generally focused on a realistic portrayal of the downtrodden and marginalised in Turkish society. In 1957, Güney started studying law at Istanbul University but was quickly drawn into the film industry in which he already had connections from his time in Adana. In Istanbul he met the novelist Yasar Kemal, who connected him with other people from Adana working in the Istanbul film industry.[14]

Film career in Turkey

Through

Yeşilçam, the Turkish studio system, a handful of directors, including Atıf Yılmaz, began to use cinema as a means of addressing the problems of the people. Until then state-sanctioned melodramas, war films and adaptations of plays had mostly been performed in Turkish theatres.[citation needed] The new filmmakers began to shoot and screen more realistic images of Kurdish and Turkish life.[citation needed] Yılmaz Güney, a gruff-looking young actor who earned the moniker Çirkin Kral (Turkish: The Ugly King) or "Paşay Naşirîn" in Kurdish, was one of the most popular new names to emerge from this milieu. After working as an apprentice screenwriter for and assistant to Atıf Yılmaz, he began appearing in as many as twenty films a year and became one of Turkey's the most popular actors.[citation needed
]

However, in 1957 Güney was accused of Communist propaganda just weeks after settling in Istanbul and was sentenced in May 1958 to seven and a half years imprisonment,

Communist novel,[20] They Died with Their Heads Bowed.[20][21] Güney stayed loyal to his left-wing connections throughout his career[22] and his relationship with the authorities became even more tense in the ensuing years. Not satisfied with his star status in the Turkish film industry, Güney began directing his own pictures in 1965. From 1966 onwards he earned considerable amounts with the movies he produced which gave him some financial freedom.[23] He and his partner Nebahat Çehre were able to leave their apartment in Beyoğlu and settle in uptown Levent.[23] By 1968 he had formed his own production company, Güney Filmcilik (Güney Films). Over the next few years, the titles of his films mirrored the feelings of the underprivileged people of Turkey and he often portrayed people struggling against the mighty and powerful: Kasımpaşalı Recep (Recep from Kasımpaşa) or Konyakçı (the Cognac Drinker), both produced in 1965, are examples.[24] Other movies he worked in are Umut (Hope, 1970); Ağıt (Elegy, 1972); Acı (Pain, 1971); and Umutsuz (The Hopeless, 1971). Umut is considered to have been the first realistic film of Turkish Cinema and the American director Elia Kazan was among the first to praise it, writing "Umut is a poetic film, completely native, not an imitation of Hollywood or any of the European masters, it had risen out of a village environment".[25]

Imprisonment

After the

military coup in March 1971, Güney was in pretrial for weeks and decided to leave Istanbul to evade further trouble with the authorities.[8] Arrested for harbouring anarchist students, he was jailed in 1972 during preproduction for Zavallılar (The Miserable, 1975), and before completing Endişe (Worry, 1974), which was finished by his assistant, Şerif Gören
. This was a role that Gören would repeat over the next twelve years, directing several scripts that Güney wrote while in prison.

Released from prison in 1974 as part of a general amnesty,

Sürü (The Herd, 1978) and Düşman (The Enemy, 1979), both directed by Zeki Ökten. Düşman won an Honourable Mention at the 30th Berlin International Film Festival in 1980.[28] While in prison, Kazan visited and supported him, believing he had been jailed on account of his political activism.[29]

Personal life

Güney's first marriage was to fellow Turkish actor and Miss Turkey, Nebahat Çehre, who co-starred alongside Güney in several films. Their relationship began in 1964 and they married in 1967. Before his marriage, Güney fathered a daughter, Elif Güney Pütün, from his relationship with Birsen Can Ünal.[citation needed]

Güney and Nebahat Çehre divorced in 1968 after he tried to crush his wife with a car, but many of those closest to Güney always regarded Çehre as the love of his life.[citation needed] In 2019 Çehre shared details of her relationship with Güney asa guest on the programme Şafak Yavuz's Visor.[30]

In 1970 Güney remarried to Jale Fatma Süleymangil, more commonly known as Fatoş Güney. They had a son named Remzi Yılmaz Pütün.[citation needed]

Exile and death

Güney's grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

In September 1980, Güney's works were banned by the new military junta causing Güney to declare: "There are only two possibilities: to fight or to give up, I chose to fight".[31] After escaping from prison in 1981 and fleeing to France,[32] Güney won the Palme d'Or at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival for his film Yol (The Road) whose director in the field was once again Şerif Gören. It was not until 1983 that Güney resumed directing, telling a brutal tale of imprisoned children in his final film, Duvar (The Wall, 1983), which was made in France with the cooperation of the French government. Meanwhile, Turkey's government revoked his citizenship and a court sentenced him to another twenty-two years in jail in absentia.[20]

Yılmaz Güney died of

gastric cancer on 9 September 1984, in Paris, France.[20] He is buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.[33]

Filmography

See also:
List of Turkish films

Actor

Director

  • At Avrat Silah (1966)
  • Bana Kurşun İşlemez (1967)
  • Benim Adım Kerim (1967)
  • Pire Nuri (1968)
  • Seyyit Han (1968)
  • Aç Kurtlar (1969)
  • Bir Çirkin Adam (1969)
  • Umut (1970)
  • Canlı Hedef (1970)
  • Piyade Osman (1970)
  • Baba (1971)
  • İbret (1971)
  • Kaçaklar (1971)
  • Umutsuzlar (1971)
  • Vurguncular (1971)
  • Yarın Son Gündür (1971)
  • Acı (1971)
  • Ağıt (1972)
  • Arkadaş (1974)
  • Endişe (1974)
  • Zavallılar (1975)
  • Surü (1978)
  • Düşman (1979)
  • Yol (1982)
  • Duvar (1983)

Biography

A biography of Güney, Halkın Sanatçısı, Halkın Savaşçısı: Yılmaz Güney (The People's Artist, The People's Warrior: Yılmaz Güney), was published by Dönüşüm Publishing in 1992 and reprinted in 2000. In 2001 its publisher was fined for some of its content, although this was overturned in 2003 when the relevant law was repealed.[34]

Films about Guney

Yilmaz Guney: His Life, His Films (Jane Cousins-Mills, 1987) [35]

The Legend of the Ugly King (Hüseyin Tabak, 2017) [36]

Yilmaz Guney: Rebel with a Cause (Karzan Kardozi, 2013)[37]

The Ballad of Exiles Yilmaz Guney (Ilker Savaskurt, 2016)[38]

See also

References

  1. ^ "'Yol' director stripped of citizenship".
  2. ^ Aydınlık (9 September 2022). "Yılmaz Güney Kimdir?". Aydınlık (in Turkish). Retrieved 2 March 2024.
  3. ISBN 978-90-04-12818-7
  4. ISBN 978-90-04-15557-2, p. 31.
  5. ^ Pope, Hugh and Nicole Pope, Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey, (Overlook TP, 2000), 254.
  6. ^ "Lumpen değil centilmendi". Hürriyet. 10 February 2000. Retrieved 28 September 2017.
  7. ^ a b "Ben Fransız vatandaşı oldum o olmadı" (interview with Güney's widow). Hürriyet / 5 March 2000
  8. ^ a b c d Pendleton, David (25 February 2011). "Yilmaz Güney: From "Ugly King" to Poet of Despair". Harvard Film Archive. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  9. ^ "Who is the Kurdish Institute ?". Institutkurde.org (in French). Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  10. ^
    JSTOR 23862104 – via JSTOR
    .
  11. ISBN 978-6059022477
    .
  12. ^ Silverman, Reuben (2015), p.107
  13. ^ Silverman, Reuben (2015). pp.107–108
  14. ^ Reuben Silverman (2015), p.108
  15. ^ a b Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), pp.56–57
  16. ^ Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), pp.61–62
  17. ^ a b Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), p.62
  18. ^ Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012),p.57
  19. ^ Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), p.62
  20. ^
    New York Times, 10 September 1984, Yilmaz Guney Is Dead;Turkish Film Director
  21. ^ Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), p.56
  22. ^ Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), pp.62–63
  23. ^ a b Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), p.76
  24. ^ Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), p.64
  25. ^ "Yilmaz Guney". 30 March 2013.
  26. ^ Turkish Daily Hürriyet Account of the eye witness Mehmet Uyulhas
  27. ^ Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), pp.70–72
  28. ^ "Berlinale 1980: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
  29. ^ Heß, Michael Reinhard (2012), p.74
  30. ^ "Nebahat Çehre'nin Sesi Nasıl Keşfedildi?". Nebahat Çehre'nin Sesi Nasıl Keşfedildi? - YouTube. www.youtube.com. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  31. ^ "Kurdish Cinema: Yol (Yilmaz Guney, 1982)". 15 December 2010.
  32. ^ "'Çirkin Kral' Türkiye'den nasıl kaçtı? - GAZETE VATAN". 29 September 2021.
  33. ^ "Great Kurdish director Yılmaz Güney remembered in Paris". ANF News. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
  34. ^ ECHR, 10 May 2007, Üstün v. Turkey, Application no. 37685/02
  35. ^ "Yilmaz Guney: His Life, His Films". IMDb.
  36. ^ "The Legend of the Ugly King". IMDb.
  37. ^ "Vimeo".
  38. ^ "The Ballad of Exiles Yilmaz Guney". IMDb.

External links

Awards
Preceded by Golden Orange Award
for Best Actor
1967
for Hudutların Kanunu 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
newly established
Golden Boll Award
for Best Actor
1969
for Seyyit Han

1970
for Umut
1971
for Ağıt

Succeeded by
Preceded by
Golden Boll Award
for Best Screenplay
1970
for Umut

1971
for Ağıt

Succeeded by
not awarded
Preceded by Golden Orange Award
for Best Actor
1970
for Bir Çirkin Adam 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Golden Boll Award
for Best Director
1971
for Ağıt
 Succeeded by
Preceded by Golden Orange Award
for Best Screenplay
1975
for Endişe 		Succeeded by
Preceded by [[Palme d`Or
for Best Film]]
1982
for Yol 		Succeeded by
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