Ethical Experience and Narrative Ambiguity in Contemporary Turkish Cinema: Hesitation Line

Authors

  • Aysu Uğur Balcı Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2026.773

Keywords:

cinematic ethic, film studies, modern narrative, Turkish cinema, film criticism

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine how ethical hesitation is produced in modern Turkish cinema through cinematographic and narrative strategies and to discuss the meaning of cinematic ethical experience within the framework of film philosophy. Based on the assumption that art functions not only as an aesthetic discourse but also as an ethical one, the study investigates how cinema reveals its potential to foster ethical reflection and critical thinking. It has been observed that studies addressing ethical questions in contemporary Turkish cinema remain relatively limited. Adopting a qualitative research approach, the study analyzes the ethical ambiguities emerging from the film’s narrative structure, the moral dilemmas confronted by the characters, and the cinematographic choices that shape these processes within the framework of narrative analysis. In conclusion, the study demonstrates that ethical experience in cinema is generated not merely through representation but through form and narrative, and it argues that modern cinematic narration opens up new possibilities for the development of ethical thought.

References

Akbulut, H. (2012). Melodramatik imgelem. Hayalperest.

Akser, M. (2018). Locating Turkish Cinema Between Populist Tendencies and Art Cinema. In: Magnan-Park, A., Marchetti, G., Tan, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95822-1_8

Aristotle. (2009). Nicomachean ethics (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Oxford University Press.

Ateş, C. (2023). Yeni Türk sinemasında değer arayışları: Değerleri keşfetmek. Abant Kültürel Araştırmalar Dergisi, 8(16), 109–125. https://izlik.org/JA76RE55WA

Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern ethics. Blackwell.

Bordwell, D. (1985). Narration in the fiction film. University of Wisconsin Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press.

Carroll, N. (2000). Art and Ethical Criticism: An Overview of Recent Directions of Research Ethics, 110(2), 350-387. https://doi.org/10.1086/233273

Carroll, N. (2014). Moral Change: Fiction, Film, and Family.” In Choi, J. and Frey, M. (Eds.) Cine-Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Film Theory, Practice, and Spectatorship, (43–56). Routledge.

Chio, J. & Frey, M. (2014). Introduction, Cinema ethics (ed. Chio, J. & Frey, M) Routledge.

Deleuze, G. (2013). Cinema I: The Movement image. Bloomsbury

Downing, L., & Saxton, L. (2009). Introduction to section 1. In L. Downing & L. Saxton (Eds.), Film and ethics (pp. 17–21). Routledge.

Downing, L. (2010). Something on the ethics of cinema . In L. Downing (Ed.), Film and ethics: Foreclosure encounters (pp. 1–16). Routledge.

Flaxman, G. (2016). Once More, with Feeling: Cinema and Cinesthesia. SubStance, 45(3), 174–189. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24897958

Frey, M. (2014). The ethics of extreme cinema In Chio, J. & Frey, M (Eds.) Cinema Ethics (pp. 145-162) Routledge.

Gaut, B. (2007). Art, emotion and ethics. Oxford University Press.

Gronstad, A. (2016). Film and the ethical imagination. Palgrave Macmillan.

Kaplan, E. A., & Wang, B. (Eds.). (2008). Trauma and cinema: Cross-cultural explorations. Hong Kong University Press.

Kant, I. (1993). Grounding for the metaphysics of morals (J. W. Ellington, Trans.). Hackett.

Kearney, R., & Williams, J. (1996). Narrative and Ethics. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 70, 29–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4107002

Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority (A. Lingis, Trans.). Duquesne University Press.

Levinas, E. (1985). Ethics and infinity (R. A. Cohen, Trans.). Duquesne University Press.

Marks, L. (2000). The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Duke University Press.

Manovich, L. (2021). What is digital cinema? in Post-cinema. (ed. S. Densan, J. Leyda.). NotaBene.

Onaran, A.Ş. (1994). Türk sineması, 1. cilt. Kitle Yayınları.

Orr, J. (1993). Cinema and Modernity. Polity.

Saydam, B. (2020). Türk Sineması’nın Tarihine Genel Bir Bakış. Türkiye Araştırmaları Literatür Dergisi, 18(36), 401-424. https://izlik.org/JA94JL62NP

Saxton, L. (2008). Haunted images: Film, ethics, testimony and the Holocaust. Wallflower Press.

Singer, P. (1994). Ethics. Oxford University Press.

Sinnerbrink, R., & Trahair, L. (2016). Introduction: Film and / as Ethics. SubStance 45(3), 3-15. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sub.2016.0025

Sinnerbrink, R. (2015). Cinematic ethics: Exploring ethical experience through film. Routledge.

Suner, A. (2006). Hayalet ev: Yeni Türk sinemasında aidiyet, kimlik ve bellek. Metis Yayınları.

Turner, G. (2006). Film as social practice (4th edition). Routledge.

Quaranta, C. (2023). Iconoclasm in European Cinema: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Image Destruction. Edinburgh University Press.

Wartenberg, T. E. (2007). Thinking on screen: Film as philosophy. Routledge.

Downloads

Published

2026-05-22

How to Cite

Uğur Balcı, A. (2026). Ethical Experience and Narrative Ambiguity in Contemporary Turkish Cinema: Hesitation Line. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 14(1), 640–677. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2026.773

Issue

Section

Articles