INTERVIEW SERIES: The Language of Cinema Between Screen and Text INTERVIEWER: Gökhan Çolak | INTERVIEWEE: Berfin Tutucu

Film Criticism and Aesthetics

As a film critic, how do you evaluate cinematic language and visual aesthetics in your work? In particular, what do you pay attention to regarding gender representation?

When watching a film, I first try to focus on the director’s cinematic style. It is of great importance how they construct—or attempt to construct—a language through their cinematographic choices. There are many films that convey very ordinary subjects through highly layered and profound signifiers. Likewise, there are also productions that try to present very niche or creative themes without yet having established a coherent cinematic language.

Rather than the subject matter of the film, I choose to focus on its cinematographic elements and the cinematic language that is being attempted. In films that center on gender representation, I pay attention to the position from which the director and screenwriter approach and engage with this sensitive and important issue.

I have seen films that attempt to create a feminist language but fail to do so, as well as films that are assumed not to be able to adopt a feminist approach yet still successfully incorporate gender representations. I think the main issue is to understand to what extent patriarchal language is sustained in the film, or to what extent it is deconstructed.

There are feminist films that speak from within the patriarchal system without leaving their comfort zone. It is important to grasp whether a production positions itself inside or outside the system while addressing gender issues. For this reason, when analyzing such films, I focus on the gaze of the camera, the gaze of the director, and the gaze of the audience. Rather than taking a direct stance, I try to analyze films by also incorporating the culture industry into my framework.

What do you think about the role and impact of criticism when writing about contemporary independent cinema and film festivals?

Film criticism is, by its very nature, closely intertwined with both sociological and political issues. Writing about independent film festivals requires addressing not only the films screened at these festivals but also the purpose of the festivals themselves. Festivals such as the International Labor Film Festival, the Kork International Horror Film Festival, and the Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival occupy positions that are different from those of the Istanbul Film Festival and Filmekimi organized by IKSV.

Attending these festivals and writing about the films screened there can be seen as a way of stepping outside the system. Writing about the competing and featured films also reveals the position of the film critic. In this way, the film critic attempts to contribute to the visibility of these festivals. Writing about independent and peripheral festivals and films becomes a way of demonstrating that cinema is much larger than monopolies and the profit system.

Translation Studies and Intercultural Connection

What are the biggest challenges you encounter in the translation process, especially when translating literary and cinematic texts?

The most important point in producing a target text from a source text is background knowledge. Literature, for me, is about creating films with words. Similarly, cinema is an attempt to construct a form of literature through images.

When translating literary texts, it is necessary to be familiar with the author’s style and, if available, to examine their other works. For example, if you are translating Émile Zola’s Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris), it is crucial to have knowledge of culinary terminology. One must either find the equivalents of these terms in the target language or, as a translator, create an acceptable rendering when none exists.

Translating cinematic texts is somewhat different from translating film subtitles. Since cinematic texts fall under specialized translation, you are expected to know or learn film-related terminology and possess background knowledge about the subject matter discussed in the text.

Otherwise, it is not possible to produce a translation that is either sufficient or acceptable.

When translating film subtitles, you first need to analyze how the characters in the film use language. Only then can you translate their tone and style in a way that best fits the target language and recreate the intended emotional effect for the audience. These can, of course, be described as challenges; however, for me, they are the most rewarding and satisfying aspects of translation. The common point between being a translator and being a film critic is an appetite for knowledge and research. The greater this appetite is, the more it pushes you to research and analyze in order to satisfy it.

How did your thesis on the translation of Gaston Bachelard’s Le Droit de Rêver influence your perspective on film and literary criticism?

I took a section of Gaston Bachelard’s Le Droit de Rêver as a corpus and translated it from French into Turkish, then broke down my translation into segments and analyzed them. In other words, I conducted a translation critique based on my own translated corpus. Bachelard frequently draws on intertextuality in this work. In my translation corpus, I particularly noticed that he explains his phenomenological approach by referencing poems by Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé, and I reflected on what these poems meant for Bachelard. Bachelard also discusses the elements of reverie in his work, and in my translation corpus the element he focused on was water. He states that water is connected to both death and life.

Bachelard also divides what he calls “common time” and “poetic time” into horizontal and vertical dimensions. While common time progresses horizontally, poetic time—the moment in which creation occurs and inspiration reveals itself—exists vertically, according to Bachelard. As common time flows like a horizontal river, poetic time represents a vertically erupting moment that embodies the deepest unconscious experiences. The concept of the elements of reverie has also been a significant source of inspiration for my film criticism. In the films I watch, I try to interpret the deeper meanings of these elements in a Bachelardian way.

While translating Bachelard, I also studied and read The Poetics of Space in order to gain a command of his language, and I used Bachelard’s phenomenological connections with space in several of my film critiques to analyze cinematic spaces.

In my thesis, I examined my own translation through Van Den Broeck’s model of translation criticism and in light of Gideon Toury’s concepts of adequacy and acceptability in translation. With post-structuralist thinkers such as Derrida and Foucault problematizing objectivity and truth, translation criticism has also evolved in line with these perspectives.

It has become more difficult to define what is “correct” and “incorrect” in translations. The phenomenology and post-structuralist theories that I have engaged with more deeply through translation studies have naturally also influenced my film criticism and analyses. In my analyses, I have moved away from rigid notions of “right” and “wrong” and have become less hesitant about interpretive excess. I began to incorporate the theories of post-structuralist thinkers such as Derrida and Foucault into my film criticism and analyses, and I tried to integrate film analysis with the field of philosophy. In this way, intertextuality and interdisciplinarity have formed the foundation of my work.

Academic and Professional Experience

How did your master’s studies in the Cinema Department at Marmara University shape your academic perspective and your approach to film criticism?

First of all, my thesis supervisor, dear Professor Aygün Şen, and my valuable professors such as Serpil Kırel, Yusuf Ziya Gökçek, Zeynep Çetin Uras, Neşe Kaplan, and Elif Demoğlu pointed out to me very different windows opening onto cinema and showed me new perspectives.

My article titled “Re-seeing Ah Güzel İstanbul through Cinematographic Methods,” which I wrote for the course Yeşilçam Narrative Cinema taught by Professor Serpil Kırel, was awarded third place in the 2025 Sekans Film Analysis Competition. The courses I took from Professor Aygün Şen, such as Japanese Popular Culture, Manga and Anime and Ecology, Ecocriticism, and Cinema, guided me in finding my own field of study. The Feminist Film Theory presentation I delivered in Professor Zeynep Çetin Uras’s class also made a significant contribution to the area I wish to focus on.

The master’s courses in the Cinema Department at Marmara University were more focused on the theoretical and academic aspects of cinema rather than field practice. Since I also wanted to be more involved in the academic side of cinema rather than fieldwork, the education I received helped me identify both my weaknesses and strengths.

In my academic articles, film critiques, and analyses, I feel that I now stand on much firmer ground. In my master’s thesis, I will study the representation of motherhood in Hollywood horror cinema from the 1970s to the present through feminist film theory. My very valuable professors have also helped me greatly in shaping my interests in horror cinema, feminist film theory, ecology, and anime.

How does working as an editor at Payel Publishing affect your writing and translation processes?

It all actually started when I was studying in the French Translation and Interpreting Department at Istanbul University and did an internship at Payel Publishing. Doing an internship—and later working as an editor—at such a long-established publishing house was a very valuable experience for me.

I edited translations of works such as Deirdre Bair’s Paris Life and Polidori’s The Diary. One of the difficulties I encountered during the editing process was the Turkish used by my fellow translator. For example, editing the translation of Polidori’s Diary took quite a long time because the language used in the translation was Old Turkish. Adapting it into contemporary Turkish required considerable effort. I had to review the poetry translations in the book repeatedly and sometimes even retranslate them from scratch.

As editorial notes, I added a significant number of footnotes in order to provide background information or clarify terminology. However, these challenges also reshaped my process of text analysis. I reconsidered my approaches to translation criticism during editing processes. Since I am currently in my master’s thesis period, I am unable to work as an editor, but I plan to return to my editorial position at Payel Publishing after completing my thesis. Working as an editor also strengthens my identity as a translator, because I critically approach and edit my own translations as well.