Papers by Utku Kafalier
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of bachelor of arts in Film a... more Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of bachelor of arts in Film and Television.
This paper surveys the points of divergence between Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve, 2017) in terms of how they portray their protagonist blade runners' identity, personal lives and their jobs. The main disparities are analysed through concepts of modernity and postmodernity, the latter being specifically applied to the former movie by previous authors with similar approaches. In examining the differences between these two movies, an attempt in cognitive mapping of the cultural differences between the times the movies were made in has come into fruition. By comparing the political and societal differences between 1982 and 2017 with movie universe's differences between 2019 and 2049 and analysing the projection of these variances on the main characters, a historically materialistic progression from postmodernity into today’s social and political culture is discussed.
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For this paper I aimed to analyse Call Me by Your Name by Luca Guadagnino from realist and mythic... more For this paper I aimed to analyse Call Me by Your Name by Luca Guadagnino from realist and mythic perspectives. The focus with realistic approach is essentially put on the last scene of the movie, for it is uncharacteristicly long and different than the rest of the movie. What I find is that the use of long take combined with the credits over achieves something original with how the scene engages with the audience. With mythic approach I have investigated the common archetypes of gay characters in Western media and how the movie could be presenting an unconventional non-Western fantasy and subsequently fate for his protagonist to break away from these archetypes and how this could also be key to understanding the final scene.
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A short exploration of the recent surge in YouTube meme videos and what it can tell us about the ... more A short exploration of the recent surge in YouTube meme videos and what it can tell us about the future of audio/visual communication
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Black Sails (Jonathan E. Steinberg & Robert Levine, 2014) is a TV Series about piracy in the West... more Black Sails (Jonathan E. Steinberg & Robert Levine, 2014) is a TV Series about piracy in the West Indies in the 18th century that is meant to be a prequel to the book Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. The paper goes through the main character Captain Flint’s storyline as a journey to the land of the dead. In this approach, it tackles the entire pirate world as the underworld, drawing contrast between his former life as a Royal Navy lieutenant James McGraw and his underworld persona as the infamous Captain Flint, made as a looking-glass between the worlds. As he leaves England with the figuritive death of his old self, within the first two seasons of the show he undergoes through a rebirth into the new role. With the disgrace that is put on him in ‘Old World’, his entire arc is set as a war against the civilisation propelled by the death of his partner (Orpheus and Eurydice) in England. The region where his journey takes place is forbidding (The land of Hades), with War ships, hurricanes, famine and various other threats standing in close and in each of the first two seasons, those closest to him die as a sacrificial victim (Elpanor and Odysseus). Purpose of his quest seems to attain power through the gold that is carried by a Spanish Treasure Galleon Urca de Lima, and his journey starts off as a puzzle where he must buy information to further the quest along. The treasure is then turned into a chest of gems that he intends to bury so that it cannot be attained by anyone else and use it to fuel his war, again, driven as a revenge for his lost love. Throughout the story, he is accompanied by younger John Silver who starts out as the ship’s cook but rises to be the quartermaster and then a pirate king against Flint’s ambitions, forming an archetypal pair of older hero with an inexperience follower (Achilles and Patroclus). The paper’s points will, as did the main story, converge on the Skeleton Island as the clear iconographical representation of the island of Hades, where he ends up burying the chest. Captain Flint arc concludes on the Skeleton Island where the treasure is left buried and he is either left dead there or taken to Savannah to meet his thought-to-be-dead lover, representing a choice between “the maiden or the quest”. The overall arc is also set against a broader theme of Gigantomachy where Giants fought the Gods, to represent a victory of civilisation over barbarism, (or the world vs underworld) yet as the series goes on to show, it is often the civilisation itself that brings about the destruction, subverting the pirate legends.
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In this paper, The City of Lost Children (Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1995) is read and analy... more In this paper, The City of Lost Children (Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1995) is read and analysed within the Steampunk idea as a movie genre by conventions defined by Rick Altman. According to his definition, all genres contain semantics, shared iconographic features that enable the audience to recognise them as genre movies. Through these semantics, the genre forms it syntax, a shared ideology between the works. In steampunk, through research it is found that these shared semantics are certain mise-en-scene elements that includes a setting that is the Victorian Europe, an instantly recognisable and particular material design with cogs, wheels, coppers and various industrial elements and a choice of costume that parallels these two. Other semantics that seem essential in the genre are the use of techno-fantasy with magical machines and use of mechanical robots with mechanical cyborgs. While identifying these semantics, examples from The City of the Lost Children is given, to prove that it is a distinctively Steampunk movie. After this, a formation of one over-arching ideology in the movie is found: the objectification of people. It is analysed on three levels of abstraction, compared with the other movies in the same genre to see if The City of Lost Children follows the genre’s ideology, differs or adds anything new. The first layer was the literal, as examples of humans being mechanised in the movie is shown. As following genre’s own formed ideology, the movie too suggests that through mechanical cyborgisation loss of humanity is signified. In the second layer focus shifted to the objectification of people as a political concept, as Steampunk stands to oppose the idea of exploitation of labour as well as centralisation of knowledge. It is found that both concepts are related to the idea of class system in society, which Steampunk opposes as it aims to empower the underclass. Through the reading of the movie, it is concluded that while the City of Lost Children also stands for the same idea, it adds more to it saying that a system feeding off of this class difference is unsustainable and fated to collapse within itself. In the last layer, a philosophical perspective is taken, handling Steampunk’s approach to morality and ethics to find that the movie is also in line with them.
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This project is about the sentiment analysis of Richard Linklater's Before Trilogy including movi... more This project is about the sentiment analysis of Richard Linklater's Before Trilogy including movies Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013) using Sentiment Analysis tool NRC Word-Emotion Association Lexicon, developed by Saif Mohammad and Peter Turney. The basic aim is to run an analysis on the dialogues of the movies and see how the general sentiments shifts as the narrative progresses. Then a discussion follows as to whether the trajectory of the mood swings presented by the sentiment analysis have any correlation between the narrative of the movies.
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Teaching Documents by Utku Kafalier
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Books by Utku Kafalier
İnsan ve Kültür: Mevsimlik Sinema ve Antropolji Dergisi, 6. Sayı, Eylül/Ekim 2014
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Papers by Utku Kafalier
This paper surveys the points of divergence between Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve, 2017) in terms of how they portray their protagonist blade runners' identity, personal lives and their jobs. The main disparities are analysed through concepts of modernity and postmodernity, the latter being specifically applied to the former movie by previous authors with similar approaches. In examining the differences between these two movies, an attempt in cognitive mapping of the cultural differences between the times the movies were made in has come into fruition. By comparing the political and societal differences between 1982 and 2017 with movie universe's differences between 2019 and 2049 and analysing the projection of these variances on the main characters, a historically materialistic progression from postmodernity into today’s social and political culture is discussed.
Teaching Documents by Utku Kafalier
Books by Utku Kafalier
This paper surveys the points of divergence between Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve, 2017) in terms of how they portray their protagonist blade runners' identity, personal lives and their jobs. The main disparities are analysed through concepts of modernity and postmodernity, the latter being specifically applied to the former movie by previous authors with similar approaches. In examining the differences between these two movies, an attempt in cognitive mapping of the cultural differences between the times the movies were made in has come into fruition. By comparing the political and societal differences between 1982 and 2017 with movie universe's differences between 2019 and 2049 and analysing the projection of these variances on the main characters, a historically materialistic progression from postmodernity into today’s social and political culture is discussed.