‘Gender Trouble’ and the Crises of Masculinities in the Films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan 1

Borrowing from Judith Butler for the title and relying on feminist film theory and theories of masculinity in crisis, this chapter examines the representations of women in Ceylan’s films in a transition period in modern Turkish society where dominant narratives are collapsing. Reflecting on the representations of women and the crises of male subjectivities in Ceylan's films leads to comparisons with Abbas Kiarostami from Iran, Hong Sang-soo from South Korea, among others, in terms of machismo, self-reflexivity and self-parody and the ‘double bind’ of reflexive texts that as Chakravarty (2003) underscores, while trying to celebrate the female figure, exploit it within the terms of the classical grammar of film narrative.