Auteurism, Recognition and Reception: Ceylan as a Global Auteur

This chapter focuses on spectatorship and reception of Ceylan’s films both in Turkey and around the globe to demonstrate how Ceylan has secured his position of a global auteur and a part of a national film canon simultaneously in the complex and precarious map of artistic recognition. A detailed content analysis of texts and reviews of film scholars, amateur and professional critics demonstrate the issue of reception, and an account of the development of Ceylan’s career within national film culture, global film networks and a Pan-European eco-system of cinema would help to map out Ceylan’s artistic recognition. Holding the role of a global auteur and a national cinema figure simultaneously is a delicate task given the tension between clashing expectations regarding a universalist humanist storyteller and a national figure whose films are under constant pressure of being read as national allegories. The chapter investigates the development of Ceylan’s career to decipher how he has found the fine balance between the national and the global with readings of his key films that demonstrate his reception in different contexts.