Abstract:

The period which took long time before Yeşilçam was not so productive in terms of detective movie. During the genesis of Yeşilçam period (1948-1959), five dominant film genres (melodrama, historical, comedy, detective and village movies) got standardized by the systematization of mass film production. The tandem of Lütfi Akad and Osman Seden produced the detective movies in symbiotic relationship with crime melodrama for Kemal Film, which got back to the production in this typical context: The hybrid movies such as In the Name of the Law, Murderer, The Killing City, They Paid with Their Blood and The Flame of Vengeance combined melodrama and detective aesthetic around the themes of crime and adventure between 1952- 56. Beyond the Nights which was the precursor of social realist film movement is the piece which brought a new critical image socially, politically, and economically the detective genre stereotyped by Kemal Film, and also, modernized this genre in terms of both content and form. By this way, the detective genre which got away from the conventions of melodrama established a syncretic link to realism. The aim of this article starting from the perspective of “aesthetic history” which focuses on cinema genres as much as on form and style among the basics of movie art is to demonstrate how Beyond the Nights renovates detective movies. It had been assessed only based upon its social and realist representations, and even its sociological aspects by ignoring its genre identity in Turkish cinema historiography. With which aesthetical aspects does Beyond the Nights take place both within the detective movie and social realist movement? How and why does this film differentiate from the tradition of detective movie initiated by the tandem of Akad-Seden? The problematic of this study was defined within this framework. The theoretical aspect and analytical method is based upon the theoretical approach of Raphaëlle Moine who considers “concept of cinematic genres” not only to be a simple taxonomy activity or labeling, but also a “category of interpretation.”

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