Gypsy identity in cinema in the context of culture-music relationship: Case of the movie "Transylvania"

Culture has a crucial role in humanbeing's life. People are born in a specific culture and as they become concious, they improve their identities in the places they live in. Due to the nomad life of the Gipsy communities, identities of these communities vary in some degrees. Gipsy communities have transported their musics, dances, customs, languages and the other cultural items to the areas they immigrated. From these cultural items especially music and dance are important indicators of culture for Gipsy communities. As a result of immigrations, Gipsy communities have interacted with some other cultures and by adapting themselves to the ethnocultural texture of the places they immigrate they have tried to sustain their traditions, clothings, musics, dances, rituels in a typical way of their own. Because of these attemps Gipsy communities have been seen as a closed community, have been excluded from society and usually have been marginalized. This issue has been a subject of many dissertaions, articles and books. And it is also an important subject of cinematografy. In cinematografy, which is an art of visual expression, music is one of those items like light, colour, editing and casting which are used to emphasize the expression. Purpose of using music in a movie is to help revealing some feelings and to pointing out the case that is intended to be expressed. The movie, Transylvania, which is a subject of this article, gives important datas about Gipsy culture. Tony Gatlif, who frequently deals with the cultural characteristics of Gypsies in his films, draws attention with his films based on musical representation of cultural identity. In this context, the musical representation of cultural identity is tried to be interpreted by focusing on the musical scenes of the movie "Transylvania". The movies that are filmed on the basis of relationship of culture and music, present important materials for ethnomusicology. The movie, Transylvania, which is a film based on a musical representation of cultural identity, has a great importance because it tries to explain the role of music in Gipsy communities.