Trace of Anton Chekhov's Characters in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's cinema

In this master's thesis, the impact of Russian author Anton Chekhov's short story characters on Nuri Bilge Ceylan's film characters is analyzed, and similarities between the two are scrutinized in terms of last two film of Ceylan namely, Once Upon A Time In Anatolia and Winter Sleep. Despite the fact that influence of Chekhov has been sensed in the scripts of Ceylan's previous films, Once Upon A Time in Anatolia and Winter Sleep have been chosen for character analysis due to fact that they involve some stories from Chekhov and Chekhovian influence is more tangible in both films than his previous ones. In the first part of the thesis, the cinema of Nuri Bilge Ceylan as an independent, auteur director and his characters are analyzed along with authors and directors by whom Ceylan has been influenced on the basis of Turkish cinema before and after 1990s. In the second part, selected stories of Chekhov's are analyzed via themes the author use in many stories after laying weight on the conditions of 19th century Russia in which Chekhov lived and Russian literature which emerged and take hold of the whole world in this period. In the third and last part, Chekhovian legacy in the films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan is examined and the influence of Chekhov on the characters of Once Upon A Time in Anatolia and Winter Sleep is revealed by character analysis method. Keywords: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Anton Çehov, Character Analysis, Russian Realism, Russian Literature, Turkish Cinema,