Narration in the New Turkish Cinema

New Turkish Cinema, uttered in the early years of the 2000s, frequently attributed to a young generation of filmmakers who began their careers in the mid-90s. With the participation of many new directors, New Turkish Cinema performed a salient effort, winning numerous international awards at the festivals. Yet, "new" in these films was not explained in terms of film form. Form expresses "new" in the arts as was seen earlier in the history of film. Russian linguists in the early 20th century proposed the notion that form in the arts defamiliarizes the conventions of the old, replacing it with the new form. Following the footsteps of the Russian formalists, David Bordwell proposes a poetics of cinema pointing out the three dimensions of the film form: The narrative world, plot structure and narration. This study therefore aims seeking "new" in terms of neo-formalist approach, which describes the spectators' position as an active person interpreting and building up the story through the formal elements given by the film. Neo-formalist approach positions the spectator an active person comprehending the film. Thus, meaning in film is analyzed bidirectionally: The film and the person who comprehends and interprets it. In this respect, four films by four directors of the New Turkish Cinema was selected to research what conventional elements of the old cinema was replaced by the new and in what terms did they defamiliarize the conventions through the three dimensions of cinema. Kelebekler (Karaçelik, 2018), Sen Aydınlatırsın Geceyi (Ünlü, 2013), Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da (Ceylan, 2011) and Koca Dünya (Erdem, 2016) was selected for formal analysis. Keywords: New Turkish Cinema, Narration, Film Form, Narrative Structure, Defamiliarization.