Ceylan's Winter Sleep: From Ambiguity to Nothingness

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a puzzling filmmaker who started his career as a photographer and initially made films with a “photographic” spirit. But from his first films known as the Trilogy of Province to his award winning latest feature Winter Sleep, Ceylan has changed drastically. Once a modest artist refusing to give interviews, Ceylan has become a regular “red carpet” figure. So this essay will analyze Ceylan’s Winter Sleep from a critical theoretical perspective and try to underline the changes in his cinematography as well as philosophical orientations since his Trilogy of Province. The main points of argument will focus on his shift from an affirmative politics of “ambiguity” towards a dark postmodern “nothingness”.