Cinema-Going in Turkey between 1960 and 1980: Cinema Memories, Film Culture, and Modernity

Turkey is a country where different cultures, classes, and socialities determine the culture of cinema. However, modernization has shaped cultural practices and daily life within the framework of Westernization efforts. Based on the research data entitled “Cinemagoing as a Cultural and Social Practice: An Oral History Project on Audience Experiences in Turkey,” this chapter focuses on audience experiences in modernizing Turkey between 1960 and 1980. Through a narrative and thematic analysis of cinema memories obtained from oral history interviews with 100 audiences from different cities, this chapter opens a discussion on the audience’s understanding of cinema in their memories, patterns in their cinema-going practices, and differences in their film choices. Thus, the chapter emphasised the mediation that the experience of cinema-going plays in understanding, desiring, and performing modernity in Turkey, pointing to the hybrid and ritual forms of communication in which the traditional and the modern are articulated in this process.