On February 7, 2019, during our Çatı Katı seminar organized for our Ak-taş Foreign Trade AŞ, Ekin Chemical Aş ve Thermodynamic AŞ and Tegnatia AŞ companies, Ercan Kesal Metin Erksan spoke about his book titled Kendi Işığında Yanan Adam (The Man who Burned under his Light) and answered questions. Below, you can find some excerpts from Ercan Kesal’s talk.

Apart from being a director who introduced H Koçyiğit, T Şoray, H Hamzaoğlu  E Taş, and many more names into the world of cinema, M Erksan is a director who turned the star system of Yeşilçam upside down.

Despite being one of the highest-earning and effective directors of the time, he never compromised his beliefs and ideas.

His most infamous movie, “Sevmek Zamanı” (Time to Love) was described by French cinema historian Sadoul as a text in which harsh class conflict can be observed in its clearest form in the world of cinema.

He is also the director whose first film Karanlık Dünya (Dark World) was filmed with a cast completely consisting of members of the Turkish Communist Party. Speaking with right-wing Peyami Safe for the film he wanted to shoot for the novel Beyaz Cehennem (White Hell), he says: They identify me as left-wing. Would that be a problem for you? and that is how he obtains permission.

Love also has no reason. And a justified reason would probably push you out of love. That is what makes it so unique. Despite having no logical reason, with no example as logical as the experience itself, love is an action that is, in essence, unique and one of a kind.

A film’s perspective on love is even more valuable as it does not always look at the world through the lens of the beloved, but rather the one who loves.           M. Erksan’s ‘Time to Love’ has such a mission.

As I am filling my glass: ‘I don’t drink wine, I’m diabetic; you've brought chocolate as well, thank you but I don’t eat those either. I also don’t like cheese,’ he says.

Well, then what?...

I asked M Erksan: What film would you like to shoot?

He told me it would be about Sait Faik’s projector on the island ferry, how he turns the light of the night projector all of a sudden toward the beach, the houses, the people, holds it to their privacy; and how he returns home and passionately tells the stories he derived from the night to his son who waited up for him. My eye....became fixated on the binoculars just next to the chair, of course...

As he is showing me Said Durani’s house: “Man, at least don’t turn it into a kebab shop!” he said.

When making Aşık Veysel’s movie, the short, barren and sparse wheat crops in Sivrialan village was cause for the censor board to take action. According to them, these images portrayed our country as poor and helpless. A few wheat crop scenes from American films were added to the movie.

M Erksan about the Fahrettin Paşa he wants to make:

An Arab soldier points a British-made rifle at an Ottoman soldier, waiting for the right moment. He pulls the trigger at the same time the Ottoman soldier cries out Allahu ekber, the same words pouring out of the Arab ALLAHU EKBER.

M. Erksan was the director of passions and obsessions.

He had interesting approaches to the cinema; if you tell Leyla’s sister’s love story, not Leyla’s if that is what you pursue, then you have a cinema.

In Time to Love, he wanted to create a film which describes the anatomy of love and which allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief. M Kenter and S Özcan, who played in his film, were not actors who were typically preferred by cinema in those days. He wanted a mature, grounded type like Müşfik Kenter. And he had explained this as: I want a face that hasn’t been seen much in cinema.