Cinematic Explorations of the Uncanny

Download or read book Cinematic Explorations of the Uncanny written by Meghan Elisabeth O'Dea and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contemporary globalized society, complex patterns of mobility and settlement have altered perceptions of belonging, cultural identity, and Heimat. In Germany, cinematic imaginations of ... border crossings, multiple identities, and cross cultural encounters and the many experiments with hybridization, appropriation, and transculturation ... has been most noticeable in the case of Turkish directors working in Germany ... Filmic narratives depicting the experiences of Turkish migrants, Germans with a Turkish background, and of Germans in Germany's changing socio-cultural landscape draw awareness to Germany's changing cultural community and encourage reconsiderations of what it means to be German. Increasingly, Germany must see its self as a multicultural, de facto country of immigration. In this thesis, I discuss representations of first- and second-generation Turkish migrants in films by native German and Turkish-German directors. More specifically, I am interested in exploring Sigmund Freud's concept of the uncanny as a psychological element involved in the on-screen identity negotiations presented in the films that I discuss. While some Turkish-German films suggest a pleasure associated with hybridity, the on-screen identity negotiations that I discuss in this thesis demonstrate complex, continuous processes that not always result in enjoyment. Rather, feelings of estrangement, alienation, and unclear categorizations of belonging and identity emerge. These representations indicate the complexities of belonging in Germany with a migrant background, and demonstrate cinema's affect on the work of the imagination.