The Cut by Fatih Akin : a Western?
It is after his second opus on Turkish immigration in Germany that Turkish-German director Fatih Akin decided to explore the darkest period of his country of origin. With the film The Cut, he ends the trilogy Liebe, Tod und Teufel. This master’s thesis reflects on the use of the Western genre in the representation of the Armenian Genocide. We will start with a short history of the Western genre and the representation of genocide in cinema. Then we will analyse the film as per the notion of genre and see under which measure the use of a universally known genre enables Fatih Akin to justify his aesthetic choices. During this analysis, we will use four key elements as the groundwork to establish a link with the Western genre. They are the figure of the hero, the landscapes, the myth of the frontier and the title of the film itself. The intention of this research is not to be comparative, but to situate the film within the movement that is the Post-western. Finally, the notion of identity will allow us to understand how the film The Cut exists within Akin’s trilogy.
Fatih Akin Western Genre Turkey Armenian Genocide Turkish-german cinema Representation Post-western Germany