The Representation of Bandits in Turkish Cinema

The banditry cannot be considered independent from the state which is used as a power and an apparatus of coercion against oppressed class by the ruling class. In this respect, for the existence of banditry or the bandit, it needs to be a political and socio economic system to be against it. In different regions of the world historical process, the banditry has emerged and then tales and stories of bandits have been reflected as a subject into the art, cinema and literature. In the history of literature and art, the definition of bandit and how it is defined can vary. They can be presented as thugs, thieves or robbers by the ruling class and by the supporters of the founded system whereas they can also be seen as heroes or saviours by the oppressed class. The banditry is, in Turkey too, an issue has processed in the art and literature. The banditry themed movies in Turkey started in 1948 (with Şadan Kamil's Efe Aşkı) and ended with Yavuz Turgul's Eşkıya (TheBandit) which was filmed in 1996. In this study, it is aimed to reveal how the bandits are represented in Turkish cinema through the concept of Eric Hobsbawm's term of social bandit.