Torn Is the Curtain

Canan Balan is a teaching fellow in Film at the University of Southampton and holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of St Andrews. She has published numerous articles, book chapters and essays on early cinema, spectatorship, early film theory and film cultures in Istanbul and Turkey in English and Turkish. Her recent publications include: “Islam, Consciousness and Early Cinema: Said Nursî and the Cinema of God” (Film Philosophy, 2016) and “Sabahat Filmer” (Women Film Pioneers Project, 2023).

• List of TablesAcknowledgementsIntroduction: To Draw the CurtainChapter 1. The Ottoman Polity, Urban Spectatorship and the Pre-Cinematic GazeChapter 2. A New Show in the City, 1896–1914Chapter 3. The Great War, Occupation and Dressing the Spectators as Women, 1914–1923Chapter 4. Ambivalence and the New Nation StateConclusion: Tears (and Stitches) in the CurtainBibliographyIndex

“Th[is] book offers an original and much-needed perspective on the development of early film culture and modernity in a non-Western space, and challenges Eurocentric narratives of film history and culture.” • Ana Grgić, Babeș-Bolyai University