In Memoriam | Mesut Kara (1961 - 2024)

Mesut Kara died of heart disease at the age of 63 in Kuşadası, where he lived on April 14, 2024.

Mesut Kara had suffered partial paralysis due to a blood clot in 2008 and had been struggling with increasing health problems since then. Kara had suffered a heart attack last February and was discharged after his treatment was completed. Mesut Kara passed away at the age of 63 in Söle State Hospital, where he was taken due to a relapse of his heart condition.

"During my childhood and early youth, open-air cinemas with wooden chairs connected by thin planks would divide the audience into two groups: ‘families’ and ‘non-family’. Eating nuts and drinking Fruko and Çamlıca soda was an indispensable privilege even for children of poor families.

We would usually cry together at the dramas of Ömercik and Ayşecik in the movies I watched with my mother and grandmother. Here are some unforgettable faces I remember from the movies I watched in those summer cinemas with Fruko soda as a child: The gardener, the servant, the greengrocer. Sami Hazinses, Önder Somer, Kazım Kartal, Süheyl Eğriboz... People who suffered, were despised, were amateurs and funny in the face of life. The forgotten, ‘unappreciated’ cinema workers who gave years to Yeşilçam, most of whom did not receive their reward.

I can say that this first book is a debt of gratitude. To all cinema workers who have contributed to cinema...

`We have lost many of them. I wish I could talk to those who are no longer alive today, but who gave their lives to our art (painting, music, literature, cinema) and who left in a broken and sorrowful state. I wish I could convey their feelings with their own voices." [1]

Mavi Boncuk |

Mesut Kara (1961, Istanbul - April 14, 2024, Kuşadası), In addition to his literary work, he has been a film writer for 15 years. Mesut Kara, who also worked as an art director in the field of advertising, also produced film programs for television.

He has five published books, “Artizler Kahvesi”[2], “Yeşilçam’da Unutulmayan Yüzler”, “Pendikli yıl ve sinemasal anlamlar”, “Cinema ve 12 Eylül” and “Yeşilçam Hatırası”. He has been a writer and editor in many magazines. 

He undertook the copywriting and consultancy of the film program CineShow broadcast on Show TV, and the preparation and presentation of the film program Hayalet Mektebi broadcast on Kanal 6. He was the editor-in-chief and page designer of the literary magazine UÇ. His articles are currently published in Evrensel newspaper and Sinematik Yeşilçam website. https://sinematikyesilcam.com/

Filmography

Erkan Yücel Documentary - Director and Copywriter

Cinema of the Fantastic - Director and Screenwriter

Documentary works with Yeşilçam actors under the title Unforgettable Faces... (Sezer Sezin, Belgin Doruk, Ayhan Işık, Yılmaz Güney, Bülent Oran, Hayati Hamzaoğlu, Turgut Özatay etc.)

[1] "Çocukluğumu, ilk gençliğimi yaşadığım yıllarda ince kalaslarla birbirine bağlanmış tahta iskemlelerin olduğu açık hava sinemaları, ‘aileler’ ve ‘aile olmayan’ izleyicileri ikiye ayırırdı. Kabuklu yemiş yemek, Fruko, Çamlıca gazozu içmek, yoksul aile çocukları için bile vazgeçilmez bir ayrıcalıktı.

Genellikle annem ve babaannemle izlediğim filmlerde Ömercik’in, Ayşecik’in dramlarına birlikte ağlardık. İşte, çocukluğumun o Fruko gazozlu yazlık sinemalarında izlediğim filmlerden, unutulması olanaksız yüzler anımsıyorum: Bahçıvan, uşak, manav. Sami Hazinses, Önder Somer, Kazım Kartal, Süheyl Eğriboz... Acı çeken, horlanan, hayat karşısında acemi ve komik kalan insanlar. Yeşilçam’a yıllarını vermiş, çoğu karşılığını alamamış, unutulmuş, ‘değeri bilinmemiş’ sinema emekçileri.

Bu ilk kitap için vefa borcu diyebilirim. Sinemaya emeği geçmiş bütün sinema emekçilerine...

`Onların birçoğunu yitirdik. Keşke bugün artık yaşamayan, ama sanatımıza (resme, müziğe, edebiyata, sinemaya) hayatını vermiş, kırgın ve acılı bir halde gidenlerle de konuşabilseydim. Onların duygularını kendi sesleriyle aktarabilseydim."

[2]  Unforgettable faces, unforgettable names in faded, faded film frames, sepia photographs... Cahide Sonku, Yıldırım Önal, Ahmet Tarık Tekçe, Cahit Irgat, Salih Tozan, Hulusi Kentmen, Münir Özkul, Adile Naşit, Ferda Ferdağ, Özcan Özgür... Beyoğlu also means Yeşilçam. Those who left their homes and families with the dreams of advancing in the class and the hope of becoming an artist used to end up in Beyoğlu. (Do such things really happen nowadays?) Because the magical world of Yeşilçam affected them too. However, it does not take long for them to understand that real life and what they see in the movies are not the same lives. That is when the real drama begins for those who want to experience what they see in Yeşilçam's melodramas. Most of them cannot find what they hope for, they experience disappointments and great pain. 

Some have seized that opportunity, their names, faces and lives have become unforgettable, but they have lived unhappily and left us unhappily. My brother, my sensitivity, the courage to face loneliness, poverty, pain rather than being characterless freaks, the choice to live an honorable life, many of us have learned from these people. Unforgettable faces, unforgettable names in yellowed, erased film frames, in sepia photographs... Yılmaz Güney, Yavuzer Çetinkaya, Yaman Okay, Yadigar Ejder, Suphi Kaner, Cevat Kurtuluş, Aliye Rona, Nubar Terziyan, Danyal Topatan, Aliye Rona, Bilal İnci, Kenan Pars... People who have chosen to be people of madness rather than people of murder... How many of us have wondered about and researched the lives of tramps who rummage through garbage dumps or who have fallen asleep (or maybe died) half-naked in a corner on a cold winter day. What have they experienced, why have they chosen such a defiant stance (yes, for many of them -to the extent of their consciousness- this is an attitude, a defiant stance). 

Where and how does a tramp die; by whom, where and how is his funeral taken? Why does an artist (already in self-exile) choose to live in a cave on Büyükada? Why do people try to harm them for their own interests instead of trying to understand them and respecting their choices? Why can people hurt each other so easily? How many more centuries will people who are tired of life, virtue, and love, and who are broken, suffer in spiritual discord?..

SÜHEYL EĞRİBOZ (from Artizler Kahvesi

“Working with us is an advantage for the leading men, it is to their benefit. Because we contribute to the leading men. We do not expect anything from the leading men, the leading men expect it from us. For example, let’s take Cüneyt; he is one of the leading men I have worked with the most. What does Cüneyt do, he reaches out to throw a punch. We are the ones who flew out the window, we are the ones who fell off the horse. After that, they say ‘well done’ to the leading man. He punched him, he threw the man out the window. Come and ask the one who came out the window.”