Memed, My Hawk (film)
Memed My Hawk is a 1984 British-Yugoslav drama film directed by Peter Ustinov (the final film he directed) and starring Ustinov, Herbert Lom, Denis Quilley and Michael Elphick.[1] It is an adaptation of the 1955 Turkish novel Memed, My Hawk by Yaşar Kemal. Producer Fuad Kavur. cinematographer Freddie Francis. Music Manos Hadjidakis.
Background
Memed, My Hawk is the first novel written by the Turkish novelist Yashar Kemal. As soon as it was published, it also appeared in an English translation. Kemal was nominated for the Nobel prize for literature. Twentieth Century Fox, then led by Darryl F. Zanuck, acquired the film rights to the book. Zanuck announced that Fox was going to turn Memed into an epic motion picture. The cast included a young Terence Stamp, and Peter Ustinov. The Turkish government of the day asked the US State Department to intervene so that Fox would drop the project. The reason behind this was the Turkish government's belief that Memed My Hawk was Communist propaganda. Fox obliged, and the project was dropped.
It was not until 1982 that the project was revived, due to Fuad Kavur, an opera stage director, who was working as an assistant to Ustinov. Kavur asked Ustinov if he would be interested in playing the part in Memed that he had been cast for in the aborted Zannuck production. When Ustinov agreed, Kavur bought back the film rights from Twentieth Century Fox. Soon thereafter, he was able to raise the finance for the movie in Turkey, and the preparations for filming started. Kavur visited the then prime minister of Turkey, Bülent Ecevit, to make sure that the permission to film in Turkey would not be withheld. Ecevit, a socialist, assured Kavur that there would be no problems, though as a formality, Ustinov's screenplay had to be submitted to the Turkish Film Censorship Committee. The Committee refused to grant permission for Memed to be filmed in Turkey. Ecevit reacted to this decision, by dismissing the Censorship Committee. This became headline news in Turkey, as it represented a confrontation between Ecevit and the military controlled Censorship Committee. Ecevit, who led a minority government, lost a vote of confidence in the parliament, and he and his cabinet fell. The incoming administration, led by Suletmen Demirel, which was a right-wing party, upheld the decision of the (sacked) Censorship Committee, and the permission to film Memed My Hawk was once more denied.
Kavur, the producer of Memed, had to move the production in a hurry to Yugoslavia. There was no government interference there, and the film was made with no further political problems. Memed My Hawk had a Royal Gala Premiere, in the aid of UNICEF, in May 1984, in London. The event was attended by Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, and some thirty ambassadors in London, of whom the Turkish ambassador was not one. The Turkish government announced that the exhibition of Memed My Hawk in Turkey was banned. At 2012 the exhibition in the movie theatres, and or broadcasting of it on television, or the sale of it as DVD, remained banned.
Plot
In 1920s Turkey, a young peasant is smitten with a beautiful young girl, who has been promised in marriage to the fat, dullard cousin of the province's powerful and corrupt governor.
Partial cast
- Peter Ustinov – Abdi Aga
- Herbert Lom – Ali Safa Bey
- Denis Quilley – Rejeb
- Michael Elphick – Jabbar
- Simon Dutton – Memed
- Leonie Mellinger – Hatche
- Siobhan McKenna – Iroz
- Marne Maitland – Suleyman
- Michael Gough – Kerimoglu
- T. P. McKenna – Dursan
- Jeffry Wickham – Captain Faruk