Ataturk Film Stirs Controversy

The producers of a feature film on the life of Kemal Ataturk
intend to go ahead with the project, despite a letter campaign
from Greek and Armenian©Americans opposed to the film. The
campaign, characterized as "hate mail" in a recent article by
London's ”Daily Telegraph,• is said to have been the reason that
Spanish actor Antonio Banderas, scheduled to play the lead role,
has withdrawn from the project.
Tarquin Olivier, the son of the late Sir Laurence Olivier, is
producing the film with his Turkish wife, Zelfa. The Turkish co-
<br>producer is Alinur Velidedeoglu. In a recent interview in New
York, Mr. Olivier said his wife had first given him the idea for
the film. "She asked why I wasn't at work on anything at the time
©© I have a film finance company ©© and she suggested the life of
Ataturk. I'm ashamed to say I knew very little about the man and
she got me the Kinross book and I was gripped by it. I thought it
would make a fabulous movie."
Mr. Olivier ran the idea past his father. "We asked him who he
thought could play Ataturk, and although he was eighty at the
time he said 'Me!' And he would have been wonderful, of course.
He had the cheekbones and the power and range of emotion."
Several trips to Turkey followed, during which the production
team did extensive research and met with several individuals,
including family members, who served as first©hand sources.
The film is ultimately to be billed as "based" on Lord Kinross'
1964 book. An initial script by Anthony Shaffer, screenwriter for
”Sleuth•, was rejected as too lengthy. "A very well©researched
script," said Mr. Olivier, "but it was like a phone book. It was
enormous. It was not dramatic." Eventually a script was provided
by the American screenwriter Timothy Prager, and Bruce Beresford
©© of ”Driving Miss Dais•”y•, ”Breaker Morant•, and the Oscar©nominated
”Tender Mercies• ©© was brought on as director.
The Oliviers maintain that Turkish authorities will not interfere
in either the content or the actual production of the film. "We
had a meeting with Suleiman Demirel," the President of Turkey,
"who said, 'show the bad and the good,' and there was no question
of anyone looking over our shoulder at the script. They're not
going to do that. They said they don't want to do that. It's an
independent production." Zelfa Olivier stressed that point.
"Turkey has changed incredibly in the last ten years, and young
people already question outright Ataturk's values. It's an open
debate in Turkey now."
Criticism of the project and Kinross' book on which it is based
stresses that the book is distorted and offers an overly heroic
and white©washed view of Ataturk. Most critics contend that it
especially overlooks or distorts Ataturk's role in the WWI
massacres of Armenians or in the slaughter of Greek civilians
during the Greco©Turkish War, known in Turkey as the War of
Independence.
Several key phrases appear in all of the "hate mail": "mass
murderer," "responsible for the Greco©Armenian genocide." Other
common points of attack, in correspondence that seems partly
based on a form letter sent out by organizers of the campaign,
<BR>take issue with Ataturk's alcoholism and sexuality, calling him
"a troubled alcoholic" and "a molester of children of both
sexes."
The Oliviers said they did not feel obligated to respond to the
more sensationalist aspects of these criticisms. "If you're
making a film about Churchill, you don't unnecessarily show him
rolling around with his alcohol," said Mrs. Olivier. "And the
film will say at the end that the man died of cirrhosis of the
liver. It's in the script," added Mr. Olivier. "But we showed
these letters to a Turkish journalist here and he said 'These are
the kinds of things fundamentalists say.' That's very interesting
©© Islamic fundamentalists in Turkey are saying the same things
against Ataturk as these people," referring to the Greek American
authors of the letters. "That's quite a nice little equation."
But the producers seemed somewhat concerned about criticism of
the historical accuracy of their film. "It's a matter of
historical fact that Ataturk was not in a position to order the
massacres [of the Armenians], and geographically, he was in
Gallipoli," said Mr. Olivier. "He was a colonel, commanding a
regiment, trying to repel the biggest sea©born invasion the world
had ever seen. He was busy." In reference to atrocities committed
against Anatolian Christians during the Greco©Turkish war, Mr.
Olivier said "I don't think it would be too contentious to say
that there were horrendous things happening ©© the usual horrible
things of a war: women, children, civilians ©© horrifying, but
I'm sure from both sides."
During his stay in New York, Mr. Olivier talked to several Greek
academics here concerning their views on Ataturk and the Kemalist
legacy. "I felt that they were more defensive on the Greek side.
We had an interesting debate ©© not very conclusive, but then I
didn't expect it would be." Mr. Olivier said the Greek professors
agreed the Kinross biography was "a fair book. It was the best,
but the best of a very bad bunch." Mr. Olivier also contacted
Professor G.L. Lewis of St. Antony's College, Oxford who, in a
written response to the producer, said: "I don't see how anyone
can take exception to your choice of Kinross' ”Ataturk• as the
basis for your film...It is certainly the best biography
currently available."
But a Greek American academic whom Tarquin Olivier consulted
disagrees. Alexandros K. Kyrou, a historian and former Research
Fellow in the Program for Hellenic Studies at Princeton
University who now teaches at Dominican College in New York, was
more critical of the Kinross book. The biography of the
controversial figure is celebrated, Dr. Kyrou said, "largely by
virtue of default ©© because there's such a dearth of reliable
accounts. On some points it's critical; on some points its
hagiographic."
Dr. Kyrou especially disputed the book's portrayal of the GrecoªTurkish War. "The treatment of the Greco©Turkish War reflects a
kind of official Turkish historiography that whitewashes the
conflict and reduces its very complex dimensions to a so©called
'War of Independence.'" It simplifies, Dr. Kyrou continued, "a
many©sided, multi©dimensional conflict into Turks fighting for
their national identity and state integrity, ignoring equally
<br>legitimate Greek national aspirations and Great Power
involvement. It gives credence to all the more mythologizing
interpretations of the war."
Dr. Kyrou also pointed to what he sees as attempts to absolve
Ataturk of his part in the elimination of Anatolia's minority
populations. "Ataturk was a founding member of the Young Turks,
whose agenda called for the total Turkification of the country
and ©© if need be ©© the liquidation of any non©Turkish group.
There is a balance of 5 to 600,000 Greeks unaccounted for between
the pre©war population of Anatolia and the numbers exchanged
after Lausanne. It is clear that Kemal's armies were
unnecessarily brutal during the war and followed none of the
internationally accepted policies of how civilian populations
should be treated."
When asked if he thought the war occasioned comparable acts of
brutality on both sides, Dr. Kyrou said, "The answer to that
would be a resounding 'No!' Not during the Greek administration
of the Izmir area, nor during the war itself was there a
systematic policy of liquidation. There is a record of systematic
liquidation on the Young Turks' part ©© a willingness to engage
in what the international community today would call 'ethnic
cleansing'©© that has no comparison with other practices during
the war in Greece or in areas under Greek occupation. It's a
different category of political behavior."
Mr. Olivier flatly disagreed. "The Young Turks did not call for
the Turkification of the country, nor did they 'systematically
liquidate' any group. Those numbers are simply untrue, and to say
the invading Greeks committed no acts of brutality is equally
false. There are extensive records of those atrocities."
Dr. Kyrou also suggested that the film's producers failed to
recognize Ataturk's political legacy. "Turkey is a praetorian
state, a state where the army still serves as the arbiter of
political and social processes, and the man who instituted that
system was Mustafa Kemal. But the people who are the architects
of the project," he continued, "aren't interested in a balanced
view, but are instead interested in cinematic hagiography."
The dispute between academics, such as Dr. Kyrou, and the film's
producers ultimately seems to stem from a disparate understanding
of filmmaking. "I think what most people don't understand is the
difference between a feature film and a documentary," said Zelfa
Olivier. "Everybody's going on about history, scholarship, 'talk
to scholars,''talk to academics,' but we've done a lot of
research and because it's a feature film, it's a romanticized
version of the story. It's not an hagiography. It's not a
terribly flattering portrayal. We show him as a human being." And
she added: "Dramatically, it has the elements of a commercial
film. It has political intrigue. It has a love story. It has
wars. That's the equation of a film. But we're not turning it
into a history lesson; it's a drama." "It's a movie!" Mr. Olivier
added.
The Oliviers seemed perplexed that all of the "hate mail" came
from Greek Americans and not from Greece. "More Greek than the
Greeks," Mr. Olivier said, "I think it's wanting to prove that
'I'm a better Greek than you are.'" Üj     ÜŒStill, they reiterated, they intend to go ahead with the project.
"You're never going to stop it. This is irrational," said Mr.
Olivier, "it's belief. All we want to do is publicize this now
and show these people as a small group of extremists who want to
shake things up, so that anyone involved in the project now or in
the future will know what they are dealing with." According to
the producers, Banderas' withdrawal is still not definite and
they are presently negotiating for his re©signing on to the
production.
Dr. Kyrou also suggested that "a protest surrounding the release
of this film is problematic; in fact, it's probably counterªproductive, drawing even more attention to the film. But no
informed or reasonable person," he continued, "would take
exception with the Jewish American Anti©Defamation League for its
rigorous monitoring of artistic and scholarly revisions of the
Holocaust. So it's not surprising that other ethnic groups would
express their disappointment with filmmakers who feel that claims
of artistic freedom absolve them of any responsibility if they're
dealing with historically inaccurate and seriously flawed
material. For Mr. Olivier to seek the de facto approval of
Turkey's president for his project on the one hand, while on the
other hand, categorically refusing to consider using historical
consultants to review his script is highly disturbing."
Dr. Kyrou continued with another Jewish analogy. "No less than
Steven Spielberg consulted numerous historians and interviewed
hundreds of Holocaust survivors in preparation for a dramatic ©©
not documentary ©© representation of the Nazi genocide in his
film ”Schindler's List•. I believe that such a standard and method
is worth imitating rather than dismissing as irrelevant to art." 
In light of such historical objections, and to show that Greek
feelings about Kemal Ataturk were not always so resoundingly
negative, Mr. Olivier referred to a 1934 letter in which
Eleutherios Venizelos, recommending the Turkish leader for the
Nobel Peace Prize, writes: "...since Mustafa Kemal assumed power
there has been peace on every frontier." "Four years before that
letter," Mr. Olivier noted, "Venizelos had gone to Istanbul and
they had signed the Greek and Turkish pact which was the golden
era of friendship between the two countries. They had been
adversaries. I mean good heavens Venizelos was prime minister
during the invasion ©© that's being an adversary. But they always
respected each other and mutual respect became genuine
friendship. During this meeting," Mr. Olivier went on, "Venizelos
apparently suggested ©© not as an objective statesman©like
suggestion ©© but informally, he said, 'Really, our two people
should merge.'"
The Oliviers were asked what impressed them most about the letter
campaign. Mr. Olivier responded: "The hatred...bitter, blind
hatred. Not of Ataturk, but of Turkey." "It's a reflection on
Turkey," Zelfa Olivier added. "Ataturk is just an excuse. If
Turkey and Greece had an amicable relationship, the whole area
would prosper so much. It would benefit economically. It would
benefit culturally. It would be getting together with people with
whom we lived for so many centuries. It would bring riches to
everybody's life. Why this constant anger?"