UNDER THE CELLULOID SKIN: A Social Semiotic Analysis of Tunç Okan’s Debut Film Otobüs

Abstract: Cinema is an externalised, materialised form of collective memory in which one can find experiences, desires, traumas, ideas, hopes and imaginations of the given society. One can - with the utilisation of the right set of tools and methods - learn a lot about a society by studying its cinema. In this context, this thesis offers a social semiotic analysis of the debut film Otobüs (The Bus, 1974) by the Turkish film director Tunç Okan. The film, which follows the dystopian journey of nine Turkish workers from Turkey to Sweden who are cheated by an international human trafficking gang, offers a very rich set of symbols that constructs an alternative socio-historical record from the point of view of other ignored other, namely the immigrants of whom Okan himself is one. This thesis -by utilising the Marxist social semiotic approaches of Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress- attempts to make the cinematographic signifiers visible and connect these signifiers to the socio-historical signifieds. In relation to the analysis of the film the thesis also introduces a new concept transboundary cinema in order to avoid shortcomings in the existing terminology dealing with the multi-transitional structure of the film and to be able to recognise the films unique qualities.