Film Matters Magazine

In the world of film, it could be said that none are more recognized than the faces we see on our screens. Actors capture audience attention through their incredible craft, bringing characters and emotions to life. Mehmet Kaynar is one such actor. Having worked on multiple projects, such as Asylum (2015), and in multiple countries, Kaynar has a deep insight in the film industry. I had the pleasure of interviewing him via email. I wanted to know how he approaches his work and what his experience in the field has taught him.

Holley Anne Brabble: Please tell me about yourself.

Mehmet Kaynar: I’m an actor and writer, and originally from Turkiye (as Turkey was known before). I first moved to San Diego in 2000 to improve my English, and later relocated to Hong Kong, where my professional acting career began. My first film was The Hades, and a few projects later I starred in Asylum, my fourth film, which won Best Feature Film at the Los Angeles Film and Script Festival in 2015. I returned to San Diego in 2019 to further my education, earning degrees in Acting and Musical Theatre from Grossmont College. I’m currently preparing to transfer to San Diego State University to complete my bachelor’s degree in Theatre. To date, I’ve acted in over seventeen films and published my first book in 2017. My goal is to continue pursuing creative work that inspires reflection, challenges perspectives, and connects across cultures.

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Andrew Roberts: My article uses Jane Schoenbrun’s film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) as a framework for discussing how openly trans content creators online use different platforms to explore their gender identities. I used the research of gender theorists such as Legacy Russel, Eliza Steinbock, and Jenny Sundén, who each have their own ideas regarding how identity changes and evolves online as if it were a technological machine. The film’s main character, Casey, explores her identity through the viral horror game The World’s Fair.

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Alice Alonso Limongi: My article is called “Contradictions in Metal: a comparative analysis of Sound of Metal (2019).” It presents two ways of analyzing the film Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019), which thematizes a heavy metal drummer who suddenly becomes Deaf. I analyze it through a textual and ideological lens when it relates to two of the film’s main themes: Deafness and mentorship. I then compare the two approaches, looking at how an ideological analysis directly contradicts the thesis of the film, which we can deduce through textual analysis.

I had the opportunity to meet with Professor Tom Gunning—author of The Cinema of Attractions and the forthcoming anthology The Attractions of the Moving Image: Essays on History, Theory, and the Avant-Garde—over Zoom. We had an intriguing conversation on his new anthology, the impact of the famous “Cinema of Attractions” essay, and the rise of short-form content and social media in the field of film studies. Professor Gunning is very passionate about his writing; that care is evident as he discusses his thoughts on films and filmmakers, alike, throughout the years, and the love he has for early cinema. This was a delightful, insightful, and fulfilling conversation about film with one of its most renowned scholars.

Dason Fuller: So, question one, getting into it: In your own view, how would you say that film studies has been impacted by your writing, and specifically, your popular theories about the cinema of attractions?

Tom Gunning: Well, it’s hard for me to comment on that authoritatively without—you know, I haven’t made a survey of how my work has been received. But from the feedback that I do get, I know that the “Cinema of Attractions” essay is read in a lot of either Film History or Intro to Film courses, and I’m very glad that’s true. One of the main purposes when I first wrote it was to try to get a different view of film history. That there was a tendency—and still is, I think—to see in terms of progress. We start with very primitive things, and we get better and better, and film is always improving in terms of technology, and so on. And although there’s some ways that that’s true, I don’t view that history of any art form is ever simply one of progress. There’s always a way that the cave paintings are as great of paintings as any that were ever made in the twenty-first century. And likewise, I wanted to indicate how important, entertaining, and satisfying the very earliest cinema was—and not just look at it as something primitive and something that had to be surpassed. And I think that my feeling is that message has gotten across—that a lot of people look at films by George Méliès and other early filmmakers and really enjoy them, and don’t just think of them as a stepping stone.

The other thing is that I wanted very much—and I think this has happened, although I’m not sure—to emphasize that what movies deliver to us isn’t just storytelling. Now, storytelling is extremely important and maybe the primary task of filmmaking, and it’s probably not absent from . . . almost any films that are made, certainly commercially. But at the same time, I would say even in the most commercial and, kind of, “hip” movies, there’s this interest in the visual; interest in the kind of experience of just watching a movie, and everything that cinema can do, that other storytelling forms can’t do.

And as I say, I don’t want to deny that this is partly true, but I want to emphasize that it’s partly true. You’ll hear this idea that, well, “the point of a movie is to tell a story,” and, certainly, if you’re writing scripts, that’s a point. But if you’re a cinematographer, if you’re a set designer—even, I would say, if you’re an actor—there are other things than just the story. That’s the message that I partly wanted to convey. So I hope both of those aspects have been absorbed.