RECONSIDERING THE FILM NOIR PHENOMENON THROUGH THE ANALYSIS OF SERIAL COOK’S (2017) NOIRISH QUALITIES

ABSTRACT This article addresses significant arguments in seminal studies on film noir’s history, essence, and conventions. It approaches film noir as a phenomenon to provide a more direct way of reconsidering noir in cinema. Therefore, the study proposes to cover a comprehensive collection of debates on noir in cinema to ground the theoretical background. Serial Cook (2017) is approached as a particular case to analyze the narrative structure and characters in the scope of film noir conventions. Therefore, the article analyzes the noirish qualities of Serial Cook based on the story plot, themes, conflicts, and prototypical characters. One of the purposes of the study is to question Can a Turkish movie’s structure be examined based on the film noir formula. Thus, the study searches for a film noir structure in a Turkish movie more than scoping a noirish tone and mood. For this reason, the article aims to broaden a new understanding of film noir’s condition in Turkish cinema and present a reconsideration of the contemporary usage of the global film noir phenomenon. Keywords: Film noir, Phenomenon, Femme fatale, Serial cook, Turkish cinema.