Murat ile Nazlı (Murat and Nazlı) – Romeo and Juliet
Murat ile Nazlı (Murat and Nazlı) is a film directed by Memduh Ün in 1972. Domesticising the play’s setting to the Turkish countryside, the film depicts how a blood feud separates two lovers, performed by Cüneyt Arkın and Fatma Girik, for many years only to re-unite them in their old age. While the use of Leroy Holmes’ instrumental version of Nino Rota’s music in Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (1968) naturally creates a proximity of both Shakespeare’s play and Zeffirelli’s adaptation with Ün’s serious movie, the choice of having a happy ending for Murat ile Nazlı could be considered a Turkish reply that happiness is somehow possible despite the stars.
Cast
Fatma Girik
Cüneyt Arkın
Aytaç Arman
Reha Yurdakul
Erol Alkaya
Aynur Aydan
Hakan Bahadır
Muzaffer Civan
Niyazi Gökdere
Kenan Karagöz
Kazım Kartal
Tahsin Koray
Yılmaz Kurt
Metin Pişkin
Yeşim Tan
İbrahim Uğurlu
Mehmet Yağmur
Mustafa Yavuz
Yusuf Çağatay
Reşit Çidam
Nermin Özses
For more information, visit IMDb and TurkishShakespeares.
Poster featuring Fatma Girik and Cüneyt Arkın in Murat ile Nazlı (1972), image from Türk Sineması Araştırmaları.
Further Reading
Öğütcü, Murat. “Contemporary Turkish Shakespeares: New Breath to Old Lives.” Early Modern Liveness: Mediating Presence in Text, Stage and Screen. Eds. Danielle Rosvally and Donovan Sherman. London: Arden, 2023. 145-169.
Production notes provided by Associate Professor Dr. Murat Öğütcü, Adıyaman University, Turkey.
Murat ile Nazlı (Murat and Nazlı) – Romeo and Juliet
Clips
“Turkish Shakespeares”: A Short History of Shakespeare in Turkey up to the Present
Organized by Hacettepe University’s Department of English Language and Literature, Assist. Prof. Dr. Murat Öğütcü from Munzur University gave a talk on April 23, 2021 which surveyed both the history...more
Organized by Hacettepe University’s Department of English Language and Literature, Assist. Prof. Dr. Murat Öğütcü from Munzur University gave a talk on April 23, 2021 which surveyed both the history of Shakespeare in Turkey and how the history of Turkey affected Shakespeare’s reception in drama, education, translation, film, and other disciplines/media.
- At 00:22:47, Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet film is cited as influencing the Turkish film adaptation Murat ile Nazlı (Murat and Nazlı).
- At 00:23:48, Hayat Bayram Olsa (If Life were a Holiday) another film inspired by Romeo and Juliet is briefly discussed.
- At 00:24:33, Intikam Melegi – Kadin Hamlet (The Angel of Vengeance – The Female Hamlet) is discussed.
