What I Was What I Became

There are no Türkan Şoray, Filiz Akın, Fatma Girik, İzzet Günay, Ediz Hun in this book. There is no mention of the golden years of Yeşilçam, black and white scenes or film sets. Or, it is mentioned very indirectly. For example, Nubar Terzyan explains that he learned to pick melons when a melon picker came to the set during a shoot. And how he met his wife Katrin, old Istanbul, sea pleasures, libertines, the adventures of a semi-amateur Armenian theatre, the story of stealing a skull from the cemetery for the play Hamlet, his military service memories, during the events of September 6-7, which turned Istanbul into the set of a barbaric movie. What I Was, What I Became, contains the "ordinary life" memories of an Armenian citizen who dreamed of becoming a plainclothes police officer during his youth and played the role of "good cop" a lot in his mid-teens. Memories written by a master actor, not with language mastery but with sweet language; Lines where peace suppresses the systems: "I endeared myself to you in the country where I was born, I gained your sympathy rather than money." This sentence, written by Nubar Terzyan in 1984, is even more meaningful now. Because we are just now realizing how much we actually love them - the "generation of artists" of old movies. Or we love "Nubar Baba" and his friends more now. Nubar Terzyan in What I Was, What I Became is not a man who is unlovable anyway...



Number of Pages: 155

Year of Printing: 2014


Language: Turkish
Publisher: İletişim Publishing

First Print Year: 1995

Language Turkish