Lucy Bolton

In her 1959 essay »The Sublime and the Good«, British moral philosopher Iris Murdoch discusses the role that art can play in the acceptance of one’s consciousness as inherently limited. Murdoch used the term »unselfing« for this process, which for her is the basis of developing moral vision. Her moral realism is founded on a commitment to becoming less egocentric, and this involves effort and attention to others as individuals. »Once Upon a Time in Anatolia« (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011) is a film that demands effort and attention, and which not only shows us scenes in which unselfing does not occur, where egocentric solipsism reigns, but also demands that we pay attention to the plight of another, Dr Cemal, and develop a moral vision that understands the decision that he takes. The film exists in a form that Murdoch might agree to be »good art«, in that it denies consolation and fantasy, and acts as a transformative ethical experience through its challenge to the viewer to pay attention to Cemal’s consciousness. In this paper, I will demonstrate how this film operates as Murdochian moral realism, not only on-screen, as Cemal feels compelled to act in flagrant breach of his moral and professional codes of conduct, but as an exercise in unselfing for us as we are compelled to recognise Cemal as a centre of moral meaning.

Lucy Bolton is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London, and the author of »Film and Female Consciousness: Irigaray, Cinema and Thinking Women« (Palgrave 2011, paperback 2015). She is the co-editor of »Lasting Screen Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure« (Palgrave 2016), and the author of many articles and book chapters on film and film philosophy. She is currently researching the relationship between the philosophy of Iris Murdoch and contemporary cinema for a monograph for Edinburgh University Press. She is on the editorial board of »Film-Philosophy«, along with Richard Rushton and managing editor David Sorfa.