Iranian Cinema and the Islamic Revolution Read online

  Iranian Cinema and the

  Islamic Revolution

  Iranian Cinema

  and the Islamic

  Revolution

  SHAHLA MIRBAKHTYAR

  McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

  Jefferson, North Carolina, and London

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Mirbakhtyar, Shahla.

  Iranian cinema and the Islamic revolution / Shahla Mirbakhtyar.

  p.

  cm.

  Filmography : p. ¡75.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN-¡3: 978-0-7864-2285-2

  (softcover : 50# alkaline paper)

  ¡. Motion pictures— Iran — History. I. Title.

  PN¡993.5.I846M55 2006

  79¡.43'75055 — dc22

  20060¡0925

  British Library cataloguing data are available

  ©2006 Shahla Mirbakhtyar. All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying

  or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Cover photograph: Shahla Mirbakhtyar in The Red Wind (¡990)

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

  Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640

  www.mcfarlandpub.com

  For my daughter,

  Miniator Malekpour

  Acknowledgments

  This book could not have been written without the support and assis-

  tance of Dr. Jamshid Malekpour (Gulf University) and Dr. Roger Hillman

  (Australian National University) who read the manuscript and o›ered

  numerous suggestions. They were truly a source of inspiration. I must also

  mention Arne Sjostedt who assisted me in polishing the manuscript.

  Finally my thanks goes to those directors and actors (too numerous to

  mention by name) who generously provided me with their films and pho-

  tos.

  vii

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  vii

  Preface

  1

  Introduction: Early Iranian Cinema

  5

  I

  The Development of the Commercial Film

  Industry

  21

  II

  The Pioneers of the New Cinema

  39

  III

  The New Cinema Before the Revolution

  50

  IV

  The New Cinema After the Revolution

  100

  V

  Rising from the Fire of the Revolution: The

  Resurgence of the New Wave

  158

  Notes

  167

  Filmography

  175

  Bibliography

  189

  Index

  193

  ix

  Preface

  The Iranian cinema is attracting increasing global attention and “is

  having its golden age.”¡ However, despite “an almost ubiquitous and

  increasingly winning presence at the premier international film festivals,”2

  Iranian cinema is still largely unknown and underexposed. Western view-

  ers find most films di‡cult to fully understand, as there is not enough writ-

  ten material about the films and the filmmakers to put the movies in

  context. Consequently, they cannot follow and understand, historically

  and aesthetically, Iranian cinema, in particular its connection to the Islamic

  Revolution of ¡978/79, which changed Iran into a theocratic state. It is

  also important to remember that traditionally, “Islam disapproves of the

  visual arts and music in general and in particular disapproves of any rep-

  resentation of the human form.”3

  Among those writing about Iranian cinema in recent years, two

  groups have been identified, both using extreme approaches to the sub-

  ject. The first group attempted to convince the readers that the new Iran-

  ian cinema was created after the Islamic Revolution, due only to the

  circumstances that emerged after the revolution and with the support of

  the Islamic regime. These writers, needless to say, have enjoyed the sup-

  port of the cinema authorities, both in and outside the country. These

  writers strongly deny the impact — and in some cases the very existence —

  of the new wave in Iranian cinema that began before the revolution, label-

  ing many pre-revolution filmmakers as either pagan Marxists or corrupt

  royalists. The best example of this type of writing is Cinemayeh badaz

  Enghelab.4 The second group argued that the new Iranian cinema was cre-

  ated before the Islamic Revolution, and the filmmakers who brought Iran-

  ian cinema international recognition after the revolution were those who

  made films before the revolution. According to works such as Cinemayeh

  pasaz Enghelab,5 the Islamic regime took advantage of this group of

  1

  2

  Preface

  filmmakers to claim that the credit for creation of the new cinema should

  be given to the revolution and the regime. In the eyes of these writers,

  those who argue that the Islamic Revolution had a share in the develop-

  ment of the new cinema are supporters of a fanatic regime. I tried, there-

  fore, not to fall into either of these extreme schools of thought, but to

  modify these claims and to recognize the new Iranian cinema as a move-

  ment that started in the ¡960s and continues to the present. My purpose

  in writing this book was to follow the development of the new Iranian

  cinema, showing its personality in connection with social and political

  forces within the Iranian society by studying and analyzing the works of

  those filmmakers who contributed to the movement. As the development

  of the new cinema was largely a reaction against commercial cinema, I

  devote a chapter to the latter, in order to provide necessary context.

  Knowledge of a few other points about this work will also benefit the

  reader. This book is about the new Iranian cinema before and after the

  Islamic Revolution of ¡979. To cover the stated subject and at the same

  time avoid confusion about the periodization, the book is divided into

  five chapters; two chapters are devoted to the new cinema before the rev-

  olution and two to the new cinema after the revolution. However, as a few

  filmmakers who worked before the revolution continued to work after-

  wards, the placement of discussion of their works is based upon the films

  which made them recognizable in the movement. Therefore, filmmakers

  like Mehrjui ( The Cow, ¡969), Kimiai ( Qasar, ¡969), Taqvai ( Peace in the

  Presence of Others, ¡970) and Bayzai ( Downpour, ¡97¡) are studied as film-

  makers of the new cinema before the revolution, despite their working

  and making films after the revolution. Similarly, filmmakers such as

  Kiarostami ( Where Is My Friend’s Home? , ¡987) and Naderi ( The Runner,


  ¡985) who made many films before the revolution are placed in the post-

  revolutionary cinema because the films that made them icons of the new

  cinema were made after the revolution and under the circumstances of the

  post-revolutionary cinema. Each director’s entry is titled with his name,

  and the title of his most important contribution to the body of New Wave

  movies. The original, Persian titles of films are used upon the first appear-

  ance, accompanied by the translation in parentheses. Thereafter, for ease

  of recognition, the translation is used as the movie title. (The translations

  in most cases are the titles under which the films were released in the

  West.) The filmography that follows the text is alphabetized by the English-

  language title with which readers will be most familiar.

  There are three recognizable waves in the new Iranian cinema. The

  first one started in ¡969 and lasted until the Islamic revolution in ¡979,

  while the second wave, and the most important in my view, began around

  Preface

  3

  ¡984 and kept roaring to ¡997. This book is about these first two waves.

  Therefore I do not extensively discuss filmmakers such as Majid Majidi

  ( Color of Heaven, ¡999), Jafar Panahi ( The Circle, 2000) and Tahnineh Mil-

  lani ( Two Women, ¡999), among others. I believe these filmmakers and

  many more belong to a third wave, which began around ¡997, the result

  of a thriving new social and cultural environment that followed the elec-

  tion of moderate president Mohammad Khatami, in ¡997. The develop-

  ment of a reformist movement allowed a less restricted and censored

  approach towards social and cultural issues, and the attendant filmmak-

  ers and their work merit, indeed require, further research before they can

  be fully appraised.

  I decided to use Persian materials as my primary sources to provide

  an Iranian point of view for analysis of films; this perspective is the most

  important structural figure of my research.6 Western reviews in most cases

  have been written only based on a single subtitled film from any given

  filmmaker and do not put the film in its proper context. These reviews

  ignore historical, social and cultural subtexts of a film, particularly in con-

  nection with the other works of the same filmmaker, but also the broader

  social and cultural context of the Iranian cinema.

  While this work may not provide answers to all questions about the

  new Iranian cinema, it will serve, hopefully, as a primer to the subject, pro-

  viding a history of the work from its beginning until the end of the sec-

  ond wave, in ¡997, and further research and a subsequent volume will

  bring it to the present. Needless to say, any approach to an artistic or lit-

  erary work is, after all, a matter of “taste” and “attitude,” and how di›e-

  rently these two elements can be used and interpreted.

  Introduction:

  Early Iranian Cinema

  Attempts to invent an instrument capable of projecting “moving pic-

  tures” cannot be allocated to a specific moment in time or to particular

  individuals. The creation of cinema spanned a period of several years and

  included the cooperation of many people around the world. However, two

  major events, which occurred in New York and Paris, had a significant

  impact upon the introduction of cinema to the world.

  The first took place in New York in ¡894 when Thomas Edison who

  had patented the “Kinetoscope”¡ held public exhibition, the first public

  viewing of a motion picture. The second event occurred in Paris in ¡895,

  when the Lumière brothers showed enthusiasts their “Cinematograph.”2

  These two events informed the world of this new invention and drew the

  public’s interest towards cinema. It is due to this that most cinema critics

  and historians did not acknowledge any progress previous to these two

  events and consider this the embryonic beginnings of cinema.3 Shortly

  thereafter, the Cinematograph was accidentally brought to Iran; within five

  years of its invention Iranians had been introduced to this new phenom-

  enon.

  When one of the Iranian kings, Mosafaredin Shah from the Qajar

  dynasty4 traveled to France in ¡900, he saw the Cinematograph. He was

  so amused by this new invention that he immediately ordered Mirza Ibra-

  him Khan Akasbashi, the chief photographer of the King’s Court, to pur-

  chase the equipment. The entire incident was accounted in Shah’s travel

  journal:

  July 9, ¡900. Today we ordered Akasbashi to ready the equipment for our

  viewing. They went and set up the equipment by dusk. We went to the

  5

  6

  Introduction

  place, which is close to the inn in which our servants eat lunch and din-

  ner. We sat. They darkened the room. We viewed the equipment. It shows

  many things, which is extremely astonishing. We saw many landscapes

  and buildings and the falling of the rain and the Seine River and so on and

  so on in the city of Paris.5

  During his travels in Europe, and two weeks after his introduction

  to the cinematograph, he traveled to Onstand (Belgium) to attend the

  Flower Festival. Akasbashi also accompanied the Shah with the newly pur-

  chased filming equipment and filmed the festival. About this historical

  event, the Shah wrote:

  Today is the Festival of Flowers and we have been invited to visit. His

  Excellency Prime Minister and also the Minister of Court were accompa-

  nying us. It was a very interesting festival. All the carriages were adorned

  with flowers, and the inside of the carriages and the wheels were filled with

  flowers, so that the carriages were not visible. The ladies were in the car-

  riages and paraded in front of us with bouquets of flowers. And Akasbashi

  was busy filming the event.6

  From this evidence, we may deduce that Mosafaredin Shah was

  responsible for the importation of the first film equipment into Iran, and

  that Mirza Ibrahim Khan Akasbashi was the first Iranian cinematogra-

  pher.7

  In Iran, the cinematograph became, for a period of time, a source of

  entertainment for the Royal Family and the Royal Court. It was several

  years before the general public gained access to cinema. During this time,

  Akasbashi, at the Shah’s order, made several films in Tehran. The first was

  of the lions of the Royal Zoo in Farah-Abad.8 The second was a mourn-

  ing procession of the month of Muharram in Sabzeh Meydan.9 He also

  occasionally filmed weddings and celebrations within the Royal family,

  however all of these films have been lost.

  Besides Mosafaredin Shah and Akasbashi, Mirza Ibrahim Sahaf bashi

  must also be mentioned as a significant contributor to the progress of early

  Iranian cinema. Sahafbashi was one of the great intellectuals and pro–Con-

  stitutional activists of his time, and due to his occupation as an antique

  trader he was able to travel extensively. On one of his trips to Europe, in

  ¡897, he attended several theatre productions in London, Paris and Berlin,

  but he also saw “moving pictures” in London.¡0 Because he traveled to

  London three yea
rs before Mosafaredin Shah went to Paris, it is likely that

  he was the first Iranian ever to have seen cinema and mentioned it in his

  travel journal:

  Introduction

  7

  Tammadon Cinema, established in ¡928 in Tehran.

  8

  Introduction

  Another equipment which has been invented and is working with electri-

  cal power, is able to project everything as it is in real life. For example, it

  shows the American falls exactly as it is or an army of soldiers marching

  or a moving train in full speed and this is an American invention.¡¡

  From his writings it is evident that Sahaf bashi was introduced to the

  Kinetoscope, invented by one of Thomas Edison’s colleagues, W. K. Dick-

  son, in ¡890. Apparently he purchased a kinetoscope and brought it back

  with him upon his return to Iran. However, he did not begin using it until

  years after Mosafaredin Shah bought his cinematograph. His delay was

  likely due to the social, political and religious climate in Iran, which at the

  time was not disposed towards nor accepting of such new Western inven-

  tions.

  In ¡903 Sahaf bashi started the first cinema open to the general pub-

  lic in Iran, at the back of his shop. One year later, in November ¡904, he

  opened a second cinema, on Cheragh Gas Avenue, in which he showed

  short French comic films and American news footage, which were bought

  from the Odessa and Rostov markets in Russia.

  One of the French films was about a garbage collector who, while

  sweeping the streets, was run over by a steamroller and flattened. He was

  run over again by another machine, this time becoming short and fat, and

  so on. Another film was about a chef who found skeletons and ghosts in

  his kitchen cupboards.¡2 The news footage pieces were about the Trans-

  vaal Wars in South Africa.

  The films were shown at night and most patrons were rich aristo-

  crats, with very few ordinary people attending. Apart from the fact that

  the purchase of a ticket was out of reach for the majority of people, most

  viewed this new phenomenon as a Western influence and therefore an

  agent of corruption, and a threat to traditional Iranian values. This view

  undoubtedly was supported by religious people, including Sheyhk Fazlol-

  lah Noori, who was a high clergyman. Another reason for the lack of sup-