CONTEMPORARY CINEMA:
IRANIAN CINEMA
• At turn of century, Iran relatively isolated
from West
• Muzaff ar-ed Din Shah visited France in 1900,
saw motion pictures
– Mirza Ebrahim Khan, court photographer,
instructed to buy cinematograph
– Mirza filmed Shah’s private & religious
ceremonies
• Film remained for a number of years a
“hobby” of the royal court, who watched
movies of themselves & films from Russia
Popularization of Cinema
• 1904, 1st theater opened in Tehran by
Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi, who
bought a cinematograph in London
– Also installed a kinetoscope
– Spectators watched short comedies &
documentaries from Russia
– Also sold lemonade & other refreshments
– Advocate of democracy; property
confiscated & he was banished
• Mehdi Russi Khan (½ British, ½ Russian)
– 1907, bought projector, showed short
films at harem of Mohammad Ali Shah
– 1908, opened a theater; later moved it &
named it “The Show House of Russi Khan
& Boomer”
– Against constitutional movement,
maintained royal court connections &
supported by Russians
– Constitutionalists, supporters of monarchy
attended his theater on alternate evenings
• Ardashes Batmagerian (“Ardeshir the
Armenian”) important in establishing movie
theaters as institutions
– Opened his 1st theater in 1912
– Followed by others, leading to intense rivalries
• Following revolution, Russia immigrants
opened movie theaters, with or without
Iranians
• Movie going thrived, despite condemnation
by clerics & difficulties obtaining &
distributing prints
• Orchestras played music during movies,
before screenings & during intermissions
• Ali Vakili 1st theater owner to devote
shows exclusively to women
– 1926, showed documentaries featuring
female acrobats
– Accused of having set up a “house of love”
• Movie theaters for women became
fashionable; later, mixed audiences
more common, with aisle dividing men
from women
• The following ad appeared in
newspapers in 1928:
“As a service to the public, the Grand Cinema
Management has demarcated parts of its hall
for the ladies and from tonight, Parts one and
two of the series, The Copper Ball will be
presented together so that all citizens
including the ladies may enjoy the entire
series: Measures will be taken with the
cooperation of the honorable police officers to
bar unchaste women and dissolute youth of no
principle.”
The Arrival of Talkies
• Palace Cinema in Teheran 1st theater to
show sound movies, 1930
• Movies shown with subtitles until mid1940s
– Interpreter would walk along the aisle,
reading out subtitles
– Competed with people audience & nut
vendors
• Beginning in 1945, films were dubbed
– Initially in Turkey & Italy
– Then in Iran, as Hollywood studios hired
locals to dub movies
• Paid little, used amateurs
– Local managers changed lines to make
movies more interesting to Iranian
audiences, changed stories to make
movies politically & morally acceptable
Development of Feature Films
• 1st narrative feature film Aabi and
Raabi, made in 1930 by Oganes
Oganians, Russian Armenian
– Silent, imitation of popular Danish
comedies
– Enthusiastic reception from public;
regarded as Iranian (cast & director of
photography, financed by Iranians,
although the director was not Iranian)
• Oganians set up Persfilm Company; 2nd
silent feature in 1933, Hajji Agha, the
Film Actor
– Felt comedies best to attract audiences &
earn a profit
– Hoped to overcome Muslim objections to
film
• Protagonist is against movies
• Daughter & son-in-law (film students) film him
w/o him knowing it
• When he sees the result, he loves movies
• 1st sound film, A Lor Girl or Iran, Yesterday
and Today, produced in India in 1932 at
Imperial Film Company (Bombay), owned by
Ardeshir Irani
– Instantaneous success
– Story supposed to take place in Iran; costumes,
props brought from Iran
– Also 1st Iranian film seen abroad; foreign critics
more enthusiastic than were Iranian critics
– Led to more Iranian films being made in India
• Despite efforts, no film studios established
until 1954, due to government hostility
Post-War Iranian Cinema
• Period of freedom with abdication of Reza
Shah after WW II
– Restrictions eased for artists & political groups
– Filmmakers established relationships, planned for
a future Iranian cinema
• But political & economic conditions soon
prohibited establishment of film studios
• Until 1954, most Iranian films produced in
Turkey by Iranians
• 1953, CIA-engineered coup provided stability
• Government encouraged entertaining films
that avoided social & political themes
• Led to establishment of “Filmfarsi”
– Soap operas, low comedy & sexual innuendo
– Music with or without narrative justification
– Mostly copied from Indian movies
• Young couple romping over hills, holding hands, whirling
round each other & playing hide-and-seek
– Sometimes songs sad and sentimental, stories of
forlorn maidens, orphans & unrequited love
– Expensive scenes cut from foreign films &
inserted into Iranian films
• Due to censorship & economic realities, little
hope for serious Iranian cinema
• Some intellectuals encouraged film critics to
make movies
– Some of the worst Iranian films
– Example is Dr. Houshang Kavoosi
• PhD in film theory & history
• Coined the term “Filmfarsi”
• 1956, Seventeen Days to Execution
– Based on a detective story
– Omitted songs, dances, sex & violence, even suspense
• 1959, industry began to establish
“superstars”
• 1st Iranian superstar Mohammad-Ali Fardin,
member of national wrestling team
– Starred in Spring of Life (Siamak Yasami, 1959)
– Very popular; photographs appeared in magazines
& tea shops
– Became highest paid actor in Iran (US$50,000 per
film)
Time for the Intellectuals
• 1st film regarded as “serious” was Farrokh
Ghaffari's Night of the Hunchback (1964)
– Version of a tale from One Thousand and One
Nights (Arabian Nights)
– Not well received by public, but praised by
critics, declared it “the birth of Iranian cinema”
• Brick and Mirror made by Ebrahim Golestan
in 1964
– “A distressed and bewildered existence…told
with an effective sincerity and bitter satire”
– About daily lives of ordinary people, influenced
by Neorealism
• The Cow & Ghaissar, 1969, forerunners of 2
divergent trends
– Ghaissar, directed by Massoud Kimiaee
• In revenge of murder of his brother & suicide of his
sister, who had been raped, Ghaissar kills perpetrators,
gunned down by police
• Seen as overly influenced by American films, but
admired for production values
– The Cow, directed by Dariush Mehrjui
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Well received by public
International Critics Prize, 1970 Venice Film Festival
Set in rural area, about owner of only cow in village
He loves his cow, his only source of income
Cow dies, & he psychologically & literally replaces it:
lives in stable, eats fodder & moos
• Villagers take him to hospital, but he dies on the way
• By 1973, foreign competition forced many
producers out of business
• Most films shot-by-shot copies of foreign
films; public preferred originals
• A few “artistic” films still made, but
commercial cinema was in trouble
• Iranian cinema attacked as un-Islamic,
sinful, decadent, etc.
– 1979 demonstrators set fire to movie theaters
– In Tehran, ¼ of theaters were burned
– In Abadan, 400 people burned to death when a
theater was set fire after doors locked
– Some blamed Savak; Shah accused opposition
1979 Islamic Revolution
• Pretty much ended Iranian commercial
film
• During war with Iraq, Islamic
government felt it was time to pay
attention to culture & art, & to
encourage investment
• 1983, Minister of Culture & Islamic
Guidance banned video clubs
• Farabi Cinema Foundation established
as executive branch of cinema
department of Ministry of Culture &
Islamic Guidance
– "Supervision, Guidance, Support“
– Distributed equipment among production
groups
– Plan was primarily to get movies made, to
increase production, leading to increased
professionalism & higher quality films
• Policy of “tolerance and de-vulgarization”
– FCF hoped to avoid sleaziness of earlier movies
– Some approved simply to help stimulate industry
• 2 major developments in early 1984
– All copies of old Iranian & imported movies
seized, giving FCF monopoly on importing movies
– 15 % reduction in taxes on Iranian films, bringing
it down to 5 %, increased tax on imported films
from 20 to 25 %
• Later in 1984, equipment imported by
Ministry of Culture & Islamic Guidance
exempted from customs duties
The 1990s
• By early 1990s, policies began to pay
off
• International audiences once again
aware of existence of Iranian cinema,
& some of the stigma of Iranian
government began to wear off
• Battles among various groups reached
peaked at 9th Fajr International Film
Festival (1991) when 2 films by Mohsen
Makhmalbaf were shown
– The Time of Love
• Married woman having extramarital affair, narrated in 3
stories
• Some felt it promoted corruption & fornication
– The Nights of Zayandehrood
• How different people reacted to revolution, didn’t
present any as necessarily good or bad
• Many found it offensive & insulting to families of
martyrs
• Led to resignation of Seyyed Mohammad
Khatami, Minister of Culture
• Result is emergence of cinema of ambiguity,
to avoid offending conservative groups
• Also effort to attract Western audiences?
• Abbas Kiarostami: And Life Goes On (1993),
Under the Olive Trees (1994), Taste of
Cherry (1997)
• Mohsen Makhmalbaf: Salaam Cinema (1995),
Gabbeh (1996), A Moment of Innocence
(1996)