A Social History of Iranian Cinema

a soci a l his t ory of ir a ni a n cinem a
Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 18971941

Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 19411978
Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 19781984
Volume 4: The Globalizing Era, 19842010
praise for A Social History of Iranian Cinema

Hamid Naficy is already established as the doyen of historians and critics of
Iranian cinema. Based on his deep understanding of modern Iranian political
and social history, this detailed critical history of Irans cinema since its founding is his crowning achievement. To say that it is a must-read for virtually all
concerned with modern Iranian history, and not just cinema and the arts, is to
state the obvious.
homa katouzian, author of
The Persians: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Iran
This magisterial four-volume study of Iranian cinema will be the defining
work on the topic for a long time to come. Situating film within its sociopolitical context, Hamid Naficy covers the period leading up to the Constitutional
Revolution and continues after the Islamic Revolution, examining questions
about modernity, globalization, Islam, and feminism along the way. A Social
History of Iranian Cinema is a guide for our thinking about cinema and society
and the ways that the creative expression of film should be examined as part of
a wider engagement with social issues.
a nnabelle sreberny, co-author of
Blogistan: The Internet and Politics in Iran
A Social History of Iranian Cinema is an extraordinary achievement, a scholarly, detailed work in which a massive amount of material is handled with the
lightest touch. Yet it is Hamid Naficys personal experience and investment
that give this project a particular distinction. Only a skilled historian, one who
is on the inside of his story, could convey so vividly the symbolic significance
of cinema for twentieth-century Iran and its deep intertwining with national
culture and politics.
l aura mulvey, author of
Death 24 a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image
Hamid Naficy seamlessly brings together a century of Irans cinematic
history, marking its technological advancements and varying genres and story
telling techniques, and perceptively addressing its sociopolitical impact on
the formation of Irans national identity. A Social History of Iranian Cinema is
essential reading not only for the cinephile interested in Irans unique and rich
cinematic history but also for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the
cataclysmic events and metamorphoses that have shaped Iran, from the pivotal
Constitutional Revolution that ushered in the twentieth century through the
Islamic Revolution, and into the twenty-first century.
s hirin neshat, visual artist, filmmaker, and
director of the film Women Without Men
A Social History of Iranian Cinema

volume 2
Hamid Naficy
a soci a l his t ory

of ir a ni a n cinem a
Volume 2
The Industrializing Years, 19411978
Duke University Press Durham and London 2011
2011 Duke University Press

All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Designed and typeset in Scala by Julie Allred, BW&A Books, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on
the last printed page of this book.
Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support of

the School of Communication at Northwestern University,
Northwestern University in Qatar, and the School of Humanities
at Rice University, which provided funds toward the production
of this book.
To my parents,
who instilled in me the love and
pleasure of knowledge and arts
To my country of birth, Iran,
and its extraordinary culture and history
To my adopted country, the United States,
and its cherished democratic ideals
con t en t s
Illustrations, ix
Acknowledgments, xiii
Organization of the Volumes, xxi
A Word about Illustrations, xxvii
Abbreviations, xxix

1 International Haggling over Iranian Public Screens, 1
2 The Statist Documentary Cinema and Its Alternatives, 49
3
Commercial Cinemas Evolution:
From Artisanal Mode to Hybrid Production, 147
4
Family Melodramas and Comedies:
The Stewpot Movie Genre, 197
5
Males, Masculinity, and Power:
The Tough-Guy Movie Genre and Its Evolution, 261
6 A Dissident Cinema: New-Wave Films and the End of an Era, 325
Notes, 433
Bibliography, 473
Index, 497
il lus t r at ions
1 Nilla Cram Cook, 6

2 Production still from Ralph Keenes Persian Story, 33
3 A typical usis mobile film unit, 42
4 Adapting a visual medium to an oral culture: an Iranian expert provides
live narration for a usis film, 42
5 Enthusiasm for usis films at a school, 45
6 Mohammad Ali Issari filming Education Corps, 56
7 Ebrahim Golestan (left) with the author, 79
8 Forugh Farrokhzad smoking a pipe, 82
9 A female leper applies eye makeup for a wedding in Farrokhzads
The House Is Black, 83
10 I am like scattered water, intones Farrokhzads voice-over in
The House Is Black, 84
11 A pupil completes the sentence at the bottom of the blackboard, 85
12 Hossein Mansouri, 86
13 The inevitable march of modernity and modernization destroys native cultures
in Alan Pendrys and Neilson Baxters Wave, Coral, and Rock, 90
14 The poet and filmmaker Feraidun Rahnema, 94
15 Naser Taqvais The Sorcerers Wind claims that African slaves brought with
them this ill wind to Iranian shores, 103
16 Exorcising the sorcerers wind, 103
17 Concentric circles of chest-beating men in a Shiite religious ritual
in Taqvais Arbain, 104
18 A Qaderi dervish is about to swallow a large stone in Manuchehr Tabaris
A Few Moments with Qaderi Dervishes, 105
19 Esmail Emami filming a pilgrim for O Deer Savior, while the director
Parviz Kimiavi looks on, 106
20 Production still from Arlene Dallalfars and Feraidun Safizadehs
The Shahsavan Nomads of Iran, 109
21 A family eating a meal that includes bread made from acorns, 111
22 Tribal women dancing in Afshar Naderis Acorn, 111
23a, 23b, 23c Three frames of the animated logo designed by the British artist
Ronald Jackson for the films of Daneshgah-e Azad-e Iran (Free University of
Iran), 112
24 A young prostitute in Kamran Shirdels Fortress: The Red Light District, 121
25a, 25b Contrapuntal filming: contrasting rosy classroom dictation with visuals
of social ills, 123
26 Shirdel directing the cameraman in The Night It Rained, 131
27 A letter from the director of The Night It Rained to the Ministry of Culture
and Art, 132
28 The heroic village boy running away on the railway track, 132
29a, 29b Michigan State University students, including some from Iran,
demonstrate their opposition to Mohammad Ali Issaris Ancient Iran
film series, 142
30 A cartoon titled Farsi Cinema, 150
31 A poster for Reza Safais One Golden-Voiced, One Golden Hand, 151
32 The poster for Samuel Khachikians patriotic action movie
Blood and Honor, 153
33 The poster for Farrokh Gaffarys heavily censored South of the City, 189
34 Male bonding over a meal of abgusht, 199
35 Shirin (Foruzan) does a sexy jaheli song and dance by the pool, 201
36 Banu Mahvash, 210
37 The poster for Ismail Kushans Were Your Servant, Master Karim, 218
38 Movie Set (2004) by Soody Sharifi, 227
39 Hosain Tormozi (Nosratollah Vahdat) with his potential foreign bride, 243
40 The poster for Fereidun Zhuraks Salome, 249
41 Dubbing Masud Kimiais The Deer, 256
42 Veteran dubbers, 257
43a A blackface Kaka Rostam (Bahman Mofid) berates Dash Akol, 272
43b Dash Akol (Behrouz Vossoughi), 272
44 The gaze of a nubile Marjan (Mary Apik) transforms Dash Akol, 273
45 Marjans handkerchief as a fetishized object of transgression and transition, 273
46 Dash Akol on his deathbed, 275
47 Film and literature intertextuality, 275
48 Qaisars title sequence, 296
i l l u s t r at i o ns
49 Farman (Naser Malekmotii) is compelled to seek revenge for the dishonor

and suicide of his sister in Qaisar, 297
50 Masud Kimiai quoting Hitchcocks Psycho in his Qaisar, 298
51 Qaisar (Behrouz Vossoughi), 298
52 The caf dancer Shahrzad (Sohaila Ferdows) performs a sexualized dance
in Qaisar, 299
53 Poster for Kimiais film Snake Fang, 313
54 A luti doll in a car, 316
55a, 55b Bahman Mofid in Beyond Laughter, 319
56 The pop singer Jaklyn (Jaklyn Dardarian) in her music video Mafia, 321
57 Mortezas music video Heart to Heart, 322
58 Young women dancers from the Beshkan Dance Academy, 323
59 Love and tenderness between man, Mash Hasan (Ezatollah Entezami),
and animal in Dariush Mehrjuis The Cow, 337
60 The shadowy figures, Boluriha, representing feared outsiders, in The Cow, 338
61 Fear and anxiety undermine intimacy in Ebrahim Golestans Mudbrick
and Mirror, 359
62 Poster for Bahman Farmanaras Prince Ehtejab, designed by Farshid Mesghali,
369
63 Villagers celebrate a rich farmers wedding next to the phallic tower of his new
home in Golestans The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni Valley, 381
64 The phoenix-like rise and transformation of a heroin addict (Behrouz
Vossoughi) into a revolutionary hero in Masud Kimiais The Deer, 384
65 Security forces amass for the ending shootout, which helped turn The Deer into
a guerrilla movie, 385
66 In Parviz Kimiavis experimental documentary, P as in Pelican, Aqa Seyyed Ali
Mirzas life in a ruin is enriched by imagination and poetry, 388
67a, 67b In Kimiavis Stone Garden, a saintly vision induces the deaf-mute shepherd
to create an alternative surrealist reality by assembling a garden of stones, 389
68a, 68b Modernity, symbolized by television, invades villagers traditional curtainreciting session in Kimiavis The Mongols, 392
69a, 69b A darkly comic representation of film censorship and of medias power to
deracinate, 392
70a, 70b Sohrab Shahid Salesss minimalist and formalist style in Still Life, 395
71 Poster for Shahid Salesss Far from Home, 397
72a, 72b A military show trial of dissidents and filmmakers that electrified the
nation in 1973, 411
illustr atio ns
xi
ack now l edgmen t s
uring the three decades spent researching and writing this book, I accrued debts to many people who helped me in various ways big and small,
which are briefly acknowledged here. First of all I thank all the film directors,
producers, camerapersons, actors, critics, and television producers who supplied me with copies of their films, videos, and biographies, and sometimes
with stills of their films. Many of them also granted me interviews, in person
or by telephone, mail, e-mail, and even tape recording. Underscoring the globalization and diasporization of Iraniansincluding mediamakersthese
interviews spanned the globe, from Iran to various European countries, and
from New Zealand to the United States. And underscoring the duration of
the project, they extended in time from the mid-1970s to the late 2000s. The
interviewees and filmmakers were Abbas (Abbas Attar), Nader Afshar Naderi, Jamsheed Akrami, Mohammad Reza Allamehzadeh, Farshad Aminian,
Amir Amirani, Taghi Amirani, Jahanshah Ardalan, Shoja Azari, Fuad Badie,
Ramin Bahrani, Bahram Baizai, Rakhshan Banietemad, Manuchehr Bibian,
Arlene Dallalfar, Mahmud Dorudian, Ghasem Ebrahimian, Esmail Emami,
Tanaz Eshaghian, Shirin Etessam, Anna Fahr, Golshifteh Farahani, Shahriar
Farahvashi, Simin Farkhondeh, Bahman Farmanara, Aryana Farshad, Jalal
Fatemi, Tina Gharavi, Ali Ghelichi, Ebrahim Golestan, Shahla Haeri, Mohammad Reza Haeri, Khosrow Haritash, Melissa Hibbard, Mohammad Ali
Issari, Erica Jordan, Pirooz Kalantari, Shahram Karimi, Maryam Kashani,
Mehrdad Kashani, Maryam Keshavarz, Laleh Khadivi, Hossein Khandan,
Fakhri Khorvash, Abbas Kiarostami, Bahman Kiarostami, Masud Kimiai,
Parviz Kimiavi, Kim Longinotto, Bahman Maghsoudlou, Moslem Mansouri,
Dariush Mehrjui, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Bahman Mofid, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb,

Behnaz A. Mirzai, Ebrahim Mokhtari, Ali Mortazavi, Manuchehr Moshiri,
Fatemeh Motamed Aria, Marva Nabili, Amir Naderi, Shirin Neshat, Asadollah Niknejad, Sara Nodjumi, Annette Mari Olsen, Mehrdad Oskoui, Soudabeh Oskui-Babcock, Faramarz Otan, Katia Forbert Petersen, Rafigh Pooya,
Ghazel Radpay, Hamid Rahmanian, Hosain Rajaiyan, Neda Razavipour,
Persheng Sadegh-Vaziri, Robert Safarian, Fereydoun Safizadeh, Mehrnaz
Saeed-Vafa, Marjan Safinia, Bigan Saliani, Mohammad Shahba, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Mahvash Sheikholeslami, Amir Shervan, Kamran Shirdel, Khosrow Sinai, Manuchehr Tabari, Nasrin Tabatabai, Mitra Tabrizian, Parisa
Taghizadeh, Mohammad Tahaminejad, Barbod Taheri, Hosain Taheridoust,
Mohammad Tehrani, Susumo Tokomo, Shahin Yazdani, Abbas Yousefpour, and Caveh Zahedi. Each volumes bibliography provides details of the
interviews.
I interviewed several cinema and television administrators in Iran during the Pahlavi and Islamic Republic periods to gain insight into official
procedures and perspectives. Those interviewed included Gholamhosain
Alaqehband, Mohammad Beheshti, Mohammad Hasan Khoshnevis, Kambiz
Mahmoudi, and Alireza Shojanoori. To gain insight into the movies sociohistorical contexts of production and reception I interviewed spectators, witnesses, relatives, and scholars. These included Mehrdad Amanat, Zia Ashraf
Nasr, Hamid Khan Bakhtiari, Cosroe Chaqueri, Mohammad Ali Djamal
zadeh, Houshang Golmakani, Faezeh Golshan, Jalal Golshan, Shusha Guppy,
Ahmet Gurata, Latifeh Haghighi, Jafar Hakimzadeh, Amir Hassanpour,
Badieh Misaqiyeh (Eshraghian), Reza Nafisi (my uncle), Parviz Navi, Alaviyeh Okhovat (my grandmother), Batul Okhovat (my mother), Amir Bahman
Samsam, Emmanuel Sevrugian, and Ali Shakeri.
The Foundation for Iranian Studies in Washington kindly supplied me
with transcripts of interviews with major cinema, television, and culture industry leaders of the Pahlavi era, including transcripts of lengthy interviews
with Farrokh Gaffary, Shahrokh Golestan, Kambiz Mahmoudi, Mohammad Naficy, Arby Ovanessian, and Mehrdad Pahlbod. Likewise, the Boroumand Foundation in Washington, which documents human rights violations
in Iran, provided me with newspaper clippings on the Rex Cinema fire in
Abadan and political persecutions in Iran.
Poori Soltani, a senior research librarian at the National Library of Iran,
graciously supplied me with data on film periodicals. Hosain Tousi, the director general of mcigs Research and Cinematic Relations immediately after the revolution, provided me with the early, unpublished regulations and
xiv
ac k no w l e d gmen t s
guidelines governing film review and censorship under the Islamic Republic.
Hasan Khoshnevis, director of the National Film Archive of Iran, facilitated
my research and film viewing at the archive in Tehran and sat for interviews
with me. I also benefited from discussions with other colleagues at the national film archive, namely Gholam Haidari, Fereydoun Khameneipour, and
Ladan Taheri.
To examine nonfiction films about Iran, I visited the United States National Archives and Records Services and the Library of Congresss Motion
Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, both in Washington, to
examine records of usia/usis films and other documentaries. A visit to the
Defense Audiovisual Agency at Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, California, produced information on military newsreels and raw footage shot by
U.S. military units inside Iran after the Second World War. The ucla Film
and Television Archive helped me with information on Hearst News and
Hearst Metrotone News newsreels. A visit to the University of South Carolina
helped with materials on the following newsreels about Iran: Fox News, Fox
Movietone, Paramount News, Path News, Universal Newsreel, UPITN, Visnews,
and Path Sound News. The British National Film Archives and the British
Film Institute in London were helpful on various newsreels and documentaries on Iran. I also visited the British Public Records Office to examine the
files of the British Councils cultural activities in Iran. In the United States I
obtained the Confidential United States Central Files on Irans Internal Affairs and the Foreign Affairs Records of the Department of State Relating to
Internal Affairs of Iran for the Second World War and the Cold War through
microfilm and Internet research. These British and American diplomatic files
are rich in documents relating to Irans sociopolitical and cultural conditions,
if one persists long enough in sifting through thousands of pages of unrelated
materials. They proved invaluable in my charting the rivalry among the former allies after the Second World War to influence the hearts and minds of
Iranians through cinema.
At the Danish Film Institute in Copenhagen, the archivist Mikael Braae
helped me with screening and translating the railway film Iran, the New Persia. Another archivist, Palle Bgelund Petterson, supplied additional printed
information and films. Professor I. B. Bondebjerg, head of the University of
Copenhagens Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, facilitated my visit and research in the Danish capital. In Washington I was able to
examine the collection of Antoin Sevruguins photographs at the Arthur M.
Sackler Gallery thanks to Massumeh Farhad, the chief curator and the curator
of Islamic art. In Heidelberg I interviewed Sevruguins grandson, Emmanuel
ac kno wled gments
xv
Sevrugian, for further insight into his grandfathers photographic and filmic
career. At the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, I examined the M. Eleanor Fitzgerald Papers for materials on Nilla Cram Cook, with assistance from
the archivist Christel Maass. Finally, I visited the Brigham Young University
Archives to examine Merian C. Coopers papers on Grass and King Kong, and
I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York to view the original blackand-white and tinted versions of Grass, as well as footage shot for its remake.
I gained further information about films on Iran by corresponding with
the Imperial War Museum in London (for wartime newsreels), the Scottish
Film Archive and the British Petroleum Company Limited (for oil films), the
United Nations Visual Material Library (for un films on Iran), the Sherman
Grinberg Film Library (for various newsreels), the John E. Allen Inc. Film Library (for Kinogram and Telenews newsreels), and the Abraham F. Rad Contemporary Jewish Film Archive in Jerusalem. For television newscasts and
documentaries on Iran, I visited and corresponded with various television archives, including the abc News Television Archive, the cbs News Film/Tape
Documentary Archive, the nbc News Television Archive, the pbs News Tape
Archive, the bbc News Television Archive, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the ctv Television Network (Canada), and the Vanderbilt Television
News Archive in Nashville.
Abazar Sepehri, head Middle Eastern librarian at the University of Texas,
Austin, helped me many times to track down Persian-language sources and
articles. Likewise, Jet Prendeville, the art and architecture librarian at Rice
University, assisted me in tracking down English and foreign-language film
sources.
Academic colleagues in various disciplines in the United States were very
helpful. Paula Amad and Peter Bloom provided me with copies of the film Yellow Cruise and with relevant materials on it; Jennifer Fey commented on my
paper on Rakhshan Banietemad, as did Janet Afary on the chapters on Reza
Shah and the preface, Marianne Hopmann on my discussion of the oral tradition, and Majid Naficy on parts of chapter 6 (vol. 2) and the preface (vol. 1).
George Marcus, Chuck Kleinhans, Mehdy Naficy, Nahal Naficy, Azar Nafisi,
and Mohammad Nafissi commented on the preface. Philip Lutgendorf shared
with me his unpublished paper on Indian cinema, and Natasa Durovicova
shared her articles on sound and dubbing. Camron Michael Amin provided
information on U.S. government files on Iran, and Amir Hassanpour provided information on Kurdish cinema and satellite television. Jalil Doostkhah
helped with the names of the Isfahan circle of intellectuals. Mehrnaz SaeedVafa was extremely helpful throughout my research, supplying me with films
xvi
and assisting me in tracking down information on Iranian cinema and filmmakers. Colleagues in Iran were also very helpful. Houshang Golmakani,
editor in chief of Mahnameh-ye Sinemai-ye Film, made sure that I received
issues of the journal, sent me stills that I requested, and assisted with other
inquiries. Mohammad Atebbai of Iranian Independents put several documentaries at my disposal. The documentarian Pirooz Kalantari was conscientious and generous in supplying me with documents, books, films, photographs, and other research materials from Iran, far beyond his own works.
Shahin Kharazmi of Tehrans Industrial Management Institute supplied me
with data on media uses and audience demography in Iran. Esmail Emami
facilitated my meeting with members of the Iranian Society of Documentary
Filmmakers in Tehran. Mohammad Tahaminejad and Homayun Emami also
helped with information on documentary cinema. Elsewhere, the art curator
Rose Issa in London shared with me videos and posters of Iranian movies.
The journalist Homa Sarshar and the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History in Los Angeles kindly supplied me with a copy of the film A Mother for
Shamsi. Mehdi Zamani facilitated my interview in Los Angeles with the actor
Bahman Mofid, while Mohammad Ali Yazdi did the same for my interview
with Sohrab Shahid Saless. The photographer and artist Soody Sharifi kindly
put at my disposal her photograph of the movie set. Sima Shakhsari of the
University of California, Berkeley, helped to identify Iranian blogs and movie
blogs. Debra Zimmerman of Women Make Movies made Iranian films available for my viewing, as did Barbara Scharess, the director of programming at
Chicagos Gene Siskel Film Center.
I helped launch two long-lasting annual film festivals at universities in the
United States. I worked with Geoffrey Gilmore in 1990, then of the ucla Film
and Television Archive, to curate one of the first and longest-running festivals
of Iranian cinema in the United States. In Houston I worked with Marian
Luntz, the film curator of the Museum of Fine Art, and Charles Dove, cinema director at Rice University, to organize an annual festival of Iranian films
there. Programming and curating these festivals, which still continue, provided me with important venues and opportunities for further research, film
viewing, interviews with filmmakers, and the promotion of Iranian cinema.
At Rice University my research assistant Danny Stuyck and the visual resource assistant Kathleen Hamilton scanned still images for the book. Michael Dyrby Jensen translated a Danish text for me. The anthropology doctoral student Nahal Naficy was a valuable, resourceful, and cheerful help as
my primary bilingual research assistant. She wrote the draft of the caption on
Sharifis movie set artwork (chapter 4, vol. 2). At Northwestern University
ac kno wled gments
xvii
my research assistants Neha Kamdar, Daniel Bashara, John Nicolau, Jason

Roberts, and Racquel Gates helped with the books images and bibliography.
The research phases of the book were funded in large part by summer research grants that I received from the deans of humanities at Rice University,
Gayle Stokes and Gary Wihl, which allowed me to take research trips and to
visit archives in various countries, as well as to write. The Art History Departments Segal Fund at Rice University paid for my research assistants and
equipment. A travel-to-collection grant from uclas Von Gruenbaum Center
for Middle East Studies made possible my research visit to the Museum of
Modern Art in New York.
The writing phase of the book was primarily funded by major national
grants from the National Endowment for Humanities Fellowship (neh05020401) and the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Endowment for Humanities International and Area Studies Fellowship (r14820363000, neh fa-51979, osr
05020401), which Rice University matched, thus allowing me to spend the
academic year 20045 entirely on writing the bulk of the manuscript. Gary
Wihl also kindly provided subvention funds for the publication of this multivolume book, as did Barbara OKeefe, Northwestern Universitys dean of
the School of Communication. Northwestern University in Qatar also contributed. I thank all these institutions and individuals for their generous
assistance.
My editor Ann Klefstad went through the manuscript as usual with a finetoothed comb, helping to sculpt the text. Ken Wissoker, editorial director at
Duke University Press, was a delight to work with; he guided the project with
openness, patience, wisdom, and lan.
A project as extensive as this naturally involves not only professional colleagues but also family and friends in various witting and unwitting capacities. My siblingsNaficeh, Nahid, Nasrin, Nooshin, Mehdy, and Majidall
helped in one way or another with research, information gathering, and the
mailing of films and other materials for the book. I interviewed my mother
and my paternal grandmother about their social lives and experiences with
cinema. I learned to appreciate Iranian popular culture, perhaps initially
from the joyful and lilting manner in which my mother sang the popular
songs of her youth, songs that her strict Muslim parents had forbidden to her.
My fathers research-mindedness and intellectual curiosity, which turned our
childhood outings into lessons in local botany and medical anthropology, became a model for my commitment to academic research and education. During my research travels many family members and friends in various places
xviii
provided me with a home away from home: Mehdy Naficy and Fariba JafarShaghaghi in Heidelberg; Mohammad Nafissi and Georgiana Parry-Crooke
in London; Fatemeh Ebtehaj and Hamid Hakimzadeh in London; Azar Nafisi
and Bijan Naderi in Washington; Nastaran and Vahid Naficy in Tehran; and
Paul and Helen Edwards in Helena, Montana. Montanas majestic and enduring natural world offered an implacable contrast against which human history, particularly one as recent and as marred with moral and political ambiguities as that of the cinema and entertainment fields, found its proper
perspective.
This book has been with me for so long that it feels like a third child, older
than my two biological children, Cameron and Shayda, both of whom are now
thriving, idealistic young people close to the age at which I unknowingly began this project. My life partner Carol (Kelly) Edwards has been with me every
step of the way, through thick and thin, in Iran, in the United States, and in
many other places in between. All three have been unconditionally supportive of my life choices, my career and its demands, including this book project
(Kelly scanned many of the stills). I hope that I have, in the end, been deserving of their respect, love, and trust.
ac kno wled gments
xix
orga niz at ion of t he volumes
he book is divided into four volumes, covering the social history of over
a century of Iranian cinema, from around 1897 to about 2010. The history of Iranian society and the cinema it produced in this period is bookended
by two revolutions: the 190511 Constitutional Revolution, which brought in
a constitutional monarchy, and the 197879 Islamic Revolution, which installed a republican theocratic state. While the impact of the first revolution on cinema and film culture was apparently limited and inchoate, the
latter revolution profoundly affected them, resulting in their unprecedented
efflorescence.
As a work of social history and theory, these volumes deal not only with
such chronological developments in society and in the film industry but also
with the synchronic contexts, formations, dispositions, and maneuvers that
overdetermined modernity in Iran and a dynamically evolving film industry and its unique products. I locate the film industry and its mode of production, narratives, aesthetics, and generic forms in the interplay of deeply
rooted Iranian performative and visual arts and what was imported, adopted,
adapted, translated, mistranslated, and hybridized from the West. The interplay between Iranian and Islamic philosophies and aesthetics complicated
and channeled cinema, particularly that involving women, in ways unique to
Iran, which are discussed throughout the volumes. Likewise, the contribution
of Iranian ethnoreligious minorities, both widespread and profound, gave Iranian cinema additional specificity.
The volumes also situate Iranian cinema at the intersection of state-driven
authoritarian modernization, nationalist and Islamist politics, and geopolitics
during its tumultuous century, charting the manner in which local, national,
regional, and international powers competed for ascendancy in Iran, affecting what Iranians saw on screens, what they produced, and the technologies
they adopted.
The logic of dividing the work into four volumes is driven by both sociopolitical developments and the evolution of the film industry. While these
volumes are autonomous, each contributes to the understanding and appreciation of the others, as certain theoretical, stylistic, industrial, commercial,
cultural, religious, sociopolitical, biographical, authorial, and governmental
elements form lines of inquiry pursued throughout, gathering momentum
and weight. Each volume has a table of contents, a bibliography, an index, and,
when needed, appendices.
Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 18971941

This volume offers a theory linking Iranian modernity and national identity
with the emergence of an inchoate artisanal cinema and with an othered cinematic subjectivity. Qajar-era cinema consisted of the exhibition of foreign actualities and narratives and the production of a limited number of domestic
actualities and comic skits by pioneer exhibitors and producers, all of whom
are featured. The image of women on the screens and the presence of women
as spectators in movie houses proved controversial, resulting in the first act
of film censorship. Borrowing from the curtain reciting tradition, live movie
translators (dilmaj) helped increase narrative comprehension and the enjoyment of Western movies.
Reza Shah Pahlavi dissolved the Qajar dynasty in 1925 and ruled until
1941. During his rule, the first Pahlavi period, the state implemented an authoritarian syncretic Westernization program that attempted to modernize
and secularize the multicultural, multilingual, and multiethnic Iranians into
a homogenous modern nation. Cinematic representations of a fast modernizing Iran in documentaries and fiction movies were encouraged, photography and movie production were tightly controlled, movie houses were regulated, and perceived affronts to Iran in Western documentaries were taken
seriously. The veil was outlawed and dandies flourished. All these developments receive extensive coverage in this volume. Despite efforts to centralize
and control cinema, film production proved marginal to state formation and
remained artisanal. Only one silent feature film was produced domestically,
while all sound features were produced by an Iranian expatriate in India. This
xxii
o r g ani zat i on of t he v olu mes
latter fact and others discussed in the volume show Iranian cinemas transnational nature from the start.

During the second Pahlavi period (Mohammad Reza Shah, 194179), cinema flourished and became industrialized, producing at its height over ninety
films a year. The state was instrumental in building the infrastructures of
the cinema and television industries, and it instituted a vast apparatus of
censorship and patronage. During the Second World War and its aftermath,
the three major Allied powersthe United Kingdom, the United States, and
the ussrcompeted with each other to control what Iranians saw on movie
screens. One chapter examines this fascinating history.
In the subsequent decades, two major parallel cinemas emerged: the commercial filmfarsi movies, popular with average spectators, forming the bulk
of the output, and a smaller but influential cinema of dissent, the new-wave
cinema. The commercial filmfarsi movies, exemplified by the stewpot and
tough-guy genres discussed extensively in two chapters, were for entertainment purposes and drew their power and charm from their stars and their
rootedness in Iranian traditions, which were juxtaposed favorably and often
comically or melodramatically with modern Western traditions. A dynamic
nonfiction cinema evolved, which receives a chapter. Ironically, the state both
funded and censored much of the new-wave cinema, which grew bolder in its
criticism and impact as Pahlavi authoritarianism consolidated. The new-wave
films, produced by the collaboration of Westernized filmmakers with modernist dissident writers, did well in international film festivals, starting the
globalization of Iranian cinema. The impending revolution could retrospectively be read in the fear-driven narratives of the new-wave films and in the
various cultural struggles around official culture and arts festivals, the censorship of films, religious sermons on audiocassettes, poetry reading nights,
television trials and confessions, and underground filming, all of which I discuss at length.
Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 19781984

Identified toward the end of the Shahs rule as one of the agents of moral
corruption in the country, movies and movie houses became targets of a risorg a n izatio n o f the vo lumes
xxiii
ing anti-Shah movement, resulting in the destruction of a third of all movie

houses nationwide. This volume charts both such revolutionary destruction
and the subsequent rebuilding and evolution of the film and media industries. Many above-the-line personnel in these industries found themselves
sidelined, banned, arrested, deprived of property, or exiled. The star system,
a major attraction of filmfarsi cinema, was thus dismantled. Movies were
banned, cut, redubbed, and painted over to remove offending features.
After such iconoclastic destructions and purification the new Islamic regime undertook a wide-ranging effort to institutionalize a new film industry
whose values would be commensurate with the newly formulated Islamicate
values. The first rules and regulations governing film production and exhibition were adopted in 1982. Like the second Pahlavi regime, the ayatollahs regime put into place a strong, centralized, and draconian system of state regu
lation and patronage to encourage politically correct movies. The import of
foreign movies oscillated but was eventually banned, leaving the field open
for a new domestic cinema. The long war with Iraq, the gendered segregation
of space, and the imposition of the veil on women encouraged certain ideological and aesthetic trends. Foremost was the reconceptualization of cinema
from a despised agent of corruption and othering to an agent of nation building and selfing. However, the resulting Islamicate cinema and culture were
neither homogeneous nor static. They evolved with considerable personal, institutional, and ideological struggles.
Volume 4: The Globalizing Era, 19842010

The revolutionary experience, the bloody eight-year war with Iraq, and the
perceived Western cultural invasion of Iran all encouraged soul searching,
national epistemophilia, and a desire for self-representation, resulting in an
array of documentary films and film forms about the revolution, war, and
the various social ills and inequalities that accumulated under the Islamist
regime. The state-run television and fiction film industries, too, funded and
supported filmmakers committed to Islam who made powerful imposed
war movies in which sacred subjectivity replaced modernist subjectivity.
Womens presence both on camera and behind the camera increased significantly in all genres and types of films, in both the television and movie industries, leading to a veritable womens cinema. The veil evolved from a repressive social institution to a dynamic social practice and critical aesthetics.
A deepening sociopolitical and cultural struggle over cinema, media, and
xxiv
o r g ani zat i on of t he v olu mes
culture, and ultimately the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, emerged in the
country. This was reflected in, and shaped by, a new form of public diplomacy,
chiefly between Iran and the United States, during Mohammad Khatamis
presidency, which intensified under his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In a new cultural turn the antagonistic governments began to recruit all
sorts of mutual domestic, diasporic, and international film, television, radio,
and Internet media and formations to serve this diplomacy, sometimes with
dire consequences for the participants. Foreign and exile videos and satellite
televisions were officially banned, but enforcement was chaotic, encouraging
a thriving culture of resistance that continues to date. With the rise of opposition to the Islamic Republic regime a dissident Internet cinema emerged.
The postrevolution era bred its own dissident art-house parallel cinema,
involving some of the best Pahlavi-era new-wave directors and a new crop
of innovative postrevolution directors, placing Iranian cinema on the map
of the vital world cinemas. They brought self-respect and prestige for Iranians at home and abroad. The displacement, dispersion, and exile of a massive
number of Iranians, many in the visual and performing arts and cinema and
television, resulted in new formations in Irans social history and cinematic
historya diasporic formation of people with a complex subjectivity and an
accented cinema, made by first-generation migrs and their second- and
third-generation descendants. Both the wide circulation of Iran-made films
and those Iranians made in the diaspora, as well as the vast diasporic dispersion of Iranians helped globalize Iranian cinema. One chapter deals with
each of these developments.
org a n izatio n o f the vo lumes
xxv
a wor d a bou t il lus t r at ions
have used several types of illustration here, each providing supplementary

or complementary material to the text. Production stills show something
of the behind-the-scenes process. Frame enlargements, taken directly from
films or videos, offer visuals for textual analyses of the films aesthetic and generic systems. Posters offer not only an encapsulated rendition of the film by
artists other than filmmakers but also showcase the art of poster design and
production, which form important components of the movies publicity, exhibition, and reception. Like the movies themselves, this art also evolved over
time, an evolution discernable in the posters included in the present volumes.
Cartoons and other material objects about cinema demonstrate the wider circulation of things filmic among Iranians. The flyers announcing film screenings and cultural and political events featuring screenings served as important vehicles in exile for advertising, political agitprop, and film exhibition
immediately after the 197879 revolution. They provide a good sense of the
films, of the political culture of the time, and of the sponsoring groups. Finally, the many tables in the book offer other forms of data for the analysis of
the films cultural contexts, such as audience demography, production output,
film export and import, organizations involved in production, and the regulations concerning censorship and banning of movies. Because of the diversity
of sources and the deterioration of some films and videos, the quality of the
pictorial illustrations varies.
a bbr e v i at ions
api Anglo Persian Institute

bc British Council
c idcya Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults
faa Fine Arts Administration
fidci Film Industry Development Corporation of Iran

ff Filmfarsi (Farsi-language films)
gfw Golestan Film Workshop
mca Ministry of Culture and Art
mcig Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance

mos Mithout (without) sound, filming without sound
nefc National Educational Film Circuit

nioc National Iranian Oil Company
nirt National Iranian Radio and Television

pfc Progressive Filmmakers Cooperative (Kanun-e Sinemagaran-e Pishro)
pfoi Peoples Fadaian Organization of Iran

pmoi Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran
pogo Public Opinion Guidance Organization
savak Sazman Ettelaat va Amniat-e Keshvar (Homeland Intelligence and
Security Organization)
usia United States Information Agency
usis United States Information Service
voks All-Union Society for Cultural Relations (Soviet Union)
1
in t er nat iona l
h ag gl ing
ov er ir a ni a n
publ ic scr eens
n 25 August 1941 (3 Shahrivar 1320) at 8 p.m. the electricity in Tehran

was cut, plunging the entire city, including the Shahs palaces, into dark
ness and forcing panicstricken spectators to rush out of movie houses. They
soon learned the reason for the electrical outage: Irans invasion by the Al
lied powers, despite Irans official neutrality in the Second World War. Within
three weeks Reza Shah abdicated and left the country for a permanent exile,
replaced by his son Mohammad Reza Shah. Between 1941 and 1947, when
the country remained occupied by the Allies and under various Iranian mar
tial law regimes, there was an intense struggle over what types of documen
tary and fiction films Iranians could see on public screens, a struggle in
which not only the Iranian state but also the major Allied powers participated
through their embassies, official cultural organizations, and commercial film
companies.
While occupying Iran and riding roughshod over the countrys affairs and
institutions, the major Allied powersthe United States, the United King
dom, and the Soviet Uniontreated Iran like a partial ally, allowing domestic
forces to act with relative impunity. A period of unprecedented freedom and
chaos ensued in which interested parties vied to shape public opinion and
achieve political ascendancy. The new young Shah, though inexperienced,
was interested in reestablishing the states hegemony over the vast, wartorn
country. The various prime ministers used the ageold strategy of equilib
rium (movazeneh) to involve the Allies in Iranian affairs and to balance those
interests against each other to ensure the countrys independence (McFarland
1981:6). Many traditions that Reza Shah had banned returned, but in modi
fied form. For example, after his abdication, Tehran Radio began a daily reci
tation of the Quran, reduced to weekly broadcasts by 1943. Religious schools
returned. The chador for women and the turban and religious attire for men
also returned in some areas. However, many of the women who did don the
chadorfor example, in Tehran and Isfahanshunned the somber and official black chador (chador siah) of the past in favor of wearing the lighter
colored prayer chador (chador namaz). The face mask that some women had
worn previously was not restored. Religious holidays were observed again and
religious lamentation, selfflagellation, processions, and taziyeh performances
returned. Many religious periodicals began publication. At the same time,
Westernization was propelled forward by the presence of occupying forces
and their languages, cultures, and social norms and practices. Dissident in
tellectuals and writers, such as Sadeq Hedayat, returned from exile, while
imprisoned intellectuals, such as the Group-53 communists arrested by Reza
Shah, were released, and dandies proliferated.
Differences among the Allies ensured that domestic factionsthe Shah,
communists, Islamists, the secular intelligentsia, students, armed forces, ba
zaar merchants, and the presscould each find foreign backing of one sort
or another. Thus a cacophony of voices could be heard across the land. The socalled golden age of the Iranian press was afoot, as both the numbers and the
circulation of published periodicals rose as never before (or perhaps since). Of
464 periodicals published in Iran between 1941 and 1947, only 41 had been
in existence at the time of the invasion. These periodicals were published in
eight languages: 433 in Persian, 10 in Turkish, 7 in Polish, 5 in Armenian, 3
in Kurdish, 3 in French, 2 in English, and 1 in Russian. The majority served
as mouthpieces of various political factions, providing less information than
the representation of sectarian views in the marketplace of ideas. Eighteen of
the periodicals were published by foreign occupying powers: seven Polish, six
Soviet, four British, and one American (McFarland 1981:158). During this pe
riod, Baba Shamal, a satirical periodical, frequently published cartoonsfull
page on the cover and smaller caricatures, stories, and jokes insidein which
it used popular films and actors, such as King Kong and the Marx Brothers,
to critique anything from domestic and foreign politicians to the unhygienic
conditions in Iranian movie houses.
2
i nt e r nat i o n a l ha g g li n g
The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union published periodicals
both in their national languages and in Iranian languages as part of their
public diplomacy strategy to influence Iran (Poland, a fourth Allied power,
published only in Polish). Starting in February 1946 the Iran-America Rela
tions Society (also known as the Iran-America Society) began publishing an
illustrated bilingual monthly magazine in Persian, Majallehye Iran va Amrika
(Iran and the U.S.A.).1 In the first year, it carried advertisements for Iranian
film companies, such as Caravan Film Corporation, and for American media
conglomerates, such as the Radio Corporation of America. The latter adver
tised the arrival of the latest radio receivers, phonographs, musical recordings,
film projectors, television sets, and household appliances, giving evidence of
American commerce with Iran and the rise of Iranian interest in film and en
tertainment fields. The British legation in Tehran published one periodical in
English, Tehran Daily News, and three in Persian. The Soviets were the most
active, publishing one periodical in Russian and four in Persian. Like the
Iran-America Relations Society, the Iran and Soviet Cultural Relations Soci
ety in Tehran published a monthly magazine, Payame No (New Message) (later
Payame Novin), which unlike the American monthly was a literary journal
run by communist and leftist intellectuals, including Karim Keshavarz and
Bozorg Alavi (Alavi 1997:26162). Taqi Arani edited the short-lived but influ
ential leftist literary and political journal Doniya (World), only twelve issues
of which appeared between 1934 and 1935. It covered cinema under two main
categories, as an industry (a modern medium of communication and trans
portation, along with radio, photography, and airplanes) and as an art form (a
modern medium of materialist expression, along with theater, art, music, lit
erature, and translation) (Momeni 2005/1384:16).
The Allied powers interjection into the Iranian public sphere extended to
radio broadcasting, as did the influence of Iranian ethnic groups, the airing
of whose languages had been discouraged under Reza Shah in the name of
modern nationalism. Tehran Radios broadcast schedule for 1941, for exam
ple, shows that nightly news programs of fifteen to thirty minutes in Persian,
Russian, Turkish, Arabic, and English dominated (the only other programs
aired every night were the national anthem, Iranian and Western music, and
a hygiene program). By 1944, the schedule of foreign-language newscasts had
grown to include news in French, while other foreign programs had also been
added, including an Indian army program, the Voice of England program, a So
viet program, and a dance music program (McFarland 1981:517). The worlds
leading broadcasting organization, the bbc, competed with a fledgling Ameri
can Forces Radio Network (Morley 2001).
i nter natio nal haggling
The Allies cultural arms competed to woo Iran into their particular
spheres not only by publishing periodicals and broadcasting radio news but
also by controlling what Iranians saw on movie screens. Their commercial
film distributors in Iran, some of whom also ran commercial movie houses,
contended with each other. Initially, the United States and the United King
dom collaborated in preparing and screening newsreels, but in the wars after
math this collaboration turned into intense competition. That cooperation on
cinematic matters during the war turned into confrontation in its aftermath
was emblematic. The British felt that screening their films abroad benefited
them ideologically, because movies projected Britain to the world, as well as
economically, because trade follows the film (Jarvie 1992:110). The British
and the Americans also competed against the Soviet Union, increasingly so
during the Cold War.
The public screening of educational, propaganda, and entertainment mov
ies was one arena in which Cold War ideological struggles played out most vis
ibly. The earliest significant instance of this four-way power struggle involv
ing Americans, Britons, Soviets, and Iranians occurred with the formation of
a government-controlled film circuit for showing nontheatrical movies to Ira
nians nationwide (documentaries and short films). Iran and the United States
were most involved in this endeavor.
American Involvement: The National Educational

Film Circuit and Nilla Cram Cook (19101982)
In 1945, the Iranian government established the National Educational Film
Circuit (nefc) as a nationwide, nontheatrical film exhibition circuit for edu
cational movies. Although it was short lived, the complex form that it took
and the diverse national, political, diplomatic, military, and commercial play
ers, film types, and film formats (16mm and 35mm) involved in this attempt
at controlling what Iranians saw on the screen, makes a detailed examina
tion of the nefc worthwhile as a case study of complex negotiations over pub
lic diplomacy and national identity involving cinema. Iranian ministries and
armed forces cooperated with the U.S. embassy, particularly its press attach
in Tehran, to run the nefc. Three of the committees eight members came
from the Ministry of Education, who scheduled films for schools in Tehran.
Three others came from the Ministry of the Interiors Department of Theaters
(Edarehye Namayeshat). One of these was an American woman, Nilla Cram
Cook, who headed the nefc. The other two members from the Ministry of
4
the Interior were the legal advisor and lieutenant Mehdi Golsorkhi, the head
of the Iranian armys film unit, who played an instrumental role in the oper
ation of both the film circuit and in establishing the Artesh (Armed Forces)
Film Studio. The remaining two nefc committee members were university
professors responsible for the Persian-language film scripts and commentar
ies that were delivered by live narrators during the screenings.2 The U.S. em
bassy in Tehran supplied all the noncommercial, nontheatrical films that the
nefc showed. By a decree from the Iranian cabinet, the Ministry of the Interi
ors Department of Theaters and the Ministry of Education shared the charge
of censoring films and plays.3 The involvement of the ministries for internal
security and public education in film censorship points to the role of propa
ganda and education in Iranian cinema.
The placement of Cook at the head of the Department of Theaters and of
the nefc meant that an American diplomat was in charge of censoring not
only all the performing arts but also all nontheatrical and educational films
in the country. Cook thus emerged as the censorship czar of the performing
arts. Her involvement with the Iranian government had started in 1943, when
the Ministry of the Interior hired her to run the Department of Theaters and
a dance studio called the National Opera and Ballet (Cook 1949:406).4 A bo
hemian poet, dancer, and dramatist whose father, George Cram Cook, was a
founder of the Provincetown Players in Massachusetts, Cook, like many Ira
nian film pioneers, was a complicated chameleon. She loved Eastern mysti
cism, Persian arts and poetry, and Indian mythology, religion, and culture,
and she had experimented with different lifestyles (figure 1). She had re
claimed Hinduism, adopting the name Nagini, and spent some months in
Mahatma Gandhis ashram, a controversial experience she wrote about mov
ingly in My Road to India (1939). She was a mysterious, multilingual hybrid
who had lived in Greece, India, and Iran and who knew English, modern
Greek, Italian, Turkish, Sanskrit, Hindi, and Persian. She converted to Islam,
spent twelve years translating the Quran, and wrote an unpublished novel
set in Iran. She disappeared in the 1950s only to resurface in 1982, when
her death was announced in Austria (she had been living in Aspang near Vi
enna).5 While she was an official of the Iranian government, who signed all
the exhibition licenses for movies and theater performances in the country,
she was also a U.S. diplomat, who bore the title of assistant to the press at
tach of the U.S. embassy and who gave regular reports to the U.S. embassy
about nefc operations, some of which I have used in writing this section.6
Newspapers in the United States gave accounts of her exploits in Iran. The Des
Moines Register reported on her efforts as the director of state theaters and
1 Nilla Cram Cook, Irans first

censorship czar for cinema and
the performing arts after the
Second World War. Still courtesy of
M. Eleanor Fitzgerald (18771955)
Papers, 19151974, Manuscript
Collection 13, Archives, University
of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
censor of all theatrical and movie productions sent to Iran to help transform
it into a modern, independent state.7
The full reasons for appointing an American to this sensitive national and
political position are unknown. Some Iranians, such as the film historian Ja
mal Omid, claim that the young Shahs government was too weak and naive
to resist Allied pressure. The implication here is that the Americans imposed
Cook on the Iranians. However, it may also have been Iranian cleverness to
agree to Cooks appointment to lure the United States into Iran as part of the
countrys strategy of equilibrium, which allowed it to safeguard itself against
the two traditional meddling powers, the United Kingdom and the Soviet
Union.
Other reasons may also have been involved, ones that require contextuali
zation. Some time after the occupation of Iran, on 29 January 1942, the Brit
ish, Soviet, and Iranian governments signed the tripartite Treaty of Alliance
governing their relationships and conduct in Iran during wartime, promising
to evacuate the country six months after the termination of hostilities. Article
III 2b of the treaty allowed the Allies to commandeer all the means of com
munication throughout Iran, including railways, roads, rivers, aerodromes,
6
ports, pipe lines and telephone, telegraph and wireless installations, while
Article III 2d gave them such measures of censorship control as they may
require for all the means of communication specified above. Granting the
occupying foreign powers such total control of the countrys means of trans
portation and communication, while supposedly respecting its territorial in
tegrity, sovereignty, and political independence, was an unprecedented
privilege in modern times (Shamim 1971:1516). Although the list of Iranian
media that the Allies were to commandeer did not include film, it likely was a
silent partner in the agreement (note that radio was named). Soon, the Ameri
cans became the chief supplier of lend-lease war equipment and material to
the Soviet Union through the Iranian transportation system, particularly the
railway. It is probable that Cook was appointed as the czar of film and theater
censorship in Iran to satisfy the Treaty of Alliances provisions.
In the first half of the twentieth century a tradition of appointing foreign
ers as heads of sensitive government departments in Iran had been estab
lished as a means of creating, streamlining, and modernizing government
bureaucracies. In the 1900s, for example, the Belgian Joseph Naus served as
the countrys director of general customs, and the Russian colonel Vladimir
Liakhov was head of the Iranian Cossack Brigade; in the 1910s, the American
Morgan Shuster reorganized the countrys tax administration, the British na
tionals Hart and Henson were, respectively, the Ministry of Finance inspector
and the director of customs, the Frenchman Moultire served as the director
of the postal service, and the Swedish Colonel Jahrmalssen created the gen
darmerie force; and in the 1920s, the American financier Arthur Millspaugh
was the treasurer general of Iran. Some of these people, as well as others not
named here, served admirably in modernizing the administrative structures
of the country, and some of them served the politics of their own countries, of
other powers, or of their own and became pawns in political rivalries of vari
ous kinds. They formed what following Abdollah Mostofi we may call a se
cret republic of foreigners within Iran (1997:1036). In the context of this long
list of foreign appointees, Cooks hiring as the head of film censorship does
not appear as such an anomaly. Her appointment merely fortified this foreign
republic that worked both to modernize and Westernize Iranone of the ear
liest attempts at Western public diplomacy in Iran.
Still, the appointment of a foreigner to such a high and sensitive position
did create rancor. Cook claimed that the minister of the interior had left the
actual censorship of the cinema and the theater entirely up to me. However,
she had to expend much time and energy to fight off the intrigues orga
nized against her by local commercial exhibitors whose movies she censored.
For example, in 1945 on order of the minister of the interior, she banned the
screening of Hollywood gangster movies, a lucrative genre. One reason was
to appease the Soviets. Another was that a study by the interior minister, a
jurist and a former prosecuting attorney, had turned up evidence that gang
ster movies had inspired juvenile delinquency in Iran. Cook contended that
in places where Iranian taste was not yet corrupted by Hollywood movies,
documentaries were greeted with more enthusiasm than gangster movies. 8
To combat negative influences, the minister of the interior ordered Cook to re
view all motion picture licenses that the police had issued. He also instructed
her to draft new regulations that would stiffen the punishment for the exhibi
tors of movies and shows that were subversive to public morality by subject
ing them to one year mandatory imprisonment. Previous regulations had al
lowed exhibitors convicted of such practices to get out of a three-month jail
term by paying a fine (Cook 1949:4089).
Harsher regulations and punishments, as well as the banning of popu
lar movies and genres, may have been the real causes of exhibitors dissatis
faction. If these were the reasons, they were not publicized, but others were:
the previous censor in a petition to the interior minister questioned the ca
pabilities of Cook, a female foreigner, to deal with the subtleties of the Per
sian language and to properly conduct movie-house inspections when she
was spending her evenings rehearsing ballets (Cook 1949:40911). Years
later Omid claimed that Cooks sympathies were limited to safeguarding
the Allies interests in Iran, and she paid no attention to, or had little knowl
edge of, the traditions and cultural values of Iranian society (1995/1374:872).
However, Cook was not as ignorant of Iranian history, culture, and art as
critics claimed. She also headed the National Opera and Ballet, for whose
performances she borrowed not only from Western theater but also from Ira
nian performing arts traditions, including mythology, poetry, tribal dances,
and zurkhaneh (house of strength) performances, which she had studied. In
search of discovering what she called a Persian lyric stage, she also experi
mented with choruses, chants, processions, and war dances, whose postures,
attire, makeup, hairstyle, movements, and lyrics she borrowed from sculp
tured friezes of Persepolis, images on the coins recovered from the ruins of
Susa, and classical Persian poetry (Cook 1949:41219). Nesta Ramazani, who
danced in Cooks company, testifies in her memoirs to Cooks deep love for
Persian poetry and performance arts and to the way it inspired her ballet ideas
and choreography (2002:164236). In describing her efforts at creating and
performing Iranian ballets for foreign audiences abroad, Cooks identification
with Persian culture comes through, as she includes herself in phrases such
8
as It is essential, if we would be truly Iranian, to satirize ourselves on the

forestage. Her mining of ancient Persian arts traditions, based on the belief
that you must first find yourself, countered what most Iranian dramatists
and modernists, who looked mainly to the West for inspiration, were doing
with the exception of Abdolhosain Sepanta.
Some of the protests against Cook may have been aimed at the Ministry
of the Interior and at the police, which the critics could not attack directly for
fear of reprisal. Others criticized her mostly because they wanted the line of
authority in censorship changed. For example, the pro-Hollywood and pro-
Allies film magazine Holivud (Hollywood) wanted Cook ousted, suggesting
that censorship be transferred from the Ministry of the Interior to the Minis
try of Education (Omid 1995/1374:873).
But controversy worked to undermine Cooks authority to the point that
police and film exhibitors often reached their own, separate understandings
of film censorship, bypassing her operations. Film exhibition thus proved im
provisational, echoing the chaos and spontaneity of cinemas mode of pro
duction and narratives. Such chaos had some counterhegemonic effects, as
filmmakers and entertainers took advantage of Cooks situation to criticize
the state. The noted actor Ezatollah Entezami, for example, claims that he
and others slipped oppositional material past her desk because of her limited
knowledge of Persian (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:888).9 Yet what Iranians as
cribed to their own cleverness and to Cooks naivet was, according to Cook,
an administrative policy at the time, one meant to court left-w ing approval
by a display of liberalism. As a result, comic forestage songwriters and skit
performers such as Entezami were given free reign to criticize society, spar
ing neither municipality, nor courts, nor clergy, as long as no names were
used (Cook 1949:410). At any rate, as Ramazani notes, Under the protection
of the minister of the interior, she was able to fight off the intrigues organized
against her by commercial and political interests and to lighten considerably
the heavy hand of censorship. Numerous satires appeared in the theaters at
this time (2002:7).
In 1946 Cook finally stepped down, or was forced to step down, from both
her posts as the censorship czar and as the director of the ballet company.
Soon, however, she founded the Studio for the Revival of the Classical Arts
of Iran, which received funding in 1947 from the Department of Propaganda
and Radio to take her Ballet of Azarbaijan on a successful tour of Turkey,
Greece, Italy, and the Arab countries.10
Another key figure in nefc operations was Lieutenant Golsorkhi who,
while maintaining his position as the head of the Iranian army film unit,
projected nefc films and maintained the film equipment, on loan from the
U.S. embassy. The U.S. press attach praised his technical ingenuity and
resourcefulness.11 In May 1945, the Iranian army seemed reluctant to con
tinue the cooperation of Golsorkhi with the nefc. The U.S. embassy in Teh
ran feigned an interest in working with the armys rival, the gendarmerie,
a ruse that quickly changed the armys attitude and made it place resources
at Golsorkhis disposal. His screenings became a regular feature of the Officers Club, one of the finest buildings in Tehran and the center of much of its
social life.12 They were so popular that the army established Artesh (Armed
Forces) Cinema on the club grounds, whose inauguration in 1945 was cele
brated with the Shah in attendance.
The nefc operation primarily involved exhibiting 16mm educational films
imported from the United States to Iranians in the Officers Club, in the army
and gendarmerie barracks, in city schools and clubs, and in villages around
Tehran. Golsorkhi carried the 16mm film projectors, which the U.S. embassy
owned, in an old weapons carrier, modified to hold a large generator. Yet this
equipment proved insufficient for the nefcs expanding operations, so the
new American press attach, T. Cuyler Young, requested more 16mm sound
projectors with microphones and more vehicles to meet the film screening
needs of Isfahan, Fars, Hamadan, Kermanshah, and Kurdistan (the U.S. Per
sian Gulf Command Special Services Division supplied some of the equip
ment).13 Five Iranian operators in training would man the additional projec
tors and vehicles. He also requested a 35mm projector with which the film
circuit could show entertaining shorts made in Hollywood. In what was a
precursor to the usis (United States Information Service) film-screening pro
gram via mobile film units of the 1950s, these projectors were transported in
a jeep and a trailer owned by the Iranian army and in a 1942 Chevrolet fur
nished by the United States Office of War Information. Iranian technicians
operated these makeshift mobile units and showed films not only in Tehran
barracks but also in villages. Many of these screenings took place outdoors,
where a narrator with a microphone translated and commented.
The U.S. embassy supplied the nefc from its own film library in Tehran,
which included the erpi (Western Electrical Research Products Inc.) Class
room Films.14 These were screened in schools, in adult education classes, and
in Iran-A merica Relations Society classes along with live commentaries read
from scripts. By 1946, its third year of operation, the society had screened
sixty films at fourteen meetings on subjects of science, education, health, ag
riculture, industry, and entertainment and had offered thirty-three lectures
in English and Persian on a variety of topics (Saleh 1946/1325:1).15 No edu
10
cational films dubbed into Persian were available on a regular basis at this
time and Young, who would later become a professor at Princeton University,
did not consider this a problem, since Iranians regard the documentaries in
English as quite harmless from a propaganda point of view. Indeed, if they
had been dubbed into Persian they might have come under harsher scrutiny.16
The embassys film library also contained many instructional films, such as
Fight Syphilis, Livestock and Mankind, People of the Ozarks, Wise Use of Land
Pays, The Farmers Wife, and Teen Aged Farm Hand, which the press attach
felt were not of sufficient interest to show. A commercial film importer, Iran
Cinema, supplied more entertaining fare.
Managed by two businessmen, Arnold Jacobson, a Jew, and Ali Vakili, a
Muslim, Iran Cinema was the largest cinema chain in the country. It had the
exclusive rights to import Paramount and mgm movies and offered to put
at the disposal of the Department of Theaters some two hundred theatrical
shorts. Among these were the mgm travelogue series The Voice of the Globe,
about the forty-eight contiguous states, which the U.S. press attach thought
suitable for screening at functions organized by both the Iran-America Re
lations Society and the Public Opinion Guidance Organization (pogo). The
screening of these theatrical shorts had given the society a new lease on life,
so there was reason to believe that entertainment movies could function simi
larly in other venues. Cook herself owned the rights to fifty-t wo Disney mov
ies, which she wanted to show via the nefc.
Iran Cinema made another novel and grandiose proposal, this time to cre
ate a network of at least three hundred 16mm little cinemas in towns and
villages that up to then had never seen movies. With its network of theatri
cal cinemas in the country, its exclusive rights to distribute mgm movies, and
its contracts with other film companies, Iran Cinema was in a good position
to make this proposal, which according to Cook would have been a veritable
landslide for American film interests.17 Cook actively championed Iran Cin
emas proposal in American diplomatic, military, and commercial circles. In
a letter to the U.S. press attach in Tehran, for example, she noted that Jacob
son was ready to purchase surplus 16mm projectors of the U.S. army at full
value to equip his proposed little cinemas, that he had a proven track record as
a manager of a successful chain of theaters, and that he had proved he cared
for nothing but American films. His quid pro quo in this proposal was that if
the Americans helped him equip and supply his little theaters with commer
cial movies on 16mm format, he would establish a regular circuit of American
documentaries in those theaters.18
In addition to a desire for more diverse programming, there were reasons
11
for suggesting that 35mm Hollywood movies be added. Films could subtly in
culcate an American lifestyle and values. The little cinemas could widen the
reach and deepen the impact of these movies among the public at large.
British Involvement: The British Council

and the Anglo-Persian Institute
Britain established the Empire Marketing Board (emb) in 1926 to create a
sense of unity throughout the empire and to revive imperial trade in vari
ous commodities in the colonies through propaganda including posters, pam
phlets, and exhibitions. The president of emb, Sir Stephen Tallents, published
The Projection of England, which provided the ideological underpinning for
this effort. In the book he argued that if we are to play our part in the new
world order, we need to master every means and every art by which we can
communicate with other peoples. The need is especially urgent between our
selves and the other parts of the Empire. We are experimenting together in a
novel political organization, in which are joined together peoples most widely
separated from each other in space and character (Tallents 1932:18). Soon,
John Grierson set up the emb Film Unit to make documentary films. This
unit grew from a staff of two in 1930 to thirty within three years and was later
renamed the General Post Office (gpo) Film Unit when the parent institu
tion, emb, ceased operations and transferred its function to the gpo. By the
start of the Second World War, the British documentary movement, through
these government film units and other commercial and industrial producers,
had created a sizeable trove of around three hundred films (Barsam 1992:77).
Some would find their way to Iran during the war years and after.
One conduit for moving these films was the British Council (bc), created
in 1934 and chartered in 1940. The institution was set up as an independent
body, but because it was to serve the aims of the British Empire, the govern
ment served as its primary funder and end user. Its overall aim was (and con
tinues to be) to promote a wider knowledge and appreciation of Great Britain
in the world by means of cultural, educational, and technical cooperationan
arm of the British public diplomacy. The British Council created the Anglo-
Persian Institute (api), with branches in several cities, including Tehran, Shi
raz, and Isfahan. In 1944, the institutes director, J. Sanderson, in a public
speech in Shiraz stated the establishments goals as contributing to world
peace by demonstrating to Iranians by means of English language, literature,
film, lecture, music, drama, and the other arts just what England is like and
12
what she stands for.19 Wherever Britain had consulates and api branches,
the bc taught English language classes and set up reading rooms, which car
ried local and British newspapers, books, and other information. These activ
ities were augmented by the screening of British films at bc, api, and other
sites with twenty-five mobile film vans, which in the 1940s traveled to the
far reaches of the country.20 The British mobile film units had a long history
in Iran, apparently dating back to 1908, when one unit was reported to have
screened films in Abadan (Javdani 2002/1381:18), perhaps to the future em
ployees of the emerging Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. According to Moham
mad Ali Issari, the British Councils film officer, the mobile unit program be
gan small, with four used units obtained from the British operations in Iraq
(Naficy 1982a).
These British institutions in Iran, run by British diplomats, Foreign Office
personnel, and their staff, were modeled on lighthouses, which were to cast
the light of Western enlightenment on largely illiterate natives.21 Iranian film
exhibitors with connections to the Soviet Union also tapped into this idea,
naming many movie houses Mayak, the Russian term for lighthouse bea
con (later these theaters were called by their Persian name, Didehban).
In Tehran, starting in 1941, British films were primarily screened at the bc
headquarters in the Victory House on Ferdowsi Avenue, where British diplo
mats hosted dignitaries and members of the press. An indication of both the
fluidity and the competitiveness of Allied relations with each other and with
Iranian intellectuals is provided by Bozorg Alavi, who after his release from
internment under Reza Shah for being a communist, worked at the British
Victory House, under L. P. Elwell-Sutton, until the end of the Second World
War, when he joined the Iran-Soviet Cultural Relations Society. The Shahs
regime derisively dubbed him and others as British Communists. Alavi was
in charge of receiving war news from British sources, editing it, and deliver
ing it to Radio Tehran for broadcast on the Allied Radio (Radio Mottafeqin)
(Alavi 1997:24244). The British also screened newsreels and documentary
films, some very pro-Shah, at commercial cinemas, accompanied by Persian
narration. Finally, they had a hand in establishing the first newsreel cinema
in Tehran in 1943, the 352-seat Akhbar (News) Cinema, managed by Jacob
son. They also helped create the film magazine Holivud, edited by the bc em
ployee Alireza Amirmoez. They also made Persian-language news magazines
and magazines for women and children and broadcast radio programs, which
matched those of the Soviets in volume.
Among the feature documentaries was Roy Boultings Desert Victory
(1943), a lucid and breath-taking exposition (Barnouw 1993:147) of the El
13
Alamein battle in North Africa in which the Allied forces, headed by the Brit
ish field marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, defeated the German forces of
Erwin Rommel. The intimate coverage of the fighting soldiers in this fero
cious battle elicited warm audience responses in Tabriz, Urumieh, Maragheh,
and other northeastern cities and did much to bolster British prestige (Sadr
2003/1381:80). Akhbar Cinema typically screened five British newsreels a
week with a Persian soundtrack, such as War Pictorial and British Movietone,
received from the British embassy in Cairo. These films were given press
screenings; reviews increased audiences, who turned to the films as reliable
sources of war news. The cinema also screened The Royal Family of Persia,
made by British filmmakers, which was heavily publicized. Holivud featured
a still from the film on its cover and devoted five pages to it. By now, rivalry
between the former allies was seeping into the realm of cinema: The Royal
Family of Persia was made only eight months after Iran, a Soviet film that had
featured the Allied lend-lease war efforts as well as the Shah and his family,
including queen Fawziah (Tahaminejad 2004a:27, 32).
Reports from British authorities in various cities give a good sense of the
movies Iranians saw and of their reactions in 1945. The vice-consul in Tabriz
reported that Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy movies were popular
in Azarbaijan. He noted a consistent demand for agricultural and medical
documentaries, citing among successful examples Pare Lorenzs Power and
the Land (1940) and the newsreel of the Potsdam Conference. The vice-consul
in Hamadan urged that educational documentaries with subjects close to ru
ral life be screened for the adult population instead of news films of national
leaders who are almost like fairies to the provincial, and their constant show
ing makes films in general seem unreal. After requesting that his mobile
film unit be repaired, the consul in Kermanshah reported that films on ag
ricultural, technical, medical, and textile themes were in particular demand.
Likewise, the consul in Ahvaz, after reporting that citizens were weary of
war films, suggested that technical and medical films be shown. Apparently,
the film Surgery of Chest Diseases was in high demand in Ahvaz. On the other
hand, the consul in Khorramshahr considered that educated people were too
few in the city to justify showing any films other than entertainment movies.22
In cities where the Anglo-Persian Institute operated, film screenings gen
erally took place in small theaters on the premises. To feed both the mobile
and the stationary film circuits, the British Council imported a substantial
number of movies. Young, the U.S. press attach, who kept tabs on the British
imports, reported that in one week in June 1945, Victory House had acquired
thirty-six films from Britain for its documentary circuit, a typical weeks ac
14
quisition.23 The apis film screenings aimed to cover all age groups and both
sexes. In the Iranian year that fell on 194647, the api in Tehran screened
forty-seven film shows, with each show consisting of one to three films. It
screened films on every Saturday, inside during the winter and outdoors in
the garden or on the rooftop in the summer, with an average attendance of
two hundred people. In summer, films for schoolchildren screened Friday
mornings (the Iranian weekend), with the house always full three quarters
of an hour before the program began. The institutes Ladies Section, with
293 members, held regular tea parties, talks, musical recitals, and film shows
during the year for women members only. Finally, in addition to these regular
programs, the api held many specialized film screenings for professional au
diences throughout the year.24 Medical films such as Behind the Doctor (about
the diagnosis of diphtheria) were screened by the api branch in Isfahan to
forty physicians on the inaugural meeting of the Isfahan Medical Associa
tion.25 Most of the films were accompanied by explanatory talks delivered by
live narrators in the dilmaj tradition. The screenings were also often followed
by question-and-answer sessions with audiences.26
For the Iranian year that coincided with 194748, the api in Tehran held
regular film and filmstrip screenings in its restaurant every Tuesday eve
ning accompanied by talks by well-known British scholars.27 The Ladies Sec
tion saw two documentary films on water supply.28 Childrens Holiday Film
Shows were held on Saturday mornings, when more than 250 specially-
selected boys and girls with the average age of fifteen watched the following
program on each occasion: one elementary biological film, one sports film,
one life in Britain film, one scientific film, and one Mickey Mouse movie. In
the summer of 1947, Film Shows in the Garden were held once a week for
members and guests. The institute was creative in enriching and enlivening
its educational and documentary fare with specially invited audiences or with
invited guests and demonstrations. For example, in one week police films
were shown to the Iranian chief of police and his entourage.29 In another
week, the api screened The Great Game, on soccer, to a specially-invited au
dience of well-known Tehran footballers, preceded by a half-hour talk on
British soccer, translated into Persian. In April 1947, two sports films were
shown; the first, on boxing, had a live demonstration by the welterweight and
heavyweight boxing champions of Tehran who showed some of their tech
niques and gave a couple of exhibition rounds. The second film, on fencing,
had a live demonstration by a Miss Tomblin on the techniques of the foil and
saber.30
Although British Council film officers programmed the films (under J. H.
15
Grimess supervision) and organized the screening events in each location

by providing speakers, guests, translators, and live film narrators, the officers of the Foreign Office Embassy Information Department operated the mo
bile vans and film projectors until 1950, when the bc absorbed the Informa
tion Departments film unit. Until then, this linkage with the political arm
of the embassy further tainted the chartered independence of the bc, which
was already under question because the British government funded it and be
cause it enlisted some of the British Consuls employees to act as its agents.
The British film endeavor in Iran was more serious in tone, more education
ally oriented, and more diverse, and its nationwide reach was wider than the
American or Soviet efforts. The British also exhibited much creativity in film
presentation and audience preparation, and they took care to document their
presentations and audience reactions, as film officers had to fill out film evalu
ation forms (the above accounts were based on these evaluation reports). Also,
unlike the official Soviet film efforts and the official American film effort
through the usia, which did not survive the 1940s and the 1960s, respec
tively, the British Councils film program continued to evolve and to serve Ira
nians until the revolution of 197879.
The Soviet Unions Involvement: voks and Sovkino

Soviet influence through cinema began as early as 1917, with the formation of
the Farhang Club in Rasht, an offshoot of Tehrans Farhang Scientific Com
pany. This was in addition to all the exchange relations that existed between
Russia and Iran, through Russian nationals and Iranian Russians who im
ported films and film equipment to Iran, established movie houses, and had
exhibited movies in the country since the beginning of cinema. Founded by
Hosain Jowdat and led by the secretary of the Russian consulate, Karim Ke
shavarz, the Farhang Club received a monthly subsidy of forty tomans from
the Russian legation. The club had a theater, a reading room, and a cinema,
whose proceeds were used for welfare purposes. Iranian plays, such as Hasan
Moqaddams Jafar Khan Is Back from Europe, as well as those by European au
thors such as Molire, Racine, Victor Hugo, and Ruy Blas were performed
there. The Farhang Club also had a womens offshoot, which staged plays for
women whose performers were also, and unusually, women, such as Fatemeh
Nashuri, Parirokh Vahdat, and Banu Khojastegi (Floor 2005:24546). The
club lasted until 1931, but it is not known what movies it screened. In 1941
the Soviet occupation authorities in Gilan Province sent a Caucasian troupe
16
to the city of Rasht, where Soraya Qajar, the manager of the Russian depart
ment store, rented the City Hall auditorium for plays and movies, the latter
called East Cinema (279).
Soviet cultural inroads were formalized after the Allied occupation. In the
1940s, the Soviet Union maintained branches of its worldwide All-Union So
ciety for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (voks; Vsesoiuznoe Ob
shchestvo Kulturnoi Sviazi s Zagranitsei) in some sixty countries. In Iran it
had one of the most extensive programs, with branches in key strategic cities:
Tehran, Mashhad, Tabriz, Isfahan, Bandar Pahlavi, Kermanshah, and Ahvaz.
Founded in 1925, voks was an arm of the Soviet public diplomacy, charged
with furthering the exchange of ideas and visits between the ussr and the
capitalist countries (F. F. 1954). In 1941 the Tabriz branch of voks organized
a theatrical troupe of Iranians and Russians to perform plays, as did the Azari
autonomous republic government (Ferqehye Demokrat), which staged plays in
Azari and broadcast them on the radio (Floor 2005:278).
voks organized its activities under various committees. Typical was the
Cinema Committee, formed in 1944, to which some sixty directors, screen
writers, and actors belonged. This committee was concerned with dissemi
nation of information abroad about Soviet films, exchange of ideas and expe
rience with foreign film organizations, and providing of material assistance
to admirers of the Soviet cinema (Nemzer 1949:273). According to a report
by the Central Intelligence Agency, by 1948 the Soviet Union was exhibiting
propaganda films and feature movies throughout Iran by means of its Teh
ran embassy, thirteen regional consulates, and several cultural organizations.
Only the organizations concerned with films and film screenings as part of
the countrys public diplomacy are discussed here.
In Tehran, voks opened the House of Culture (Khaneh Farhang) in Jan
uary 1945, headed by Grigori Galishian and his assistant Sobhan Qaliov.
Within a year the staff grew to twenty. Like the Iranian governments Public
Opinion Guidance Organization (pogo), voks had sections: science, medi
cine, sports, music, fine arts, theater, films, rural reconstruction, and indus
trial arts. These promoted different aspects of Soviet society. Each was super
vised by a Soviet national, and vokss director in Iran was a member of the
board of the Iran-Soviet Cultural Relations Society, which was also a venue
for Soviet film in Mashhad, Isfahan, Rasht, Tabriz, and Rezaiyeh (Urumi
yeh). The first director of Persian-language talkies, Sepanta, served as the
societys secretary in Isfahan. The secretary to the Mashhad branch was the
writer Shahid Nurai. The societys Tabriz branch, established in August 1944,
housed several halls for lectures and movie screenings. The fine arts commit
17
tee incorporated many of the existing theatrical troupes to create a new per
forming arts venue called the Drama and Opera Performers Society, housed
in the House of Culture (Haiate Honarpishegane Deram va Opret) (Ranjbar
Fakhri 2004/1383:489).31 While the pogo aimed to centralize the Pahlavi stat
ist ideology of syncretic Westernization, the Iran-Soviet Cultural Relations
Societys purpose was to inculcate a statist socialist ideology. Generally, lec
tures were held twice a week in two languages (apparently Persian and Az
ari), as well as concerts, art exhibitions (including photographs of the Soviet
Union), and movie screenings. The Soviet society tapped into Azari nation
alism and autonomy, as it recognized Azari as a literary language, unlike the
Iranian government, which stifled it, and it provided audio recordings, radio
broadcasts, folksongs, poetry readings, and movies in European and Azari
languages. These diverse offerings were apparently highly successful because
they were among the rare sources of entertainment and enlightenment in the
city, available free of charge, which invited local talents to participate and to
shine (Abdollahzadeh 1984/1363:5).
A film titled Soviet Propaganda FilmIran, Tabriz 194546, posted on You
Tube, documents many of the accomplishments of the Iran-Soviet Cultural
Relations Society in the Azari autonomous republic.32 Its Azari voice-over ex
tols Azari nationalism and the educational and industrial progress achieved
under the leadership of Jafar Pishehvari, who is shown in various social func
tions. The voice-over justifies the continued Soviet occupation of Iran to pro
tect Iran from foreigners. The film shows the excitement about and contribu
tions of the population to building roads, schools, electrification, textile and
shoe factories, and hospitals. Dancing, poetry, theater, and other forms of cul
ture are booming, and for the first time students are taught in their native Az
ari language. A teacher asks a female student to name three beautiful words
that begin with the letter alif (a). Answer: ana (mother), Azarbaijan, and azadi
(freedom). Many other short news films about Azari nationalism and the in
dependence movement are now posted on YouTube.
The majority of the Iran-Soviet Cultural Relations Societys board of direc
tors in Tehran between 1945 and 1947 were either members of the Commu
nist (Tudeh) Party or were pro-Soviet sympathizers and intellectuals, such as
Said Naficy, Alavi, and Keshavarz.33 However, prominent cosmopolitan fig
ures like Naficy were members of both the Iran-Soviet Cultural Relations So
ciety and the Iran-America Relations Society. The Iran-Soviet Cultural Re
lations Society in 1944 had ambitious goals for film: the dissemination of
Soviet educational films; the making of documentaries about Iranian arts,
18
scenery, and social life to publicize the countrys greatness abroad; facilitat
ing the insertion into Soviet movies of historical and literary items related to
Iran; the training of Iranian film actors; and the creation of the foundations
for a film industry in Iran (Tahaminejad 2004a:35).
The engine of the Soviet Unions film effort in Iran was Sovkino, the giant
film distribution company, with representatives in Tehran and Tabriz, which
imported Soviet films and distributed them throughout the country. The com
pany also supplied projectionists and equipment for film screenings that voks
and the Iran-Soviet Cultural Relations Society organized.34 Mobile film units
also operated in zones occupied by Soviet forces in the northeast. Sovkino op
erated at least one commercial theater in Tehran, Setareh (Star) Cinema, and
one in Rasht, Homay Cinema. A cia report notes that in addition to Mayak
Cinema, in which the Soviet embassy had a 25 percent share, three to four
other commercial movie houses in Tehran were Soviet controlled, and all
screened Soviet movies.35
Soviet films were screened regularly in the commercial cinemas of Teh
ran and in those of large provincial cities (Mashhad, Ahvaz, Isfahan) and of
small towns (Borujerd). In February of 1942 (Esfand 1321), one such movie
house in the capital city, Tehran Cinema, showed Soviet newsreels to which
the Soviet ambassador and the Soviet military attach in Iran invited domestic
and foreign diplomats and dignitaries. A review in the Siasat (Politics) news
paper, the official Tudeh Party organ, reported that the scenes of the defense
of Moscow against the Nazis were so moving that they affected the heart of
every spectator. When the Soviets finally took back their cities from the en
emy, the sound of spectator applause echoed throughout the hall (quoted in
Tahaminejad 2004a:30). In April 1943, Iran Cinema showed a documentary
about Iran, which the Soviet Unions press attach in Tehran had organized,
an event that was attended by the prime minister, the leader of the parlia
ment, the court minister, and other dignitaries and members of the press. Af
ter official speeches in Russian and Persian and the screening of a short film
about the battle of Stalingrad (perhaps the same one as that shown at Tehran
Cinema), the film about Iran was shown. Directed by Iosif Poselski, the film,
which Ettelaat Haftegi (Weekly Information) called Manazere Iran (Views of
Iran, 1941) had been shot during the Second World War, and it showed not
only the countrys natural scenery but also its historical monuments, its ar
tistic achievements, and scenes from modern cities (Tehran, Mashhad, Shi
raz, Isfahan) with their new educational, cultural, sports, and public health
centers and modern avenues and palaces, including those of the Shah and
19
his family. The film bore a soundtrack containing Persian music, Persian-
language narration, and poems by Ferdowsi, Hafez, and Sadi. Apparently, the
Soviets had presented a print of the film to the Shah, who had put it at the dis
posal of Iran Cinema, instructing its owner to use the proceeds for aid to the
blind (Tahaminejad 2004a:32). Finally, Iran and Mayak Cinemas in Tehran
screened a propaganda movie known as Oath (Sowgand), which was praised
by the pro-Soviet Iranian press as emblematic of the socialist victory, whereby
a great industrial city is constructed out of nothing by labor, effort, unity,
and faith (Tahaminejad 2004a:32). In Isfahan, the Soviet consulate invited
the towns dignitaries to a screening in Mayak Cinema of sports documenta
ries and a feature film called Republic of Uzbekistan (Jomhuriye Ozbakestan).
To accommodate various classes of audiences, Soviet movies were shown
by invitation, free of charge or at a discount. The social realism of the movies,
screened with Persian or Turkish subtitles, provided a contrast to the gritty
realism of Hollywood crime and gangster movies, which were popular. If the
American practice of importing morally suspect fiction films, such as gang
ster movies, and educationally valuable documentaries on health and devel
opment seemed contradictory and perplexing to Iranian jurists, Sovkinos im
portation of movies into Iran appeared consistent and carefully calibrated to
Iranian taste. It included not only war movies but also movies about the noble
society of patriots, Central Asian fairy tales, or innocent scenes of forest and
deep-sea life (Cook 1949:4089). These movies were widely available, chiefly
because they were screened free of charge (at least in the Soviet zone of in
fluence in the northwest), while admittance was charged for Western movies
(McFarland 1981:201). Despite their wide availability and the pro-Soviet exhib
itors strategies to attract viewers, Soviet movies were apparently not as well
attended as U.S.-made movies due to their lack of entertainment value.36 It
appears that despite, or perhaps because of, its internal contradictions, Ameri
can public diplomacy proved more effective in winning the hearts and minds
of Iranians than the homogeneous Soviet public diplomacy.
Iranian nationalism, which rose under the Pahlavis, may also have diluted
interest in Soviet movies, particularly after the end of the Second World War,
when the Soviet Union illegally occupied Iran. An anonymous eyewitness de
scribes a scene that demonstrates this popular unease with Soviet cultural in
roads at this time: The Soviets had taken over Homay Cinema in Rasht and re
named it Sharq (East) Cinema, where they presented performances imported
from Leningrad and Azerbaijan, as well as Soviet war and propaganda mov
ies. One night, the National Musical Society under the leadership of Ruhollah
Khaleqi was to perform at the Sharq, where a crowd had gathered. Uncontrol
20
lable joy met Khaleqis decision to perform for the first time the national
istic chorale known as O Bejeweled Land (Ey Marze Porgohar), which
would become the popular national anthem for Iranians, countering the official King of Kings Anthem. The audience was thunderstruck in their seats,
listening with amazement and astonishment to the exciting rhythm and the
provocative lyrics of this chorale. When it was over, the spectators gave the
troupe a standing ovation, requesting encores, kissing and hugging the per
formers; and one wealthy patron threw a wad of paper money onto the stage.
To the reporter, the contrast between the halls usual fareonly, and only,
Soviet propaganda and war movies, full of blood and fire, which only spread
death and mourningand that nights performance, which turned the hall
into an expansive garden of light and delight, was astonishing.37
After the defeat of the Azari autonomy movement and the expulsion of So
viet forces, leftist and Soviet cultural centers suffered attacks. The leftist press
reported that government forces, gendarmes, knife-wielders, and toughs sent
by Tehran attacked the city of Zanjan, killing people and robbing the dead of
their goods, even of their gold teeth. They also destroyed property, including
Azar Cinema, which had been constructed by the Democratic Government
of Azarbaijan under Jafar Pishehvari (jami 1976/1355:4056). The destruc
tion in Tabriz, the seat of the independence movements government, was
worse. A local newspaper there, Vazifeh (Duty), referred to Western newsreels
about Nazi atrocities shown in Iranian movie houses to create a vivid paral
lel image of the destruction of Tabriz and the maltreatment of its citizens by
government forces (474). This reference shows the powerful impressions that
wartime newsreels had left on Iranians, providing a visual vocabulary to be
invoked for domestic situations.
Communism was popular among the intelligentsia disaffected with capi
talism and with the Shah. The release of the notorious Group-53, consisting
of fifty-t hree communists and intellectuals, led to the formation of the Tudeh
(Mass) Party in 1941, perhaps the most intellectually exciting and socially
powerful political party. And it was under the sponsorship of the Iran-Soviet
Cultural Relations Society that the first Congress of Iranian Writers took
place in Tehran in 1946, featuring a whos who of writers. However, the edu
cated class was small, as borne out by the U.S. State Departments estimate
that 85 to 90 percent of Irans population of 15 million was illiterate.38 Un
like the American and British cultural efforts, which were designed to reach
both the Iranian masses and the elites, ironically, those of the Soviet Union,
which championed the worlds toiling masses, seemed to have been either
directed primarily at the intelligentsia or they managed to primarily attract
21
them, for the Soviet Unions success was greatest among school teachers, col
lege students, and young writers.39 Ervand Abrahamians figures corroborate
the heavy representation of these strata in the Tudeh Party (1982:33031). The
names of the writers who were either members or sympathizers constitute a
whos who of postwar modern literature and poetry: Mahmud Afrashteh, Jalal
Ale Ahmad, Ahmad Aram, Taqi Arani, Malek al-Shoara Bahar, Sadeq Chu
bak, Mahmud Etemadzadeh (Behazin), Ebrahim Golestan, Fakhreddin Gor
gani, Sadeq Hedayat, Mahmud Javaheri, Morteza Keyvan, Loretta (Varto Tar
ian), Khalil Maleki, Naqi Milani, Mohammad Moin, Nader Naderpour, Said
Naficy, Abdolhosain Nushin, Rasul Parvizi, Ahmad Shamlu, Mohammad Ta
fazzoli, Feraidun Tavalloli, and Nima Yushij (Ali Esfandiari). Several were
involved in theater, such as Nushin and Loretta, and at least one, Golestan,
later became a prominent new-wave and documentary filmmaker (Golestan
resigned from the party in the late 1940s, along with Khalil Maleki and Ale
Ahmad).
In addition, many Tudeh members went to the movies frequently. The par
tys success with the urban working classes and workers unions also gave it
unprecedented political muscle, with the strong participation of Azari and
Christians. Of the twelve members of the executive committee of the Union
of Cinema Attendants in 194446, for example, three were Christians (Abra
hamian 1982:336). Before the Tudeh Party was officially banned, members
hung out openly at modernist cafs with other members of the intelligentsia
and attended movie houses frequently. For example, Morteza Keyvan, an ac
tive party member and a gifted writer, in letters to his friend Mostafa Far
zaneh in Paris, states that he went to the movies perhaps once or twice a
month for relaxation. This was during the two years of his political activism,
both clandestine and open, on behalf of the party, which ultimately led to his
execution (Farzaneh 2005/1384:102, 104, 109, 118). Nighttime work for the
party even interfered with his moviegoing. In a letter to the filmmaker Fe
raidun Rahnema in Paris, he laments his having missed Orson Welless Mac
beth (1948) due to work every night that the film was on (You will curse me
for having missed it), but he gives the good news of planning to see Welless
The Stranger (1946) that night, if work does not interfere again. It appears
that most of the films he wished to see were highbrow Western movies, some
of which he saw in the original language in a Tehran cinema club (Keyvan
2003/1982:23233). He also went to popular films, such as John Farrowss The
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) but was critical of it. He states that the film
does not have much except great music and some superb mise-en-scne, but
22
that Edward G. Robinsons remarkable acting is truly watchable (Keyvan

2003/1982:259).
The darkness and anonymity of movie houses continued to make these es
tablishments conducive to meetings of the political opposition, particularly
Tudeh members and other leftists. Alavis sister, for example, reports that she
used to drop off packages of books at the Mayak Cinema box office in Tehran
to be delivered to her brother, who was in prison as a member of the Group53 (Alavis own account in his novel Her Eyes of using movie houses for left
ist gatherings is probably autobiographical) (Alavi 2004/1383:43). At the same
time, the Tudeh Party used the auditorium of the Mayak Cinema for less clan
destine purposes, like official celebrations. One example was the graduation
party for women who had passed literary night classes in 1946 (72). These
uses show the integration of movie houses into leftist political and cultural
activities.
One Tudeh sympathizer drawn to Marxism through cinema and Soviet
cultural activities was Bijan Jazani, who in the 1960s would ironically be
come both a capitalist filmmaker, making advertising films, and a leader of
the Marxist underground guerrillas, Fadaiyane Khalqe Iran (Peoples Fadai
yan of Iran, pfoi). As his wife, Mihan Jazani, tells it, in his youth Bijan was
very knowledgeable and eloquent about life in the Soviet Union, the source
for which was not only the books and periodicals he read but also the propa
ganda role of voks, including the movies and the pleasant atmosphere of the
House of Culture, in which they were screened. She writes: One of our inex
pensive forms of entertainment was to attend the voks cinema. We used to
attend it at least once a week or once a month. Watching films from a country
that was our utopia in the beautiful garden of the Society [Iran-Soviet Cultural
Relations Society] located in North Kakh Avenue, was for us a very pleasant
experience that fed our imagination (Jazani 1999/1378:22). That pleasant ex
perience fed not only the knowledge and imagination but also the career of
the future urban guerrilla. In future years he would open an advertising com
pany, Tabli Film (with a partner, Harun Yashayai), which made industrial and
advertising films promoting consumer products, making him what his pros
ecutor in his political trial of 1967 derisively called a communist million
aire (45). He led a double life, using his film earnings to underwrite the clan
destine activities of the Fadaiyan. These activities led to his arrest, torture,
condemnation to a long prison term, and eventual executionsome called
it assassinationunder the pretext that he and eight other comrades had at
tempted to escape.40
23
A Four-Partner National Cinema Dance:

Film Marketplace or Ideological Battleground?
The U.S. embassy had hoped that adding Hollywood travelogues and cartoons
to their program would assist the Americans in gaining traction in the politi
cal and ideological arena over their wartime allies. As the U.S. press attach
noted, Hollywood movies are very essential if American films on the Iranian
circuit are to compare favorably with those of the British from Victory House
and those of the Russians from voks.41 Showing entertainment movies could
have increased the American commercial film companies income, were it
not for the U.S. governments policy of providing its allies, such as Britain,
with ample negative raw stock while limiting the raw stock supply to its own
commercial companies. This curious situation allowed Britain to strike film
prints for distribution to Iran, while American companies were unable to do
so, thereby losing their toehold in the nascent but growing film market and
on ideological battlegrounds in Iran. Because of this policy mgm, for example,
was unable to supply Iran Cinema with the number of 16mm film prints that
the latter had already purchased for 1945.42 In fact, mgm was so short of raw
positive stock that it was unable to supply Iran Cinema with even a yard of it
on which to print Persian subtitles, while the British readily sold the positive
stock through Victory House.43
The U.S. government deemed film distribution important enough to
spend considerable sums on film equipment, educational films, the nefc mo
bile units, and Nilla Cooks salary. The U.S. press attach felt that once the
educational and social benefits of the educational film circuit had become
evident, this cooperative effort between Iran and the United States would re
sult in considerable financial savings for the United States and in increased
local good-w ill among Iranians.44 In turn, the Iranian government, which
was bent on the countrys rapid Westernization and on taking over the ideo
logical apparatuses for state-building and propaganda purposes, was willing
to pay the salary of Lieutenant Golsorkhi and other nefc technicians and to
take care of some of the mobile units transportation costs. In essence, this
was not only a four-partner national dance but also a four-partner national
public diplomacy.
The British Council in Iran did not separate 16mm educational films from
35mm entertainment films, and its mobile film units carried both types of
projectors and films. As Cook noted, the British documentaries may be ren
dered palatable by Mickey Mouse and by hundreds of other American enter
tainment movies, which they borrowed from under the nose of the Ameri
24
cans. She suggested that Americans, too, erase the distinction between
theatrical and nontheatrical film types and between 35mm and 16mm for
mats. She argued that there were numerous opportunities to show educa
tional films at charities to large audiences if they could be spiced up with
theatrical movies. She was happy to report that three thousand people had
watched the 16mm documentary film on tuberculosis, They Do Come Back,
whose screening in the Officers Club had been sponsored by the Tuberculo
sis Aid Society. However, she was greatly annoyed that because of a lack of a
35mm projector, she could not accede to the societys request to show an enter
tainment feature as well, as American features and documentaries together
could outshine the British rival.45
Cook argued that if enough film prints could be obtained to feed Iran Cin
emas proposed network of little cinemas, they could nurture the taste for
American films in the new regions before anyone else gets a chance to cre
ate other tastes.46 She openly worried about the Soviet films shown in feu
dal rural Iran. To prevent Soviet influence, she prescribed American movies,
which in the aftermath of the Second World War could make the world hap
pier and loftier: One Mickey Rooney would cure them of all that [attraction
to the Soviet Union]. One Deanna Durbin in I Cant Help Singing would give
them a better picture of America than anything short of a complete transla
tion of Whitman.47
The exclusionary and aggressive promotion of the films of one country,
such as Cooks pushing of American fiction and nonfiction films, was the
other side of film censorship, for in relatively closed societies, promotion of
one nations films often results in the repression of another nations films.
Cooks career in Iran consisted of both modalitiesfilm promotion and film
repression.
Iran Cinemas project to create a network of three hundred little cinemas
never materialized, but the nefc constituted a first inchoate step toward an
official network of nontheatrical, educational, and propaganda films in the
countrysomething that Reza Shahs pogo had not attempted. Mohammad
Reza Shahs governments motivation was apparently to modernize the nation
by centralizing culture, by bringing films under its control rather than allow
ing them to become tools of foreign governments propaganda.48 In practice,
however, a complicated dance of political and cinematic equilibrium among
Iranian, American, British, and Soviet governments resulted.
To prevent motion-picture operators hired by foreign governments, par
ticularly by the Soviet Union, from entering Iranian schools or from circu
lating in rural areas, the nefc hired Iranian technicians, whom apparently
25
the Americans trained and whose salaries they initially paid through the Office of War Information. It appears that Iranians did not consider the United
States a foreign government for the purpose of this project. To prevent unau
thorized foreign films from entering the schools, the Ministry of the Interior
forbade showing foreign documentaries without a censorship license from
the Department of Theaters, something that up until then had been required
only of commercial and theatrical movies. Cook stated categorically that the
object of the ban was of course . . . British and Russian films, not American
movies.49 The ban was apparently instigated because of Soviet efforts to force
Mayak Cinema (whose owner had been kidnapped) to distribute Russian pro
paganda movies to its provincial circuit. In a clear indication of the tenuous
power of the Iranian government after the war, the ministrys order applied
only to the provinces, not to the capital city, where the government, fearing
serious political difficulties, did not prevent the official Soviet outlet, Setareh
Cinema, from showing Soviet propaganda movies.50 Soviet forces were still il
legally occupying northwestern Iran and constituted a real internal political
contender. Perhaps to appease them, another order from the Ministry of the
Interior banned the screening of American gangster films in the provinces,
a ban that Cook supported. At the same time, the ministry instructed Cook to
select a few artistic and perfectly innocent Soviet films for inclusion in the
nefc school programs to keep the Russians from coming into the schools
themselves. According to Cook, it was already too late51 to root out the Brit
ish nontheatrical film circuit from Iran. However, the requirement for licens
ing educational films meant that she, as the head of censorship, could subject
the British films to censorship or delays. In one case, sixty British films were
held up at the British Council in Shiraz for several weeks, awaiting the trans
mission of exhibition licenses from the Ministry of the Interior (nefc) to the
local police.
Because of the dearth of various formations of the film industry and mo
dernity, such as modern film labs, studios, and cinema chains, in Cooks
opinion any effort to establish an independent Iranian educational film
exhibition circuit would ironically have to depend almost entirely upon the
amount of help the Department of Theaters receives from the American Gov
ernment.52 These cinematic measures and countermeasures demonstrate
that the operations of the nefc, the British Council, the Anglo-Persian Insti
tute, the Iran-America Society, and the Soviet Unions various cultural arms
played unequally into the competitive public diplomacy rivalries of the former
allies, favoring the American side. Americanization was overdetermined be
cause of the ways in which U.S. diplomatic, military, commercial, and intelli
26
gence entities were involved in all aspects of the nefcs operations. Cook was
well aware of Irans desire to create an independent national organization for
the controlled exhibition of nontheatrical films, and she warned the U.S. em
bassy not to set up a parallel educational film circuit to compete with it. If the
program is to succeed as a long-term American activity in Iran, the Persians
themselves must incorporate the films into their educational systems. . . . The
Iranian National Educational Film Circuit has set up a statute which should
be taken into consideration.53 She was correct that setting up a rival Ameri
can nontheatrical film exhibition circuit would brand the films shown as for
eign propaganda; she was naive to think that inserting the same films into
the nefc program would integrate them into Iranian nationalism. The films
would bolster state-sponsored nationalism, not the one that was bubbling up
from the people, whose object of hatred was as much the Iranian state itself
as foreign governments. The circuit set up by the nefc could only function
as part of the new Shahs ideological state apparatuses. The son had taken his
fathers invention of the pogo a step further into film and mass media. Other
governmental organizations, such as the Ministry of Education, attempted
to set up their own educational film circuits, but these failed for various
reasons.
The U.S. State Department seemed to have heeded Cooks advice, for it did
not develop a film circuit of its own in Iran. When in the early 1950s it did
set up the usis film program to show nontheatrical, educational, propaganda,
and newsreel films nationwide in public cinemas and through a network of
mobile film units, it was not a parallel network, for by then the nefc had been
disbanded. And when, a few years later still, the usis film exhibition circuit
became part of the government, forming the Fine Arts Administration, the
final step was taken in Cooks recommendations for integrating the exhibition
of American films into Iranian governmental structures.
Western Commercial Newsreels and Documentaries

Although officially neutral in the Second World War, Iran became embroiled
in it because of its location, which provided a land bridge for Britain and the
United States to supply their ally the Soviet Union with matriel from the Per
sian Gulf, and because of Irans oil reserves, which were necessary to fuel the
British and American fleets. This and the pro-German, even pro-Nazi, atti
tudes of some Iranians made the country an ideal place in which to wage pub
lic diplomacy wars involving cinema.
27
Wartime Films
During the war, both the Allied and Axis armed forces filmed their activities,
including those in Iran, using military or newsreel camerapersons. These
films articulated their nations interests and circulated a specific vision of
Iran and of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi both to Iranians and to the world.
For the Allies, this included covering the lend-lease program, which involved
transporting American and British war material from the Persian Gulf to the
Soviet Union using the Iranian rail system; the Tehran Conference in which
Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill made plans; the plight of Polish refugees
stranded in Iran; the expulsion of Soviet forces from Azarbaijan; and the free
flow of Iranian oil to the Allied armed forces.54 Much of this footage found
its way into either military or commercial newsreels. The American military
newsreels included Army Air Force Film Report and Combat Film Report and
were shown primarily to military personnel.
Iranians did not see these military films in movie houses but Western com
mercial newsreels about Irans participation in the war and the subsequent oil
crisis were screened in public cinemas.55 The British newsreels that carried
items on Iran included British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Brit
ish Path Tone, Gaumont British News, Path Sound News, and War Pictorial
News. Among the American commercial newsreels with Iranian items were
Fox News, Hearst Metrotone News, Paramount News, Screen News Digest, United
News, Universal, and Warner Path News. German newsreels containing Ira
nian materials included Deulig Weekly (Deulig Woche), UFA Schmalfilm Maga
zine, and UFA Sound Weekly (UFA Tonwoche). Of the Allies and Axis newsreels
screened in Iran, the British Movietone News and the German newsreels were
the most popular, perhaps because they were provided free of charge to the
exhibitors by the British and German embassies, respectively (occasional Ira
nian newsreels were also shown).56
The Allied and Axis newsreels differed. Ernest Rose, a newsreel camera
man who later served in Iran with the Syracuse Team, noted that American
and German newsreels differed in several ways (the British newsreels were
more similar to the American newsreels than to those of the Germans). While
the American newsreels were brief one-reelers (about ten minutes) and used
to transition the audience into the movie houses, as they were taking their
seats, the German newsreels were two or three times as long, and they were
shown only after the spectators had been seated and the doors were closed.
American newsreels followed the structure of newspapers, with the biggest
stories leading and ending with sports and features; German newsreels fol
28
lowed the logic of narrative movies, beginning with small events and building
up to the most dramatic news item (Rose 1973:311).
Among the items that British Movietone News carried were Anglo/Soviet
Control (1941), Iran Occupied (22 September 1941), Anglo/Persian Coopera
tion (1 September 1942), British and Russian Forces (n.d.), With Our Supplies
into Iran (17 November 1941), Lend-Lease to Russia (8 April 1945), Lend-Lease
to Russia (28 May 1945), and Shah of Iran Reviews Troops (February 1948).
Narrated in Persian by a voice-of-God male narrator, Abolqasem Taheri, who
spoke from the point of view of the Allies, these newsreels lauded the Allied
war effort, Irans role as both a supply route for war materiel and a supplier of
oil, and the new Shahs Western trajectory. The English version of these com
mercial newsreels failed to report on the strong public sentiments in Iran
about these issues. In Iran Occupied, for example, the narrator states that Ira
nians dont seem to resent at all that the Abadan oil refinery has fallen to the
Indian troops under British protection. In Anglo/Soviet Control, after noting
the expulsion of German diplomats and the exile of Reza Shah, the narrator
states that the new Shah is well disposed towards Britain and that Britain
and the Soviet Union must collaborate to defend him and the country over
which they once competed. In Shah of Iran Reviews Troops, the narrator states
that the Shah who controls the oil so badly needed by Western powers re
views his troops and pins a medal on the Iranian flag and salutes it.
These news items in British Movietone News and similar items in other
newsreels offered a rosy view of the Shahs stability and of the strength of the
British and American ties to Iran, which would shatter within a few years.
But there was considerable public resentment against British meddling in
Iranian politics and against Britains unfair oil policies and practices; the sen
timent was strong enough that within a decade it would lead to the national
ization of Iranian oil concerns under Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq,
who had participated in the Constitutional Revolution. The letter cited in vol
ume 1 critiquing the oil industry films In the Land of the Shah and The Per
sian Oil Industry provides one forceful example of such resentment as early
as the late 1920s. The newsreels were more expressions of British policy than
reflections of reality. Their voice-over narrations were highly nationalistic and
self-serving. In a Gaumont British News item, The Occupation of Iran (1941),
the narrator pointedly declares that the reason for occupying Iran was to pre
vent Reza Shah from sell[ing] his own country to Nazi slavery and to res
cue a nation too weak to act in its own interest. Pointing to the footage of the
British soldiers apparently talking to Iranians, it continues, once again there
is obviously no resentment by Iranian people against our troops, whom the
29
narrator thanks at the conclusion of the film for carrying out a delicate task
with tact combined with strength that disposes of the Shah who tried to en
rich himself at the expense of his fellow countrymen.57
Such views were shaped by several factors. Despite their independence
from their national governments, the British and American commercial news
reel companies were deferential to them when it came to foreign news, par
ticularly that which dealt with war and national security issues. They also did
not want to jeopardize their future film market in Iran, whose population
was rapidly increasing. Thus they refrained from any critical portrayal of the
Shah. According to the Regulations Governing Taking Motion Picture Films
and Photographs, Painting, and Drawing of 1938, to film in Iran, newsreel
companies needed government permission and government minders, both of
which would have been withdrawn had they been critical either of the Shah
or of the country.
The German newsreels, which were shown until the Allies invaded Iran in
mid-1941, contained scenes filmed in Iranand not necessarily war scenes
and a Persian narration, spoken ably by Shah Bahram Shahrokh, an Iranian
Zoroastrian expatriate in Berlin.58 Both the local scenes and the Persian voice-
overs made these newsreels very popular with Iranians who, finding national
confirmation in them, went to the movies sometimes solely to see these. In
stead of acting as agents of othering, the Persian-language Nazi newsreels
had the opposite effect of selfing. As the documentary and newsreel film
maker Mohammad Ali Issari told me, the German newsreels had a profound
impact on him and the country, for whenever one of them had an item on
Iran, it made us very happy and proud, it puffed up our feathers (Naficy
1982a). Such cinematic self-bolstering fed into the pro-German sentiments
both of the government and of the general population.59 Issari claims that the
German newsreels were partly responsible for creating in Iranians a friendly
attitude toward Germany, which resulted in the occupation of Iran by the Al
lies (Issari 1989:178).
The American News of the Day newsreel also carried Persian narration,
but apparently only after the war. Yet when News of the Day, along with Brit
ish Movietone News, began charging Iranian exhibitors fees for showing them,
the exhibitors lost interest in them. This left a temporary newsreel vacuum,
filled in 1945 when the U.S. embassy in Tehran began importing issues of
United Newsreel, which were shown in cinemas as part of the nefc program.
This, too, soon ended, creating another newsreel vacuum, which the usia
newsreels and documentaries filled in the 1950s.
30
Oil Nationalization Films

After the hot war, the interests of the West shifted to fighting the Cold War,
which had its beginnings in Iran with the Soviet Unions refusal to withdraw
its forces from Iran after the Second World War and its support of the pro-
Soviet independent republics in Iranian Kurdistan and Azarbaijan (Cottam
1988; McFarland 1981). The Soviets were finally forced out of Iran in 1946 by a
combination of U.S. and United Nations pressure and the astute politics of the
Iranian prime minister, Ahmad Qavam. The jubilant liberation of Tabriz and
other cities was documented in postwar Iranian newsreels. The rise of nation
alism under Prime Minister Mosaddeq, who nationalized the Anglo Iranian
Oil Company and tried to curtail the power of the Shah and his family, as well
as increasing Soviet influence and the growing popularity of the Tudeh Party,
threatened American and British interests and resulted in a coup dtat in Au
gust 1953. This coup, funded, engineered, and implemented by the cia, the
British secret service, mi6, and Iranian military personnel, removed Mosad
deq from power and reinstated the Shah (Roosevelt 1979). This intervention
would mar Iranian-American relations for decades, undermining the legiti
macy of the Shah and discrediting the United States as a liberating third force
in Iranian politics.
Many British and American film and television newsreels covered these
developments. A case in point was the eighteen-minute newsreel titled Crisis
in Iran (1950), released by March of Time, which presented the American ver
sion of the rise of Iranian nationalism in this period. One sequence shows
the Iranian ambassador to the United States, Nasrollah Entezam, delivering
a statement on the oil crisis. Considered an unimportant bit of rhetoric then,
the statement takes on new meaning and importance when regarded in the
light of the later anti-Shah Islamic Revolution. Entezam said: For fifty years
the oil resources of my country have been exploited by a foreign company
whose profits have been sent overseas. . . . The time has now come . . . to put
Iranian natural resources to use for the well-being and benefit of its own peo
ple. The film also contains a brief statement by the U.S. Supreme Court Jus
tice William O. Douglas, who had traveled to Iran, in which he acknowledges
the antigovernment and antiforeign movements as a popular revolution that
cannot be stopped by any country. The film remains congruent with Cold War
formulas, however, and ends with the claim that Irans real enemy is a long-
standing one, Russia.
Many British and American newsreels covered the oil issue, including Brit
31
ish Paramount News, Gaumont British News, Path Sound News, Paramount
News, Telenews, Movietone News, Universal, Hearst Metrotone News, World in
Film, and In the News (see the oil sections in Naficy 1984c:8696). These were
usually devoted to news events, but there were also many documentaries and
television programs, which tended to put the oil issue into a context, albeit
from a Western perspective.
In this period the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (object of the nationaliza
tion effort) made several films about the oil industry without referring much
to this watershed event in Iran-British relations. The companys pro-British at
titude is manifest in the voice-over narrations, of which I have copies. Among
these films was Ralph Keenes Persian Story (1952), a twenty-one-minute doc
umentary made for Greenpark Productions, which follows the oil from its
source in barren hills to the Abadan refinery, the greatest oil refinery in the
world, where the company provides many amenities for its workers. Filmed
before the nationalization of the oil industry by Mosaddeq, the film propa
gates typical Orientalist ideas. It begins: These barren hills, this country of
golden desolation, holds a great treasureoil. The shepherds and the tribes
men neither knew it, nor needed it. It was left for the strangers to come there,
with both the need and knowledge; pitching their camps where no one came
but the buzzard and the goat. This sterile wilderness is the beggars cloak
over a purse of gold. After showing oil-industry processes, the film touts
the oil companys contributions to Iranian modernity and to the good life of
the residents of Abadan, with amenities of a modern city where the races
meet, including schools, clubs, hospitals, and clinicsPersian Story makes
for a truly institutional film. It ends this way: All the arguments and un
certainties and heartbreaks must not obscure that in this place generations
of British people have devoted their livesperhaps unconsciouslyto bring
benefit to millions they would never see, and never know. For without oil the
world as we know it could not exist (figure 2). 60
Strategic Iran (1952), made for the U.S. Department of Defense for use by
armed forces personnel, describes the geography, government, and cultural,
economic, and political features of the country and emphasizes the impor
tance of oil. Kenneth Richters film, Iran: Between Two Worlds (1953), made for
Encyclopaedia Britannica, shows the historical roots of Iran and compares the
Westernization of the countrys urban centers under the propulsion of the oil
industry with the backwardness of rural regions, which the film claims have
remained unchanged for twenty-five centuries. CBS Reports presented Iran:
Brittle Ally (1959), in which the journalists Edward R. Murrow and Winston
Burdett examine the prospects of an oil-r ich Iran sharing a two thousand
32
2 Production still from

Ralph Keenes documentary
Persian Story.
mile border with the Soviet Union, a nation faced with the terrible contrasts
of oil wealth and entrenched poverty. These films portrayed Iran as a coun
try in transition, strategic yet brittle, teetering between cataclysmic options.
Like the other films, Iran: Brittle Ally offered Westernization as the only op
tion, highlighting the Shahs westward reforms just before his declaration of
the White Revolution.
The most important Iranian newsreel of its kind was Ismail Kushans color
film The Visit of Prime Minister and Envoys to the United States (Mosaferate
Nokhostvazir va Haiate Ezami beh Emrika, 1951), which was shown to enthu
siastic Majles deputies and dignitaries in Tehrans Crystal Cinema. It showed
Mosaddeq and the Iranian delegates defending the case of Iran before the
United Nations Security Council and their reception at the White House in
the United States and in Egypt. The National Iranian Oil Company and its
contractor, Ebrahim Golestan, also filmed some news items of Mosaddeq-era
events, including the day of the coup, discussed elsewhere.
Because of the importance of the flow of Iranian oil to Western powers
and of the Shahs move toward capitalist reformsincluding his White Revo
lution, urged by the Kennedy administrationthe integrity of Iran and the
casting of the Shah as a progressive bulwark against communism constituted
primary goals. To preserve the Shah and his image and to bolster American
interests, a massive economic and military assistance program and an indus
trialized media campaign were deemed necessary (see below). Most docu
mentary films in the 1950s and 1960s characterized the Shah as moderniz
ing, progressive, young, and Western-minded. In the 1970s, a Pahlavi
circle of influence comprising influential persons and firms in Iran and the
United States would further bolster this image-building industry.
33
The Ministry of Culture or Culture Inc.?

United States Information Agency and Its Films
During the early years of the Cold War, the United States followed an official
foreign policy of helping Iranians help themselves in stemming the threat
of communism. Naturally, this goal became part of the U.S. public diplomacy.
Charged with meeting it was the United States Information Agency (usia),
which came into being in August 1953 from the rubble of what remained from
the International Information Administration (iia) after Joseph McCarthys
hearings in the Senate. According to the Eisenhower administration, the mis
sion of the usia was to offer evidence to peoples of other nations by means of
communication media that the objectives and politics of the United States
are in harmony with and will advance their legitimate aspirations for freedom,
progress and peace. Similar to the British Council, the usia was to carry out
its cultural diplomacy mission primarily by explaining and interpreting to
foreign peoples the objectives and policies of the U.S. government. It was to
do this by depicting imaginatively the correlation between U.S. policies and
the legitimate aspirations of other peoples of the world, by unmasking and
countering hostile attempts to distort or to frustrate U.S. objectives and poli
cies, and by delineating those important aspects of the life and culture of
the United States that clarify political objectives (Sandeen 1995:113).
In the aftermath of the successful coup against Mosaddeq, the usias mis
sion in Iran involved enhancing the prestige of the monarchy, bolstering the
morale of the Iranian government and military services, and strengthening
the confidence of the Iranian government and people in the ability of the
armed forces to defend the country. 61 The aim was not just to create a one-way
flow of propaganda from the United States to Iran but also to enhance the flow
of propaganda from the Iranian government to its people so as to strengthen
internal cohesiveness and internal security of the nation.62 This monologic,
centralized, top-down communication structure was part of the new U.S. aid
and development assistance program to the third world, which the Iranian
government also adopted. It served formations of modernity and of national
cinema. Through its arm in Iran, the United States Information Service
(usis), the usia trained personnel and produced and distributed films, which
invigorated the industrial formations necessary to transform documentary
cinema from its artisanal beginnings into hybrid, industrial maturity. But the
U.S.-sponsored coup against an elected Iranian government countered the effects of the elaborate usia/usis propaganda machine.
By the mid-1960s, the usia had grown to a massive organization employ
34
ing three thousand people in the United States and eight thousand abroad
(Sargeant 1965:90). The functions of this unofficial ministry of culture aimed
at foreigners, however, were not performed solely by the U.S. government
agencies. The usia had an Office of Private Cooperation whose philosophy
was to use private agencies and the private sector to the maximum extent
to accomplish usia objectives (108, emphasis in the original). American pri
vate philanthropic organizations, such as the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford
Foundations, were active abroad and at home in promoting American values
and cultural exchange relations with foreign governments and people (Ar
nove 1980). Hollywood commercial newsreel companies participated in the
imaginative depiction of U.S. objectives and policies. By the middle of the
1950s, American broadcast networks were also airing public defense and se
curity programming about the Cold War produced by the U.S. government,
with the public taking no apparent notice (Bernhard 1999:3). It is this conjoin
ing of sectors to propagate U.S. government public diplomacy tenets that cre
ated the massive, rhizomatic, and global ministry of culture, or what Herbert
Schiller has called Culture Inc., with its vast potential for cultural imperial
ism.63 The directors of the usis acted like ministry of culture and information
officers. They managed usis libraries and English-language programs, and
they worked with the press, the radio and television industry, news film ser
vices, and other informational media of the country; they arranged exhibits
and speaking programs and created a network of binational centers; and they
reported on attitudes toward the United States. In keeping with the Smith-
Mundt acts emphasis on the use of private American media, the program
also involved assistance to usia representatives operating in foreign countries
(Gordon 1965:3738).
However, this public diplomacy, or what amounted to a global ideological
warfare waged through the mass media and culture industry, was inherently
contradictory. For at the same time that the ministry of culture cum Culture
Inc. projected American ideals of freedom, individualism, private enterprise,
anticommunism, and democracy, it often supported undemocratic though
anticommunist foreign governments such as that in Iran. The messages of
the usia products (chiefly newsreels and documentary films for Iran) were
thus always already tainted, forcing Iranians into disillusion with U.S. demo
cratic promises. The usia released its media materials not only under its own
imprimatur but also often as unattributed independent productions of local
groups unrelated to the U.S. government. This cynical use of attribution fur
ther reinforced disillusionment, with disastrous consequences for relations
between Iran and the United States.
35
Iran News (Akhbare Iran) and Other USIS Newsreels

On 8 July 1954 (17 Tir 1333), after the demise of the American News of the Day
and United Newsreel and of the British Movietone News came a new newsreel in
Persian, which soon became weekly. It was the first newsreel produced inside
Iran in Farsi dealing with Iranian issues. Called Akhbare Iran (Iran News),
it was produced by the usis/Tehran. It lasted some ten years. Although, as
noted, several foreign embassies were involved in screening their countries
films in their cultural institutions in Tehran and elsewhere, no other for
eign newsreel was produced inside Iran regularly and distributed so widely.
At the height of its operation, the usis supplied twenty-five prints of Iran
News on 35mm film free of charge to commercial movie houses throughout
Iranten were circulated to Tehran cinemas and the remaining fifteen to
cinemas in other major cities. Some of the filmed items, such as those extol
ling U.S.-supported Point IV development programs and the activities of the
Shah, were also printed on 16mm stock and shown to villagers and schools
by means of the usis network of forty mobile cinemas (Issari 1989:182).64 Ap
parently, seven mobile railroad cars were also equipped with program mate
rials to serve communities near railway lines.65 It is not known whether in
addition to lending books and propaganda materials these trains screened
films for these communities. If they did, it would have represented an updat
ing of the so-called agitprop trains that roamed the Soviet Union in the hey
day of the Russian Revolution. Under the direction of the seminal filmmak
ers Dziga Vertov in the 1920s and Alexander Medvedkin in the 1930s, these
trains showed films, lent books, and distributed posters, pamphlets, and other
propaganda materials on their stops. They also filmed documentary footage
or fictional films on their way, which were shown en route and then later ed
ited into other films (Leyda 1983). Both the similarities and the differences
between these two media vehicles are instructive. If the communist agitprop
trains (and ships) agitated for political revolution against the despotic monar
chic regime of the czars and for the consolidation of a new communist regime
by means of film and other propaganda, the usia agitprop mobile vans (and
trains) worked to suppress political dissent against the authoritarian monar
chic regime of the Pahlavis and for propping it up.
Normally, each Iran News newsreel was between five to seven minutes in
length and contained four to five stories, half of which dealt with Iran, in
ways that supported the goals of U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy. The
newsreels publicized development projects funded by the United States un
der its Point IV program. They supported anti-Soviet regional pacts, such the
36
Baghdad Pact and cento (Central Treaty Organization), by featuring films

of the meetings, conferences, and joint military maneuvers. They countered
communist influence by including items that showcased American democ
racy at home, bolstered Iranians confidence in U.S. institutions, and under
scored the ties that bound Iran to the United States. They highlighted the role
of the Iranian armed forces in protecting, securing, and unifying the country.
They focused favorably on Mohammad Reza Shah, including his trips abroad.
The usia policy here was to emphasize the American respect for the Shah
and his country and the Shahs capabilities as a progressive young mon
arch who understands his countrys problems.66 Finally, Iran News carried
other Iranian news events, such as the periodic devastating earthquakes that
struck the country; important news events and foreign policy items from the
United States; and human interest features, including sports and entertain
ment items. A Persian language voice-over by an unseen voice-of-God male
narrator accompanied the visuals.
Because Iran News was considered an official U.S. government product, an
American officer responsible for content oversaw the usis/Tehran unit that
produced it. The Iranian staff carried out the newsreels production. Such on-
the-job training contributed to Iranian documentary cinema. Iran News also
sustained the two major Tehran film labs, Badie Film Studio and Iran Film.
According to Issari, the usis assistant film officer between 1950 and 1965,
these labs would have gone out of business if it had not been for the addi
tional work provided them by the newsreels (1989:179). This is particularly
true of the early 1950s, when the local production of features and documen
taries proved meager. The downside of the Iran News operation was that the
experience of working for it locked future filmmakers into an official style,
persisting for decades in industrial and documentary cinema.67
Iran News was an essential component of U.S. policy inside Iran during the
Cold War. According to John Hamilton, a usis/Tehran film officer (195054),
cheaper media were not available to the U.S. government. The usis/Tehran
could not get the local press to print U.S.-originated materials, radio broad
casting was not sufficiently developed, and the reception of the Voice of Amer
ica radio signal was also very poor (quoted in Issari 1989:17677). By the time
Iran News ceased in 1964, 402 issues had been produced and exhibited.
Culture Inc.s project of American projection into Iran by means of film,
however, extended beyond these newsreels. The usis/Tehrans production
unit also released an annual newsreel, Iran News Review, a summary of im
portant Iranian and American news of the year. It was released at New Year
(Noruz, in March), the hottest season for film viewing. Specials, Iran News
37
Special Release, longer than Iran News and Iran News Review, were devoted
to single topics. These were documentaries about the Shah and his foreign
travels, enhancing his domestic prestige by highlighting the respect he was
receiving abroad. The Iran News Special Release of May 1957 was thirty-nine
minutes long, covering the Shahs visit to Saudi Arabia; the edition of July
1958 showed twenty minutes on the Shahs state visit to Japan.
After the demise of Iran News, the usis/Tehran began exhibiting another
usia newsreel, the Iran-Washington Report (196467). It was to project U.S.
objectives, aspirations, and themes, creating support for the United States as
a leader of the free world (Naficy 1984c:218). In its three-year span, at least
seventy installments were produced containing first-person reports on vari
ous aspects of life in the United States. This newsreel was designed for tele
vision, which by the mid-1960s was becoming a powerful force in Iran. The
Iran-Washington Report was produced primarily on videotape, although 16mm
film kinescope prints were also available. The privately owned Iran Television
in Tehran, which started in 1958, and its southern branch in Abadan, which
began in 1960, aired these and other usis films (Katz and Shinar 1974:22).
The Iran-Washington Report contained a range of U.S. topics: rural coopera
tives, Father Flanagans Boys Town, the California Polytechnic College, the
civil rights movement of the 1960s, July Fourth celebrations, the U.S. insur
ance system, President Johnsons Great Society, Navajo Indians, and the U.S.
sugar cane and date industries. The Iran-Washington Report also ran several
programs on issues concerning both Iran and the United States, such as Ira
nian students and professors in the United States (Hormoz Farhat and Ha
mid Mowlana), Iranian-U.S. relations, the Iran-A merica Society, and cento.
In 1968, the title of the Iran-Washington Report was changed to American
Sketches: its aim was to bring to the people of Iran an intimate glimpse of the
American in his everyday life and also to promote understanding of Ameri
can goals through the documentation of government and private programs of
interest to Iranians (Naficy 1984c:219). True to this goal, it contained many
items concerning life, personalities, issues, and industries in the United
States: the election of Carl Stokes as the first black mayor in Cleveland; the
Headstart program; the works of the designer Raymond Loewy and the photo
journalist Ken Heyman; the use of jazz in American classrooms; the many
uses of the helicopter; the U.S. Weather Bureau; and water pollution control.68
Iran News, the Iran-Washington Report, and American Sketches informed
and put up mirrors that reflected an idealized projection of both American
and Iranian modern lives in which Iranians could imagine themselves. The
newsreels served both to other Iranians and to empower them. With other
38
mediating institutions, they served to overdetermine modernity in Iran, ide

ationally synchronizing Iran with the West at a time when third world libera
tion movements and counterculture movements in the West were becoming
increasingly critical of capitalism and attracted to communist, socialist, and
Islamic alternatives.
USIS Educational, Public Health, and Agricultural Documentaries

The contributions of the usia and the usis to Iranian documentary cinema
started in the early 1950s, a few years before Irans domestic production of
Iran News newsreel during the rise of antimonarchy nationalism and the na
tionalization of the British-controlled oil industry under Mosaddeq. As part of
its program of winning hearts and minds, the usis had begun in 1951 to show
American-produced newsreels and educational films by means of its network
of mobile film units. At first, these films were dubbed into Persian; but it soon
became clear that even the dubbed versions were not reaching less-educated
people. Cold War need forbade defeat. Iranian premodern formations
cultural habits, oral traditions, social conditions, gender inequality, illiteracy,
and collective relationswere inimical to pleasurable film viewing and to
learning from the movies. A lengthy, confidential report by the U.S. State De
partment offers the following rare assessment of the primitive film-culture
and spectatorial formation in Iran in 1949:
Foreign films are shown in the cities where electric current is avail
able. All films are censored by the police in the Central Office in Teh
ran. Although the majority of foreign films shown are American, the
most popular films are, of course, those in Persian. Attendance at the
movies, even in Tehran, has not become the habit for which cinema
managers hoped. This is partly because the public cannot afford the
expense, partly because the theaters are unattractive. The small atten
dance seems to be due principally to the fact that the Iranians by habit
and interest prefer to talk. They are perfectly satisfied to sit with friends
in conversation and drink tea. Their main interest is concentrated upon
local events and gossip that immediately concern them. Country folk
whose work day extends from sunrise to sunset have no spare money
for the movies, are accustomed to go to bed early, and have little compre
hension of the life or world shown on the screen. The movement in the
films is too rapid and much of the material represented is too unfamil
iar. One of the most welcome films in Iran was Walt Disneys cartoon of
the mosquito, made as propaganda for malaria control.69
39
Given this assessment, the U.S. embassy in Tehran worked to update its in
volvement in the nontheatrical film circuit, the nefc. It began stocking a film
library of about 600 titles, 125 of which were dubbed into Persian. These ran
from movies on life in the United States to highly technical films on engi
neering and public health, and they were lent free of charge to schools, clubs,
and civil and military organizations, often using the American mobile film
units.70 They reached some two hundred thousand people per month during
the second quarter of 1951.71 However, since they were made for Western spec
tators in a style that was deemed inappropriate in Iran, the usia decided to
use domestically made films. Local documentary films and filmmakers, how
ever, proved scarce.
Don Williams, the head of Syracuse Universitys Audiovisual Center, was
engaged in September 1950 to conduct a feasibility study of producing films
inside Iran. He met with government ministers, people from the University
of Tehran, U.S. embassy officials, and representatives of the Iran-Rockefeller
and Near East Foundations. He also visited agricultural, public health, and
teacher-training institutes. He was impressed by positive and welcoming Ira
nians and came to believe that visual education could be an inexpensive con
duit for scientific education in a country as vast as Iran.72 He worked out with
these officials the outline of a plan for visual education to further modernity
in Iran. The plan recommended that an audiovisual center be established at
the Ministry of Education and that the usia become directly involved in film
making and visual education. Under a contract between the usia and Syra
cuse University, Williams headed a team eventually comprising thirty-eight
audiovisual and film production specialistsknown as the Syracuse Team
that operated in Iran from March 1951 to June 1959.73
The Syracuse Team produced twenty-t wo films, many of which dealt with
methods for improving the dismal states of public health, sanitation, nutrition,
and agriculture.74 With help from Iranian filmmakers it had newly trained,
the team produced another sixty documentaries, which appeared in cinemas
before feature movies and which were distributed to outlying areas via mobile
units.75 Some general documentaries about Iran were also made. Among these
was People of Iran, a celebrated series of five half-hour installments that ex
tolled the historical sites and major industries of Iran.76 Distributed widely to
schools for their geography lessons, these visual segments were perhaps the
first educational films to be made locally and tailored to Iranian needs, allow
ing millions of students and young adults . . . who had never traveled beyond
their home towns, to learn about their own country (Issari 1989:17273).77
The Americans regarded these films as instrumental in bringing about a
40
feeling of security that will make communist penetration more difficult,78

and they reached not only a massive urban audience in commercial movie
houses but also a large rural audience in villages where mobile film units
were active. For example, in the early 1950s, these units made fifty film visits
to villages near Tehran and twenty film visits to villages near Isfahan in just
one week. In one film visit in the village of Abar, eight hundred men and eight
hundred women, seated separately, watched two public health documentaries:
Dysentery and Cleanliness Brings Health (with the former repeated a second
time) (Warne 1956:9798). These high local figures added up to a substantial
national audience, even in 1951, when only eighteen mobile units were operat
ing. According to Issari, the usis presented an average of 800 separate film
shows a month (225 of them in Tehran and vicinity) to a total monthly audi
ence of about 350,000 people (1989:173).79
The mobile units, which at the height of their success numbered forty,
were an important means of U.S. public diplomacy and Iranian national pro
jection and education at a time when other media technology, including ra
dio and 16mm film projectors, were unavailable in most regions and illiteracy
was high. 80 Each unit was a jeep or a station wagon equipped with a portable
16mm sound projector, a filmstrip projector, a portable screen, roof-mounted
loudspeakers, a power generator, and other equipment (figure 3). The driver
was also the projectionist, and he brought films to villages where local enter
tainers worked the crowd before screenings. Sometimes, they took specialists
with them, who explained the films as they screened and took questions at
the end. The unit visiting Abar, for example, took along an American nurse
who explained the two public health films. These interpreters helped the au
dience understand not only the films topic but also their visual grammar. For
example, a unit that visited the village of Falavarjan near Isfahan showed two
films on locust control and water sanitation to five hundred men and women.
An Iranian public health worker gave an introductory talk before the films in
which he not only described the films but also told the audience what to look
for. At the films end an Iranian nurse further lectured the attendees to reem
phasize the important points (Warne 1956:9899) (figure 4).
The usis educational films developed slowly, using straightforward and
linear narratives for Iranian audiences, containing recognizable scenes and
objects and a persistent voice-of-God Persian-language narration, which rep
licated at the textual level the monologic structure of the documentary as a
one-way communication medium, from the government to its subjects. That
this omniscient narration was often given from the viewpoints of government
officials or other authority figures enhanced the connection between the films
41
3 A typical usis mobile film

unit with an operator who
sometimes acted as a narrator,
and his portable 16mm film
projector, loudspeakers,
and screen. Courtesy of
Mohammad Ali Issari.
4 Adapting a visual medium
to an oral culture: an Iranian
expert provides live narration
for a usis film. Courtesy of
sponsor and their texts, both of which encouraged a passive spectatorial for
mation. The usis documentaries often used a third-person singular narrative
voice, but sometimes they alternated between this voice and a first-person plu
ral voice, as a way of implicating the spectators in the monologic discourse. The
narration of Clean Water (Abe Pak, ca. 195059) contained such a voice-over
narration in the third-person singular and the first-person plural: Following
the order of the public health official, this woman fills her jug of water from
the head of the subterranean stream [qanat]. The head of the stream should
be reserved for exactly such a purpose, and no animals should be allowed to
drink from here or clothes be washed here. Having taken our drinking water
from the head, we can wash our teacups and saucers some ten to fifteen meters
downstream. . . . Dont think that if you rub your dishes with dung and mud
they will be clean. No! It is best to wash them with ash, sand, bran, or straw to
get them fully cleaned (quoted in Emami 2003/1382:7374). At times, these
films carried snippets of dialogue and embellished the soundtrack by mix
ing in appropriate folk music. Despite these textual variations and strategies,
the interpretive work by what amounted to live Point IV screen translators, or
dilmaj, was necessary because average villagers were premodern and audio
42
visually unsophisticated. According to William Warne, the first director of the

Point IV program in Iran, who witnessed film shows in many villages, while
American audiences understand such camera tricks as close-ups and super
impositions, the villagers of Iran do not. Using an anecdote, which might be
apocryphal but illustrative of the point, he elaborated further that in one Amer
ican film, designed to persuade its viewers to rid themselves of mice, the cam
era so focused on a mouse that he filled the whole screen so that the enemy
might be dramatically identified. One peasant, seeing this, was heard to say,
No wonder they think mice are dangerous in America. So big! The mice in
our wheat stores in Aliabad are so little they are harmless (Warne 1956:218).
These mobile film visits and the film types were tied to specific Point IV
health and development programs. During an outbreak of malaria in 1953,
when Point IV and Iranian specialists were inoculating villagers and spray
ing ddt in affected areas, the mobile units showed films about malaria and
its prevention by the insecticide ahead of the spraying teams to educate the
villagers. Warne reports that when they saw the movies the villagers were
happy again (1956:147). A letter written in the early phases of the usis pro
gram by the American embassys public affairs officer, C. Edward Wells, pro
vides anecdotal evidence of effectiveness. It states that in villages where usis
films had been shown, garbage, manure and other filth has been cleaned up,
the villagers have become interested in the growing and eating of vegetables,
and a certain amount of precaution is taken to prevent insects from polluting
foods. In my opinion, these are tremendous strides forward and if the pro
gram widens out, a good size cut can be made in the incidents of disease with
the result in greater production because of the increased work hours. The sim
pler and nearer to the every day experiences of the average peasant farmer our
films are, the greater the impact. I know it is an expensive business produc
ing films, but when you weigh the results against the cost, it would seem very
well worthwhile.81
Before the official start of the usis film effort, John Humphrey, one of
the directors of usia travel films in Iran, had visited the influential Ayatollah
Kashani to get his blessings on the project. The astute clerical leader had wel
comed the use of film to improve the countrys health and educational ser
vices on the grounds that Islam condones any form of knowledge that helps
social progress (taraqqi) as long as it is accompanied by faith (Tahaminejad
2004b:19). Yet anticinema feelings surfaced among religious Muslims after
the films were made, particularly in the form of opposition to the mobile film
units, which took films into the remote towns and villages where people re
mained entirely naive about the medium and were highly religious. It ap
43
pears that this opposition was not directed against cinema per se. According
to a State Department report, religious leaders and village clerics invariably
opposed the mobile units film shows; however, their advance objections fre
quently changed to acceptance once they had an opportunity to view an edu
cational film on health or agriculture. 82 It appears that in this period religious
pragmatism won over religious fundamentalism.
The mobile film units also visited city schools, particularly demonstra
tion (nemuneh) elementary schools, built with Point IV program assistance,
where the films were very popular. These schools boasted modern educa
tional features unheard of in most Iranian schools, such as functioning open-
stacks libraries, student-r un mimeographed newspapers, and the usis film
screenings on many Thursday afternoons (the day before the weekend). How
the usia and usis films were used in these schools or integrated into their
curricula varied (figure 5). For example, as noted in the preface to volume 1,
in the Nemuneh Elementary School in Isfahan, which I attended, our third-
grade teacher required students to write reviews of the films. This unusual
and enlightened assignment helped to teach us something about film content
and about film literacy and criticism. In addition, the process of viewing and
reviewing helped not only consolidate the othering that cinema had initiated
decades earlier due to hailing but also arouse counterhailing strategies in us
(Naficy 2003c). The monthly magazine Ettelaate Mahaneh reviewed the first
year of the program: The Americans are wise businessmen who know that
their massive wheels of industry will continue turning as long as they can
trade with the whole world and keep millions of their well-paid workers fully
employed. This is because they have well understood that they cannot make
money from poor people. They must first raise the economic level of the poor
countries and provide them with what they need so that they can work and
be active in a secure environment before they can be of benefit to the United
States. At the same time, this will automatically prevent the flood of commu
nism.83 Although the Iranian government leaned toward the Americans, the
Board of Censors engaged in a balancing act between U.S. and Soviet film
concerns. For example, in 1951 it denied license to screen Twentieth Century
Foxs Why Korea?, which supported American involvement in the war there.
According to one U.S. spokesperson, the denial resulted from a general fear
among Iranian officials that anti-Soviet usis activities would stir the Soviet
propaganda machine to further action, which might take the form of re
questing exhibition permits for such Soviet propaganda films as Victory of the
Chinese People. 84 However, such wavering on the part of the censorship board
was rare, as American films dominated the screens.
44
5 Enthusiasm for usis

films at a school. Courtesy
of Mohammad Ali Issari.
Issari provides an interesting example of using usia films and mobile film
units locally to directly challenge Soviet propaganda beamed into Iran. Bitter
about being forced out of northwest Iran, the Soviet Union began broadcast
ing radio programs against the Iranian regime in Persian. At the same time,
it installed public-address systems on its side of the border near the town of
Astara, which frequently (every few hours) blasted similar propaganda mate
rial at Iranian border towns and villages. In 1951, when Issari was on one of
his mobile film tours in the Astara area, the local gendarmerie authorities,
upset at the Soviet propaganda loudspeakers across the river that formed the
border, asked for helped in countermeasures. Issari obliged by setting up his
portable screen for nighttime open-air viewing in such a way that it faced the
Soviet border and was visible to that countrys soldiers manning guard tow
ers. The film he chose was the popular newsreel The Shah of Iran Visits the
United States, a choice that ironically emphasized not the independence of the
Shah but his dependence on the United States and the imbrication of Cold
War superpower geopolitics in Iranian filmic politics. The sound volume was
turned up so high that the newsreels soundtrack, as well as the loud cheer
ing of more than two thousand villagers on seeing the Shahs image, could be
heard by the Soviets across the river. Apparently, the countermeasure worked.
The next day the Soviet loudspeakers remained completely silent (Issari and
Paul 1977:41). Issari stayed in the area several days, showing four to five films
each night, including another newsreel, The Funeral of Reza Shah, to some
times four thousand people (6970).
In line with the U.S. Cold War policy of bolstering the Iranian armed
forces, the usia also made military films for audiences in the Iranian armed
forces and in some cases for the general public. These emphasized the role
of the armed forces as guarantors of Iranian national unity and territorial in
45
tegrity against both foreign and domestic foes. For example, three films high
lighted the Armys role in maintaining national independence,85 while six
features were made on an unattributable basis to develop in the Iranian
Army fear and hatred of armies to the North and to develop confidence on
the part of Army personnel in their own country in order that they will fight
for it.86 In this period, American commercial newsreels showed military pa
rades (e.g., Movietone News, 1956), maneuvers (Hearst Metrotone News, 1958),
the Shahs reviewing of troops (Movietone News, 1948), and U.S. military as
sistance to Iran (Movietone News, 1956). 87 My research in the archives of the
Defense Audiovisual Agency at Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, Cal
ifornia, also turned up a large amount of military footage that documented
various Iranian-American military matters, such as joint military exercises,
personnel training, and military hardware purchased from the United States
(Naficy 1984c:1215, 22032). Designed to connect U.S. military forces and ci
vilian consultants to the homeland as well as to provide a window into Amer
ican culture for native populations, American Forces Radio and Television
(afrts, derisively called Afarts by intellectuals), which started in Tehran in
1959, rebroadcast both American commercial television shows and original
shows made by afrts staff. They provided an American discursive oasis for
the physical compounds in which U.S. forces, their families, and consultants
generally lived.
The promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear power, another goal of U.S. for
eign policy, received its share of films, which were distributed to thirty-four
countries, including Iran. A series of three twenty-minute documentaries were
made and shown in Iran. Consecrated to Life, the introductory film, pointed up
the U.S. presidents international atomic agency plan. Atomic Energy in Medi
cine and Atomic Energy Works for Peace focused on the uses of nuclear power
in medicine, industry, and agriculture. In addition, peaceful applications of
atomic energy were inserted into newsreels on an unattributable basis, so as
to downplay the U.S. governments connection. 88 Iran News carried its share of
film footage supporting the Atoms for Peace program. In hindsight, it is ironic
that this U.S. program to promote nuclear energy and medical research would
in subsequent decades, particularly during George W. Bushs presidency, come
to be regarded as dangerous to U.S. national security interests. Large quan
tities of weapons-grade uranium, which the U.S. government had loaned,
leased or sold to dozens of countries under Atoms for Peace, including to
Iran, were found to be out of U.S. control (Brinkley and Broad 2004:8). This
was just one of many instances in which this U.S. military, industrial, security,
and foreign aid program backfired on the aid giver.
46
In 1957, the State Department sent a team to Iran to evaluate American

technical assistance. It reported that the extensive usis audiovisual program
there was probably one of the largest maintained anywhere. It went on to
state that the Audiovisual Center of the Fine Arts Administration had 307 Ira
nians on its payroll and planned to establish substantial audiovisual centers
in each of the provincial capitals. 89 The team was alarmed at the size of the effort, considering it grossly out of proportion with the rest of the assistance
program, leading the government into extravagant expenditures that are en
tirely unjustified.90 Despite this criticism, the team admitted that the audio
visual program had met the two chief goals of the communication media in
development: complementing other technical programs by providing them
with audiovisual services and serving as a nation-building tool and a public
relations organ for the governments. Nevertheless, team members felt that
the audiovisual program in Iran was too large, too expensive and too elabo
rate and that funds might better be diverted to the agriculture, health and
education programs which have the advantage of bringing substantive bene
fits that are readily understood and appreciated by large elements of the pop
ulation without the props on which the av program places so much stress.91
The media genie, which the usis had helped release from its bottle, was per
manently out now that the Shah and his subservient governments had tasted
the power of the mass media in shaping both Iranian and foreign opinion.
Ironically, in their drive to oppose communism and to Westernize Iran under
a powerful Shah, the Americans were instrumental in creating a consumerist
culture of spectacle, driven by an autocratic regime surrounded by sycophan
tic media, undermining some of their own national ideals of democracy and
accountability. Perhaps because of the aforementioned State Department as
sessment, the American audiovisual budget for Iran began to drop. In 1956,
that budget was $2 million; it was reduced to $285,000 in 1957, to $56,000 in
1958, and to near zero in 1959, the year the Syracuse University contract was
terminated.92 Overall U.S. technical assistance to Iran grew exponentially,
from $1.3 million in 1951 to $73 million in 1956 (Bill 1988:124).
The Legacy of usia Productions

The usia and usis newsreels and documentaries had many, and multifaceted,
legacies. These films educated Iranian students and adults about important
public health issues, improved agricultural procedures, and introduced mod
ern educational methods, technological advances, modern political institu
47
tions, and ways of livingin short, they aided in modernizing Iranians. They
also Americanized Iranians by creating goodwill toward the United States
in general and an affinity to its progressive, democratic, technologically ad
vanced society. They also bolstered a weak Shah during a time of social un
rest in which his authority and legitimacy were severely challenged. From the
viewpoint of the film industry, the newsreels proved instrumental in creating
the technical and human-resource infrastructures necessary for a domestic
documentary film industry. The usis established a documentary film pro
duction center, the first in the country, and formulated an official state-driven
mode of production for documentaries. It trained many future documentary
filmmakers (a few of whom moved to feature production). Finally, it helped
create an official documentary genre and style, whose conventions surfaced
almost immediately in the Iranian governments own official newsreel, News
(Akhbar), and gradually in other documentary films.
With the entry of the U.S. government into film production and exhibition
in Iran by way of the usis/Tehran, the United States entered Iranian territo
rial, ideological, and psychological spaces directly. America was no longer a
real but far-off place, an imaginary chronotope, projected by its own movies
alonea mirror held before Iranians. It had entered Iranian cognitive maps
and affected how Iranians told and enjoyed stories. Productions and screen
ings by the usia and the usis affected the ideological, industrial, spectatorial,
authorial, and textual formations of cinema. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress
prohibited the distribution of usia/usis audiovisual materials, including films
and Voice of America broadcasts, to the public in the United States. Congress
was jealous of the power of the executive branch and weary of its engagement
in domestic propaganda (MacCann 1973:174). This ban disrupted the circu
lation of representations involving Iranian and American publics, limiting it
to a one-way flow, from the United States to Iran. At the same time, Iranians
own self-representing documentaries in the 1950s were in their infancy, and
no regular mechanism for their foreign distribution existed. Americans thus
remained ignorant of their governments efforts at influencing foreign minds
and about what those minds thought about the United States, with surprising,
even devastating, consequences for global politics.
48
2
t he s tat is t doc umen ta ry
cinem a a nd i t s
a lt er nat i v es
he inchoate, ad hoc patterns of the Reza Shah period, which transformed

nonfiction films made by freelance artisanal filmmakers into an ideo
logical apparatus to bolster the state ideology and the person of the Shah
consolidated during the thirty-eight-year reign of his son, Mohammad Reza
Shah (194179). The artisanal mode of documentary production and exhibition
was gradually transformed into a largely statist, hybrid, semi-industrialized
mode thanks to the centralizing and modernizing reforms of the Pahlavi
shahs, abetted by the Allied powers embassies and cultural attachs. As noted
in the previous chapter, the United States Information Agency (usia) and its
local arm in Iran, the United States Information Service (usis), contributed the
most both to the industrial and to the textual formations of documentary cin
ema in Iran. A key legacy of the usis/Tehran in that regard was the creation of
a well-staffed documentary production facility producing scores of newsreels
and documentaries annually; it was absorbed into the government-r un Fine
Arts Administration (faa) when the Syracuse Team left Iran.
The creation of other government organizations that contributed to this
statist, industrializing documentary cinema soon followed. In the 1960s,
the massive Ministry of Culture and Art (mca) was established. It absorbed
the faa and oversaw the visual, performing, and literary arts throughout the
country. National Iranian Radio and Television (nirt) and the Center for the
Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (cidcya) also be

came factories for the production, exhibition, and broadcast of nonfiction
and short subject films (and of live and animated films in the case of the lat
ter). The Iranian military, the National Iranian Oil Company (nioc), vari
ous government ministries, and several nongovernmental organizations as
well as independent and commercial film studios, also turned to nonfiction
films for education, training, propaganda, and publicity purposes. The indus
trialization of the documentary process resulted in the production of many
films, often characterized by what I have called an official style. However,
these same government and corporate structures created channels through
which filmmakerswhile kowtowing to the states official linecould ex
press themselves both artistically and politically to create subversive works.
The preconditions for the emergence of an official statist documentary cin
ema were nearly the same as those necessary for the development of fictional
cinema. The difference was that in documentary cinema, the state had a de
termining role because of its involvement in the funding, production, dis
tribution, exhibition, and censorship of documentaries during the second
Pahlavi period.
Characteristics of the Official Documentary Cinema

In the formation of official documentary cinema the state reigned supreme
over all aspects of filmmaking from inception to reception. Specifically, it was
involved in:
Creating film and media production departments, studios, labs, editing,
and postproduction facilities within the government
Hiring and training below-t he-line technical personnel and above-
the-line creative personnel, in effect rendering them civil servant
filmmakers
Funding and sponsoring in-house and commissioned documentaries
Creating state-r un educational institutions (colleges, universities,
institutes) to teach film production and film history and to train staff
Instituting supervisory and censorship systems to ensure the suitability
of final products in terms of themes, subjects, politics, and aesthetics
Formulating an official style for the documentaries
Instituting procedures and structures that result in a high volume of
productions
50
t he s t at i s t d ocu men t a ry ci n ema
Facilitating the exhibition, distribution, and broadcasting of nonfiction

films both at home and abroad
Organizing state-r un film festivals and awarding prizes and recognition
to films and filmmakers
Nominating films as national cinema products for entry into
international film festivals
Retaining the legal ownership and rights of the films made under its
aegis
The genesis of a statist film mode and style must be sought in the early ad hoc
government newsreels and documentaries that represented Iran and Iranian
life as modern and dynamic. The government newsreels that freelance cam
eramen such as Khanbabakhan Motazedi made in the 1920s and 1930s, and
the national anthem film that he prepared for mandatory screening in public
cinemas, were the first examples of such efforts at influencing Iranian hearts
and minds and at self-empowerment through nonfiction films. In 1934, the
increasing flow of foreign tourists into Iran convinced the government to pro
mote tourism. To that end, the Ministry of the Interior created a special Tour
ism Bureau, headed by Gholamhosain Ebtehaj, who drew up an ambitious
plan. Among its provisions was the dissemination abroad of news of Persia
through newspapers, films, and the radio to promote interest in travel to Per
sia.1 The creation of the Public Opinion Guidance Organization (pogo) un
der Reza Shah in 1938 was the most far-reaching and coherent effort at propa
gating an official culture, but this short-lived endeavor did not systematically
involve film. The National Education Film Circuit (nefc), begun in 1945, con
stituted a significant attempt at creating an official culture by exhibiting ap
proved Western movies in commercial and noncommercial venues, but this
undertaking, too, was brief. Several more sustained efforts were made during
Mohammad Reza Shahs reign; they are presented in what follows.
Military Film Production: The Artesh (Armed Forces)

Film Studio and Lieutenant Mehdi Golsorkhi
Around the time that the government created the nefc for nontheatrical film
exhibition, it also worked to create an official domestic military film produc
tion center to supply films to that circuit. The militarys collaboration with
the nefc led to the creation in 1945 of the Artesh Film Studio, run by Major
General Ahmad Baharmast, Lieutenant Mehdi Golsorkhi, and Captain Mehdi
t he st a t i st d o c umentar y c inema
51
Khaliqi. Apparently, both Golsorkhi and Khaliqi had been trained in film by
the U.S. armed forces film production center (Tahaminejad 2001/1380:40
41). By conjoining the Artesh Film Studio with the nefc, the military became
the first official producer and exhibitor of nonfiction films in Iran.
The army provided transportation vehicles and supplied fuel for the mo
bile film units; it exhibited nefc films in its various barracks and officers
clubs, including the one in Tehran in which Artesh Cinema was established.
Without the armys involvement with the nefc and the experience gained in
the process, it may have been impossible for it to form its own film studio at
this time. The linchpin was Golsorkhi, who used his technical ingenuity and
dedication to operate and service all types of audiovisual equipment, even
though he had limited resources and materials at his disposal. Nilla Cram
Cook praised Golsorkhi not only for his technical competence but also for his
dedication and ingenuity, stating, He has spent plenty out of his own pocket
to pay for taxis in emergencies, or to buy batteries, cable or other things neces
sary for the proper delivery of shows I have scheduled. He is training a num
ber of new operators.2
The Artesh Film Studio may have acquired all or part of the equipment for
its production studio and its 16mm black-and-white and color film labs from
U.S. military surplus through donation or purchase. A fundamental differ
ence between the nefc and the Artesh Film Studio was their primary objec
tive. While the former was in the business only of exhibiting films, and for
eign films at that, the latter was charged with both making and exhibiting
local films. The studio ran the Artesh Cinema on the premises of the Officers
Club in Tehran. Movies were also shown in the officers clubs of other cities.
When there were no clubs, commercial movie houses were rented, or estab
lished, to show films to armed forces personnel. For example, in December
1954, Alborz Cinema began showing films to members of the armed forces
and their families on Friday mornings, featuring the Golden Army of Genghis
Khan (Javdani 2002/1381:48). In March 1952, the armys Eighty-Fourth Divi
sion inaugurated the commercial Shahnaz Cinema in Khorramabad (named
after the Shahs daughter), the first cinema in that town.
Although the Artesh Film Studio made films primarily for the military
about which there is a dearth of informationa few of its products found
their way into public cinemas, giving us some clues about this Iranian-made
official film style. Among these were several newsreels, filmed in 16mm and
containing voice-over narration, that documented royal events after the Sec
ond World War, apparently following the newsreel style that Motazedi and
usis/faa newsreels had already formulated. Transfer of Reza Shahs Corpse
52
from Cairo to Tehran (Enteqale Jenazehye Reza Shah az Qahereh beh Tehran)
documents the repatriation of the Shahs body from Egypt to Tehran after
his death in South African exile. Takestan Day (Ruze Takestan, 1952) focuses
on a group of peasants from Takestan who had come to the Shahs Niavaran
Palace in Tehran to receive the ownership documents for the lands that the
Shah had distributed (sold) to them. The Arrival of HIM the Shah into Ta
briz (Tashrif Farmaiye Shah beh Tabriz, 1947) documents the entry of the
young Shah into Tabriz after the defeat in December 1946 of the Democratic
Party of Azarbaijan, headed by Jafar Pishehvari, who had declared the pro-
Soviet Autonomous Republic of Azarbaijan in northeastern Iran. This de
feat became a pillar of pro-Shah propaganda, as it was celebrated annually
for years to comeon government orders with pomp and circumstance in
schools, government offices, the national media, and in officially organized
public spectacles. Both the Artesh Film Studio and the usis/Tehran released
annual newsreels about this victory. In 1952, the latter issued Azarbaijan Day
(Ruze Azarbaijan), a seventeen-minute documentary about the defeat of the
Azari separatists and the expulsion of the Soviets from Iran; it was shown
widely in commercial movie houses and by mobile film units nationwide. The
usis/Tehran newsreel Iran News #44 (26 January 1956) devoted its entire nine
minutes to the Shahs appearance at the Azarbaijan Day celebrations. Appar
ently, no newsreel showed the atrocities that had occurred when the Iranian
army liberated the provinces of Azarbaijan and Kurdistan. Public hangings
of resistance leaders, the jailing of tribal khans, beatings of local teachers,
the burning of Azari-Turkish and Kurdish-language books, the destruction of
printing presses, and the death of reportedly fourteen thousand peasants and
workers were all ignored. U.S. diplomats had called this liberation the return
of the vultures from Tehran (McFarland 1981:480).
That the Artesh Film Studio had a larger plan to influence not only mili
tary personnel but also the general public is indicated by its production of fea
ture movies with nationalistic themes, which supported recent government
actions and victories over internal and external enemies. Interestingly, some
of these were comedies, possibly in an attempt to gently subvert their patri
otic message. One was Noqlali (1954), a comedy directed by Parviz Khatibi
and written, filmed, and edited by Golsorkhi. Shot on 16mm stock, the movie
was released to commercial theaters. The films protagonist, Noqlali, is trans
formed from an obese, slow-w itted country bumpkin (played by the promi
nent comic Asghar Tafakkori) into a proper, marriageable person as a result of
his enlistment and training in the armed forces. Tafakkoris popularity gave
the film a two-month run, but critics panned it (Omid 1995/1374:250). Kha
53
tibi also directed and wrote the screenplay for Pishehvaris Uprising (Qiame
Pishehvari, 1954), a political comedy that made fun of Pishehvaris auton
omy movement in Azarbaijan and lauded the actions of the Iranian armed
forces in its suppression; it ran for only a week. Significantly, Khatibi, who had
been jailed for communist sympathies, may have made these movies to erase
that stigma, which in the 1950s could prove a dangerous liability. Neither film
received critical acclaim or real public interest. If these movies did Khatibi any
good, they did not do the armed forces much good.
In 1953, Colonel Mohammad Shabpareh established Rey Film Studio, which
made two historical features promoting Iranian nationalism and supremacy
over Arabs and other rival nations. Directed by Nosratollah Mohtasham, The
Bride of the Tigris (Aruse Dajleh, 1955) deals with love and jealousy in the court
of Harun al-Rashid, as well as with the intrigues that led to the murder of Ja
far Barmaki, the Iranian prime minister. Sadeq Bahramis Bohlul (1957) is
likewise about the rivalry between Arabs and Iranians over both national and
poetic supremacy in the era of Harun al-Rashid. Thereafter, Rey Film Studio
produced lowbrow filmfarsi films, some of which were never screened pub
licly (Omid 1987b/1366:79798).
The gendarmerie forces also made forays into propaganda. They supported
financially and materially The Patriot (Mihanparast, 1953), written and pro
duced by Captain Mohammad Derambaksh and directed by Gholamhosain
Naqshineh for Shahriar Studio. The celebrated crime-drama filmmaker, Sam
uel Khachikian, an Armenian Iranian, directed Blood and Honor (Khun va
Sharaf, 1955), a patriotic movie for Diana Film, which also benefited from gen
darmerie support. Inspired by a news report, Khachikian wrote the screen
play himself. In it, a group of bandits that kidnaps the village teachers sister
are defeated when the teacher collaborates with the local gendarmes. While
Derambakshs movie encouraged war to defend the country from external
enemies, Khachikians movie urged a military solution to internal banditry.
The timing of these pro-military movies, after the American and British
coup had restored the Shah to power, makes it clear that they were designed
not only to bolster nationalism but also the Shah, whose legitimacy the coup
had compromised. These movies presented security forces in a positive light
at a time when the states authority and the nations autonomy were chal
lenged by rising internal dissent and communist sympathies, coupled with
the external communist threat from the Soviet Union. The Artesh Film Stu
dio and the gendarmerie fiction movies and newsreels attempted to fulfill the
goals that the usia had set for documentaries in Iran: to promote the Shah
and to strengthen the peoples confidence in the armed forces. They were not
54
very successful, as these movies were neither of high quality nor popular with
audiences. In addition, as Khachikian surmised, those who opposed the gov
ernment may have boycotted them (quoted in Haidari 1992/1371:3841).
Civil Servant Official Documentary Filmmakers:

Mohammad Ali Issari (b. 1924) and Shahrokh Golestan (b. 1933)
The development of an official statist documentary production mode was
guaranteed not only by a government policy that institutionalized the docu
mentary but also by the involvement of key individuals, such as Golsorkhi,
Mohammad Ali Issari, and Shahrokh Golestan. Born in Isfahan, Issari grad
uated in general science from Stuart Memorial College, which was managed
by British missionariesan experience that favorably disposed him toward
working with Westerners. His film career began in the waning years of the
Second World War. In 1944, he worked as the assistant films officer for the
British Embassy Information Department and, later, served as the film officer
for the British Council in Tehran, where he organized film screenings and as
sociated talks in the councils Green Room Theater until the mid-1950s.
In 1955, he switched to the usis/Tehran, as this organization offered pro
fessional growth opportunities in production and a higher salary. Here he
served as the assistant film officer for a decade. In that position, he supervised
the exhibition of films by the mobile film units throughout the country and
oversaw the production of the 402 issues of Iran News newsreels. According to
a complimentary reference letter from his supervisor, Lowell Bennett, Issari
filmed more than 90 percent, edited 80 percent, provided sound for 40 per
cent, and wrote the screenplays and read the voice-over narration of as much
as 25 percent of the newsreels.3 Although the extent of Issaris participation in
making Iran News newsreels seems exaggerated, he was definitely pivotal to
the usis/Tehran film operations. In addition to the newsreels, he directed and
codirected many documentaries in support of the official Pahlavi ideology of
syncretic Westernization, which were screened in public cinemas.4
Simultaneously, Issari acted as the Shahs official cinematographer, in
which capacity he updated and expanded on what Motazedi had done for the
Shahs father in the 1920s and 1930s (figure 6). Issari accompanied the Shah
and his wivesEmpress Soraya and, later, Empress Farahon their travels
in Iran and on their numerous state visits abroad to Turkey, India, Saudi Ara
bia, Italy, and Japan, from which he filed film reports.5 He also filmed official
ceremonies in which the Shah opened new facilities, laid cornerstones of fac
55
6 The assistant film

officer for the usis in Iran
and the royal familys
official cinematographer,
Mohammad Ali Issari,
filming the usis documentary
Education Corps. Courtesy
of Mohammad Ali Issari.
tories, handed out land deeds to farmers, switched on the power at generat
ing stations, or cut ribbons to inaugurate clinics and hospitals, events from
which the Shah claimed he obtained tremendous satisfaction because, like
his father, he regarded these as symbols of creative activity in the new Iran
(Pahlavi 1960:319). This news and documentary footage of the Shah was ed
ited into the usis newsreel, Iran News, and into the Iranian governments
own official newsreel, News, both of which were widely screened in public
cinemas. Portions of these newsreels were also reprinted on 16mm stock for
distribution via the mobile film units to villages and smaller towns nation
wide. Some of the footage was also cut into documentaries. In addition, us
ing the vast trove of footage of the Shah dressed in various official uniforms
that he had filmed at different public ceremonies, Issari put together a compi
lation film to accompany the national anthem. He claims that he delivered a
new film every six months to the movie houses, which they were mandated to
screen at every film session (Issari and Paul 1977:150). In covering the Shahs
public activities, Issari epitomized the multifunctional artisanal documen
tarian, for he single-handedly did everything. During the fifties and sixties,
he says, I photographed the Shahs official state visits with no assistants. I
was my own light man, my own sound man, scriptwriter and advance man. I
carried my own equipment, which became almost intolerably heavy during a
long full day. I was never privileged to enjoy the convenience of the compact
lightweight equipment of todays television newsreel creww ith one or two
assistants on hand, and a station wagon full of back-up equipment (Issari
and Paul 1977:229).
He was indefatigable, for according to his curriculum vitae, from 1959 to
1962, Issari was not only an official government cinematographer but also
simultaneously a freelance cameraman and reporter for American and Brit
56
ish commercial newsreel companies such as Telenews, United Press Inter

national, and Visnews, feeding them items he had filmed in Iran. He also
filmed items for the respected television program CBS News. As he told me in
an interview, since by contract he was obligated to furnish these foreign cli
ents with undeveloped exposed original negatives, he employed additional
cinematographers to film the same event, mostly his brother, Mahmud, who
accompanied him on assignments (Naficy 1982a).
Issari was a very industrious and prolific cameraman and propagandist.
He filmed between three hundred and four hundred newsreel items and doc
umentaries that he chose to interpret as patriotic, progressive, and as agents
of modernity that laid the foundation for the Shahs Great Civilization pro
gram (Issari and Paul 1977:182). Despite his partisan, pro-Shah views, he con
sidered himself a film journalist, whose guiding principles were alertness,
quick decision making, focus, impartiality, knowledge, truth telling, and the
representation of the people of Iran (22729). His tale of filming the uprising
of 1963 gives a rare glimpse into both his politics of journalism and into news
reel journalism in Iran. On Friday morning, 4 June 1963 (14 Khordad 1342),
a friend of his from the Shahs court asked him to film the planned demon
strations spearheaded by Ayatollah Khomeini in response to the Shahs White
Revolution reforms. The friend wanted him to film the demonstration osten
sibly to prove to the Shah later that night that his purported orders to the se
curity services and the police not to engage in violence were being carried out.
Yet it appears that the purpose of the filming assignment was not so much
journalism as surveillance, the documentation of the actions of both the po
lice and the demonstrators for possible future identification, arrests, and in
dictments. When Issari showed reluctance because of the difficulty of using
his heavy 35mm camera and the delay in processing the footage, the appar
ently well-connected friend was able to produce a 16mm Bolex camera with a
zoom lens for him, as well as the promise of speedy film processing the same
day. That filming the event was a matter of national importance and that no
one else could accomplish the task convinced Issari to put aside his qualms.
Thus equipped and convinced, and accompanied by three plainclothesmen
and his friend, he went to the mosque from which the demonstrators were to
begin their march through the streets of Tehran. In his version of the events,
Issari filmed the tumultuous crowd from various vantage points, including
from street level, from balconies, and aloft from the shoulder of his friend, but
no violence occurred, and the police managed to peacefully channel the dem
onstrators from the mosque into the vast hall of the traffic police office, where
the officials reasoned with them to stop and disband. Issari concludes his tale
57
by stating with gratification that the processed footage was screened for the
Shah that night, documenting that his orders had been obeyed and the po
lice had managed to disperse the crowd without bloodshed (Issari and Paul
1977:24041). It was this demonstration, and the subsequent violent police
action that killed scores of people, that led to Khomeinis eventual exile, an ex
ile that would end more than a dozen years later with his triumphant return
after the Shah himself had been driven into permanent exile in 1979. Issari
remains silent about any violence in his published account.
In 1961, a controversy arose around a film involving Issari that led to his
being banned from filming the Shahs state functions. In January, the popu
lar and mildly leftist magazine Sepid O Siah (Black n White) published an ar
ticle by a disgruntled Iranian student in the United States bearing the alarm
ist headline: The Most Disgraceful Film Shown about Iran Abroad. In it
the student complained about a twenty-six-minute film, A Mother for Shamsi
(1959), which he claimed was made by Issari, about the travels of a Jewish
mother and her daughter Shamsi from Tabriz to Tehrans Jewish neighbor
hood. According to the student, the film emphasized such abject poverty and
misery that we cannot look our American schoolmates in the face. . . . After
the end of the film we all sat together and cried for our country. In his desire
for a modern Iran, what he wished to see on the screen instead were nice
films about the big university we have, the factories, the dams, our engineers
and laborers and how they all work together to build up our country (Issari
and Paul 1977:243). Issari did not recognize the film as his own and, appar
ently in shock, investigated the matter. He found that the film was made up
of footage he had filmed in 1958 as a freelancer for the American-Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee (ajjdc). The committee had then itself produced the
film without any further assistance from Issari. The documentary was sup
posed to highlight the social services that the committee had rendered Iranian
Jews and was to be used for fund-raising purposes. Highlighting the poverty
and dire circumstances of despised minorities was, if not a legitimate, at least
an accepted tactic for such purposes. Yet Issari denied that he had filmed any
such scenes of misery, and the ajjdc directors in Iran and the United States
disputed to have used any images derogatory to Iran in the film.
The film credits Issari as cinematographer, Samuel Jaffe as a scriptwriter,
and Irving R. Dickman as a writer and producer, verifying Issaris limited
contribution as the photographer only. Mysteriously, however, no director is
listed. Clearly the footage was filmed without sound, as the voices of the four
main characters are all postdubbed in English. Issaris footage of the Jewish
quarter in Tehran, which the films voice-over narrator, Eli Wallach, calls ma
58
halleh (neighborhood or quarter) in Persian, is rare in its accurate documenta

tion of the Jews miserable life, muddy alleys under rain, and poverty, as well
as of the modern kindergartens, schools, clinics, and hospitals that ajjdc,
United Jewish Appeal, and the United States were providing. The films con
fused and unclear narrative about why Shamsi and her mother left Tabriz for
Tehrant he latters husband died and she is pregnant, somehow needing a
hospital in the faraway Tehran to deliver her babyalso suggests no director
at the helm as it tries to shoehorn Issaris mos (filming without sound) and
discontinuous footage into a semblance of coherence about the services ren
dered the Iranian Jews. The conceit of the film is that the protagonist, Mr.
Hakim (an Iranian actor whose voice is dubbed by Wallach), is a prominent
member of the Jewish quarterhe calls himself a sort of king of the ma
halleh, who is giving Shamsi and her mother a tour of the neighborhood and
of the services that Jewish organizations provide. The film ends on a hope
ful note with the announcement of the successful birth of a boy, Shamsis
brother.
Because of the sensationalist and negative media coverage about this film,
Savak (secret police) and the police interrogated Issari, and, although they
did not withdraw his press card, he could not film any events involving the
Shah for about four months. The head of the ajjdc in the United States as
sured Issari that he had withdrawn the film from public screenings to avoid
any possible further misunderstandings. Despite its promise to publish the
real story behind the film, the offending magazine in the end refused to do
so, and Issari was reinstated as the official photographer only after the Iranian
ambassador to the United States, Ardeshir Zahedi, intervened with the Shah.
Despite this painful experience, Issari, when reflecting on his life, appeared
proud to have been privileged to mirror in film his [the Shahs] many activi
ties for the betterment of the country, making nearly four hundred newsreels
seen by about 145 million Iranians (Issari and Paul 1977:24052).6
With many accomplishments behind him, Issari in 1965 took a leave of ab
sence from the usis to attend the University of Southern Californias School
of Cinema and Television for additional training, during which he made the
short film, The American Bazaar. But circumstances pushed him toward a
more serious academic involvement. He stayed on and wrote a two-volume
PhD dissertation on the history of Iranian cinema (1979) at the same time
that he began teaching film production at Michigan State University (msu).
Later, he turned his dissertation into a book (1989), an original contribution
to the historiography of Iranian cinema, the first in the English language. His
contributions to the official documentary style continued well into the 1970s,
59
but in the United States, where, as a film professor at msu, he produced a

multipart documentary series extolling Iranian dynastic history which be
came highly controversial.
Another official documentarian, who worked alternately as a civil servant
for the faa and the mca and as a freelance contractor with them and with
European media companies, was Shahrokh (Esmail) Golestan, the younger
brother of the new-wave writer and filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan. He auda
ciously made his first film of the Shahs and Empress Sorayas visit to his birth
city of Shiraz, The Shah and Sorayas Trip to Shiraz (Safare Shah va Soraya beh
Shiraz, 1952), when he was only seventeen. Soon he became an official court
cinematographer, making films of the royal couples visits mostly to foreign
countries. He also filmed footage of the royal familys private lives. Proud of
being a government propagandist, he made between fifty and sixty topi
cal and news films about the royal familys life, travels, and events (Golestan
1983:24). He felt particular pride about three major documentaries, each one
made about a key event during the Pahlavi periods official culture of specta
cle. A Crown for the Nation (Taji Baraye Mellat, 1969) covered the coronation
of the Shah and Empress Farah; An Undying Fire (Atashi keh Nemimirad, 1975)
dealt with the fiftieth anniversary of the Pahlavi dynasty, celebrated through
out the country; and Flames of Persia (also known as Eternal Flame; Forughe
Javidan, 1972), focused on the twenty-five hundredth anniversary celebrations
of the founding of the Persian Empire. He made the majority of his news
films and royal documentaries for the mca, though he simultaneously ran a
production company that imported commercial movies, and he owned four
cinemas in Shiraz (among them Ariana Cinema), in which he exhibited his
own and others imports. His position as a regular cinematographer of the
Shah, who would often ask for him by name, gave Golestan an elevated sense
of self and of invulnerability, which was uncharacteristic of other civil ser
vant filmmakers, who were at the mercy of their bureaucratic chiefs (Goles
tan 1983:13). He screened A Crown for the Nation for the Shah in his residen
tial Niavaran Palace over a private dinner attended by the minister of culture
and art, Mehrdad Pahlbod. The Shah applauded Golestan after the movie,
called him to his seat, and with a smile that was extraordinarily sincere, kind,
and humane and an attitude that relaxed Golestan, asked about the condi
tions of filmmaking. In particular, he asked about the large number of crew
members whose names appeared in the credits, using an unusual colloquial
phrase: Where did you get all these creatures [ janevaran]? Golestans forth
right answer, from the jungle of Farsi cinema, amused the Shah (Golestan
1983:3132). Golestans opulent Ariana Cinema burned to the ground dur
60
ing the revolution and he was made persona non grata as the court film
maker (Werba 1979:30). Eventually, Golestan went into exile, settling in Brit
ain, where he works as a journalist for the bbc Persian Service, for which he
also developed a valuable radio series on the history of Iranian cinema, Magic
Lantern (Fanuse Khial; see Golestan 1995/1374), which was released as a cas
sette set.
The Artesh Film Studio represented a modest beginning for official doc
umentary cinema, which found its full expression in the faas Audiovisual
Center, which had absorbed the Syracuse Teams facilities and personnel. Gol
sorkhi, Issari, and Golestan emerged as the first modern official documentary
filmmakers, operating very differently from the premodern royal court pho
tographers of the Qajar era, such as Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akkasbashi Sani al-
Saltaneh. As an official court photographer, Sani al-Saltaneh formed part of
the court structure. He was hired full time both to photograph and to film the
events the court desired, and he screened the results for the pleasure of his
patrons only. He appears to have generally worked alone as an artisan without
much organization, staff, or facilities, and his film audience remained largely
private, elite, and homogenous.
Issari, Golestan, and the later government documentarians discussed be
low, drew a regular salary and were civil servant filmmakersa phenomenon
that has persisted in Iranian documentary cinema to this day. While they
were required to make films that propagandized the person of the Shah, his
family, and his policies (as well as the institutions that hired them), they were
not court employees and thus were bureaucratically removed from direct royal
control. In addition, they did not have to pay much attention to market forces
or to audience tastes, for their films success did not depend on box-office re
ceipts but on government largesse and approval. These filmmakers consti
tuted a one-way, top-town means through which government officials com
municated both with their institutional subjects and with citizens at large.
Nonetheless, because the filmmakers addressed with their works a large
and diverse public, not the closed and rather homogenous circuit of the court
and the elite, these modern official documentarians were sensitive to how
their films fared and to how the public and their cohorts perceived them pro
fessionally. As such, they were not necessarily the mouthpieces of the govern
ment. Their official documentaries were more complicated than the desig
nation would imply, for they worked at the intersection of competing personal
and professional interests and had to reconcile different and sometimes an
tagonistic publicst his led to an authorial formation. Stylistically, most official filmmakers followed certain normative practices, consisting of a limited
61
number of narrative and generic patterns of signification, narration, presen

tation, and representationthe textual formation. Yet as will become clear,
their films were not closed texts, for signs of competing loyalties and autho
rial tensions and personalities abound in them. Despite their dependence on
government affiliation and financing, some official documentarians produced
antiofficial or counterhegemonic films, biting the hands that fed them.
Institutionalizing the Documentary in the Civil Government

The explosion of investment by American film and television companies
abroad after the Second World War had a profound impact on Iranian film
and television industries and documentary cinema. These companies sub
stantial sales abroad in part resulted from spinoffs from various American
technical, military, commercial, and development assistance programs, fun
neled through such government organizations or programs as the Agency for
International Development, the usia, and Point IV, as well as various com
mercial companiesCulture Inc. In the case of Iran, these organizations and
programs furnished film projectors, vehicles, films, personnel, and training
to the nefc, the Artesh Film Studio, and the faas Audiovisual Center. Other
factors that contributed to this surge of American cultural activity abroad
were tax advantages, low labor costs, expanding foreign markets, the grant
ing of educational certification to documentaries that exempted them from
tariffs, Cold War politics, and the protection offered American foreign invest
ments by U.S. foreign policy under the activist secretary of state John Foster
Dulles.
The imbrications of foreign policy and global commerce were instrumen
tal in the formation and politics of Culture Inc. and had far-reaching conse
quences for both foreign policy and media industries, as one fed the other.
In developing countries such as Iran, television stations equipped by Ameri
can companies provided a key tool for fighting communism and a powerful
venue for exhibiting American culture, commercial movies, usia and usis
films, and indigenous official films. Yet the reach of the American media
companies, which were becoming global conglomerates, was much wider and
deeper than that. As Erik Barnouw notes, Some of the companies marketing
television films also sold receivers and transmitters; some sold consultant ser
vices, some invested in foreign stations, production companies, dubbing ser
vices, animation studios, theaters (1970:111). The establishment of lobbying
organizations, such as the Motion Picture Export Association (in 1959) and
62
the Television Program Export Association (in 1960) helped centralize and
strengthen these efforts to expand into foreign markets.
These external global forces were aided in Iran by certain internal consid
erations and structures that institutionalized both the official Pahlavi culture
and an official documentary cinema. Studies by unesco had indicated that
television could serve as a valuable means for both expanding and enriching
the educational system and the national integration of developing nations,
providing a motivation for government interest in television.
The Ministry of Culture and Art (mca)

One of the most important contributions of the usis and the Syracuse Team
in institutionalizing the official production mode was the creation of the Au
diovisual Department within the faa in Tehran, which was headed by one of
the Shahs trusted relatives, Mehrdad Pahlbod. Initially housed within the
prime ministers office, the faa and its film department were equipped with
up-to-date 16mm and 35mm documentary film facilitiesthe first in Iran.
This government-owned film studio consisted of sound stages, black-and-
white and, later, color film-processing labs, a recording studio, and graphics,
photography, and publications departments. Another important contribution
was the training of filmmakers and technical personnel to run the center.
From its beginning in 1951 to 1959, when the Syracuse Team left Iran, the
center trained about 80 Iranian filmmakers and 195 audiovisual specialists
(Issari 1989:177). Many of these trainees became the countrys future docu
mentary and fiction filmmakers, among them Houshang Shafti, Abolqasem
Rezai, Issari, Mohammad Qoli Sayyar, Mohammad Faijani, Sirus Shabdiz,
Parviz Osanlu, Maziyar Partow, Reza Badiyi, and Jamshid Shaibani. Some of
these went abroad and led successful and productive film careers, such as Is
sari, who made documentaries, and Badiyi, who directed top-rated television
serials like Mission Impossible. As migr filmmakers they completed the cir
cle of exchange relations between Iran and the United States, contributing
to the latter countrys culture and media. Significantly, none of these usia-
trained filmmakers made it big as new-wave directors in Iran.
Between the departure of the Syracuse Team in 1959 and 1965, the faa
produced an average of fifteen to twenty-five documentaries and propaganda
films a year, some of which were distributed abroad by Iranian embassies (Is
sari 1989:183). While this government studio system proved an important
milestone in institutionalizing and industrializing documentary cinema, it
63
produced a negative side effect: the politicization of documentary by a govern

ment intent on pressing its filmmakers into servicing its political aims and
punishing those who failed to do so. This government studio system, created
with assistance from the United Statesthe most aggressive proponent of the
capitalist systemwas created almost at the expense of the private commer
cial film sector in Iran because it served the political interests of both coun
tries best. Commercial importers of film and film equipment, such as Ataol
lah Moshiri, complained to the U.S. embassy in Tehran that the usis/Tehrans
policy of loaning 16mm educational films and projectors free of charge to
medical schools and to social aid agencies, such as the Red Lion and Sun Soci
ety (Iranian Red Cross), had made it economically unfeasible for them to rent
or to sell films and film equipment. He and other commercial film importers
wanted to reap some of the benefits of the U.S. film program by either sell
ing and renting the films or selling and renting the equipment.7 On the other
hand, the State Department team sent to evaluate the usis film effort found a
tendency on the part of the American staff to discount the capabilities of lo
cal private film-producing and processing shops and a corresponding empha
sis on establishing complete self-servicing facilities within the government.8
In December 1964, parallel with the ascendance of the Shah, the faa was
peeled off from the prime ministers office and, along with other departments
from a reorganized Ministry of Education, formed the new and massive Min
istry of Culture and Art (mca). It housed, among its various divisions, an au
diovisual department and a film production center. The transfer to the mca of
the usis/Tehrans production facilities, trained filmmakers, and experienced
technicians entailed the transfer of cinematic paradigms as wellt he official
documentary structure and film style that the mca, in its function as a key
producer, censor, and exhibitor of documentaries nationwide, disseminated
widely. The usis-educated filmmakers trained in the style gradually fanned
out and took positions throughout the blossoming motion-picture industry.
By making widely distributed official films themselves, they set the standards
for the documentary form; as managers of film production in government
agencies and elsewhere, they enforced those standards; and as teachers in
film schools and colleges, they set a powerful model of style for new practitio
ners in training.
The return during this period of a large number of European-and U.S.-
trained filmmakers, almost all of them male, who worked for the mca and
nirt both consolidated the institutional production mode and official film
style and rejuvenated and modernized them by inculcating Western profes
sional and critical values. Reference to this training background throughout
64
this book highlights the constitutive function of foreign training in the emer
gence and ascendancy of Iranian documentary and fictional cinemas.
National Iranian Radio and Television (nirt)

The establishment of television in Iran, which was patterned after Ameri
can commercial television, represents another form of technological and cul
tural transfer, which disseminated to a wider public American culture and
programming and the official style of documentary developed in the usis
operation. In 1958, Iraj Sabet Pasal, a wealthy Bahai and a graduate in busi
ness administration from Harvard University, whose father Habibollah was
the agent of rca and Pepsi Cola in Iran, used his contacts in the royal court
to obtain permission to establish an American-model station (Katz and We
dell 1977:94). At first, there was some resistance within the ruling circles to
Sabets plan for commercial television, particularly from the minister of post,
telegraph, and telephone, a resistance that Sabet overcame through his inti
mate connections to the Pahlavi court. What seemed to have tipped the bal
ance in his favor was his installing a close-circuit television for the entertain
ment of the ailing Queen Mother, which allowed her to watch, among other
programs, live coverage of the marriage of her son, the Shah, to Empress Fa
rah (Katz and Shinar 1974:2122).
Sabets commercial station, Iran Television (Televizione Iran), established
on 7 October 1958, remained a monopoly for nearly a decade, and it was a thor
oughly Americanized operation, from hardware to staffing and from program
ming concept to individual programs. It adopted the American ntsc techni
cal standards, American advertising agencies imported its programs, and rca
technicians trained its technical staff (Tunstall 1977:246).9 The stations pro
gramming concept, which was to provide entertainment, was also patterned
after American models, and its schedule contained mainly mgm films and
nbc television series, with a few locally produced programs included (Katz
and Wedell 1977:94). In addition to these commercial movies and film series,
Iran Television aired usis newsreels (such as the Iran-Washington Report) as
well as other usis/Tehran films and usia news films for foreign newscasts,
disseminating to a wider home audience both the films and their official style.
Sabet opened another private, commercial station in Abadan on 15 March
1960 to air programs primarily to Western oil workers and their families.
Privately owned, commercially driven, and designed chiefly to entertain,
Iran Television was not particularly concerned with Iranian national iden
65
tity or with projecting the Pahlavi state ideology, although it contributed to

the reawakening of Iranian art, music, theater, and dance (Katz and Shinar
1974:23). According to Kambiz Mahmoudi, the general manager of Iran Tele
vision who later became the deputy director of nirt, Iran Television was an
apolitical organization because of the conservatism of its owners, and be
cause of their minority religious affiliation, it did not engage in any religious
programming, so as not to offend anyone, but went off the air during the
Muslim religious holidays and mourning periods (Mahmoudi 1982:2931).
In 1960, another television station began in Tehran, this time operated by the
United States Armed Forces Radio and Television (afrts), which broadcast
imported popular shows from the United States in English and was on the air
until just before the revolution of 197879.
With the promulgation of the Shahs White Revolution, the states take
over of the mass media for the purpose of propaganda and national integra
tion intensified. Following a study by a French consulting firm, in 1966 the
government established National Iranian Television, which in June 1969 ab
sorbed Sabets Iran Television to form in September 1971 a monolithic na
tionwide broadcast network, National Iranian Radio and Television, headed
by Reza Ghotbi, a capable European-trained engineer and a relative of the
new empress, Farah. With the acquisition in October 1973 of the educational
television channel run by the Ministry of Education, and the inauguration in
November that year of an international program, nirts consolidation was
complete, becoming a public broadcasting monopoly operated as an autono
mous government corporation that gave Iran the most extensive national net
work coverage in Asia after Japan (Mahmoudi 1977:12). It operated four chan
nels: First Network, devoted to general programming, had the widest national
coverage. It was followed by Second Network, given to highbrow program
ming, Educational Television, which aired educational films and instructional
programs (the first channel to broadcast in color regularly in 1975), and Inter
national Television, which ran foreign-language news, films, and programs
(mostly in English, with some French and German) for the benefit of the
large foreign resident communities and of Westernized Iranians. nirt also
operated more than a dozen provincial production centers in major cities that
buttressed the national materials with local productions. The reasons for the
takeover of Sabets television are complex and have never been fully revealed,
but the Shahs desire to counteract growing criticism about Bahai influence
was a factor (Sreberny-Mohammadi and Mohammadi 1994:6365). nirt ad
opted the French television standards (secam).10 It began small, but it grew
rapidly into a giant national organization with around eight thousand employ
66
ees by the time of the revolution and an estimated budget of $112,300,000 for
1977 (Mahmoudi 1977:14).
Even as it grew by leaps and bounds, a kind of artisanal mode of produc
tion and broadcasting remained at work, similar to the one in the motion-
picture industry. As Kambiz Mahmoudi, one of nirts deputy directors, ex
plained it in an interview,
I can tell you that there were no principles or procedures on paper, or
a model, according to which we were to proceed with our affairs [pro
ducing and airing programs]. We discovered these in the process. . . .
This was because a group of people had gathered, with different ideas.
Each person had traveled a different route and wanted to do something,
but these things were not related to each other. If you took the music
which nirt broadcast after 56 months of operation, you would see all
sorts of music, all kinds of shows, and performances, without any con
tinuity, any personality (I dont want to say they were bad; no, actually,
some of them were good). Anyway, if you looked at the shows carefully,
youd think that maybe this program was made by the Communists,
that one by the nationalists, and this other one by irresponsible artists,
that this newscast was made by people who were supervised by Savak,
or that news item was the work of an opposition group. If you looked
carefully youd see such a chaotic countenance on the television. (Mah
moudi 1982:4752)
At around the same time that the movie industry began industrializing, nirt
also put into effect various industrializing measures, which systematized these
artisanal tendencies. It created nine program production and research depart
ments, or groups. These were music, family and children, religion and ethics,
Iranzamin (the latter on the history, geography, archaeology, and arts of Iran,
headed by the filmmaker Feraidun Rahnema), contests, basic informational
programs, serials and entertainment, art and science, and dramatic produc
tions. In addition, through its subsidiary company Telfilm, established in 1971
by Malek Sasan Veissi, nirt engaged in quality feature filmmaking, particu
larly with new-wave filmmakers, coproductions with foreign movie companies,
serials production, and tv documentaries. With Telfilms participation, nirt
became a major producer of television serials, almost all of them shot on film:
Amir Arsalan (1965, dir. Parviz Kardan), Mr. Officer (Sarkar Ostovar, 196769,
dir. Parviz Sayyad and Parviz Kardan), Vagabond (Alakhun Valakhun, 1968,
dir. Manuchehr Mahjubi), Mrs. Qamars House (Khanehye Qamar Khanom,
196971, dir. Mahjubi), Octopus (Okhtapus, 196869, dir. Sayyad), Homeless
67
(Khanehbedush, 1973, dir. Kardan), Shelterless Years (Salhaye Bipanahi, 1973,

dir. Hasan Shahbaz and Shahrokh Zolriasatein), Under the Little Bazaar (Zire
Bazarcheh, 1973, dir. Abbas Pahlevan and Hasan Marandi), Samads Adventures
(Majerahaye Samad, 1974, dir. Sayyad), The Tangestan Braves (Dalirane Tang
estan, 19745, dir. Homayun Shahnavaz), Fire without Smoke (Atashe Bedune
Dud, 197475, dir. Nader Ebrahimi), King of the Universe (Soltane Sahebqeran,
1975, dir. Ali Hatami), Ancient Tales of Iran (Afsanehhaye Kohane Iran, 1976,
dir. Malekjahan Khazai and Marva Nabili), and My Uncle Napoleon (Daijan
Napeleon, 1976, dir. Naser Taqvai). nirt created additional divisions for audi
ence research, production, the performing arts, and criticism, which attracted
the whos who of Iranian culture and arts, making nirt an indispensable en
gine of film and high culture. Finally, it established research institutes, either
autonomously or in collaboration with other entities, such as the Communi
cation and Development Institute, headed by the political philosopher Majid
Tehranian, and the Center for the Dialogue of Civilizations, directed by the
philosopher Darisuh Shayegan. With all these divisions and activities, nirt ri
valed, even surpassed, the mca in terms of the quality and diversity of its cul
tural expression and of the nationwide reach of its productions and activities.
These developments represent a major transformation of the media and
cultural structures in Iran, demonstrating the triumph of the statist European
model over the private enterprise American model, which suited both the stat
ist goal of national integration and the Shahs autocratic regime. Despite this
structural reorientation, however, the programming remained chiefly Ameri
can or American-influenced. This dual structure of media and programming
reflected, and contributed to, the dual political economy of the country, which
showed hybrid statist and capitalist features. It also pointed to the strong im
pact of the globalizing American pop culture and entertainment industries.
Overseas sales in the mid-1960s accounted for some 60 percent of all U.S.
telefilm syndication, representing the difference between profit and loss for
the entire industry (Schiller 1971:85). Iranian imports of American television
products offered a case in point. A survey conducted in 1974, for example,
showed that 40 percent of television programs were imports, while the rest
were domestically produced (Katz and Weddel 1977:156). American serials
and films occupied the lions share of that 40 percent, as borne out by table 1.11
The immense popularity of domestic programs, such as Morad Barqi (Mo
rad the Electrician) and Zire Bazarcheh (Under the Little Bazaar) are notable,
as is the preponderance of American-made products, which points to the deep
penetration of American cultural products. Many local shows were made by
a small group of Western-trained professionals who emulated American and
68
table 1 Popularity of Programs on Iranian Television

in Tehran (January 1974)
Program Title and Type

Morad Barqi (local comic serial)
Days of Our Lives (U.S. import)
Zir-e Bazarcheh (local drama serial)
Full feature films (mostly imported)
Tarzan (U.S. import)
Variety show
Science program
News (locally produced)
Ironside (U.S. import)
Young Lawyers (U.S. import)
Salha-ye Bipanahi (local serial based
on U.S. serial Peyton Place)
Variety show
The Sixth Sense (U.S. import)
Marcus Welby, M.D. (U.S. import)
Colombo (U.S. import)
Percent Naming
Program among Five
Best-Liked Programs
75
49
45
30
20
18
15
13.7
12
12
12
12
11
9
8
Source: Katz and Shinar 1974:58.
European shows, helping naturalize these conventions. There were economic

reasons for such a penetration as well. As Mohammad Naficy, the head of the
family and childrens programming group at nirt, stated, Americans were
consummate salespeople with extensive marketing experience, and they ad
vertised their products and made them readily accessible. Their prices were
lower than those for European programs because of their economy of scale.
Finally, they had a diverse range of well-made programs (Naficy 1983:7980).
Although some domestic productions were highly popular, the ratio of foreign
imports to domestic productions increased to three to one by 1976 (Malek and
Mohsenian Rad 1994:83).
Close relatives of the Shah and his wife, Farah, headed both the mca and
nirt, thus consolidating the courts control of the media and the position of
these two giant agencies as purveyors of official ideology and culture. nirts
reputable College of Cinema and Television, in which future filmmakers and
technicians of cinema and television were trained, mostly by foreign-trained
instructors, dispersed its impact further into the culture and media fields.
69
The two major media inroads that the U.S. government and commercial en
tertainment companies had made in Iran (documentary film production and
television broadcasting) were conjoined into a dominant, integrated signify
ing practice that, despite differences between the mca and nirt and institu
tional and personal rivalries, consolidated the Americanization not only of
Iranian taste, as Nilla Cram Cook had prescribed it more than a decade ear
lier, but also of Iranian consciousness-shaping industries. The state became
hegemonic in the realm of media and culture, dominating all other insti
tutions, social formations, dispositions, and tendencies in the microphysical
struggles of power and knowledge.
Patronage by Nepotism and Cronyism

Nepotism and cronyism have been important factors in the formations of Ira
nian modernity, national culture and cinema, and official documentary films.
The minister of culture and art, Pahlbod, was married to the Shahs elder sis
ter, Shams, while the director general of nirt, Reza Ghotbi, was the empresss
cousin and a close childhood friend whom she called the brother I never
had (Pahlavi 2004:16). Then there was Laili Amirarjomand, a U.S.-trained
female librarian and a confidante of Empress Farah, who headed the cidcya
(established in 1964), which became a third force in the government-driven
effort to industrialize and modernize the film industry, promoting an alter
native form of cinema. Finally, Mehdi Bushehri, the husband of the Shahs
twin sister, Ashraf, ran the Film Industry Development Corporation of Iran
(fidci) in the 1970s, which engaged in film coproductions with international
concerns. Their long tenures at their institutions helped ensure regularity
and continuity not only in the organizational and managerial formations of
cinema and television but also in the textual and authorial formations of film
and television programs in both nonfiction and fiction forms.12 These individ
uals and their organizations formed part of the Shahs inner circle of power,
and they contributed greatly to his political consolidation and, ironically, to his
eventual downfall. While the enormous petrodollar budgets at the disposal of
the mca, nirt, and the cidcya encouraged the proliferation of documentaries
and other films by civil servant filmmakers and freelance contractors, these
institutions financial, administrative, and censorship control over their prod
ucts tended to discourage experimentation with the official style. At the same
time, however, their intimate links to the center of power gave these court-
related chiefs a much greater political and financial autonomy than that held
70
by other governmental and nongovernmental film and media agencies. As a

result, some of the most critical and artistic films were also produced in these
institutions and under their aegis.
Although the mca and nirt were the most prolific and industrialized orga
nizations, they were not the countrys sole structures for documentary produc
tion, distribution, and exhibition. The Film Center of the cidcya, established
in 1969, supported small-scale, short-subject, documentary, experimental,
and animated films made for, and about, children. Made under the tutelage of
the Film Center directors (initially Firouz Shirvanlu and later Ebrahim Foru
zesh), these films were exhibited in the cidcyas branch libraries nationwide.
The best of them were also entered in the cidcyas annual International Chil
drens Film Festival, which began in 1966 (initiated by Hajir Dariush). The gi
ant National Iranian Oil Company (nioc) also produced many documentary,
instructional, and institutional films, either through independent film stu
dios, such as the Golestan Film Workshop (gfw), or through other film com
panies. Established by the modernist short story writer and novelist Ebrahim
Golestan, who later became a new-wave filmmaker, gfw made many films
for nioc, some of whose more artistic products found their way onto public
screens and into festivals. In addition, various government ministries hired
freelance filmmakers to make documentaries, particularly for publicity pur
poses. Some commercial film studios, too, such as Mitra Film Studio and Pars
Film Studio (both under Ismail Kushan), made nonfiction films. Nongovern
mental organizations as varied as the Society for Assistance to Lepers and the
Blood Organization of Iran, and commercial and industrial concerns such as
automotive and steel manufacturing companies also sponsored documenta
ries, some of them memorable. Finally, educational institutions, such as the
Fine Arts School of Tehran University, nirts College of Cinema and Televi
sion, and the nationwide amateur Super 8 film organization Sinemaye Azad
(Free Cinema), taught film production, history, and aesthetics, and many of
their students and participants made experimental nonfictional works that
were entered into film festivals, including Free Cinemas own annual festival.
The producers at the Free University of Iran, a nationwide multimedia univer
sity, made documentary films, and university faculty made educational televi
sion and radio programs with the assistance of nirts Educational Television
Channel in support of the universitys curriculum, which were aired nation
wide (Naficy 1977). Since Sinemaye Azad, begun in 1969, was largely funded
by nirt, many of its filmmaking members found employment in the latter
organizations or were commissioned by it to make films on a freelance basis.
After the success of Sinemaye Azad, in its rivalry with nirt, the mca in 1974
71
formed its own society for young and amateur filmmakers, the Young Peo
ples Cinema Society (Anjomane Sinemaye Javanan), headed by Bijan Moha
jer. The establishment of local and national film festivals that recognized and
gave awards for nonfiction and short-subject films brought prestige to the art
form and enhanced exchanges among filmmakers.
The Official Style of Newsreels and Documentaries

The most viable seed of the official style was sown by usia and usis film efforts. The first and most public manifestation of this style in domestic films
emerged in the biweekly propaganda newsreel, News (Akhbar), starting in
1959, whose magazine style and pro-Shah and pro-military contents dupli
cated Iran News. This similarity partly resulted from structural linkages be
tween the producers, for the usis/Tehran was the producer of Iran News,
while the faas Audiovisual Center, formed with the usis/Tehrans absorp
tion into the Iranian government, produced News. Since news events, news
sources, and newsreel cameramen were limited in Iran, and since News cop
ied Iran News in style, these two newsreels began to resemble each other. One
contained more American and international news, the other more domes
tic news, particularly about the Shah and his family (Issari 1989:183). This
made for a minor difference. The copy had achieved near identity with the
original, demonstrating the success of self-othering and professionalization
at profoundly ideological, personal, and authorial levels, rendering the origi
nal obsolete. Iran News stopped in 1964, leaving News, and later Weekly Events
(Ruydadhaye Hafteh), as the unrivaled newsreels of the Pahlavi government
into the 1970s. By then, the agency that produced and circulated these official
newsreels had itself evolved from the small faa to the massive mca.13
Another way in which the usia-formulated official documentary style be
came naturalized was through one of the least publicized duties of the usia,
according to which it annually granted so-called Certificates of International
Educational Character to thousands of American films for the purpose of ex
port. Between 1950 and 1983, for example, the usia granted a huge number
of such certificates, around sixty-t hree thousand (Rosenberg 1983:40). Based
on the Beirut Agreement of 1948, adopted by the United Nations, which was
designed to facilitate the international exchange of educational audiovisual
materials, the certification process removed the high import and export tariffs
that governments levied against documentary and educational filmslevies
that sometimes amounted to 100 percent ad valorem. Films that obtained
72
educational certificates avoided all import and export duties. On the other
hand, films that failed to obtain certification were essentially denied foreign
markets because of the high cost of exporting and importing without certifi
cation and because of the low budget of most independently made documen
tary and educational films. The usia refused to certify films that it judged to
be misrepresentative or liable to misinterpretation by foreign audiences
lacking adequate American points of reference (Rosenberg 1980:40). Over
the years, this resulted in the denial of certification to scores of films that were
critical of U.S. government policies, major industries, and prevailing social
conditions. The certification process was thus turned into both a political and
an economic form of censorship, and it helped circulate a model of documen
tary and educational films that was politically safe.14
The American-British coup of 1953 that toppled Mosaddeq and reinstated
the Shah indirectly helped consolidate the official style as the reigning model
of documentary cinema. This statist structure and style proved to be resil
ient models of seeing and presenting the factual world, lasting long after the
demise of both the usis and the faa. This style had several dimensions
political, ideological, structural, and generic. Politically, official documenta
ries and newsreels, such as News, tended to idealize the person of the Shah;
supported the state ideology, politics, and policies of syncretic Westernization
and endorsed the United States involvement in Irans development. Ideologi
cally, they were positivistic, emphasizing benefits instead of criticism; and
they tended to revive, sometimes chauvinistically, the glories of a pre-Islamic
past. In line with their propaganda aims, the mca transferred these newsreels
and positivist documentaries onto 16mm prints and sent them to Iranian em
bassies abroad, so that foreigners will also see what had been happening [in
Iran]. However, as Pahlbod admits, In regards to the films we sent abroad
we were on the whole not very successful, for they did not find receptive au
diences (Pahlbod 1984:34).
Pahlavi-enacted civil laws, Shiite religious laws, and social customs and
taboos, which made it difficult to film current social conditions, were also
instrumental in consolidating the official style. The regulations of 1938 that
limited what could be filmed were still in force. A report prepared by the Soci
ety for Applied Anthropology in 1951 for the International Moving Picture Di
vision of the U.S. Department of State, which took note of these regulations,
helped codify the conventions of the styleconventions that guided the usis
filmmaking effort and that became a blueprint for the official style.
The report recommended that the following situations be avoided: the film
ing of women, particularly if they are unveiled; religious ceremonies, espe
73
cially official ones; anything that might suggest that the people of Iran are
second-rate; and anything that might arouse Iranians guilt for their past
practices, which may result in the rejection of the new Western procedures.
On the other hand, the report recommended that the following practices be
followed: making the films interesting and lively; showing whole persons
in whole situations, instead of focusing on an isolated individual filmed in
close-ups; making technical procedures understandable by placing them in
the context of human relations; emphasizing the benefits obtained by follow
ing recommended procedures; using humor and humorous situations, not
humorous commentary or sarcasm; incorporating the kind of objections that
conservatives have to the new ways, then refuting them; using a very slow pace
and a linear narration that avoided sudden transitions; going from general
(long shot) to particular (close-up); showing instead of telling; and, finally, for
voice-overs, employing a person with a recognizable high-class or good Per
sian accent, not a person with a minority accent. Noting that Iranians have a
very strong sense of national pride, the report recommended that, where pos
sible, in connection with technical assistance films, materials should be used
that reflect the achievement of Iran (quoted in Issari 1979:vol. 2:57791).
As a result of incorporating these recommendations, partly inspired by the
murder of Robert Imbrie and similar incidents around photography in Iran,
the usis and faa films used dramatization, reenactment, and sometimes hu
mor to enliven their subjects for the audience, the majority of whom were il
literate. To increase audience identification, they often focused on an individ
ual or a family by means of which the appropriate lessons were taught. For
example, the central figure in almost a dozen educational films was a young
boy named Said, whose trials and travails resulted in his learning about new
health, safety, and educational issues and practices and the modern ways
of dealing with them.15 Others instructed proper methods for building out
houses, so that water wells were not contaminated, or offered ways of prevent
ing communicable diseases such as malaria and trachoma from spreading.
To facilitate comprehension, the films adopted a slow pace and simple and
linear narratives. Sometimes they showed sensitivity to Iranians cultural ori
entation by employing such indigenized aesthetic features as panning from
right to left to match the direction in which Persian is written (Issari and Paul
1977:23334).
Finally, a wall-to-wall, voice-of-God, off-screen narration, which provided
description, gave information, and cued viewers to particular aspects of each
scene, became the norm. This practice may partially have been borrowed
from the usia films made in the United States, which featured a lot of voice-
74
over narration because in preparing foreign-language versions of films, dub

bing a single narrators voice proved easier than dubbing character dialogues.
This narrative device incorporated into film texts the traditions both of oral
storytelling and of extratextual screen translators (dilmaj), who had previously
provided live narration, cueing, and interpretation to spectators. Voice-over
narration also replicated the monologic discourse of the government in the so
ciety at large: speaking subjects in official newsreels and documentaries were
not the average peasants or urban dwellers depicted, whose speechif heard
on the soundtrackwould have manifested different regional and ethnic ac
cents, implying premodern formations, diversity, and unapproved viewpoints.
Instead, it was the singular, dominant speaking subject outside the textt he
governmentwhose official viewpoint about what was depicted became the
voice-over in an authoritative national accent, uttered by an unseen narrator.
The Taxonomy of Nonfiction Film Styles and Forms

High production output, one criterion for the industrialization of cinema,
was not limited to major government entities, such as the mca, nirt, and
the cidcya. Some smaller, semi-independent film centers were also quite ac
tive. For example, three hundred Sinemaye Azad filmmakers, aged between
thirteen and forty, produced about one thousand Super 8 shorts, many of
them documentaries, in the ten-year period between 1969 and 1979 (Nassibi
1994:197). Although most of these filmmakers were amateurs, the Sinemaye
Azad allowed much experimentation with form and content. College film stu
dents, too, were prolific and engaged in various formalist, social realist, and
critical experimentations. As a result of the diversity of funding sources and
the variety of organizations that sponsored, commissioned, or employed civil
servant and freelance documentarians, the official documentary style did not
remain homogeneous, despite its hegemony, for smart, ambitious, and so
cially conscious filmmakers managed to play the system and engage in for
mal and generic innovations and counterhegemonic productions.
Institutional and Poetic Realist Documentaries

Institutional films tend to bolster, directly or indirectly, the prestige of the
sponsoring institutions. Sometimes they accomplish this by documenting
and explaining the activities and operations of these institutions; at other
75
times they manage by associating the sponsors name with a prestigious doc
umentary project unrelated to the institution. The direct form of sponsorship
dominated in Iran, often by the state or the agencies under its control. Because
their status was at stake and their aim was educationeven propagandanot
entertainment, the sponsoring institutions tended to hire educated, intellec
tual filmmakers for their projects. However, this created a dilemma for these
filmmakers because they wanted to make films with relative freedom, which
these state institutions allowed, but at the same time they wished to avoid the
taint of making propaganda films. The result was the emergence of what I call
poetic realism, a style through which filmmakers subverted the official style
of the documentary and its direct, propagandistic force by various lyrical and
symbolic uses of indirection, by contrapuntal strategies of sound and image
editing, and by poetic narration. If these were the positive contributions of
poetry to documentary cinema and to art cinema, some drawbacks existed as
well. Because of the directors and screenplay writers roots in literature and
poetry, the voice-over narration in these films often acquired a highly lyrical,
textured, and sometimes verbose quality, rivaling and overpowering the im
ages, sometimes even obfuscating the films meanings. From the 1950s to the
1970s, documentaries favored a wall-to-wall voice of God in narration, partly
because of the technological and practical problems of the synchronized re
cording of ordinary speech and partly due to the official styles formality. As
a result, the introduction of poetry into film, particularly of poetic voice-over
narration, ironically encouraged discursive monovocalism and authoritari
anism as opposed to the multivocalism that dialogue and ordinary speech
would have offered. Even more ironical, this ascendance of authoritarian po
etry within the documentary form fit the undemocratic tendencies of the gov
ernment, while fortunately and simultaneously the rise of the modern novel
and art cinema, which cross-pollinated each other, injected not only multi
vocalism but also democratic values into fiction cinema.
The output of one seminal independent, commercial studio encapsulated
both the promises and the pitfalls of institutional filmmaking and of the po
etic realist style.
The Golestan Film Workshop:

Ebrahim Golestan and Forugh Farrokhzad
Ebrahim Golestan was born in Shiraz in 1922 to a father named Taqi who pub
lished the Golestan newspaper and who subsequently changed his last name
from Taqavi to Golestan. As he told me in an interview, his mother was late in
76
gaining formal modern education, but she was adamant: although attendance
of married women in schools, let alone one with a child, was frowned on, she
not only went to school but also took her four-year-old son, Ebrahim, with her
(Naficy 2007). His father subscribed to several foreign magazines, including
film journals in French. As a result, Ebrahim was immersed in the world of
journalism and photography with a horizon reaching well beyond Iran. He
himself entered journalism by first writing for and editing two Tudeh Party
periodicals, Rahbar and Mardom. Disappointed with party politics, he left the
organization (whose treasurer he had been) and turned to writing modernist
short stories, taking photographs and making news films with his 8mm Bo
lex camera, and working for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (aioc) to prepare
news reports and photos for dissemination to the foreign press.
He was drawn to cinema from childhood, as his uncle took him to movies
of all sorts twice a week from when he was seven years old. He kept the habit
of filmgoing for years, even when he became an active member of the Tudeh
Party (Jahed 2005/1384:97, 109), which was highly critical of Hollywood cin
ema. During the nationalization of the aioc and its transformation into the
nioc and during the coup against Mosaddeq, while working for the company
Golestan took news photographs and films as a freelancer for foreign news
agencies, particularly the American television networks nbc and cbs and the
British concerns bbc and itn; he provided a dramatic account of filming un
der flying bullets on the day of the coup (Omid 1995/1374:84243). Soon, he
graduated to a 16mm Bolex, sending the exposed footage to the American
networks for processing. He recounts one interesting story of filming Aya
tollah Kashani, an important figure in the politics of oil and the coup, which
shows the openness of some leading clerics to cinema. Golestan had gone to
Kashanis house, where he filmed him performing his ritual Shiite ablution
at the yard tank and then praying. After his prayer, the ayatollah asked Goles
tan if he was satisfied with what he had filmed, to which he answered that he
had had to film him against the light because he was praying toward Mecca.
To this the cleric responded: My dear young man, you tell me in which di
rection I should pray and I will. You shouldnt worry about my facing Mecca.
Then he turned about 90 degrees for proper lighting and pretended to pray, a
scene that Golestan filmed (Jahed 2005/1384:111).
Golestan realized that he earned far more income from his freelance film
ing than from his official nioc employment, particularly as he was paid for
the former with U.S. dollars. The big difference between the official exchange
rate for dollars (three tomans to a dollar) and the free market exchange rate
(eighteen tomans per dollar) made his freelance work highly lucrative. Since
77
the company could not pay him any more without violating its accounting
rules, it benefited both sides if Golestan set up an outside production com
pany to make films for itwhat became the Golestan Film Workshop (gfw)
(Jahed 2005/1384:11925). With the nationalization of oil, oil films were made
domestically. By 1958, with the help of Arthur Elton, who headed the Shell
Oil Company Film Unit, a list of the latest equipment was drawn up and pur
chased for the gfw. The nioc would pay for the equipment and deduct that
amount from the fees the gfw would receive. In addition, the gfw was to
work exclusively for the oil consortium until its debt was fully paid, which
occurred within a year, indicating how lucrative freelance work was. Goles
tan could then make films for himself, for the oil consortium, and for others.
Thus the first independent nonfiction film studio was born, one that initially
made documentaries but eventually added fiction movies to its roster. In ad
dition, over the years, the gfw dubbed around six hundred technical and edu
cational movies (Jahed 2005/1384:129). The company was semi-independent
from its main sponsor, not only financially but also ideologically, for although
the oil consortium commissioned many of its films, as Golestan relates, it did
not interfere with or control either their content or style (16263). Despite this
hands-off policy, Golestans films suffered government censorship.
Golestan ensured the independence of his company by assembling a self-
sufficient group of creative and dedicated film technicians and aficionados,
most of whom lacked any film experience but would become prominent in
cinema, literature, and journalism. Their work would lead to the creation of
a workshop house style, namely, poetic realism. As Golestan told me, Solei
man Minasian worked as a day laborer and porter, Samad Purkamali as a
gofer for the Associated Press, and Mahmud Hangval as a night watchman
at Badie Studio. Golestan hired these novices and trained them to become a
competent cinematographer, soundman, and technician, respectively. He also
hired Minasians brother, Herand, his own brother, Shahrokh, and Ruhollah
Emami to do sound, photography, and editing. Najaf Dariabandari did office
work, Karim Emami and Feraidun Rahnema served as production assistants,
Esmail Rain was a gofer, and the poets Forugh Farrokhzad and Sohrab Akha
van Saless served as a typist and a dubber, respectively. Of these, Rahnema,
Farrokhzad, and Shahrokh Golestan made names for themselves as art cin
ema filmmakers, while Ruhollah Emami and Rain became prominent writ
ers and publishers and Dariabandari became a writer and a translator (trans
lating Arthur Knights history of cinema, The Liveliest Art). The gfw became
a lively intellectual salon where employees and fellow intellectuals, such as Ja
78
7 Ebrahim Golestan (left) with the

author, Northwestern University,
outside Block Cinema, where
a symposium on Golestans
films was held, May 2007.
lal Ale Ahmad, Sadeq Chubak, and Farrokh Gaffary, would read and discuss
poetry and other matters late into the night (figure 7).
There was both specialization and artisanal multifunctionality among the
gfw staff. This was particularly true of Golestan who not only owned the stu
dio but also performed multiple tasks: those of producer, director, screen
writer, editor, cameraman, and narrator. His multifunctionality overdeter
mined his authority and authorship of the gfws products. As he told me, Art
is personal and individual, and film must strive to reach that goal. A film can
be made that way if one persons vision and plans predominate. That is why I
brought in competent, flexible, and clever and resourceful [zerang] individu
als to the company who could adapt themselves to that idea (Naficy 2007).
This structure allowed the gfw as a unit and its leader as an author much im
provisational flexibility, to the point that, as Golestan admitted, he never com
pleted a script before filming began. This was true even in the case of fiction
movies, as he wrote the dialogues for Mudbrick and Mirror only a day or two
before shooting and those for The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni Valley on
the day of filming. With the latter film, Golestan claimed he delayed because
he wanted to control the information about the film getting around due to its
politically sensitive nature. He was the first chief of a modern Iranian film
studio; akin to the master craftsman heading the traditional royal painting
atelier, he ran the studios operations, trained and supervised the craftspeople
under him, set the terms for projects, contributed to them himself in diverse
ways, and created and maintained the house style. No wonder Golestan never
called his production company a studio, as was customary at the time, but a
workshop, an atelier. One crucial element of his poetic realist house style was
79
the recording of synchronous sound for documentaries and fictional movies,

which enhanced the realism of both film types, giving them a gritty punch.
That Elton facilitated the formation of the gfw reveals another level of cul
tural exchange between Iran and the West. This involved not only importing
film technology and equipment for the gfw (mostly German) or cinematic
products (films to be dubbed) but also the transfer of know-how, knowledge,
and institutional structures. Elton had been a member of Griersons docu
mentary units, attached to the British government in the 1930s, which had
made documentaries and propaganda films about Britain and British indus
tries and colonies. Whether this was done consciously or not, the gfw, itself
attached to a major state oil monopoly, transferred a mode of documentary
production and a signifying institution (a film studio) from the West to Iran,
a significant step toward modernity. The similarities between the gfw and its
British counterparts, the General Post Office (gpo) and the Empire Marketing
Board (emb) film units, were many, but marked differences existed as well. A
majority of the British units production personnel were leftists and socialists;
many at the gfw also had leftist tendencies. The British film units ideologies
were both national and individual. They were to create a unified British iden
tity and to market that image of Great Britain to its disappearing colonies
and the world at large. Similarly, the gfw was to create by means of documen
tary films a modern imagined nation of Iran for dissemination to both Irani
ans and the world. This construction was energized by the thesis of syncretic
Westernization, which strove to represent Iran as a modern, industrializing
nation and an ancient culture with a distinguished history and meaningful
arts. Yet contrary to the output of the British film units, the gfws industrial,
archaeological, and arts documentaries propagated, thanks to Golestans au
thorial intervention, a thesis that was often at odds and even critical of the ba
sic ideology of its chief sponsors. This criticism manifested itself not only in
the films poetic narrations but also in the gritty realism of the visuals and the
synchronous sound of the profilmic world, which punctuated them. No doubt
the differing political systems in Britain in the 1930s and Iran in the 1960s
had something to do with this, as one was a liberal democracy with a tradition
of press freedom while the other was an authoritarian state intolerant of criti
cism. This intolerance, as well as the Iranian history of poetry, was constitu
tive of poetic realism, allowing filmmakers to couch their criticism in poetic
imagery and in lyrical, philosophical, and pointed narration and commentary.
Another difference between the gfw and the gpo and emb film units was that
the gfw engaged not only in auteurist documentary productions but also in
auteurist fiction filmmaking, with Golestan at the helm. While Grierson had
80
directed only one film in the film units he spearheaded, Golestan was a one-
man band, a multifunctional auteur involved in the majority of the produc
tions. This multifunctionality and authorial overdetermination was also con
stitutive of the gfws house style.
Even though Golestan reigned supreme, individual studio personnels con
tributions to the collective work were essential. Farrokhzads filmmaking ca
reer and output must be seen in terms of her relation to Golestan as well as
separate from him. Soon after joining the gfw, she moved beyond secretarial
duties (for which she had been hired) and into production, working both be
hind and before the cameras. At the same time, her relationship with Goles
tan deepened into both a romance and a professional partnership. The gfw
sent her to Britain for a short training course in stock shot library archiving,
and she edited one of the gfws earliest so-called process films, A Fire (Yek
Atash, 195861), about a huge oil-well fire near Ahvaz and the seventy days of
relentless efforts to extinguish it in partnership with the American oil fire
fighter Myron Kinley. What distinguished the film, shot by Shahrokh Goles
tan, was not only the meticulous documentation of the process of extinguish
ing the fire by spraying, dynamiting, and capping the well but also the footage
of Iranian farmers working in their fields, which provided a human and social
context. This intercutting of industrial machinery and development with, on
the one hand, the lighter side of laborers work, their leisure activities, meals,
and times of rest, and, on the other hand, with the life of rural folk affected
by encroaching industrialization became a hallmark of the gfws industrial
documentaries. Farrokhzad also codirected and coedited another oil docu
mentary, Water and Heat (Ab va Garma, 1961), about the dizzying heat in the
area of Abadan, and an episode of the six-part series titled A View (Cheshman
daz, 195861), about the working conditions of oil field employees. The differences between the section she directed on heat and the section on water,
which Golestan directed, revealed her keen sense of rhythm and her affin
ity for sound, an affinity she amply demonstrated in designing the sound for
Water and Heat, which included her own voice singing a lullaby (Golmakani
1995/1374:24).
As an actor, Farrokhzad had a walk-on part in Golestans first feature movie,
Mudbrick and Mirror (Khesht va Aieneh, 1965), as the fully veiled woman who
leaves her baby in the taxi, thereby setting off the whole story. She also acted
in a fifteen-minute episode of the hour-long documentary Courtship (Kha
stegari, 1961), which Golestan filmed for the National Film Board of Can
ada and in which Parviz Dariush, Tusi Haeri (Ahmad Shmlus then wife),
Mahmud Hangval, and Hayedeh Taghavi also acted.16
81
Farrokhzad, the foremost poet of mid-twentieth-century Iran (193566),

made one of the most notable institutional documentaries filmed in the style
of poetic realism in Iran, The House Is Black (Khaneh Siah Ast, 1961), about
the lives of the lepers in the Babadaghi Leper Colony near Tabriz (figure 8),
one of the few films about disability in Iran.17 This was not a typical institu
tional film, however, as it did not laud the services of its sponsor, the Society
for Assistance to Lepers, and it did not use the official style (except in a brief
medical midsection). In fact, it set the tone and became the model for po
etic realist documentaries and their vision of what Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa and
Jonathan Rosenbaum aptly called radical humanism (2003:5). Farrokhzad
filmed The House Is Black in black and white, using a small gfw crew for a pe
riod of only twelve days, and she deftly edited it herself. Golestan said to me
that he did not have any involvement in the film, neither in its filming nor in
its editing. He only contributed two shots, one of pigeons flying and another
of stagnant water with floating leaves. Nevertheless, he claimed that there
was a harmony of ideas among the gfw staff, indicating that his authorial
vision and style had imbued this film as well, although he did not take credit
for any of it (Naficy 2007).
The film begins with scenes of bitter irony in the classroom of the leper
colony in which voice and image counterpoint each other to create a power
ful third message. A boy whose fingertips have been eaten away by the merci
less disease and another whose face and eyes are ravaged read out loud from
a textbook: Lord, I praise thee for having given me hands to work / Eyes to
see the beauty of the world (the boys read the Persian with an Azari accent,
giving away the colonys location). Then, accompanied by touching scenes,
Farrokhzads poetic and sorrowful off-camera voice-over, which quotes rear
ranged biblical passages, documents the lepers life in the colony and punc
tuates their desolate humanity: a woman carefully applies makeup to her
ravaged face and kohl to her eyes before a mirror; lepers prepare for a wed
8 The poet and documentarian

Forugh Farrokhzad smoking a pipe.
Frame enlargement from Claus
Strigels Moon Sun Flower Game.
82
ding, and they jubilantly celebrate it with the bride fully made up (figure 9).18
Children of the lepers play about, men wrestle, a woman washes a baby, a
man smokes a cigarette, a girl combs the healthy long hair of another, food
is preparedlife goes on. In one scene that provides a commentary on lifes
uselessness and repetition, a man compulsively paces the autumn-struck gar
den of the colony alongside a dormitory, while Farrokhzads voice counts with
each step the days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Fri
day, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. But even here, hope is found: as he
passes by each dorm window, the film cuts to objects such as a tea kettle and
a flower pot on the windowsills or to a person standing inside looking out.
Nevertheless, the films overall mood is mournfully operatic. In one scene,
over the moody autumnal shots of puddles of still water (taken by Golestan), a
mother nursing her baby, and a dog picking up its pup with the mouth, punc
tuated by the cawing of crows, Farrokhzads sad voice intones biblical pas
sages: Like the desert owl I roam the ruins / And like a sparrow I am alone
on the roof / I am like scattered water / And like those who are already dead /
The shadow of death is on my brows (figure 10).
The films middle section, devoted to the medical aspects of leprosy, is
filmed in clinical settings that are reinforced by an off-screen, apparently ob
jective male narrator: Golestan himself, whose voice also introduces the film.
This section, which disrupts the flow of the diegetic world of the lepers, was
put in, as Farrokhzad noted in a postscreening discussion defending the sec
tion, to show that when all is said and done, leprosy is curable, and I think
that we have been able to prove this to the spectator.19 The clash of these two
styles in a single filmt he one lyrical and ambiguous, the other official and
positivistcharacteristic of many institutional films and of the poetic real
ist style, testifies to the struggle of creative filmmakers to find a personal and
9 A female leper applies eye makeup

for a wedding in Farrokhzads The
House Is Black. Frame enlargement.
83
10 I am like scattered water,

intones Farrokhzads voiceover in The House Is Black.
Frame enlargement.
truthful documentary voice in a society and a medium driven by an imper

sonal official style. It also testifies not only to the gendered and double voicing
of the film but also to the double authorship of its narration, for Farrokhzad
put the lyrical narration together, while Golestan wrote the text for the other
parts.
The best poetic realist films also manifest the parallel between writing po
etry and film editing. A detailed examination of films edited by Farrokhzad
shows that she took a similarly careful approach to film editing as she did to
composing poetry. Her written work is characterized by words that are highly
evocative, atmospheric, emotional, sensorial, and corporeal. One of her co
workers at the gfw, Karim Emami, noted that her choice of words such as
hajm (volume, mass), tashannoj (convulsion, tremor), rekhvat (languid), ma
fluj (physically paralyzed), and moztareb (anguished, worried), which are re
peated in her late poetry, appertain to senses and the nervous system.20 She
is perhaps the most corporeal and embodied poet of Iran, whose work is full
of frank evocations of her nervous system, senses, and body (hence some of
the opposition to her work). Her words refer to the physicality of reality in
the same way that each shot of a documentaryt he type of film she made
indexes an external reality. In addition, her poetic realism stems from her
working with each shot in her films as though it were a word in a poem, with
great care and precision.
Despite its poetic heights, The House Is Black suffers from heavy-
handedness, particularly in the contrapuntal uses of sound and image at
the films beginning and ending, which occur in a classroom. The films last
scene, containing the following conversation between a teacher and students,
provides a bookend to the films beginning:
84
11 A pupil completes the

sentence at the bottom of
the blackboard that reads,
khaneh siah ast (the house is
black). Frame enlargement.
Teacher: Give me the name of four nice things.

Student: Moon, sun, flower, game.
Teacher (to another student): You, give me four ugly things.
Student: Hands, feet, eyes. . . .
Teacher (to a third student at the blackboard): Give me a sentence in
which you use the word The house. . . .
After a moment of hesitation, the boy completes it by adding, is black (fig
ure 11). The classroom scenes at the head and tail of the film are very touch
ing and emotionally loaded, but they seem staged for the camera to produce
maximum contrapuntal irony, pity, or compassion, thus reducing the docu
mentary authenticity of the whole film project (Naficy 1978b/1357:344). How
ever, the honesty of the films lyrical vision and of the poets empathy, sincer
ity, and compassion for her subjects offset this shortcoming. These qualities
also set the film apart from Luis Buuels surrealist documentary Land with
out Bread (Tierra sin Pan, also known as Las Hurdes, 1932), with which The
House Is Black is sometimes compared, including by no less a filmmaker than
Chris Marker (2005:8).
The film leaves an impression of Farrokhzads extreme sympathy, an al
most total identification with the lepers. Her on-screen sympathy results from
her off-screen empathy. She gained their trust by being humane to the lep
ers and by treating them like normal people, as she stated in an interview:
Anybody who had gone to see the lepers had in fact looked only at their de
fects. But, as God is my witness, I would sit with them at their tablecloth, and
I would touch their wounds and their fingerless hands and toeless feet. This
is how they learned to trust me. . . . And I tested myself [at the leper colony],
85
from which I returned with a special joy at succeeding in doing something so

that people who had never seen kindness could love me and trust me (quoted
in Saba 1995/1374:3334). Emphasizing her identification with the lepers was
Farrokhzads adoption of Hossein Mansouri, the son of two colony members,
who was not afflicted with leprosy and whom, as Golestan told me, Farrokhzad
took care of for three years until her untimely death. When Hossein reached
the age of twelve, Mehrdad, Farrokhzads younger brother, sent the boy away
to England and then Germany, where he is now a poet and a translator em
ployed in the legal department of the patent office. Hossein appears in several
scenes in The House Is Black. In the classroom scene it is he who responds to
the teachers request to name four beautiful things by saying, mah, khoshid,
gol, bazi (moon, sun, flower, game) (figure 12). In this striking lyrical re
sponse Farrokhzad seemed to have discovered a soul mate, which motivated
her adoption plan. It is also Hossein who in another scene smilingly observes
his sister in the colonys yard playing horsy with a broomstick and then runs
off to his real-life father. We learn the identity of the boy and his family (sans
mother) in The House Is Black courtesy of a moving film by Claus Stigel about
Hosseins life and his relationship to Farrokhzad. His films title quotes Hos
seins classroom utterance, Moon Sun Flower Game (Mond Sonne Blume Spiel,
2007). It turns out that Farrokhzad was not the only one struck by the boys
poetic sensibility, for as Hossein tells it in the German film, when she intro
duced herself to him at the colony (Salaam, I am Forugh), her voice trans
fixed and paralyzed the boy. At the end of filming The House Is Black, when
Farrokhzad was about to take him with her to Tehran, She takes my hands,
states the now middle-age patent officer in Munich. The effect was more
12 Hossein Mansouri,
whom Farrokhzad adopted,
in The House Is Black.
Frame enlargement.
86
powerful than hypnosis, paralysis, or narcosis. It was as though I had been

bitten by a dangerous snake. She did not release his hand until they reached
the train station. In retrospect, Hosseins four poetic words in the classroom
changed the lives of both the teller and the listenerunderscoring the power
of words and poetry among Iranians. While she was alive, Farrokhzad had
forbidden the boy to see the film The House Is Black. However, when at age
thirty-two Hossein underwent a crisis of personal identity and national ori
gin, he turned to the film and watched it for the first time. It made him feel
reconnected and grounded, a mediatic experience characteristic of exile.21
The mixed sponsorship of The House Is Black was perhaps responsible for
the freedom and the style with which it treated its subject. The Society for As
sistance to Lepers had funds, around 50,000 tomans, to cover less than half
of the films budget of 108,000 tomans. Golestan offered to contribute the
rest, provided the organization frees our hand in imparting the humanistic
message that we felt should be in this film (quoted in Saba 1995/1374:33). The
tight budget was also responsible for the low 1 to 1.2 shooting ratio, which dic
tated its own shape-forming aesthetics (which means they had to use practi
cally every shot they had filmed, leaving little room for editorial control).
On the films release and its screening at Sadi Cinema in Tehran, most
critics praised The House Is Black, although Shamim Bahar and Parviz Nuri
criticized it. As Golestan related in his postscreening discussion at North
western University in May 2007, the head of the Society for Assistance to Lep
ers, Dr. Raji, arranged a screening of the film for Empress Farah and Princess
Ashraf, which both Golestan and Farrokhzad felt obliged to attend, despite
their misgivings.22 After the film was over, Golestan could not recognize
Farah and Ashraf because they were both in tears. Ashraf rose to embrace
Forugh, and despite her reluctance, Forugh responded. The film thus re
ceived a royal seal of approval, and it became a cause clbre among intellec
tuals as well, a celebrity that was intensified by Farrokhzads own great subse
quent poetic leaps and her tragic and untimely death at thirty-t wo in a Tehran
car accident in 1966.23 Markers pithy remarks succinctly describe her: Black,
brusque, ablaze, (2005:7).24
The film proved a powerful plea for understanding lepers, and it won the
top award at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 1963. It also
proved an important fund-raising vehicle whose income was earmarked for
aid to the lepers. It generated at least 27,000 tomans in 1963 (Echo of Iran
1963:448), almost a third of its budget. Golestan states that it did much bet
ter than that, generating 2 million tomans with its first screenings (Jahed
2005/1384:152), several times its production costs. Empress Farah, who was
87
the patron of the Society for Assistance to Lepers, also noted that the film
was of great help in influencing public opinion (Pahlavi 2004:143).
However, a decade after the films creation, in the heatedly politicized
1970s, driven by the twin engines of official culture and official censorship,
all films tended to be read politically or symbolically, even if they were not so
coded by the filmmakers.25 The desolate and isolated leper colony could be
read as representing the diseased Iranian society under the autocratic Shah.
The black and bleak house of the title could be read as referring to the house
of Iran, and thus as a criticism of official Pahlavi culture that state-supported
documentaries usually represented in rose-colored visuals and positivistic
rhetoric. These symbolic readings were encouraged by the films refusal to
identify the location of the leper colony and the date of filming, which seemed
to universalize its enclosed society. Such subversive and symbolic interpreta
tions may have been partly responsible for the limited distribution of the film
in the mid-1970s. Yet both Farrokhzad and Golestan claimed that in making
this film they had absolutely no intention to criticize [our] society and cir
cumstances (quoted in Haidari 1998/1377:202). Such prevarication by the
filmmakers in the hermeneutically rich Iranian society under repressive cen
sorship was perhaps a necessary ploy to avoid both becoming entangled with
the censors and endangering their personal safety. Farrokhzad herself ad
mitted elsewhere to a critical encoding of the film: This is a film about the
lepers life and at the same time about life in general. . . . This is a portrayal
of any closed and claustrophobic society, an image of uselessness, isolation,
and sequestration (quoted in Saba 1995/1374:35). In this manner, The House
Is Black inaugurated in the documentary field the use of claustrophobic spa
tiality as social criticism before the new-wave feature directors employed it,
including Golestan himself in his seminal Mudbrick and Mirror. The same
holds true of its use of poetry and poetic aesthetics.
The House Is Black left an indelible mark on documentary cinema, for
henceforth poetry and poetic realism became a subversive style in the hands
of creative and oppositional filmmakers. Golestans own many documentaries
further honed the style of poetic realism, which other directors picked up. In
many cases, however, poetic realism resulted in word-driven films, weighed
down by wall-to-wall, flowery, voice-of-God voice-over narration, for which the
images served only as symbolic illustrations. The House Is Black was an excep
tion to what I call authoritarian lyricism.
The most famous and accomplished of the gfw productions for the oil
consortium was a thirty-six-minute process documentary titled Wave, Coral,
and Rock (Mowj O Marjan O Khara, 195861), which Golestan produced, wrote,
88
and edited, Alan Pendry and Neilson Baxter codirected, and several camera
men, including Shahrokh Golestan, filmed.26 It is a highly visual but rather
verbose industrial film for the Oil Operating Companies, whose shooting ra
tio of one-to-six was the highest among the gfw documentaries. It graphi
cally documents the three-year, four-phase process of drilling, extracting, and
exporting oil from wells in Gachsaran some one hundred miles inside the
Iranian mainland to the Khark Island terminals in the middle of the Persian
Gulf. Phase 1 entailed the construction in Khark of a large jetty for loading
oil onto supertankers; phase 2 meant drilling oil wells in Gachsaran to pro
duce oil; in phase 3 pipelines were installed to bring that oil onto the shore of
the Persian Gulf; and the final phase saw the laying of underwater pipelines
to transfer the oil from the shore to Khark Island. These processes, which are
narrated mostly in a matter-of-fact, descriptive voice-over (and which Goles
tan wrote after the footage was cut), are presented as an inevitable result of the
hard work of Iranians and foreign workers to achieve modernization, caus
ing the filmmaker Bahram Baizai to state that someday, this enduring and
expensive film will become representative of a nation that did not work but
made 2 milliontoman epics about labor (quoted in Naficy 1978b/1357:342).
Other critics, such as Amir Houshang Kavusi, called it a masterpiece and
an epic about human labor and the human struggle against nature (Omid
1995/1374:844). This is clearly an institutional industrial documentary that
lauds the work of its sponsoring oil companies, but it is also a nationalist
documentary that envisions a modern Iran propelled by industrialization. Its
emphasis on movement, both within the frame (heavy machinery in constant
motion) and of the frame (smooth camera movements), embodied principles
of modernity like motion, speed, and change. Yet Wave, Coral, and Rock can
not be considered a propaganda film, aware as it is of the social cost of in
dustrialization, particularly in its initial sequences, in which the underwater
calm and beauty of the sea teaming with colorful fish and coral and the life of
the indigenous people is disturbed by the arrival of a slew of modern trans
portation vehicleshelicopters, airplanes, ships, and tractorsand dynamite
explosions (figure 13). The film encapsulates one of the ironic paradoxes of so
cially conscious documentarians, almost all of whom were leftist and opposed
to the rapacious and repressive state, such as Golestan, who in making the
film indirectly promoted the state they opposed. Through the sponsorship of
documentaries the state either co-opted and rewarded its dissidents or alter
natively tamed, sidelined, and banned them.
Off-screen narration is deployed differently in The House Is Black and in
Wave, Coral, and Rock. Both use poetic language; one is penned primarily
89
13 The inevitable march of

modernity and modernization
destroys native cultures in
Alan Pendrys and Neilson
Baxters Wave, Coral, and
Rock. Frame enlargement.
by Farrokhzad, the other by Golestan. However, while Farrokhzads text and

voice-over, delivered by the poet herself, are lyrical, subjective, and intimate,
the narration of Golestans film is official, seemingly objective, and officious,
and it is delivered by a male voice (the veteran radio announcer Asadollah
Paiman) in the poetically rhetorical and impersonal official style.27 Unlike its
famous predecessor, Robert Flahertys pro-oil documentary Louisiana Story
(1948), which focused on the life of a fictional boy to personalize the story of
the oil industrys arrival and positive impact in rural Louisiana, Wave, Coral,
and Rock made no attempt at personification or character development. In
stead, it provided a documentary with a historical and philosophical bent, offering an Iranian counterpoint to the American perspective. The heavy dose
of poetic narrationa sign of the directors authorial presencetends to be
authoritarian, weighing the film down and competing with the visuals.28 Po
etic symbolism was not only an Iranian style of expression but also a means by
which filmmakers with higher authorial aspirations attempted to evade perva
sive censorship. However, overuse, as in Wave, Coral, and Rock, rendered the
lyrical and symbolic language so abstruse in a time-based mediumw ithout
the ability to readily review the workthat the films meaning escaped not
only the censors but also the public.
After making his first feature, Mudbrick and Mirror, and the tragic death
of Farrokhzad, Golestan closed the gfw and left the country in 1967, but he
returned in 1970 to film his second and last feature, The Secrets of the Trea
sure of the Jenni Valley. To pay for the film, however, he had to sell his studio
with all its equipment (Jahed 2005/1384:200). The buyer was nirt, which
was setting up its own film production company, Telfilm. Golestan told me
that the 8 million tomans he received for the studio property, located in the
90
tony area of north Tehran, was less than the price of a Mitchell camera
(Naficy 2007). With the completion of that second feature film and the sale
of the gfw, Golestan left his family and Iran in 1975 for what turned out to
be permanent exile in Britain, where he now lives in a 105-room, 130-year old
chteau, Wykehurst Park House, near Gatwick airport (Roth 2003). In answer
to my questions about how attached he was to the past, to diary writing, and
to heritage, he responded emphatically: No, I do not keep the past, I do not
keep my own handwritten manuscripts, or Forughs writings. There is no rea
son. I never write diary. I am against heritage. Its comical to leave something
behind (Naficy 2007). This is an ironic statement from someone who, as we
will see later, has made films about Iranian national heritage.
Like its predecessor, the aioc, the nioc produced a large number of institu
tional films, the majority of which were technical and instructional works on
oil and petrochemical subjects. Yet the nioc also sponsored general documen
taries that, while depicting the importance of the oil industry, also extolled
the modernization and industrialization of Iran. Among these more general-
interest and artistic films were several made by the French-educated film
maker Farrokh Gaffary (19222006), whose nephew Abdollah Entezam ran
the nioc. Gaffary made fourteen documentaries, six of them for the nioc. Of
these, two are notable in terms of their poetic realism: Black Veins (Raghaye
Siah, 1961) deals with the pipelines transporting oil from the south of Iran to
Tehran as they pass through towns and the countryside, while Light of the Time
(Nure Zaman, 196667) is about the transformation of lighting from the an
cient oil lamps that burned animal fat to giant modern power-generation fa
cilities. Gaffary contends that he made these documentaries to finance his
feature movies at the Iran Nama Film Studio (Tahaminejad 2002/1381:51).29
Kamran Shirdels Peykan (1970) was an entirely different poetic industrial
documentary than Golestans Wave, Coral, and Rock, for although it used no
words, it still remained lyrical. Shirdel made the film for the automobile as
sembly plant, Iran National, that produced the countrys first major popular
sedan, Peykan. Apparently, he had made a bold bet with the enlightened film
sponsor to create a film according to his own taste and without any narration;
if Iran National did not approve of the film, he would make another film ex
actly to the companys liking at his own expense. The story resembles that sur
rounding Bert Haanstras bet with the sponsor of his famous Oscar-winning
short, Glass (Glas, 1959), acknowledged as one of the most celebrated of all
short films (Barnouw 1993:193). It was after the appearance of this fluid and
delightful film about glass blowing that the term cin-pome was applied to a
slew of films, which it seemed to have inspired in various European countries,
91
where filmmakers turned industrial machines into abstract poetry. Now, with
Irans industrialization, the cin-pome emerged there too. To Iran Nationals
credit, it approved of Shirdels film. The director, who had studied film and
architecture in Italy, had seen Glass during his studies there, but he told me
that he learned about Haanstras bet only years after his own Peykan, when the
two men met at the Tehran International Film Festival in 1974 (Naficy 2005a).
Shirdel may thus have been influenced by Haanstras style but not by his com
missioning process! According to film critic Mohammad Said Mohassesi, Pey
kan contains some of Shirdels filmic signatures, including fast zooms, imagi
native framing and compositions, irony and humor, counterpoint, and creative
uses of sound and music, such as cutting the visuals to the rhythm of music
and ambient sounds in the films last sequence, somewhat similar to todays
music videos (Knune Filmkhanehye Sinema n.d.:23).
Peykan was not Shirdels last industrial film, for his career includes many
documentaries for big industries, particularly after the revolution. Without
belaboring the point, he likely was drawn to them because of personal con
nections. His father, a European-educated man, founded and managed one
of the first modern industrial plants in Iran, a sugar mill. This may have
attracted Shirdel to industrial films. On the other hand, the delicate, lyri
cal, ironic, and critical treatment of their subjects may have come from his
mother, who was a cultured woman who loved Persian literature and poetry
and practiced as an artist.
The year 1975 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Pahlavi dynasty, which
on government orders was celebrated throughout the year and throughout the
country with pomp and circumstance. As part of this authoritarian nation
wide celebration, all major ministries and government agencies were required
to produce exhibitions, books, reports, films, or celebrations of some kind her
alding their achievements under the Pahlavi rule. The nirt networks broad
cast these films on weekly, sometimes daily, bases, disseminating widely both
the official messages and the official style. The production of such a large
number of films strained the resources of the film industry and caused an in
flationary rise in the cost of film services and equipment for both fiction and
nonfiction films.
Fine Arts, Architectural, Archaeological,

and Performing Arts Documentaries
The mca was a major sponsor of color documentaries about the fine arts, ar
chitecture, archaeology, and the performing arts, commissioning scores of its
92
own civil servant directors and freelance filmmakers. According to the mca
chief, Pahlbod, there were both internal and external markets for such docu
mentaries (1984:72). The internal markets were the schools in which mcas
mobile vans screened the films, while external markets comprised the Ira
nian embassies in foreign countries, which screened them for embassy staff
and foreign nationals, as well as lending them to foreign schools and univer
sities. Looking over the list of the mca film archive holdings of the 1970s, one
can see that most of the films had versions in various languages: Persian, Eng
lish, French, and German. Their subtitles indicate that even the Persian ver
sions were designed for foreign consumption. Many of the male directorsno
women ranked among themhad been trained in some aspect of cinema and
the arts in Europe, but they could not, or would not want to, be part of the com
mercial cinema industry, which they despised, and no parallel art cinema ex
isted yet. Working for the mca thus proved the best alternative. Some of the
directors were very prolific. For example, Houshang Shafti made at least four
teen films on various topics for the mca, and Manuchehr Tayyab made at least
fifteen films on architecture and crafts. In the process, they experimented not
only with their films aesthetic contents, the various arts, but also with their
aesthetic form, or style, achieving some stunning results. Mohammad Qoli
Sattar directed Isfahan (Esfahan, 1957), which shows historical monuments of
this ancient capital city aesthetically and in great detail. The French-trained
filmmaker Mostafa Farzaneh, who had been invited both to head the Film and
Photo Production Department of the mca and to teach filmmaking, directed
three films, including the award-winning Persian Miniatures (Miniatorhaye
Irani, 1958) and Woman and Animal (Zan va Haivan, 1965), both of them using
the Iranian visual arts in European museums and collections.
Feraidun Rahnema, a gifted French-educated poet and writer who had
spent much of his life abroad, returned to Iran, and while working in the
Majles library he directed Persepolis (Takhte Jamshid, 1960) with his own
funds. This was a lyrical film whose dynamic editing of shots of stone en
gravings from the ruins of the Persepolis, accompanied by rhythmic drum
beats, recreated the rise, grandeur, and fall of the famous Achaemenid pal
ace and dynasty. Short, quick cuts of soldiers, horses, war apparel, and war
equipmenthooves, mouths, hands, feet, faces, spears, and shieldsplus the
accompanying sound effects and Persian music dramatized the re-creations.
At the end, the once proud and massive yet fragile monuments are scattered
about in ruins, soaked in a lonely rain (figure 14). Yet the ending is not en
tirely pessimistic, as the melancholy rain can be interpreted as symbolizing
either mourning or renewal.
93
14 The poet and

filmmaker Feraidun
Rahnema pushing the
dolly during the filming
of Persepolis. Out-of-focus
figures on the stone wall
in the background come
to life in dynamic editing.
Persepolis also expresses Iranians resilience and strong sense of histori

cal consciousness. In addition, the film is suffused with nostalgic longing for
the homeland and for the past, the type not only motivated by ancient peoples
but also felt by those who, like Rahnema, have lived most of their lives in exile
and for whom the return to the contemporary homeland seems insufficient,
requiring nostalgia for another, earlier time and place to assuage the longing
for home.
Like many poets, Rahnema, who wrote a French-language thesis titled
Film and Reality, later published in Persian as Film va Vaqeiyat, took the
Persepolis ruins to ruminate about history, reality, and identity and to answer
questions such as, Who were these? What were these? How much of what
we see of these today are real? What is reality? Is this it? (quoted in Shoai
1976b/2535:76). Later, referring to the Manichaean ideology of Zoroastrian
ism during the Achaemenid era when the Persepolis was built, the voice-over
intones: [this is the site of] the battle of the forces of darkness, which are
bad, blind, and chaotic, against the forces of lightness, which are good and
bright. The battle of darkness and light, a perennial paradigm in Iranian lit
erature, poetry, and art, had now entered cinema. A reviewer noted that with
this film, we come to sympathize and identify with our own past, we preserve
our history like a bittersweet memory, past becomes present, . . . and this en
riches our life today (Omid 1995/1374:857). Naser Movafaghian, who saw the
films premiere in Paris, lamenting years of wayward development in Iranian
cinema, jubilantly praised Rahnema, declaring: Finally, someone has discov
ered the principal veins of the original and untouched mine of Iranian cin
ema and has struck the first blow (1960/1339:2526). The film was broadcast
94
nationwide in the United States by cbss Camera Three program in the early
1960s, perhaps the first Iranian film to receive such a wide international air
ing abroad.30
Rahnemas deep historical consciousness and his double nostalgia for an
cient Persia led him to produce other narrative movies, such as Siavash in
Persepolis (Siavash dar Takhte Jamdshid, 1965) and The Son of Iran Has No
News from His Mother (Pesare Iran az Madarash Bikhabar Ast, 1976), which
combined fictional and nonfictional elements, as well as historical and con
temporary stories and personalities, including himself, to create complex
modernist ruminations on Iranian history, reality, and identity.
Within a few years, Rahnema moved to nirt, where he established a dy
namic arts and culture film unit whose flagship program, Iranian Homeland
(Iranzamin), became influential, commissioning many intellectual filmmak
ers, including Basir Nassibi, Manuchehr Asgarinasab, Naser Taqvai, and Par
viz Kimiavi to research various aspects of Iranian culture and different re
gions of the country to produce rooted nonfictional works. In this way, they
exposed Iranians to the variety of cultures that thrived in the country while
simultaneously creating for them a unitary identity as a modern nation.
In his award-w inning Broken Column (Sotune Shekasteh 1966), the usis/
Tehran-trained Shafti used a rapid editing strategy of stone carvings similar
to the one Rahnema had employed. He enhanced it with additional special effects involving color filters, nighttime photography, dramatic compositions,
and sudden camera movements to give an impression of the construction of
the Persepolis and of its destruction by Alexander the Great, but this color
film still paled before Rahnemas black-and-white Persepolis. Nonetheless, the
film was widely distributed abroad by Iranian embassies and consulates.
Throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, Tayyab, trained in Vienna in archi
tecture and film, made for the mca numerous visually elegant and formalist
documentaries on ancient crafts and Islamic monuments, including Ceram
ics (Seramik, 1964), Jam-e Mosque (Masjede Jam-e, 1970), and Safavid Archi
tecture (Memariye Safaviyeh, 1974). His stylized camera angles created lovely
images, and his smooth and gliding camera movements tenderly caressed the
great objects and magnificent buildings, creating an influential genre of fine-
arts documentaries. Unlike filmmakers who had come to cinema from litera
ture and tended to employ voice-over narration extensively, Tayyab employed
it sparingly or not at all (as in Jam-e Mosque). Instead, he used the camera and
editing to recreate the three-dimensional spatiality and visual rhythm of these
marvelous structures, what he called their frozen music.31 The composer
Loris Chaknavarian composed the score for most of the films.
95
Ebrahim Golestan, too, directed a film on historical ruins: The Hills of Mar
lik (Tapehhaye Marlik, 1963) concentrates on archaeological discoveries in the
oldest excavated site in Iran, the five hills of Marlik in Rudbar, near the Cas
pian Sea. The film, based on Ezzatollah Negahbans archaeological research,
establishes the continuity of form between ancient artifacts discovered in the
hills and contemporary village life. A simple cut from an ancient clay statue of
a man plowing to a contemporary peasant in a nearby village using the same
single plow establishes this historical continuity. Other cuts from ancient fer
tility clay statues of girls and boys with their exposed genitalia to contempo
rary peasant girls and boys standing in the fields underscore both historical
continuity and human regeneration in the face of adversity. Thanks to So
leiman Minasians elegant photography and Golestans deft editing, spears,
arrowheads, axes, and daggers fly through the air simulating the Neolithic
warfare (an elaborate variant of Rahnemas Persepolis) that killed the man
whose skeleton is discovered in the excavations. Golestans signature poetic
voice-over narration also extols the ancientness of Iran and the hope for a bet
ter future, a narration that caused controversy due to its incomprehensibil
ity (Omid 1995/1374:84546). However, the film won the first prize, the San
Marco Lion, at the Venice International Film Festival in 1964.
Khosrow Sinai, who had studied music, architecture, and cinema in Vi
enna, made many documentaries for the mca (between 1966 and 1970), for
nirt (between 1970 and 1974), and on a freelance basis thereafter for the Par
ents and Teachers Association (Anjomane Olia va Morrabian), the most nota
ble of which was Haj Mossavar al-Molky (1970), an emotionally sensitive treat
ment of an aging but famous miniature painter whose right arm is paralyzed.
Here the director introduced the slow-paced style that would become the hall
mark of postrevolution art cinema, a style he considered to be commensurate
with the slow rhythm of life of a master miniature painter who like his co
horts all seemed to belong to a forgotten generation (quoted in Baqerzadeh
1987/1366:226).
Sponsored by government agencies, well-known modernist poets, writers,
and filmmakers documented a variety of local folk dances around the coun
try. The renowned poet Ahmad Shamlu, who had written screenplays for B-
grade movies, directed several dance films, including Turkmen Dance (Raqse
Turkaman, 1970) and Dailaman Dance (Raqse Dailaman, 1970). The writer
and new-wave director Taqvai directed Sword Dance (Raqse Shamshir, 1967).
Another new-wave filmmaker, Sohrab Shahid Saless, trained in filmmaking
in Vienna and Paris, directed several dance films for the mca: Bojnurd Folk
dances (Raqshaye Mahhaliye Bojnurdi, 1970), Torbate Jam Folkdances (Raq
96
shaye Mahhaliye Torbate Jam, 1970), and Turkman Folkdances (Raqshaye

Mahhaliye Turkaman, 1970). Shafti also directed Khorasan Folkdances (Raq
shaye Mahhaliye Khorasan, 1969), Kurdish Dance (Raqse Kordi, 1971), and
Wedding Dance (Raqse Runama, 1971). Most of these were neither investi
gative nor particularly artistic. All of them remained short, some less than
ten minutes long, and primarily documented the dance events in an observa
tional style for posterity.
Critics attributed the emergence of the formalist strain in the films on the
fine arts and the performing arts to the filmmakers strategy of avoiding cen
sorship. But this was a facile politicization of art, fashionable at the time as a
necessary sign of political commitment, which all intellectuals were expected
to exhibit. Their genuine artistic and expressive experimentations were de
valued. Yet these films proved political in another way, for they indirectly fed
the government-supported syncretic ideology by linking the present-day au
thoritarian and rapidly modernizing Iran to either its pre-Islamic roots or to
its post-Islamic Persian and folk manifestations. Islam as a religion and Is
lamic religious sites, practices, and rituals were generally aestheticized. As a
result, they were depoliticized and rendered socially irrelevant to contempo
rary times.
This was ironic since radical Islam at the time was beginning to gain a
foothold in the political life and psychology of average Iranians as an alter
native to the Shahs authoritarian modernization project. That filmmakers
seemed to have missed this brewing radicalism partly resulted from the official production mode, which funded and supervised their projects, from the
official style, which formed their cognitive maps of the social world, and from
their own modernist and secularist politics, which if not denigrating religion,
disregarded it. At the same time, by grounding Iranian nationalism in a pre
historic, antiquarian, and artistic past, these art and performance films inad
vertently countered the destabilizing effects of rapid Westernization.
Documentaries about Film History

Much of the early Qajar-period films, shot on unstable and inflammable ni
trate stock, were thought to have been lost, but in 1982 the archaeologist
Shahryar Adl, searching in the photographic archives of the Golestan Pal
ace in Tehran, unearthed a cache of these films, which had badly deterio
rated. What remained salvageable was sent in the summer of 2000 to Paris
to the Centre National de la Cinmatographie for repair and restoration (Adl
2000/1379:25). In addition to Iranian films, apparently many European films,
97
particularly French ones, remained among the Qajar-era actualities in the pal
ace archive. Mohsen Makhmalbaf edited some of the Iranian films together
(along with some paintings and photographs) under the title Selected Images
from the Qajar Era (Gozidehye Tasavir dar Dorane Qajar, 1992). Yet his editing
of the films is both idiosyncratic and ideological. It does not identify any of the
films cinematographers, the persons who appear in them, or the films titles,
locations, or dates (even the few that are known). He also added the annoying,
irrelevant, and ideologically motivated sound effect of barking dogs that made
heavy-handed fun of the Qajar kings. While A Selection of Images from the Qa
jar Era is valuable in publicizing the existence of these Qajar-era films, the ed
iting thus undermines their status as historical documents.
A more informative film is the thirty-t hree-minute Lost Reels (Halqehhaye
Gomshodeh, 2004), produced by Orod Attapour and directed by Mehrdad Za
hedian, which focuses on the discovery and restoration of these Qajar-era
films. As part of the Hidden Treasures (Ganje Penhan) television series for
Irans Channel 4 Network, the program contains some of the same actuali
ties and performance films as does Makhmalbafs A Selection of Images from
the Qajar Era, but without the ideological manipulations. It also contains not
only interviews with Adl and Akbar Alami, the head of the Voice and Vision
of the Islamic Republic (vvir) film lab, but also additional film footage, most
importantly, the [Carnival of Flowers] film shot in Ostend, Belgium, reputed to
be the first Iranian film. As Adl correctly warns, the work of fully identifying
these early filmst heir locations, the characters filmed, the year of filming,
and the camerapersonhas yet to be completed, requiring much historical
and contextual research.
Mohammad Tahaminejads one hundredminute movie, Iranian Cinema,
from the Constitution to Sepanta (Sinemaye Iran, Mashrutiat ta Sepanta, 1970),
is the first serious nonfiction movie on the history of Iranian silent cinema,
containing dramatized scenes of the lives of the pioneers of cinema, inter
views with them, and numerous examples of their actual films. It is told in the
fashion of traditional storytelling called naqqali, using in addition to the above
materials shadow theater, oratorial narration, and movie advertisements. Al
though it has a political and critical point of view, the film remains true to its
documentary material: the dramatizations and naqqali are based on historical
records and the historical film clips are not edited indiscriminately. This is a re
search film by one of the foremost historians of Iranian cinema and a sad elegy
for that cinema, whose emergence from its rise around the time of the Consti
tutional Revolution up to the beginning of sound cinema in the early 1930s is
recounted with a tone of regret at lost opportunities and unfulfilled promises.32
98
Makhmalbaf later made a far richer fictional film than his earlier effort,
which covers almost the same period as Tahaminejads Iranian Cinema, from
the Constitution to Sepanta. Called Naser al-Din Shah, the Movie Actor (also
known as Once Upon a Time Cinema; Naser al-Din Shah, Aktore Sinema, 1992),
it offers a comic, insightful, and ultimately loving rumination on the infatua
tion with cinema of Sani al-Saltaneh, the Shah and his harem, and the Iranian
general population. This is a highly self-reflexive and whimsical film, whose
title plays on Ohanianss silent opus, Mr. Haji, the Movie Actor. The historical
shah who was involved in bringing cinema to Iran, Mozaffar al-Din Shah, is
here also replaced with his father, Naser al-Din. The film contains some clips
of the early silent and sound films, including those from the Golestan Palace
archives and of Irani and Sepantas The Lor Girl, the first Persian-language
talkie, which are cleverly interwoven into the fictional story.
Another valuable documentary on the history of Iranian cinema is Bah
ram Reipurs The Magic Lantern (Fanuse Khial, 1976), produced for the mca,
which covers the history of cinema from the beginning to 1976 and includes
excerpts from many documentary and fiction films. It effectively documents
the rise and consolidation of modern individuality in the characters that ap
peared in fiction movies. The film historian Jamal Omid also directed an im
portant television series called Pioneers (Aghazgaran, 1974), which contains
film clips and interviews with many pioneers. Working for the bbc Persian
Service, Shahrokh Golestan produced a valuable series of radio programs on
the history of Iranian cinema, Magic Lantern: The Story of Iranian Cinema
from the Beginning to the Islamic Revolution According to the BBC (Fanuse Khial:
Sargozashte Sinemaye Iran az Aghaz ta Enqelabe Eslami Beh Ravayate Bi
bisi, 1995), which was aired by the bbc and sold as a package of audiocassettes.
Finally, the film critic Jamsheed Akrami made several feature-
length
documentaries in the United States on Iranian cinemas before and after
the revolution, Dreams Betrayed (1986), Friendly Persuasion (2000), and The
Lost Cinema: Iranian Political Films in the Seventies (2006), in which he em
ployed informative interviews with key filmmakers and judicious extended
sequences of their movies to illustrate the various social, political, and cine
matic issues, including gender roles and the censorship of films.
Ethnographic Documentaries and Their Anthropological Unconscious

Ethnographic filmmakingdefined as the making of films that represent
one culture to another or to itself (Nichols 1994:66)emerged strongly in
the 1960s in Iran. Several factors drove this emergence. One was modernity,
99
rapid modernization, and their resulting population displacements and psy

chic and social restructuring, which brought urgency to the task of docu
menting and preserving the countrys traditions, cultural expressions, and
ways of life before their disappearance. This resulted in a style of filming that
might be called salvage ethnography.
Another impetus was the states institutional support for filmmaking and
media making as vehicles for national identity formation and national projec
tion. The majority of the so-called ethnographic filmmakers have been sup
ported by powerful state cultural and media organizations. Under the second
Pahlavi regime, these were principally the mca and nirt. Later, under the
Islamic Republic, these included the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guid
ance (mcig), the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization, and the Voice and
Vision of the Islamic Republic (vvir). Some of the filmmakers were full-time
civil servants in these state organizations, while others were freelance artists
commissioned by them. The commercial private sector and nongovernmen
tal agencies, too, contributed to documentary and ethnographic filmmaking,
but to a lesser extent. These state institutions were involved not only in fi
nancing and sponsoring the films but also in their production and, due to
their near monopoly on documentary film venues and television networks, in
their distribution and exhibition. Because of these structural underpinnings
and the leftist politics of a majority of the filmmakers, ethnographic docu
mentaries were always already embedded in politicsfrom their conception
to their reception. What constituted the nation, culture, and tradition
to be salvaged, therefore, became contested categories between the state that
funded the films and the filmmakers who wanted funding from it but wished
to maintain editorial independence.
A third impetus was the presence of a coterie of new filmmakers trained
both at home and abroad who came armed with the ideologies of secular mod
ernism and salvage ethnography. However, most of these had no training in
anthropology and ethnography. Neither were they deeply linked to univer
sity anthropology departments or research centers. Few ethnographic films
of this period therefore formed part of academic anthropological studies or
were organically informed by anthropological or ethnographic concepts and
methodologies. Farhad Varharams labeling of these films as anthropological
cinema without anthropology (2008) thus seems appropriate. I have called
these Ethnographic-lite films (see volume 4, chapter 1).
Yet there is an anthropological unconscious at work in the works of these
nonanthropologist filmmakers. It manifests in their choices and treatments
of the subjects, rituals, customs, and events they deemed worthy of filming
100
and salvaging. It is also exhibited in the films stylistic features, which were
driven by the filmmakers ad hoc understanding of anthropological research
and filming methodologies and by the technological limitations of cinema.
Together, the authorial awareness, the modernist ideologies of anthropology
and nationalism, state support of films, the choice and treatment of subject
matter, and filming style constituted the political unconscious of the ethno
graphic films.
This is long before new criticism and theory had entered anthropology
and before the works of pioneer postmodernist cultural anthropologists at
Rice University and elsewhereGeorge Marcus, Michael Fischer, and Steve
Tylerhad revolutionized anthropological fieldwork and ethnographic writ
ing and filming (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Marcus and Fischer 1986). As a
result, Iranian ethnographic films tended to be straightforward and linear,
relying heavily on a descriptive, wordy, and authoritative narration. This style
was dictated as much by the difficulty of synch sound recording in the field as
by the oral narrative style of storytelling Iranians had internalized and by the
anthropological unconscious that necessitated a distance between the anthro
pologist and the subject. Yet some films experimented with visual, musical,
poetic, and structural innovations in their attempt to reduce this distance and
suture the spectators into the text and the diegetic world it contained. Some
filmmakers documented dispassionately, others invoked intimately; some re
created lives, others created total identification. More sophisticated filmmak
ers parodied their subjects, the films, and themselves.
Based on their contents I divide the ethnographic films into several the
matic types, which evolved over time and in particular with the revolution of
197879 and the subsequent eight-year war with Iraq. These types are films
about religious culture and rituals, films about tribes and tribal migration,
and films about indigenous technologies. Throughout this taxonomy I also
note stylistic features.
Films about Religious Culture and Rituals
Religion, religious culture, and religious rituals and ceremonies, particularly
those related to Shiism, made for a major topic in documentary films. An im
portant early film in this category is Abolqasem Rezais intimate and poetic
film on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, The House of God (Khanehye Khoda,
1968). Produced by Iran Film Studio, it powerfully imparted the transcen
dent force of collective prayer and belief involving massive numbers of the
faithful from different nations participating in the annual Muslim pilgrim
age, including the impressive circumambulation of the Kaaba. The film em
101
phasized the social and public dimensions of the religious pilgrimage over
the personal and private ones. Even though it did not follow a unifying idea,
its attention to the details of religious traditions, practices, and locations gave
the film ethnographic depth, and its chronological treatment of pilgrimage
phases gave it a forward momentum. These factors and its rare and revealing
documentary footage made it an important and popular film. Four camera
men filmed the images, all of whom are playfully identified in the film as ha
jis: Ahmad Shirazi, Nemat Haqiqi, Abbas Dastmalchi, and Mohammad Ali
Issari (after all, they had made the pilgrimage, even if only to film it). Twelve
commercial movie houses screened the film in Tehran, a rare occurrence for
documentaries. In honor of the films religious theme, the cinemas decorated
their lobbies with posters of the holy religious sites depicted in the film, re
moving flamboyant posters of sexy movie stars and coming attractions (Omid
1995/1374:395). In fact, the film proved so popular that it apparently led to the
inauguration of the first public movie house in the holy city of Qom, across
the river from the Hazrate Masumeh Shrine, the sister of Imam Ali. The
House of God led clerics for the first time to accept film as a vehicle of religious
expression, paving the way both for the acceptance of the filmmaker by soci
ety and for the spectators enjoyment of cinema.33 It was dubbed into English
and sold by Ashoqa Film to many foreign countries, the first Iranian film to
receive such wide distribution.
In Iran: The Land of Religions (Iran: Sarzamine Adian, 1971), made for the
mca, Manuchehr Tayyab focused on the coexistence of major religious tradi
tions in IranShiism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism; no men
tion of Bahaismwhich he rendered with a deftly moving camera and real
istic portrayals without voice-over narration. These style choices removed the
distance between subjects and audience. Particularly spectacular were scenes
of Shiite faithful rhythmically beating their bare chests into the camera and
in concentric circular formations. The film countered the general impression,
and fact, that Shiism predominated in Iran and was intolerant of other reli
gions, particularly of Bahaism. In an interview in Akramis The Lost Cin
ema: Iranian Political Films in the Seventies, Tayyab states that religious objec
tions (which he does not specify) led to the films ban; it was never screened
in public.34
Sponsored by nirt, Taqvai, a gifted writer from the south, made many
short but insightful ethnographic sketchesethnographic-lite filmsabout
taxis (Taxi Meter/Taximetr, 1967), the telephone (Telephone/Telefon, 1967),
street barbers (Barbers in the Sun/Arayeshgahe Aftab, 1967), amanuenses
(Breadwinners of Illiteracy/Nankhorhaye Bisavadi, 1967), the poet Farrokhzad
102
(Forugh Farrokhzad, 131345, 1967), and the traditional bazaars (Minabs Thurs
day Bazaar/Panjshanbeh Bazare Minab, 1969). His most important docu
mentaries in this period were two well-assembled works that explored folk
lorist and religious themes with apt uses of visuals, editing, lyrical narration,
and native music. The Sorcerers Wind (Bade Jen, 1970), narrated by the poet
Shamlu, deals with possession and exorcism rituals (called zar) practiced in
the coast of the Persian Gulf, particularly in Bandar Langeh.35 The film opens
with shots of waves, the seashore, and the town ruins accompanied by Sham
lus raspy and world-weary voice, describing the origins of the people, the ritu
als, and the wind. As he tells it, zar originated with the African slaves who in
ancient times were brought to the southern shores of Persia (figure 15). They
brought with them an ill wind, which purportedly decimated the population
and left portions of the town in ruins. After this contextual opening, the film
proceeds to the site of an exorcism ceremony, which is very private and in
15 Naser Taqvais The Sorcerers

Wind claims that African
slaves brought with them this
ill wind to Iranian shores,
including Langeh Port, pictured
here. Frame enlargement.
16 Exorcising the sorcerers
wind. Frame enlargement.
103
17 Concentric circles of
chest-beating men in a Shiite
religious ritual in Taqvais
Arbain. Frame enlargement.
volves mixed-gender dancing and chanting to incessant, rhythmic drumbeats

until the participants fall into a trance and evil is expelled. Taqvai filmed these
scenes both with a hidden camera and with the fly-on-the-wall direct cinema
technique, which countered the distance created in the opening scenes (figure
16). He gained access to these private events because of his familiarity with the
regions cultures and his personal connections with the participants (Naficy
1978b/1357:32425).
His Arbain (1971), shot in the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr, is also a highly
visual documentary in the style of direct cinema on the religious processions
and mourning rituals that annually commemorate Arbain, the fortieth day
of Imam Hosains martyrdom. Like The Sorcerers Wind, this film empha
sizes rhythmic action and rhythmic editing, without voice-over narration, to
re-create the intensity of religious emotions evoked in men and young boys
in these public events. It shows the preparation for the mourning, the color
ful and sonorous processions, and focuses in the last sequence on the crowds
gathered in the Dehdashti and Behbahani Mosques, who move rhythmically
in concentric circles and beat their chests to the chants of a Muslim cantor
(figure 17). Either very low or very high camera angles beautifully and pow
erfully convey the vast dimensions and the intimate frenzied tensions of this
occasion. Interspersed throughout the film are shots of farmers working in
fields and fishermen going about their business, which both integrates the
ceremony into daily lives and demonstrates that these passionate, artistic peo
ple are the same ones who ordinarily farm and fish. The film also evokes the
104
18 A Qaderi dervish is about

to swallow a large stone in
Manuchehr Tabaris A Few
Moments with Qaderi Dervishes.
Frame enlargement.
eerie atmosphere of the empty alleyways of Bushehr, through which scurries

a mysterious veiled woman.36
Manuchehr Tabari, a nirt filmmaker, made a shocking short film, A Few
Moments with Qaderi Dervishes (Lahazati Chand ba Daravishe Qaderi, 1973),
in which, using an invasive cinma vrit camera, he documents, without nar
ration or extradiegetic music, the extraordinary acts of faith of dervishes un
der trance in Iranian Kurdistan. This includes their swallowing large stones
and a handful of razor blades, eating live snakes, drinking kerosene and eat
ing the glass chimney of the kerosene lamp, and puncturing their bodies and
faces with numerous long skewers, all the while dancing to frenzied drum
beats (figure 18). Absolute frenzy rules not only because of the trance dancers
actions but also because the camera itself seems crazed; no anthropological
distance here. As it zooms in and out rapidly with the rhythm of the music,
it replicates the trance stylistically, creating what Lotte Hoek in the context of
religious inscription in Bangladeshi cinema has called cinematic zikr [sacred
chanting] (2006), until the camera suddenly goes black in midaction, bring
ing the film to an end. As Tabari told me, this was because one of the pos
sessed participants lunged forward to swallow the camera lens (Naficy 1977f).
This bit of self-reflexivity constitutes one of the first instances of postmodern
ism in ethnographic films in Iran. While it proved powerful and informative
in exposing unusual customs and beliefs of a segment of Iranians, the film
merely documents a trance session, offering no cultural context and no his
torical or ethnographic understanding. To offset these shortcomings, Tabari
soon directed The Dancer of Love (Motrebe Eshq, 197577) about the Qaderi
dervishes lives and beliefs by focusing on five families in Kurdistan.37
Another noted nirt filmmaker and a key new-wave director, Kimiavi,
trained in filmmaking at the Institut des Hautes-tudes Cinmatographiques
105
19 Esmail Emami
filming a pilgrim for
O Deer Savior, while
the director Parviz
Kimiavi looks on.
(idhec) in Paris, made several films that violated the paradigmatic anthro
pological unconscious of ethnographic films: he mixed nonfictional and fic
tional stories and styles to create dense, lyrical, and ironic ethnographic texts.
His most straightforward documentary, O Deer Savior (Ya Zamene Ahu,
1971), is an intimate, ethnographically rich, and cleverly critical portrait of
pilgrimage to the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad. According to the cine
matographer, Esmail Emami, it was filmed using a handheld and sometimes
hidden camera (Naficy 1977c) (figure 19). The film has no voice-over narrator.
His contrapuntal use of voice and vision, which creates a contrast between the
films visuals and the pilgrims voices, allows Kimiavi a critique of the official Shiite institutions for failing to help their religious community (ummat).
In these scenes, the visuals highlight the magnificent opulence of the mas
sive silver and gold mausoleum and of the shrines great halls covered with
large, beautiful carpets, whose walls and ceilings are decorated with cut crys
tal, glass, mirror, and huge chandeliers. The soundtrack, however, carries the
desperate voices of the lowly supplicants requesting mercy, compassion, bet
ter health, or redemption.
Ali Asgar Asgarian, a Tehran University film student, made The Taziyeh of
Martyrdom (Shabihe Shahadat, 1976), an ambitious five-camera coverage of
the famous Hor and Abbas taziyeh performances. This film provides an im
portant ethnographic documentation of the Shiite passion plays whose public
performance under the Shah was on the wane.
Films about Tribes and Tribal Migration
Tribes and their exotic ways of life, colorful customs, and arduous annual
migrations, which had been so memorably documented in the 1920s by the
American filmmakers Merian Cooper, Ernst Schoedsack, and Marguerite
106
Harrison in Grass, now became subjects for Iranian documentarians. Sed

entarization and modernization, which were eroding tribal customs and the
nomadic way of life, seemed to have intensified the cosmopolitan city dwell
ers nostalgia for, and interest in, the tribes. In a kind of romantic salvage
ethnography, modern, often foreign-trained filmmakers who were them
selves agents of modernity and change documented the tribes before their
disappearanceattempts that always seemed to refer to Grass as the arche
typal progenitor. One notable example was created by Shafti, who at the head
of a large film crew filmed the Bakhtiari tribes migration in southwestern
Iran for the mca. The resulting film, The Flaming Poppies (Shaqayeqe Su
zan, 1962), was technically well made and superior to its foreign predecessor
in terms of its inclusion of color, sound, and multiple camera viewpoints. It
won the Silver Bear Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961 and was widely
distributed in Iran and abroad through Iranian embassies.38 Yet it lacked the
grandeur, drama, and scale of Grass, and it suffered from the shortcomings
of the official style of documentary, in which the Syracuse Team had trained
Shafti. These included an unimaginative and linear narrative structure and a
plodding voice-of-God, impersonal narration.39
The anthropologist Fereydoun Safizadeh first saw Grass in 1971 in an un
dergraduate ethnographic film class in the United States. He found it so grip
ping that it inspired him to retrace the footsteps of the American filmmak
ers by filming the Bakhtiari annual migration in the 1970s, something that
served as a catalyst for the twenty-eight-minute English-language documen
tary The Shahsavan Nomads of Iran (1983), which he codirected with his so
ciologist spouse, Arlene Dallalfar (Safizadeh 2003:1). That viewing of Grass
was also instrumental in redirecting his academic interest from engineer
ing to visual anthropology. However, logistics, proximity, and familiarity
forced another type of redirection: he shifted his attention from the south
west Bakhtiari nomads to the northwest Shahsavan pastoral nomads of Azar
baijan. The colorful, seasonal Shahsavan migration between the Aras River
in the Moghan Steppe and the high pastures of Sabalan Mountain provided
a dramatic narrative focus, and Safizadehs Azari background, his knowledge
of the culture and language, as well as personal contacts made a film about
the Shahsavan more plausible, particularly during the tumultuous revolution
ary period.
This project is worth noting here because of the impact of Grass on its in
ception, its female-centered filming, its ethnographically informed narration,
and the impact of rising anti-Shah sentiment on its production and comple
tion. By mid-January 1978, Tabriz had risen to commemorate the martyrs
107
of the Qom demonstrations forty days earlier, and antigovernment forces had
burned and destroyed banks and cinemas. The three-week spring tribal mi
gration would take place in late winter. There was no time to lose. Safizadeh
made a proposal to Nader Afshar Naderi, the director of Tehran Universitys
Institute for Social Research, to film the Shahsavan camp life and upcom
ing migration, a proposal that Afshar Naderi approved, providing the director
with five thousand feet of 16mm raw stock and access to nirts facilities for
lab works and editing.
Safizadeh and Dallalfar formed an efficacious mixed-gender team, for they
were able to film not only male-dominated public events of the Moghanlu
lineage of the Shahsavan (shepherding, felt making, the buying and selling
of flocks and wool) but also female-centered private activities inside and out
side the womens alachiq, or tents (fetching water, baking, cooking, churning
milk, making butter and yogurt, spinning wool, weaving, nursing babies).
The pair also documented the migration over rivers and mountain passes
(figure 20). By mid-September 1978, when they began editing the footage, the
Zhaleh Square massacre, known as Black Friday, had shaken the government
to its core and emboldened the uprising. nirt employees joined the national
strike that eventually brought the Pahlavi regime to an end. When Sadegh
Ghotbzadeh became the director general of the postrevolution broadcasting
authority, the vvir, he mandated a reevaluation of all projects, bringing all
current ones to a halt. Purification purges took their toll, as did chaos and
uncertainty, all of which forced Safizadeh and Dallalfar to give up any hope
of being able to complete the film (Safizadeh 2003:9). Unable to retrieve the
original footage from nirt, the couple left Iran with about two thousand feet
of their work print (nearly one hour), which Dallalfar subsequently edited into
The Shahsavan Nomads of Iran as a sociology graduate student at ucla. Dal
lalfar read the voice-over narration for this rather rough and incomplete but
valuable film and provided additional extratextual information about the im
pact of agricultural modernization, land reform, sedentarization, large-scale
irrigation systems, and modern transportation on the tribes way of life and
livelihood (camel caravans were being replaced by automobiles and trucks). In
his write-up about the film, Safizadeh admitted that the romance of authen
ticity and the impulse toward salvage ethnography had prevented them from
filming the newly adopted technological ways of doing things, for example
using pickup trucks to go and come from the camps, or the use of Mercedes
trucks to relocate sheep from the Moghan Steppe to the Sabalan range, or to
show the canning factories in Moghan where the Shahsavan worked as day la
borers (2003:1112). The films reception remained limited as Safizadeh and
108
20 Production still from Arlene Dallalfars and Feraidun Safizadehs

The Shahsavan Nomads of Iran.
Dallalfar did not consign the work to a professional distributor. Several indi
viduals and universities acquired it in Britain, Norway, and Turkey. It has not
been publicly screened in Iran (Naficy 2006).40
The anthropologist Afshar Naderi and the filmmaker Gholam Hosain Ta
heridoust each made a film called Acorn (Balut, 1968 and 1971, respectively),
documenting the disappearing process by which bread was made from bit
ter acorn. Afshar Naderi made his film for the Institute for Social Research,
which he headed, and Taheridoust made his for nirt, for which he worked as a
director. Both films were made in the Koh Giluye region of the Zagros Moun
tains in the southwest of Iran, where over half of the tribal population was mi
gratory, with the remainder settled in small villages. Despite the films simi
larities in terms of topic, region, subjects, and institutional sponsorship, there
were major differences in the directors ethnographic and filmic approaches.
As an anthropologist, Afshar Naderi made an effort, as he told me in an
interview, to portray the daily life of a nomadic people with emphasis on the
division of labor during the three seasons of autumn, winter and spring,
during which he and his German wife and five other researchers lived in the
region (Naficy 1977d/1356). This was not something that nonanthropologist
filmmakers had done before. The film focuses on the preparation of bread
109
from acorns, whose bitterness is leached by running water of a stream, a pro

cess that the film places in the context of the nomads daily activities dur
ing a nine-month period. These activities are captured with a static camera
and aesthetics that signal Afshar Naderis training as a photographer, rather
than a cinematographer. While the scenes of daily life are ethnographically
informed, accompanied by clear profilmic sounds, they tend to disperse the
films narrative in all directions, and the lack of voice-over narration leaves
some key details unexplained, such as the color change in stream water that
indicates the level of leaching.
Taheridousts film, on the other hand, shows in graphic detail, and in a
more coherent and visual manner, the preparation of acorns for bread mak
ing, as re-created by one family and filmed in just two and a half days. Yet Ta
heridoust did not re-create naively, for he had spent a year and a half of his
Knowledge Corps service in the region and was well acquainted with the peo
ple and their way of life (Naficy 1977e/1356). He thus had been able to gain
both cultural information and the peoples trust before filming (figures 21
and 22). He was also at the time working on his thesis on the topic of posses
sion (zar) under the venerable ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch. His film
ends with a self-reflexive scene of the family eating their acorn meal, when the
male head of the family looks directly into the camera and asks: Is the film
over? The film freezes on the face of the man and ends with his question,
thereby leaving the question about the films ontological status as a straight
documentary to the viewer. This gesture perhaps constitutes Taheridousts
small homage to his mentor Rouch and the latters partner Edgar Morin; to
gether the pair had made a seminal self-reflexive cinma vrit film, Chronicle
of a Summer (Chronique dun t, 1961).
The subjects question at the end of the film also raises a question about
the power relations between cosmopolitan ethnographers and filmmakers
and their rural native subjects. If the film ethnographers held a position of
power because of their access to advanced film technology, anthropological
knowledge, government support, and official permission to study and inves
tigate their subjects, the natives were armed with suspicion, the traditional
weapon of the weak in neocolonial situations. As Afshar Naderi explains, Al
though the tribespeople did not show any particular animosity toward us,
nevertheless they did not regard us as benevolent anthropologists. We were
similar to the type of soldiers who had recently murdered some of them. As
a result we were their potential enemies. We learned of this only after the
tribespeople grew close to us. They confessed that at first they were suspicious
that we were working for the army (1987:102).
110
21 A family eating a meal that

includes bread made from
acorns. Frame enlargement, from
Gholam Hosain Taheridousts
documentary Acorn.
22 Tribal women dancing in
Afshar Naderis documentary
Acorn. Frame enlargement.
The filmmakers different approaches to the same subject reflected their

different training, as an anthropologist and a filmmaker, respectively. While
Taheridousts emerges as the better film and has won several international
awards, Afshar Naderis film is ethnographically more informative, and the
research that undergirded it produced a rich trove of materials, consisting of
seven monographs, three ethnographic films, and a tribal atlas of the Koh Gi
luyeh region.
Films about Indigenous Technologies
As the director of the Broadcast and Media Center of the Free University of
Iran (Daneshgahe Azade Iran), in addition to supervising the television pro
grams that accompanied the courses, I began a multipart film project to pro
duce investigative documentaries on ancient indigenous technologies now
111
23a, 23b, 23c Three frames of the animated

logo designed by the British artist Ronald
Jackson for the films of Daneshgah-e
Azad-e Iran (Free University of Iran), which
I commissioned. The bird of freedom
rises phoenix-like from the burning sun
to form the logo. Frame enlargements.
threatened by the increasing pace of modernization and unbridled urban

sprawl. Only two films of the series were completed before the revolution of
197879 shut down the university. The Qanat Tradition of Iran (Sonnate Qa
nat dar Iran, 1976), directed by Reza Mirbaha, provides a history of the an
cient indigenous system of underground irrigation canals that carry water all
year round without any mechanical propulsion, from mountainous slopes to
downstream fields, often across scores of miles.41 Pigeon Towers (Kabutarkhan,
1977), also directed by Mirbaha, investigates the history and the elaborate
techniques of constructing massive clay towers, particularly in the Isfahan
region, in which the droppings of some six thousand pigeons are gathered.
Once a year, these droppings are collected from the towers and used as natu
ral fertilizer in nearby fields, where they are thought to be responsible for the
regions tasty fruits and vegetables. These films were so-called research docu
mentaries that relied heavily on historical investigations, voice-over narration,
location filming, and the use of native informants and skilled craftsmen and
workers as subjects (all were men). The revolution not only stopped the film
ing of the other segments for this series but also of the circulation and broad
cast of those already made (figures 23a, 23b, and 23c).
112
Like the fine-arts documentaries, many ethnographic films engaged in sal

vaging a threatened present or recovering a disappearing past by document
ing and making comprehensible contemporary Iran in the light of its tradi
tional past. In this they contributed to creating a new national imaginary for
Iranians. In addition to elucidating their specific topics, they explored the di
versity and antiquity of the peoples who formed ancient Persia, thus estab
lishing continuity between that ancient time and place and the modern Iran
of the present.
Travel Documentaries
Travel films tend to flourish in societies in which a number of factors have
emerged: a sufficient amount of modernitys individuality and subjectivity;
nostalgia for supposedly authentic, simpler times and places; curiosity about
worlds not ones own; enhanced social mobility and class capital; and ad
vanced technological and media capital. Because of the underdevelopment of
these features, this category of film did not flourish in Iran until the emer
gence both of the middle class and of the television, film, and tourism in
dustries in the 1960s. Some rudimentary travel films were made before, and
some ethnographic films may be regarded as travel films. Yet the efforts of
two adventurous brothers merit an extended discussion as pioneers of this
genre. Credited as Irans first world travelers by the Iranian press ( jahan
gard), Issa and Abdullah Omidvar set out in their early twenties on a world
wide tour with great publicity and fanfare, during which they filed newspaper
reports about their travels and produced color 16mm documentaries of their
adventures.42
The two planned their world tour for several years, starting in 1950, dur
ing which they traveled by bicycle and motorcycle to neighboring countries
to test their own mettle. After gaining their fathers permission for their am
bitious and dangerous trip, on the patriotic ground that it would promote
the name of their homeland before the world, and after having him write
the first entry in their commemorative book, they set off in September 1954
for Afghanistan, with $90 in each brothers pocket. They went east on their
motorbikes through Asia, Australia, Alaska, North America, Central Amer
ica, South America, and Europe, and they trekked south across Africa with a
two-cylinder safari Citron that the French manufacturer had put at their dis
posal as publicity, the same way that it had supplied the Georges-Marie Haardt
expedition through Asia (including Iran) two decades earlier, which had re
sulted in Lon Poiriers travel documentary The Yellow Cruise (La Croisire
Jaune, 193134).
113
Throughout their trip, wherever Iran had an embassy or a consulate, they

put on a photographic and arts and crafts exhibition about Iran, touting both
its ancient arts and culture and its emergent modernization, thus support
ing the governments and the intelligentsias aim of syncretic Westernization.
They met with descendants of Iranian immigrants and with Iranian migrs
and expatriates living in various countries, such as the Parsis in India and
Hong Kong, the Isfahani Armenians in Indonesia, and the descendants of the
Shirazi Iranians in Zanzibar, who kept their nostalgic flames for their former
homeland burning. In addition, they met with many leaders of the countries
through which they passed, the photographs and news reports about these
meetings adding to their renown. They filed their own journalistic reports
about their travels, accompanied by black-and-white photos they had taken,
which the local press published. Sometimes, as in Nepal, they were inter
viewed on local radio, and sometimes, as in Siam (Thailand), Japan, and the
United States, they were interviewed on television.
In Australia, they purchased a three-lens 16mm Bolex film camera and re
ceived initial training in its use and began to film the Aborigines. Armed with
this new technology and knowledge, they began filming, as was customary in
travel documentaries of the time, their adventures and the lives and rituals of
the exotic natives of the various countries they visited. As industrious and
enterprising individuals, they processed their footage en route and showed it
in subsequent countries, adding both considerable luster to their television
appearances and considerable funds toward their expensive travels. For ex
ample, in Japan they were interviewed by television stations twice and sold
three minutes of the most exciting segments of their footage of the Austra
lian Aborigines to a major Japanese newsreel company, which screened it in
public cinemas throughout the country for days (Omidvar 2001/1380:2045).
This wide publicity in turn created further interview opportunities and news
reports in major Japanese newspapers.
After passing through the Philippines and Japan, the brothers entered the
United States in 1957 through Alaska, where they stayed with the Inuit for
three months, sleeping in an igloo and filming their lives near the Hudson
Bay. Their descriptions of what they filmed, such as seal hunting, igloo build
ing, and migration in search of food, are reminiscent of Robert Flahertys
seminal Inuit movie, Nanook of the North (1922).
While in North America, they gave frequent talks at universities, often
thanks to the initiative of Iranian diplomats. This turned into a publicity ma
chine both for them and for their home country, countering the othering tra
jectory of Western mediawork. At a university in Alaska they gave a talk about
114
the Inuit, where the university president introduced them by stating that, It
may seem strange, but it is true that two Iranians have come here from thou
sands of miles away to inform us of the reality of our own natives (Omid
var 2001:248). In Canada, they gave a talk at the University of Ottawa and
screened their Inuit film. In Washington, where they stayed for several days,
they gave an illustrated talk at Gallaudet University for deaf students and fac
ulty and participated in their social activities and dances. In New York, they
participated as guests in the popular nbc television networks morning pro
gram, Today, starring Dave Garroway and his chimpanzee, J. Fred Muggs,
which projected their name, fame, and films nationwide, and it led to fur
ther invitations by other television stations (273). Iranians living in the United
States contacted the travelers. A sense of pride seemed to have been aroused
by the Omidvar adventures and their media campaign, as it was the first time
that ordinary Iranians (not the royal family or top diplomats) were widely seen
on television screens in nonpolitical situations (this was soon after the coup
against Mosaddeq). In this, the brothers seemed to have fulfilled their prom
ise to their father, to act as goodwill ambassadors for Iran.
In Central and South America, they filmed the Amazon jungles and their
inhabitants extensively as they prepared poisoned darts for hunting and en
gaged in various ceremonies and rituals. They lectured about these adven
tures and showed films about them in universities in Chile and elsewhere. Af
ter visiting the South Pole, they set off by ship for Europe in 1958. In London,
the bbc radio and television interviewed them and purchased film footage
from them, filling our empty pockets with money, and in Germany, news
papers wrote about them extensively and published their articles, for which
they were paid handsomely (403). The money they earned in Europe through
their journalism, media appearances, and exhibitions paid for much of their
expensive Americas trip. In France, they accepted the Citron car as a gift and
returned to Iran to prepare for the African leg of their world adventure. The
first leg had taken six years.
While in Tehran, they edited some of the 16mm footage they had filmed
and screened it in the commercial Feri Cinema to an enthusiastic audience,
which had formed a long line in the streets outside. In 1960, they drove their
Citron through Saudi Arabias dreaded Empty Quarter and made a hajj,
which they filmed and photographed clandestinely at their peril, with the
cameras hidden illegally under their white pilgrimage wraparound sheets
(nothing sewn or manufactured should be worn). Carrying manufactured
objects, particularly cameras, which could be claimed to have been used to
photograph women, posed a great risk. Yet the Omidvars justified their ac
115
tions by saying that they wanted to fulfill the desire of the Muslims who had
longed for years to make the pilgrimage to Mecca but could not, due to lack of
funds. Vicarious pilgrimage, like vicarious tourism! When their guide began
to suspect them of carrying something underneath their clothing because of
metallic sounds emanating from them, they gave him a ludicrous story about
an illness that had required them both to replace their real stomachs with arti
ficial, presumably metallic ones (42425). Their footage of the Mecca pilgrim
age should be considered the first by an Iranian, preceding Rezais famed film
of the same event in The House of God by eight years.43
In Africa, where they traveled from Sudan to South Africa, they joined Pyg
mies, Masai, and others, and they documented teeth-sharpening ceremonies,
a giraffes birth, elephant hunting, and dances and songs performed by di
verse African people. As before, they used their lectures and films to educate
audiences of one land about the peoples of others. In Dakar, for example, they
screened their films about the Amazon regions. Cosmopolitan and liberal in
their politics, the brothers criticized both the racism they encountered against
blacks in the U.S. Deep South and the racist policies of the Apartheid regime
in South Africa. Their trip around the world ended almost a decade after it
had begun, in 1963, when they returned to Tehran.
The Omidvar brothers collected many native objects, samples, specimens,
souvenirs, handicrafts, and sacred objects during their travels in hopes of
creating a natural history museum. They either carried these with them or
mailed and shipped them to Iran. The World Ethnology Museum of Omidvar
Brothers was opened in Tehran by Issa years later, in the 1990s.44 His brother
had fallen in love with a student who years earlier had seen their talk in Chile
and had admired them. He returned to Chile to marry her, where he estab
lished a film production company.
After the completion of their world tour, the brothers edited some of the
footage into travelogues. One of these, the result of their trip to Alaska in win
ter, is the English-titled film On Top of the World, which contains some out
standing footage of Inuit life (Tahaminejad 2000/1379:64). Another is Man
of the Amazon, a seventeen-minute color film about their adventures in the
Amazon, which features a Persian-language voice-over narration by one of
the brothers (probably Issa, who did most of the filming). Delivered in a plu
ral voice, it is reminiscent of Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom television se
ries (196390), in which thanks to manipulative editing and narration danger
seems to lurk behind every bush and every animal emerges as a potential en
emy. It also resembles early travel films in which natives are exotic primitives
who eat live grubs and engage in wild dances.
116
In another film, however, Into the Wilderness, thirty-

four minutes in
length, about the African leg of their trip, including the pilgrimage to Mecca,
the voice-over is more nuanced, aware of the politics of travel documentaries
and of the impact of Western colonialism on Africa. It takes pains to explain
that drumming in Africa constitutes a sophisticated expressive language with
precise meanings, that Africa is not homogenous but contains diverse peo
ples, cultures, and religions, including Islam (showing scenes of possession
with knives), that Africa is fast modernizing, and that many African coun
tries wish to free themselves of their colonial masters. Clearly, the filmmak
ers were affected by the liberation movements in Africa, some of which they
may have witnessed themselves.
They were also influenced by their own childhood experiences in Iran and
by their fathers style of fantasy-laden oral storytelling at bedtime. As Abdul
lah told a bbc reporter in 2004, when he was five or six years old, he used to go
to sleep by listening to the adventure stories that his father related, which in
sinuated the exciting thought of world travel into my mind. Once, when his
father, a manufacturer and exporter of socks to India, read him a newspaper
headline about Tibetans looking for God, the son asked if there was more
than one God, to which the father answered, There is no single religion in
the world, each country has its own food, clothes, and culture. Hearing this,
Adullah said, a strange excitement swelled up in me, and I said to myself that
if the world is so interesting, I must visit all the darkness of its harrowing jun
gles and all its five continents. So, when I was twenty-one and my brother Issa
was twenty-three we left Iran for our trip.45
In 1964, a ninety-minute compilation film was prepared on 35mm about
their adventures, The Wonders of Omidvar Brothers Travels (Ajayebe Mosaf
erathaye Baradarane Omidvar). It featured a lighthearted Persian narration
by Asadollah Paiman and was distributed widely throughout the country.
Abdullah after emigration to Chile opened Arauco Films in Santiago, special
izing in advertising and industrial films. Through it he released An Iranian in
Latin America (Yek Irani dar Emrikaye Latin, 1973), with a Persian narration,
which was screened at Diana Cinema in Tehran. Judging by the enthusias
tic responses of listeners worldwide to the interviews that the bbcs Persian
Service conducted with the brothers in 2004, it is clear that the pairs travel
adventures captured the imagination of Iranians not only then, in the 1950s-
1960s, when the Iranian domestic media hailed their accomplishments, but
also now, in the early years of the twenty-first century, when the web circu
lates their interviews and listeners interactions with them.
It is appropriate to close this section by citing excerpts from what amounts
117
to a remarkable manifesto about the urge to travel and explore by Issa, which
must have been the real impetus for the Omidvar brothers single-minded,
worldwide adventures. In a way, this is a manifesto also about the desire for
modernity, individuality, speed, and sensory excitement. He wrote this when
the two men split, one going to Chile, the other traveling on his own.
Danger and I are twins. Both of us are restless. Both love unexpected
ness, recklessness, and the dust of fresh arrivals. Both danger and I
were born on the same day in the same place. We looked each other in
the eyes, and suddenly recognized one another. We were no strangers.
Let me tell you of my pains: Remaining in place makes me restless. Re
maining in one place, remaining in the city, away from the bosom of
danger, bores me, makes me ill. The city is a smoky prison. I love the
mysterious terror of the jungles. Staying at home and resting in pain
lessness is death for me. I love the unexpected and terrifying excite
ments of unknown seas. . . . I reject the similarity of this moment to the
next. I am driven mad by sameness. I stare longingly into places that are
not here, into paths not taken, into lands unknown, into places that exist
but are not here, into everything that is not here but I imagine that can
be here. (Omidvar 2001/1380:54647)
Social Protest Documentaries

Despite the Pahlavi eras official culture and prescribed documentary style,
from the mid-1960s onward, an increasing number of socially conscious
documentarians made films critical of things official, although government
agencies sponsored most of them and censored the best of them. These pro
test films expressed the fears, anxieties, and criticisms not only of the intellec
tuals but also of the general populationsentiments suppressed by a regime
that under such official, pseudorevolutionary and nationalistic rubrics as the
White Revolution, the Shah-People Revolution, and the Great Civilization was
becoming more authoritarian, autocratic, and arrogant.
The violent suppression of the brief uprising of 1963 constituted but one
obvious example of the regimes tendency to coerce its citizens. The perva
sive secret police, Savak, perpetrated many more daily indignities and viola
tions of human rights and freedoms that the citizens had to endure. Because
they critiqued current social conditions, the films under discussion in this
section suffered both from prior censorship and from limited public exhibi
tion much more than other documentaries. Unlike the poetic documentaries,
118
these films used direct and confrontational strategies in terms of the choice
of the subject matter and the critical juxtapositions and politicized contrapun
talism of verbal and visual elements, which pitted official pronouncements
against popular opinions.
A case in point is the work of Shirdel (born in Tehran in 1939), one of the
countrys foremost documentarians, who like many others of his generation
was trained abroad. He studied architecture and urban planning at Rome
University in Italy. In the third year of his studies in 1959, he was drawn to
filmmaking through his work as a Persian-language dubber for Alex Aqaba
bians Dariush Film Studio in Rome, where he, along with other Iranian na
tionals, dubbed many of the great Italian movies for the Iranian market. This
experience of and exposure to the seminal movies of Michelangelo Antonioni
and Jean-Luc Godard convinced him to switch fields: he enrolled at the Centro
Sperimentale di Cinematografia to learn filmmaking. On his return to Iran in
1965, he made numerous documentaries, most of them for the mca, which,
ironically, banned and confiscated them or limited their screenings. Among
these works were Womens Prison (Nedamatgah: Zendane Zanan, 1966) and
Fortress: The Red Light District (Qaleh, 196780), two searing films about in
carcerated women and prostitution in Tehran, respectively. The latter focuses
on the red-light district, which at the time was called either Fortress or New
City (Shahre no), and comprised houses of prostitution, burlesque theaters,
beauty shops, liquor stores, and bars, with only one gate connecting it to
the outside world. A report about the district in Khandaniha magazine had
in 1959 graphically characterized the New City as a contained cist, an old
wound, which was visited by thirty thousand to fifty thousand customers a
day, with each prostitute taking care of between thirty and fifty clients daily.46
Although both films were made for the mca, they were ostensibly sponsored
by the Womens Organization of Iran, nominally headed by Princess Ashraf
Pahlavi (the Shahs twin) and actually directed by Mahnaz Afkhami, an able
manager who later became the first minister of womens affairs. Instead of
celebrating the progress made under these institutions, the films critiqued
them because of their failure to improve the lot of ordinary women.
In their attention to the lives of ordinary people and in elevating them
to the status of subjects worthy of cinema, Shirdels films exhibited some
of the sensibilities both of the British social realist documentary movement
prior to the Second World War and of Italian neorealism. The eleven-minute
film Womens Prison focuses on a Tehran jail that houses 222 women and
girls convicted of the capital crimes of murder, drug addiction, and smug
gling. The prison organizes literature, handicraft, and sewing classes for the
119
inmates. But these scenes are filmed with irony, for example, when an old,
veiled woman makes a dress for a large blonde doll. Many of the imprisoned
women have children, some of whom are kept with them in jail, while oth
ers are cared for by relatives on the outside. Official discourse (generally rosy),
consisting of interviews with prison teachers and textbooks, is critically jux
taposed with popular discourse, including interviews with women prisoners,
which paints a picture of desperation. A prisoner named Qamar states that
two of her nine children are in prison, but I always worry about those out
side; what can I do, I am in here. Nargess has four children, one of them is
with her in prison, while the others, one of them physically disabled, are be
ing taken care of by her husbands brother, because her husband is also in
prison. Because the film was shot in 35mm format, the synch sound record
ing of interviews posed major problems, forcing Shirdel to dub the prison
ers voices with the voices of the women who worked at the mca (Tahamine
jad 2003:40). This is essentially a fund-raising film, for it ends with a plea
to the public to help the prisoners by aiding the womens prisoners associa
tion through the Womens Organization of Iran, the films sponsor. Womens
Prison broke new ground with its restless, handheld camera, its clear close-up
photography of womens faces, and its successful public exhibition at one of
premiere movie houses of Tehran, the Moulin Rouge.47
Fortress: The Red Light District used the strategy of critical juxtapositions
more effectively, but also more programmatically. It contrapuntally and ironi
cally opposed the positivist contents of the teachers dictation to the prosti
tutes in the New City classroom with interviews with them, slyly suggesting
that poverty and ignorance cause prostitution. The teachers dictation states:
There are factories, offices, and hospitals in large Iranian cities in which peo
ple work day and night. Every citizen, whether in cities or villages, is working
hard to make a better life. All of us, wherever we live and whatever work we do,
we are participating in our countrys progress. As a woman writes the long
dictation on the blackboard, the film cuts to harrowing, stunningly candid in
terviews with prostitutes that give the lie to the rosy dictation, as the women
describe being beaten by their parents or husbands and being sold to pimps.
A woman who had been brought to Tehran and sold eighteen years earlier de
scribes a series of fruitless escapes, ending, I had no place to go, at nights
the sky was my quilt and the earth my mattress. After a dictation that states,
I thank God for creating me, a beautiful young girl tearfully tells the cam
era: I am twelve years old, and I have an older sister and a younger brother.
Ive also got a wretched mother. Perhaps you can do something for us. My
mother thought you might be able to rescue us. She is over there (figure 24).
120
24 A young prostitute in Kamran

Shirdels Fortress: The Red Light
District. Frame enlargement.
Another tearful prostitute says: We do it at night over there behind the hospi
tal, while standing. Several of us women are on the job there, in the streets, as
people pass. What can we do, we are hungry; we have no other recourse. The
contrapuntal structure of this film again contrasts the official discourse with
the popular oneincluding street songsto undermine the former, high
lighting the degradation, poverty, and backwardness of both these particular
women and girls and of a large segment of the country. The films ending on
the scenes of forlorn men and women sleeping in the streets seals the dystopic
assessment of the Great Civilization achieved under the Shah.
With this editing scheme, which replaced positivism with criticism, Shir
del harshly critiqued the official ideology and violated a key tenet of the official style, resulting in the films censoring. Fortress: The Red Light District
was banned during filming in 1966 and its raw material was thought con
fiscated by Savak and lost. However, in 1980, after the revolution, the nega
tives and soundtracks were rediscovered in the mcas film lab; apparently, a
sympathetic lab employee had buried them years ago for safekeeping. 48 When
Shirdel received the call with the good news from the ministry, he almost died
of joy. He edited the footage and sound together with dramatic photographs of
the New City shot by Kaveh Golestan at the time of the filming to make up for
the missing footage. The resulting film, Fortress: The Red Light District, won
several national and international awards (Mehrabi 1996/1375:3023). Its cur
rent release print now carries an ending title of unfinished.49
Shirdel used the same critical structure of juxtaposing official ideology
with lived experience in Tehran Is Irans Capital (Tehran, Paietakhte Iran Ast,
1966). Here, the critical contrast, or what he calls counterpoint, once again
occurs between words dictated by a teacher, which praise the countrys prog
ress under the Shahthe exact text quoted in Womens Prisonand man-
121
on-the-street interviews and documentary footage that provide evidence to

the contrary. The film, also made for the mca, takes its title from the teach
ers hopeful dictation. As the voice reads, Tehran Is Irans capital. Shahan
shah Aryamehr [the King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, the Shahs official
title] lives there, we see pictures of societys marginalized members in the
capitals teeming South Endvagrants, beggars, blood sellers, loiterers, scav
engers, workersmany of whom sleep in hovels, ruins, or dilapidated tem
porary structures (figures 25a and 25b). In another section, the head of the
National Culture Group of the Womens Organization of Iran tells the camera
of the high rate of unemployment (seven out of ten without work), the lack of
sports and educational facilities, and the lack of housing (ten to fifteen peo
ple living in one room) that the organization had worked to alleviate. All the
while the classroom dictation continues to state that Irans political system
has from ancient times on been monarchical and names the present Shah
and crown prince the rightful continuation of that system. These positivist
discourses are countered by interviews with actual residents of the South End
who complain of unemployment, of ten-hour workdays with insufficient pay
to feed their families, of no running water, and of bad health care.50 One man
tellingly utters his grievances in the past tense, as though he were no longer
alive or considered human: We were Muslim, we were human beings, now
we live in this ruin and no one helps us. The sequence that shows a group of
men and boys scouring through heaps of garbage for something to eat or to
sell alongside a herd of goats underscores the loss of humanity and dignity. As
an index of the films modernity, the visuals tend to hold the truth, opposing
the official lies delivered verbally. Overly binarist assertions certainly flaw the
film, yet its direct questioning of the White Revolutions tenets constituted a
bold move in the stifling 1960s.51
The rushes of Tehran Is Irans Capital were confiscated during editing,
something Shirdel learned only when one day he arrived at the mca head
quarters to discover his editing suite locked. Savak interrogated him. His ne
gotiations with the minister of culture and art, Pahlbod, and with his subor
dinates about the whereabouts and the release of his footage came to naught,
as did his offer to take them to the South End to show them the reality he had
filmed there. Pahlbod spoke to Shirdel admiringly, telling him that I admire
your talent and courage; you truly deserve the name you are carrying (shirdel
means lion-hearted). Yet he went on to say that under current conditions
he did not foresee screening the footage to anyone (quoted in Tahaminejad
2003:41). As a result, that film, too, never came to a public screening during
the Pahlavi period. Its first one occurred only after the revolution, along with
122
25a, 25b Contrapuntal filming:

contrasting rosy classroom
dictation with visuals of
social ills. Stills from Tehran
Is Irans Capital. Courtesy
of Kamran Shirdel.
Shirdels other banned films, at the Milad Film Festival in 1980, when the Is
lamist regime was eager to discredit the Shahs regime; the film won local and
international awards. Like Fortress: The Red Light District, this film now car
ries an ending title of unfinished.
Finally, Shirdels Noruz (1967), also made for the mca, unfavorably com
pared and contrasted the celebration of Iranian New Year (Noruz) in the poor
districts of Tehran with that in tonier areas, including in the Iran-America
Society and the Shahs Sadabad Palace. This film was also confiscated and
apparently never screened. Shirdel made only one notable feature movie dur
ing the Pahlavi era, The Morning of the Fourth Day (Sobhe Ruze Chaharom,
1972), which paid homage to his favorite film by Godard, Breathless ( Bout de
Souffle, 1960), and he continued to make institutional documentaries under
the Islamic Republic, discussed in another chapter.
In relying on visuality to counter orality, his films proved modernist and
counterhegemonic. Soon, this approach became a powerful deconstructive
strategy for other filmmakers as well, whether they worked in fiction or in
123
documentary, for such a structure allowed them not only to poke holes into
the bright official presentations of reality but also to conform to a powerful
Iranian ideological orientation, which distrusts manifest meanings (i.e., the
world of appearances, zaher) in the interest of uncovering a valued and au
thentic core meaning (baten). Years later, Abbas Kiarostami would use this
critical structure is his nonfiction film, Homework (Mashqe Shab, 1990), and
Dariush Mehrjui in his fiction movie, The School We Went To (Madreseh-i keh
Miraftim, 198089)both involving schools and classroomsto offer dev
astating critiques of the educational and political systems, this time under
the Islamic Republic.52 As a result, official censors banned both these films
for years.
While they were bold and innovative, the Shirdel films reduced the com
plexities of the issues under analysis. He seems to have been largely satisfied
with debunking the government and poking his finger into its metaphoric
eye. Since the government had seized all meaningful institutions of power
and reform and took credit for all victories achieved in society, its critics re
acted by ascribing all the problems to it as well, aiming all criticism at it.
This situation absolved Iranians of any responsibility for their own failures,
fed the discourse of the people as victims of the state, and failed to bring to
Iranians attention their own accomplishments. It also made the socially con
scious filmmakers rather lazy, for instead of digging into the deeper and mul
tiple causes of social misery and protests, they simply blamed the government
(which, of course, was not without blame). In turn, this facile political critique
paved the way for filmmakers censorship, thus providing them with another
reason to demonize the government and thus strengthening a vicious circle
that bound an oppressive government to its nagging critics.
Ever active in the documentary film through the gfw, Ebrahim Golestan
also made several socially engaged documentaries or films about the arts.
Yet unlike his work for the oil company, these films faced condemnation
and confiscation by their sponsors or by government officials. The sponsor
banned Rural Associations (Anjomanhaye Rustai, 1965) because, instead of
praising the work of the government-sanctioned rural associations, the film
exposed its shortcomings (Mehrabi 1996/1375:59). Likewise, the mca confis
cated Golestans Irans Crown Jewels (Ganjinehhaye Gowhar, 1965), in which
he traces three hundred years of dynastic history (from Nader Shah Afshar to
the Pahlavi shahs) by examining the fate of Irans crown jewels, which pro
vide important backing for the Iranian currency. This was partly due to the
films vague but ominous prognostication of the fall of all dynasties, and by
implication that of the then current owners of the jewels, the Pahlavi dynasty
124
(Mehrabi 1996/1375:334). This film also cuts from its ostensible object, the
crown jewels, to social context: the Iranian countryside, peasants, farmers,
and tribespeople. Several cuts and dissolves, from close-ups to long shots, of
decorative jewels establish a strong connection between the peacock throne
and other jewels and Iranian gardens in bloom. In line with the aesthetics
of poetic realism, the films narration criticizes the decadence of the succes
sive kings who, bedazzled with ornaments, ruled over the pompous period
of negligence and self-praise, the era of living with no esteem for the mind,
ending with the Pahlavi crown like the full stop at the end of the tale.53 It
notes that among a hundred thousand bejeweled pieces in the royal vault, only
three pens were found. This measured criticism of Iranians attraction to
glowing trinkets is clearly a precursor to what erupts as anger in Golestans
final feature film, The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni Valley, in which he cri
tiques such shallow infatuations.
Made by the gfw for the Central Bank of Iran, the custodian of the jew
els, this film was stylistically the most accomplished of all documentaries di
rected by Golestan. The beautiful objects are in constant motion within the
frame while the camera moves about them, exploring their forms, facets, and
designs. Film lab effects, strategic lap dissolves, and animation provide other
movements across space and time.
Even before its completion, however, the film ran afoul of Pahlbod, whom
Golestan disdained. Pahlbod first confiscated a large portion of the footage
and narration because of their politics, and perhaps because his own minis
trys filmmakers had not made the film, and finally banned the film outright.
He forbade Golestan to take the footage to Britain to complete the soundtrack.
Mehdi Samii, the governor of the Central Bank and the crown jewels official guardian, interceded with the prime minister, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, who
authorized the use of the diplomatic pouch to essentially smuggle the film
to London for completion (Milani 2001:33536). Surprisingly, this film ob
tained the royal blessing; in fact, the Shah, who had liked Golestans A Fire
and Wave, Coral, and Rock, had asked that the assignment for Irans Crown
Jewels be given to him (Alinezhad 2004:2).54 The film was never shown in
Iran in the English-language version screened at the Golestan retrospective
in Chicago in May 2007, which he considers to be definitive, for the mca took
out the offending segments of the narration, replacing them with music.55
That his high-ranking connections could not protect Golestan from this
kind of trouble with the film reinforces key points of this chapter, namely, that
documentary filmmaking, particularly projects commissioned or sponsored
by the state, constituted a highly contingent and negotiated process, and that
125
despite the states authoritarian nature, government sponsorship did not au

tomatically lead to pro-regime documentaries.
On the other hand, the kind of official help Hoveyda provided for Irans
Crown Jewels did not necessarily translate into assistance in other situations.
For example, as Golestan tells it, the prime minister himself confiscated his
The Harvest and the Seed (Kharman O Bazr, 1965), about the governments
land reform program in a village, which criticized the way the reform perpet
uated the accumulation of capital first in absentee landlords and then in new
owners, who ruled the villages with impunity (Mehrabi 1996/1375:167). Hov
eyda apparently liked the film and suggested that Golestan sell it to the gov
ernment for an agreed-on fee. Under that pretense, he took away Golestans
copy to show to the Shah, but he never returned the film print, nor did he pay
for it (Milani 2001:336). The Harvest and the Seed had been screened at the
Venice International Film Festival, arousing anger and protest from both Ira
nian residents in Italy and the Iranian embassy there (Omid 1995/1374:846).
Perhaps that is why the prime minister banned the film and confiscated all
its prints. This involvement of the countrys top official in documentary film
censorship may seem unusual. Yet these kinds of incidentand similar ones
in the first Pahlavi perioddemonstrate the importance the Pahlavis placed
on media images and on documentary films public relations value, and that
the regimes were not homogenous or monolithic. They also suggest the high
value Hoveyda placed on his close relationship with fellow intellectuals, in
cluding with some dissenters, such as Golestan. He sought first to appease
the dissidents through personal relationships; if that failed, he resorted to official coercion and censorship. His relationship with Golestan soured further
after the release of the satirical movie The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni
Valley, which made fun of the Shah and his reforms. According to one ac
count, Savak shut down Golestans studio, forcing him to flee Iran.
Other films that criticized the sponsoring institutions, some headed by
royal family members or their cronies, also received little or no exhibition.
As Iranian critics were fond of saying, their circulation was limited to a one-
way shuttle from the film lab to the film archive. Three examples are notable.
Khosrow Sinais Beyond the Barrier of Sound (Ansuye Haiahu, 1968) about the
Baghchehban School for the Deaf and Mute, mixes documentary scenes with
re-created ones and critiques the general maltreatment of hearing and visu
ally impaired people in the country. Reza Allamehzadehs thirty-minute Eter
nal Night (Shabe Momtad, 1972) focuses on the Reza Pahlavi School for the
Blind, which by means of a rather heavy-handed filming and editing strategy
compares the lives of the students to the lives of prison inmates and to a dogs
126
life. Mohammad Hosain Mahini Hasanzadehs Work Camp (Orduye Kar, also
known as Kanun, 1974) deals with the difficult life and work environment of
inmates of a government work camp. They work and live in squalid and de
plorable quarters. One of them, whose face and neck are severely burned due
to unsafe work conditions, describes what happened to him; his political anal
ysis of the work situation and his defiant manner provide eloquent testimony
to the resilience of the human spirit in the midst of the most dire poverty and
oppression. He boldly expresses his dissatisfaction not only with camp life but
also with the whole social system. Most of the film was shot under the super
vision of the camp guards; but portions of it, such as the sequence with the
burn victim, were filmed clandestinely through a series of elaborate schemes.
This was an unusual technique in those days, for during the rise of the under
ground antigovernment guerrillas in the 1970s, any kind of clandestine activ
ity was considered political and subversive. The only authorized clandestine
activity was that in which the secret police, Savak, engaged.
Eternal Night and Work Camp were their directors graduation thesis films,
and they represented a newly activist political voice in documentary cinema.
That voice was soon silenced, however, as Allamehzadeh was tried and con
victed within a couple of years in a famous televised trial, along with other
intellectuals. With the revolution, both of these directors escaped to Europe,
where Allamehzadeh has been making films in the Netherlands and Mahini
has been organizing an annual exile film festival in Sweden (Naficy 2001).
The regime interpreted these three films realistic portrayal of the under
side of institutionalized disability and their political contents as direct attacks
on the government and its failed social service programs. In the stifling politi
cal atmosphere of the time, mere acts of realistic synch-sound filmmaking by
direct cinema and cinma vrit methodologies became political acts, more
so than in those methodologies countries of origin, the United States and
France. Even implicit social criticism, when spoken by a documentary subject
such as in Work Camp, was considered a direct criticism of the government
by the filmmakers. The downside of this politicization of the documentary
was that it pushed political documentarians toward further laziness and slop
piness, for many seemed to think that the mere filming of scenes of poverty
and oppressionw ithout any artistry or analysissufficiently proved their
political commitment. Because many of these films were not screened pub
licly, they acquired mythic reputations that belied their sometimes low tech
nical quality or heavy-handed rhetorical content. I was able to screen some of
these films in my documentary film classes at the nirt College of Cinema
and Television, sometimes in the presence of the filmmakers. Although this
127
selective exposure was educationally important and enlightening for the stu
dents, perhaps it ended up adding to the films mystique.
If socially conscious filmmakers were muzzled at home and Western com
mercial documentarians treated the social problems of Iran with deference,
a few independent European filmmakers did dare to seriously and critically
examine the Shahs regime without fear of reprisals. But these were few and
appeared on the scene too late to have any impact on the Iranian population
or the countrys filmmakers.56
Avant-Garde Documentaries
Both social protest documentaries and avant-garde documentaries violated
some of the codes of the official style. The social documentaries not only offered a critique of the official institutions and of official culture but alsoby
means of their realism and contrapuntal and subjective uses of sound, visu
als, and editinga critique of the official documentary style. The avant-garde
films extended these subversions through bolder experimentations with form
and structure, not only to camouflage their inflammatory content and escape
censorship but also to make more formally rigorous and artistic films. The
more complex film texts of these auteur filmmakers required more work on
behalf of the spectator to comprehend and appreciate. In these ways, the best
of the social protest and avant-garde films advanced the authorial, textual, and
spectatorial formations of documentary cinema.
Among the strategies of formal, and ultimately political, subversion was
experimentation with a hybrid form that involved mixing fictional and docu
mentary elements. Again, European-trained filmmakers were at the forefront
here. Ahmad Faruqi Qajar, a Paris-born grandson of Ahmad Shah Qajar, (his
mother was French), in his Dawn of the Capricorn (Tolue Jodai, 1964), mixed
documentary footage of Isfahans old quarters and historical monuments
with an impressionistic story of a budding relationship between two children
to create an ode of nostalgic love to that ancient city. The casting of nonactors
(particularly of children) in real locations and in realistic situations to enact
fictional stories, which became a hallmark of the films of the cidcya around
the time of the revolution of 197879, perhaps originated with this film and
in the works of other avant-garde filmmakers, such as Kimiavi. These experi
mentations with documentary form problematized the official style, particu
larly its certainty about what constituted reality, and helped the filmmakers
escape censorship because their films could be interpreted as flights of fancy,
not straight documentation. This innovative hybridization of the documen
128
tary, which would in a few years become emblematic of postmodern film

making, would in due course, particularly under the Islamic Republic, come
to pose a serious ethical dilemma for both nonfiction and fiction filmmakers
and a challenge to the reigning Islamist ideology, which invested so much in
certainties and absolutism.
Experiments with editing timed to musical rhythm, which resulted in
breaking the authority of the often-verbose and literary narration, was an
other avant-garde strategy. I have already mentioned how Taqvais rhythmical
editing to the music of young men beating their chests and chanting religious
songs in his Arbain, sans narration, effectively recreated the passion, inten
sity, and trancelike subjective states of the Shiite participants. In his multi
ple award-w inning film The Sacred Pit (Gowde Moqqadas, 1964), about body
building and male bonding and the ancient art of exercises in the house of
strength (zurkhaneh), the Paris-trained filmmaker Hajir Daryoush also ex
perimented creatively with rhythmic cutting to re-create the athletes height
ened emotional states. The film reiterates the history of the zurkhaneh as a
politically subversive Iranian institution throughout the ages. Its literary nar
ration, written by the modernist writer Bahman Forsi, however, suffers from
the weight of its own verbosity. In his short film Rhythm (Ritm, 1971), Tayyab
matches the drumming of the master drummer Hosain Tehrani with the
images of a speeding locomotive to create a powerful symbiosis of man and
machine, which re-creates for Tayyab his childhood experience of riding the
old train to the city of Rey with his father to visit the family dead. Like many
performing arts films, The Sacred Pit and Rhythm were both made for the
mca. Formal experiments of an impressionist nature, such as Kyumars Der
ambakshs Desert Caravans (Sarebanane Jaras, 1974), were also tried. In visu
ally elegant images the film focuses on a camel caravan traveling through the
sand deserts, carrying a variety of goods, some of which are anathema to the
timelessness and silence of the environment, such as a clock and a transis
tor radio. The film documents both the desolation of a camel caravan caught
in a severe sandstorm and its delight at reaching a watery oasis, which is ren
dered in delicious slow motion. Khosrow Haritash, trained at the University of
Southern Californias film school, directed the lyrical Reminiscence (Beh Yad,
1977), about old doors and archways, which invokes the deep nostalgic long
ing of modern Iranians for the fast disappearing past and their fraying con
nection with it.
Shirdels pathbreaking modernist documentary The Night It Rained . . . or
the Epic of a Gorgan Village Boy (Unshab keh Barun Umad . . . Ya Hamasehye
Rustazadehye Gorgani, 1967) good-humoredly and cleverly problematizes the
129
notions of reality and documentary truth in a different way than works by

Faruqi Qajar or Kimiavi by self-reflexively offering multiple, and often con
flicting, views on a real-world event. The event is the heroic action of a boy,
Mohammad Esmail Nowdehi, who, in the dark of a stormy night, stops a train
before its certain derailment from the washed-out rails by setting his jacket
on fire. Newspapers, such as Kayhan, had written about the boys valiant and
selfless act that saved nearly two hundred people. Having read these accounts,
Pahlbod decided to give Shirdel another chance to redeem himself by offer
ing him the opportunity to make a film about the heroic village boy, a film
that was to be positive and not critical of the government. Although worried
about the terms under which he received the assignment, Shirdel acquiesced
and traveled with his mca crew to the site of the incident, the village of Lame
lang near the northern city of Gorgan, but without a screenplay or a filming
plan. There, he encountered very different versions of the event, causing him
to decide to center his film not on the singularity but on the multiplicity of
reality; not on a single Truth, but on many truths. As he told me in an inter
view, a documentary filmmaker must be equipped with certain characteris
tics, such as sharp insight, open mind, quick reactions, and a blend of humor
and irony, qualities that he mobilized effectively in making this seminal ci
nma vrit workt he best example in Iranian prerevolution cinema (Naficy
1977a/2536).
Filming took thirteen days and editing over a year (due to synching prob
lems, as the soundman was inexperienced), with the pieces narration written
by the poet Esmail Nuriala but read effectively by the veteran actor and former
dubber Nosrat Karimi. Shirdel exhibited ample evidence of the documentar
ians characteristics that he considered important (figure 26). He mobilized
divergent newspaper accounts of the boys celebrated action, along with con
flicting interviews with him and with various officials: the Kayhan reporter,
the publisher of the Shomale Iran newspaper, Education Corps teachers, and
various citizens. Each promoted a different, often self-serving, version of what
had happened. The result was a humorous and incisive social commentary
about peoples desire for fame and the complexity and ambiguity of documen
tary reality and truth. One person claims that the train was a freight train
carrying military cargo, not a passenger train; another questions that this par
ticular boy had stopped the train; and yet another dismisses the boys story by
pointing to the difficulty that he would have had setting his jacket on fire dur
ing a pouring rain. A railway worker claims that he, not the boy, was the first
to see the train and the first to bring it to a halt. The station manager, on the
other hand, claims that the train came to a stop because of the vigilance of the
130
26 Shirdel directing the

cameraman in The Night
It Rained. Courtesy of
Kamran Shirdel.
engineer and the linemen. The governor, who credits the boy for following the
example of a similar train-rescue story in schoolbooks, rewards the boy for his
heroic deed, as does the mayor. The boy also credits the story in his book for
inspiring his good deed.57
The Night It Rained was one of the few documentaries that self-consciously
deconstructed its own ontology by foregrounding its own production (figure
27). This was accomplished by the voice-over narrator reading from Shirdels
official filming report to the ministry, explaining with humor the various ob
stacles encountered and the solutions adopted, by showing the slate and the
production crew and by highlighting the manner in which conflicting ver
sions of reality subverted the heroic narrative of the boy with which it had
begun. The film also pokes fun at the pompous style of contemporary docu
mentary and ethnographic films by declaring one thing on the soundtrack
and showing almost its opposite visually. It ends with the boy running away
from the camera on the rail track, while the voice of one of the interviewees is
heard repeating, Pure lies, pure lies, pure lies, implying that perhaps even
Shirdels version of the event is a fabrication (figure 28).58 The film was an
other iteration of Shirdels countering rosy official discourse with sober real
ity, yet he had grown more sophisticated and self-reflexive. Instead of provid
ing point-counterpoint didactic criticism as in his earlier films, he provides a
textured, sly, humorous, and incisive indirect form of criticism, not only of officials but also of ordinary people, including himself. In this sense, The Night
It Rained most resembled the influential Chronicle of a Summer by Rouch and
Morin. The films ironic and subjective voice-over, delivered slyly by Karimi,
also broke with the officious and objective narration so characteristic of the
131
27 The letter from the director

of The Night It Rained to the
Ministry of Culture and Art,
reporting on the filming.
Frame enlargement.
28 The heroic village boy running
away on the railway track, with
the subtitled words pure lies,
pure lies in the lower third of
the frame. Frame enlargement
from The Night It Rained.
official documentary style. Indeed, because of these narrative and ideological

innovations, The Night It Rained represents a complete break with the official
style. The editing and mixing of the film had finished by spring 1968, where
upon Shirdel screened the result to the minister of culture. Apparently highly
disappointed with what he saw, the latter stormed out of the auditorium with
neither a hello nor a goodbye like an ss Guard, with his assistants marching
behind him (Naficy 2005a). Within a few minutes, he had expelled Shirdel
132
from his civil service film job, setting him on the road to independent, com
missioned documentary filmmaking.
The film was not released for almost eight years, perhaps not so much be
cause of its implicit sociopolitical criticism but because of its stylistic icono
clasm. When it was finally screened publicly in the third Tehran International
Film Festival in the mid-1970s, it won the top short-film prize. This exposure
did not last long, however, for as Shirdel tells it, after the distinguished for
eign members of the festival jury and the international journalists left the
country, the authorities confiscated the film, and it was never shown to the
general public again until after the revolution (Farrokh Gaffary organized a
few specialized screenings of it).
The institutionalization of the official documentary by the state proved a
double-edged sword. On the one hand, it meant steady support for documen
tary productions, something difficult to obtain from private enterprises in
Iran. On the other hand, it meant that even if at times nontraditional, non
official films escaped censorship during the script-approval phase, there was
no guarantee that they would be exhibited once completed. This was because
both the mca and nirt, which sponsored and commissioned the bulk of the
documentaries, were also in charge of censoring, exhibiting, and broadcast
ing all films. They could produce the films and just as surely withhold or
hamper their exhibition. Documentary cinema was thus caught in the contra
dictions of the system that supported itcontradictions that also beset new-
wave fiction cinema. In this period, contradictions and compromise plagued
not only individual filmmakers and film styles but also the state institutions
concerned with cinema. Homogeneity and hegemony thus remained an official dream and an opposition nightmare.
Coproduction Documentaries
From the late 1960s onward, the Shahs government, seeking to improve and
soften its authoritarian image at home and abroad and perhaps to genuinely
support the arts, embarked on coproduction projects with Western companies
to make fiction movies and documentaries. Irans contribution to the fiction
film projects seems to have been limited to supplying funds, natural scen
ery, and extras. The documentary coproductions, on the other hand, resulted
in some high-quality films about Iran, which received wide recognition and
helped circulate self-empowering representations of the country abroad. The
earliest film, and in a way the most celebrated by Iranians, was the French
coproduction The Lovers Wind (Bade Saba, 1969), a lyrical, feature-length
133
documentary made by the Oscar-winning French director Albert Lamor

isse under mca auspices. According to its production manager, Gholamho
sain Alaqehband, more than 80 percent of this visually stunning work was
filmed from a helicopter equipped with a special camera mount called Helivi
sion (apparently invented by Lamorisse), which made possible the incredibly
smooth shots necessary for the success of the films organizing idea (Naficy
1977b/1356). This was to present the diverse Iranian landscape and people
from the point of view of the various winds that according to folklore inhabit
the land, such as the warm wind, the crimson wind, the evil wind, and the
lovers wind. The new camera mount was perfect for this purpose. Instead of
being forced to look down from its airborne perch, as was customary then,
the camera could look ahead and around, filming the approaching scenes in
a leisurely fashion. Each scene appeared first in a long shot and then glided
gently into a closer view thanks to a combination of smooth zooming and the
helicopters sweeping turns toward the subject.
This visual point of view was reinforced by an English-language, poetic
narration resembling a fable and spoken mellifluously by Manuchehr Anvar
from the different winds perspectives (accompanied by classical Iranian and
ethnic music).59 Defying gravity, the camera, guided by the narrating winds,
sweeps viewers from place to place with smoothness and agility, providing
them with a birds-eye view of Iranian landscapes, cityscapes, and historical
monuments. It caresses minarets and domes; peeks over and beyond moun
taintops to reveal ancient ruins; glides over remote villages to show life in
side high mud walls; leaps along with escaping wildlife; follows the rhythmic,
sinuous flow of oil pipelines and train tracks; and hovers motionlessly over
the mirror-like mosaic of rice patties reflecting the clouds and sky (Naficy
1978b/1357:34551). The film admits to the destructive powers of the evil
winds and takes credit for the salubrious effects of the good ones. In one se
quence, the camera hovers over the ruins of Susa, the site of ancient Persias
capital, where the narrator, representing an evil wind, intones that on this site
fifteen cities have been constructed, one on top of the ruins of another: We
buried every one. . . . We have buried everything. . . . Each time the nomads
returned and rebuilt. In another, over the ruins of the majestic Persepolis,
the narrator states: We burned it all down by fanning the fire that Alexan
der had lit. On the other hand, in one lovely scene at the films end, an or
dinary wind comes to the aid of two Turkmen lovers who are eloping on fast
galloping horses across a verdant field. A group of horsemen, including the
brides brothers, are pursuing them to prevent their getaway, when suddenly
the wind blows strongly, pushing back the pursuers and allowing the lovers
134
to escape. It is thus that it is transformed from an ordinary wind into the lov
ers wind. 60
The Lovers Wind is a testimonial to the durability of the Iranian landscape
and its people, over which many dynasties and kings have ruled and have
vanished. Ironically, on the tenth anniversary of the films completion, yet
another seemingly powerful dynasty fellt he Pahlavisleaving, as the film
points out, only the land and the migrating nomads. In the ending credits the
mca thanks the countrys armed forces, the Lion and Sun society, the gen
darmerie, the national police forces, the national railway system, and the Na
tional Iranian Oil Company, indicating to which degree the state not only fi
nanced the film but also facilitated its production. That no Persian language
voice-over was prepared for it in Iran testified to the public relations aims
of the films sponsor, who wanted to use it for international publicity and
tourisman enlightened example of Iranian public diplomacy. However, the
films fabulous narrative also underscored Iranian nationalism by uniting the
diverse peoples, landscapes, and ecosystems of the country under the wings
of Iranian winds. mca officials expressed dissatisfaction with the film, for
they apparently missed its subtle nationalist figuration and felt that although
it had represented Iran lovingly, it was a predominantly pastoral and ancient
representation that neither matched Iranian reality nor the states idea of syn
cretic modernity. Lamorisse was recalled to film additional sequences to em
phasize the countrys industrialization. He did return, but the project was not
completed, for his helicopter crashed in June 1970 while filming the Karaj
Dam near Tehran, plunging the director, his crew, and the pilot to their wa
tery deaths. The filmmaker Aryana Farshad, then an assistant to the director,
states that Lamorisse was a mystic. He had always had a premonition that he
would die in Iran over water, in the Caspian Sea, but instead it was over the
Karaj Dam (Appleton 2004).
The dynamically filmed and edited handheld footage of industrialization,
including of Tehran Universitys research nuclear reactor, and the forlorn
footage of the dam that was retrieved from the camera at the lakes bottom
were later edited and added by Mehrdad Azarmi as an eerie seven-minute si
lent preamble to the film in honor of the slain director and his crew.61 Ironi
cally, this preamble fits the contrastive binarism of Iranian documentaries of
this period in which new and old, contemporary and ancient were compared. 62
The film won a posthumous Oscar.
While The Lovers Wind was not publicly screened in Iran during the reign
of the Shah, perhaps because it was considered incomplete, it became highly
influential among Iranian exiles after the revolution of 197879.63 In the
135
1980s, those in Los Angeles prepared a video version of The Lovers Wind with
a Persian-language soundtrack read by Sasan Kamali, which was sold by Ira
nian video and grocery stores. More important, clips from the film were cir
culated extensively on exile television shows, in the standard program open
ings, and on music videos (Naficy 1993a:15455). The films aestheticized and
nationalistic images of Iran, recorded before the disruption of exile, estab
lished a cathected, nostalgic hold on the displaced population who had lost its
homeland and homes to the destructive winds of a revolution and was forced
into what turned out to be a long exile. These images became fetishes that
both presented an idealized lost homeland and disavowed the fact of the loss.
In this way, the film helped remember and memorialize the old country, su
turing the displaced populations to their object of love, their motherland
(mame vatan). By so doing, the film indeed proved a lovers wind for the ex
iles.64 The film was also shown in the Islamic Republic, but only after the in
dustrialized preamble and the sequence showing entry into the glamorous
royal palaces were removed, producing a film that may have been closer to
Lamorisses original conception and endearing him to its postrevolution au
diences in Iran (Tahaminejad 2000/1379:77). 65
Many coproduction documentaries resulted from important public rela
tions events of national and international proportions in the 1960s and the
1970s that were designed to create and circulate a culture of spectacle in sup
port of state-driven syncretic Westernization. Syncretism often enters a soci
ety through popular spectacles, rituals, and performances. It is both affilia
tive and disaffiliative in that it defies foreign elements at the same time that
it inscribes and borrows from them. It simultaneously revives certain atavis
tic, indigenous cultural formations from before the latest disruption. During
the latter half of the second Pahlavi period, bolstered by a sudden and enor
mous increase in oil income, international stature, and a largely secular mid
dle class, the Shah and his government found themselves at an impasse. At
the same time that they were gaining confidence to the point of arrogance,
they were sensing a threat from the Shiite religious strata, from leftist stu
dent groups, and from massive internal dislocations caused by widespread
corruption, rapid industrialization, widespread Westernization, and rural em
igration. To deal with these multiple threats and disruptions, they intensified
their efforts at constructing and administering a state-sanctioned syncretic
rearchaization, whichlike that of Reza Shah, but on a much larger scale
depended on reviving a partly fabricated monarchic genealogy for the Pahla
vis that pre-dated Islam (Naficy 1993a:22). This revival took the form of a se
136
ries of grandiose state-sponsored national spectacles and rituals into whose

service the mass media and movies were pressed.
These included the Shahs coronation, lavishly staged in 1967, after the
Shahs White Revolution, during which, following his father and Napoleon
Bonaparte, he crowned himself and ordered a weeklong national celebra
tion.66 The grand celebrations and pageants in 1971 that honored the twenty-
five hundredth anniversary of the Persian Empire were another spectacular
event that took years of preparation and reportedly cost between 200 million
(Bill 1988:183) and 300 million dollars (Mottahedeh 1985:327). The budget
for this event was included in the national budget for more than a decade, but
the celebrations kept getting postponed due to a shortage of funds. All gov
ernment ministries and municipalities as well as commercial businesses and
industries, big and small, were required to celebrate the event at their own ex
pense (Hadidi 1998/1377:11213). The event centered on locating the origin
of the Iranian monarchy in the Achaemenid era and on re-creating in me
ticulous detail in the ruins of the Persepolis that eras parade of foreign em
issaries before the Achaemenid kings (modeled after such parades chiseled
on the Persepoliss stone walls). Dozens of twentieth-century dignitaries and
world leaders were invited to witness this re-creation, while six hundred jour
nalists and camera operators from around the world reported on it, including
Barbara Walters of nbc-t v who hosted the broadcast of the colorful event via
satellite to an estimated 10 million American viewers (Bill 1988:184; Hadidi
1998/1377:169). Khomeini sent a message from his Iraqi exile to Iranians,
urging them to stay away from the celebrations: Anyone who organizes or
participates in these festivities is a traitor to Islam and the Iranian nation
(quoted in Fischer 1980:189). Due to increased political dissent and fear of
antigovernment guerrilla activity, nearly one thousand people were arrested
and taken into protective custody.
The yearlong festivities in 1975 that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of
the Pahlavi dynasty were yet another multimedia event and national spec
tacle that prompted an unprecedented flurry of pro-monarchy documentary
and propaganda films and television productions by government agencies. Fi
nally, the Shiraz Festival of Culture and Arts, a ten-day annual extravaganza,
became the showpiece for the governments revitalization project. In this
dynamic festival the most modern world-class theatrical productions (Jerzy
Growtowski and Peter Brook) and European and American ballet and dance
troupes (Maurice Bejar and Merce Cunningham) were placed side by side in
syncretic tension with the most ancient indigenous productions from Africa,
137
India, and Iran (taziyeh passion plays, siahbazi performances, ruhozi tradi
tional theater, and classical Persian music)all performed at the Persepo
lis, in other ancient sites, and in the streets of Shiraz. This innovative festival
proved controversial because some of its performances involved nudity and
pornographic behavior, but it was the most far-reaching and visionary of all
of the events, which Arby Ovanessian claims influenced all the important
cultural movements of the last two decades of the twentieth century, and not
just in Iran (1983:25). Farrokh Gaffary, who as the deputy director of nirt for
culture was also responsible for the Shiraz festival, which lasted eleven years,
called it the most successful and prosperous festival of its kind in the world,
and Akbar Etemad, the former head of Irans Atomic Energy Organization,
aptly called it an arts bath in which one could immerse oneself for ten days.
The festival had a profoundly positive impact on cosmopolitan Iranians
self-worth and national identity. Its audience, consisting primarily of young,
educated, and Westernized Iranians grew to between 70,000 and 125,000 in
the final years. It was an arena in which self and other did not oppose each
other in the irreconcilable binary fashion of the past but were mixed and hy
bridized to create the best product of the montage culture. For one thing, it
helped destroy Iranians superiority complex toward the third world, as they
witnessed that other developing countries also had advanced, ancient civili
zations and performing arts no less sophisticated than those in Iran. For an
other, they learned to appreciate both their own indigenous and ancient arts
and performances and their modern ones (some of them were being exposed
to these at the festival for the first time). The exposure to the best of cutting-
edge experimental and traditional Westerns arts was also a rare and new op
portunity for Iranians. Finally, the festival helped reduce Iranians inferiority
complex toward the first world, as they saw that other third world countries
had no sense of inferiority about their indigenous arts and as they recognized
that Iranian arts and performances were appreciated by artists and critics
from other countries, in particular from the West (Gaffary 198384:5053).67
Of these spectacles, the one that resulted in the most notable Iranian and
international documentaries was the twenty-five hundredth anniversary cele
bration. For this occasion, the government commissioned, sponsored, pro
vided assistance to, or engaged in coproduction deals with Western compa
nies and institutions to make films about the grandiose affair, Iranian history
in general, and the Shahs modernization efforts. Among the notable domes
tic films ranked Shahrokh Golestans slick propaganda film Flames of Persia
(also known as Eternal Flame; Forughe Javidan, 1972), a color news docu
mentary that used to good effect expensive techniques such as split screens
138
and the talent of the renowned director Orson Welles as a voice-over narrator.
Made for the mca, the film documents the arrivals and departures of dozens
of kings, presidents, emirs, princes, princesses, and other dignitaries from
around the world for the event and shows the pomp and circumstance of mili
tary marches, historical re-creations, and the elaborate and expensive feast
ing, pageantry, and celebrations. The films overheated rhetoric, condensed in
Welless narration, grandiosely claims that the event is one of the most his
toric cultural gatherings that the world has seen. Iranian embassies widely
distributed Flames of Persia to foreign countries. However, the mcas overkill
scheme for screening the film, which mandated that sixty movie houses in
Tehran show it over a one-week period, probably was a major factor for it not
doing well in Iran. According to Golestan, the film prints varied in quality,
the stereo sound could not be reproduced at every movie house, and the tele
vision networks did not air its trailers (Golestan 1983:4144). It is likely, how
ever, that the major reason for the failure was political, not technical. At this
time, the Shah was not very popular, and the forced and massive exposure of
this propagandistic film about an event whose extravagant expenditures had
become legendary and highly resented was like pouring salt into a wound.
The film was soon withdrawn (Golestans own Ariana Cinema did very well
showing it).
The mca and nirt commissioned scores of other films for this occasion,
some of which probably found their way abroad, as they aimed at both na
tional and international propaganda. 68 American television networks, particu
larly nbc-t v, broadcast the celebratory happenings live to their worldwide
audiences, occasionally making brief references to the anticelebration senti
ments in Iran and to the preemptive arrests of scores of potential troublemak
ers before the start of the event. 69
Tales from a Book of Kings (1974) was another slick documentary for the
anniversary occasion, this one created by a Westerner, to whose production
the Iranian government contributed. Made by Time-Life for New Yorks Met
ropolitan Museum of Art (in consultation with the art historian Richard Et
tinghausen), the film was based on Ferdowsis epic Shahnameh and features
some of the 258 exquisite miniature paintings from the so-called Houghton
Shahnameh. Through the skillful use of music and narration and through ex
cellent photography and editing, the film re-creates some of the stories from
the book. In the process, it emphasizes the regal position of the shahs, their
kindness, their sense of justice, as well as the wisdom of obedience. Although
some of these motifs also occurred in the original epic, the undue emphasis
placed on them here, the sponsorship of the film by the Iranian government,
139
and the timing of the films release suggest more than mere coincidence. The
films ending credits underscores the linkage. It thanks the Iranian ambassa
dor to Washington, Ardeshir Zahedi, the Shahs son-in-law, for his generous
assistance and cooperation for making possible the production of the film
in commemoration of the 2500th Anniversary of the Founding of the Per
sian Empire by Cyrus the Great and the First Declaration of Human Rights.70
Two prestigious, multipart, nonfiction coproductions of the 1970s are worth
noting because of their ambition and scale, the controversies they caused, and
the way they interjected the self-othering politics of films onto the interna
tional stage. One was the eight-part series Crossroads of Civilization (1977), pro
duced by the British journalist David Frost (Paradine Films), which received
major financial and in-kind assistance from the government. The mca pro
vided senior production staff (such as the coproducer Mehrdad Azarmi), tech
nical personnel, and production services. Bank Mellie Iran underwrote the
films $2.5 million budget. Iranian armed forces provided equipment, man
power, material, and logistical services for transporting the crew and cast and
for re-creating battle scenes (the cost of these services went well beyond what
the bank underwrote). Modeling itself on such acclaimed British television
series as Civilization and Ascent of Man, Crossroads of Civilization covered in
seven episodes the entire history of Iran, from the Medes to the Pahlavis. Ac
cording to Clive Irving, the chief screenplay writer, the series took the form
of an odyssey, a journey through 3,000 years of history and across some
of the most spectacular landscapes in the world (1977:636). The eighth pro
gram, a lengthy interview with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in which he
responded most frankly to Frosts diligent questions, and with an intriguing
honesty (Mayer 1977:628), was not released, perhaps due to brewing anti-
Shah sentiments, which would have undermined much of the interview and
within a year led to his overthrow.71
Overall, the series dealt with many important issues and patterns of Ira
nian history, including external threats, methods of dealing with internal
and external pressures, the functions of various kings and religions, and the
Constitutional Revolution of 190511. Stylistically, it used filmic re-creations,
paintings, fascinating historical photos and rare documentary footage, as well
as interviews with several distinguished international historians who aided
in the preparation of the scripts. Although Crossroads of Civilization charted a
decidedly dynastic course for Iranian history and was funded almost entirely
by the Iranian government, the series executive producer and director, An
thony Mayer, claimed that no Iranian authority had the right, contractual
or otherwise, to influence the editorial direction of the seriesnot even to
140
view the films before transmission.72 If true, this was a welcome surprise,
for such government largesse was not exhibited in all cases. For example, the
film Cyrus the Great, which the filmmaker Mohammad Ali Issari was trying
to turn into a $10 million coproduction deal between Iranian government and
Hollywood studios, to be released at the time of the twenty-five hundredth
anniversary celebrations, came to naught as a result of the governments in
sistence on having veto power over the screenplay and the finished film (Is
sari 2001). Be that as it may, because of the oncoming revolution, Crossroads
of Civilization did not receive the expected international publicity and airing,
but a book by the series writer, Irving, based on the films research, was pub
lished (Irving 1979).73
The second controversial nonfiction coproduction series resulted from a
$250,000 contract between nirt and Michigan State University (msu) for sev
eral projects, including a series of nine films on Iranian history, collectively
called Ancient Iran (1977). As Issari, the series producer, told me in an inter
view, these films constituted the centerpieces of educational packages that
included slides, maps, and booklets designed for distribution to American
high schools and colleges. The series came about as a result of Issaris self-
othering experiences in the United States in the 1960s when he was a grad
uate student. He was so insulted by an American public that knew noth
ing about Iran that he decided to embark on a film project that would make
Iran known (Naficy 1982a). In a way, this project marked the continuation of
his official newsreel and documentary efforts a dozen years earlier, in whose
power to spread the good word about the progressive Shah and a modernizing
Iran he had taken so much pride. The veteran usis filmmaker was at this time
a PhD student at the University of Southern California, the director of the In
structional Film and Multimedia Production Service, and a professor of cin
ema at msu. In his msu position, he served as a linchpin to the coproduction
enterprise with nirt, on which some sixty-five cast and crew worked. Marga
ret Mehring directed the Ancient Iran films, and msu was to have the rights
to distribute them in the United States, while nirt could distribute them in
Iran and elsewhere.
The emergence of the disturbances that led to the revolution of 197879
scuttled the international circulation of Crossroads of Civilization and cut short
the production of Ancient Iran. This was because the latter became entangled
in the increasingly vociferous anti-Shah agitations in the United States, led by
the Iranian Students Association in the United States (isaus) and other radi
cal and leftist organizations. The isaus and the Committee to Stop the Iran-
msu Film Project distributed thousands of leaflets and collected thousands
141
29a, 29b Michigan State

University students,
including some from
Iran, demonstrate their
opposition to Mohammad
Ali Issaris Ancient Iran
film series with a march
and signage. Courtesy of
of signatures to halt the project. According to Resistance, an isaus publica

tion,74 the entire msu student body voted against it, many faculty members
and the city mayor took their side, as did the editorials in city newspapers. An
cient Iran became so controversial among demonstrating msu students and
faculty that, according to Issari, the universitys board of trustees debated it in
a four-hour protracted session. Even though the series dealt with a politically
safe subject, ancient Persia, its timing, its apparent pro-monarchy stance, and
its sponsorship by an increasingly discredited government tainted and politi
cized the films. An msu economics professor described the series as an at
tempt to legitimize the regime by distracting us into the glorious past of
Persia (Levine 1977). Likewise, Resistance characterized the series as a cul
tural project that was nothing but the Shahs dictatorship in disguise, ar
guing that its objectives were to purchase legitimacy for the Shahs regime in
the eye of the American people who are not fully aware of the Shahs regime
and its disregard for freedom, human rights and social justice (figures 29a
142
and 29b).75 For his part, Issari claimed that the films had become a scapegoat
for the anti-Shah forces (Naficy 1982a). At any rate, unwilling to kowtow to
dissident pressure and claiming to preserve academic freedom, the univer
sity board of trustees allowed the films that were in production to go forward.
But it did not renew the nirt contract. As a result, out of the nine stipulated
films, only three were completed; and these did not see wide distribution in
the United States.76
The Pahlavis Circles of Influence and Media Campaigns

Ever vigilant and defensive about its public image abroad, the Pahlavi regime
undertook to augment a positive image of the Shah and the country by initi
ating a wide-ranging public diplomacy and public relations campaign in the
West, particularly in the United States, its most important ally. As James Bill
demonstrates, for about four decades a system of complex, reinforcing con
centric circles of influence bound the Shahs regime to the United States, for
which he drew up a fascinating wheel of influence that identified ten ma
jor Iranian and twenty-eight American leaders representing the key nodes of
this system (1988:34850). All the Iranians were in the inner circle, and some
of them headed the institutions of the culture industry: nirt, the mca, the
fidci, and the cidcya. The Americans in the inner circle consisted of mil
lionaires and politicians such as David and Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Kiss
inger, Richard Nixon, and Richard Helms; the next circle consisted of U.S.
generals and businessmen; followed by another circle involving members of
the U.S. Congress; and ending with the farthest circle consisting of mass me
dia reporters and sympathetic academics.
The Shah and the Iranian government needed to legitimize themselves,
influence American legislative bodies and public opinion, stimulate invest
ments in Iran, facilitate arms and military procurement, improve the image
of the Shah, and counter the charges of human rights violations and corrup
tion at home. To that end, the government engaged both Senator Jacob Javits,
a member of the congressional circle in Bills wheel of influence, who had
formed a pro-Iran lobby, and his wife, Marion, who had received a $67,500
annual consultant fee to do public relations for the national airline, Iran Air.
This was part of a larger, $500,000 contract, which the Pahlavi government
had signed with the New York agency Ruder and Finn to promote Irans im
age in America. In 1976, the revelation of the involvement of the wife of the
powerful senator in Iranian publicity became a scandal, deeply embarrassing
143
both husband and wife and causing Marion Javits to renounce the contract
(Bill 1988:36566). The mass media members with close ties to the Shah and
to the Iranian embassy in Washington, who reported glowingly about Iran
and the royal family, were Arnaud de Borchgrave (a senior correspondent for
Newsweek), Joseph Kraft (a columnist), Barbara Walters (a reporter and anchor
for nbc-t v News), and Betty Beale (a society columnist). The columnists Carl
Rowen, Irving R. Levine, James A. Linen, and Tom Brokaw of nbc-t v also
ranked among the Pahlavi favorites, as did the nbc television network itself,
which remained the most sympathetic of all American networks in its report
ing of the Shah. The Iranian ambassador, Zahedi, with abandon disbursed
expensive gifts and souvenirs to these and other influential media individu
als. A 135-page document at the embassy, United StatesMass Media, con
tained the names of 620 Americans, 285 of whom received gifts between 1975
and 1977, including cans of expensive Beluga caviar, crates of Dom Prignon
champagne, Cartier silver, pistachios, silk scarves, and diamond watches (Bill
1988:37071).
Iranian public diplomacy in the United States was both wide-ranging and
deep. Government largesse went beyond these national and transnational
news personalities and their organizations and extended to underwriting the
travel costs and expenses of producers and reporters of syndicated and local
television travelogue shows, documentaries, and specials. For example, be
tween 1975 and 1978, the syndicated travel series Journey to Adventure pro
duced four programs on Iran. Its producer, Gunther Less, was a paid consul
tant to Iran Air. Given the funding connection, it is no wonder that the series
disregarded the mounting dissatisfaction of Iranians with the Shah and in
stead chose to extol him and the freedom of expression and progress purport
edly achieved under him. The Iranian government also partly funded the pro
duction of pro-government programming by local U.S. television stations, as
exemplified by kvor-t v in Sacramento. John Ianders, whose trip to Iran had
been subsidized by nirt, prepared a seven-part series of short films, Iran: Old
Faces and New (1977). Citing the governments request not to film any anti
government demonstrations, particularly those near Tehran University, be
cause of the havoc they could cause, the series ignored the demonstrations
and the open clashes of the people with the security forces in the streets. In
stead, it emphasized the idea of Iran as a country with oil and an eye on the
Western world.77
The circles of influence also included well-known academics sympathetic
to the Pahlavis, including George Lenczowski, who wrote glowingly of them
at the time of the revolution, and Donald N. Wilber, who years earlier had
144
served with Kermit Roosevelts Operation Ajax to topple Mosaddeq and re

turn the Shah. The Shahs government also channeled generous grants and
contracts to major universities, including Harvard, mit, Princeton, Southern
California, Kent State, Georgetown, American, and Howard. Some of these,
such as the contracts to msu discussed earlier, were for film production.
The result of these and other linkages, arrangements, and formations was
the creation of Iranian-funded American mediawork, which fanned a gener
ally favorable image of the Shah and of Iran under the Shah until long after the
Shahs fall from power.78 During the final two decades of his reign, as the in
terests of the Iranian government coincided increasingly with the interests of
global capital and Western governments, particularly that of the United States,
the Pahlavi regime found in the generally uncritical mainstream American
films, television programs, and news media willing collaborators for its brand
of public diplomacy and image building, and this happy meeting of interests
was reflected in the general uniformity of Western mediawork. Only a few for
eign and domestic documentaries provided a realistic portrait of Iranian soci
ety or delved critically beneath the stable, progressive veneer created by the na
tional and global media networks. These were too few and they did not receive
wide enough distribution to create a critical mass of oppositional opinion. The
result was widespread confusion and surprise, particularly among the West
ern media, at the depth of anti-Shah sentiment and at the speed with which
the revolution of 197879 toppled the progressive monarch who seemed so
popular in the West but whose popularity at home ran not much deeper than
the celluloid on which it was documented.
145
3
commerci a l cinem as
e volu t ion
From Artisanal Mode
to Hybrid Production
nlike the documentary cinema that flourished between the Second World
War and the revolution of 197879, which was mainly a government-
supported statist cinema, the feature-film industry of the same period emerged
as a commercial cinema, although eventually state support was needed to en
able an intellectual, new-wave cinema. Fictional and nonfictional cinemas differed significantly from the artisanal productions of the Qajar and Reza Shah
periods, as they evolved toward what I call a hybrid production mode com
bining artisanal and industrial practices, statist and commercial funding and
control, and Iranian and Western cultural, narrative, and cinematic forms.
This chapter deals with the contextualthe sociopolitical, demographic, cul
tural, and industrial aspects of hybrid production; the following chapters will
deal with textual dimensions. Analysis here focuses on the most popular type
of movies, popularly known as filmfarsi (Farsi language films), and chapters
4 and 5 of the current volume will concern themselves with two of its genres:
the stewpot and tough-guy movies.
As in the artisanal period, cinema at this time was affected by the dom
inant mode of social production. In the mid-1940sthe beginning of the
period studied in this chapterindustrialization was spotty, mostly a mul
titude of small workshops run by artisans. According to a British naval in
telligence report, in 1941 only 250 industrial establishments existed in the

country, including about 30 large factories directly owned by the state. A lack
of skilled workers was cited as the chief cause (Harrison, Sherwin-White, and
Mason 1945:45759). As Ervand Abrahamian reports, state investments be
tween 1963 and 1977 during the Shahs White Revolution rose rapidly, as a
result of which the country experienced a minor industrial revolution, in
creasing the share of manufacturing in the gnp from 11 to 17 percent. Indus
trial growth jumped from 5 to 20 percent, and the number of small factories
increased from 1,502 to more than 7,000, that of midsize factories from 295
to 830, and that of large factories from 105 to 159. Gas ovens rose from 87,000
units to 220,000, telephones from nil to 186,000 units, and television from
12,000 to 31,000 sets (1982:430). Iran was on its way to becoming integrated
into the worlds capitalist economies, a development fueled by quadrupling
oil revenues in the early 1970s. But all the profits went to the state monop
oly, and to the corrupt Pahlavi regime and family, which spent it on grandi
ose, national-development projects and on massive military procurement, in
which they had a stake. The state did not own all the means of production. In
stead, a hybridized statist-private political economy had been instituted, one
in which the state set the terms for the public and private sectors by orga
nizing massive, long-term, national development plans (like communist and
socialist countries) through the gigantic Organization Plan (Sazmane Bar
nameh). It controlled the private sectors compliance with its plans and laws
through judicial processes, coercion, corruption, censorship, and force; and
it collaborated with the private sector and did its bidding in developing rules
and regulations that benefited that sector (as in capitalist countries). The as
cendant market forces and increasing middle-class populations intensified
exchanges with the West, particularly with American and European media
and consumer industries. Beyond foreign media products and media forms
(genres and formats), foreign methods of media management were imported.
Iran was rapidly industrializing as manufacturing plants for steel, buses,
cars, household utilities, and consumer goods proliferated. However, most
of the plants merely assembled parts imported from Europe and the United
States. This assembly production thus in fact resembled the previous eras ar
tisanal production mode. But it came with an assembly, or montage, mental
ity, culture, and cinema, which fit the Iranian improvisational ethos; the gov
ernments mix of command and capitalist economies was a montage, and this
montage culture opportunistically adapted and adopted, mixed and matched
native and foreign products and ideologies to create new cultural and cine
matic products.
148
c o m m e r c i al ci n emas ev olu t i on
Characteristics of the modernization and Westernization of the country

further drove this montage culture, one fueled not only by petrodollars but
also by a rapidly growing population, increasing productivity, literacy, pro
fessionalization, personal incomes, and travel and tourism abroad by an ex
panding middle class. Filmfarsi was made in modern film studios and labs
with specialized professional departments and a division of labor; it increased
film productions for mass consumption; and it gave rise to a star system and
movie genres that were circulated, recirculated, and evolved over time. Popu
lation growth, urbanization, and audience demography, as well as dialogue,
music, songs, and dances popularized this montage cinema. The widespread
dubbing of both domestic and foreign movies propelled both the indigeniza
tion and industrialization of this cinema. In short, many of the formations of
national cinema and modernity came together in the second Pahlavi period.
Although produced by the private sector, filmfarsi cinema was not free
from state intervention. The state imposed its will through authoritarian and
ideological apparatuses such as the Ministry of Culture and Art (mca) and Na
tional Iranian Radio and Television (nirt), and through its regulatory and ju
diciary powers.
Filmfarsi
The principal products of the commercial cinema in this period were B-grade
feature films. In 1953, a French-educated film critic and a graduate of the
Institut des Hautes-tudes Cinmatographiques (idhec), Amirhushang Ka
vusi, coined the derisive term filmfarsi for these films, which became their
dominant designation. He claimed that all that these films had inherited
from Iranian culture was their Persian language; otherwise, they were form
less, structureless, and storyless (quoted in Moazezinia 1999/1378:8). An
other critic offered the following succinct and thematically limited definition:
Filmfarsi movies are popular feature films made in Iran between 1948 and
1978. They are a mixture of melodrama and popular tales in which the clash
of good and evil are based chiefly on class contrast (between rich and poor),
a contrast of values (between chivalry and lack thereof), and social contrast
(between city and village) (Mohammad Kashi 1999/1378:140). In the 1960s
and 1970s, as commercial cinema surged due to the hybrid mode, additional
designations surfaced: stewpot films or meat-
and-
potato films ( filme
abgushti), doggerel films or drawstring films ( filme bandtonbani), and
dream-weaving cinema (sinemaye royapardaz).1 If these playful designa
commercial c inemas evo lutio n
149
30 A cartoon titled Farsi Cinema

(filmfarsi) shows a director using a
sexy woman as a lure to attract the
spectator, who is posited as male.
tions did not seem sufficiently derogatory, adjectives such as sleazy (mobtazal)
and deviant (monharef ) were added. To be sure, most filmfarsi movies were
not high quality, and they were full of improbable plots, escapist fantasies,
and inexplicable coincidences. Yet an irrational vehemence in the criticism
directed against the films pointed to an underlying anxiety among the critics.
On the one hand was the earnestness and piety of the doctrinaire, Western
ized political left, who applied the Western or Soviet standards of art cinema
and felt embarrassed at the naivet of filmfarsi. On the other hand, religious
believers feared contamination by Western forms of popular entertainment,
which these movies embodied. Despite their ideological differences, both
sides were suspicious of pleasure, for they regarded any type of leisure activity
engaged in for its own sake as either socially harmful or religiously sinful (Sa
farian 1999/1378:114). Their negative sentiments also resulted from another
belief both sides shared, one that echoed a simplistic understanding of Max
Horkheimers and Theodore Adornos pessimistic thesis about the work of
the culture industry (1972): they regarded the commercial cinema as a con
spiracy staged by a powerful yet fearful government in collaboration with a
profit-hungry commercial movie business to dupe Iranians by means of fan
tasy, sex, and violence (figures 30 and 31). Some later critics saw filmfarsi as
150
31 A poster for Reza Safais

One Golden-Voiced, One
Golden Hand emphasizes male
violence and sexy women.
Collection of the author.
a reflection of the disrupted and contradictory society of the Shahs authori

tarian modernism (Jairani 2000a/1379).2
Despite these critical misgivings, filmfarsi movies were enormously popu
lar among ordinary people, as a progressive critic, Parviz Davai, argued.
This is now a clear and certain truth that the best-selling movies are
all filmfarsi movies, a phenomenon that has been analyzed less than
one-hundredth of the amount that it has been insulted. No one has con
ducted a serious study of the sociological, psychological, historical, and
economical roots of why a film like Qaruns Treasure generates two and
a half million tomans at the box office, and that from the pockets of the
people of lower classes, who earn their living by selling seeds, shining
shoes, and guarding cars . . . Everyone calls the filmfarsi movies bad,
wrong, nonsense, deviant, and ridiculous, but none asks himself or her
self about the connections, rapport, and intimacy that exists between
our people and this nonsensical and inappropriate cinema. (quoted in
Omid 1995/1374:41112)
151
Filmfarsi so permeated the cultural and psychic landscapes that it became

hegemonic, in Antonio Gramscis terms (1988). No force was necessary to
give it political and psychic agency. It acted, as theorized by Louis Althusser
(1971), by interpellating (hailing) the lowbrow populace and the highbrow crit
ics alike, unbeknownst to themselves. We see evidence of the internalization
of the despised modes conventions when staunch critics of this cinema, such
as Kavusi, Bahram Raypur, and Parviz Nuri, themselves turned to making
films, all B-grade commercial movies. Kavusis directorial debut, Seventeen
Days to Execution (Hevdah Ruz Beh Edam, 1956), a detective story in which
he used a subjective camera, did very badly both at the box office and with the
critics. Farrokh Gaffary, Hajir Daryoush, and the Setareh Sinema (Movie Star)
magazine had no difficulties in enumerating the films many shortcomings.
For one, they claimed, it imitated American and European detective mov
ies, but without any of their narrative coherence, suspense, or charm, for it
contained many of the filming and editing mistakes of filmfarsi, which Ka
vusi had harshly critiqued himself. In addition, it had uneven pacing, rep
etitious shots, a chaotic point of view, unmotivated action, disrupted space
and time continuity, and a theatrical dialogueagain many of the ills that
also plagued filmfarsi. Kavusi could not blame the commercial producers
for tying his hands or for forcing him into compromises, because his pro
ducer, Asre Talai Studio, had given the well-known critic a free hand (Omid
1995/1374:28285). Akin to Althussers citizens who turn to face the police
man in the street who calls them, Hey, you there!, Kavusi and other crit
ics had turned to face the dominant cinemas beckoning and thereby become
its willing subject, internalizing its conventions.3 Years later, another well
known (and unnamed) screenplay writer working under the Islamic Republic
admitted as much. He claimed that for years his primary struggle during
the Shahs era had been to avoid writing screenplays for filmfarsi movies. He
was taken aback, therefore, when he discovered that all along he had written
exactly such screenplays, that no matter how hard he had tried, he had been
unable to prevent this astonishing event from happening (quoted in Moaze
zinia 1999/1378:193).
This condemned commercial cinema, however, was neither stagnant nor
homogenous. It created several notable genres, capturing enough spectators
willing to pay Tehrans unusually high municipal tax of 40 percent on movie
tickets in the 1950s. Among these was the historical genre, dominated by
Pars Film Studio, exemplified by Nosratollah Mohtashams Agha Mohammad
Khan Qajar (1954), Karim Fakurs Shahine Tus (1954), and Mohammad Shab
parehs and Nosratollah Mohtashams Bride of Tigris (Aruse Dajleh, 1954).
152
32 The poster for Samuel

Khachikians patriotic action
movie Blood and Honor.
Some were musicals, but none succeeded either at the box office or with crit
ics, who savaged them as cinematically irrelevant and historically inaccurate
(although a year later, a similar film, Shapur Yasamis The Renowned Amir Ar
salan [Amir Arsalane Namdar, 1955], did very well).
The detective-thriller genre, spearheaded by Samuel Khachikians action
movies such as Hazardous Crossroads (Chaharrahe Havades, 1954), Midnight
Cry (Fariade Nimeh Shab, 1961), and One Step to Death (Yek Qadam ta Marg,
1961), did better than the historical and musical movies. Khachikian, an Ar
menian Iranian, was the key contributor to film noir in Iran, akin to the Jew
ish European expatriates who in the 1930s and 1940s caused the efflorescence
of American noir. He also made patriotic action movies, such as Blood and
Honor (Khun va Sharaf, 1955) (figure 32). On the heels of The Famous Amir Ar
salans success, Pars Film Studio and Diana Film put out several filmed epics
in an attempt to follow suit. These included, for Pars Film Studio, Yasamis
153
Qezel Arsalan (1957) and Mehdi Raisfiruzs and Shahrokh Rafis Rostam and
Sohrab (Rostam va Sohrab, 1957), and Ali Kasmais Yaqub Lais Saffari (1957)
for Diana Film. However, these were slapdash high-concept quickies made
only for marketing reasons, and none did well, causing the historical and epi
cal genres to disappear for a while, though they did reappear after the revolu
tion. The enormous financial and critical success of Majid Mohsenis Nightin
gale of the Farm (Bolbole Mazraeh, 1957), on the other hand, consolidated the
village genre. And for the first time an Iranian commercial movie was shown
successfully abroad, in Moscow, with Mohseni in attendance. On his return,
he described the personal and national empowerment that accompanied such
cinematic projections. He stated that he was made proud twice by the screen
ing of Nightingale of the Farm. Once nationally, when he saw the Iranian flag
flying high outside the theater; the second time he felt pride religiously, when
inside the theater he heard Allah O Akbar (God is great), the first phrase of
the Muslim call to prayer, emanate from the movies soundtrack. I became
emotional . . . that I heard [that] in the heart of a communist country (quoted
in Omid 1995/1374:292).
It is to answer Davais clarion call to take filmfarsi seriously that I have se
lected two distinctive genres from among the various ones possible that to
gether constituted key components of Iranian national cinema between the
Second World War and the revolution of 197879: stewpot movies and tough-
guy films. The practices and conventions of this homegrown commercial cin
ema emerged in the 1950s, but they were honed and consolidated in the fol
lowing two decades by the hybrid production mode and by the success of two
key films, each of which invigorated one of these two genres. Mohsenis The
Generous Tough (Late Javanmard, 1958) set the model for the tough-guy films,
which flourished more than a decade later, while the enormous success of Si
amak Yasamis Qaruns Treasure (Ganje Qarun, 1965) consolidated the stew
pot films, quickly breeding more than two dozen similar movies. Their suc
cesses turned both stewpot and tough-guy films into the monster genres of
the 1970s.
The Hybrid Production Mode: Contextual Formations

The emergence of the hybrid production mode out of its artisanal bedrock was
undergirded by sociological, political, economic, industrial, and artistic devel
opments in the country and the film industry.
154
Demographic Profile of the Commercial Cinema

Increasing population density and demographic changes supplied paying
spectators to the growing number of movie houses. The three major national
censuses taken during the second Pahlavi period showed a near doubling of
the countrys population (table 2). In the 1950s, the population was about one-
third urban and two-t hirds rural. In the 1970s, the urban population had shot
up to nearly half. As the capital, the wealthiest city, and the primary site of
modernity and of film production and consumption, Tehran shaped the film
industry. Table 3 shows the citys population growth.
During the century tabulated here, the massive concentration of wealth
and power attracted a constant flow of migrants, and Tehrans population
grew forty times, finally accounting for a fifth of the countrys urban popula
tion. As table 3 shows, during the period under study in this chapter, between
the end of the Second World War and the end of the Pahlavi regime in 1979,
the citys population surged from 880,000 to more than 5 million. But these
table 2 Irans Urban and Rural Population (195676)
Total population
1956 Census
1966 Census
1976 Census
18,954,704
25,788,722
30,708722
Urban (percent)
31.4
37.9
47.1
Rural (percent)
68.7
62.0
52.9
Source: Milani 1988:121.
table 3 A Century of Tehrans Population

Based on National Censuses
1891
160,000
1956
1,512,082
1922
210,000
1966
2,719,730
1932
310,139
1976
4,530,223
1937
425,000
1980
5,443,721
1939
540,087
1986
6,042,584
1940
700,000
1991
6,475,527
1946
880,000
Source: Abridged from Madanipour 1998:83.
155
figures focus on the city alone. The population of the greater Tehran region
was at least twice as high (nearly 10 million in 1991), making it a world popu
lation center.
The numbers of patrons to movie houses are hard to determine. In the late
1950s, there were some 80,000 moviegoers per day, a figure that had jumped to
between 350,000 and 400,000 patrons a day by 1963 (Echo of Iran 1963:467).
In 1963, Tehran residents went to the movies 24 million times (Echo of Iran
1970:614). A decade later, the mcas statistics showed that 42,658,000 movie
tickets were sold in Tehran in 1973, suggesting repeat viewings (an average
of eleven viewings per person), with total box office sales of 1,297,975,000 ri
als. Ticket prices ranged between 10 and 200 rials. The thirty-rial tickets con
stituted the largest percentage of all tickets sold in Tehran (35 percent); many
patrons of the commercial cinema came from the lower classes.4 Overall, the
best movie seasons in the capital city were winter and summer, in that order
(Ministry of Culture and Art 1973/1352:5069).
To get a fuller picture of the presumed audience, whose financial support
and taste facilitated the transformation from an artisanal to a hybrid mode of
production, the customers of the mobile film units operated by the mca must
also be considered. The United States Information Service (usis) had turned
over its mobile film program to the ministrys predecessor, the Fine Arts Ad
ministration, in the 1950s. The ministry continued and expanded the pro
gram. The mca was operating 130 units nationwide in 1973, screening nearly
twenty thousand reels of 16mm films and fourteen hundred reels of 35mm
films in provinces to an overall audience of nearly 6 million people (Ministry
of Culture and Art 1973/1352:138, 514). Although these mobile units showed
mostly noncommercial and nonfiction films, they exposed millions of people
to film viewing, paving the way for its wide acceptance. They also taught them
visual and film literacy.
Nationwide Movie Houses and Cinema Chains

According to a British naval intelligence report, in the mid-1940s public cin
emas were overwhelmingly located in Tehran. They also operated in other cit
ies with large populations (Tabriz, Mashhad, and Shiraz), in strategically im
portant cities (Bandar Pahlavi [Anzali] and Rasht), and in oil cities (Abadan,
Ahvaz, and Kermanshah) (Harrison, Sherwin-White, and Mason 1945). In
company towns such as Abadan, the Anglo Iranian Oil Company operated
cinemas such as Taj (Crown) Cinema and Naft (Oil) Cinema. Isfahan, the
third largest city, got cinema later. By May 1936, when Iran Cinema with its
156
two halls, one of them an air-dome, was established, Isfahan had joined the
others. Until then, apparently only short-subject silents had been shown in
coffeehouses for thirty shahis. In April 1943, Isfahan took one more step to
ward cinema literacy when Irane no (New Iran) Cinema opened to mixed-
gender audiences. Women sat on the left side of the hall and men on the right,
with a black curtain between them (Javdani 2002/1381:34, 38).
With the success of such domestic movies as The Renowned Amir Arsalan,
from the mid-1950s onward provincial movie houses helped spur film exhibi
tion and production by financing movies. This was supposed to ensure a sup
ply of movies appropriate for the provinces generally more traditional mar
kets. Yet manipulations and corruption soon cropped up.
Iranian movie houses were not opulent compared to other regional cine
mas in the Middle East. An Egyptian journalist who visited Tehran in 1953 re
ported, The best and most excellent movie houses in Tehran do not compare
with even the C-grade cinemas in Cairo in terms of the elegance of their ex
teriors and the internal order and cleanliness.5 Cinemas in provincial towns
were even more primitive. The anecdote below by Mohammad Hosain Popli
Yazdi, who was a film runner for Sohail Cinema and later became a university
professor, shows that movie watching in the late 1950s in Yazd was similar
to that in Tehran decades earlier. He watched the film A Party in Hell (Shab
neshini dar Jahannam, 1957), codirected by Samuel Khachikian and Musheq
Sarvari, in an open-air movie house called Aqa Pacheh Cinema.
The seats in the first three rows were planks placed over metal cans,
on which sat distinguished men who wore suit and tie for the occasion.
The rest of the movie house was paved with stone or brick and specta
tors brought their own rugs to sit on. They also brought with them beef
stew [abgusht], rice and other stews [khoresh], bread, cheese, and yogurt
drinks [dugh] with minced cucumber. They sat on the rugs with their
families and ate noisily as they watched the movie. Families and par
ticularly children were very noisy, their clamor louder than the movie.
Some who had seen it before described the coming scenes out loud,
causing protest and verbal fights. . . . Sometimes an important person
would arrive late with his family, perhaps twenty minutes after the start
of the movie. The manager would shout to the projectionist: Abbas
Aqa, the family of the chief of the police has arrived, run the film from
the start. The children loved and applauded this, for they would see
the film again. Some community leaders and their families put on airs
because they thought people were clapping for them. One night when
157
a film starring the singer-dancer Mahvash was on, the manager asked
Abbas Aqa five times to restart the film as families of the heads of the
departments of justice, finance, police and important merchants arrived
late. (Popli Yazdi 2005/1384:9091)
Air-dome cinemas continued to flourish. In the central desert towns of Isfa
han and Yazd, for example, the clear, cool night air made film watching in the
open a lovely experience. The architect Faezeh Golshan, whose grandfather
owned Golshan Cinema in Yazd, told me about watching movies as a child
from the rooftop of her house. The children gathered on the flat roof during
starry nights, where they sat precariously on the edges, their legs hanging
over without any railings, mesmerized by the movies (Naficy 2005c). By the
1960s, drive-in cinemas had also cropped up in major cities.
In 1973, the mca released the most comprehensive set of statistics about
cultural and media institutions and consumer trends nationwide in a report
simply titled Cultural Report of Iran (Gozareshe Farhangie Iran), on which
much of this chapter is based. It shows that the overwhelming majority of the
movie houses continued to be located in urban centers, particularly in Tehran.
Of 432 movie houses nationwide in the Iranian year 197374, Tehran had 122,
followed by Shiraz with 13, Isfahan and Mashhad with 12 each, and Ahvaz
with 8. In the provinces, the capital cities (listed above) contained most of the
movie houses (with exception of Abadan in Khuzestan, which had nine cine
mas to Ahvazs eight). The distribution of movie houses within the provinces
was also uneven: the entire province of Ilam, for example, had only one cin
ema, while Semnan Province had two and Yazd Province four. 6 Most of Teh
rans movie houses were built after the 1950s, when both urbanization and
the commercial film industry really took off. The government assisted com
mercial entrepreneurs in constructing new cinemas through favorable bank
loans and taxes. In his autobiography, the Shah states that his Pahlavi Foun
dation gave funds for new movie houses and films; it also lowered taxes on
cinemas (Pahlavi 1960:190). The seating capacity of all movie houses nation
wide in 197374 was 299,191, with Tehran supplying 86,054 seats, or nearly
29 percent (Ministry of Culture and Art 1973/1352:39798).
Of Tehrans 122 movie houses in 197374, 8 were classified as distin
guished (momtaz), while 39 were classified as first class, 39 as second
class, and 34 as third class (the rest remained unclassified). A majority of
the second-and third-class cinemas were located in poorer districts. In all of
Iran, only Tehran had distinguished movie houses (Ministry of Culture and
Art 1973/1352:39599). By 1970, advertisements screened before films tied
158
the movies up with the flow of images, capital, and consumer goods. A one-
minute ad in a first-class cinema cost between fifteen hundred and two thou
sand tomans, depending on its seating capacity. Second-class cinemas charged
between one thousand and twelve hundred tomans, and third-class theaters
between three hundred and eight hundred tomans (Echo of Iran 1970:150).
The government kept ticket prices low throughout the second Pahlavi pe
riod to appease the potentially volatile lower-class publics, making movie
going the cheapest form of mass entertainment. While this strategy brought
high numbers of viewers to the cinemas, by the mid-1970s it had become a
liability for the commercial movie industry, which could not survive on the
low prices.
Between 1973 and 1976, as the nation tumbled slowly toward the revolu
tion, film declined. In 1976, the mca reported the total number of cinemas
nationwide at 419, 112 of which were located in Tehran, a decrease from the
432 theaters nationwide and 122 in Tehran in 1973 (Ministry of Culture and
Art 1976b/2534:41214). The seating capacity also went down from 299,191
to 190,948 nationwidea precipitous fallbut it went up slightly in Tehran
from 86,054 to 86,573.7
Movies and Their National Origins

American fiction movies continued to dominate the screens in the 1950s, al
though, according to Variety, Russian pictures were muscling in in 1952.
Referring to the nationalist, anti-British movement under Mosaddeq, the pa
per noted, naturally, British films are not so popular any more, but German
and French films are getting a foothold in the country.8 The Italian and In
dian exports to Iran also increased, chiefly because these were more economi
cal to dub into Persian inside Iran than other European films. The Egyptian
journalist cited earlier who visited Tehran cinemas in the early 1950s fur
ther reported that the films Iranians screened were generally old, dilapidated
Egyptian and American movies, so-called junk prints, he had seen years ago
in Cairo. The bad economy forced the trade in cheap and old movies. There
were neither many domestic movies available nor many movie houses, so that
Tehrans nightlife was a stifling stillness even before the martial law hour
(quoted in Omid 1995/1374:232), which was instituted because of anti-British
and anti-Shah nationalism. Egyptian song-and-dance movies starring Farid
Al-Atrash, Um Kolthum, Samia Jamal, and Ismail Yassin were popular, as
159
table 4 Number of Feature Films Receiving Exhibition Permits

Number of
Films, 1967
Number of
Films, 1970
Number of
Films, 1973
USA
198 (40%)
113 (33%)
80 (22%)
Italy
115 (23%)
66 (19%)
78 (21%)
Iran
55 (11%)
63 (18%)
77 (22%)
India
39 (8%)
13 (4%)
27 (8%)
21 (6%)
England
16 (3%)
27 (8%)
20 (6%)
Country of Origin
Hong Kong
France
27 (5%)
21 (6%)
20 (6%)
USSR
18 (4%)
2 (0.6%)
8 (2%)
Others
27 (6%)
29 (9%)
26 (8%)
495
334
357
Total
Source: Slightly modified from Ministry of Culture and Art 1973:137.
were Indian masala movies. Domestic producers began incorporating aspects

of these movies into their own films, and critics in the early 1960s critiqued
filmfarsi movies for this kind of imitation.9
By the early 1970s, the situation had changed dramatically. What the com
mercial cinema and the mobile film unit audiences saw varied, depending
on government policies, commercial film importers practices, and foreign
companies export policies. In 197374, the mca issued 2,042 exhibition per
mits for all types of filmsfiction, documentary, educational, and advertising
194 fewer than the previous year. Feature movies accounted for 917 of these
films, with 495 licensed for first-time screenings and 422 for repeat showings
(Ministry of Culture and Art 1973/1352:13537). Three countries supplied 22
percent each: Iran, Italy, and the United States (table 4). The eight-year period
charted in the table saw a lowering of imports from the United States and It
aly and a rise in imports from India, Hong Kong, England, France, and the
Soviet Union. Between 1967 and 1973 the exhibition market shrank, with 138
fewer films receiving permits. Yet there was a doubling in the percentage of
domestic movies receiving exhibition permits and a 40 percent increase in lo
cal productions (from fifty-five to seventy-seven films).
Increases in exhibition permits and production point both to the attraction
the hybrid industrial mode of production held for domestic audiences and to
the government cultural policies.10 That 59 percent of respondents in an mca
study conducted in 1975 of Tehran moviegoers preferred films made in Iran
160
confirms these deductions. The producer Ali Mortazavi claims that filmfarsi
movies like the stewpot and tough-guy films opened the market to domestic
films. The market of the 1960s was dominated by foreign imports, almost all
of which were dubbed into Persian, but by the mid-1970s, domestic produc
tions predominated (Naficy 1984a:32). The industrialized production mode
turned actors into movie starsa few even into superstarspublicized and
reviewed the films in the mass media, and showcased domestic productions
in film festivals.
The preference in the 1970s for American (57 percent), Indian (24 percent),
and Italian (24 percent) films was attenuated by education and class, as the
more educated moviegoers (civil servants and students) preferred American
movies, while the least educated (workers and homemakers) favored Iranian
movies (Daftare Motaleat va Barnamehriziye Farhangi 1977/2536:36). The
mca survey also points to the importance of the star system. Sixty-four per
cent responded that they went to the movies because of the stars, while 42 per
cent claimed the films subject matter determined their choices. Again, there
was a class dimension to this preference, with the less educated choosing the
movies based on the stars (38).
Moviegoers and Their Taste Culture: Spectatorial Formation

What types of moviegoers watched these commercial features and what were
their reactions, preferences, and tastes? The mca study of Tehrans moviego
ers in October 1975 supplies some data toward answering these questions
(Daftare Motaleat va Barnamehriziye Farhangi 1977/2536:1121). A majority
of those surveyed (75 percent) were under thirty, with those between the ages
of twenty and twenty-four dominant (36 percent), corroborating that movie
going made for a leisure activity engaged in by youth. More than half of the
respondents had high school educations, while 25 percent had elementary
school, 25 percent university, and nearly 9 percent had no formal education.
These figures counter the general impression that a large proportion of the
moviegoers was uneducated. When we consider these figures about educa
tional background alongside those for the prevalent types of profession, the
middle-class character of moviegoing becomes evident. Of those surveyed, 25
percent were civil servants, 24 percent were employed in the private sector,
23 percent were high school and university students, 13 percent were labor
ers, and 8 percent were women (a majority of whom were homemakers). Of
those surveyed, 20 percent had a monthly income between twenty thousand
161
and fifty thousand rials, 28 percent had an income between ten thousand and
twenty thousand rials, and 25 percent had an income of five thousand rials
or less. But lower-income people, single men, soldiers, workers, uneducated
men, and university women attended most frequently, more than once a week
(22). It is difficult to make a clear-cut, definitive assessment of moviegoers
class because of these contradictions.
Survey respondents in Tehran were 92 percent male (percentages were
higher in the more conservative provinces). The real percentage could have
been lower, but some female moviegoers refused to participate in the survey
for unspecified reasons (11). Perhaps this refusal reflected the persistence of
social taboos against moviegoing by women, particularly among the lower
classes and among traditional Muslims. A majority of the respondents (61
percent) were unmarried, but of the 37 percent who were married, most were
women (16). There was a smattering of divorced and widowed moviegoers as
well, the majority of whom were also women. The larger proportion of mar
ried women, numbers corroborated by other anecdotal evidence and personal
observations, indicates that the social taboo in the mid-1970s concerned not
so much moviegoing itself but single womens attendance. A majority of those
who were singlemale or femalesaid that they did not attend the mov
ies alone; they took along family members or friends (25). Moviegoing in the
1970s was apparently a highly social and familial affair. Interestingly, the fre
quency of female and male attendance was inversely related to their educa
tional level: educated women attended the movies more, while educated men
attended less (23).
Over 60 percent of the respondents attended cinemas outside their neigh
borhoods (26), indicating both the uneven distribution of the movie houses in
Tehran (some neighborhoods lacked cinemas while others had a concentration
of them) and the mobility that moviegoing encouraged. A majority of the re
spondents, particularly lower-class housewives, soldiers, and workers, attended
the movies solely for entertainment. Since filmfarsi movies were made for
entertainment only, it is safe to assume that these social strata formed the
bulk of these genres audiences. The higher the educational level of the male
respondents, the more likely they were to attend the movies because of in
terest in the art of cinema (30). The dichotomy between entertainment and
educationlong a simmering debate among Iranians who either condemned
cinema for its capacity to offer frivolous entertainment and cause moral de
generation or celebrated it because of its pedagogical and enlightenment
potentialemerged in this survey as well. Fifty-one percent identified the sa
lient characteristic of the movies as their educational value, while 41 percent
162
identified a combination of education and entertainment, and only 12 percent

counted entertainment as the sole salient value (39). Taken together, these fig
ures make clear that a high percentage of respondents at least intellectually val
ued cinema for its pedagogical capabilities, although in practice they may have
attended the movies mostly to be entertained. This expectation was not limited
to what the audiences said but extended to the movies themselves. Regardless
of the genre, filmfarsi movies almost always carried a pedagogical message, of
ten in the form of character dialogue, about such verities as the evils of greed,
the importance of respect for elders, or the value of compassion, generosity,
and forbearance. This moralistic ideology permeated the films partly because
of the countrys fast-paced modernization, which many considered morally de
structive. Less educated and younger filmgoers professed a preference for the
films educational values, perhaps because for those with less access to class
capital and to other means of enlightenment, cinema did indeed act as a peda
gogical agent, an expander of horizons, and as a social leveler.
Religiosity continued to be a factor in the reception of cinema. The com
parison between the wholesomeness of the house of worship and the deca
dence of the movie house, made during the Qajar period, continued in this
period and extended further into the Islamic Republic period. The most con
cise expression of this binarism in the 1970s was a ditty popular in Yazd,
which compared Sohail Cinema (owned by a Zoroastrian and a Bahai, but
managed by a Muslim) with the new Barkhordar Mosque located nearby,
which Hajj Mohammad Hosain Barkhordar had built.
One built a mosque, another a cinema
One led astray, the other led aright
Open the eye of your reason
Observe the difference from whence to where.
(quoted, with modifications, from Fischer 2004:159)11
Particularly from the 1950s onward, worries about excessive Westernization
and the medias effect on moral standards, the early onset of sexuality, and
the social delinquency of the young were voiced. A criminologist in the 1960s
considered the modern mediaradio, film, television, and glossy magazines
to be constituting an academy for corruption and a school of criminality
for innocent children, while a decade earlier a child psychologist had rec
ommended that children be permitted to see only films that concerned na
tionalism, science, and hygiene (Rejali 1994:87). These views gained ascen
dancy in the 1970s, fomenting the destruction of the movie houses during
the revolution.
163
Politics also played a role in public taste. During the relative freedom of
the early 1950s under Mosaddeq, the country was polarized; in September
1951, during the screening of an American movie about the war in Korea,
about three thousand spectators and proponents of peace (most probably Tu
deh sympathizers) demonstrated against the film, leading to the suspension
of the films exhibition. A month later, a Soviet film in Tehrans Crystal Cin
ema showed Stalin. Tudeh Party members applauded the film, while Pan-
Iranist Party members rose against them. The demonstrations created such
havoc that the movie house had to shut down and change its film program
for subsequent nights. A month later, in the Soviet-aligned Star Cinema in
Tehran, a slogan condemning disloyal Iranians, or foreigner lovers, was dis
played on the screen. A powder was apparently sprayed into the hall, causing
fits of tearing and coughing among spectators. In mid-1952, several theaters,
movie houses, and liquor stores were ransacked in Isfahan. The prime minis
ters office ordered the minister of the interior to prosecute the unknown cul
prits (Haidari 1990b/1369:11922). The Irish writer Peter Somerville-Large,
traveling through Iran in the 1960s, describes watching a James Bond movie,
Goldfinger, in a movie house in the town of Sari in Mazanderan Province.
The unnamed cinema was crowded, as bicyclists equipped with loudspeakers
had scoured the town and neighboring villages earlier, advertising the movie.
Many had ridden the country buses to Sari: The cinema was packed, whole
families, wives concealed in tchador [sic] . . . and children crowded together,
soldiers, young men and girls seated apart, yet very conscious of each others
presence. The cinema was the only place in the town where there was some
faint feeling of interchange between the sexesat least the girls could be seen
at close quarters. The sepehe danesh [sic] [Knowledge Corpsmen] sat on either
side of me chewing gum and eyeing the prettiest ones as the lights in the au
ditorium lowered. After the movie, the villagers boarded their bus home,
while Somerville-Large hung around with his Knowledge Corps friends out
side the cinema gazing at the girls being hustled home and discussing the
differences in gender relations between Iran and Europe. The next day, the
writer discovered that one of the corpsmen had been beaten up in a fight out
side the cinema; one man had accused another of looking at his sister as she
came out of the cinema and the corpsman had intervened (Somerville-Large
1968:7071).12 Such fights were frequently reported in the press after screen
ings of action movies. Some resulted from perceived affronts to the honor of
women and their men while others were driven by the youngsters penchant
for emulating the movie stars.
While these data indicate that filmgoing was generally a social and col
164
lective phenomenon, Western movies at this time were singling out individ
uals as their proper subjects via their hermetic, invisible, and realist style.
Thus sociological and psychological forces as well as premodern and mod
ern formations commingled to turn cinemagoing into one of the most pow
erful forces of modernity, affecting the imaginative worlds of Iranians. Even
childrens ways of telling stories and their vocabularies changed. The film
maker Kumars Purahmad memorably recalls that when he was a teenager
in the mid-1950s, the children, influenced by the movies, began telling sto
ries differently: They told them with movement and images; as though they
had seen the incidents with their own eyes, they told them live. I heard new
words in between their sentences: artisteh [literally, the movie star; the good
guy], dozdeh [literally, the thief; the bad guy], sholiyeh [literally, the limp one;
the sidekick] . . . Burt Lancaster [movie star], Torch and Bow [movie title], Ali
Baba, Hercules, Samson . . . [all movie characters]. Cinemas, Mayak Cinema,
Homayun Cinema, Moulin Rouge Cinema [all moviehouses], cinema, cin
ema, cinema (2001/1380:95). He and his friends cut many classes to secretly
go to the movies. They were hungry for them, for in the barrenness of their
youthful lives, the movies offered windows to another world (97). Like my
friends and I when we were teenagers in the 1950s, Purahmad and his friends
bought from street vendors outside Isfahan cinemas individual frames of the
35mm films of Tarzan and of handsome movie stars. The [b]othered and in
fatuated children and teenagers carried these windows to another world with
them to the privacy of their homes and traded them among themselves.
Significantly, secret moviegoing turned the simple act of spectatorship
into something immoral, criminal, and oppositional, enhancing its subver
sive pleasures. It also encouraged the secret reading of movie magazines in
traditional families, intensifying youths identification with cinema and chan
neling some of them into filmmaking. Finally, moviegoing propelled other
businesses: advertising, magazines, fashion, and music. Mobile street hawk
ers who sold movie frames soon began selling posters of movie stars, lyrics
to pop songs, lottery tickets, cigarettes, candy, and novelties. Pictures of ac
tion stars such as Ken Maynard and Tarzan gave way to pictures of sexy movie
stars: Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, James
Dean, Rock Hudson, Elvis Presley, and Raj Kapoor. Khandaniha magazine es
timated that between thirty and forty street hawkers were selling these pic
tures in Tehran in 1958. Some were so successful that they opened stationery
stores, general stores, and haberdasheries; they did well near schools. One
storeowner earned 40 percent of his income from selling pictures and posters
of movie stars, particularly to the girls, who purchased more than one hun
165
dred pictures a day. Street toughs and taxi drivers bought pictures of domestic
movie stars, singers and dancers, such as Banu Mahvash.13
Movie Genres: Textual Formation

When asked how they chose movies, 36 percent of the respondents in the mca
study of 1975 cited advice from friends, which reinforces the social and col
lective bases of moviegoing in Iran. On the other hand, 34 percent cited mass
media reports, and 25 percent claimed film reviews as the arbiters of taste
(Daftare Motaleat va Barnamehriziye Farhangi 1977/2536:33), pointing to
the moviegoers middle-class profile, which was necessary to move the film
industry from artisanal to hybrid production.
Having been thus advised, what movie genres did the respondents favor?
As table 5 shows, comedies were the overall favorites. Drama and melodrama
followed among women. Westerns, detective movies, and karate films proved
decidedly male genres. In general, the least educated members preferred ka
rate and detective films while the most educated favored historical movies
(3536). As discussed in the following chapter, this survey ignored two impor
tant domestic genres, the stewpot and tough-guy films.
In the mca survey of 1975, only 7 percent went to the movies because of
table 5 Tehran Residents Favorite Movie Genres and Types, 1975
Comedy
Drama
Melodrama
Historical
Western
Musical
Karate
Detective
Documentary
Cartoon
Science Fiction
Women
Percent
Men
Percent
Total
Percent
34.52
25.83
32.73
18.41
8.18
4.60
4.06
10.23
0.25
39.24
18.31
26.47
25.47
21.64
4.75
19.09
31.08
0.49
0.14
4.00
38.22
19.94
27.83
23.94
18.72
4.72
15.83
26.55
0.38
0.11
5.00
Source: Table 38 in Daftar-e Motaleat va Barnamehrizi-ye Farhangi

1977/2536:84, modified for presentation.
166
song-and-dance scenes, which seems low. Given the depth of public antago
nism among traditionalists to song and dance, respondents perhaps dissim
ulated. The survey does not identify the nationality of these movies, but it is
safe to assume that the majority were Iranian filmfarsi, particularly the two
genres that usually contained song-and-dance scenes, the stewpot and tough-
guy movies. Correlation with age produces vastly increased results, for 12 per
cent of those between thirty-five and thirty-nine went to the movies because
of their song-and-dance numbers, as did 21 percent of those between forty-five
and forty-nine and 14 percent of those between fifty-five and fifty-nine years
of age (Daftare Motaleat va Barnamehriziye Farhangi 1977/2536:94). A large
percentage of the audience for the commercial cinema genres was middle-
aged and older.
From all these data, one can see that during the 1960s and 1970s, the ma
jority of the spectators in movie houses were urban, particularly in Tehran and
the capital cities of the provinces. Concomitant with population rise, the do
mestic commercial movie industrys output also rose dramatically, doubling
foreign imports, among which American, Indian, and Italian films ranked
highest. The audience profile varied depending on age, gender, education,
and class capital and on the movies national origin, stars, and genres. Over
all, educated, employed young people under thirty formed a majority of Teh
ran moviegoers in 1975. However, lower-class male youth went to the movies
more frequently. The more educated patrons attended Western films, while
the least educated preferred Iranian movies. Women went to the movies less,
but married women and educated women attend more frequently. Married or
single males and females generally went to the movies with friends and fam
ily members, turning moviegoing into a social pastime. Comedies were iden
tified as favorites by men, followed by detective films, historical films, and
westerns. Women, on the other hand, preferred comedies, melodrama, and
drama genres, in that order. An increased rural emigration to cities and larger
urban populations corresponded to more movie-house construction.
Copyright Law
In January 1970, the Majles approved a copyright bill under which all books,
articles, theses, plays, poetry, songs, audio-visual works, music, architectural
designs, paintings, photographs, carving and statues and similar other works
of arts and types of creation, will be protected and their authors will benefit
from financial and moral protection, whether such works have been regis
167
tered or not (Echo of Iran 1970:596). The law designated a thirty-year period
for protecting the financial rights of the artists after their death. On the ex
piration of this period, any royalties would go to the beneficiaries of the art
ists; in cases where there were no heirs, the royalties would accrue to the mca.
This law, part of the countrys and the film industrys modernization process,
served to protect Iranian films within the country; however, Iranian films
were not protected internationally, nor were foreign movies protected in Iran,
for Iran was not a signatory to the Geneva copyright conventions of 1952. This
would have repercussions for international cinematic exchanges.
Professional Unions
The modernization of the film industry occurred through institutions of civil
society such as labor unions representing industry professionals and nego
tiating for their rights with governmental and private agencies at home and
abroad. Film exhibitors unhappy with the high municipal tax levied on films
took the first step toward unions. These were sometimes called societies (an
joman) and sometimes syndicates or unions (sandika). Among them were the
Actors Syndicate, representing all actors (its chairman in 1970 was Majid
Mohseni); the Society of the Iranian Film Industry, representing chiefly pro
ducers and dubbers (headed by the Misaqiyeh Film Studio chief, Mehdi Mis
aqiyeh); the Cinema Owners Syndicate (headed by Nureddin Ashtiani); and
the Iranian Society of Film Critics (Echo or Iran 1970:618). Thanks to the efforts of these unions and of the industry leader Ismail Kushan, for the first
time film was registered in 1965 as an industry with Irans Chamber of
Commerce (Omid 1995/1374:997). These unions largely represented main
stream commercial cinema, leading in the mid-1970s to the creation of the
Progressive Filmmakers Cooperative, an alternative structure for supporting
the emerging intellectual new-wave cinema.
Film Production Studios, Distributors, and Chain Cinemas

Film studios contributed to the commercial cinemas hybrid mode of produc
tion, but they did not constitute an advanced studio system, as in the United
States, where a small number of powerful studios brought to cinema indus
trial techniques and the star system. Autocratic and visionary studio bosses
and directors shaped the movies for mass reception in the classic Hollywood
168
style, which became the reigning global form of filmic realism (Bordwell,
Staiger, and Thompson 1985). Nevertheless, Iranian commercial cinema de
veloped some of the characteristics of this studio system, including short-
lived studios and production companies, as well as a few long-term ones,
which produced and dubbed a large number of popular movies for mass au
diences. These were also often involved in distributing and exhibiting films
across the country, in nurturing the star system, in marketing movies and
movie stars to the national media, and in product differentiation across sev
eral genres, including melodrama, musical, tough-guy, comedy, stewpot, de
tective, and town-and-country films.
The Iranian film studios began during the first Pahlavi period as small,
local operations. The Moradi and Ohanians studios of the 1930s were basi
cally one-man workshops making silent movies under very trying conditions.
All of Abdolhosain Sepantas filmmaking in the 1930s occurred outside Iran,
within the Indian studio system. It did little to industrialize Iranian film prac
tices. The studios that emerged in the late 1940s, which began by dubbing
Western sound moviesmostly imported from intermediaries in Egypt
and moved on to making domestic talkies, were the forerunners of the com
mercial cinema studios of the 1950s and the 1960s under study here.
Even these latter studios began as very modest production companies. Mo
hammad Ali Fardin, who worked with them as a producer, director, writer,
and star, explains that many of these were at first engaged more in film dub
bing and distribution than in production. The smaller studios, such as Naji
Aghravi Company, owned only a minimum of film equipment and facilities:
One 35mm Arriflex camera; a few lenses, tripods, and lights; and one editing
Moviola, which the company sometimes rented to others. It produced a hand
ful of movies. Some studios specialized in dubbing foreign films only. Others
began as dubbing studios but evolved into major production companies, such
as Mitra Film Studio (established by Kushan in 1947), which became Pars
Film Studio (in 1948) and produced perhaps more commercial movies than
any other Iranian studio. On the other hand, some began as film production
studios but devolved into dubbing studios, such as Diana Film (established in
1950), which made thirteen features until 1958, when it shifted to exclusively
dubbing movies.
Ethnicity, religion, nationality, and gender continued to play a role in the
formation of the studios. Armenians dominated some, such as Diana Film
Studio, which was headed by Sanasar Khachaturian, a female producer and
the owner of Diana Cinema. The studio was well equipped and employed,
among others, the writer-director Serzh Azarian, as well as cinematogra
169
phers and cast members who were also Armenian. It produced more than a
dozen movies, the most famous of which was Samuel Khachikians noir film
Hazardous Crossroads, which Khachaturian herself produced. By 1958, Kha
chikian had opened Azhir (Alarm) Film Studio with help from his partner Jo
seph Vaezian, with whom he also produced Storm Over Our Town (Tufan dar
Shahre ma, 1958), the studios first smash release. This studio, too, produced
nearly two dozen commercial movies, propelling Khachikian to the forefront
of action and noir movies.
In 1951, the Armenian producers Simik Constantin, Johnny Baghdasarian,
and Vahan Terpanchian opened Alborz Film Studio, with Parviz Khatibis
White Gloves (1951) as their first production. They produced many of Khatibis
subsequent comedies. Rubik Dezadurian opened two studios, Shahab and
Hamlet, which primarily engaged in intertitling foreign movies and dubbing
foreign and domestic productions. In 1959, after the demise of Diana Studio,
two Armenian brothers, Anik and Henrik Ovedisian, who had worked for that
studio, opened their own Shahin Studio. In 1961, Arkadi Boghosian, who had
owned studios before, opened Televizion Film Studio, which specialized in
dubbing most of the movies that nirt broadcast, an expanding market.
In the 1960s, two brothers, Soleiman and Herand Minasian, made docu
mentaries and feature movies in their Chaplin Studio, as well as working with
the Golestan Film Workshop (Hovian 2002/1381).
Jewish Iranians also established successful movie studios. Azizollah Karda
vani, Habibollah Hakimian, and Farajollah Nasimian established Asre Talai
(Golden Age) Studio in 1950, whose first product was the highly successful and
critically praised movie Mashhadi Ebad (1952), which Samad Sabahi directed.14
It went on to produce dozens of commercial movies. Natail Zebulani ran Sina
Film Studio, which produced nearly a dozen movies. Georges Lichenski, a Jew
ish Iranian of Polish-French heritage, was perhaps the best-known cinematog
rapher of the first generation of cinema in Iran after the Second World War.
The tale of the three Jewish Rashidian brothers who owned Cinema-T heater
Rex and who also produced movies is intriguing; here, ethnicity and cinema
entwined them with high-stakes domestic and superpower politics.
Saifollah, Qodratollah, and Asadollah Rashidian were sons of the powerful
businessman Habibollah Rashidian and had been the main British agents
in Iran since the early 1940s (Gasiorowski 1991:64). Habibollah had given
his sons his fortune and his Anglophilia. In the 1950s, Britains Secret In
telligence Service had paid them $28,000 a month to suborn Iranians in
the armed forces, the Majles, the press, street gangs, the clerical establish
ment, and in politics (Kinzer 2003:15051). James Bill notes that Saifollah,
170
the eldest, was a musician, a philosopher, a gifted raconteur, and the brains
of the triumvirate, a man prone to quoting Machiavelli; Asadollah was the
political organizer and confidant of the Shah; while Qodratollah was the
businessman and entrepreneur (1988:91). They were turned over to the
cia by m16 when Mosaddeq expelled the British from Iran in November
1952 and they participated in Operation Ajax, the code name for the coup
against the prime minister (Gasiorowski 1991:75). Their chief connection to
the cia came through Kermit Roosevelt, the American agent masterminding
the coup, who in his own book Countercoup refers to Asadollah and Saifol
lah as Nossey and Cafron, Laughing Boy and The Mad Musician (Bill
1988:472n110). In those crucial days, Asadollah held daily morning meetings
for some thirty anti-Mosaddeq activists in his cinema. The Rashidian broth
ers apparently used their currency business to funnel money to pro-Shah fig
ures, such as General Fazlollah Zahedi, and to street toughs, such as Shaban
the Brainless, who helped topple Mosaddeq (Sarshar 2002:16667, 41213).
Asadollah prospered under the Shahs patronage, and his home became a
salon for influential politicians. In the mid-1960s, however, the Shah appar
ently grew uncomfortable with powerful figures who knew his dirty secrets,
causing Asadollah, who sensed the royal unease, to emigrate to his beloved
Britain (Kinzer 2003:199). The Rashidian brothers ran Rex Cinema and pro
duced films as the Rex Cinema-T heater Company (Omid 1995/1374:2056).
The Bahai entrepreneur Mehdi Misaqiyeh started the Misaqiyeh Film Stu
dio in 1959 with Khachikians acclaimed noir movie Midnight Cry (Faryade
Nimeh Shab, 1961). During thirty years it produced dozens of movies. Im
mediately after the revolution the Islamic authorities confiscated Misaqiyehs
property and his Capri Cinema, which he coowned with the Rashidian broth
ers, and imprisoned him.15 He was released after five years, apparently only
after he confessed to being a Bahai (more on him in another chapter). Be
cause religious minorities, particularly Bahais, faced harassment, many peo
ple in the entertainment industry hid their identities, making difficulties for
the historian.
Arab Iranians were also involved in film, with Gorji Obadia (also known
as Ahmad Fahmi or Ahmad Gorji) being the most active. Born in Baghdad
in 1925 (one source gives his birthplace as Cairo, however), he worked in film
distribution and moved to Iran in 1949, where he established Atlas Film Stu
dio, whose first production, The Enemy of Women (Doshmane zan, 1958), was
directed by Khatibi. Obadia and his studio went on to produce nearly two
dozen filmfarsi movies, some directed by Obadia himself, which were a cut
above average. He also acted in Shelterless (Bipanah, 1953), produced by other
171
Arab Iranians, Salim Sumikh and Salman Hogi, who owned Homa Cinema
and financed some Pars Film Studios productions. Obadias movie Fear and
Hope (Bim va Omid, 1960) is notable for its vrit footage of Tehran and the
eleven-year-old performer Googoosh, who walks to a pharmacy to get medi
cine for her ill father and in one scene sings and dances in imitation of fa
mous performers to cheer him. Naji Aghravi was an Egyptian migr who,
after producing a few films in his studio, loaned money to film producers;
banks did not often finance movies. Iraqi migrs were also involved in film
exhibition, the importing of raw stock, and in lending money to producers.16
Nandaras Henduja, an Indian national who had shown films in Tehran with
his father, established Filmco Films and produced Ismail Riahis Woman and
Her Dolls (Zan va Arusakhayash, 1965), about a famous star who toys with sev
eral of her fans. He went on to produce many filmfarsi movies.
In addition to these migr producers, there were foreign technicians who
worked for Iranian studios, such as the Egyptian cinematographer Mounir
Habib, and directors, such as the Indian Sardar Saker, who came to Iran to
escape the movie business. After selling cars for a while, Saker decided to
return to the movies, and he worked for several studios, including his own
Kuhe Nur Film Studio. He introduced Indian narrative elements into Ira
nian melodramatic emotionality. He used the famous entertainer Mahvash
for the first time in his The Sun Shines (Khorshid Midarakhshad, 1956), which
proved very successful.
These affiliations helped both nationalize and internationalize Iranian cin
ema. They underscore one of the theses of this book, namely, that Iranian cin
ema was not a hermetic national cinema confined to movies made by Irani
ans for Iranians. There were many forms of exchange, even in the despised
popular commercial cinema, filmfarsi. The most interesting of these was the
migration of Arab and Jewish Iranian filmfarsi talent and narrative forms into
Israel, resulting in a hybridized film type, which combined two popular but
despised film genresIranian filmfarsi and Israeli boureka films.17 A pio
neer in hybridized genre was Obadia who in late 1960s emigrated yet again,
this time to Israel, under the modified name of George Ovadia (also known as
Ovadiah). His first Israeli film, The Desired Ones (Ha-Nehsheket, 1967), about
an Iranian millionaires exploitation of a girl in Haifa who is forced to sing
and dance in a nightclub, was an Iranian-Israeli coproduction, which engaged
an Iranian production crew. His other early films were remakes of his film
farsi movies in Hebrew, for which he imported Iranian crews and casts. In
remaking the films he not only copied the stories but also some of the mise-
en-scne, shot composition, and editing and transition effects, as when he
172
remade his Iranian movie What Is My Guilt (Gonahe Man Chist, 1965) as
Arianna (1971). Many of these films were popular, with Nurit (1972) becom
ing the top blockbuster in Israeli cinema history up to that time. However, as
in Iran, Israeli critics loved to hate these films, labeling them bourekas
(a Sephardi pastry) and primitive. Revealing their first-world anxiety about
the national identity of the new Jewish state and their Eurocentric prejudices
against third-world Easterners, they further characterized these films as Ori
ental kitsch, inferior Middle Eastern subculture, and Arab movies (Ba
nai n.d.:1). It is clear that the cultural differences between Israeli ethnicities,
particularly between Western Ashkenazi and Eastern Mizrahi Jews, which
formed the backbone of these melodramas and comedies, were also present
in the critical response to the boureka genre.
Born in Mashhad, Iran, to a Jewish family, Simcha Zvuloni went to Israel at
thirteen, where he attended school in a kibbutz and served in the military. He
returned to Iran at twenty-four and began working for the family production
house in Tehran, Sina Film, managed by his producer brother Natail, which
made filmfarsi and other movies. As a bicultural subject he shuttled between
Iran and Israel. In 1973, he returned to Israel and established the film produc
tion company Film-Or, with funding from Sina Film. His first production,
Charley and a Half (Charlie Vehetzi, 1974), was a boureka film that borrowed
elements from Iranian luti films, and it became a raving success, achieving
the status of a cult film (Banai n.d.:7). The filmfarsi bourekas in Israel proved
most popular with the many Mizrahi Jews and Arab and Iranian migrs.
Another structure contributing to the consolidation of cinema in Iran was
the movie-house chain. Several first-r un or second-r un movie houses, owned
by different entities, would agree to coordinate their film programs, forming
channels of access for insider film exhibitors and formidable barriers for out
siders. One of these was the Mottahedeh Group, which Naser Majd Bigdeli es
tablished in 1963, consisting of fifteen moviehouses in Tehran: Taj, Ferdowsi,
Persepolis, Sylvana, Olympia, Khorshid, Khayyam, Taban, Mottahedeh, Mi
han, News, Shahab, Khorram, Shohreh, and Kurosh (Omid 1995/1374:351).
Some of these chains extended to other cities. Soon, cinema chains such as
the Mottahedeh Group and the Mottahed Movie House Group became a force
not only in the exhibition of movies but also in their productions by investing
in them. They tied their directors to the financial fate of their movies by giv
ing part of their salary as profit shares. But these chain cinemas were subject
to individual and group rivalries, and their memberships, names, and struc
tures changed frequently.
Production companies and film studios were established quickly in this
173
period, demonstrating the increasing pace of film activity and the impact
of these entities on the commercial cinema.18 Between the mid-1950s and
the mid-1960s, film production studios and companies went from twenty-
two to forty, and feature-film production shot up from twenty-five to fifty-
three (Gaffary 1992:570).19 By 1959, more than fifty movies were in various
stages of production, a very high number compared to previous years, and
half of the movies that were eventually released were by first-time produc
ers (Omid 1995/1374:314). Moviemaking had become profitable, allowing the
weekly magazine Rowshanfekr (Intellectual) to claim in August 1962, Cin
ema is one of the most lucrative businesses in Tehran, with the citys 2 mil
lion citizens pouring as much as 23 million tomans a month into box offices
(quoted in Echo of Iran 1963:467). That moviemaking had become industrial
ized is borne out by statistics: there were 58 film studios, using 124 directors,
making 632 commercial movies. During the last year of this period, however,
this number dropped to 16 studios and 75 directors, reflecting the crisis that
had gripped the film industry (Omid 1995/1374:217).
Several robust and professional studios emerged that consisted of multiple
divisions and that lasted for many years. Kushans Pars Film Studio owned
black-and-white and color film labs, sound stages, an extensive set-design and
construction department, technical equipment, and cast quarters (Baharlu
2000c/1379:14647). It had large studio facilities and back-lot spaces on the
outskirts of Tehran near Karaj. In a space exceeding two thousand square me
ters, the accomplished set designer Valiollah Khakdan, an immigrant from
Baku, built a historical city consisting of city gates, alleys, streets, a mosque,
a coffee shop, homes, and other public buildings, which were used in many
of Pars Films historical movies (Omid 1995/1374:386). In fact, the creation of
this city committed the studio to and in a way trapped it in that genre.
Pars Film Studio and its rival, Misaqiyeh Studio, differed from earlier stu
dios. They were horizontally integrated because they provided most of the
services and personnel needed for making filmsfrom preproduction to
production to postproduction, including dubbing. They were also vertically
integrated, making, dubbing, and distributing movies and owning movie
houses. The Moulin Rouge Film Company, owned by Morteza and Mostafa
Akhavan, was one of these, like Pars and Misaqiyeh studios. It owned Mou
lin Rouge Cinema and imported and distributed chiefly American movies
from Paramount and United Artists. Badie Film Studio, established in 1957
by an innovative engineer, Mohsen Badie, produced some movies, but it did
not have extensive filming facilities and sound stages; instead it owned black-
and-white and color film processing labs, editing suites, and skilled technical
174
personnelperhaps the best film lab in Iranand it survived the revolution

of 197879.
Interestingly, the heads of most of these studios were also hybrid figures,
like the cinematic mode of production they were building, ethnoreligiously
and functionally. For example, Kushan (n Ismail Harirforush) not only ran
Pars Film Studio, which he established with his wife and other family mem
bers and partners, but also apparently produced a majority of the studios mov
ies, directed many of them, and wrote several of the screenplays. He gradually
ceded some of those functions as the studio expanded. For example, for Pris
oner of the Emir (Zendaniye Amir, 1948), his second Persian-language sound
feature made in Iran, and the first under the imprimatur of Pars Film Stu
dio, Kushan served as the films producer, director, screenplay writer, editor,
and cinematographermaking the film a complete artisanal production. His
credits for his third sound film, Spring Variety (Varietehye Bahari, 1949), are
fewer but still considerable: he served as the producer, director, cinematogra
pher, and editor. For his fourth film, Disgraced (Sharmsar, 1950), his credits
are still fewer: producer, director, and editor. The credits for others involved
with the film, however, increased.20 With this movie, Pars Film Studio began
to come into its own, using stars and a division of labor, two key characteris
tics of the studio system. Kushan employed a star entertainer, Delkash, as his
lead; he brought in an experienced Egyptian cinematographer, Nuri Habib; he
assigned the screenplay to the writer Ali Kasmai; and he inserted Delkashs
song-and-dance numbers to spice up the movie. The result was a successful
and influential product. It remained on Tehran screens for 102 nights, turned
Delkash into a movie star, transformed Pars Film into a viable studio, and es
tablished a popular model for the musical genre. Kushan produced documen
tary and propaganda films for the Ministry of Information and Publication
from 1951 to 1956, published the film magazine Alame Honar (Art World),
which he began in 1951, and served as the president of the National Film In
dustry Union of Iran (Ettehadiyehye Sanaie Mellie Filme Irani) until 1969
(Omid 1995/1374:22325). He also coproduced several films with France, West
Germany, and Turkey. To acknowledge his pioneering work in dubbing and
the production of sound movies, Georges Sadoul called Kushan the father of
Iranian film industry (1949:22). By the time he died in 1983, he had produced
ninety-one movies and directed twenty-eight himself (Omid 1995/1374:203).
This all consolidated his position as the first movie mogul and the status of his
studio as the first in the nationat least in terms of quantity.21
The film industrys vertical and horizontal integration gradually encom
passed larger spheres of pop culture. Mohammad Karim Arbab, for example,
175
who began as a gofer in the film business in 1942, would not only own his
own film production and distribution company, Ferdowsi Films (established
in 1965), but also thirteen movie houses and seven nightclubs, including the
famed Moulin Rouge. Perhaps one reason so many musicals were made and
producers inserted song-and-dance numbers into nonmusical commercial
movies is to be found in this tight, cross-fertilizing relationship among film
producers, cinema owners, and cabaret owners, all of whom banked on the
currency of the stars and entertainers.
The emergence of integrated film studios and chain theaters; genre mov
ies, movie stars, and movie producers; and actors, voice-over artists, and crafts
unions helped to professionalize, commodify, and industrialize the film busi
ness toward the end of the second Pahlavi era.
As part of this process, a dynamic film culture also developed, one in
volving film schools, film clubs, professional publications, robust film criti
cism, and diverse film festivals. The expansion of nationwide radio, television,
and music industries as well as mass-media publications permitted the cross-
fertilization of cultural products and forms. When by the late 1970s movie
stars and actors were widely recruited by advertising agencies to sell noncin
ematic consumer goods, a massive integrated pop-culture industry emerged.
While these forms of industrialization and institutionalization were un
derway in the private sector, the government also intervened in the practices
of the culture industry to facilitate, compete with, regulate, and censor film
production, importation, and exhibition. It became a major coplayer in the
emergence of commercial films hybrid production and its genres. What it
added to the mix of commercial and industrial practices was the statist ele
ments that had governed the documentary cinema. The states role, at least at
the beginning of this period (1950s and early 1960s), involved less the fund
ing of movies than their censorship. Some film critics went so far as to give
the lions share of credit for shaping commercial movies to the government,
particularly to its power to censor. While government censorship was cer
tainly widespread and multifaceted, limiting the range of topics and stifling
expression, it did not have a uniform impact on the movies, mainly because
other factors were involved as well. Foreign film imports, which trounced do
mestic productions in the 1960s, also drove Iranian film personnel to seek
commercially attractive solutions. One of these was to emulate the imports,
resulting in syncretic adaptations of European and American movies, stories,
characters, mise-en-scne, and filming styles, mixing them with Iranian ele
ments. The two genres of stewpot and tough-guy films are examples of this
sort of cross-cultural amalgamation.
176
Film Productions
A factor in the emergence of the hybrid mode was the rise in movie produc
tions. As table 6 shows, the production rate for feature films remained very
slow in the late 1940s, but it rose steadily throughout the 1950s. By the late
1960s, when many studios, production companies, dubbing houses, cinema
chains, importers, and distributors were in operation and the industrys out
put had surpassed fifty movies annually, the hybrid mode was in full swing.
In the early 1970s, the government began both to fund and to compete with
the private sector in film production through its various ministries or affili
ated institutions, such as the mca, nirt, the cidcya, and the fidci, several of
which had studios, labs, and professional editing facilities staffed by profes
sionals. These institutions funneled funds to filmmakers, employed them as
civil servants or freelancers, wrote coproduction deals, and promoted films in
ternationally. By 1972, the industry output had almost doubled, to an all-time
high of ninety-t wo features, a peak not reached since.
Despite these developments toward systematization, cross-fertilization,
and industrialization, Iranian commercial cinema remained through most
of this period, as Fardin characterized it colorfully, a battered, neglected,
and browbeaten orphan (quoted in Baharlu 2000e/1379:91). Some films
did not last beyond the first nights screening in a single theater. Another
graphic indication of this state of affairs is the small number of film prints,
four to five, that were struck of each movie as late as the 1960s. In some
cases, distributors, uncertain of earnings, forced several theaters to share a
single print. As one reel was being screened in one theater, a motorcyclist
hired by the distributor would carry the other reels to other theaters in Teh
ran (Baharlu 2000e/1379:184). While it was certainly economical, such cy
cling of individual movie reels sometimes created exhibition problems, as late
arriving reels from one theater would force unplanned intermissions in oth
ers.22 Commercial cinema was ill supported both by the government and by
the private sector, and it did not get much respect from critics; nonetheless,
paying spectators supported it substantially, as the attendance figures cited
testify.
The full institutionalization of a hybrid production mode necessitated
a paradigmatic shift of consciousness, from premodernity to modernity
something that could only evolve with time. As a result, the film industry re
tained some of its artisanal characteristics. The totality of this system consti
tutes what I am calling here the hybrid production mode.
177
table 6 Feature Fiction Movies Released 192979

Production Year
(Gregorian/Iranian)
first pahlavi period
1929/1308
1930/1309
1931/1310
1932/1311
1933/1312
1934/1313
1935/1314
1936/1315
1937/1316
1938/1317
1939/1318
1940/1319
1941/1320
Subtotal
second pahlavi period
1942/1321
1943/1322
1944/1323
1945/1324
1946/1325
1947/1326
1948/1327
1949/1328
1950/1329
1951/1330
1952/1331
1953/1332
1954/1333
1955/1334
1956/1335
1957/1336
1958/1337
1959/1338
1960/1339
1961/1340
1962/1341
Films Released
(Exhibited)
Films Banned or
Abandoned
(Not Exhibited)
0
1
1
1
1
3
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
1
1
6
8
22
18
17
13
12
16
26
27
28
27
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
3
3
2
0
Production Year
(Gregorian/Iranian)
1963/1342
1964/1343
1965/1344
1966/1345
1967/1346
1968/1347
1969/1348
1970/1349
1971/1350
1972/1351
1973/1352
1974/1353
1975/1354
1976/1355
1977/1356
1978/1357
Total
Films Released
(Exhibited)
Films Banned or
Abandoned
(Not Exhibited)
30
36
43
52
52
71
51
59
83
92
83
60
61
65
46
16
0
1
1
1
3
1
4
2
2
3
1
3
2
3
2
15
1124
55
Source: Compiled from Omid 1987a/1366 and 1987b/1366.
Film Periodicals
Another important condition both for an integrated, modern film industry
and film culture is the presence of active film journalism to inform and edu
cate spectators about cinema; to publicize movies, filmmakers, and the stars;
to provide critical assessments of the industry and its product; and to enter
tain. The history of film criticism in Iran, like the history of movie studios, is
strewn with false starts, brief but valiant efforts, and untimely demises. Edi
tors and publishers started magazines, competed with each other, merged
their products, switched magazines, or returned to their former publications.
The publishers and editors of long-lasting periodicals changed many times.
The tracking of all these movements and changes requires further research.
In table 7, I offer a comprehensive but not exhaustive list of film periodicals
during the Pahlavi period, indicating when they began and the names of their
first or most prominent editors. It appears that movie studios started the earli
179
table 7 Pahlavi Period Film Periodicals (193078)

Magazine Title
Year Begun
Publisher
Editor
Frequency
Cinema and Perform

ing Arts / Sinema va
Namayeshat
July 1930 /
Mordad 1309
Ali Vakili (Iran

Film Studio)
Eshaq Zanjani
Monthly
Hollywood / Holyvud
June 1943 /
Tir 1321
Alireza
Amirmoez
A. Amirmoez
Biweekly/
monthly
World of Art /
Alam-e Honar
August 1951 /
Shahrivar 1330
Ismail Kushan
(Pars Film
Studio)
Ali Kasmai
World of Cinema /
Alam-e Sinema
March 1952 /
Farvardin 1331
Abolqasem Rezai Abolqasem Rezai

(Alborz Film
Studio
Cinema Universe /
Jahan-e Sinema
August 1952 /
Shahrivar 1331
Simak Vosuqi
Hosain Farhang
Biweekly
Cinema and Theater /

Sinema va Teatr
October 1952 /
Aban 1331
Babak Sasan
Kazem Esmaili
Biweekly
Movie Stars /
Setaregan-e Sinema
November 1952
/ Azar 1331
Hosain Farhang
Hosain Farhang
New Moon / Mah-e No
195271 /
13311350
Mohammadali
Shirazi
Taqi Mokhtar
Movie Star /
Setareh-ye Sinema
January
195478/
Bahman
13321357
Piror Galestian /
Ali Mortazavi
Kazem Esmaili
/ Robert Ekhart
/ Jamal Omid
/ Bahman
Maghsoudlou
Biweekly
New Monthly Film /

Mah-e No Film
1954?
Mohammadali
Shirazi
Taqi Mokhtar
Weekly
Message of Cinema /
Paik-e Sinema
April 1954 /
Ordibehesht
1333
Majid Nejat (Ne

jat magazine)
Toqrol Afshar
Biweekly
Cinema / Sinema
September
1954 / Mehr
1333
Hosain Niru
mandzadeh
(Musik-e Iran
magazine)
Farhad Foruhi
Performance /
Namayesh
November 1956
/ Azar 1335
Hasan Shirvani
(faa)
Magazine Title
Year Begun
Publisher
Editor
Frequency
Film and Life /

Film va Zendegi
April 1957 /
Ordibehesht
1336
Audiovisual
Center, faa
Shaollah
Nazerian
Quarterly
Tehran Posts Cinema

/ Post-e Tehran-e
Sinemai
September
1957 / Mehr
1336
Amirsaid
Borumand
Shadows / Sayehha
November 1958
/ Azar 1937
Mohammad
Motovaselani
Films and Screens /

Filmha va Pardehha
December 1958
/ Aban 1337
Mohammadreza Ali Abbasi

Taha
(Vazin magazine)
Acting Art / Honar-e

Honarmandan
May 1959 /
Khordad 1338
faa
Belief and World of

Cinema / Maslak va
Jahan-e Sinema
February 1959
/ Esfand 1337
Abolfazl
Saqharyaghmai
Art and Cinema /

Honar va Sinema
March 1961 /
Farvardin 1340
Amirhushang
Kavusi
Amirhushang
Kavusi
Film and Art /

Film va Honar
March 1964 /
Farvardin 1343
Abdolmajid
Ramezani
Ali Mortazavi
New Cinema /
Sinema-ye No
December
1966 / Aban
1345
Cinema Book /
Ketab-e Sinema
197071/
134950
Pahlavi Univer
sity students
(published in
Shiraz)
Film / Film
1972 / 1351
Piror Galestian
Jamsheed
Akrami
Cinema 7377 /
Sinema 5256
July 1973 /
Mordad 1352
Ministry of
Culture and Art
Bahram Raipur / Monthly

Jamal Omid
Cinema and Theater

Special / Vizheh-ye
Sinema va Teatr
1972
Entesharat-e
Babak
Bahman
Maghsoudlou
Irregular
Free Cinema Periodical

/ Nashriyeh Sinema-ye
Azad
December
197577 / Dey
13541356
Entesharat-e
Sorush (nirt)
Basir Nasibi /
Shahla Etedali
Monthly
Monthly
Feraidun
Pirzadeh
Bijan Khorsand
Weekly
Monthly
Quarterly
Source: Created by the author based mostly on information supplied by Poori Soltani of
the Iran National Library and on Omid 1995/1374:893915.
est film magazines as publicity vehicles, demonstrating the pivotal role of the
studios in creating film culture. Some film periodicals began as supplemen
tary to other established periodicals. With the gradual industrialization of cin
ema in the 1950s and 1960s, the number of publications increased, their ho
rizons widened, and their specialization and professionalism deepened. With
the formation of the faa and later the mca, government film institutions also
began publishing periodicals. Not listed in the table are government maga
zines about music, theater, and television.
The culture of film and discourse about cinema was not limited to the
specialized film and media magazines in this table. Television and radio net
works participated in them through their newscasts, film and entertainment
review programs, and print magazines such as Soroush and Tamasha, both
published by nirt. Literary and cultural periodicals as well as popular maga
zines and newspapers regularly carried articles on film. Finally, mainstream
daily newspapers, such as Kayhan, Ettelaat, and Ayandegan (as well as their
foreign-language sister publications) carried regular columns devoted to film
criticism and media news.
Film Clubs
Farrokh Gaffary (19222006) established the first film club and library, the
National Film Center (Kanune Mellie Film), in Tehran in December 1949,
which screened foreign films regularly in their original languages and initi
ated the first film festival, which showed European and Soviet movies. Re
markably, the center managed to screen banned movies to its members.
Gaffary often obtained documentary and classic features from Western em
bassies cultural attachs, introduced them to audiences, and discussed them
after the screenings. In July 1950, he launched a five-night festival of British
movies at the British Council facilities in Tehran, for which occasion he pub
lished a forty-two-page bilingual pamphlet in Persian and English on that
countrys cinema. It contained, in addition to the list of the films and other
materials, essays by Gaffary and by the famed British documentarian John
Grierson. Gaffary, who had served as Henri Langloiss assistant at the Cin
mathque Franaise in the 1940s and as the executive secretary of the Inter
national Federation of Film Archives in Paris, also published serious film crit
icism in the leftist press, such as in Setarehye Solh (Star of Peace), under the
pseudonym M. Mobarak, where he wrote Film Industry in Iran, one of the
182
earliest analytic articles on Iranian film (Gaffary 1992:570). He introduced the

concept and structure of European cine-clubs (Baharlu 2000c/1379:180).
Gaffary returned to France in mid-1951, and his departure led to the centers
gradual end.
The center marked the beginning of cinephilia in Iran. Although the flow
of cinephilia is generally construed to have occurred among first world coun
tries or to have moved from the first world to the third world, Monika Mehta
shows (2006) that it also flourished among third world countries, particularly
those with regional, cultural, and historical affiliations with others. In the
case of Iran, cinephilia involved not only the vertical love for Western mov
ies but also the horizontal love for Indian, Egyptian, Turkish, and, of course,
Iranian movies.
Gaffary revived the National Film Center in 1959 under the auspices of the
faa, thanks to support from its head of public relations, Zaven Hagopian. Its
inaugural film program consisted of two documentaries, Robert Flahertys
Louisiana Story (1948) and Mostafa Farzanehs Persian Miniatures (1958). At
this time, the centers members comprised foreign nationals residing in Teh
ran (primarily American, French, and Danish), as well as Iranian critics, film
lovers, and college and high school students. Membership was two hundred
rials for ten sessions, except for students, who were admitted at half price.
In its second iteration, the Film Center proved highly successful and endur
ing, with regular weekly screenings throughout the 1960s and the 1970s
(until the fall of 1978), during which 16mm and 35mm prints were shown
and discussed. The majority were classic American and European movies
screened in their original languages, although there was a smattering of Ira
nian new-wave and proto-new-wave films as well. Censorship afflicted even
such a specialized film venue. For example, the gathered audience, foreign
embassy personnel, and Iranian film critics were upset because mca censors
in their zeal had mutilated Michaelangelo Antonionis The Red Desert (Il De
serto Rosso, 1964), Francesco Rosis The Moment of Truth (Il Momento della
Verit, 1965), and Pier Paolo Pasolinis Oedipus Rex (Edipo Re, 1967) (Baharlu
2000c/1379:18788). In 1973, the Film Center became part of the National
Film Archive of Iran at the mca, which still exists.
Other cine-clubs emerged as well, among them the Iran Cine-Club, which
involved prominent film critics Toghrol Afshar and Amirhushang Kavusi and
the filmmaker Feraidun Rahnema. More clubs cropped up in Tehran and
other cities like Isfahan, and university students also created their own film
clubs in various locations.23
183
Censorship Apparatuses and Regulations

Official movie censorship also contributed to the hybrid production mode
and the politics and poetics of its products, the commercial movies. Iranian
cinema has been subject from its beginning to official censorship (Akrami
1992b:585), whether attempted by governments, religious leaders, profes
sional unions, civil society pressure groups, film distributors, or even the gen
eral public. Instances of various efforts at censorship have been recounted
throughout, but during this period the role of the state in muzzling and chan
neling cinema became more prominent, concomitant with the increased au
thoritarianism of the government and the Shah. In June 1950 (Khordad 1329)
the government passed the Regulations for Cinemas and Performing Arts In
stitutions, which incorporated, updated, and supplanted the Regulations for
Cinemas (1936) and the Regulations Governing Taking Motion Picture Films
and Photographs, Painting, and Drawing (1938). With periodic modifications,
the regulations of 1950 held throughout the second Pahlavi period to censor
films during preproduction, postproduction, dubbing, and exhibition. These
regulations also specified the administrative structures both for censoring
movies and for regulating movie houses. The most relevant of these was the
Exhibition Committee (Komitehye Nemayesh), which in Tehran comprised
representatives of the Ministry of the Interior, of the mca, of the national po
lice, of nirt, of Savak, and of the film exhibition industry. The committee
reviewed all requests and issued permits for film production, movie-house
construction, and film exhibitions.24 In cases of dispute, the High Council of
Exhibition (Showraye Aliye Nemayesh), consisting of the minister of the in
terior, the minister of culture and art, and the director of Savak, or their official proxies, were the final arbiters. All film-production and film-screening
permissions from the Exhibition Committee or from the High Council of Ex
hibition pertained to the entire country, consolidating the position of Tehran
both as the seat of national government and as the center of the film industry.
The regulations of 1950 specified building codes for constructing movie
houses, health and safety codes for their facilities, a rating system for classi
fying cinemas (high class, first class, and second class), and review and cen
sorship rules for judging the screenplays of the movies and the completed
films.25 Those regulations designed to improve the health, safety, and security
of moviegoers were progressive and much needed. Those designed to regulate
and control movie contents, on the other hand, were less progressive, politi
cally motivated, and highly controversial. Only the latter regulations are dealt
with here.26
184
Before screening, all filmsfiction and nonfictionhad to obtain permis

sion from the Exhibition Committee, including films that were to be shown
by mobile film units and by television. If the Exhibition Committee rejected
the screening of a film but an exhibitor went ahead with it, the culpable movie
house would be closed for one week; if the offense was repeated three times,
the cinema would be closed indefinitely. Likewise, if the Exhibition Com
mittee banned a portion of a movie but the exhibitor defied the committee
and screened it with the banned portion, the exhibition permit for the movie
would be revoked for the entire country. The Exhibition Committees permis
sions were for a specific period, and the committee could extend or revoke
those permissions as it saw fit, thus interjecting much uncertainty and con
tinual haggling and hailing into the relationship between the government
and the film industry. The committees power was quite intrusive, as it ex
tended to approving even the titles of the movies shown in Iran.
Article 55 of the regulations specified fifteen conditions under which en
tire films or portions thereof would be banned. The same conditions applied
to the screenplays of prospective movies. Since these regulations had a deci
sive impact on the politics and poetics of the moviesfilm plots, character
development, and genre formationt hey are translated below as they appear
in the regulations.
Conditions for Banning Entire Films or Portions of Films
1 Opposition to religious principles of, and propaganda against, the
Twelver Shiite branch of Islam
2 Opposition to constitutional monarchy and insulting the person of
the Shah or the royal family
3 Showing political revolutions anywhere in the world that lead to
removal of constitutional regimes
4 Inciting revolution or uprising against the government or against the
monarchic regime
5 Propagandizing in favor of any ideology or belief that is illegal in the
country
6 Letting murderers, criminals, or robbers who commit homicide go
unpunished
7 Showing uprising or revolt in a prison that results in the defeat of
security forces and in the prisoners victory
8 Provoking workers, students, peasants, and other social strata to fight
the security forces and to destroy or set fire to factories and educational
institutions
185
9 Opposing Irans national traditions and customs

10 Containing scenes that severely disgust, annoy, and affect spectators
11 Containing scenes in which illicit relations of married women with
men are shown, or scenes in which girls are sexually taken advantage
of, or scenes of nude women, particularly those showing their breasts
and private parts
12 Using obscene words, swearwords, disgusting expressions, and
parodying local and ethnic dialects, particularly during dubbing
13 Showing a woman and a man in the same bed, particularly if both are
naked and under bedcovers, that is, if they are engaged in lovemaking
14 Promoting moral corruption, public immodesty, and revealing secrets
of gangsterism
15 Fueling the fire of racial and religious difference and encouraging
prejudice and intolerance
Since movies underwent many changes during production, particularly given
the improvisational and contingent hybrid mode of production, films whose
screenplays were permitted would often fail to receive an exhibition permit
without further government censorship. In addition, although censorship
regulations were vague enough to afford flexibility of interpretation to both
censors and filmmakers, the ultimate power of decision making resided with
the censors. As a result of these unequal power relations, movie producers,
directors, and critics would blame the government for the form, content, and
low quality of the commercial movies, completely ignoring their own contri
butions to the low state of cinema. Some producers and critics claimed that
censorship was so pervasive and ironclad that no meaningful or critical mov
ies about any social strata could be made except about those involving tough
guys (lutis), velvet hat wearers ( jahels), and prostitutes because none of these
had professional associations or labor unions to defend them, nor government
connections to protect them (Baharlu 2000e/1379:327).
Mohammad Ali Samii, the head of the Exhibition Committee in 1958, jus
tified the governments strict censorship of domestic and foreign movies on
the grounds that movies represented the soul and ways of thinking of a
nation and that most Iranians were impressionable and uneducated about
film and tended to imitate what they saw on the screens (quoted in Omid
1995/1374:879). However, much of the censoring was for political and moral
reasons. A six-minute scene in which Bob Hope as the barber attempts to
murder the king in George Marshalls Monsieur Beaucaire (1946) was cen
sored for fear that it would give similar ideas to Iranians. The second trial of
186
Joan of Arc (played by Ingrid Bergman), lasting around thirty minutes, was
cut from Victor Flemings Joan of Arc (1948) because in it she defended her
uprising against the royalty. The lovemaking scene of the Spanish king in Da
vid Macdonalds Christopher Columbus (1949) was removed because Colum
bus attacks the king, throwing him to the ground. The swimming scene of
Samson and Delilah in Cecil B. DeMilles Samson and Delilah (1949) was cen
sored on account of nudity, and the films ending was censored because Sam
son destroys the temple and the palace. All references to the city of Tehran
in Frederick de Cordovas historical Arabian desert tale, The Desert Hawk
(1950), starring Yvonne De Carlo and Richard Greene, were blocked out in
geniously by placing wax on the soundtrack wherever the word Tehran was
uttered. This resulted in brief moments of complete silence throughout the
movie. Throughout the 1950s, many foreign movies were either censored or
banned altogether for their violations of public morality and government pol
icy, among them rock-and-roll movies and Soviet films deemed communist
propaganda (Omid 1995/1374:87475; Sadr 2003/1381:13233).
Politicized censoring initiated by an Exhibition Committee consisting
chiefly of government and military officials, most of whom were not well
versed in filmmaking, often resulted in significant elisions that made the
movie plots chaotic and comprehension difficult. The committee did not act
uniformly toward all films. Powerful commercial importers and exhibitors
with political connections were able to exert influence. Others sometimes vio
lated its censorship recommendations by showing the movies without the pre
scribed cutting, resulting in the confiscation of their films after a few nights
screening.
In 1958, the year in which Savak was officially created and its agents were
trained with American and Israeli assistance in techniques of intelligence and
torture (Rejali 1994:78), censorship assumed a more politicized and strin
gent character and Savaks influence began to surpass that of all government
agencies both in society and on the Exhibition Committee. Domestic movies
bore the brunt of the increased stringency. Almost all of the productions of
1958 had censorship problems in one way or another, writes Jamal Omid
(1995/1374:878). Samuel Khachikians Messenger from Heaven (Qasede Be
hesht, 1958), about a prominent businessman who goes bankrupt and has to
battle a smuggler, was banned five times. Reasons were perceived insults to
the Boy Scouts and to civil judges (Sadr 2003/1381:13435), two sacrosanct
Pahlavi-era institutions.27 Sometimes, censorship was initiated not to please
the government but to bring the movies into compliance with conservative
traditions. For example, two reels of Khatibis The Enemy of Women (Dosh
187
mane Zan, 1958), amounting to about twenty minutes, were removed because
a male teacher (played by Naser Malekmotii) taught in a girls school (Khatibi
1994:134). This sort of censoring went against the reality of the Iranian educa
tional system in which male teachers in urban all-girls schools were no anom
aly. The removal of so much footage from the movie created narrative chaos.
The film became a cause clbre not because of its high quality but because of
the cuts. From then on, regardless of their quality, censored movies acquired
a higher status among the public and intellectuals for they were perceived to
oppose a regime whose legitimacy had become suspect since the 1953 coup
that had restored it to power.
The realistic portrayal of the poor routinely resulted either in banning or
in the removal of offending scenes, often in ways that made the films incom
prehensible. Sakers Ray of Hope (Rowzanehye Omid, 1958), about the life of a
village migr in a poor district of Tehran, was cut heavily to remove scenes of
poverty, scenes integral to the story of a destitute character whose social world
was the poor South End. Without these scenes, the movie did not make sense,
but the cuts remained. Censorship-driven illegibility enhanced the existing
narrative chaos caused by the filmmakers improvisational practicesan im
portant feature of hybrid productions. The most celebrated example of this
was Gaffarys neorealist film South of the City (Jonube Shahr, 1958), which he
cowrote with Jalal Moqaddam. Gaffary and Moqaddam had researched the
overcrowded and dilapidated neighborhoods of Tehrans South End, includ
ing the fruit and vegetable markets, the bazaar, street vendors, and the low
brow restaurants and tough guy cafs for three months to create what Gaffary called a fictional but truthful screenplay about two toughs rivalry over
a caf dancer (figure 33). He shot the film outdoors in the South End, aided
by the famous tough-guy leader, Tayyeb Rezai, who in those days was appar
ently a staunch supporter of the Shahs regime. Tayyeb, as he was affection
ately known, and his toughs helped protect the film crew, clear the streets
for shooting, and control the crowd, duties the police were unable to perform
(Gaffary 198384:1011). After editing, the film was submitted to the mca for
its exhibition permit. The Exhibition Committee ordered the film cut, not be
cause the poor had lobbied hard to protect their image but because the gov
ernment, as the countrys biggest lobby, was protecting its own public pro
jection of Iran as modern and prosperous. The offending scenes of poverty
were removed, as well as references to executions. When the film opened in
six cinemas, spectators received it enthusiastically, before the police banned
it five days later (for reasons see below). Gaffary relates that he was in the the
ater behind two boys when one of them kept telling the other the films plot
188
33 The poster for Farrokh

Gaffarys heavily censored toughguy movie South of the City.
just ahead of the action. It turned out that he had seen the movie five times
in the few days that it had been screened. The film also made one-sixth of its
relatively large budget of three hundred thousand tomans in just those few
days (1314).
Deputy Prime Minister Ali Mansur reiterated in conversation the earlier
warnings Gaffary had received from others not to sleep at home the night the
movie was banned for fear that he would be arrested and mistreated. Subse
quently, Gaffary had to defend his film before some of the highest govern
ment officialsPrime Minister Manucher Eqbal, the minister of the interior,
Lieutenant General Batmanqelich, and the head of Savak, General Taymur
Bakhtiar, and his deputy, Brigadier General Alavi Kia. Apparently, the govern
ment feared that the films realistic depiction of the lower classes played into
the hands of the Soviets and of local communists. Further, the Savak deputy
director had a suspicion that the Soviets, who in those days were spending all
kinds of money to undermine some, even small, aspects of the regime, may
have financed the film. Gaffary denied this and presented documents show
ing that his company, Iran Nama Film, relied on a close-knit network of five
189
investors: himself, his father, his mother, his brother Hosainali, and an out
side partner, Siavash Emad. Apparently, the source of suspicion was Emad,
who had been a communist previously. His name was given to Savak by a
production manager, a former communist turned Savak snitch, with whom
Emad had had a fight. Gaffarys documentation of the films financing seems
to have satisfied the security agency, but the films banning by the police had
entrapped the government, for it could not release the film with rumors of
its revolutionary nature already circulating. The films screening, the secu
rity people feared, would attract throngs of people, causing some sort of ex
plosion (Gaffary 198384:1416).
As a result, South of the City remained banned for three years, and when
its negatives and six positive prints were finally returned to Gaffary, many
scenes were missing, never to be found. The film had been mutilated (Gaffary 1970:91). Civic pressure groups also exerted their own forms of censor
ship. Audiences had liked the original South of the City during its brief ini
tial run; however, as newspapers reported, some South End toughs beat up
and injured the actor who portrayed one of the luti protagonists because his
character had exhibited self-doubt and weakness. Apparently, they considered
a hesitating tough demeaning to their idealized projection of decisive lutis
(quoted in Sadr 2003/1381:18083). Given the aid that Tayyeb and his bud
dies had given the film, it is understandable that they felt invested in how the
movie portrayed them. They felt betrayed. To recoup his loss, Gaffary reedited
the movie, adding scenes of singing and dancing by famous lady entertain
ers of those years, and released it under a new title, Rivalry in the City (Reqa
bat dar Shahr, 1963). It did not do well at the box office. The new title signaled
the change of emphasis, from the gritty social milieu of the South End to the
action-filled plot of the toughs personal rivalry over a girl. The multiple cen
soring of this movie made the original, which was never shown again, the
celebrated ur-version. Censorship thus elevated the status of South of the City
to the point of mythologizing it, since the quality of its original could never
be verified. Apparently, to compensate for the way Gaffarys film had been de
stroyed, Savak decided to help the director by introducing him to major com
panies that needed freelance filmmakers: the Tehran Cement Company and
the National Iranian Oil Company, for which he made several institutional
and documentary films (Gaffary 198384:1718).
Critics and film periodicals, particularly Setareh Sinema (Movie Star),
roundly criticized the declarations of the head of the Exhibition Committee,
Samii, justifying censorship and the actions of the committee. The maga
zine admitted that censorship was needed and that all countries engaged in
190
it, but it questioned the arbitrary and haphazard rulings of the committee
and of other censorship apparatuses, which censored not only movies but all
cultural productions, including radio, television, the press, theater, and pop
music. Stung by the criticism, Samii astutely showed two local commercial
moviesEbrahim Baqeris Sea Tulip (Lalehye Dariai, 1961) and Salar Eshqis
and Henrik Estepanians Returned from Paris (Az Paris Bargashteh, 1959)to
an invited group of producers, directors, and writers and sought their advice.
Ironically, they unanimously voted to ban both movies permanently because
they considered them to be doggerel and unsuitable for public viewing. They
argued that censoring bad movies was necessary to raise the level of film
making in the country; however, they contended that the Exhibition Commit
tee often licensed low-quality entertaining movies and censored high-quality
films that either showed Iranian social realities or criticized them.
The chaotic and unstable leadership of the Exhibition Committee exacer
bated the arbitrary application of the vague regulations of 1950, adding to nar
rative chaos exhibition chaos. This was evident in the revocation of licenses
for films that had already received exhibition permits and had been screened,
the licensing of previously banned films, the exhibition of films with previ
ously banned scenes left intact, and the progressive piecemeal censorship of
films after each nights exhibition. Perennial critics of the commercial cin
ema strongly attacked the various censorship regulations, institutions, pro
cesses, and practices. Amirhushang Kavusi called for the total dismantling
of censorship institutions. Parviz Davai characterized the Exhibition Com
mittees authoritarian actions as extremist, subversive, and intolerable and
called for the removal of incompetent censors and irrelevant regulations. The
commercial movie producer Misaqiyeh suggested in derision that movies
should carry the title produced and directed by members of the Exhibition
Committee of the Ministry of the Interior because of its heavy interference
in the movies (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:88183).
In the fall of 1964, the mca consolidated all matters pertaining to film pro
duction, regulation, supervision, and censorship in its General Department of
Cinema Affairs (Edarehye Kolle Omurate Sinemai). Censorship responsibil
ity moved there from the Ministry of the Interior (Nilla Cram Cooks Depart
ment of Performances). Either to silence recalcitrant critics or to truly change
the censorship system, Kavusi was appointed to head the Office of Supervi
sion and Exhibition. This was the name given to the former Exhibition Com
mittee, which had been transferred to the mca. Whatever the motivations of
the government and of Kavusi himself, he succeeded in having the cabinet ap
prove in July 1966 several sets of regulations governing permissions to pro
191
duce films, to exhibit films and slides, and to operate movie houses, which
governed the industry throughout the remaining years of the Pahlavi regime.
He was able to introduce some novel elements, but in the main the regula
tions, which consisted of twenty-seven articles, remained similar to those of
1950 but were more stringent, demonstrating the triumph of authoritarian
ism. I list them fully here:
Regulations Governing the Exhibition of Films and Slides, July 1966
The screening of parts or all of a film that contains the following items
is prohibited in the entire country.
1 Insulting monotheism, religions, holy books, and prophets, saints, and
things held sacrosanct
2 Insulting the true religion of Islam and the Twelver Shiite faith and its
saints and those things held sacred by it
3 Casting aspersion on and defaming the countrys minority religions
and beliefs
4 Insulting the lofty status of the Shah or the glorious royal family
5 Encouraging and inciting any uprising or riots against the
constitutional monarchy or the government
6 Insulting any government officials, whether civilian or military
7 Insulting the countries with which Iran has friendly relations or
insulting their historical or national treasures to the point of offending
them
8 Propagandizing any ideology or belief that is illegal
9 Scenes in which assassination against leaders or members of
government are shown for the obvious intention of inciting such
actions
10 Scenes showing uprising against the security, disciplinary, and military
forces in which these forces are defeated
11 In general, any scene that is against or opposed to those things that
Iran has held historically and nationally sacred and lofty and which
besmirches the international status and reputation of the country
either in the past or in the present
12 Encouraging evil and inhumane acts such as betrayal, criminality,
espionage, adultery, homosexuality, theft, bribery, and violating other
peoples rights in such a way that lacks positive and humanistic
outcome, or in such a way that exonerates or justifies the bad and
inhumane acts
13 Showing in any form and expression, explicit or implicit, preference
192
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
for, or victory of bad over good, indecent over decent, inhumane over
humane, and wickedness over virtue and piety
Scenes and details of sexual relations designed either to satisfy prurient
desires or to attract audiences
Revealing those parts of the bodies of men, women, boys, and girls that
should remain covered in such a way that offends public morality
Making fun of the language or dialects of Iranian ethnoreligious
minorities or of those living in the provinces for the sole purpose of
laughing at or humiliating them and in such a way that leads to no
positive outcome (in Persian-language films, whether made in Iran or
imported)
Uttering obscene swearwords, phrases, or sounds and showing scenes
of ruins and underdevelopment and people with torn clothing to hurt
the prestige of Iran and Iranians
Scenes that incite racial and ethnic differences that serve no purpose
other than promoting discrimination
Scenes that demonstrate the details of murders or scenes of killing of
domestic animals or torturing of animals, and in general scenes of
animal abuse that can cause disgust and revulsion
Films that in part or in whole are without value and tend to lower
audience taste toward accepting doggerel fare
Films that offer inaccurate geographical, historical, and other
information that is misleading from a cultural viewpoint
Film prints that because of technical shortcomings in the image or
soundtrack are difficult to see and to hear and cause discomfort in
spectators
Old nitrate films stored in vaults whose careless handling and
screening can cause fire, explosion, and suffocation
Exporting Iranian films abroad for the purpose of selling them or
entering them into international or regional festivals requires a new
review process and a new license.
Invited by the Ministry of Culture and Art, the Ministry of Education
will send representatives of parents and teachers associations to the
mca to determine which films should be prohibited to girls and boys
who are under eighteen years of age and forward their opinion to the
Office of Exhibition and Supervision.
Films that are so rated must display the phrase Prohibited for people
under the age 18 in their exhibition license, and exhibitors must
display the same phrase in their advertising in cinemas, on television,
193
in the press, and on posters, billboards and theater marquees. They

must also strictly prevent such people from entering the cinemas.
27 Deviants from any of these articles will be punished according to the
article 14 of the regulations for issuing exhibition permits. (Omid
1995/1374:88586)
Similar to the regulations of 1950, several articles of the later regulations
(nos. 13) emphasized respect for the dominant Twelver Shiite branch of Is
lam but added monotheism and the protection of minority religions, dem
onstrating an expansion of the state-protected religions under Mohammad
Reza Shah. These progressive measures were designed to reduce religious
intolerance by the dominant Muslims. Reflecting the increasingly authori
tarian regime of the Shah, several articles were hardened (411), prohibiting
any kind of affront to the Shah, his family, the government, government officials, friendly countries, or Iranian history, as well as any successful upris
ings and assassination attempts against the monarchy, the government, or the
coercive state apparatuses. The moralism and didacticism of the regulations
were consolidated and intensified in several articles (1215) in which specific
practices and relationships were singled out for condemnation. In a decid
edly Manichaean worldview, good was to always triumph over evil. Articles
promoted an overarching Iranian national identity by prohibiting the mov
ies from mocking or provoking sectarian, regional, ethnic, racial, and class
differences and prejudices inimical to national honor. New articles promoted
the technical quality of the movies (2023). To prevent unauthorized films
from leaving the country, article 24 regulated the export and entry of domes
tic movies into international festivals. Other articles created a rating system
for films for underage spectators (2526).
Like his predecessor Samii, Kavusi felt that censorship was most needed
to raise the quality of films and to educate Iranian audiencesimproving the
textual, authorial, and spectatorial formations. Yet despite these new regula
tions and Kavusis attempts at streamlining and systematizing the censorship
process and at promoting higher-quality productions, the entrenched censor
ship bureaucracy and commercial relations continued their hegemony, and
low-quality, worthless, and valueless (bi arzesh) films continued to receive
production and exhibition permits. This situation undermined the new cen
sorship regime, as did the bizarre fact that the mca was in charge both of pro
moting films and of censoring them, particularly when it censored movies
whose production it had previously licensed. Setareh Sinema magazine com
plained that an institution whose function is to promote the art of cinema
194
cannot at the same time judge films using the microscope of morality, reli
gious ethics, and politics (Omid 1995/1374:88687). Kavusi resigned from his
post in 1967 and was replaced by Seyyed Ebrahim Saleh, who remained in the
position until the revolution of 197879.
During Salehs term, the paternalistic tendencies of the censorship appara
tuses increased in line with the authoritarianism of the Shahs regime. Cen
sorship became less a means to enhance the quality of the movies than to
ensure a politically correct and submissive cinema. This resulted in two al
most simultaneous developments. One was the production of more violent
and sexually charged but politically safe, escapist, and melodramatic commer
cial movies, such as the stewpot and tough-guy films, which in a few years
would bring revolutionary wrath down on the movie houses as emblems of
decadent Western influences. The other was the production of new-wave films
by a younger generation of auteurs, leading to a progressive dissident cinema
whose narrative engines would predict, or rehearse, the rising tide of an op
position and a revolution yet to come.
195
4
fa mily mel odr a m a s
a nd comedies
The Stewpot Movie Genre
ccording to the veteran commercial film critic, producer, and film maga zine publisher Ali Mortazavi, the designation of stewpot films or
meat-and-potatoes films ( filme abgushti) began with Siamak Yasamis Qa
runs Treasure (1965), in particular with a celebrated sequence in which two
male buddies avidly devour lamb-and-potato stew, abgusht, the traditional
lower-class meal, while singing a happy, humorous, and danceable tune (Na
ficy 1984a:1).1 This movies screening in half a dozen Tehran cinemas helped
consolidate some of the existing stylistic, thematic, generic, and industrial
conventions of filmfarsi (ff) and introduced new generic elements, which to
gether were solidified by the films immense popularity into the conventions
of Iranian melodramas, particularly the stewpot genre.
Siamak Yasamis Qaruns Treasure (Ganje Qarun, 1965)

Yasami had a university degree in French literature, and while holding his job
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he wrote and directed commercial movies,
as well as translating stories and novels serialized in newspapers. He began
Qaruns Treasure after the tremendous commercial success of his two previ
ous movies, Twentieth-Century Gentleman (Aqaye Qarne Bistom, 1964) and
Champion of Champions (Qahremane Qahremanan, 1965), in which he had

tried out some of the characters and narrative elements that were refined in
Qaruns Treasure. Qaruns Treasure opened in November 1965 in six Tehran
cinemas simultaneously and broke all previous box-office records. It was on
the screens for more than sixty days in each cinema, where an unprecedented
870,000 of Tehrans population of over 1 million saw it, garnering 2,500 mil
lion tomans. The films enormous success caused a flurry of productions, and
nine Tehran movie houses under construction sped up their completion to
handle the new films then in the pipeline, riding on the coattails of Qaruns
Treasure (Omid 1995/1374:37475).
The film is about Qarun (Croesus), a rich man who abandoned his wife
and son years earlier to follow his pleasurable pursuits. In reference to the leg
endary wealth of King Croesus, who reigned from 560 to 546 bc over Lydia
in western Asia Minor, it begins with Qaruns arrival in a chauffeured Ca
dillac at his palatial home. Obsequious male servants greet him at the door
and usher him through a gigantic anteroom into a living room, where they
remove his jacket and guide him to a dining hall, where he sits alone at the
head of an enormous table. These scenes are filmed in long shots and long
takes designed to impress. Doctors have limited Qaruns intake to a strange
diet of bits of bread and tightly measured amounts of water. He is suffering
from more than physical ailments. He is adrift in the autumn of his life. He
moralizes to his butler, Life is meaningless to me. Although I possess every
thing, I do not have what I need. Money is to make a better life, not the other
way around. That he has no heir troubles him, as does his guilt at expelling
his innocent wife and son from his home some twenty-five years earlier.
Although he deeply regrets that action, he does not specify the reasons for it.
Qarun orders that his private plane be readied for a trip to Isfahan, mysteri
ously bidding his loyal butler farewell as though he is going on a final journey.
In Isfahan, Qaruns despondency overtakes him and, one night, he at
tempts suicide by throwing himself off a bridge into the Zayandeh River.
Two male passers-by notice the incident, save the drowning man, and take
him to their humble home. The two buddies, a mechanic named Carefree Ali
(Ali Bigham, played by Mohammad Ali Fardin) and a street toy-seller named
Hasan the Rattler (Hasan Jeghjegheh, played by Taqi Zohuri), live with Alis
mother (Iran Qaderi). Their one-room place is favorably contrasted with Qa
runs opulent palace because it is richer in the authenticity, honesty, and hu
manity of its poor but hardworking occupants who faithfully retain traditions.
They have little furniture, sit on the floor, eat on a cloth spread on the floor,
and Ali calls his mother naneh, an old-fashioned, lower-class designation.
198
f am i l y m e l o dra ma s a n d comedi es
34 The primary scene of toughguy movies: male bonding over a

meal of abgusht (lamb stew) eaten
with gusto, which gave the name
to the stewpot genre. Happy Ali
(Mohammad Ali Fardin, left) and
Hasan the Rattler (Taqi Zohuri)
in Siamak Yasamis Qaruns
Treasure. Frame enlargement.
They exchange Qaruns wet clothes for Carefree Alis spares, which makes
Qarun one of them. Neither Qarun nor Ali is aware of the others true iden
tity (or of their father-son kinship) until much later. Carefree Alis mother
sets the dinner cloth on the floor and offers them the lowly but tasty abgusht,
setting into motion the celebrated sequence that led to the generic moniker
abgushti genre: stewpot films. Qarun looks on while Ali and Hasan prepare
the stew by shredding the meat and mashing it with potatoes and chickpeas
(figure 34). In the meantime, they also try to cheer him up with a pop song.
Delivered artfully by Fardin, it recounts the story of rescuing Qarun from
drowning and urging him to be merry and to forget the troubles that drove
him to suicide (among its lyrics: beat the drum of profligacy, which has its
own charm). Ali lip-synchs all the songs, which are actually performed by
the famous singer Iraj.
After the song and some extra goading by his newfound buddies, involving
colorful tough-guy expressions like abgusht bezan, roshan mishi, roughly
translated as eat up the stew, youll cheer up, Qarun, who has just been
anointed with the tough-guy moniker of Esmal the Brainless (Emsal Bi
mokh), relents and begins to eat, violating his former strict diet. They eat
the stew heartily in traditional fashion with their fingers, particularly Care
free Ali and Hasan the Rattler, who take huge bites, loading up their mouths
while talking, and licking their greasy fingersall in an exaggerated display
of oral pleasure.
A combination of elements led to the popularity of this sequence, spawn
ing whole movies. The social disparity between the millionaire and the hum
ble workers is equalized when Qarun wears the clothes of the latter and par
takes of their meal. The poor are valorized at the expense of the rich. This
f a mi ly melo d r amas and c o med ies
199
sequence also privileges traditional customs and oralityt he latter in its wid
est senseinvolving the sharing of traditional meals, male bonding by means
of tough-guy argot, communitarian singing and dancing, and the spouting of
happy-go-lucky philosophy passed on by oral tradition (at another meal, Ali
tells Qarun his philosophy: Eat, sleep, bum around, and have fun). The rest
of the film repeatedly corroborates these elements.
The millionaire Qarun, now masquerading as Esmal the Brainless, roams
the streets of Isfahan with Hasan the Rattler, who takes pleasure in selling
rattles and toys, a pleasure he displays by dancing with his full toy tray on his
head while singing a celebratory song about his wandering life of vending.
Carefree Ali also sings a ballad in which he again spells out his street-smart,
carefree philosophy based in oral tradition. Its refrain, Dont be sad, life con
sists of only two days, each of which should be enjoyed, urges spontaneity
and improvisationtwo important characteristics of the commercial cine
mas production mode. In this song, he refers to the riches of the fabled Qa
run of folk tales to provide a moralistic gloss about basic social disparities: I
dont want Qaruns treasures / I dont want wealth . . . / a small corner of this
world / a loaf of bread and a bowl of water is sufficient for me. These songs
not only reiterate the films pleasurable narrative elements but also express
the personal feelings of the protagonists, the philosophy of street-smart tough
guys, and the modus operandi of the commercial cinema.
In the meantime, Shirin (Foruzan), the shapely daughter of the rich
Zarparast family, rejects Faramarz (Arman), the fianc her parents had cho
sen for her. Her farfetched excuse for rejecting him is that she has met a
much richer candidate, Qaruns son in India, with whom she has fallen in
love and whom she is planning to wed as soon as he arrives in Tehran. Hear
ing of this better option, her greedy parents immediately and ungraciously
expel Faramarz from their home, causing Faramarz to develop a grudge that
becomes the films complicating factor throughout.
As it turns out, Shirins story is a lie, designed to rid her of the undesirable
suitor. Now, she must either confess to her lie or produce Qaruns son. For
tuitously, driving around in her bewildered state, she runs into her solution
by literally running down Qarun and his two buddies in the street. This and
another accidental run-in, in which the three buddies save Shirin from the
clutches of the jilted Faramarz and his hooligan friends, bring Shirin close
enough to them for her to confess her dilemma, requesting their help. They
immediately concoct a plan to produce Qaruns son.
The next day, Ali arrives at the Tehran Hilton Hotel, pretending to be Qa
runs son returning from India, dressed in a white Nehru suit and hat, while
200
35 Shirin (Foruzan), wearing a

tough-guy fedora, does a sexy
jaheli song-and-dance by the
pool for Happy Ali in Qaruns
Treasure. Frame enlargement.
Hasan, dressed in a goofy British safari outfit (shorts and a pith helmet), acts
as his comic translator. Qarun himself pretends to be their chauffeur. At the
hotel they meet with Shirin and her parents, where much silly verbal comedy
ensues that makes fun of the accent of Indians speaking Persian. In this sec
tion, the film clearly enters the realm of fantasy, where transgressions of all
sorts are imaginedpoor becoming rich, self becoming other, love winning
over traditional arranged marriage, and alienated family members reconcil
ing. Fantasy pays off, as the two lovers are soon alone in Shirins house. Ali is
in the pool showing off his athletic agility by swimming and somersaulting
from the diving board (Fardin was a champion wrestler before turning to act
ing), while Shirin cheerfully demonstrates to him her dancing and singing
abilities. At first, dressed in a sari, she does a song-and-dance number pat
terned after the Indian masala films; then she does a sexy tough-guy song-
and-dance number, dressed in a tight dress and wearing the black tough-guy
fedora hat (figure 35).
When Alis mother enters Qaruns palatial home for a visit, she undergoes
multiple shocks of recognition, whereby her memory of the house, her for
mer identity as Qaruns wife, and her name are restored. For the first time in
the film, her name changes from the generic naneh, Alis mother, to Zinat,
Qaruns wife. As is appropriate to a patriarchal society, she never achieves an
independent identity of her own; she is always known by her relationship to
a man. Qarun apologizes for abandoning her and Ali, without specifying the
reasons, and asks for her forgiveness. Zinat is willing to forgive and forget,
but she warns him that Ali is very angry about having been abandoned and
that if he knew that Qarun was his father, he would never have rescued him
from the river.
201
Another session of musical performance takes place in the garden to cele

brate Ali and Shirins engagement, in which Ali, still dressed in his Nehru
outfit, does a comic dance and sings a silly song. When Faramarz, the jilted
suitor, attempts to debunk him as Qaruns imposter son, Qarun arrives on
the scene, this time as himself, hand in hand with his newly found wife, Alis
mother. He embraces Ali warmly. The inspired close-up, showing father and
son hugging hard, condenses not only their extradiegetic back history of fam
ily abandonment but also the history of their diegetic mistaken identities. Ali,
who thinks that the man he is hugging is Emsal the Brainless in Qarun dis
guise, is delighted with his clever performance, while Qarun, who knows the
true identity of Ali as his son, is crying from happiness for having found him
at last. The two go around and around for several turns, each time revealing
one side of this Janus-faced situationone face joyful, the other tearful.
When later a disbelieving Ali realizes the true identity of his father, he re
bukes him for having abandoned his family. They all gather for a meal re
sembling the earlier scene, except that this time Qarun appears as himself,
accompanied by Shirin. This time, all the participants are who they say they
are, there are no subterfuges, masquerades, false pretenses, or mistaken iden
tities. Punctuating the films moralistic philosophy, both Shirin and Qarun
declare that they have given up their worldly riches for loveone to gain a
husband, the other to regain his son. Even Alis anger at his father evaporates
when Faramarz and his gang severely beat Qarun. Ali at first hesitates to in
tervene, but when his father, in a tight close-up, calls out to him, my son, Ali
comes to his senses and shouts back my father in a similar, overdramatic
close-up and rushes to his rescue. The fight scene, like the others in the film,
seems to have been filmed in fast motion or with a strobe light to create speed
and excitement; however, the result is more hectic and chaotic than exciting.
In the end, having defeated the jilted and vengeful suitor, the members of the
new familyQarun, Ali, and Shirin, sans Alis mothertriumphantly walk
together shoulder to shoulder.
The Hybrid Production ModeTextual Formations

The hybridity of this production mode was dense and multilayered. Having
examined its contextual formations in the previous chapter, here follows an
investigation of its textual formations, with emphasis on filmfarsis stewpot
genre.
202
Artisanal Multifunctionality
In terms of authorial formation, like the artisanal filmmakers of the previ
ous eras, many above-the-line production personnel of commercial movies
were multifunctional, sometimes simultaneously serving as producers, di
rectors, writers, and on-camera talents of a single film. Yasami, for exam
ple, produced, directed, and cowrote the screenplay (with Ebrahim Zamani
Ashtiani) for Qaruns Treasure.2 Multifunctionality allowed directors to control
their films, improvise better, cut corners, and keep production costs down,
so that even a week or two of receipts sufficed to generate profits. Artisanal
multifunctionality comes through in the following excerpt from an interview
with the renowned comic Nosratollah Vahdat: The working principle is that I
perform multiple functions simultaneously, the fees for which I pour into my
own pocket instead of into the pockets of others. I am a producer and I know
how to spend money. I am a screenplay writer, I double my own voice in post
dubbing, and I produce and direct my films in my own Naqshe Jahan Studio,
so I dont have to spend money on film equipment. As a result, the production
costs of my films are low. I work very hard sometimes and that is why I cant
make more than one film a year (quoted in Arian 2001/1380:68).
Reza Safai, another ff filmmaker, was very prolific: he directed fifty-two
movies in a seventeen-year career that ran from 1961 to 1978. In addition,
he wrote the screenplays for twenty, he produced fourteen, edited many, and
even starred in several. In the most productive and industrializing period of
cinema, he made more: In 1969, he made five movies and in 1972 and 1974
four movies each (Safai 2001/1380:52). Another indication of the industrializ
ing tendency, in addition to increased output, was an acceleration of the pro
duction pace. Ironically, at first this development was encouraged by vestigial
artisanal tendencies. For example, because of his multifunctionality and the
weakness of civil society formations, such as film industry unions and en
forced labor laws, Safai reduced his total shooting days by increasing the work
length of each day. In one perhaps unusual but not unheard of case, he got the
cast and crew of The Twentieth-Century Tough (Lutiye Qarne Bistom, 1968)
to film for forty-eight hours nonstop in the Nobel Hotel in Isfahan, which
he had rented, shooting an incredible 40 percent of the film. He filmed the
entire movie in just nine days, edited it in seven, and dubbed it in two (Safai
2001/1380:8283). Evidence of his frugality shows in his filming ratio, which
generally, as in the case of Golnesa in Paris (Golnesa dar Paris, 1974), was one
to one and occasionally two to one. He also created the publicity trailers for
203
his movies from the outtakes (138). Another strategy that he and other prolific
filmmakers employed was to interlace their movies, that is, while the footage
of one film was being processed, such as that of his Baby Dandy (Jujeh Fokoli,
1974), he filmed another movie, Hosain the Cop (Hosain Azhdan, 1974). Often
sets or stage properties owned by one studio would migrate from film to film
shot in that studio.
As male genres, stewpot and tough-guy movies, two key genres of ff melo
dramas, were particularly favorable to the multifunctionality of male super
stars, such as Fardin and Naser Malekmotii, who produced, directed, and
wrote the screenplays for many of the films in which they appeared. Fardin, for
example, acted in scores of stewpot films, produced several, directed eleven,
and took credit for the screenplays of at least six.3 Parviz Khatibis multifunc
tionality extended far beyond the cinema. He was essentially a comic lyricist
and writer who also acted in the theater, in movies, and in radio variety shows.
In addition, he wrote vaudeville forestage skits, which were performed before
film screenings or at intermissions (pishpardeh), as well as theatrical plays, ra
dio plays, television scripts, and movie screenplays. He was relentlessly and
pervasively productive, as he also wrote the lyrics for many pop songs, pub
lished his poems in periodicals, and wrote for and edited film, humor, and po
litical magazines (among them, Alame Sinema, Towfiq, Haji Baba, and Bah
ram). Finally, he established his own movie studio, Alborz Films (in 1951) and
produced and directed several successful commercial movies and two pro-
government features, Noqlali (1954) and Pishehvaris Uprising (Qiame Pishe
hvari, 1954). During the oil nationalization crisis of the 1950s and the cia/
m16 coup, Khatibi was arrested as a journalist (the publisher of Haji Baba)
for his support of Mosaddeq and imprisoned in solitary confinement (Omid
1995/1374:233, 242). He was soon released.4
When multifunctionality, a feature of the hybrid production mode, com
bined with media cross-fertilization, the impact of key individualssuch as
Ismail Kushan, Fardin, and Khatibion the commercial cinema extended
vertically to all aspects of the film industry and dispersed horizontally across
many media and cultural formations. Such multifunctionality in Iran, born
out of necessity, was the obverse of the division of labor and the specialization
of tasks, which were the engines of the highly industrialized cinema and the
studio system in the West. Multifunctionality allowed resourceful and nimble
producers, directors, and stars to pull a movie together fast and on the cheap
despite (or because of) a dearth of professional means. Yet the approach also
had some serious negative consequences. The accumulation of responsibili
ties by a few people in the production of a film and the lack of clarity in lines
204
of authority adversely affected industry professionalization. By blurring lines

of responsibility and authority, multifunctionality encouraged an existing ten
dency to blame others. Even producers and directors at the helm tended to
blame others inside or outside the production.5 As generalists, most of the
multifunctional directors perhaps knew a little bit about a lot; their liability
was that their knowledge, particularly about the technical and aesthetic sides
of film production, was often rudimentary. Because of their involvement in
many aspects of their multiple movies, they did not have the time to widen
their horizons and to educate themselves by viewing other peoples works or
by reading for future projects. They had no time to think, reflect, or revise, for
they were in constant activity. As a result, their approach to cinema was prac
tical and utilitarian, not intellectual, and their films kept repeating the same
formulas. A good example, in addition to Safai, is Kushan, who despiteand
because ofdirecting numerous movies in the 1950s and the early 1960s,
continued to make movies that exhibited the narrative chaos and time-and-
space confusions of novice filmmakers, such as in his Amir Arsalan remake
of 1966. Artisanal multifunctionality goes a long way to account for the gen
erally low and uneven quality of the commercial movies, particularly of ff.
The Star System

The stars defined commercial movies, helping domestic films compete with
imports. This claim is underscored by some mca statistics of 1975, which
showed that 64 percent in a Tehran audience survey stated that they went to
the movies because of the stars. However, the stars also represented the big
gest cost; in the 1970s, the fees of some superstars consumed nearly half of
a films budget, typically estimated to be around seven hundred thousand to
mans (Moazezinia 1999/1378:65). At the height of his popularity, Fardin typi
cally received three hundred thousand tomans, while the directors of his mov
ies received between twenty-five thousand and sixty thousand tomans and
screenplay writers only ten thousand to fifteen thousand tomans (Baharlu
2000e/1379:330, 347). The multifunctionality of the stars turned them into
the architects both of their filmic personae and of the cinemas success. Far
dins real-life status as a former world-class wrestler and his dashing, tough-
guy but loveable screen persona, which took off with Qaruns Treasure and was
honed in sixty-t wo features, made him so popular that a genre, Fardin films,
( filmhaye fardini) was named for him.
The protagonists he played and the stories in which he appeared evolved
over the years, but their essential attributes remained. Fardin generally played
205
a good-looking, debonair, physically and mentally agile, happy-go-lucky, wise

cracking, and gung-ho leading man who was both romantic and tough. He
was fearless when confronted with dangers, bullies, and rich enemies and
fun-loving, humble, and endearing with his buddies and with women. In ad
dition, he was content and patient with life and kind and compassionate to the
weak (Baharlu 2000e/1379:19). Almost all these characteristics fit the Care
free Ali character in Qaruns Treasure. Fardin proved enormously important
to the financial health of the film industry and to the psychology of the spec
tators. As a hero he expressed the desires and aspirations of the spectators
and assuaged their worries. In the struggles between these two tendencies he
functioned both as an instrument and a pretext, a star and an ordinary per
son, a spectacle and a representation, and finally an opiate and a cure (Sadr
2003/1381:184).
With the onset of the revolution of 197879 and the establishment of the
Islamic Republic, Fardin was sidelined, though not officially banned like most
Pahlavi-era commercial movie stars. After a long period of unemployment, he
opened a confectionery store in Tehran and led a private life. In 1997, at age
sixty-seven, he wrote a desperate and sad letter to the minister of culture and
Islamic guidance, Ataollah Mohajerani, and to his counterpart across town,
Mohammad Javad Larijani, the director general of Voice and Vision of the Is
lamic Republic (vvir), in which he attempted to rewrite his history to curry
favor with the new regime. He claimed that he had always made films that
were in step with the peoples beliefs, something for which he had paid
dearly by becoming an object of criticism and ridicule for the secular crit
ics and film establishment of the Pahlavi period. Pointing to the fact that he
had been sidelined for more years after the revolution (twenty years) than he
had been involved in Pahlavi-era cinema (eighteen years), he suggested that
these fallow years away from cinema should be considered sufficient punish
ment for whatever he may have done wrong. He pleaded with the authori
ties of the Islamic government to allow him to return to cinema, so that the
current and future generations may view the Fardin of today on the screens
(quoted in Fayyazi 2000:15159). It is not known what kind of response he re
ceived from the authorities, but he did not act in any further movies. Yet he
remained immensely popular with his fans as a former wrestling champion
and a movie star, as demonstrated by the passionate outpouring of around
twenty thousand people who mourned his death in April 2000 in the streets
of Tehrana situation that the official media ignored while reformist papers
played it up.6 This is all the more significant considering that he had not acted
for more than two decades, during which time none of his movies could be
206
shown. One reviewer in a reformist paper claimed that Fardin had entered the
collective memory of Iranians (Qasemfar 2000/1379:12), while liberal film
magazines devoted special editorials and articles to his contributions both to
sports and to cinema.7
Some of the stars, such as Fardin and Behrouz Vossoughi, owned film
studios and movie houses and produced their own movies; they chose their
costars and controlled scripts and setups; and they had the final cut. Vos
soughi became a star with his breakthrough performance in Masud Kimi
ais Qaisar (1968) and doubled his salary for his subsequent moviesfrom
80,000 to 150,000 tomans. By the early 1970s, he had gained control over his
films from Ali Abbasi, the producer, and Amir Naderi, the director, of Tang
sir (1972) (Zeraati 2004:22534). Yet becoming a star brought responsibili
ties, including the promotion of the movies. Vossoughi was recruited to tour
with Qaisar and its director, Masud Kimiai, in the provinces to promote it. In
Isfahan, the stars fans crowded around the Shah Abbas Hotel (now Abbasi
Hotel) where he was staying, breaking some of the windows and doors to see
him. In Tabriz, near Vossoughis birthplace of Khoi, the wild, all-male crowd
was so enthusiastic that despite the presence of the police chief and an en
tourage of policemen guarding him, the star was raised overhead and carried
aloft from the hotel to the Metropole Cinema. During the screening, specta
tors preferred to look at the star in the cinema rather than at his image on the
screen. Admitting that his presence had blocked the streets and made control
of the city difficult, the police chief was forced to whisk Vossoughi and the di
rector out of town on a military plane. 8
The commercial cinemas star system was highly genre driven, with each
genre supplying its own stars. This system, of course, involved women as well.
Some of them were prominent and serious screen actors: Fakhri Khorvash,
Parvaneh Masumi, Susan Taslimi, and Jamileh Shaikhi, took dramatic parts,
acted in stage productions as well as in films, and were selective about roles.
These women achieved prominence in the intellectual new-wave cinema that
emerged in the 1970s alongside ff. Yet however respected these women were
as actors, their impact was limited to their on-screen presence and magazine
covers. They did not have the mens power and privilege of multifunctional
ity, in other words, the power to shape their movies or the film industry. Only
one woman is credited with directing a fiction feature film during the entire
Pahlavi era (in fact, during the entire history of Iranian cinema up to the revo
lution of 197879): Shahla Riahi (ne Qodratzaman Vafadoust), a commercial
cinema actress who directed and acted in Marjan (1956).9
Another group of female entertainers and movie stars appeared in ff com
207
edies, stewpot movies, and tough-guy films in lightweight roles in which they
danced and sang, sometimes in cafs and cabarets. These often performed
sexually suggestive numbers for a delighted diegetic, usually male-only, au
dience. A leering, voyeuristic, male-driven camera gaze filmed their perfor
mances, which either isolated their legs, breasts, and faces into fragmented
fetish objects or tilted and panned across their scantily clad bodies as though
caressing them by hand. Foruzan, who appears as Shirin in Qaruns Treasure,
can serve as one example. Her most suggestive dance is the one she performs
poolside in the tough-guy style for the benefit of her fianc, Carefree Ali.
Some of the filming occurs from Alis low-angle point of view inside the pool.
Newspaper and fan magazine accounts often referred to these entertainers
in breathless terms, translated from American fan magazines and Hollywood
publicists, as movie stars (setarehye sinema) and sex-bombs (bombe jazebehye
jensi). With the emergence of a nationwide mass media in the 1970s, some of
these stars and starlets were recruited to sell consumer goods in advertise
ments shown in cinemas, on radio and television, and in the press. These
stars, whose fame generally derived less from their acting abilities than from
their sexual appeal, epitomized the turning of women into sex objects. They
facilitated the creation of an integrated entertainment industry in Iran, link
ing the movies with pop culture and consumer goods. By the late 1970s, the
movies had become a target of revolutionary wrath, and such entertainers, re
designated once again as motreb (cheap dancer-entertainer), would be banned.
Because these womens ticket to fame was their youth, the careers of ac
tresses were short and crowded. For example, during only one decade, be
tween 1959 and 1969, Sohaila acted in forty-two movies, Nadereh in forty-
one, Shahin in twenty-eight, Puri Banai in twenty-t wo, and Shahla (Riahi) in
eighteen (Naficy 1991:132). In a fourteen-year movie career before the revolu
tion, Foruzan (who appeared in Qaruns Treasure) acted in fifty-six features,
starring in most, many of them stewpot and tough-guy films, with her costars
Fardin and Malekmotii, several of them directed by Yasami, who also made
Qaruns Treasure. This amounts to an average of 3.8 movies per year, but in
some years she was even more active. In four of these years, 196872, she
acted in eight movies annually, demonstrating extraordinary productivity and
popularity.
Interestingly, unlike the men, many female stars of ff movies used only
one screen nameForuzans real name was Parvin Khairbakhsh. In a society
that considered womens work as public entertainers immoral, this was cam
ouflage; it also created a mysterious and alluring screen persona. Perhaps,
too, it stemmed from the uncertainties of Iranians political life and their
208
penchant for veiling; pseudonyms and camouflaged identities had wide cur
rency. But fan magazines glorified the women and dredged up their private
lives for public consumption, defeating camouflage. Perhaps using a single
pseudonym simply acknowledged the fundamental masquerade at the heart
of cinema.
Finally, there was a third category of women movie stars. These were pro
fessional singers, dancers, and entertainers, who also sometimes acted in
commercial movies, usually as themselves performing for diegetic audiences.
They regularly appeared in stewpot and tough-guy movies in caf, bar, and
nightclub scenes. As radio and television came of age in the 1950s and the
1970s, respectively, some of these entertainers migrated to these media with
much success, among them Banu Mahvash in the 1950s, Delkash in the
1960s, and Googoosh in the 1970s. These entertainers proved immensely
popular with audiencesin life, in death, or in exile. Banu Mahvash (ne
Akram) enjoyed great popularity, particularly with lower-class patrons and
the tough guys, and she performed sometimes risqu songs in the cabarets,
on the radio, and in the movies, the most famous of which involved call-and-
response singing with her male spectators. She appeared as a screen-credited
character in at least seven comedies and melodramas between 1956 and 1960,
the first being Sardar Sakers The Sun Shines (Khorshid Midarakhshad, 1956),
and the last Reza Karimis Whats the Difference (Ki Beh Kiyeh, 1960). How
ever, she performed songs and dance numbers for many more; by one count,
she performed three hundred songs for the movies (Omid 1995/1374:333). She
danced voluptuously, particularly the special tough-guy dances, and she sang
the toughs orchard alley ballads (avaze kuchh baghi). She published a dar
ing autobiography, which was really a sex manual illustrated with swimsuit
photos of herself, called Secrets of Sexual Fulfillment (Raze Kamiyabiye Jensi,
1957). It was widely available and reprinted many times, even though she was
prosecuted for it in June 1960.10 Studios and exhibitors, such as Asre Ta
lai Studio, spliced film clips of her into unrelated Iranian and foreign mov
ies at appropriate spots, such as in the saloon scenes of American westerns,
to make the films more palatable to lower-class tastes (figure 36). Vossoughi
recalls that in a color western, Gary Cooper walked into a saloon to order
a drink. The film then cut to a black-and-white clip of Mahvash singing a
luti song. Several more cuts between Cooper and Mahvash sutured the closeu
p image of Cooper looking with the image of Mahvash dancing (Zeraati
2004:74). The cinematic gaze was mobilized to promote cross-cultural in
tegration and identification: Mahvash became a conduit linking two foreign
characters and two archetypal male national genresIranian tough-guy mov
209
36 Banu Mahvash,
famous for her tough-guy
orchard alley ballads
and for many other sexy
songs and dances. Still
courtesy of Jahanshah
Javid and the Iranian.
ies and American westerns. Shahla also relates that when her movie, Marjan,
did not do well, the producer forced her to cut in Mahvashs song-and-dance
clips to spice it up and to change its depressing ending so as to bring in spec
tators. These changes so disappointed her, however, that she did not direct an
other movie (Arian 2003/1382:60).
When Mahvash died in a car accident in 1961, religious authorities at first
balked at allowing her to be buried in a Muslim cemetery, since entertainers
were considered unchaste and unclean and were disdained by official Islam.
Yet when they finally relented, it attracted the largest number of mourners
ever seen at an Iranian funeral before Ayatollah Mahmud Taleqanis in 1979
(Chehabi 2000:162). According to the famous tough guy Shaban the Brain
less (Shaban Jafari), a million fans thronged the streets of Tehran to mourn
and pay their respects to her (Sarshar 2002:173).
Delkash (ne Esmat Baqerpur) was a singer of ballads with a clear, operatic
voice, which became androgynous in its power and tonality as the years wore
on.11 Her frequent radio broadcasts, accompanied by Mehdi Khaledis violin,
made her famous and beloved. Her fame grew with her appearance in many
commercial movies, beginning with Kushans melodrama Disgraced (Sharm
sar, 1950), which consolidated the model for musical melodramas involving
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professional caf singers that Iranis The Lor Girl had initiated. In the film,
Delkash plays a country girl who is befriended by a city boy who lures her into
the city but soon betrays and abandons her. Unable to deal with the resulting
shame, she stays in the city and gradually becomes a famous caf singer, al
lowing Delkash to display her professional singing abilities. After many com
plications, however, she returns to her home village to marry a country boy.
Tradition is restored. Her success in Disgraced made Delkash the first star of
Iranian cinema, whose private life and career became fodder for fan maga
zines such as Setareh Sinema. She teamed up with Kushans Pars Film Studio
in seven similar movies, and she made three more commercial movies with
other directors. In at least two of them, Chance, Love, and Accident (Shans,
Eshq, va Tasadof, 1959, dir. Hosain Madani) and Gamble of Life (Qomare Zen
degi, 1972, dir. Abbas Kasai), she appeared as herself, a famous caf singer,
demonstrating her extradiegetic star status. In the latter movie, she plays a
mother whose daughter is blinded by the shocking news of the purported
death of her mother in a car accident. Later, the culprits are arrested and her
mother emerges from her hiding place. When she sings to her daughter, her
beautiful voice shocks the daughter again, restoring her eyesight. Finally, sig
nificantly for the tough-guy genre, Delkash appeared in drag in Yasamis film,
Top Dog (Zalem Bala, 1958). Dressed as a male tough guy, she sang an orchard
alley ballad so artfully in the toughs special style that it gained national noto
riety, one fanned by radio broadcasts and records.12
The stage performances of both Mahvash and Delkash as tough guys and
their participation in luti movies were instrumental in popularizing this
movie genre. However, a woman singing the orchard alley ballad in the mu
sical mode called Bayate Tehran was frowned upon. When Delkash recorded
it in the late 1950s for broadcast by Radio Iran, some of her musician friends
tried to dissuade her on the grounds that singing such a low-class song, typ
ical of tough guys, street vendors selling kebab, and construction work
ers, was beneath her.13 But she forged ahead, and when the song was aired,
the many phone calls to the station requesting it proved her instinct for the
popular.
In October 1998, after almost twenty years of absence from the public stage
because of the Islamic Republics ban on public performances by female sing
ers, Delkash toured Europe and gave a concert in Londons Queen Elizabeth
Hall to standing ovations by her exile admirers. She died in Iran in 2004.
Googoosh (ne Faeqeh Atashin) was a child star on the nightclub circuit
and became the first pop music star of the new medium of television, appear
ing first on the commercial Sabet Pasal Iran Television and later on nirt, on
211
which she performed successfully for many years into the late 1970s. Her
lively and informal personality, her sophisticated mix of Iranian and Western
musical forms, and her creative dances and performances spiced with know
ing humor all made her the darling of most social strata. She became the
first woman to make public singing and dancing accepted by polite society
(Chehabi 2000:162). She was also a prolific actress, as she appeared in thirty
movies, starting with Gorji Obadias Fear and Hope (Bim va Omid, 1960) and
ending with Parviz Sayyads Into the Night (Dar Emtedade Shab, 1977). In sev
eral of these, she was paired with the screen heartthrob Vossoughi, whom she
married for a short time, a romance that fed their stardom. When the revolu
tion of 197879 came, unlike many entertainers who went into exile, includ
ing Vossoughi, she stayed behind in Iran, where she did not perform publicly.
However, when she toured North America in 2000 after some twenty years
of enforced silence under the Islamic Republic, along with her new husband,
the film director Masud Kimiai, her concerts in Canada and the United States
were thronged by ten thousand to twelve thousand fans per performance,
with tickets ranging from $35 to $250 (Sabety 2001).14 These fans were not
only old-timers remembering her prerevolution performances at home but
also members of a new generation of Iranians reared abroad on the elders re
counted memories and on the cds of her songs.
The popularity of these professional entertainers and movie stars, despite
the traditionalists general disdain for them, was driven by encroaching mo
dernity, the performers acute expression of interiority and personal and so
cial desires, their skill, and the circulation of their star personae, imagery, and
songs by the entertainment industry, which transformed them into veritable
superstars and commodities. This popularity was instrumental not only in
the financial success of individual movies but also in ushering in the com
mercial cinemas hybrid production mode.
Another type of superstardom in this period involved the Shah and his
three consecutive wives. As the Shah became more authoritarian and influ
ential, his pictures routinely appeared on the front pages of national news
papers, on the inside cover of all school textbooks, and at the top of practically
every nightly television and radio newscast. His portraits were placed in all
government offices, businesses, and schools, and films of his activities were
featured in newsreels shown in cinemas nationwide. His wives, Queen Faw
zieh, Empress Soraya, and Shahbanu Farah, were featured alongside him or
individually on magazine covers.15 Soraya even acted in at least one feature
movie in Europe after her divorce from the Shah. Farah developed an identity
of her own as a major supporter of the highbrow visual arts and performing
212
arts in the country, headlining many festivals, concerts, and performances.

However, despite the superstar pervasion of their images, the Shah and his
queens never attained genuine star status, since their ubiquity was driven by
politics, not popularity.
Improvisation and Spontaneity

Improvisation is one of the key features of the Iranian literary and perfor
mance arts, particularly of classic poetry, comic theatrical performances
(ruhozi and siahbazi), oral epic storytelling (naqqali), classical art music, and
now of cinema, particularly the ff movies. Improvisation and its resulting
loose structure seem well suited to Iranian psychology, society, and history. In
analyzing the emergence of modern literary forms in Iran, Ehsan Yarshater
astutely elaborates on this: The Persian literary mind is of a meandering
and centrifugal turn. It has a strong predilection for embellishment and ara
besque. It does not take easily to a controlled and balanced construction that
leads from diverse premises to a climax and resolution. By Western standards,
a loose structure seems to be the weakness of most Persian attempts at fic
tion writing (1971:303). The tolerance for loose narrative structures, narrative
chaos, indirection, and meandering plots is rather high, and it is not only re
lated to Iranians meandering turn of mind but also to their propensity for
improvisation. As Michael Hillmann notes, authors, readers, and critics take
a lesser interest in determining the thematic unity of a whole ghazal [lyric
poem] than in finding in a particular ghazal an especially apt expression of
familiar images and themes (1990:75).
Examining the way improvisation works in classic art music helps bring
out its deep cultural penetration and aesthetic powers not only in music but
also in the other arts, including cinema, where it contributed to the hybrid
production mode.
Classical Persian music is organized into twelve repertories (dastgah), each
containing up to thirty melodies (gusheh) that have been transmitted orally
over the centuries. Each melody is only a framework, which a good performer
is expected to fill in, or elaborate on, spontaneously. As such, music composi
tion and performance occur simultaneously and extemporaneously, based on
existing frameworks. No framework, however, is inviolable. Both performers
and listeners intuitively know the compositional procedures without being
aware of them (Zonis 1973:9899). That is why musicians are often unable
to articulate what they are doing when improvising and listeners are unable
to explain why they are so affected by what they hear. However, improvisation
213
is not a free-for-all. Like moviemaking it is intensely decision based, involving

many microdecisions that must remain latent and invisible to the audience.
To improvise, ensemble members must at once both compose and perform.
They not only have to know intimately all of the traditional repertories and the
hundreds of melodies within them but also decide when a particular reper
tory should be played and which melody within each repertory should be per
formed, in what order, and for what duration. After reaching those decisions
intuitively, musicians must make further decisions, particularly during the
actual performance, about which of the three types of elaboration and embel
lishment they will employ. These are repetition, ornamentation, and centoni
zation (Zonis 1973:105).
Repetition is a characteristic of all Iranian oral, musical, visual, and per
forming arts, from art music to pop music, from poetry to carpets, from cal
ligraphy to Islamic architecture, and from miniature paintings to film. It in
volves not only the repetition of individual motifs, or absences thereof, but
also the repetition of sets of motifs to create larger patterns and complexities.
Ornamentation, by which the musical passages are enlivened and enriched,
also occurs in all Iranian arts, but we cannot think of it as an additional deco
rative feature; rather, it constitutes an integral component of their ontology.
Lastly, centonization (patchworking, montage) refers to the manner in which
recognizable motifs from various sources are quoted and pieced together to
form a whole. To create and perform a composition, players use the stock of
known repertories and melodies and filler materials and elaborate them ex
temporaneously by means of repetition, ornamentation, and centonization,
thus turning familiar motifs into innovative personal passages. The building
blocks are known, but the use of these familiar building blocks is particular
to each performer and to each of his or her performances.
In this process of improvisation, the audience serves a crucial, reciprocal
function, as Ella Zonis explains: In performances where the player is before
a small group of friends, the improvisation is partially controlled by glances
and verbal suggestions between the performer and his audience. Because of
this subtle communication the mood of the listeners determines the char
acter and often the form of the players improvisation (1973:14). A similar
rule-bound improvisation with deep ideological, cultural, and artistic reso
nances operates not only in American jazz music but also in many other Af
rican American cultural and artistic spheres. The value and saliency of this
kind of improvisation in African American cinema has yet to be sufficiently
recognized.
In the classical Hollywood cinema, too, which serves as a model for the
214
commercial hybrid cinema in Iran, the spectators are crucial. Yet since the
performance of the film is not live, the audience is metaphorically inserted
into the filmic diegesis during production by means of the Hollywood indus
trial production mode and its realist invisible style, according to which spec
tators are given the optimum vantage point, or the best seat in the house,
through the mise-en-scne, shot composition, and continuity editing, which
guarantee viewer omniscience, narrative clarity, and a realistic illusion of the
world (with certain deliberate generic and authorial exceptions) (Ray 1985).
The realist invisible style of Iranian commercial cinema, however, does not
fully subscribe to the classic Hollywood cinemas formal paradigm, for it is
filtered through improvisation, self-reflexivity, and veiling.
Improvisation manifests itself in the production and the poetics of ff
moviesin their industrial and textual formations. The internalization of
improvisation by Iraniansfilmmakers, film critics, film historians, and film
spectatorsmay account for their lack of recognition and appreciation, or for
their condemnation, of improvisations constitutive and productive function
in this cinema. Extemporaneous ways of handling life and art by repetition,
ornamentation, centonization, and by the culturally acceptable strategies of
dissimulation (taqqiyeh), accismus (taarof ), cleverness (zerangi), and inside-
outside dynamism (zaher va baten) are so ideologically ingrained as to have
become naturalizedpart of the air that one breathes. As a result, the inter
pellative power of improvisation goes unnoticed, or is taken for granted; and,
if it is noticed at all, it is undermined by displacement strategies such as de
fensiveness and undervaluation. That is another reason why film critics like
Kavusi, who condemned ff movies, ended up making films that did not differ
much in terms of their narrative chaos and stylistic flaws.
But why do Iranians highly value improvisation for one art form, classical
music, and not for another, the movies? For one thing, classical art music has
a deeply spiritual and mysticaleven religiousdimension that sets it apart
both from other types of music and from the material and industrial arts, in
which financial and materialistic aspects dominate. For another, classical mu
sicians are highly trained and skilled, having spent years under the tutelage
of masters and mentors, whose teachings they proudly acknowledge and pass
on to their own tutees. What they express in their performances is not only
that learned mastery but also their own unique authentic, private feelings and
creative impulseswhich improvisation channels to the surface. Moviemak
ing, on the other hand, is an industrial, collective art, and commercial movies
rarely constitute the expressions of a single author.
In the commercial cinema of the second Pahlavi period, authorship was
215
even more contingent, as many directors were undereducated in the arts and
techniques of production. Their improvisation was not informed by deep
knowledge or a mastery of filmmaking, and it did not emanate from a lofty,
spiritual source or from an inner auteurist spark. Rather, it meant to capital
ize on the popularity and bankability of certain genres, stars, plots, and char
acters, and it often copied foreign films or successful domestic models. It was
also driven by lackof proper equipment, specialized personnel, or profes
sional procedures. Finally, movie improvisation was often slapdash and crude,
not artistic and meticulous. Yet this sort of improvisation was still not without
precedent or without value, as the critics uniformly claimed, for it followed its
own logicthat of an Iranian style of improvisation. Regarded in this light,
features of the ff movies that the critics disdained and considered errors or
evidence of crass commercialism acquire new meaning and systematicity.
This section argues that Iranians art of improvisation carried over into
commercial movies, constituting the key engine for their production and
their poetics, both of which value chance, coincidence, repetition, spontaneity,
ornamentation, centonization, and tolerance for loose narrative structures,
even narrative chaos. This is not to say that improvisation led to high-quality
commercial moviesmost were not of good qualitybut to recognize and
critically theorize the constitutive forces forming the commercial cinema in
dustry, its products, and its popularity.
The directors of ff movies often lacked formal training in film produc
tion techniques and aesthetics and their technical knowledge about cameras,
lenses, lighting, film emulsion, sound recording, and the coaching of actors
was rudimentary. Many of the producers for whom they made movies had
even less formal education. The U.S.-trained commercial film director Amir
Shervan, for example, claims that a majority of the producers in commercial
cinema had not finished even their high school education (quoted in Moaz
ezinia 1999/1378:33). As a result, both producers and directors worked in
tuitively, and spontaneously, patching things together as they went along.
Some of the early commercial films, such as Kushans Prisoner of the Emir
(Zendaniye Amir, 1948), suffered from serious technical and continuity prob
lems, particularly a lack of proper sound synching. This resulted in excessive
lip flapping in dialogues and in asynchronous sound effects, to the point that
the sounds of horse hoofs and whipping were heard either far before or far af
ter the relevant images. Likewise, some night scenes in this film were lit so
brightly that they seemed brighter than the sunniest summer days (Jairani
2000b/1379:68). Unknowingly, the directors often violated the rules of realist
cinemas invisible style, which involved a coherent mise-en-scne, 180-degree
216
filming, and continuity editing to guarantee viewer omniscience, narrative

clarity, and realism. The resulting spatial and temporal discontinuity led to
narrative chaos and spectator confusion. As Farrokh Gaffary in an important
early article on the problems of Iranian cinema noted, in the 1950s the posi
tion of the script girl, who ensures the continuity of mise-en-scne from
shot to shot, did not exist. As a result, it was not uncommon to see a person
leaving a room in one shot, and in the next exiting the same door from a different angle, while wearing a different outfit (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:296).
An extended, free translation of a portion of an interview with Fardin provides
some examples. According to him, most commercial movie directors did not
know their jobs, could not direct the actors, and lacked technical knowledge.
If they took a shot from one angle, they couldnt figure out where the camera
should be for the next shot. They worked by chance and luck, with the result
that sometimes after processing the dailies there was no way to correctly edit
the shots. For example, if a man was supposed to enter from this door and exit
from that door, they were forced to show him entering and exiting from the
same door (quoted in Baharlu 2000e/1379:6566).
Improvisation was so deep a cultural orientation that even experienced
and foreign-trained filmmakers such as Kushan and Shervan and film critics
such as Amirhushang Kavusi unknowingly resorted to it. Their films did not
contain as many of the technical errors of the cinematically illiterate filmmak
ers, but improvisation and formal chaos were structuring presences in them.
The production of many movies would begin without a completed screen
play, with one that was directly copied from another film, or with a few notes
that the director had jotted down on a piece of paper. Such an ad hoc man
ner of developing screenplays also factored into the repetitive structures and
narrative lacunae and confusion of the movies. According to Fardin, Kushan,
the head of Pars Film Studio and one of the more professional commercial di
rectors, often wrote his scripts on the run, on the back of rectangular white
cardboard cigarette boxes, which were fashionable in those days (quoted in
Baharlu 2000e/1379:68). Khatibi corroborates not only Kushans unplanned
modus operandi but also the extemporaneous elasticity of ff productions. Ap
parently, only one week before filming was to begin, Kushan commissioned
Khatibi to write the screenplayw ith a hot and exciting storyfor a movie
that he had already scheduled to be released during the very lucrative New
Year (Noruz) holiday season. After the usual haggling over fees, intensified by
the urgency of the imminent deadline, Khatibi set to write the script immedi
ately, completing it in a record three days. Yet he withheld the screenplay until
his contractual deadline, the day before filming. As a result, neither the direc
217
37 The poster for

Ismail Kushans toughguy movie Were Your
Servant, Master Karim.
tor nor the actors and crewmembers had an opportunity to prepare them
selves in advance. Nonetheless, Kushan managed to finish the movie Were
Your Servant, Master Karim (Ussa Karim Nokaretim, 1974) on time, which he
released through his own cinema chain to record-breaking box-office reve
nues (Khatibi 1994:13435) (figure 37).
In many cases, the screenplay was not even ready before filming began. It
thus would be written as filming progressed, an approach reminiscent of the
simultaneity of composition and performance in classical art music. As Far
din relates, when the director Jalal Moqaddam signed him and other actors for
his movie The Secret of the Jujube Tree (Raze Derakhte Senjed, 1971), he only
told us the story orally, and he promised several times to write the full screen
play and give it to us before filming. This he never did, and when filming be
gan, he wrote the script on the set, scene by scene, with the actors unaware
ofand unprepared fort he upcoming scenes. When filming was over, the
story still did not have an end (quoted in Baharlu 2000e/1379:144245).
218
Without a completed script, there could be no script breakdown before

filming to assist with prior planning and with the assignment of resources,
tasks, equipment, cast, crew, and stage property. This often created chaotic
and tense situations during filming, as film crews, for example, would dis
cover that they did not have the proper lenses or stage properties for the days
shoot. The production would either stop until what was missing was found or
the crew and cast improvised around the missing items. Most average spec
tators would not notice the missing property, but for observant spectators it
would stick out like a sore thumb. This sort of discontinuity was rampant.
When the film critic Toghrol Afshar visited a new commercial studio, he pub
lished in Sepid O Siah magazine a lengthy and at times humorous but highly
critical account of what he observed there, including the story that when after
several hours of haggling among cinematographer, director, cast, and crew
the scene was ready for filming, the director suddenly discovered that he had
forgotten to bring his screenplay to the set, forcing a long pause in produc
tion, which was lengthened further by a protracted lunch break (quoted in
Sadvandian 2001/1380:55657). Such production chaos inevitably leaked into
the films textual system.
The lack of prepared scripts and of preplanning also meant that directors,
screenwriters, cast, and crew had to rely to a large extent on spontaneity and
improvisation, which drove them to rely on generic conventions, story formu
las, and stereotyping. Directors and writers concocted impromptu plots from
the arsenal of known ones, borrowing from oral tradition, popular romances,
domestic films, or foreign movies. Actors, too, often relied on stock charac
ter behavior, gestures, and dialogue, which made their acting style more pre
sentational and stereotypical than representational and psychologicala style
typified by the performances of naqqali, ruhozi, siahbazi, and taziyeh and by
miniature paintings.16
Another side effect of the lack of preplanning was that all actors had to be
present on the set at all times in case they were needed for a scene, creating
resentment among those who had to wait in costume and makeup for hours
without being called before the camera. This was the case with The Course
of the River (Masire Rudkhaneh, 1964), starring Fardin, which Saber Rahbar
wrote, filmed, and directed. This situation would have driven up the cost of
production were it not for the clever and opportunistic practices it spawned.
Some popular and prolific actors, such as Reza Baikimanverdi, were able
to act in several movies in one day by taking advantage of the various wait
ing periods on each film set. Likewise, technically proficient directors, such
as Safai, could film scenes of singing or of fighting for more than one movie
219
during the same filming session (Baharlu 2000e/1379:133, 270, 154). While
these opportunistic practices did not raise the production cost, they likely in
creased the production chaos, as multitasking actors sometimes confused the
characters they were playing in different movies or mixed up lines of dialogue
from different films. Shahin Yazdani, who worked as a production assistant in
the late 1970s, remembers that Baikimanverdi was once involved in three si
multaneous movies, which were being shot in three different cities. The star
would arrive on the set from the airport, not sure of the character he was to
play and not sure of his dialogue, forcing the director to assign a prompter to
walk with the traveling camera during filming, feeding Baikimanverdi his
lines (Naficy 2003a).17 In one reported instance, Baikimanverdi scheduled
two production crews from different movies to film him in the same loca
tion, filming with one crew while the other prepared to film him (Mostaghaci
2003:57). Producers engaged in similar behaviors. When famed entertain
ers visited Kushan to discuss film projects, he would take advantage of their
presence by having them sing a song on his Pars Film Studio stage, which he
would film and later insert into his movies.
Because of the production and textual problems that it would create, im
provisation did not make for an ideal strategy either in developing screenplays
or in filming, and over the years other strategies were explored. The most sig
nificant was the recruitment of novelists, writers, poets, and journalists to ei
ther write or adapt screenplays.18 The constitutive relationship between the
newspaper and magazine serials popular in the 1950s and 1960s and movie
melodramas is important and requires further studies.19 The popular novel
ist Ali Kasmai, for example, set a trend for melodramatic country-versus-city
tear-jerkers with his screenplays for Disgraced, Mother (Madar, 1951, dir. Es
mail Kushan), and Neglect (Gheflat, 1953, dir. Ali Kasmai), the first two star
ring Delkash. With their stories favorably comparing the purity and honesty
of villagers with the sophistication and corruption of city dwellers, both Dis
graced and Mother were highly successful with lower-class village immigrants
living on city margins. The former made an unprecedented 200,000 tomans
in just one month (Jairani 1999/1378:126) and stayed on Tehrans Rex Cin
ema screen for 192 days (Akrami 1992a:573). Mother stayed on the Metro
pole Cinema and Homay Cinema screens in Tehran for 102 nights with box-
office revenues of about 220,000 tomans, which paid for the production cost
twice over. This was significant, as Kushan had spent a lot of money on hir
ing its star and needed to recoup it. He had paid Delkash 8,000 tomans for
acting and 12,000 tomans for the twelve songs she sang in the movie (Omid
1995/1374:218). The popular and financial successes of these two movies es
220
tablished some of the key conventions of ff movies, particularly the use of

entertainers as actors and the adaptation of film stories from other sources
(Kasmai had adapted the story of Disgraced from an English writer and that
of Mother from a newspaper account of a real story). The novelist Mohammad
Maimandinezhad followed with many screenplays, among them The Domes
tic Prey (Shekare Khanegi, 1951, dir. Sadegh Bahrami and Ali Dariyabaigi)
and A Star Twinkled (Setareh-i Cheshmak Zad, 1963, dir. Mohsen Badie), while
the writer Hosainqoli Mostaan wrote the screenplay for The Sinner (Gonah
kar, 1953, dir. Mehdi Garami). Several poets wrote screenplays for commer
cial movies, including many comedies. Mehdi Sohaili, for example, wrote the
screenplays for Bride on the Run (Aruse Farari, 1958, dir. Esmail Kushan),
Ebram in Paris (Ebram dar Paris, 1964, dir. Esmail Kushan), and For Gods
Sake Give Generously (Bedeh dar Rahe Khoda, 1970, dir. Reza Safai). Likewise,
Ismail Nuriala penned the scripts for Men of Dawn (Mardane Sahar, 1970)
and Entertainer (Motreb, 1972), both of which he directed. Surprisingly, the
renowned leftist modernist poet Ahmad Shamlu wrote screenplays for nearly
a dozen commercial features in the 1960s, including Branded with Shame
(Daghe- Nang, 1965), which he also directed. That all his screenplays for the
despised filmfarsi were written over a brief period may imply both a short-
lived financial need on Shamlus part and his internalization of the codes of
the hegemonic commercial cinema. He once almost admitted that this was
a sad story of financial need, of being forced to write to obtain a morsel to
eat . . . of survival by means of the pen, in truth, a type of literary prostitution
(quoted in Moradi 1989/1368:2425).
Several poets and writers directed their own commercial movies, among
them Esmail Nuriala, who directed Men of Dawn and Entertainer, Nezam Fa
temi, who directed The Laughing Widows (Bivehhaye Khandan, 1961), and Is
mail Pursaid, who directed Women Are Angels (Zanha Fereshtehand, 1963).
The journalist Khosrow Parvizi also directed A Girl Cries Out (Dokhtari Far
iad Mikeshad, 1961). Although the movies of these writers, journalists, and
poets were an improvement over those of the other commercial directors in
terms of content, they did not represent a breakthrough. Indeed, their screen
writing and directing helped consolidate the various genres of the commer
cial cinema, which many of them disdained and ridiculed.20
Begun in the 1950s, an imitative, montage method of filmmaking grew
stronger in the 1960s and the 1970s. It was driven not only by the improvisa
tional enabling factors already noted but also by the emergence of the hybrid
production mode, which required increased output. Faced with heightened
demand for product and unable to fulfill it with original domestic ideasdue
221
in part to heavy censorship and in part to a lack of good screenplay writers

movie producers, directors, and writers turned to ideas from elsewhere. As
Shervan told me, Our film ideas were all copied from foreign movies. If you
are making, say, five films a year, how can you be so creative as to write all
of the screenplays yourself? (Naficy 1988a:36). Shervan was trained in the
ater and film in the United States, and he had a prolific output, directing two
films a year between 1971 and 1977; he wrote the screenplays of twelve of the
twenty-two features he directed. Shervans statement demonstrates the hold
of the artisanal production modes multifunctionality on him: it assumed that
directors write their own screenplays. In a fully industrialized cinema, the di
vision of labor would have made that a rarity.
Oral Narrative Roots

The literature about the impact of oral traditions on the cinemas of the third
world, particularly among those in Africa, has been growing (Armes 1987;
Diawara 1989; Ukadike 1994). Not much has been written about this aspect
of the Iranian cinema, although oral tradition entered it with the sound mov
ies of Abdolhosain Sepanta. His Firdausi (1934) was based on the life of the
eleventh-century poet Abolqasem Ferdowsi and re-created parts of the mythi
cal and paradigmatic battle of father and sonRostam and Sohrabfrom
Ferdowsis epic poem Shahnameh. His Shirin and Farhad (1934) was inspired
by Nezamis famous ballad, his Black Eyes (1936) centered on a love story set
during Nader Shahs conquest of India in the 1700s, and his Laili and Maj
nun (1937) dealt with another ancient love legend memorialized in Nezamis
poetry. The borrowing from history, mythology, and poetic oral tradition con
tinued well into the 1970s, alongside adaptations of foreign literary works and
movies.
The Persian literary tradition has been divided into two basic types. Po
lite literature satisfied the needs and tastes of ruling classes, while folk
literature catered to the needs and aspirations of common people (Cejpek
1968:609). In the past, a minority elite preserved the polite literature in
written form, while folk or popular literature was usually preserved orally
(Hanaway 1970:1; 1971b:59). In general, men wrote the polite literature for
men, while women told the folk tales orally to women and children (Mahjoub
2003/1382:vol. 2:55). Polite and popular literatures, and high and low culture,
have blurred considerably, particularly in the era of market capitalism and the
global circulation of mass media and mass cultures.
Art-house new-wave films, which generally drew on high culture and con
222
temporary literary works, addressed the educated strata as their primary spec
tators. On the other hand, ff products principally used stories, themes, and
characters borrowed and updated from Persian oral literature and syncret
ically impregnated them with contemporary elements. These latter movies
also drew on newspaper serials and novels, which had become the rage since
the 1950s. However, as demonstrated in this and the following chapter, ff di
rectors borrowed not only stories, themes, and characters but also many nar
rative and structural features from the oral and popular literatures.21 Finally,
ff was indebted to the popular theater, particularly the various comic genres,
and to their actors and directors in Tehran and Isfahan who migrated to the
cinema and adapted plays.
Structuralist scholars identified the constants of the oral and popular liter
atures as an aid in cross-cultural comparative studies (Davidson 2000). Ruth
Finnegan in her study of various oral traditionsfrom Tatar epics to Anglo-
American balladsidentified three indexes for oral poetry: its composition,
its mode of transmission, and its performance (Finnegan 1977:17). I refer to
this classification as a framework for both oral epics and commercial ff mov
ies, particularly the stewpot and tough-guy films.22 The proponents of the
oral-formulaic school, such as Vladimir Propp, Milam Parry, Alfred Lord,
and Eric Havelock, contend that oral poets usually composed their epics and
ballads orally, like Iranian art music performers, based on extensive reser
voirs of widely known stock phrases, plots, stanzas, and themes. The trans
mission of oral poems from poets to audiences was accomplished by a combi
nation of memorization and re-creation, whereby these stock formulas were
recalled and recombined in novel ways (Finnegan 1977:13945). During oral
performances, poets, like musicians, continued to compose in response to au
dience reactions (Lord 1976:5).
In his examination of the oral-formulaic aspects of Homeric poems, Have
lock noted that these preliterate poems constituted a sort of social encyclope
dia that contained information and guidance for the preservation of culture
and the management of an individuals civic and personal life. These oral ep
ics were both didactic and entertaining. The transmission of the social and
ethical codes embedded in them was accomplished by means of a formulaic
structure consisting of forms, words, and stock expressions bound up in hex
ameter. Havelock describes them as containing aphorism and proverb and
prescriptive examples of how to behave, and warning examples of how not
to behave; with continual recapitulation of bits of tribal and civic history, of
ancestral memories for which the artist serves as the unconscious vehicle of
repetition and record. The situations were always typical, not invented; they
223
repeated endlessly the precedents and judgments, the learning and wisdom,
which the Hellenic culture has accumulated and hoarded (1963:48). Songs
were employed to aid in memorizing them, often accompanied by dance. Fur
ther, professional storytellers with excellent memories and poetic abilities
adapted the epics through improvisation during performances to suit a new
generations needs (Innis 1975:5960).
In his pioneering analysis of the morphology of nineteenth-and early
twentieth-century Russian folklore, Propp examined many folk tales to iden
tify thirty-one stable and constant functions or components of quest narra
tives that circumscribed the tales events (Propp 1968). If a systematic mor
phological study of ff were undertaken, thematic constants similar to Propps
would appear.
Mary Ellen Page and William Hanaway provided some interesting struc
turalist ideas concerning Persian epics and popular romances. In her analy
sis of professional storytelling (naqqali) in the mid-1970s, Page showed that
storytellers continued to rework and reinterpret epics such as Ferdowsis
Shahnameh.23 Storytellers composed from a number of sources as they per
formed: they drew on poems of the Shahnameh, which they had faithfully
memorized, plot outlines written in their scrolls (called tumar), and other
memorized poems and literary and religious stories (Page 1979:198200).
Public performances were usually held in coffeehouses or on television, epi
sodically over many months, complete with cliff hangers. Page cites the un
usual case of a storyteller who told a single story in daily installments that
took one and a half years to complete (1977:2089). Finally, similar to the
reciters of the Homeric poems, these Persian oral tellers of tales not only en
tertained their audiences but also educated and enlightened them. It is in the
context of combined entertainment and education that Qajar-era coffeehouses
successfully integrated film screenings as part of their storytelling tradition.
And it is the same combined function that migrated from oral tradition to ff
films like Qaruns Treasure. The origin of rampant didacticism in ff movies
must be sought in their use of the oral traditions and their social encyclope
dia. Antimaterialist truisms are proffered in Qaruns Treasure in the guise of
happy, snappy songs and adventures.
In his study of the popular romances of pre-Safavid Iran, Hanaway noted
that from a thematic point of view, these romances were the principal means
of propagating the ideals of javanmardi [chivalry] among the illiterate popula
tion, for whom the epic heroes represented in a simple and accessible man
ner the chivalric ideal (1970:145). Many of these romances originated in
224
the oral tradition and were elaborated during coffeehouse naqqali and comic
ruhozi performances. Some, such as Samak Ayyar and Firuz Shah Nameh, fo
cused directly on sly chevalier bandits or tricksters (ayyars) and tough guys
(lutis). These romances of chivalry formed a repertory of stories and narrative
forms heavily mined by filmfarsi. Carefree Alis decision in Qaruns Treasure
to help the damsel in distress (Shirin)to find her a suitor, to fight off her
attackersand to help out his father in the end are all components of the chi
valric narratives.
The romances used many formulaic devices: phrases, correspondence,
dreams, divine intervention, battles, love, and stereotyped characters. And
almost all of these were incorporated into genre movies. Iranian critics who
constantly put down ff movies as formulaic, and thus bad, films did not real
ize the deep grip of this social encyclopedia on both filmmakers and audi
ences. The film historian Mohammad Tahaminejad caught this, and in his
book on filmfarsi, which he called dream-weaving cinema, specified ffs
debt to the popular romances. All folk tales (qessehhaye amianeh), he stated,
contain the following features, which are transplanted into the commercial
movies: They are fast-paced and are filled with extraordinary heroism, spell
binding beauty, love affairs, intense emotionality, ancient totems and beliefs,
timely or untimely poems and risqu expressions, parallel and labyrinthine
relationships, breathtaking conflicts and complications, exaggerated descrip
tions, and real and imaginary spaces (1986/1365:18). He classified the mov
ies borrowing of elements from ancient popular romances and from contem
porary romances into four golden features: the ideals of heroism, chance
and coincidence, the contrast of beauty and ugliness, and the conflict of good
and evil.24 Many of these conventions run through Qaruns Treasure.
Iranian moviemaking also borrowed from the taziyeh passion plays, which
for centuries have been performed annually before live audiences during the
first ten days of the month of Muharram. These plays reiterate the oral tra
ditions uses of stock features, but in the service of Shiite cosmology. At the
same time, they have an expressive dimensionself-reflexivityt hat Iranian
cinema picked up, particularly the art-house cinema following the revolution
of 197879.
If we apply Finnegans tripartite structure of oral poetry to cinema, com
position would be equivalent to the preproduction and production phases of
moviemaking, transmission would parallel the marketing and distribution
phases, and performance would map onto the exhibition and reception of
films in movie houses, on television, and on video and the Internet at home.
225
Miniature Paintings Attributes

Oral narratives nourished not only the performing arts but also the visual
arts, particularly the court-sponsored tradition of manuscript painting, also
known as Persian miniature paintings (during the fourteenth to eighteenth
centuries). They supplied painters with a repertoire of stories of love and bat
tle. They also influenced them stylistically. Miniature paintings, like oral nar
ratives, relied heavily on a limited number of conventional visual elements
optemesdrawn to match not an external reality but expressive conventions.
In this art form, as in classical music, distinction and value were assigned
not to originality but to the best imitation of the master and the most skill
ful repetition with slight variation (Dickson and Welch 1981; Grabar 2000;
Canby 1993). If the same criterion of distinction were applied to the movies,
ff would obtain a different ranking in the encyclopedia of Iranian cinema.
In viewing miniature paintings the viewer is struck by their stylistic intri
cacy, their density of details, their exuberant colors, and the multiplicity of vi
sual planes and scenes in a single frame. The miniatures are a delight for the
eyes, as they entertain viewers more in the manner of a motion picture than
in that of a static image (figure 38). The absence of a single vanishing point for
perspective creates spatial simultaneity: planes of far and close, high and low,
female and male, and inside and outside are all equally visible. While histori
cally most miniatures were created to illustrate major texts of prose and po
etry and they therefore functioned to highlight the moral or the main scenes
of the narrative, the overall compositional design refuses to center some ele
ments and marginalize others according to their narrative prominence. Fre
quently, the protagonist of the story is depicted in the same size as all the
other figures, hidden in a corner, or even only partially visible from behind a
bush or through a half-closed door. In this way, the viewers eyes are encour
aged to roam from one element to another in search of meaning, examining
carefully all the nooks and crannies for a specific scene or figure that corre
sponds to the narrative and searching for the relay of the gazes among char
acters. The spectators gaze thus meanders and is driven by her or his spec
tatorial activity and agency, instead of being an intense gaze guided by the
agency of the artist. As in cinema, there is also a second type of gaze involved,
that of the diegetic characters at each other, which helps narrative comprehen
sion. The historian of Islamic art Oleg Grabar calls this a circuit of gazes
within the paintings, creating a complex and passionate game of clues, as in
an embroidery (2000:133). And there is also an aural component, a circuit of
curious ears eavesdropping on the social world. These ears belong to figures
226
38 Movie Set (2004), by the Houston-based artist and photographer

Soody Sharifi. The work is part of a series that she playfully calls
maxiatures, in reference to the tradition of Persian manuscript
paintings known as miniatures. Courtesy of Soody Sharifi.
listening from behind curtains, half-open doors and windows, and bushes.
These liminally positioned figures often seem astonished by what they are
seeing and hearing (biting the fingers of astonishment, as the poetic ex
pression goes) or are gossiping about them with other bystanders (hands cov
ering mouths). Indeed, by following the circuit of what Nahal Naficy (2007)
calls the figures witnessing, the viewer may arrive at the key scene or the
protagonist.
Like art music, abstract geometric tiles, carpet designs, oral poetry, and
now ff movies, Persian miniatures are formed through the repetition and
slight variation of a limited but recognizable number of motifs, optemes,
forming a dense visual repertoire. These optemes are coded according to cer
tain rules of representation. One of these encourages the creation of character
types rather than distinct individuals. Unlike the modernist visual arts and
cinema, then, miniature paintings and ff movies tend to present a crowded
social world instead of representing individual subjectivityeither of the char
acters within the diegesis or of the artist and viewer outside the text. Because
the presented world is dense and social, character representation is conven
tionalized and character subjectivity is suppressed. Because of the circuits of
looking, listening, and witnessing, despite their apparent visuality, miniature
paintings (and ff movies) are highly oral, aural, and social instead of being
visual, psychological, and individual (as new-wave films are).
Since the onset of the Islamic Republic, these structures of orality and vi
suality have exerted themselves prominently in postrevolutionary cinema be
cause of state-sanctioned gender segregation, the veiling of women, and the
system of hijab and modesty patrolled by the morality police and film cen
sors. Direct gazes were discouraged, so averted gazes, indirect looks, stolen
glances, and indirection of all sorts flourished. The meandering look in the
miniatures provides an apt textual homology to the hybrid production modes
improvisational and discontinuity filming and editing. The visual motifs and
elements of the miniatures are ubiquitous and overdetermined in society, re
produced in consumer products widely circulated among Iranians at home
and in the diasporakeychains, pens, pen-cases, T-shirts, photo frames,
photo albums, vases, and calendars. By this ubiquity these visual motifs tend
to naturalize their ideological underpinning of eavesdropping, voyeurism,
and unequal power relations.
What is striking is the way that the stylistic features and compositional
design of the centuries-old but cosmopolitan manuscript paintings assists
new artists like Soodi Sharifi (see figure 38) to visually express the simulta
neities, multiplicities, contradictions, liminalities, and hybridities that con
228
stitute our contemporary globalized condition.25 What we refer to today as

Persian miniatures is a multicultural and cosmopolitan tradition that de
veloped over many centuries of experimentation and at different hubs inside
and outside Iran. A set of characteristics remained fairly constant, forming,
in the words of the art historian Sheila Canby, a melody to which all impro
visations and variations ultimately refer (1993:42). If today this visual mel
ody echoes in Sharifis maxiatures and in the works of other artists in Iran
and diaspora, it is not about sticking to an atavistic tradition of expression; it
concerns conversing with a form of art that is, and has always been, a conver
sation across times and places, as well as across artistic media. In ways de
scribed in this book, the visual melody of the miniatures has insinuated itself
into the poetics and politics of Iranian cinema, giving it one of its distinctive
characteristics.
Imitation, Repetition, Conventionality, Familiarity

One of the important characteristics of oral narratives, classical music per
formances, and miniature paintings is their proclivity for repetition and fa
miliarity. These traditional forms do not prioritize originality and innovation,
which are characteristics of modernity. If such conventionality also charac
terized commercial movies, innovation and originality were attributes of the
new-wave films. One film type was primarily genre driven, the other princi
pally author driven.
Filmfarsis use of traditional iterative strategies might have resulted from
a dearth of good domestic screenplay writers or from a lack of imagination
among Iranian filmmakers, as critics often charged. But beyond the reasons I
have given, it also satisfied the voracious appetite of the emerging hybrid pro
duction mode for familiar products with slight variations. Imitation and iter
ation were constitutive features of industrialization and mass consumption.
They influenced not only movie production but also reception. The audi
ences who listened to the storytellers tales about epic heroes in coffeehouses,
or watched their heroic exploits on movie and television screens, saw stories
artfully or arbitrarily rearranged to be both familiar and new, depending on
the skills of the tellers and directors. Recognition of the familiar may have
been more important than encountering the new. What Page describes in her
analysis of naqqali and Shahnameh storytelling also holds true for the spec
tators of commercial movies: The audience is familiar with the storytellers
repertoire, and a storyteller will not perform material which is unknown to
229
his audience. The audience, he feels, will not come back every day to hear a
story it has never heard before (1977:199). The same principle accounts for
the numerous imitations that Qaruns Treasure and Qaisar spawned.
The Morphology of Filmfarsi: Popular Themes and Genres

As a developing country caught in the throes of rapid modernization pro
pelled by sudden infusions of petrodollars and exchange relations with the
West, Iran experienced postcolonial disruptions without having been colo
nized. The dichotomous, self-other relationships that Iranians experienced
both in real life and on movie screens became internalized, manifesting
themselves in commercial movies binarist themes and comparative struc
tures also common to other postcolonial cinemas. These themes encoded the
clash of values and worldviews, as well as that of premodernity and moder
nity. And they were so frequently used and reused that they became the vocab
ulary that both nourished and stultified the commercial cinema.
Among these themes were the dichotomous relations between tradition
and modernity; between the native, local, and national and the foreign, West
ern, and international; between self and other; between male patriarchy and
female resurgence; between religious belief (Islam) and secularism (West);
between rural innocence, purity, and authenticity and urban sophistication
and corruption; between poverty and wealth; between spirituality and mate
rialism; and between family and collectivity and individuality and indepen
dence. These dichotomies inscribed the disruptions of modernization and the
trauma and drama of individuality in a collective society. These and similar
themes surfaced in the countrys modern literature as well.26
These contrasting themes and values were deployed in the movies in such
a way that the self and the values for which it stood were often privileged over
the Other and its superficial attributes, which were generally construed as
Western. Even though this Western Other was posited as technologically and
materially superior, the Iranian self was usually romanticized and valorized
because of its purported purity, authenticity, and spirituality. As a rule, the
twain did not reconcile, with Iranian essentialism emerging triumphant. In
this the movies seemed to follow Frantz Fanons and Teshome Gabriels for
mulation of the combative phase of creating a national culture (Fanon 1963,
Gabriel 1989b). After showcasing materialism, modernization, and Western
influences, most ff products took a moralistic turn, drawing ethical lessons
that favored the selfs traditional value structure.
Not all commercial movie themes fit into this morphology. Some played
230
with the possibilities of reconciliation, transgression, hybridity, or the reversal

of values. Yet the dominant social ideologies didacticism drove all, whether
it was the lefts simplistic Marxism, the traditionalists religiosity, or the au
thoritarian nationalism of the Pahlavi state. The social encyclopedia of oral
traditionfolk wisdomwas deeply ingrained in the outwardly modern
Iranians. Filmfarsi movies, like their originary tales, favored integration into,
and the restoration of, an existing order, rather than advocating either dis
order or an entirely new order. As in oral tales and popular romances, these
themes did not surface discretely as they were expressions of a society in tran
sition from premodernity to modernity in which features of both overlapped.
Each movie contained several, playing with their centonization and interac
tion, differentiating one from the other.
These ingrained themes revealing an uneven assimilation of modernity
led to genres whose regulating mechanisms were both these themes (their
content) and the generic narrative conventions that they produced, reinforced
by industrial practices. The themes narrative function in the movies guides
us toward a structuralist morphology of commercial movies.
The Family
Stewpot movies represented the family as an enduring if threatened insti
tution whose survival depended on the willingness of its members to sac
rifice their own individual rightscountering the individualism of emerg
ing modernity. In them, the mother-son tie is very strong, almost Oedipal,
while that of father and son involves both respect and the kind of rivalry that
borders on patricide and filicide. In the films, the husband and father rules
with an iron hand, although oddly, in many cases the father is absent (Turani
1999/1378:92). Women, on the other hand, are expected to be self-sacrificing,
obedient, decent, and compassionate. In general, they do not have an autono
mous identity. Despite their ancillary status, women are the glue that keeps
the family together, as they raise the children, manage the household, and
forgive their mens waywardness in the form of drinking, gambling, wom
anizing, and rabble-rousing with male buddies. Modernity and individual
ity, particularly those of women, pose a threat to family integrity, arousing
male hysteria and panic. The well-known Middle Eastern honor-shame com
plex, in which male honor depends on female sexual shame, emerges strongly
in ff. Men must protect womens sacred realms, not only from other mens
sexual advances but also from womens own sexual desire, which can bring
about shame for the family, particularly for the males as its primary guard
ians (Bourdieu 1965).
231
These conventions surfaced most expressly in the genres of family melo

drama and comedy. Qaruns Treasure, a film that like most stewpot movies
is both melodrama and comedy, inscribes many of these familial relations:
Qarun, the father, is absent, having abandoned his family for youthful de
bauchery. His punishment for breaking the sacred bond is disease, both psy
chological and physical. The self-sacrificing, resourceful mother manages her
household, raises her son, Carefree Ali, and shelters his buddy, Hasan the
Rattler. Mother and son have a strong if formulaic relation, while the ties be
tween father and son remain antagonistic until the end. If at the beginning
the nuclear family is disrupted, in the end, after Qarun makes proper apolo
gies and demonstrates true remorse and shame, it is reconstituted. In favoring
a marriage based on love over an arranged marriage, the film assimilates mo
dernity. Yet in restoring Alis nuclear family at the end, it acts conservatively.
Since family relations and honor take priority over civic responsibility, fam
ily ties usually create obligations to seek redress or revenge. In many movies,
a family member (usually female) is wronged, forcing other members (typi
cally male) to embark on a vengeful adventure, leading to the death or punish
ment of the culprit, and sometimes to that of the victim. This theme appeared
early in the period under discussion here, and it continued throughout, as
in Serj Azarians Golnesa (1953) and Hamid Mesdaqis Rape (Tajavoz, 1972),
in which fathers avenge their daughters seduction and rape, respectively. In
Kimiais Qaisar, the brother takes revenge for his sisters rape and death, while
in Naser Taqvais Sadeq the Kurd (Sadeq Kordeh, 1972) the husband takes re
venge for his wifes rape. In a few films women take revenge, as in Yasamis
Tehran Nights (Shabhaye Tehran, 1953), in which a wayward mother redeems
herself by murdering her daughters rapist. In the tough-guy movies of the
1970s, personal revenge and crimes of passion were coded as citizens re
venge against governmental or upper-class oppression.
Arranged Marriages
Arranged marriages, another threatened traditional kinship custom, ap
peared in melodramas and comedies very early, but from the start it was coun
terposed with a modern marriage based on love and personal choice. In Ali
Daryabaigis The Tempest of Life (Tufane Zendegi, 1948), for example, the two
protagonists, Nahid and Farhad, are in love. Yet Nahids father opposes their
marriage and arranges his daughters marriage to a wealthy businessman. Al
though he feels forlorn, Farhad does not give up. He works hard, excels in his
profession, and becomes successful and wealthy. After many fateful adven
tures the original lovers are united in the end.
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In most movies of the 1950s, young girls were treated and traded like com
modities by male family members (Moradi Kuchi 1980/1369:75). As mo
dernity took root, arranged marriage was gradually transformed in favor of
choice, even including premarital sexual relationships. Yet these came at a
heavy social price, such as addiction and suicide in Mahmud Kushans The
Thirsty Ones (Tashnehha, 1974), loneliness and perhaps prostitution in Hajir
Dariushs Bita (1972), and banishment by the family in Feraidun Golehs Hon
eymoon (Mahe Asal, 1976).
Qaruns Treasure clearly favors modern courtship. Shirins parents arrange
to marry her to Faramarz, which apparently surprises her. She rejects this
suitor by concocting the story of having fallen in love with Qaruns son. It be
gins as fiction but becomes fact: the films second half is devoted to Shirins
and Alis collaboration, culminating in her decision to give up her wealth for
the love of Ali.
Female Seduction and Male Temptation
In numerous melodramas and crime and detective movies, women are se
duced and deceived by men, especially by those with means, resulting in their
shame and inexorable downward spiral into sin, singing and dancing in ca
fs and nightclubs and engaging in prostitution. Filmfarsi movies repeatedly
used this theme, partly as a melodramatic plot and partly as an excuse to fea
ture song-and-dance routines and to please their audience. Yet the theme did
also have a basis in social reality. In a detailed study of 1,548 prostitutes in
Tehran in 1969, for example, 37 percent of the respondents claimed that they
had been deceived and/or lured into prostitution (Floor 2008:263). In the
moralistic world of ff, both seduction and giving in to temptation deserve
punishment. In many cases, the female victim is punishedby suicide (as in
Kushans The Thirsty Ones), by imprisonment (as in Kushans Mother), and by
death (as in Kimiais Qaisar).
Males, too, are susceptible to temptation, but by bad women and deviant
male buddies. Married men are lured by sexy, wicked women and set on an
inevitable downward path into gambling, drinking, womanizing, and crimi
nal activity. They pay by losing not only their families but also their wealth,
and they are forced to endure loneliness, degradation, and imprisonment.
They discover the extent of the damage they have caused only years later; if
they exhibit proper remorse, they are usually rewarded by a reunion with their
families, often in a chance encounter. Qaruns Treasure embodies the theme
of the fathers yielding to selfishness and debauchery, but at the high price of
illness and anomie, which drive him to attempt suicide. In Ali Kasmais Ne
233
glect (Gheflat, 1953), a young man loses his wife and son because of his drink
ing and gambling, and he becomes a homeless beggar. Next he loses his eye
sight in an accident. Later, a chance encounter reunites him with his son, with
whom he begins a new life. In Hasan Kheradmands Whirlpool (Gerdab, 1953),
the male protagonist makes his discovery only when he is no longer young,
looking remorsefully back at a wasted youth.
Social Divisions and Class Struggle
Social divisions and class struggle surfaced as themes in comedies and melo
dramas in three key binaries: village life versus city life, the poor versus the
rich, and the factory owner versus the worker. The first motif was an early
one, appearing in Kushans Disgraced, in which Delkash plays the simple
peasant girl who is duped and abandoned by a city man. Disgraced, she works
hard and becomes a famous singer in the city, while her village fianc man
ages to exact revenge on the city slicker, after which she returns to the village
to wed happily. Many variations of this theme were developed throughout this
period, leading to what critics called village films (Akrami 1992a:573). Ma
jid Mohsenis movies, Nightingale of the Farm (Bolbole Mazraeh, 1957), Village
Song (Ahange Dehkadeh, 1961), and Swallows Return to Their Nests (Parastuha
beh Laneh Barmigardand, 1963) are exemplars of the genre.
Even new-wave filmmakers, such Dariush Mehrjui in Mr. Gullible (Aqaye
Halu, 1970) and Kimiai in Baluch (1972), used elements of the village films,
indicating the interpellative power of ff narratives. The basic moralistic mes
sage remained the same: praise for the indigenous values of rural folk and
criticism both of distorted Western values and of the moral corruption of city
dwellers.27 At the same time, ironically, women in these village films are of
ten depicted in Westernized urban ways, wearing thick makeup, coiffed hair,
blouses, and skirts, revealing the power of overdetermined Westernization.
Class differences between peasants and landlords are wrapped in personal
plots, such as a landlord preventing the marriage of his daughter to a peas
ant. Yet often the peasant surmounts the class barrier by hard work, educa
tion, and gainful employment. Mohsenis The Nightingale of the Farm offers
an early popular example. In a few movies, such as Naser Malekmotiis Aras
Khan (1963) and Ahmad Safais Farman Khan (1967), the villagers, fed up
with the oppression of tribal chiefs and village heads, mobilize against them
and successfully defeat their oppressors. Armais Aqamalians Gol Aqa (1967)
centers on personal revenge as the motive behind the uprising against the
landlords. Parviz Sayyad developed a comic persona named Samad, a country
bumpkin, who in a series of popular comedies debunked the upper classes,
234
city slickers, and various authority figuresgovernment officials, religious

leaders, village elders, and fathersby a combination of rural wiliness and
morality.28
From the mid-1960s on, most commercial movie stories took place in ur
ban settings, even though most of the countrys population remained rural
(Assadi 197374/135253:12). This reflected the overwhelmingly urban profile
of moviegoers more than the government determination to stress Irans mod
ern image. For while these movies depicted modernity and Westernization,
they generally undermined these by associating them with moral corruption
and social disruptions. This emphasis on cities also reflected the rapid growth
of cities filled with immigrants, cars, movie houses, cafs, and Western con
sumer goods. The emergence of newly rich entrepreneurs, an educated elite
(many trained in the West), and foreign consultants and workers complicated
the rural-urban dichotomy by overlaying the contrast between Iran and the
West. Agrarian reform disrupted agricultural production, displaced farmers,
and destroyed vital qanats (subterranean water canals), turning Iran from a
surplus producer of agricultural products into an importer. The bad guy
movie characters who destroyed Iranian farmers were identified either as
Westerners or as their surrogates, Westernized Iranians who had sold out
their country. The bad character in Parvizis The Last Passage (Akharin Go
zargah, 1962), who resorts to any means necessary to steal the land from its
rightful owners, is a foreigner named George. In Malekmotiis Village Bride
(Aruse Dehkadeh, 1962), the bad guys are the landlords Westernized son and
his Western wife, who set fire to the farmers crops. In Abolqasem Malakutis
At the End of Darkness (Dar Entehaye Zolmat, 1962), a Western woman named
Susan heartlessly destroys a farming family.
Even new-wave cinastes were drawn to this theme. In Mehrjuis Postman
(Postchi, 1972), a Western-educated Iranian transforms his uncles sheep farm
into a pig farm (forbidden by Islam) and develops a relationship with the wife
of the local mailman, who is impotent. Humiliated, the mailman kills his
wife. Likewise, in Kimiais Earth (Khak, 1973), a blonde Western woman is
portrayed as a land-grabber. Iranians dissatisfaction with their arrogant gov
ernment and the Shah, which was slowly shaping into a revolution, was dis
placed in commercial movies onto the battle of Iranians with the West and its
adherents, particularly with the United States, which had returned the Shah
to power. In this way, moviemakers both avoided censorship and appeased
spectators.
Many movies that took as their subjects the class and social differences of
the poor and the rich staged these differences in urban settings. But few city
235
films dealt deeply with the economic and social bases of differences and dis
parities, perhaps due to censorship. Most social problems were thus ascribed
to individual weaknesses and shortcomings, not to more systemic failures.
Rather, personal shortcomings formed kernels around which intricate melo
dramatic or comic adventures were woven. Filmmakers displaced Iranian is
sues and also resorted to class stereotyping. For the most part, the poor were
represented as rural, honest, authentic, simple, hardworking, and religious;
the rich were urban, dishonest, rootless, lazy, materialistic, unhappy, and ar
bitrarily cruel. By lauding the poor and condemning the rich, and by disin
genuously associating the latter with Western influences, they implicitly cri
tiqued Iranian social structures and government policies. In these movies,
love for the authentic and honest poor conquered class differences. Samuel
Khachikians Return (Bazgasht, 1954) provides an early model. In it, a wealthy
urban family hires a village boy as a housekeeper. The boy serves the family
loyally and spends his leisure time improving himself and studying. The fam
ilys son, Hamid, however, wastes his time, eventually becoming a criminal.
In due course, they both fall in love with the same girl; despite Hamids con
niving and wealth, the village boy wins the heart of the girl and marries her.
One of the central dramas in Qaruns Treasures is the contrast between
the authenticity and purity of the poor and the debauchery and unhappiness
of the rich. The film posits two major types of reconciliation for this class
conflict: one is based on descent relations (family affiliations), the other on
consent relations (class association). Qaruns reconciliation with his family is
achieved honestly because it is based on the love of kin. Yet the reconciliation
of Ali (representing the poor) with Qarun (representing the rich) is not hon
est, for Ali is not truly poor. He was born to a rich family, although he does
not know it. He crosses the class boundary merely to rejoin his rich family
from which he had been expelled. Hence, his falling in love and marrying a
rich girl, Shirin, who herself claims to have given up her well-to-do family,
reconciles the two warring classes only in form, not in substance, as both lov
ers belong to the same class. Nonetheless, by positing consent relations that
cross class boundaries, the film allows for social mobilitya revolutionary
idea, or an unrealizable sweet fantasy, in a class-bound society.
Another social conflict of modernity, commonly interpreted as personal
conflict by filmmakers, was that between oppressive or lascivious factory own
ers and their victimized workers. These stories were usually resolved in favor
of the workers, who took the lauded position of villagers and the poor in binary
tales of class struggle, as in Mohammad Ali Zarandis Sin City (Shahre Go
nah, 1970) and Hamid Mojtahedis The Starless Sky (Asemune Bisetareh, 1971).
236
Significantly, the movies in which the poor, peasants, and workers strug
gled successfully against rich families, landlords, and factory bosses capital
ized on the Shahs White Revolution, two of whose provisions were land re
form and factory reform. According to the first provision, land taken away
from its owners was to be redistributed to peasants and to former owners.
According to the second provision, factory owners were to grant their work
ers common shares in their plants. The Shah and the elite, including com
mercial filmmakers, the press, and broadcast media all adopted the language
of incarcerated opposition, issuing revolutionary platitudes about the neces
sity of dealing with feudal reactionaries and parasitic landlords (Richards
1975:20). In the process of capitalizing on these officially sanctioned posi
tions, some commercial movies critiqued them while others validated them,
thus helping to inculcate the White Revolution programs, which were pro
gressive on paper but in reality left much to be desired. Equally significant
was the resurfacing of these class-based films in the postrevolutionary cin
ema, which under the banner of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini claimed
to champion the worlds mostazafan, that is, the poor, the downtrodden, and
the dispossessed.
Fatalism and Mistaken Identity
The traditional themes of fatalism and mistaken identities, drawn from oral
tales and popular romances as well as contemporary social conditions, were
widespread, as indicated by my cursory survey showing that from the early
1950s to the late 1970s more than forty movies featured them in one form or
another. The resulting intricate, melodramatic family sagas validated both
the centrality of the nuclear family and the tensions modernity imposed on it.
Chance separated characters and fortuitously reunited them, allowing film
makers to get out of narrative tight spots created by improvisation and en
ergizing films in need of it. Fateful losses and the disappearance of family
members were often handled as profoundly sad and tragic, while their equally
fated recovery and reunions were celebrated, as in folk narratives, in numer
ous tear-jerker films.
The archetypal tragedy of mistaken identity occurs in the story of Rostam
and Sohrab in the epic poem Shahnameh, in which a father and a son engage
in a rivalry to the bitter end because the two warriors remained unaware of
each others identity. Only when Rostam succeeds in mortally wounding his
son does he realize Sohrabs true identity, but it is too late. Mistaken identities,
fate, and accidental discoveries in Qaruns Treasure create that paradigmatic
films tension and resolution.
237
In both their tragic and comic deployments, fatalism and mistaken iden
tity allowed filmmakers to transgress social norms by imagining forbidden
relationships such as incest, as in Moezoddin Fekris Waif (Dokhtare Sar
rahi, 1953). In this film, a young girl loses her father and becomes homeless.
Years later, she happens on a house in which her stepfather and brother live.
Not aware of her identity, both men fall in love with her, but she loves an
other man. When the stepfather fails to attract her attention, he attempts to
rape her. Their true relationship is discovered just in time, and the girl ends
up marrying the man she desires. Fatalism as theme decreased with higher-
quality commercial movies, such as Kimiais Qaisar, and with the emergence
of new-wave films.
Modalities of Power
According to commercial movies, power emanates from two principal
sources: money and muscle. Both lure and criminalize their subjects. Moral
ism triumphs, as those tempted pay a steep price and learn their lessons. In
an early movie, Khatibis Long Live Auntie (Zendehbad Khaleh, 1952), two pen
niless men resort to all sorts of tricks to milk their rich aunt, but, failing, they
are forced to go straight and earn an honest living. In Tunnel (Tunel, 1968), di
rected by Nader Qane, a fun-loving, money-grabbing woman marries a rich
old man whom she subsequently murders with the aid of her driver. She then
attempts to seduce her daughter-in-laws husband. She is rejected by him
and she dies in a car accident. In Qaruns Treasure, Qaruns wealth brings spir
itual emptiness, while his poor, abandoned family is happy.
The neighborhood toughs represent muscle power, alternately defending
the wealthy and powerful or protecting the poor and downtrodden, forming
the vast genre of tough-guy movies, investigated at length in the following
chapter. In Qaruns Treasure, Carefree Ali and Hasan the Rattler are not official tough guys, as they do not dress in the toughs uniform or hang out with
lutis; however, they represent many of the values of the tough guys, particu
larly their chivalry, and they use many of their expressions.
The discourse of muscle power involved not only civilians but also the
state as the most muscular agency both in society and in cinema. This dis
course was bolstered after the defeat in 1946 of the communist Azari inde
pendence movement in Azarbaijan headed by Jafar Pishehvari and the coup
in 1953 against Mosaddeq, which resulted in several patriotic and propaganda
moviesthe mini genre of military or patriotic movies. This includes such
films as Gholamhosain Naqshinehs Patriot (1953) and Khatibis Pishehvaris
Uprising and Noqlali, which lauded the person of the Shah and the power of
238
the Iranian army, gendarmerie, and police to subdue both internal subver
sives and foreign enemies. Even these pro-Shah propaganda movies could
not escape government censorship. As Khatibi relates, Savak forced him to
cast a police officer in the lead role of the general who in Pishehvaris Uprising
heads the armed units that defeat Pishehvaris forces, even though the officer
had no acting experience (Khatibi 1994:38889). That Khatibi made two pro-
Shah patriotic movies back to back and that Savak forced its wishes on him so
blatantly indicate his attempted erasure of his prior communist leanings dur
ing a period when the Tudeh Party was banned and its members were being
hunted down and executed.
From the 1960s onward, during the two decades in which the police and
security forces were modernized and became pervasive and repressive, com
mercial movies often portrayed these coercive apparatuses as alert, efficient,
and humane, working to right wrongs and bring criminals to justice. Natu
rally, this theme was most prevalent in detective and crime movies. The Ar
menian Iranian director Khachikian began a successful series of such mov
ies with his dynamic Hazardous Crossroads (Chaharrahe Havades, 1954). With
his masterful chiaroscuro lighting, extreme close-up photography and un
usual framing, dark mood, and assaultive cutting and sounds he created an
Iranian noir cinema imbued with uncertainty and insecurity, implicitly coun
tering the governments emphasis on safety and order. With his sensitive por
trayal of a remorseful criminal in this movie, Malekmotii also came to the
fore as a heroic character and actor. This film also introduced a strong cadre
of Armenian Iranian technical personnel to the commercial cinema, includ
ing cinematographers (Vahak Vartanian), an assistant cameraman (Arakol
Babakhanian), soundmen (Hanrik Avdisian, Vanik Avdisian), set designers
(Hairo Nazlumian, Gargin Zakrian), a poster designer (Haiek Ojaqian), and
a producer (Sanasar Khachaturian), once again underscoring the undeniable
contribution of Iranian ethnics, particularly Armenians, to the cinema.29
Other detective and crime movies that inscribed a positive evaluation of
the police and security forces were Amin Aminis The Shadow (Sayeh, 1959),
Gaffarys The Night of the Hunchback (Shabe Quzi, 1964), and Reza Mirlow
his Sergeant Ghazanfars Family (Khanevadehye Sarkar Ghazanfar, 1972). The
positive portrayal of the apparatuses of repression in these and other films
made after Savaks creation tended to validate the ever-w idening activities of
this dreaded organization, the oppressive police, and the compromised judi
cial system. Since social ills were often ascribed to individual weaknesses, not
to societys failures, correcting those ills also often involved only the punish
ment of individuals. Yet later in the 1970s, when the oppressive nature of the
239
state had become clear, the correction of social ills became the duty of individ
uals, leading to revenge tactics and vigilantism, particularly in the tough-guy
genre. The rise of vigilante justice in this genre offered an indirect critique of
the states inability to protect citizens.
That individuals were singled out as both the causes of and the solutions
to social ills addresses the tentative emergence of individualism. All these
modalities of power and subjectivity were highly gendered, as the owners of
muscle power, money power, state power, and individualized agency were al
most always male. Womens power generally emanated from wile, sexuality,
and duplicity.
Modernity and Westernization
Filmfarsi movies in this period equated modernity with Westernization. They
not only emphasized the arrival of modern ways in the country but also urged
their adoption. In this case, too, a binary and comparative structure was de
ployed, though it was attenuated by the possibility of reconciliation between
Iranian premodern traditions and Western modern innovations. The binar
ist but reconciliatory theme was launched in the first feature movie, Ovanes
Ohanianss Mr. Haji, the Movie Actor (Haji Aqa Aktore Sinema, 1933), in which
the traditional behavior and Islamic beliefs of a haji are ridiculed. The tradi
tional, religious, backward, fanatical, irrational, greedy, ridiculous, and hypo
critically lascivious Haji Aqa, first promulgated in this movie, became an
enduring type that appeared as a narrative agent, a buffoon, or a comic foil in
movies of all genres.
Another character embodying such tensions was the dandy (see volume 1,
chapter 6 of the present work). Both the despised haji and the ridiculed dandy
emerged stronger under Reza Shah, whose sartorial dictates and moderniz
ing policies helped popularize both these characters and the discourse about
them.
Filmfarsi movies in subsequent decades were filled with mixed and con
fusing messages, reflecting a nation struggling to find an acceptable identity.
At the same time that these movies valorized Westernization and disparaged
Islamic traditions, they emphasized the evils of Westernization in cities, par
ticularly for those who had left the safe cocoons of the village and the family.
Even Western-trained filmmakers engaged in these simplistic dichotomies.
Hosain Rejaiyan, a ucla-trained filmmaker, in his chic movie The Eighth Day
of the Week (Hashtomin Ruze Hafteh, 1973), tells the story of an attractive,
modern medical student (played by Farzaneh Taidi) who lives independently
in a modern apartment in Tehran and is raped by what turns out to be her
240
future suitor. As an autonomous individual, she is alone and must deal with
the burden, trauma, and shame of rape and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy all
by herself.
As cathected sites in which Western influences manifested themselves, ca
fs and nightclubs, where the sexes mingled, were prominent in ff movies.
However, these were sites not only of corruption but also of pleasure; their
rendition was always amphibolic. The apparent spectator appetite for these
narratives encouraged filmmakers to insert by hook or by crook a few se
quences of revealingly dressed women singing and dancing for mostly male
spectators. From the 1950s onward, these sequences were expanded to en
tire movies about cabaret nightlife and female entertainers, such as Madanis
Chance, Love, and Accident, Abbas Shabavizs Prostitute (Rusbi, 1969), and Is
mail Pursaids Repentance (Towbeh, 1972). In Qaruns Treasure, Qarun takes
Ali and Hasan to a nightclub for a night of wild fun, but surprisingly their
outing is not shown in the film. However, Fardin (Ali) and Foruzan (Shirin)
perform six song-and-dance numbers for each other, for other diegetic audi
ences, and for the camerathough none of them in a nightclub. The close-
ups of Fardins face performing the chahchahan artful style of extended
vocalizing and trillingdemonstrates his manly beauty and competence at
lip-synching this difficult singing style, while close-ups of Foruzan highlight
her feminine beauty, curvaceous body, and sexual dancing.
Sex in the movies proved as attractive in Iran as in other countries. A sur
vey of young audiences in Tehran in 1966 showed that 37 percent were tre
mendously influenced and excited by sexy scenes in films (Assadi 1973
74/135253:13). Its portrayal in novels and movies had been condemned as
early as the mid-1930s as a raging fire and a savage force. This condemna
tion continued in the second Pahlavi period, but the terms changed from re
ligious to moralistic and political. By all accounts, the exhibition of both do
mestic and imported sexy movies, ones bordering on soft-core pornography,
picked up with the increasing pace of Westernization in the 1970s.
Foreign-Travel and Foreign-Bride Movies
Contact and exchange relations with Western countries increased rapidly in
the 1960s and the 1970s through business relations, military procurement,
technical and military training, tourism, and student travels abroad, result
ing in the encroachment of modernity and modernization and in the foreign
countries economic and cultural domination of Iranian society. Writers and
novelists portrayed Western characters in their works, and the West, Western
values, and those who espoused them were recurrent features of a literary
241
genre (Ghanoonparvar 1993:2). By engaging in these strategies of represent

ing the self against the Other, both writers and commercial moviemakers
helped process these experiences and relations with the West and synchro
nize Iran with the West. This occurred not only in individual movies but also
in two subgenres, the foreign-travel and foreign-bride movies.
In the first subgenre, other countries, particularly those in Europe and the
United States, served as locations for traveling Iranians, a tendency fanned by
the emergence of package tours in the 1960s and the 1970s. In fact, the pro
ducers and directors of these movies, such as Abbas Shabaviz and Khosrow
Parvizi who made Round the World with Empty Pockets (Dore Doniya ba Jibe
Khali, 1960), took advantage of such tours to shoot their movies abroad. The
cast and crew formed the tour group, the stories were improvised, and dia
logues were ad-libbed during travel. Most of these movies followed their char
acters to various tourist sites and airports. Some of them used travel to the
West for didactic purposes, as did the Jewish director Mosheq Soruri in Haji
Jabbar in Paris (Haji Jabbar dar Paris, 1960), in which a Jewish money-loving
miser travels to Paris in his dreams, where he is taught to become a better hu
man being. Others showed Iranians adventures abroad for business, study,
pleasure, or romance, or showed the travelers changed attitudes on their re
turn home. The subtext of both subgenres, however, was the perennial issue
of Iranian modernity: the encounter between the self and the Other, leading
generally to the confirmation or reformation of an Iranian identity.
In Mohsenis Swallows Return to Their Nest, a villager who has lost one of
his two sons to illness decides to send his remaining offspring abroad for
medical training. Yet the father soon learns that the boy has been wasting
hard-earned money and his time on pleasurable activities. Chagrined, he
sends his son an emotional letter in which he pleads with him to change his
ways, including a bit of his villages earth to remind him of his obligations
to his homeland.30 The letter transforms the boy, who begins to study hard,
completes his training, and returns home triumphant and modernized. On
viewing this film during the time of his agrarian reform, the Shah was appar
ently so affected by it that he exempted it from the heavy municipal tax (Sadr
2003/1381:16667).31 Mohsenis movie is unusual, for most of the Western
travel films were comedies, which seemed better suited for processing the
painful course of self-othering.
For his Three Naughty Men in Japan (Seh Naqola dar Zhapon, 1966), Mo
hammad Motovasselani took the three famous comic characters of ff cinema
(Mansur Sepehrnia, Garsha Raoufi, and himself) to Japan for a funny story
about diamond smuggling. In Shaollah Nazerians comedy, An Isfahani in
242
New York (Yek Esfahani dar Nuyork, 1972), starring the famed comedian Nos
ratollah Vahdat, a father sends someone to straighten out his son who has be
come involved in criminal activities in the United States instead of studying.
In Vahdats own film, An Isfahani in the Land of Hitler (Yek Esfahani dar Sar
zamine Hitler, 1977), the Iranian cabaret film, with its story of the exploita
tion of innocent girls by heartless cabaret owners, is transplanted to Munich.
Based on a true story, it deals with a German group akin to the Mafia that
lures Iranian girls to Germany, supposedly for higher education. Once in Ger
many, the girls find their papers confiscated unless they perform in cabarets.
Apparently, the film led to the Iranian and German police busting one such
group and arresting its members (Arian 2001/1380:7071). In Reza Safais
Golnesa in Paris, a gypsy girl, jilted by the boy she likes, travels to Paris where
she is transformed into a beautiful and modern woman. On her return, she
attracts the boy and marries him. These movies simultaneously made fun of
the West and marveled at its accomplishments, inscribing the astonishment
that nineteenth-century books of wonder by travelers and early movie spec
tators had expressed.
The foreign bride was typically a European or American woman whose
comic ignorance of Iranian ways allowed filmmakers to play good-humoredly,
but sometimes critically, with cultural difference. The strict binarism of the
past was loosened in the interest of envisioning hybridities of various comic
sorts. In Vahdats very popular comedy Foreign Bride (Arus Farangi, 1964), the
foreign bride, Maria, is a foil that convinces the protagonist, an Iranian taxi
driver, Hosain Tormozi (Vahdat), to marry his own native fiance (figure 39).
After dating the European woman with a cute Persian accent, flirting with
her, and protecting her, Hosain realizes that the flock of a feather must fly
together.
Despite traditional and religious objections to marriages between for
39 Hosain Tormozi (Nosratollah

Vahdat) with his potential foreign
bride, Maria, in a scene from Vahdats
Foreign Bride. Frame enlargement.
243
eigners and Iranians, bicultural love prevailed in some movies, as in Wal

ter Beavers Game of Love (Baziye Eshq, 1959), in which an Iranian boy and
a British girl fall in love and successfully overcome all the obstacles to their
marriage. In Nezam Fatemis Black Meshki and the Hot Pants (Mehdi Meshki
va Shalvarake Dagh, 1972), the tough guy, Mehdi Meshki falls in love with a
foreign girl, whom he marries after marrying his sister off first, as dictated by
his fathers will. Taking a foreign bride did not always end well. In Parvizis
Akbar Dilmaj (1973), for example, the translator character is happily married,
but when he meets a foreign woman, Katherine, he decides to marry her as
well. Yet this polygamous arrangement proves to be far from harmonious,
causing the dilmaj to finally divorce the foreign bride. In Feraidun Golehs Un
der the Skin of the Night (Zire Puste Shab, 1974), a young flneur who likes to
wander around Tehran streets tries to make love to a European female tourist
in public places, causing the police to deport her. In Shapur Qaribs Eastern
Man and Western Woman (Marde Sharqi va Zane Farangi, 1975), tradition dic
tates that the protagonist marry his cousin, but he falls for a foreign woman,
who abandons him, leaving him to win back his cousin from the clutches of
another lover. Patriarchal structures could not countenance female exogamy,
which is why all the foreign spouses were female.
The commercial ff cinema was nothing if not adaptable. Many of the
themes and some of the genres and subgenres discussed in this section
found their way into the postrevolutionary commercial cinema as well. Be
cause the Pahlavi-era commercial movies were responsive to market forces
and to spectator tastes, and because they followed the semi-improvised, semi-
industrialized hybrid production mode, they were able to both express and as
suage the collective longing of the lower classes for justice, equality, authen
ticity, and even modernity in a society whose social disparities and unbridled
Westernization proved increasingly alarming. In this two-pronged task, they
were more successful than the auteurist new-wave films, which also emerged
in this period.
A Cinema of Discontinuity and Negotiated Meanings

Because many commercial movies, including tough-guy and stewpot films,
were conceived and filmed in an impromptu and unplanned fashion, impro
visation and its constituent elements constituted shaping presences not only
during filming but also during editing. Like oral storytellers who strung to
gether memorized blocks of stories with new items to spice up and vary their
244
performances, film editors engaged in centonization. Fardin claims that the

editors removed, added, or moved around scenes without creating any ellip
sis, for there was little continuity in sequencing the scenes (quoted in Baha
rlu 2000e/1379:95). Despite Fardins claim, improvisation did produce un
explained interruptions and ellipses: missing persons, loose ends, missing
scenes, repetitions, and extraneous tangential scenes. Kavusi, Toghrol Afshar,
and other serious critics rightly complained of these shortcomings. For ex
ample, Kavusi complained that even the movies of an experienced filmmaker,
such as Khachikians A Girl from Shiraz (Dokhtari az Shiraz, 1954), contained
these problems. He wrote, There is no continuity in the film. The characters
behave in unexpected ways that are not congruent with previous events. . . .
The actors hold their poses and gazes for too long. . . . The words and dialogue
are incomprehensible and not even Persian in spirit, . . . Camera movements
are inappropriate and sometimes bother the spectators eyes (quoted in Omid
1995/1374:247). Four years later, he could still complain about the spatial and
temporal confusions in Khachikians Storm over Our Town, causing Kavusi
to wonder to himself: Was Khachikians purpose to show that multiple, si
multaneous events were taking place in the same space? (quoted in Omid
1995/1374:303). Other narrative techniques, such as chance encounters and
mistaken identities, were used so abundantly and with such abandon as the
motivators of plots, complications, and denouements that they both thema
tized improvisation and robbed the film characters of agency.
Repetition was rampant in the use, even overuse, of colloquial phrases or
character-specific expressions and behaviors; of story situations, plot devices,
and stock characters; and of shot compositions, camera movements, violent
chases, and fight scenes. However, unlike in Persian classical music, repeti
tion and excess were not generally channeled and regulated by artfulness and
rhythm. In fact, one of the chief flaws of the ff movies repetitive and exces
sive structuration was their lack of pacing, their uneven pacing, and even
their irrational pacing. Song-and-dance numbers, which seemed to function
as inexpensive fillers, were often inordinately long considering their meager
narrative pay-off. In Qaruns Treasure, the first three shots after Qarun leaves
his car and enters his home are filmed in extreme long shots, perhaps to em
phasize the houses palatial grandeur and opulent furnishings, with the result
that the protagonist is dwarfed and his actions become unclear. These shots
are also rather long considering the minimal action that they contain, lasting
thirty or more seconds each. The combination of static long shots and long
takes makes for a very slow pacing at the films start. In addition, many of the
movie scenes are filmed in master shots that exhibit the Iranian performing
245
arts penchant for frontality, which displays the entire action like a tableau
to observing viewers. Or they are filmed from the point of view of an omni
scient narrator outside the diegesis, that of the director.32 There is a dearth of
shotreverse shot and point-of-view filming and of cutaways, making charac
ter identification and narrative comprehension difficult. For example, the en
tire scene in which Faramarz asks for Shirins hand from her parents and pro
duces an engagement ring is filmed in a master shot, with only the character
movements around the table and character dialogue offering clues as to what
to look at. And when he hands to Shirins parents the ring, whose quality and
size they vocally admire, the camera remains on the master shot. Their admi
ration is not corroborated or conveyed to the audience by a close-up cutaway
shot of this important item. While this filming and editing strategy may be
adequate for the utilitarian coverage of action, reliance on it reduces the direc
tors ability to pace the scenes and to direct the audiences attention precisely.
Likewise, when Carefree Ali and Hasan the Rattler are dining at the immense
and elaborately set table in Qaruns house, the technique of the master shot
makes the scene undeservedly long, and therefore tedious.
Filmfarsi movies were fantastical; neither in their contents nor in their
form did they entirely follow the rules of reality or of realism. Because of their
use of familiar plots, characters, themes, and forms, their stories were often
formulaic and their characters stereotypical. They offered a diegetic fantasy
world that sometimes did not resemble the real world at all. The whole second
half of Qaruns Treasure, beginning with Carefree Alis pretending to be Qa
runs long-lost son from India, makes for a hardly believable fantasy. In addi
tion, since some ff movies were filmed without considering the rules of mise-
en-scne and continuity filming and editing, unrealism was embedded in
the films structure, not just in their contents.
With the flawed footage they were given, film editors could not achieve the
seamlessness and realism of the classical Hollywood style. Point-of-view film
ing, or a lack thereof, caused further editing complications. In many cases,
particularly in the early movies, each scene was staged and filmed like a tab
leau, similar to taziyeh and other traditional theatrical performances, with
the result that the relationship of viewers to the film became less psychologi
cal than sociological. In other cases, where point-of-view filming was used,
it was either intermittent, chaotic, or multiple, with the result that character
subjectivity and audience identification was disrupted, as spectators could not
tell for sure who held certain viewpoints. Because of these attributes it is ap
propriate to call filmfarsi a cinema of interruptions, following Lalitha Go
palans designation of the popular Indian song-and-dance movies (2003).33
246
These narrative interruptions had profound consequences for both the fi

nal shape of the movies and the experience of watching them. Because of
them, commercial movies were like oral tales with an omniscient narrator, a
dilmaj, outside the film, not modernist, realist narratives told by diegetic char
acters whose points of view and subjectivity propelled the tale. Censorship
also contributed to narrative chaos. Qaruns Treasure contains many incon
sistencies that confuse spectators or divert their attention from the narrative.
The frequent switching between Tehran and Isfahan locations is irrational,
creating spatial and temporal confusion; we do not know why Qarun goes to
Isfahan to commit suicide or why the Zarparast family of Isfahan suddenly
throws an engagement party for Carefree Ali and Shirin in what appears to
be Tehran. In another scene, Qarun leaves the house with his friends, Ali and
Hasan, for a night out on the town to repay them for their hospitality in Isfa
han. The film then cuts not to a nighttime cabaret scene involving the three
buddies, but to a daytime poolside scene (in Shirins home in Isfahan?), where
Shirin does a cabaret-style song and dance for Ali. No explanation for this spa
tiotemporal inconsistency is given.
Logical confusions abound as well. At one point, Hasan the Rattler and Es
mal the Brainless (Qarun) ask Carefree Ali to go with them to a caf for lunch,
in a scene set in Isfahan. Declaring that he has already had lunch, Ali heads
home. In the next scene, however, all three are sitting in the restaurant to
gether, with Ali engaged most heartily in devouring his meal. Another exam
ple is the films failure to provide an explicit explanation for Qaruns decision
to abandon his wife and son twenty-five years earlier, either at the movies be
ginning when he is contemplating suicide or at the end when he apologizes to
them. Without such an explanation, his motivation then and his misery and
remorse now are incomprehensible. It is entirely possible that some of these
textual inconsistencies resulted from Yasamis improvisation, which left the
director and the editor without the necessary continuity materials to make the
scenes cohere.
The discontinuous, digressive, and chaotic narratives, characteristic of
the hybrid production mode, necessitated interpretation to determine filmic
meanings, something that rendered more complex not only the movies tex
tual systems but also their reception. Spectators had to rely on their cultural
competencies: reading between the lines, privileging accismus and dissimu
lation, or esoteric meanings and indirection over manifest meanings and di
rect expressions, all of which favored negotiated meanings. The internaliza
tion and appreciation of the meandering structures of oral narratives provided
further insights. Finally, the movies familial and communal orientation,
247
which worked against the dominant impetus of classical realist cinema to

create a unified, stable, and individuated subjectivity, helped audience mem
bers to comprehend, even appreciate, the multiplicity and dispersion of char
acter viewpoints and narrative agencies.
Song and Dance and National Identity

A surprisingly large number of feature movies made in the first two decades
of the commercial sound cinema contained either singing or singing-and-
dancing scenes. Begun in 1933 with Iranis and Sepantas The Lor Girl, this
trend became indigenized after the Second World War when the first com
mercial sound movie was made inside the country, Mohammad Ali Dariya
baigis Tempest of Life. While in Iranis and Sepantas talkie the actors sang
their own songs, this did not become a tradition in Iran. When singers such
as Delkash and Mahvash performed on the diegetic stage in cafs and cab
arets, they usually lip-synched to their own prerecorded songs.34 Other ac
tors, such as Fardin, Foruzan, and Zohuri in Qaruns Treasure, lip-synched to
the prerecordings of famous singers. The wide and frequent uses of Persian-
language song-and-dance numbers in various genres, sometimes not narra
tively motivated, nationalized the Iranian commercial cinema by differenti
ating it from other regional cinemas (Arab, Turkish, and Indian) to which the
Iranian musical cinema owed something and from which it needed to distin
guish itself. These interludes also covered up the movies narrative flaws and
gave audiences what Fardin characterized as a recess from the sometimes
incoherent narratives (quoted in Baharlu 2000e/1379:264). Unrelated song-
and-dance scenes such as Mahvashs cut-in performances proved integral to
the pleasurable experience of commercial movies, particularly of stewpot and
tough-guy films. Singers and sexy dancers were touted in the movies public
ity campaigns, even for movies that were not musicals but contained a few
songs, such as Fereidun Zhuraks Salome (1973) (figure 40).
Because of a lack of trained personnel and adequate equipment, from the
start of fiction filmmaking, 35mm theatrical movies were shot mos (with
out sound), necessitating postdubbing during postproduction. This created
all kinds of synching discrepancies and lip flapping, as in Khatibis Spring
Variety (Varietehye Bahari, 1949), flaws for which Iranian audiences devel
oped some tolerance. However, from time to time, directors sought to solve
these problems. Khatibi claims that he pioneered the use of 16mm reversal
stock and of double-system sound recording for features with his The White
248
40 The poster for Fereidun

Zhuraks Salome touts sexy
dancers and male action.
Glove (Daskeshe Sefid, 1951), because filming and synching on this stock was
cheaper and the equipment for recording live sound during filming was avail
able (Khatibi 1994:51922).35 This method reduced the synching flaws consid
erably, but it introduced other problems, for it required that during filming,
particularly during musical numbers, which typically lasted several minutes,
all the conditions of filming, actors movements, sets, and properties be co
ordinated and work flawlessly. This in turn required prior planning and me
ticulous execution, qualities that were generally in short supply. Khatibi re
lates an amusing story of filming one such sequence involving the singer
Ahmad Ebrahimi and an orchestra for his movie King for a Day (Hakeme Yek
ruzeh, 1952). The scene was to take place in a garden by a pool, but the prop
erty master had difficulty keeping the water fountain flowing properly, so this
single sequence took a full day, an inordinate amount of time for ff cinema.
Because of these difficulties Khatibi reverted to his previous practice in The
White Glove, in which he played prerecorded music during filming, to which
the singers lip-synched (Khatibi 1994:39093).
Filming on 16mm reversal stock had another drawback: it produced a sin
gle positive copy, necessitating the creation of an intermediate negative, from
249
which duplicates were struck for distribution to theaters. At the time, the
1950s, this was difficult to accomplish locally. Because of these problems and
the lower quality of the projected image, 16mm filmmaking was gradually
phased out as a serious alternative in feature-film production, but it remained
the workhorse in the documentary and instructional fields.
Over the years, to narratively motivate musical interludes, filmmakers at
tempted to integrate singers and dancers as characters into their movie plots.
Thus cafs, restaurants, and cabarets; celebrations, weddings, dining out,
hanging out at cafs, and drinking; and dancing, singing, and prostitution be
came standard plot elements, influencing the content and the form of ff. The
staggering presence in the movies of what Iranian society considered morally
questionable and reprehensible female professions is testimony to the success
of this integration. This unrealistic portrayal of womens presence in public
spaces was indicative of the generic requirements of the movies, particularly
of ff. Codes of realism were less at stake in these movies than generic codes.
As noted in the section on the star system, what drove the popularity of the
songs and the singers featured in the movies was the intertextual circulation
of both stars and movies among diverse media and pop culture venues: mov
ies, radio broadcasts, television shows, musical recordings, nightclubs, and
concerts, all of them venues of modernity. Each medium or venue had its own
peculiar and competitive infrastructure, personnel, and political economy; yet
they all shared in and benefited from cross-pollination. Each crossover use of
specific movies, stars, or entertainers bolstered not only those movies, stars,
or entertainers but also the media and venues in which they appeared, with
the result that a large, integrated, and hybridized entertainment industry be
gan to take shape. All these factors contributed to the overdetermination of
modernity.
Dubbing, Doubling, and Duplicity

Dubbing is the unsung hero of the history of world cinema. By making the
movies intelligible to world populations, a majority of whom were illiterate in
the first decade of sound, dubbing contributed immeasurably to the spread
of cinema as the most popular entertainment form. It also contributed to the
rise of national cinemas and domestic film industries. And it introduced its
own poetics and politics. In Iran, dubbing was the linchpin of the hybrid pro
duction mode, and it took two chief forms. Dubbing per se involved an opera
tion on foreign-language movies by which Persian dialogue replaced that in
250
a foreign language. Doubling involved an operation on domestic movies by

which diegetic actors, or voice doubles, recorded the films dialogue in post
production sessions. The separation of the characters voices from their bod
ies broke the tyranny of synch sound, which was the sound equivalent of in
visible editing, the armature of classical realist cinema style. This separation
provided ample opportunities for a range of not only dubbing and doubling
but also of duplicating and duplicitous practices, involving translations, mis
translations, substitutions, elisions, apparent losses, surprising gains, oppor
tunistic accommodations, and censorship, contestation, resistance, and hag
gling of all sorts. Dubbing and doubling were the cinematic equivalents of
Iranian duality, dissimulation, and accismus, which allowed and channeled
a play between the inside and the outside, between self and Other, between
citizen and the state, and between lips and the words emanating from them.
Hence the long period of tolerance for dubbing and doubling among all so
cial sectors, which lasted until a few years after the revolution of 197879. As
such, dubbingt he general term applied to both dubbing and doubling oper
ationsis one of the most significant aspects of prerevolution cinema.
Ismail Kushan dubbed the first foreign-language movie into Persian, but
not in Iran. During the Second World War, he had joined the Nazi Ministry
of Propaganda in Berlin both as a producer and an announcer of Radio Free
Irans Persian Service and as voice-over narrator of Persian-language German
newsreels. He had also played bit parts in German movies at ufa, the giant
Nazi movie factory. His pro-German and anti-British broadcasts prevented
him from returning home, forcing him to relocate from Germany to Turkey
where, using Iranian students residing there, he dubbed into Persian Henri
Decoins French comedy Premier Rendez-Vous (1941) under the title Runaway
Girl (Dokhtare Farari). Kushan had problems finding women willing to act as
voice-over artists, but finally he engaged Nurieh Qavanlu to dub the voice of
the lead actress, Danielle Darrieux. In Turkey, he also dubbed a second movie,
La Gitanilla, a Spanish musical directed by Fernando Delgado, which he titled
The Gypsy Girl (Dokhtare Kowli, 1942). He carried both movies home with
him at the wars end, when he was allowed to return. He screened Runaway
Girl for dignitaries and the general public in Tehrans Crystal Cinema starting
on 25 April 1946. In newspaper ads and posters for the film, Kushan prom
ised that the cute and beautiful French actress [Darrieux] will speak in Per
sian. In a strategy that became popular, he further indigenized the film by
using Persian names for the characters during dubbing, and by creative (and
somewhat dishonest) uses of titling he created the impression that the film
was somehow a production of Mitra Film in Turkey (Baharlu 2000b/1379:61).
251
The ad for the film not only stated that the film spoke Persian but also that
it was subtitled in Turkish, thus revealing its Turkish source. The film caused
a sensation among the spectators. It took in two hundred thousand tomans at
the box office, and the media reported positively on Qavanlus dubbing of the
French actresss voice. The filmmaker and inventor Ebrahim Moradi praised
the films achievements in rendering the Persian dialogue realistically and ac
curately. However, he found some technical faults with it as well: dark, out-
of-focus, and scratchy images. As he explained it, these faults were caused
by Kushans use of a positive copy of the movie from which he had struck an
intermediate negative on which the optical dubbed soundtrack had been re
corded (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:92830). Another shortcoming was the
loss of sound and music tracks, as the Persian dialogue was recorded over the
original composite track. The successes of Runaway Girl and Gypsy Girl in
the same year, and the media focus on them, encouraged Kushan to officially
form Mitra Film Studio to make and dub movies in Iran. The first dubbed
films, though inferior to their originals, were good enough to be functionally
equivalent and to attract investors and audiences.36
Mitra Film Studio in 1948 released the first Persian-language talkie made
in Iran. Called Tempest of Life, it was produced, photographed, and edited by
Kushan and directed by the German-trained theater director Dariyabaigi.
Kushans artisanal multitasking included many other uncredited tasks. The
result was a melodramatic, musical tear-jerker in which true love triumphs
over arranged marriage and hard work and perseverance transcend class in
equality. The film was first shown at the Rex Cinema to dignitaries such as
the Shahs sister, Ashraf, and his brother, Abdolreza, preceded by a newsreel
about the opening ceremonies of the Royal Social Service Clinic, headed by
Ashraf, which Kushan had filmed. The novelty brought many enthusiastic
spectators to the theater. But the enthusiasm soon wore off due to the films
many technical flaws, particularly bad sound (dialogues were all doubled and
postdubbed), bad acting, inferior cinematography, and a trite story (Omid
1995/1374:194200).
Mitra Film Studios dream of dubbing the first foreign film in Iran was
dashed, however, when Irane No Film Studio beat it to the punch by dub
bing and releasing in 1948 Andr Berthomieus La Neige sur les Pas (1942), a
dialogue-driven French movie, under the title Forgive Me (Mara Behbakhsh).
Several voice-over artists worked on it, including three women, Mehri Aqili,
Mahin Dayhim, and Mehri Mordadian, and several men, including the dub
bing director, Ataollah Zahed, who dubbed the voices of seven characters. It
was screened simultaneously in Tehrans Diana Cinema and the Park Cin
252
ema, where it did well, earning 160,000 and 90,000 tomans, respectively
(Omid 1995/1374:932). In the meantime, several foreign movies were dubbed
into Persian in Egypt and Paris. The one made in Paris by Ahmad Vahabza
deh, Eternal Return (Bazgashte Javdani/Lternel Retour, 1943), was one of sev
eral Vichy-era films dubbed into Persian after the fall of the regime. It was
artfully directed by Jean Delannoy and written by Jean Cocteau, based on the
myth of Tristan and Isolde. It was a superior product to begin with and the
dubbed version enjoyed high image and sound quality, particularly because
the original music and sound effects had been retained.
The overall success of these early dubbed movies led to new dubbing stu
dios that took advantage of the publics fascination with Persian-language for
eign sound films. Aria Film Studio opened in 1949, Diana Film Studio in
1950, Asre Talai Studio in 1951, Borna Tone Studio in 1952, Iran Film Studio
in 1953, Alborz Film Studio in 1953, Dariush Film Studio in 1953, and Cen
tral Film Studio in 1954. Under the direction of Saifollah Kamrani, Central
Film Studio became a key site for dubbing movies, bringing together a skilled
workforce who dubbed into Persian films such as Ren Clairs Royaye Shirin
(Les Belles de Nuit, 1952). With one exception, all these studios were located
in Tehran.
The exception was Dariush Film Studio in Italy, headed by the Armenian
Iranian entrepreneur Alex Aqababian, who specialized in Persian versions
of Italian films.37 Riots in some European cities, such as in Milan, forced the
mandatory dubbing of all foreign films to regulate the public deployment of
nonnational languages (Durovicov 2003b:82). As a result, dubbing in Italy
was perhaps more advanced than in any other country, suitable for creating an
Iranian miniature dubbing industry. For his first effort, The Story of Miserable
Feraidun (Sargozashte Feraidune Binava/Le Meravigliose Avventure di Guerri
Meschino, dir. Pietro Francisci, 1952), Aqababian not only translated the Ital
ian dialogues into Persian but also Persianized the proper names of the char
acters, including that of the protagonist in the title. Its screening in October
1952 in Tehrans Diana Cinema was so successful than within a week, Park
Cinema also began showing it. This studio and other subsequent ones in Italy
created a second front for movie dubbing, as they dubbed not only Italian mov
ies but also other foreign movies for which they imported talent from Iran.38
This Italian front rivaled the one in Tehran and achieved some respect in the
late 1950s and the early 1960s. Over the years, others attempted to dub in the
region the regional movies popular in Irandubbing Indian films in India
and Arabic films in Egyptbut these efforts did not prove very successful.
The bulk of the dubbing took place inside Iran, which by 1968 boasted
253
some twenty-five dubbing studios, 240 dubbers (170 males and 70 females),
and the professional Film Dubbers Union, which began its operations in
1965 (Omid 1995/1374:939). The Ministry of Labor ratified the constitution
of the union in 1974, but according to the veteran dubber Khosrow Khosrow
shahi, none of its provisions were ever implemented.39 The union attempted
to fight for the rights of voice-over artists against the movie importers, cinema
owners, and film distributors, who tried to squeeze budgets to raise profits.
The union staged a major strike in 1974 for improved pay, which lasted nine
months, but it was eventually broken by scab dubbers and studios.
The technical quality of the dubbed prints continued to be a problem. Fur
ther difficulties arose from the liberties film importers, distributors, exhibi
tors, government censors, and dubbers took with the originals. Many of the
technical problems were overcome, but some of the aesthetic and ideological
problems worsened, leading to particular textual poetics and politics. At first,
voice-over artists not only dubbed the voices of the characters but also cre
ated some of the sound effects. By the 1960s, distributors and importers of
foreign movies provided dubbing studios with separate music, sound effects,
and dialogue tracks, allowing the voice-over artists to concentrate on their
dialogues. Indeed, these voice artists became very proficient and prolific, the
best of them specializing in the voices of several foreign movie stars. Some of
them dubbed the voices of several actors in a single movie, such as Vossoughi
who began as a dubber and dubbed the voices of six principal and ancillary ac
tors in the television serial International Police (Polise Bainolmelali), as well as
the diverse voices of Louis Armstrong and Dean Martin in theatrical movies
(Zeraati 2004:51, 57). As a result of their success, the number of dubbed for
eign movies shown in Iran continued to rise rapidly56 films were dubbed
in 1957, 119 in 1958, and 183 in 1959. By the end of the 1950s it was rare to
encounter a foreign movie that was not dubbed (Omid 1995/1374:939). The
undubbed original-language films, particularly art-house films and classic
films, were screened in various intellectual film clubs or in the cultural arms
of foreign embassies and consulates, which were cropping up in different cit
ies in the 1960s and the 1970s.
Because of various production difficulties, almost all the commercial fea
tures made in Iran were also doubled, that is, they were filmed mos, with di
alogues and sound effects both recorded and added in postproduction. Dub
bing and doubling thus became the linchpins of the entire commercial film
industry, affecting movies production, censorship, importation, distribution,
exhibition, and advertising. Some critics rightfully claimed that ff movies
had found another secret base in the dubbing studios, for these studios
254
tended to transform all dubbed movies, foreign and domestic, into a version
of filmfarsi (Mehrabi 1984/1363:430). Only in the late 1970s, with such new-
wave films as Khosrow Haritashs Kingdom of Heaven (Malakut, 1976) and
Abbas Kiarostamis Report (Gozaresh, 1977), did synchronized sound filming
become a viable option for domestic art-cinema features, while it had been a
growing practice in documentary and nontheatrical films.
The institutionalization of dubbing and doubling and their kin, actors lip-
synching, popularized the commercial cinema and filmgoing and helped im
prove both the technical capacity of the film industry and the construction
of new movie houses. It also served as an informal film training school, as
dubbers studied and viewed the movies repeatedly to learn their parts, in the
process learning much about acting, shot composition, film structure, and
narrative. Yet this institutionalization also had a profoundly negative impact
on film-production practices. For one, actors did not have to memorize their
lines, even if they had been scripted beforehand, as a prompter (called suflor,
from the French word souffleur) fed them their lines during filming. This situ
ation reinforced laziness, intuitive acting, spontaneous filmmaking, and the
insidious idea that filmmaking was basically improvisational and required
little preparation.
Until the end of the 1950s, Iranian actors had doubled their own voices in
postproduction, but from the 1960s onward, most of them abandoned this
practice in favor of professional dubbers (called dublor from the French dou
bleur) doing their voices. For one thing, many actors were not trained and
could not match their disembodied voices during postdubbing sessions with
the actions of their on-screen personae. For another, voice-over artists had
become very skillful and their services were much cheaper than those of the
movie stars. Despite the dubbers skill, however, dubbing and doubling inevi
tably resulted in lip flapping, caused by a lack of match between what the ac
tors lips appeared to be saying on the screen and what their dubbed voices
said. Although this phenomenon increased the imprecision of the movies,
general audiences seemed perfectly willing and able to either suspend disbe
lief or to ignore the effect.
Rampant illiteracy also made dubbing a preferred practice to subtitling.
The Iranian penchant for negotiated meanings and indirection, and the tol
erance for chaos, were additional factors in the acceptance and flourishing of
dubbing and doubling. There were several domestic actors and stars, particu
larly comics, who continued to double their own voices, but this did not elim
inate lip flapping. Dramatic actors who doubled their own voices included
Parviz Fannizadeh and Behrouz Vossoughi; comics included Parviz Sayyad,
255
41 Dubbing Masud Kimiais The

Deer. From left: Ali Kasmai, the
dubbing director; a dubber named
Erfani; and Behrouz Vossoughi, the
films star, dubbing his own voice.
Nosratollah Vahdat, Nosrat Karimi, Taqi Zohuri, and Reza Arhamsadr (Meh
rabi 1984/1363:446) (figure 41).
Professional voice-over artists were both specialists and generalists. Some
of them specialized in dubbing the voices of only certain foreign and domes
tic actors, while others dubbed and doubled many different voices. They often
indigenized (Iranianized) the foreign actors and stars by putting Persian ex
pressions in their mouths, thereby continuing the function of live screen in
terpreters (dilmaj). This was particularly true of the comics and of the strong
character types, such as cowboys, tough guys, outlaws, and romantic heroes
and heroines. Sometimes, these efforts at indigenization were inappropriate,
as when dubbers spoke Burt Lancasters lines in a Persian Turkish accent
or those of Tony Curtis in a Persian Rashti accentboth of which carried
very specific cultural baggage not extant in the original. Also, because each
voice-over artist usually dubbed and doubled the voices of several characters,
foreign and domestic, strange transnational crossover resonances and disso
nances would be set up between dubbed voices and screen characters and be
tween original and dubbed films, which served to undermine the spectators
mirror-phase identification with the foreign characters. Thus dubbing be
came the great equalizer, a machine for processing differences (Durovicov
2003b:79) (figure 42). Some critics, such as Kavusi, rightly condemned these
efforts as fraudulent because they violated the authenticity and integrity
of the original films (quoted in Mehrabi 1984/1363:431). Working-class audi
ences seemed to like such transformations, however, and drew special plea
sure from hearing John Wayne and Jerry Lewis use expressions that Iranian
tough guys or comedians employed. This subverted the original films while
endearing them to audiences. Contrary to what the critics of the culture in
dustry thought, the work of these slippery and manipulative dubbing and
doubling practices proved highly ambivalent, ambiguous, and sometimes
256
42 Veteran dubbers, from right: Parviz

Bahador, who dubbed the voices of Vittorio
Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, and Walter
Chiari; Manuchehr Esmaili, who dubbed
many foreign stars, including Anthony Quinn,
Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, Sidney
Poitier, Rod Steiger, Peter Falk, Peter Sellers,
and Charlton Heston; and Ataollah Kameli,
who dubbed, among others, Kirk Douglas.
even counterhegemonic. Instead of providing wholesale interpellation and

identification with Western movies and cultures, the practices created new
movies and an alienating sort of identification.
Dubbers work often went unrecognized by both critics and audiences:40
they usually did not receive any screen credit. I have listed some of the key
voice artists and the foreign and domestic actors whose voices they dubbed
and doubled both to recognize their contributions and to indicate the range
and variety of their talent in terms of character types, type of actors, nation
ality of actors, and film genres.41 Despite the lack of official recognition, the
small group of versatile professional voice-over artists became highly influen
tial not only within cinema circles but in the entire entertainment industry.
Their services were sought for the full range of media.
The oral tradition was strong enough among some of the voice-over artists
to drive their practices. Comic radio actors, such as Hamid Qanbari, trans
ferred their various radio personalities into their film dubbing, imbuing for
eign actors, such as Jerry Lewis, with a new Iranianized personality beloved
by radio audiences, who spewed specifically Persian expressions or jokes that
were then current in Iran and on the radio. Thus Lewis was always haunted by
his indigenized double. As in Persian art music and oral storytelling, some
times the composition and performance of dubbing occurred at the same
time. Dialogue translators and voice-over artists, forced to work within the
confines of a time-based art, resorted to improvisation and to the efficiency of
inserting tried and true expressions into the mouths of the actors, much like
oral poets stringing together formulaic phrases. Once a type had emerged,
such as a country bumpkin, a foreign bride, a tough guy, or a dandy, the voice
artists ran with it. They did so by turning a foreign character into a local one,
or by imbuing a local actor with more character than he visually displayed on
the screen, or by typecasting him into a familiar, endearing, or tiresome char
257
acter. The key characters of Qaruns Treasure all owe something to these dy
namics of orality, dubbing, doubling, duplicity, and typecasting.
Any dubbing is a form of translation and a potential mistranslation, not
just in linguistic terms but also in cinematic, sociocultural, and political ones,
allowing censors, filmmakers, voice-over artists, and spectators to evade, hag
gle, delay, and play with the meanings and the politics of the movies. Like
song-and-dance sequences, dubbing served narratively and politically impor
tant functions in the semi-artisanal, semi-industrial hybrid commercial cin
ema, which was bridled by heavy censorship. It offered the directors a second
chance to smooth over their films narrative flaws or to tie up loose ends. By
adding a few words of dialogue or expository speech, they explained away or
covered up ellipses, missing scenes, missing persons, or extraneous elements
left in the movie because of improvisational filming. It also allowed them to
censor their movies, papering over immoral relationships or politically sticky
points.42 As the veteran voice artist Ataollah Kameli noted in recounting early
practices, through drastic manipulations during dubbing, a tragedy could be
turned into a comedy (quoted in Mehrabi 1984/1363:43839). Dubbing also
served the causes of Iranian nationalism by encouraging linguistic homoge
neity and by reducing heteroglossia and the Babel effect, so feared by reli
gionists and ultranationalists. This is how Persian became the dominant lan
guage not only of national cinema but also of television, all of whose programs
a large portion of them importedwere dubbed.
With the Islamic Republic, the dubbing of foreign movies became even
more of a politico-religious instrument. For example, through dubbing and
cutting, the sexual relationships of unrelated men and women in foreign
moviesillegal in Islamic Iranwould be changed to sibling or friend rela
tions. Verbally, the lovers would be called brothers and sisters or friends, and
to avoid taboos, images that suggested sexual relations would be removed by
cutting. Such changes would have major repercussions for the entire movie,
requiring many other changes to make the story seamless and coherent. With
out those fine-t uning changes throughout, the movies intelligibility would be
compromised, which was the case in many instances in the early days of the
Islamic Republic. Similar strategies were applied to change and manipulate
films politically. Both American and Soviet movies were manipulated through
dubbing and cutting.43 Because of its vast possibilities in cinema, dubbing pro
vides a rich arena for deciphering the tensions of hailing and haggling, and of
selfing and othering.
Doubling in Iranian movies decreased dramatically within a decade after
the revolution, as the government began to encourage synchronized sound
258
filming by providing more funds, or more raw stock at lower prices, to the
filmmakers who took that option. As a result, most of the art-cinema films
were shot with synch sound on location, a practice that enhanced the realism
of the postrevolutionary movies.
Censorship
Throughout this chapter I have cited many examples of censorship. These
various forms of censorship, whether instigated by the state, by the religious
establishment, by pressure groups, by commercial concerns, by spectators, or
by filmmakers themselves as an internalized form of self-censorship, worked
together to affect Iranian films collectively, even though they were applied
haphazardly, contingently, and locally by various external and internal agents.
They became a constitutive component of the hybrid production mode. While
most films suffered from one form of censorship, some movies labored under
multiple forms, such as Gaffarys South of the City. Another example is Kha
chikians comedy Messenger from Paradise (Qasede Behesht, 1958), a departure
for the director, who specialized in detective and noir genres. The story is
conventional: an established bazaar businessman goes bankrupt because of
the shenanigans of a smuggler, who is in love with the businessmans daugh
ter. The daughter, on the other hand, is in love with a different young man.
After many adventures, the smuggler is exposed, the businessmans venture
restored, and his daughter marries the boy she loves. The film was not dis
tinguished either in the market or with the critics, but its censoring made it
special, for it underwent five different types and stages of censorship after it
had already received an official exhibition permit. First, the mca forced Kha
chikian to remove some of the nudity. Then, he had to remove some of the
dialogues of Abbas Mosaddeqs character. Then the Boy Scouts complained
about the inappropriate behavior of a Boy Scout in the movie, causing further
editing. Then the lawyers of the Ministry of Justice complained about the rep
resentation of a lawyer character, forcing a halt to the films screening, which
resumed only after a few days of discussion. Finally, the film was taken off the
screen completely without any reason. Subsequently, on reviewing the film
again, the mca ordered more editing, after which it approved its screening for
a second time. But by then the films producer, Azhir Film, preferred to hold
the film (Omid 1995/1374:312).
What effects did all these editing demands, initiated by different parties,
have on the films narrative? We do not know for sure. But it is safe to assume
259
that all the cutting aggravated the different types of chaos so characteristic of
many ff movies, and of Khachikians movies in particular. The producers
finances must surely have suffered too, for Azhir Film Studio had to pay for
all the editing changes and live with the delays in the films exhibition while
interest on its production loan accumulated. This could have affected the sol
vency of the producer, and if there were enough of these cases, the health of
the whole movie industry.
Of course, under authoritarian regimes with panoptic ideological and co
ercive apparatuses the most pernicious form of censorship is self-censorship.
When artists and film authors internalize the states external rules, censor
ship remains unconscious and normal. Spectators then encounter incoherent
film texts whose interpretation is challenging and a waste of time for most
although for the hermeneutically inclined the challenge must prove a form of
pleasure. All these political, financial, and personal considerations; all these
uncertainties, delays, and frustrations; and all these textual, authorial, and
spectatorial effects form part of the hybrid mode of production.
260
5
m a l es, m a sc ul ini t y,
a nd p ow er
The Tough-Guy Movie Genre
and Its Evolution
enres emerge with the industrialization of production, distribution, exhi

bition, and consumption of the movies. The stewpot and tough-guy mov
ies emerged during the 1950s but became flourishing genres in the subse
quent two decades when industrialization set in. If Siamak Yasamis Qaruns
Treasure (Ganje Qarun, 1965) was a key progenitor of the stewpot or meat-and-
potato movie genre, Masud Kimiais Qaisar (1969) was the energizer of the
tough-guy genre. Both of these pioneering movies jolted the complacent com
mercial cinema, particularly filmfarsi, toward industrial productivity.
Genres and the Production of Meaning

Although Kimiais Qaisar rejuvenated the tough-guy conventions, turning the
movies about the lutis and their lifestyle into an immensely popular genre,
this genre had earlier roots. Two movies, released in 1958, had launched it.
Majid Mohsenis The Generous Tough (Late Javanmard, 1958) dealt with a well-
meaning tough guy charged with protecting the daughter of a friend, caus
ing complications; while Farrokh Gaffarys South of the City (Jonube Shahr,
1958) centers on a widow who out of necessity works in a caf, frequented by

two rival toughs, who compete with each other over her. The latter movie, as
discussed in a previous chapter, was influential not so much because of its
wide distribution but because of the controversy it aroused and its censorship.
Mohsenis film did not run into censorship problems, and since it dealt more
centrally with a single heroic tough and it did very well in the market, it is gen
erally credited with being the first tough-guy film.
Kimiais reworking of this genre a decade later with Qaisar and that movies
great success transformed the entire sector of commercial cinema, which had
been bedeviled by formulaic filmfarsi comedies, stewpot melodramas, and
crime movies. The tough-guy genre (luti, and later, jaheli genre) shared some
of the characteristics of both stewpot and dandy films, but it developed its
own specific tendencies, aesthetics, politics, and stars. Like all deeply rooted
genres, it was flexible, endearing, and enduring, surviving the Shah-People
Revolution, the Islamic Revolution, and transplantation into exile. Spectatorial
pleasure here stemmed not only from the shock of the new features but also
from the search for the schema, the recognition of the familiar conventions,
in Umberto Ecos words, from the return of the identical (1985:168, 179).
Luti movies popularity in the 1970s caused critics, both religious and sec
ular, to deride them as sleazy (mobtazal) and deviant (monharef ). The elitist
bias against these movies was so naturalized that in one study of spectator
reactions, social science researchers failed to include the tough-guy genre in
their questionnaires, although they included two popular foreign genres that
were similar: westerns and martial arts movies. Only one major study (by
Ali Akbar Akbari, written in 196364 and published in 1973) took the tough-
guy movies seriously. But Akbari limited himself primarily to their contents
and only to condemn them as degenerate and lumpenist (lompanist), from
the word lumpen, a designation that persists to this day. He thought them so
formless and artless that he did not bother with their narrative structures
and their deep cultural roots. Nevertheless, he provided an influential, albeit
inflexible, Marxist cultural imperialist analysis of this genre and of its re
lationship to the social classes the movies depictedthe petit bourgeoisie,
the proletariat, and the lumpen proletariat. According to Akbari, tough-guy
movies glorified the lives of the lumpen, who were not engaged in mean
ingful social production but led a shiftless, degenerate, and parasitical life
(1973/1352:5). The toughs and their women eked out a marginal existence in
debased professions, exhibited antisocial behavior, and involved themselves in
criminal schemes. Their lives included the vending of seasonal foods, gofer
ing, rabble-rousing, knife-w ielding, pimping, spying, singing and dancing,
262
m al e s , m as c uli n i t y, a n d pow er
smuggling, stealing, and prostitution. In a flight of judgmental elitist fantasy,

Akbari contended that the mind of the lumpen is very empty, ordinary, and
small, and its contents do not exceed the most elementary concepts. Instead
of using scientific cognition to understand the problems of life, he said, the
lumpen resorts to metaphysics and superstitions (1973/1352:138). He went
on to remark that the wide propagation of their debased culture by the film
and culture industries under the Pahlavi regime served the needs both of the
feudal, Westernized, and authoritarian ruling classes in Iran and of the for
eign imperialists and capitalists elsewhere. To him lumpenism was the dis
ease of lower-class taste, formed by silly and degrading adventures of lowlife
hang-abouts such as tough guys, their loose women and sidekicks, and their
song-and-dance routines in the movies, whose production the government en
couraged to either dope or dupe the lower strata. As a result, the Westernized
culture imposed by the elite from above and the lumpenist culture exud
ing from below contaminated and distorted Irans national culture and the
authentic class cultures of various social strata, thus perpetrating an ersatz
hybrid culture (Akbari 1973/1352:16080).
Despite its unquestioning subscription to top-down cultural imperialism,
overgeneralization, elitism, and shallow attention to the underlying social,
psychological, and cinematic formations at work, Akbaris thesis had identi
fied a major problem and offered a diagnosis of its genesis. Lumpenism is the
other side of the Janus face of dandyism: one side represents the disease of the
lower classes, the other that of the middle and upper classes. Both suffer from
hybridity and inauthenticity: the luti is cathected primarily to an ersatz and
formulaic native culture, the dandy principally to a phony and shallow West
ern culture. Both represented important trends in Iranian identity formation
in the twentieth century.
Akbaris identification and diagnosis of lumpenism as an illness of mo
dernity suited the anti-Shah and anti-Western zeitgeist of the Marxists and of
the Islamists at the time, and it proved highly influential. Almost all the sub
sequent studies of filmfarsi movies, particularly those of stewpot films, Far
din films, and tough-guy movies, were influenced by this works thesis.1 The
critics who subscribed to the formulation of this government-induced pathol
ogy implicitly posited either an imaginary, originary, and stable high culture
of purity and authenticity for Iran or an authentic folk culture of the masses,
which they rarely questioned and which they believed filmfarsi cinema de
filed and misrepresented. In addition, they subscribed to an injection thesis
of cinematic influence, according to which the Pahlavi regime and its impe
rialist Western masters used film and cinema instrumentally to interpellate
ma les, masc ulinity, and p o wer
263
(hail) the spectators and inculcate an ideology of syncretic Westernization di

rectly and unproblematically. According to this view, state-supported culture
was entirely homogenous and hegemonic. Private desires, alternative views,
public tastes, resistance to government manipulations, and haggling with the
dominant ideology had no room. Citizens and spectators were thought of as
helpless and hapless victims. Like both the communists and the critics of
Western mass culture, such as Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, these
critics believed that the ruthless unity of the culture industry imposed it
self on an essentially passive and atomized population (1972:123). These views
were held by both secular intellectuals and the religious elite, exemplified
by Jalal Ale Ahmad (1961/1340) and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1981a,
1981b, 1984), both of whom developed powerful key concepts such as Westo
nitis (gharbzadegi) and the culture of idolatry ( farhange taqut), respectively,
to critique the popular culture of the second Pahlavi period. These key con
cepts became the engines of the revolution of 197879.2
Finally, proponents of this thesis of cultural imperialism placed an un
due belief in the power of cinema as a machine both for manipulating real
ity and for realistically rendering the world. Accordingly, if the government
and the Western movie industries employed cinemas manipulative powers
to hail and subjugate Iranians and to turn them into consumers of cheap, de
based Western entertainment and products, Iranian filmmakers had a duty
to counter this stratagem by using cinemas power of realism to present the
true Iranian reality, one uncontaminated by ersatz Westernization and politi
cal manipulations. Both the governments manipulation of cinema and cin
emas power of truthful realism were much more complicated and contingent
than the critics either understood or acknowledged.
As a result, in public discussions and critical examinations of the filmfarsi
industry, the tropes of disease and pathology dominated. The thesis of this
chapter, however, is that the tough-guy movies constitute a genre, which I de
fine as a dynamic, rule-bound activity of meaning production, collective ex
pression, and cultural inculcation, resistance, and negotiation involving mul
tiple elements and parties, including the film industry production practices,
generic conventions, censorship rules, filmmakers authorial creativity, and
spectator reception. By examining the tough-guy movies as a genre, I hope to
bring out the complex and contingent social and cinematic dynamics that gov
erned their production and reception and that ensured the genres longevity
while allowing evolution. Generic approaches shed light not only on the ways
that social and ideological forces are inscribed in a specific group of films
textual formationbut also on the manners in which genres influence so
264
cial and ideological discourses and relations. The latter describes ideological
formation (Schatz 1981; Neal 1983; Altman 1981, 1999; Naficy 2003b; Grant
2003).
By examining the dynamics of generic conventions and codes and by track
ing their evolution, much can be learned about the deep structures, preoccu
pations, and aesthetic traditions of a society and about the process by which
it shapes, and is shaped by, forces of change, such as by Westernization, mo
dernity, and cinema. This is because these conventions tap into deeply held
values, concerns, and traditions that have become naturalized as common
senses of society, requiring no examination. The cultural studies of genres
can take us far beyond the issues of cinematic realism, those of a realistic por
trayal of the tough guys, of the symptomatology of a sick society, or of mere
textual regularities.
Generic conventions, of course, are not immutable; they change and evolve
in correlation with political formations, social tensions, cultural and religious
traditions, government censorship, authorial tendencies, production and mar
keting practices in the film industry, and spectators reactions and counter
hailing. As Stephen Neal noted in an early study: Not only a set of economic
practices or meaningful products, cinema is also a constantly fluctuating se
ries of signifying processes, a machine for the production of meanings and
positions, or rather positionings for meaning; a machine for the regulation of
the orders of subjectivity. Genres are components in this machine. As sys
tematized forms of the articulation of meaning and position, they are a fun
damental part of the cinemas mental machinery. Approached in this way,
genres are not to be seen as forms of textual codifications, but as systems of
orientations, expectations and conventions that circulate between industry,
text and subject (1983:19). As a popular genre with mass appeal, the tough-
guy movies constituted the mental machinery of the mid-twentieth century
popular culture whose workings bore less the stamp of individual authors
than of Iranian cultural orientations, expectations, conventions, and social
and ideological formations. Hence these movies may be said to present and
represent the voices of the culture, mediated through signifying practices and
generic conventions. With the exception of Kimiais films, the bulk of the
tough-guy movies were authorless in the sense that their makers did not de
velop a coherent worldview or a consistent individual film style, but instead
intuitively followed, improvised, and elaborated on the contents of a deep
sociocultural encyclopedia and an evolving set of conventions, which they ne
gotiated and internalized alongside government censors, film financiers, and
the audience.3 Other professionals, such as the composer and lyricist Jafar
265
Purhashemi, who wrote the songs and composed the music for many tough-
guy movies, contributed to the regularity and conventions of the genre.
The sociocultural encyclopedia the tough-guy movies drew on resembled
that of the stewpot movies. This genre was derived from two primary sources:
the toughs historical formation, ideology, and lifestyle and Iranian oral litera
ture and medieval literatures, such as chivalry literature (adabe pahlevani)
(Jami 2000; Mahjoub 2000), popular romances (Hanaway 1970), and folk
tales (dastanhaye amianeh) (Mahjoub 2003/1382). While the stewpot genre
also drew on oral literature and contained luti-type characters, they did not
centrally deal with the lutis social formation and their lives and times.
The Tough Guys (Lutis) as a Social Formation

The tough guys and their ideology (variously called lutigari, javanmardi, or
fotovvat) are both ancient and complex and in them are commingled many
seemingly contradictory tendencies. As Ehsan Yarshater notes, the terms
above may collectively be translated as chivalry, which refers to the code
of behavior of a loosely defined social group that appeared or was revived in
the Muslim Middle East in the first century of Islam (quoted in Mahjoub
2000:5). Mehrdad Bahar traces the luti tradition further back to the ancient,
pre-Islamic Mithra myths and philosophy (1976/2535:18). Whatever their ori
gins, the lutis social functions and status were not static, and they did not
constitute a unified and homogenous formation.4 Over the centuries they
evolved, became systematized, and took different national forms in each Mus
lim country. In the Iranian context, chivalry is based on the virtues of brav
ery, generosity, loyalty, and helping the poor and the downtrodden. In the
course of their evolution, some of the javanmard groups favored Sufism and
adopted the ideals of abandoning worldly pleasures and dedication to spiri
tual goals; others adopted bravery, vigilantism, adventurism, and pleasure
seeking (Yarshater quoted in Mahjoub 2000:5). In his classic treatise on the
topic, Fotovvatnamehye Soltani, Hosain Kashefi Sabzevari identifies a central
tenet of javanmardi to be the maintenance of a productive tension between bi
nary opposites: good and evil, morality and immorality, certainty and doubt,
generosity and parsimony, love and hate, and humility and arrogance (quoted
in Abbasi 1998/1377:vol. 1:1920). The numerous terms that Iranians have
used to describe the toughs testify to the tensions and complexities of this
duality in belief, value, and behavior. Many of the terms, such as lout (lat), ig
norant thug ( jahel), loafer (velgard), knife-w ielder (chaqu kesh), bully (qoldor),
266
and lumpen (lompan) are pejorative and critical of the toughs. Others, such as
velvet hat wearer (kolah makhmali), slick brother (dash mashti), brave and gen
erous ( javanmard), cunning trickster (ayyar), champion (pahlevan), dervish
(darvish), and tough guy (luti) are either neutral or laudatory.5 I use the terms
luti and lat here to both denote the polar tendencies of the toughs and to differentiate the heroic characters (lutis) from the villains (lats).6
Historically, the toughs formed an urban social grouping (Hanaway
1970:142; Bahar 1976/2535:16), and in the nineteenth-century Qajar era, it in
cluded two basic types: entertainers and urban social bandits (Floor 1981:86).7
Lutis played music, danced, managed dancing animals (such as monkeys,
dogs, and bears), performed comic and acrobatic skits, and told jokes. They
organized and performed in religious processions, Shiite lamentations, and
taziyeh performances. 8
Wrestlers, bodybuilders, and other athletes were frequent among the
toughs as social bandits, acting as Robin Hoods and political middlemen. In
their Robin Hood function in popular romances and in the luti movies, they
were javanmard and obtained justice for women and underdogs, respected el
ders, and demonstrated courage, living an ideal of manliness. They publicly
showed self-sacrifice, truthfulness, loyalty, and piety (Mostofi 1997; Khan
lari 1985/1364, 1969b/1348:107377; Mirzai 2002/1381; Mahjoub 2003/1382).
In their political role they were not so much luti as lout, abrogating chivalry.
More often than not they fought publicly with their rivals and acted as middle
men for competing clerics, landowners, state governors, or national govern
ments, either enforcing the law or violating it.9 Hired by competing powers,
they helped settle scores, collect taxes, organize political and religious events,
coerce voters during elections, and in general achieve social and moral con
trol through violence. In the 1950s, a famous luti, Hosain Ramezan Yakhi (Ra
mezan the Iceman), along with his henchmen tore down the walls of a movie
house that was under construction in the poor South End of Tehran; erecting a
venue for Westernized forms of entertainment (instead of a mosque) in a heav
ily Muslim district was considered an offense to public morality. The tough
guys intervention dissuaded the theater owner from proceeding with the proj
ect (Mirzai 2002/1381:127). Politically, the toughs were in the main conserva
tive, even reactionary, with their allegiances more often based on rivalry with
opposing toughs than on patriotism (Khanlari 1969c/1348:265; Floor 1981:91).
Many toughs of both tendenciesheroic lutis and villainous loutswere
athletes or wrestlers who frequented the houses of power (zurkhaneh, a com
bination of a training gym and a spiritual center) or sometimes owned these
establishments. In these places, whose ancient origin is a matter of some con
267
troversy, they received their physical and spiritual training and were social
ized into their hierarchical roles.10 The zurkhaneh exercises and the institu
tion of chivalry and manliness achieved some respectability in the thirteenth
through the fifteenth centuries (Rochard 2002:321). Yet the zurkhaneh mostly
retained a contradictory reputation through the centuries, which stemmed
from the binary social functions and behavior of the toughs associated with
it. As a result, like the tough guys themselves, the zurkhaneh and the tough-
guy movies have been both celebrated as noble and condemned as degenerate.
All types of toughsentertainers, social bandits, and athleteswere driven
by male power and performativity, by both coercion and charm. Lutis colorful
language, physicality, and costumes, as well as their styles of dancing, sing
ing, drinking, bodybuilding, and fighting, and even the tensions of their moral
conventions and convictions are for public display. Haunting modern cafs,
traditional coffeehouses, cabarets, zurkhanehs, movie houses, and streets, lutis
also populate political demonstrations, sporting events, and religious proces
sions (dastehgardani), lamentations (rowzehkhani), and passion plays (taziyeh).
Many luti wrestlers, among them Mohammad Ali Fardin, Imam Ali Habibi,
Reza Baikimanverdi, and Behrouz Vossoughi, and bodybuilders, including Za
karia Hashemi and Ilush Khoshabeh, turned to acting and became stars. What
was on public display and what was at stake was not just the toughs power to
charm their fans but also their power to defeat their opponents. Fear and re
spect in their own neighborhoods for some grew to national prominence for
them. Such fear and respect are evident not only on the movie screens but also
in the movie houses (recall that in early days of cinema, when a major tough
arrived late at a neighborhood cinema, sometimes the projectionists stopped
the movie in his honor, resuming only after he was seated). Vossoughi relates
an amusing story about the power of the lutis. One day, during the filming of
Kimiais The Deer (Gavaznha, 1974) in Tehran, an imposing luti arrived on
the scene and invited Vossoughi to lunch at his house. Respecting Vossoughi
for his performance as a famous luti in Qaisar, he did not take no for an an
swer, and since both the director and the star were keenly aware of the power
of such lutis in the neighborhood and of the negative repercussions of refusing
his offer and disrespecting him, they agreed to stop the production for lunch.
However, the toughs power was such that he not only kept the star for lunch,
watched over by dozens of neighborhood observers, but also kept him through
out the afternoon, insisting that he partake of a variety of food and alcoholic
drinks, despite Vossoughis protestations. Hours later, at dusk, the inebriated
star finally returned to the filming location, where he found the crew and cast
patiently waiting for him. The director, however, was so livid with anger that,
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as the Persian saying goes, if you knifed him he would not have bled. It was so
late that no more filming could be done that day (Zeraati 2004:27427).
The maintenance of a proper balance between opposites constituted the
ideal of Iranian masculinity. Without a public to be impressed by their perfor
mance of masculinity, the toughs were nothing. The best tough-guy movies
inscribed the tensions between the binary themes of good and evil, morality
and immorality, certainty and doubt, generosity and parsimony, love and hate,
and humility and arrogance and the resulting conflicts, hesitations, contra
dictions, and resolutions. They also revolved around the central quality that
ideal lutis are expected to possess, something that continues to be the ideal
of Iranians in general: the elusive inner purity (safaye baten), which can be
achieved only when these dualities and contradictions are resolved, leading to
a consistency of feeling and behavior or harmony between the interior and the
exterior (Bateson et al. 1977:26869).
Inner purity involves balancing binary opposites in a corrupt world and
maintaining a productive tension between individual interior feelings and
desires and social demands for proper behavior and appearances. In a cor
rupt world, self-preservation forces one to play the game, to lie, to be dishon
est, to take nothing at face value. But underneath this mandatory mask, the
individuals self-respect depends on a view of himself as essentially pure, hon
est, and trustworthy. Furthermore, there is a constant search to find others
with whom one can be this true self (Fischer 1980:140). The tension be
tween interior and exterior worlds and between self and other and the efforts
to achieve harmony form the central drama not only of the tough-guy genre
but also of some of the best Iranian movies in general.11
The closer one is to possessing inner purity, the closer one is to being a Sufi,
or a dervish, that is, disinterested in worldly power and material possessions.
These dervish types are frequent characters in prerevolution new-wave movies,
such as Kimiavis P as in Pelican and Stone Garden, and in postrevolution art
movies, like Dariush Mehrjuis Hamoon (1990). What matters is neither mate
rial wealth nor poverty outside but inner richness, spirituality, and humanity.
The Narrative Structure of Tough-Guy Movies

Like all enduring genres, the tough-guy genre evolved over the years, help
ing Iranians interpret, rework, and process social change and modernity and
negotiate individual and national identity. Two main subgenres developed in
prerevolution Iran: dash mashti and jaheli movies. After the revolution, the
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genre underwent further evolution as it attempted to process and incorporate

the radical social transformations of an Islamic revolution at home and of ex
pulsion of a large number of Iranians to foreign lands. This led to the pro
duction of another tough-guy genre in the countryinvolving Islamicized
toughsand to transplanted tough-guy forms in Los Angeles such as tele
vision shows, serials, and music videos. The terms luti movies and tough-guy
movies cover all these subgenres.
I have selected two archetypal movies for detailed analysis, both directed
by Kimiai. They shed light on the evolution of the genre and on the specifici
ties and differences of its two main subgenres, dash mashti and jaheli movies.
However, these movies are not run-of-t he-mill filmfarsi; they were exemplary
and highly influential. Although Kimiai made both Qaisar (1969) and Dash
Akol (1971) around the same time, in terms of their diegetic worlds, the for
mer is a jaheli movie while the latter is a dash mashti film. The dash mashti
films concerned premodern, rural toughs from the turn of the twentieth cen
tury, and they were generally made in the late 1950s inside Iran. On the other
hand, the jaheli films, also called kolah makhmali (velvet hat) films, dealt with
the life and times of modern toughs after the Second World Warmore pre
cisely, with postWhite Revolution toughs, as they were made primarily be
ginning in the 1960s. Both genres were shaped not only by the contents and
formal attributes of classical epics and romances but also by the commercial
cinemas hybrid production mode.12 During the second Pahlavi period, sound
and fiction filmmaking brought with them concerns about the Persian lan
guage, about oral narration, Iranian nationality and authenticity, and Persian
mythology, history, and literature as sources of both movie stories and narra
tive conventions. By thus localizing the movies, sound and speech helped cre
ate an Iranian national cinema, one differentiated from the products of other
national and global cinemas.
Dash Mashti Movies: Masud Kimiais Dash Akol (1971)

Dash Akol is the best known example of the dash mashti subgenre, though
many of the films in that group were, like Dash Akol, based on famous histori
cal or mythological stories and figures. It was adapted from a short story of the
same name, first published in 1932, by Sadeq Hedayat, which Hushang Gol
shiri considered to be one of the foundations of contemporary fictional lit
erature (1990a/1369:172) and Homa Katouzian called a small masterpiece
(1991:103).13 Pars Film Studio produced it.14 On its release, the movie version
also garnered much critical praise. The well-known writer Akbar Radi called
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it one of the most eminent products of the Iranian cinema (1990/1369:200),

while another writer, Zhaleh Mahdavi, called Dash Akol superior to Kimiais
previous Qaisar, citing it as an evidence of the directors evolution toward cin
ematic maturity and mastery (1990/1369:208).15 In an interview with me,
Bahman Mofid, a leading tough-guy character actor who starred in both of
these seminal movies and has a deep knowledge of luti history and traditions,
characterized Dash Akol as authentic (Naficy 1984a:14). The royal court, too,
thought so highly of the movie that it had it screened in the Sadabad Palace.
At the end of the screening Empress Farah and Princess Ashraf praised the
film to Vossoughi (Zeraati 2004:212).
The plot of the movie goes as follows: Dash Akol (Behrouz Vossoughi), a
respected, fearsome luti with an ugly scar across his face, is challenged by a
villainous and boisterous but stuttering black lout, Kaka Rostam (Bahman
Mofid).16 Their adversarial relationship and Kaka Rostams villainy are estab
lished in the first sequence, on which is superimposed the first line of Heday
ats short story: Everyone in Shiraz knew Dash Akol and Kaka Rostam were
such bitter enemies that they would have shot each others shadow. In this
sequence, a drunken Kaka Rostam in an alleyway belligerently argues with a
woman who berates him for being a lout, not a chivalrous luti like Dash Akol.
His bullying ends when Dash Akol suddenly emerges from the darkness. In
this and other similar encounters, Dash Akol straightens out Kaka Rostam
through verbal abuse and physical strength and agility. In the opening se
quence, both forms of humiliation are combined. After an extended physical
fight, Dash Akol pins Kaka Rostam down and, with the edge of his machete
against his enemys throat, threateningly declares: I will not kill a dog, but if
you harass people once more, Ill rub rouge on your cheeks.
Already in these early sequences, Kimiai engages in three important di
rectorial innovations. The on-screen quotation of Hedayats opening line is
perhaps the first such screen quotation that directly and unequivocally links
the movie to a specific Iranian modernist literary source. Kimiai stages all
the encounters of the archrivals in the style of classic American westerns:
While Kaka Rostam is publicly gloating about his accomplishments or ha
rassing a victim, Dash Akol appears unexpectedly from the darkness of the
night. Accompanied by appropriately rhythmic music (composed by Esfan
diar Monfaredzadeh), dramatic shot composition (filmed by Nemat Haqiqi),
and staccato editing (by Kimiai and Hosain Hami) the lone hero walks with
measured, confident steps and proceeds to put Kaka Rostam and his cowardly
gang in their places (figures 43a and 43b). Finally, most of the filming takes
place in traditional locations with deep historical roots.
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43a A blackface Kaka Rostam (Bahman

Mofid) berates Dash Akol: Do you have
a husband or are you yourself Dash
Akols husband? Frame enlargement
from Masud Kimiais Dash Akol.
43b Dash Akol (Behrouz Vossoughi),
wearing a satin jacket, later responds:
I will not kill a dog, but if you harass
people once more, Ill rub rouge on
your cheeks. Frame enlargement
from Masud Kimiais Dash Akol.
Dash Akols elderly friend, Haji Samad, requests on his deathbed that Dash
Akol take charge of his wife and young daughter, Marjan, and act as the exec
utor of his estate. Unable to deny a dying mans wishes, Dash Akol accepts the
responsibilityand is trapped by it. Written with clarity and insight into luti
philosophy, Kimiais screenplay quotes Hedayat as Dash Akol muses aloud:
God bless you, Haji, but this was not a good thing you did. A man is a man
when he is free. Now, you have put chains on me. During the burial in a
lovely garden, Dash Akol for the first time lays eyes on Marjans unveiled face.
They lock gazes; he is transformed. Marjan (Mary Apik) drops her handker
chief and Dash Akol keeps it as a symbol of his undying love for this under
age girl (figure 44). Dash Akols single-minded devotion to the affairs of the
rich Haji and to Marjan earns him the ridicule of Kaka Rostam and his gang,
whom he sees at the caf of a Jewish proprietor, Molla Eshaq, where they
drink vodka (araq), listen to live music and tough-guy songs, and watch Aq
das, a caf dancer, perform.
When Marjans mother asks his permission as the family guardian to
marry her daughter to a young suitor, Dash Akol, acting according to the luti
honor code, suppresses his own love for Marjan and acquiesces to her mar
riage. On her wedding night, he turns Hajis affairs over to Marjans hand
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44 The gaze of a nubile Marjan (Mary

Apik) transforms the great tough guy
Dash Akol. Frame enlargement.
45 Marjans handkerchief as a
fetishized object of transgression
and transition. Frame enlargement.
some, rich husband and in despair seeks out Eshaqs caf to drink and forget.
Here, Aqdas (Shahrzad) warns him of the damage to his reputation resulting
from his love for the forbidden girl. When she confesses her own love by say
ing, I envy the clothes you are wearing, Dash Akol spurns her. On the danc
ers insistence, however, a forlorn Dash Akol gives in to her demand, saying,
Tonight, you, too, will become a bride. Their lovemaking is intercut with
that of Marjan and her husband on their wedding night. Yet throughout the
scene, Dash Akol tenderly squeezes Marjans handkerchief in his hands. The
handkerchief allows him to be physically with one woman while pining for the
other. In the meantime, one of Marjans relatives waits outside her bedroom
door for the telltale handkerchief that will indicate by the drops of blood on
it the consummation of her marriage and the loss of her virginity (figure 45).
Returning from the caf that night drunk, Dash Akol encounters Kaka
Rostam and his gang in an alleyway, where he is ridiculed and beaten merci
lessly. Kaka Rostam accuses Dash Akol of having become a rich mans guard
dog and reveals why he is hostile toward the rich. His servant parents, he
says, were mistreated by their wealthy masters. He tells how in the dead of
one winter night his parents were thrown into the freezing water of a court
yard pool to teach their young boy obedience. But instead of learning obedi
273
ence, I learned to become a good bully, says Kaka Rostam. To reestablish

his manly reputation, Dash Akol challenges Kaka Rostam to a duel with ma
chete (qameh) at the taziyeh amphitheater (tekkyeh) the following night. To
prepare himself, Dash Akol attends a zurkhaneh, where he goes through his
exercises alone. Also, for the third time in the movie, he confesses his undy
ing love for Marjan to the only creature he trusts, his caged parrot.
The final showdown takes place after a taziyeh performance. Kaka Rostam
and his impatient gang are ready, but Dash Akol is late. They publicly accuse
him of being a coward and a woman. Kaka Rostam sarcastically asks a group
of women onlookers in the amphitheater: Maybe one of you is Dash Akol hid
ing under a veil? As the villains are about to declare their victory and leave,
Dash Akol appears from out of the darkness. The machete duel between the
rivals proves fierce and continues under a heavy downpour, until Dash Akol
pins Kaka Rostam to the ground. Once again he decides to show luti-style
mercy (I do not kill dogs; if you want to keep your reputation, leave town).
Yet as he turns to leave, Kaka Rostam lunges forward and fatally stabs him
in the back. Dash Akol spins around and grabs Kaka Rostam by the throat to
choke him to death.
Later, on his deathbed, Dash Akol asks Eshaq to deliver his only personal
belonginghis pet parrotto Marjan. When a delighted Marjan receives the
caged present, Dash Akols plaintive voice is heard confessing his love to the
bird, Marjan, my love for you killed me, strongly implying that he was not
killed by Kaka Rostam but by violating the luti code by falling in love with his
charge (figure 46).17 In the movies final scene, two birds play joyfully in Mar
jans pool. When one flies away, the image freezes on the one remaining be
hind. Over this image is superimposed the first line of Hedayats influential,
angst-ridden novel The Blind Owl (Bufe Kur, 1937): There are sores which
slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker. It is impossible to con
vey a just idea of the agony which this disease can inflict. In general, people
are apt to relegate such inconceivable sufferings to the category of the incredi
ble (Hedayat 1989:1).18 The bookend quotations from Hedayats novelette seal
the intertextuality of Iranian art cinema and modern literature (figure 47).
Kimiai pays homage to and reinterprets three sources in his film: the oral
tradition and popular romances from which luti stories and characters are
generally derived; the real-life stories of Dash Akol and Kaka Rostam who
lived in Shiraz at the turn of the twentieth century; and Hedayats short story
from which the film was adapted.
William Hanaway studied beloved medieval romances and tales, such as
Samak Ayyar, Darab Nameh, Firuz Shah Nameh, Eskandar Nameh, Hosaine
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46 Dash Akol on his deathbed:

Marjan, my love for you killed
me. Frame enlargement.
47 Film and literature intertextuality.
The film Dash Akol opens with the
first line of Hedayats short story:
Everyone in Shiraz knew Dash Akol
and Kaka Rostam were such bitter
enemies that they would have shot each
others shadow. Frame enlargement.
Kord, and Amir Arsalan, which are based on the Persian oral tradition. Accord
ing to him, these romances, which were very popular with Iranians, literate or
not, served a threefold function: to entertain; to teach, preserve, and transmit
values; and to reevaluate the present in light of the past (Hanaway 1971b:60).
They were transmitted in print form as books, orally as bedtime stories, and
performed in coffeehouses and at public gatherings. It was natural that they
would also form a major source of ideas, stories, characters, and conventions
for filmfarsi, particularly for the tough-guy genre.
The newspaper serialization of popular novels involving tough-guy char
acters was another source for the movies. Hasan Madanis story, Esmal in
New York (Esmal dar Nuyork), was first serialized in Sepid O Siah magazine
in 1954 and later became a very popular book. It focuses on the life of a jaheli
driver who during the Second World War befriends an American serviceman
and learns about the prosperous life of drivers in the United States, to which
he emigrates. While no film was made of this novel, it and other serials and
novels fed into movies like the foreign travel subgenre, which popularized
tough-guy characters and their lifestyles, language, and worldview. Like the
nineteenth-century books of wonder, which Iranians wrote about their trav
els to the West, the protagonist is struck by material progress in the United
275
States, ending his narration with a paragraph that begins: I saw a country
which was a land of wonders (quoted in Ghanoonparvar 1993:88).
In the tough-guy movies of the mid-twentieth century, as in the popular
romances of medieval times, Iranians reworked, preserved, reinterpreted,
and transmitted their values and traditions in the light of momentous so
cial changes brought on by modernity. These movies were compilations of an
evolving, systematizing inherited lore.
Tough-Guy Movies Generic Conventions

In the following section, the features that Dash Akol, as a representative of
the dash mashti subgenre, shares with popular romances are compared to es
tablish the thesis that oral stories, popular romances, and luti movies are all
formulaic, containing similar standardized narratives and generic elements,
forming both a social and a narrative encyclopedia for Iranians.
Plot
The plots of the popular romances that Hanaway studied were typically driven
by chase and pursuits, often motivated by the heros desire to be united with
a loved one (1970:230). Likewise, the luti protagonist is often on a chase, re
dressing a wrong, revenging an affront, or competing with a rival. In Dash
Akol, the plot revolves around the personal rivalry between the luti type whose
era is fading (Dash Akol) and the lout type who is in ascendance (Kaka Ros
tam). Kaka Rostam chases Dash Akols status as the neighborhoods chief luti.
Were Kaka Rostam to have survived, however, his antisocial and villainous
conduct would have prevented his transformation from a lout to a luti. The
plot does not become a drama of transformation, for it stops at the tragic ter
mination of both the hero and the villain.
Character Type and Masculinity

The movie tough guys retain the dual roles of Robin Hood and political mid
dlemen, and they almost always come in binary pairs, with the protagonists
representing the luti/Robin Hood pole and the antagonists representing the
lout/middleman pole. These character types provide what the anthropologist
Michael Fischer called mental frames (1980:141). Most tough-guy movies
present these characters in their most stereotypical, unambiguous, and ideal
276
ized forms. Each character represents one of the binary types and behaves
according to that types dictates. Marjans mother describes Dash Akols in
ner purity this way: They say he is so truthful that if he steps on a grape,
his mouth will taste the sweetness. Of course, it is always possible to feign
inner purity and become what is called a phony luti (lutiye motazaher); yet
Iranians generally attach great importance to truly achieving such an ideal
ized, centered, and balanced state of being in the world (it forms part of their
mystic Sufi tradition). Lutis are constantly being tested to prove their sincer
ity and that their behavior directly expresses an inner state. The luti code re
quires that idealized specimen, such as Dash Akol, be compassionate toward
and defend the weak and the women of their neighborhood, be merciful to
ward their adversaries, and lead a stoic lifestyle. Finally, they are supposed to
be chaste with women (cheshm pak); indeed, according to Mofid, ideally they
are to remain virgins until married, and they must remain faithful to one wife
throughout their lives (Naficy 1984a:4). This may account also for the preva
lence of the toughs homosocial and homosexual relationships, relations that
are not directly acknowledged but kept as open secrets.
On the other hand, villainous louts, such as Kaka Rostam, are boisterous,
bully the weak, and act as mercenaries on behalf of the powerful and the rich.
While the lutis are generally loners and their authority is derived from their
moral and physical strengths, the louts tend to form gangs, deriving author
ity from their numbers and their violence. Popular literature depicts lutis as
having risen from the common folk. Even those who are born well off, such
as Dash Akol, consciously try to live humbly, share their wealth, and help the
more unfortunate members of society. The denial of the material world gives
the lutis a measure of freedom and a moral authority that separates them from
the materialistic lout characters.
Character Development
In popular romance literature, action trumps character development, since
the tough guys are not only protagonists but also exemplars. They are des
tined to fulfill certain functional roles rather than [be] human beings react
ing to events or driven by inner compulsions (Hanaway 1971a:154). This also
holds true for the taziyeh performers, who, as Andrzej Wirth has observed,
are carriers of a predefined character (1979:38). The tough-guy movie,
in this regard, is the most indigenous of all Iranian film genres. Marjans
mother expresses this notion of predestination when, in lauding Dash Akols
truthfulness, she says, Anybody who has any character has it from the time
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he is in diapers. Dash Akol himself expresses a similar worldview after a caf

brawl with his nemesis by saying, What is in your cards is certain to happen.
Yet more sophisticated tough-guy movies, such as Dash Akol and Qai
sar, endow their dichotomous characters with individual subjectivity, doubt,
and choice, which intensify their tales dramatic impact. The central drama
of the latter movies stems not only from the structural dichotomy of good
and bad but also from the responsibility that individual choices pose for the
protagonistsa modernist subjectivity. The durability of Dash Akol stems
precisely from the archrivals internal complexities. Their choices transform
them from the archetypal characters of ancient popular romances to real,
twentieth-century dash mashti figures. In fact, Dash Akol is not totally inde
pendent and heroic: he takes on the affairs of the rich Haji and falls in love
with his daughterboth choices violating the luti honor code. He is killed as
much by his own violations as by Kaka Rostams dagger.
What further distinguishes Kimiais Dash Akol is the partial reversal of the
protagonists roles, as it is Dash Akol who, beholden to the rich Qavam fam
ily, faces dishonor, not the villainous Kaka Rostam. And Kaka Rostam is not
a stereotypical lout, for his humble origin as the child of the Qavam familys
former servants sets him apart, giving him a kind of authenticity that his anti
social behavior then neutralizes. The back story of his parents mistreatment
by the aristocratic familybriefly alluded to in the filmprovides the moti
vation for his anti-rich attitude and his disdain of Dash Akol as a rich mans
guard dog. A homosocial back story also remains latent in the film.
Hedayats short story was based on two actual tough guys, Dash Akol and
Kaka Rostam, who lived in Shiraz at the turn of the twentieth century. In re
searching the film, Kimiai and Mofid, who plays Kaka Rostam, discovered
facts they incorporated to give texture and authenticity to the villainous ac
tions of Kaka Rostam. In an extended interview with me, Mofid explained
that according to the Shirazi elders they interviewed, Kaka Rostam was a
young child in the household of the powerful Qavam family, where his par
ents, black African slaves, were employed as servants (Naficy 1984a:12). This
background brings in the underexplored fact of slave ownership and racism
in Iranian history and society. As slaves, both male and female servants were
sexually available to their masters. One cold winter night, when Kakas father
apparently refused to allow Mr. Qavam sexual access to his wife, they were
thrown out into the icy courtyard, where they froze to death. The child Kaka
Rostam watched this terrible scene from a window and vowed revenge. Soon
after this incident, he ran away and was trained by Dash Akol to become a
luti. Kaka Rostams hatred turned him against all rich people, whom he called
278
satin-coat wearers (qaba atlasi pushan), and one of his favorite acts as a luti
was to forcibly remove the satin jackets of wealthy passers-by, which he then
gave to the poor. The all-consuming passion for revenge transformed him
from a potential luti into a veritable lout.
Many years later, the elder of the Qavam family, who resided in Dash
Akols neighborhood, embarked on the hajj. As tradition dictated, he asked
the neighborhood luti, Dash Akol, to look after his wife, daughter, and his
belongings during his long absence (in those days, such a pilgrimage typi
cally took months). In the meantime, Dash Akols boy lover (not Kaka Ros
tam) established an illicit sexual relationship with Qavams daughter, which
Dash Akol covered up to protect him and his own homosexual relations by
proclaiming himself the culprit. It appeared that he not only had failed to pro
tect the girl entrusted to him but also had violated her himself. Such a serious
ethical violation among the lutis was sure to bring about shame; however, ap
parently this shame was less than that which would have befallen him had his
homosexuality been exposed, for that would have violated a higher luti code,
destroying his masculinity. Neither choice was good, and he paid dearly for
the one he made. Dash Akol was placed against a tree, blindfolded, and mur
dered with a machete by the next person in line to become the neighborhood
tough, Kaka Rostam.19
As Mofid told me, Kaka Rostam was apparently very popular in Shiraz;
toughs he had spoken with remembered that fifteen years earlier his grand
funeral procession had created a nine-hour traffic jam in Shiraz. Significantly,
Hedayat had reversed the status of the two protagonists, turning Dash Akol
into a hero and Kaka Rostam into a villaina reversal that Kimiais movie
maintains. Yet Kimiais attempts to incorporate elements from the original
story into the film, which would have nuanced the characterization of the
archrivals, were thwarted by government censors. Scenes evoking sentiments
against the upper classes, such as the tragic death of Kaka Rostams parents
or those showing him removing rich peoples satin coats, were cut from the
film entirely. Also censored were references to the fact that the boy whom
Kaka Rostam forces to drink wine in the opening scene was one of the Qa
vam children and that the tea-boy whom Kaka Rostam ridicules was a Qavam
tea-boy.
The censors thus removed the motivation that fueled Kaka Rostams an
tisocial actions, turning him into a lout stereotype. The passing reference in
the movie to the freezing of his parents is too slight to either create justifica
tion for his actions or to supply motivation for them. The films rendition of
Dash Akol, on the other hand, is more nuanced: it highlights the disastrous
279
consequences of freedom, choice, and agency for the great luti. However, in
his case, the films silence about his sexuality misses an important point re
garding both Dash Akols personal story and Irans national history: the tran
sition from homosocial premodernity to heterosocial modernity. As Afsaneh
Najmabadi has noted, In a deeply homoerotic culture, falling in love was
what a man did with other men, especially with adolescents. Falling with
women more often than not was unmanly (2005:160). The film fails to fully
attend to Dash Akols divided loyalties and pain, which had both heterosexual
and homosexual origins. The film highlights the former over the latter in the
interest of its compulsion toward modernity, even though it is filled with nos
talgia for premodern times.
Lifestyle
Historically, local governors, powerful clerics, rich landowners, and even for
eign powers engaged the tough guys to achieve social control and mobiliza
tion, particularly when the central governments authority was eroded. For
example, from the 1940s to the 1960s, the famed tough guy Shaban Jafari
(who owned his own zurkhaneh) spearheaded many public brawls, political
demonstrations, and coercive actions in support of the Shah and against his
opponents and the communists. His fearless violence earned him the moni
ker Shaban the Brainless (Shaban Bimokh). Intimately involved in the ciam16 coup against Premier Mosaddeq in 1953, which restored the throne to the
Shah, he became known as Shaban the Crown Giver (Shabane Tajbaskhsh)
(Sarshar 2000:37, 388424). He was an influential political middleman who
had ties not only to politicians but also to entertainers, including film produc
ers, importers, and exhibitors. The Rashidian brothers, as British agents, si
phoned off cia money through him to the tough guys for the coup (Sarshar
2002:86, 166, 413; Omid 1995/1374:2056). With the revolution of 197879
he went into exile in the United States, where he died. Other major lutis who
rose to prominence during a period of social upheaval were two brothers, Ta
her and Tayyeb Hajj Rezai, who became nationally famous for supporting the
brief and ill-fated public uprising in 1963 in support of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Khomeini was exiled and Tayyeb executed, resulting in the mythologization
of both.
When the central government felt strong, it made little political use of the
toughs. During these fallow periods, the lutis made their living as vendors
of seasonal goods and as operators of small businesses selling fruits, vege
tables, and nuts. The more villainous louts kept a low political profile and,
280
while holding down menial jobs, engaged in unsavory businesses: thievery,

pimping, gambling, entertainment, extortion, and protection rackets. Many
also organized and participated in Muslim religious processions, lamenta
tions, and taziyeh performances. The increasing self-confidence and arro
gance of the Shah and of his government in 196070 deprived the toughs
of social agency. The state and its coercive and ideological apparatuses were
sufficiently in control not to need their services. However, the increasing so
cial inequality and political repression made the toughs, who were now usu
ally called jahels, very popular with the displaced rural populations flocking to
major cities, where they lived in shantytowns and became the biggest fans of
the tough-guy movies. It was the glorification of these jahels and of their mis
erable social conditions in the 1970s jaheli movies that made both the charac
ters and the movies so popular with audiences. This very popularity caused
the detractors to call the toughs lumpen and parasites and the movies
trite and sleazy (Akbari 1973/1352:11845; Ghaznavi 1982/1361:7; Najafi
1984/1363:2429; Karimi 1990).
Indeed, most of the tough-guy movies were trite and formulaic, and in a
majority of them the toughs lifestyle consisted of vagrancy and a parasitical
and nomadic existence. In the films, the toughs are often without a steady and
respectable profession. They hold down odd, temporary, low-grade, or illicit
jobs as gofers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, pimps, bouncers, thugs, gamblers, and
cabaret operators. In fact, I used these professions and jobs, along with other
parameters, as indexes for identifying and classifying the tough-guy movies.
In Dash Akol, neither of the archrivals holds down a steady or discernable job.
In keeping with their roles as middlemen and performers, movie toughs
frequent particular hangouts: alleyways, traditional coffeehouses, modern ca
fs, bars, and nightclubs where their public masculinist dramas and specta
cles of excess usually unfold. Drinking gives rise to brawls, and private scores
are settled publicly. Molla Eshaqs caf is such a site in Dash Akol, as are the
alleyways and the taziyeh amphitheater where the final showdown takes place.
Another spectacle of excess is the toughs display of enormous appetite, not
only for araq but also for food in cafs, where they consume half a dozen or
more shish kebob courses in one sitting.
Another form of performativity and excess surfaces in the toughs special
dancing style, such as the jaheli Baba Karam dance, which is simultane
ously feminine and masculine. It is also evident in their special style of sing
ing called orchard alley ballad, which expresses their complaints about an
unjust, ephemeral world. These ballads, along with jaheli pop songs (tasnif ),
often sung by famous singers, were staples of the tough-guy movies (recall
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Carefree Alis ballad in Qaruns Treasure). Their often humorous lyrics paro
died the toughs lifestyle; Dash Akol features such a song, called Akh Jun,
sung by Aqasi in Eshaqs caf, to which Aqdas dances.20
Violence and Law and Order

Tough guys in literature and movies are aggressive, physically powerful, and
agile. To rise through the hierarchy from a neophyte (nowcheh) to a lat, luti,
dash, and finally a dash mashti, the toughs must undergo physical and spiri
tual training. With each promotion, members acquire more of the seven ar
ticles of possession (see below). Toughs frequently attend zurkhaneh, where
they undergo ritualized and spectacular exercises that have a long history
among Iranians.21 Moral and spiritual strength are obtained not only by zur
khaneh exercises but also by practicing chivalric virtues socially. Champion
athletes, especially wrestlers, were often tough guys from the zurkhaneh;
many movies deal with this.22 In addition, luti protagonists are expected to
endure physical and psychological hardships. Tattooing is one such physical
test; so is physical fighting in lengthy one-on-one combat sessions involving
the usual weaponry including knives, machetes, brass knuckles, chains, or
just plain fists. Dash Akols two major battles with Kaka Rostam, which book
end the film, are fought with machetes.
Many tough-guy fights in the movies originate in personal revenge or ri
valry between the two protagonists. The fights are usually performed before
a diegetic audience of other toughs and, depending on their outcome, either
reconfirm the previous hierarchy or confer a new order. Tough-guy movies
also contain fight scenes in which many people participate. Such group fights
are usually organized to demonstrate loyalty to, and defense of, the tough
guys leadership, kinship, or residential neighborhood. A typical one is the
caf brawl in Dash Akol, where supporters of Dash Akol and Kaka Rostam
duke it out. The preponderance of violent fights was partially responsible for
the governments crackdown on the tough-guy genre in the 1970s.
The toughs in real life, in popular romances, and in the movies are lim
inal figures who cherish their independence and group identity at the same
time that they serve as middlemen facilitators among diverse poles of social
power. They are social shifters, vacillating between becoming arms of the law
or outlaws themselves; at times they work on behalf of the poor (as lutis), while
at other times they work over the poor (as louts). Liminality turns individual
toughs and groups of toughs into floating signifiers, capable of all types of ac
tions and social commitments and their attendant symbolic values.
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Style of Dress and Accessories

The tough guys style of dress, their personal belongings, and their fashion ac
cessories are coded, forming a complex semiotics confirming their purported
disinterest in material possessions, nomadic mobility, self-sufficiency, rank
within the hierarchy, and dual social agency as luti and lout. Their clothing
is modest and their personal articles of possession and accessories very func
tional, affording them great mobility and agility. According to Mofid, tough
guys in the early twentieth century (dash mashti) carried with them seven in
dispensable articles of clothing and personal belongings (called haft parcheh).
These included a felt hat (kolah namadi), a long coat (qaba), a large handker
chief manufactured in Yazd (dastmale Yazdi), a machete (qameh or qaddareh),
a brass bowl ( jam), a chain (zanjir), and woven cotton shoes (giveh Maleki).
These were their war equipment as well as the equipment by which they
made a living (Naficy 1984a:2).23 They also wore studded leather wristbands
and carried additional items such as knives (chaqu) and worry beads (tasbih).
These elements created not only a distinct tough-guy style but also, like all
subcultural styles (Hebdige 1979), a sense of group identity and, in this case,
of male solidarity and of the defiance of dominant society, which marginal
ized them when it did not need them. On the other hand, their very margin
ality, cultural rootedness, and potential as both role model and villain made
them attractive.
Casting
The tough-guy genre stages the drama of maleness in public places. As in all
genres, these films are peopled with character types and with familiar char
acter actors who migrate from movie to movie. As Mofid told me, many di
rectors, who did not know much about how to direct actors, would just tell
us You be Aq Esmal [a famous luti character type], or just imitate Fardin,
leaving the nuance of acting and character development to the individual per
formers (Naficy 1984a:20). Women character actors were also popular in the
tough-guy movies, but in subsidiary roles, playing the parts of the lutis sis
ters, daughters, mothers, wives, and lovers, women who are invariably in need
of protection, confirming the lutis social status. The plot of many films re
volved around the male toughs defending the virtues of their womenfolk and
thereby their own honor. Such a defense often resulted in the films final
showdown between luti and lout characters, as in Dash Akol. As it became
semi-industrialized, the commercial cinema honed this practice into type
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casting and a veritable star system, whereby a few actors became very popular
with audiences who consumed their images in the mass media.
Acting Style
Many tough-guy actors adopted an acting style similar to taziyeh perfor
mances. They played lutis as both heroes and as exemplary types, so their act
ing was often didactic and rhetorical rather than bent on empathy. However,
with the gradual industrialization of film production and the emergence of
character subjectivity and psychology in cinema in general, particularly with
Mehrjuis The Cow (Gav, 1969) and Kimiais Qaisar and Dash Akol, the pre
sentational form gradually gave way to the representational style of acting, al
though in most movies both styles persisted side by side, which makes for an
other dimension of the hybrid production mode.
The integration of Iran into the global economy and exchange relations
with American westerns added another dimension to the tough guys act
ing repertoire. Directors such as Kimiai adapted the codes of the western
and began producing crisp, tight, dynamic works such as Dash Akol and Qa
isar. As such, his films and many other stewpot and tough-guy movies can
be called abgushti westerns or stewpot westerns. Actors, too, began creating
mixed personae that Mofid called phony lutis, lutis without all the seven tra
ditional articles and not conforming to traditional luti ideology and psychol
ogy. This was because it was not clear what we were; we were a bunch of cow
boys with knives, instead of with guns (Naficy 1984a:27). Imitation created a
complicated simulacral situation in which the two cultures mirrored and re
fracted each other. So when a star such as Naser Malekmotii played a tough
guy, he was not imitating a cowboy so much as he was playing a cowboy who
was imitating Malekmotii.
The Nostalgic Longing for Ideals

In both the dash mashti and jaheli subgenres, there exists a contradiction and
potential conflict between the nativistic aspects of the toughsmarked by the
retrospective, nostalgic idealization of lutis and of bygone Iranian traditions
and the toughs syncretic adaptation to modern times, which turned them
into hybrid creatures.
Hedayat in his story put his finger on a profound philosophical contradic
tion at the heart of the tough guys evolution, which Kimiai reemphasized
in his screen adaptation. Both men symbolized centuries of social change
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in Iran in the violent encounter of Dash Akol and Kaka Rostam and in the
sorrowful replacement of one type with the other. In Hedayats thinking in
particular, Dash Akol seemed to have represented ancient Zoroastrian Iran,
before the Muslim Arab invasion and conquest destroyed the prelapsarian au
thenticity in which magnanimous lutis, endowed with inner purity, sincer
ity, and independence, behaved like Robin Hood, protecting the weak and
defending native soil. Kaka Rostam, on the other hand, represented not only
the louts of bygone eras, who acted as middlemen to settling scores for their
masters, but also the degradation, materialism, and greed brought on by state-
sanctioned Westernization. In this ideologically chauvinistic point of view,
ironically promulgated both by the Pahlavi state and by modernist intellectu
als, Kaka Rostams victory over Dash Akol is the triumph of louts over lutis,
but also of vile foreignersArabs and the Westover authentic Iranians.
That Kaka Rostam is black makes this scenario racist as well.
Hedayats Dash Akol can thus be regarded as a eulogy (Naficy 1992a:537
38). Writing during the first Pahlavi period, Hedayat seems to hold out nos
talgic hope for redemption or for a return to previous glories, even though
the frustration of this hope, as Yarshater has noted, found expression in his
sense of gloom, depression, and disheartened fatalism (1979:vii). Indeed, a
key source of the deep sorrow and grief that Iranian literary and performing
arts express can be sought in this and other national defeats and in the result
ing perception of lost glory and diminished world status.
In Kimiais Dash Akol, on the other hand, this nostalgia for the fading lutis
remains absent, as both of the protagonists are killed in the end, leaving no
heroic social actor on the scene. Kimiai projects the deep sense of pessimism
and impotence that had gripped Iran during the second Pahlavi regime, when
the state with its massive, authoritarian, and coercive apparatuses had itself,
in tough-guy parlance, become the chief national lout. If the government had
not censored the presentation of Kaka Rostams anti-rich sentiments, the film
would have inscribed yet another conflict and triumpha racialized class
warfare in which a descendant of black African slaves takes revenge on his
white masters. Indeed, as Mofid emphasizes, these considerations were in
my mind when I played the part of Kaka Rostam (Naficy 1984a:17). Despite
the excision of the scenes, the film does suggest these themes, particularly
in the context of the emerging underground guerrilla activities at home, dis
guised in Kimiais film The Deer, and vociferous student demonstrations
abroad, both of which transformed hopelessness into hope, eventually lead
ing to the revolution of 197879. In this reading, the guerrillas and the stu
dents are the new lutis triumphing over the old lout, the Pahlavi regime. It is
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in this context that it makes sense when Mofid says that Kimiais early 1970s
movies, Dash Akol, The Deer, and Reza Motori (1970) played a major part in
the struggle of the Iranian nation against the government (Naficy 1984a:22).
Kimiais Dash Akol expresses a deep nostalgia not only for ideal lutis but
also for bygone traditions, which the director re-creates meticulously in the
architecturally and culturally rich locations in which he stages his film. The
old Iran and its traditions are lovingly re-created not only in the language of
the lutis but also in Haji Samads grand home, in funeral ceremonies in a para
disiacal cemetery, in taziyeh performances and religious rituals in an amphi
theater, in zurkhaneh exercises, and in fights in ancient alleyways and coffee
houses. Kimiais revival of these antiquated traditions and architectural sites
was appreciated by the filmmakers (and spectators) who, saddened by their loss
to unbridled modernity and to claptrap montage architecture, featured them
in their movies, creating a new fashion of authenticity in Iranian cinema.
Language and Linguistic Expressions

The popular romances were not written in the adorned, polite, literary lan
guage of the time. Rather, they were written in something like a vernacular,
containing fewer Arabic words, simpler syntax, and a richer treasure of tradi
tional lore (Hanaway 1970:1718). The language of the movie toughs is also
colloquial, with simple syntax, many contractions, and phonological devia
tions. Its argot creates group cohesion for insiders and distinction from out
siders.24 Kimiai had a keen ear for tough-guy expressions, and his films are
filled with choice dialogues that demonstrate his mastery of the luti argot and
worldview in the context of Iranian psychology.
In the movies, the toughs rarely use their last names; instead, they are
known by nicknames, which usually combine their first names with a ref
erence to their profession, a past behavior, their physiognomy, a physical or
mental disability, their ethnicity, or their regional origin. There are toughs
named Mehdi the Butcher (Mehdi Qassab), Taqi the Knife-Wielder (Taqi
Tiqkesh), Asghar the Spitter (Asghar Tofi), Shaban the Brainless (Shaban Bi
mokh), Abdollah the Dime (Abdollah Dah Shahi) because he killed someone
over small change, Ebram the Bull-Necked (Ebram Khar Gardan), Mostafa
the Crazy (Mostafa Divuneh), Qasem the Blind (Qasem Kuri), Mahmud the
Dog (Mahmud Sagi), Hosain the Executioner (Hosain Mirghazab), Turkish
Baqer (Baqer Torkeh), and Mahmud from Qazvin (Mahmud Qazvini). Some
female and male lutis carried effeminate nicknames.25
Tough guys also engage in threat behavior. Dash Akol verbally threatens
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Kaka Rostam throughout the movie, saying things like, Ill take care of you.
Ill cut you in half with this very blade. The abusive language often refers to
an opponents disability. For example, toward the end, Dash Akol cuts Kaka
Rostams stuttering short by interjecting: God knew you well when he gave
you only half a tongue, and tonight Im going to cut the other half. Insults of
ten are feminizing, as in a caf scene in which Dash Akol sarcastically asks:
Kaka, wasnt your man at home to keep you there? Near the films end, he
once threatens Kaka Rostam by declaring, Ill make you wear a headscarf.
The point of such insults is to signal that a male tough who is supposed to be
the active partner in sexual relations has become a passive one by submitting
to penetration by another man.
Masculinity, Homosociality, Homosexuality, and Pederasty

In the popular literature, idealized lutis and tricksters (ayyars) treat women
with great respect and show much restraint in their sexual relations with
them, to the point of keeping chaste until their marriage (Hanaway 1970:161).
Yet this sexual restraint vis--vis women combined with their sexual license
with young boys (in the form of sodomy and pederasty), along with other ten
ets of luti ideology and practices and the general gender segregation under Is
lam, turned the tough-guy gatherings into powerful male-only clubs, gangs,
and sexually charged social organizations. Lutis emphasis on bodybuilding
and masculine display, and the physical force and moral authority that top
lutis exuded, attracted nubile boys to them, and they in turn sought homo
social companionship or sexual relations with them.
In his exhaustive Social History of Sexual Relations in Iran, Willem Floor
shows that Iranian history and literature are replete with references to mens
love for young boys and to pederasty, which was permissible, desirable, and
even on public display among certain classes. He further elaborates,
Throughout the centuries, sodomy remained a way of life in Iran that
upset nobody. . . . However, with rare instances, there does not seem
to have been a homosexual way of life, i.e., a long-term partnership be
tween men based on equality and love. The prevailing culture was and
is that sexual relationship is one based on dominance of one partner
of the other. The act of penetration is the male act par excellence, done
by (free) men to social inferiors, i.e., women, boys, slaves (males and
females) and prostitutes (male and female). . . . Thus, a man would
not lose status by penetrating boys, but adult free men submitting will
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ingly to penetration means loss of face, honor, and respectability, worse

they are considered to be perverts. Contrariwise, men who are engaged
in sodomy are not considered homosexuals, but rather as macho-guys,
who show their virility. (2008:36465)
Such hierarchical relations of power between an older active partner and a
younger passive subject are particularly true of the tough guys. Indeed, the
term luti has its origin in the word for sodomy and pederasty, lavat (Dehk
hoda 1998:1982). However, this sexual power is threatened by the ambiguity
and tenuousness of the tough guys social position. The exaggeration in male
performativity, the public display of masculine prowess, and homosocial rela
tions, language, posture, dress, and gesture must stem from precisely an anx
iety about the tenuousness of social authority and political power. As socially
liminal and sexually transgressive figures, lutis are under the constant threat
of erasure, necessitating the public reaffirmation of their power and their
prowess by masculinist performances and battles with rivals. Women consti
tute both a threat and a necessity. The historical Dash Akol is willing to be de
famed for having had an illicit sexual relation with his female charge, Marjan,
but not with his neophyte boy. Homosexuality and pederasty were the open
secrets of the tough guys, their Achilles heel, for if it became known that a
tough guy engaged in sexual relations with men, which was highly disdained
in modernist circles, he would lose much of his authority. And if it became
known that he had engaged in pederastyalso disdained but less so than
homosexualitythere would be a danger that his position as the dominant
partner could be misconstrued as having involved his submission to a might
ier tough when he was a neophyte. While the dominant position in a male-
to-male relation denotes power and prestige, the submissive position implies
weakness and surrender, a status to which no luti worth his seven tough-guy
articles would want to be relegated.
Because of these complicated considerations, the movie toughs usually are
shown to enjoy the company of their male friends and cohorts much more
than the company of women. These relationships sometimes carry homosex
ual overtones, but they do not go beyond a suggestion, as the open expression
of homosexuality in the movies has always been forbidden. In these movies,
male bonding is the dominant form of social cohesion and of both the pro
curement and the exercise of power. However, many toughs who engaged in
pederast relations with boys also entered into sexual liaisons with women or
maintained a traditional nuclear family. In their homosociality and bisexual
ity they were transgressive and threatening to the social fabric.
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Womens Representation and Masculinity

Although tough guys are supposed to respect women, not all women receive
equal respect from them in the movies. Three chief models of womanhood
obtain here: female blood relations occupy the highest and the most sacred
position and are regarded as pure, virtuous, and sexually off limits; wives
come next in rank, sharing some of the attributes of blood relations; followed
by women entertainers, who are fair game sexually. For convenience, I here
conflate the first and second categories. Much of modern Iranian literature
and cinema, including Dash Akol, uses the pure/impure model. The literary
critics Farzaneh Milani and Azar Nafisi note that Hedayats own works con
tained a similar binary: whorish woman (lakkateh) and ethereal woman
(zane asiri) (Milani 1986/1365; Nafisi 1994). According to Azar Nafisi, the fe
male characters in modernist novels, such as in Hedayats The Blind Owl, are
much more passive than the female characters in the classical Iranian narra
tives, in which they were more well-rounded and active narrative agents. The
modern females no longer subvert; they only submit (1994:12021). It ap
pears that Hedayats works established an influential model for all represen
tations of women in modern literature (Miralai 1990/1369:396). Partow Nuri
ala, too, points not only to the representation of women as miserable creatures
without agency and individuality but also to this dual construction of women
in Kimiais nine feature movies (1986:4768).
Like all gender representations, this one is spatialized. Purity is confined
to the private spaces of the home, while impurity enters the public sphere. In
Dash Akol, Marjan is pure; Aqdas is impure. The roles come with costs and
rewards. Purity comes with confinement and limited horizons, but it is re
warded with dignity and respect. Impurity is publicly degraded, but sexuality
and other aspirations are potentially open. In most filmfarsi movies, however,
women do not achieve their ambitions and self-realization. Dash Akols love
for Marjan is platonic, while his relationship with Aqdas, the caf dancer, is
strictly carnal. These contrasting relationships are poignantly dramatized in
the sequence in which Dash Akol makes physical love to Aqdas while secretly
thinking of Marjan, squeezing her handkerchief in his hand.
Usually the two types of women remain far apart, with no possibility of
reconciliation or transformation, or the impure ones are unproblematically
turned into their opposites through such mechanisms as male patronage and
marriage. A tough guy may take a prostitute under his wing to save her
from further disgrace or to reform her by having her repent (as the saying
goes, by pouring the water of repentance on her head), and he may even marry
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her to ensure her domestication.26 In several movies, such as in Kimiais own

Ghazal (1975), based on a story by Jorge Luis Borges, the entire story revolves
around the problematic of transforming a prostitute into a virtuous woman
as two brothers compete for her love. While this film also contains scenes of
a caf frequented by men and by women entertainers, it is not locked into the
dichotomous, genderized spaces of the tough-guy movies. For, ingenuously,
the majority of it takes place in the liminal spaces of a thick forest, outside
normative social space, where the brothers live and meet with Ghazal. The
meandering and foreboding forest externalizes the internal psychology of the
three protagonists.
In the tough-guy movies, virtuous women dress and behave modestly,
while the vulgar women wear fashionable Western clothing, smoke cigarettes,
drink alcohol, and sing and dance in public. The duality in womens image is
reflected in the names given to good and bad women in these movies. Good
womens namesMarjan, Parvin, Halehare linguistically Persian and Ira
nian. Names given to bad womenAqdas, Akram, Akhtar, and Ezzatare
more Islamic, Arabic, and religious and denote a lower-class origin. Ideologi
cal self-other battles are operative even here. Good women generally do not
have nicknames; bad women usually do, such as Shamsi Pahlevun (Shamsi
the Champion), Pari Khoshgeleh (Pretty Pari), and Fatmeh Arreh (Fatmeh
the Saw).27
The toughs threatening behavior extends to women. In the movies, the
lutis rarely hit women; when they do, it generally originates in deep anger
or shame at some act of the woman. The louts, on the other hand, are more
prone to striking women, particularly bad ones, and they also curse them of
ten, harshly, and graphically. For example, when Aqdas refuses to dance for
a belligerent, drunk lout in Eshaqs caf, he slaps her around and calls her a
dancing shrew (salitehye raqqas), a dancing floozy (harum loqmehye raqqas),
and a dancing bitch (maddeh sage raqqas), grabbing her hair to chop it off with
his machete to publicly disgrace herall in a single scene. As already noted,
in the tough-guy argot, calling a male rival a woman constitutes a major in
sult, and in a number of places Kaka Rostam and Dash Akol belittle one an
other by calling each other women.
In general, women in tough-guy movies are rarely endowed with strong
social agency or with psychological interiority, traits that would be marked
by such strategies as point-of-v iew filming, cutaways, and continuity editing.
This lack confirms these films as masculinist and misogynistic. However,
Dash Akol contains a few instances of female subjectivity. In one scene, Mar
jan voyeuristically watches through an open door as Dash Akol prays on the
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prayer mat that she had set for him. The point-of-view filming emphasizes her
subjectivity and the satisfaction, even sexual charge, which she draws from
this scene. From a previous scene, the audience already knows that Dash Akol
is aware that in praying on this mat he is bowing not only to God but also to
Marjan (who has aestheticized and personalized it by sprinkling flower pet
als on it). Marjans point-of-v iew scene thus conjoins the subjectivity of Dash
Akol with Marjan, creating a powerfully erotic charge between them, which
ironically occurs during a religious ritual. In another powerful scene, Marjan
watches from behind the curtains of her room the activities of the servants
in the yard preparing for her wedding, emphasizing that she is only a sad ob
server of her own fate, not an agent in its transformation.
The Filmmakers Biography and Authorial Formation

The sources of inspiration of the tough-guy movies and their narrative struc
tures are to be found not only in Persian oral traditions, popular romances,
literature, social reality, and American westerns but also in the filmmakers
biographies. An examination of a single scene from Kimiais childhood, as he
recalled it years later, supplies an example of the shaping presence of social
milieu and autobiography in the works of a filmmaker, particularly an auteur
cinaste.
Kimiai is a hybrid filmmaker in that he has made almost all of his films
commercially, with private-sector financing; many of these films are tough-
guy movies or deal with toughseven those made long after the revolution.
Yet he made these works in an authorial style. As a child, he lived in the same
neighborhood as Mojtaba Navvab Safavi, the creator, in 1945, of the Devotees
of Islam (Fadaiane Eslam), a militant Islamist group involved in antigovern
ment terrorist activities, including the assassination of the reformist writer
Ahmad Kasravi and of Prime Minister Haji Ali Razmara.28 As Kimiai relates
it, Navvab was an imposing person. He wore a black shawl around his waist
in which he tucked a handgun. When he walked in the neighborhood, all the
children greeted him and kissed his hand, whereupon he gave us each one
rial. Movie tickets in those days cost six rials; as a result, the other kids and I
would place ourselves in his path six times to greet him, kiss his hands, and
collect a total of six rials. At the same time, we would steal a glance at his gun,
which was partially sticking out of his shawl. Of course, he knew what we were
doing, but he would give us one rial every time. We would sometimes use that
money to go to the movies with friends (quoted in Parham 1990/1369:11).
Like Freuds primal scene, this social scene appears to have been sufficiently
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traumatic, mysterious, and cathected with affect that it organized itself into
scenarios or scenes (Laplanche and Pontalis 1973:335) that had to be repeat
edly restaged and rehearsed with variations in Kimiais many films. Each
repetition informed and consolidated his cinematic authorial style and preoc
cupation with tough-guy masculinityto the point that in later years his style
and tough guy preoccupation solidified into clichs. This childhood primal
social scene may be read as a typical one in his tough-guy movies: A group of
young toughs loitering in a neighborhood alley encounter a socially impos
ing and charismatic luti, before whose power they feel small and vanquished.
Dangerous, yet alluring and generous, he makes sure that they are aware of
the source of his power (his gun) and of his willingness to use violence. The
similarity of this scene to Dash Akols opening alley scene in which Kaka Ros
tam and his gang encounter the imposing figure of Dash Akol is uncanny.
This similarity is not just metaphorical, for in pursuit of his political aims
Navvab Safavi had resorted to individuals who used to disturb the peace of
the neighborhood, such as hoodlums (owbash), roughnecks (gardankolof ha),
thugs (latha), and bullies (arbadehkeshha) (Behdad 2004:76). His violent tac
tics of retribution (qesas) and revenge (enteqam) for the cause of creating an Is
lamic government would unknowingly be mobilized by the tough-guy mov
ies in the 1970s in whose films the tough guys personal revenge stories were
coded as narratives of social justice against an autocratic government.
More than any other director Kimiai was involved in this type of coding:
the primal scene related may account for it. Despite the Devotees of Islams
destructive morality campaigns and the groups assassinations of secular op
position figures and government officials, many people viewed them as Robin
Hood types who used violence to obtain justice from an essentially unjust re
gime that had been returned to power in a coup against a duly elected prime
minister. In many of Kimiais films, tough guys are involved in fights coded to
symbolize social struggles on behalf of the people or of the neighborhood.
Such individual battles against the system take different forms: battle against
the police, as in The Deer; against the rich, as in Journey of Stone (Safare Sang,
1978) and Baluch (1972); against Western foreigners, as in Earth (Khak, 1973);
against villainous toughs, as in Dash Akol; or against well-connected smug
glers, as in Snakes Fang (Dandane Mar, 1989). In these movies, and as dem
onstrated in the case of Dash Akol, the lutis wield their power against their
nemeses by means of violence, at the same time that they display gentleness
toward children and sometimes toward women.
In Kimiais primal scene, Navvab Safavi acts like a luti, for although he
was terrorizing government officialsfor which crime he was eventually
292
e xecutedhe treated his neighborhoods children with kindness. He knew

why they repeatedly greeted him and kissed his hands. Yet he went along with
them and gave them the small change they needed to go to the movies, even
though he himself had condemned movies for their morally corrupting influ
ence (Naficy 1999/1378:28).
This primal scene contains not only a luti protagonist but also a group of
male children who, like Kaka Rostams gang, loiter around and make mis
chief in the neighborhood alley or tiny bazaar (bazarcheh). It is in these
places that children like Kimiai developed their social identity, personality,
and ideas about masculinity. It is no wonder, then, that his first published
writing on cinema is about what he calls tiny bazaar cinema (Shokrollah
and Turanpur 2000/1379:1315). Significantly, the primal scene of this cin
ema, and of Kimiais tough-guy movies, is not a private one, occurring in a
home or inside a bedroom as in the Freudian case; rather, it occurs in the
streets, where passers-by and neighborhood residents can witness and absorb
the drama of male bonding and male power. More than any other Iranian di
rector, Kimiai fills his films with scenes in which male power is enacted dra
matically in public places to reassert itself again and again, for in a country
in which power is both boundless and ephemeral, it needs frequent reitera
tion. In his films, viewers are witness to how men befriend, betray, and battle
with each other; how they kill ignominiously (like Kaka Rostam in Dash Akol
and the Aq Mangol brothers in Qaisar); or how they are killed magnificently
(martyred) and thereby mythologized (like Dash Akol and Qaisar). In his rec
ollection of this childhood scene, Kimiai does not refer to women, which is
congruent with the reality of the time, as reputable women in those days did
not hang around public places and alleyways. These places, however, emerge
as favorite locations in Kimiais movies, where boys become men and louts
become lutis or vice versa. Women have little agency here; at best, their func
tion is to witness the spectacle of mens exertion of power, or humiliation by
power, and to cheer or lament the process.
Another element that has migrated from Kimiais childhood scene to his
cinema is the importance of religion, particularly of Islam, in the social life
of Iranians. However, the religion he depicts in Dash Akol, Qaisar, and his
other movies is not so much an official Islam imposed on unwilling sub
jects. Rather, it is a popular form of Islam so intermingled with other cultural
forms, and so internalized by society, that it has assumed the status of custom
and tradition. Religion in his films appears to lie outside ideology, exerting its
power clandestinely and powerfullylike all dominant ideologies. Kimiais
movies are suffused with reenactments of such naturalized Islamicate cus
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toms and traditions, ways of dressing and behaving, architectural forms and
the interior spaces of gardens and yards, uses of language and proverbs, and
gendered power relations.
Kimiais primal scene informs his filmic style as well as his cinemas con
tents. That he has both directed and written several of his films consolidates
the contribution of this scene to his authorial style. Among the new-wave
filmmakers emerging in the 1970s, Kimiai stands out: Because he depended
on private-sector support to make his films, he needed to be more receptive to
public tastes. Also, unlike many new-wave directors, Kimiai learned filmmak
ing by watching films, not by any formal education in cinema or the arts in
Europe or North America (Saberi 1976:8). This, too, along with his lower-class
upbringing, better sensitized him to public tastes than other filmmakers.
The Evolution of the Tough-Guy Genre

The tough-guy genre was neither homogenous nor static. It began in the late
1950s with a dash mashti movie, Mohsenis The Generous Tough. The subgenre
ended in the early 1970s with Kimiais Dash Akol. However, by the time it was
drawing to a close, another subgenre, the jaheli film, emerged, making its
most emphatic assertion with Kimiais Qaisar. This latter was the most popu
lar luti subgenre, lasting through the anti-Shah revolution, after which it was
transformed again, this time into an Islamicate postrevolutionary tough-guy
subgenre. This post-revolution reemergence itself underwent further modifi
cations when some of the stars and directors of jaheli movies went into exile
in the United States, where they created new hybridized, ironic, and meta
generic tough-guy films, performances, television serials, and music videos.
These iterations and evolutions of the luti genre are discussed in this chapter.
The cinematic shift from dash mashti to jaheli accompanied a gradual shift
of societal paradigms within society from religious traditionalism to secular
ism and Western-style modernism.29 While dash mashti movies generally por
trayed rural toughs, jaheli movies dealt with the lives of toughs in a modern,
postSecond World War, postWhite Revolution world. While the realm of the
former subgenre was generally limited to rural Iran or to rural migrs in the
cities, that of the latter involved urban characters in urban settings inside Iran
and abroad. Instead of in coffeehouses and traditional cafs, the jahels hung
outs in Western cafs, cabarets, and nightclubs, where alcoholic drinks and
modern entertainment, particularly women dancers and singers, were fea
tured. Poverty had been a virtue in dash mashti movies but became a vice in
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jaheli films. The chief protagonists also shifted from generous lutis, who gen
erally defended the weak, to selfish, revengeful hooligans and louts, in some
way representing the shift of political authority in society. Qaisar provides an
early entry and exemplar of jaheli movies.
Jaheli Movies: Masud Kimiais Qaisar (1969)

Qaisar, written and directed by Kimiai and starring Malekmotii, Vossoughi,
Mofid, Jamshid Mashayekhi, Puri Banai, and Iran Daftari, became widely
popular and enormously influential, breathing sudden life into the doldrums
of Iranian commercial cinema. Major critics placed the film next to Sam
Peckinpahs violent and powerful western The Wild Bunch (1969) as the out
standing movie of the year, a comparison that is telling in terms of luti mov
ies similarity to westerns. One critic suggested that modern Iranian cinema
had begun with this epic film (Davai 1990/1369:98). Ever the contrarian,
however, Amirhushang Kavusi denounced it as a bad copy of a Dodge City
western by way of filmfarsi conventions (1990/1369).
The movie charts the story of Qaisar (Caesar), a modern tough (Vossoughi)
who avenges the rape and suicide of his sister Fati and the subsequent mur
der of his brother Farman (Malekmotii) by murdering the three tough-guy
Aq Mangol brothers who perpetrated the dishonor on his sister and the vio
lence against his brother. The film is thus a family defense saga driven by the
honor-shame paradigm. It can also be elevated into a national allegory and a
condemnation of modern times in which the idealized luti values of generos
ity and compassion toward the poor, the weak, and women are replaced by un
bridled thuggery, which the police are either unable or unwilling to contain.
The bygone idealized world of luti chivalry opens the film. The title se
quence, designed by a young graphic artist who years later would become
the most prominent name in Iranian postrevolutionary cinema, Abbas Kiar
ostami, shows in close-up shots the elaborate tattoos of the luti toughs: heroes
of the Shahnameh grace their arms, chests, backs, and shoulders (figure 48).
Punctuated by dramatic drumbeats of ancient bodybuilding exercises in the
zurkhaneh, these close-ups show the mythological champions, such as Ros
tam and Sohrab, and their exploits in combat with men and their liaisons with
women. One set of the tattoos also depicts what appears to be the mythical
story of the Thirty Bird (Simorgh) saving and nurturing Zal, the albino father
of the national hero, Rostam, who serves as an important reference point for
lutis. This title sequence establishes an idealized, mythological world to which
the rest of the film, about contemporary times and toughs, is contrasted.
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48 Qaisars title sequence,

designed by Abbas Kiarostami,
links contemporary toughs
to ancient mythical heroes.
Frame enlargement.
The contrast begins immediately in the first live action scene, which shows
a siren-blasting, speeding ambulance rushing Fati to a hospital. As it turns
out, she has attempted suicide by taking poison to remove herself as the stain
on the family honor, particularly on the honor of her two brothers, Farman
and Qaisar, as the honor-shame system requires. In a letter that she has left
behind she explains the source of the dishonor: her rape by a tough guy who
had promised to marry her, but who refused when she became pregnant. As
in many nuclear families in filmfarsi movies, the father is absent (deceased
in this case). All the family males have been well-respected toughs. However,
Farman and Qaisar, and their aging great-uncle (Jamshid Mashayekhi), have
given up their rabble-rousing, middlemen practices, repented, and obtained
honest jobs.
As befits the patriarchal system, the worried mother (Iran Daftari) is less
concerned about the fate of her daughter than about the reaction of her sons
to the rape, as she murmurs to her lifeless body, What calamity befell you,
my daughter? How can I answer to your brothers? Likewise, after reading the
letter, the great-uncle also intones, Its best that she departed from this world,
otherwise how could she explain the situation to her brothers? This implies
that had she not committed suicide, the brothers would probably have killed
her to remove the dishonor.
This crime and suicide, the resultant dishonor and shame, and the polices
inability to deal with it, sets into motion the honor-shame paradigm. The el
der great-uncle remains steadfast in his reformed path and in his oath not to
engage in violent personal revenge. Farman, on the other hand, is unable to
do so, and he sets out to avenge the family dishonor and his sisters death (fig
ure 49). Yet he follows the code of the reformed lutis not to carry any weapons
and to fight with his bare hands, a decision that costs him his life, as the three
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49 Farman (Naser Malekmotii) is

compelled to seek revenge for the
dishonor and suicide of his sister
in Qaisar. Frame enlargement.
Aq Mangol brothers, armed with knives, fatally stab him. This new violence
on the family unhinges the younger, hotheaded Qaisar to the point of giving
up not only his oath but also his job and going all out in taking revenge on
the brothers.
He traps and murders each brother separately, dramatically, and in loca
tions that are emblematic of the countrys encroaching modernization. He
stalks the first brother in a public bath, where Kimiai spends a considerable
amount of time depicting how bathhouse workers massage, scrub, soap, and
wash their clients. Qaisar catches his enemy in a shower stall and with a
straight razor cuts him down. In a scene that directly quotes the shower scene
in Alfred Hitchocks Psycho (1960), the murder is shown in a burst of brief
shots of stabbing, grimacing faces, and the victims trembling and blood
ied hand sliding down the white tiles, like Janet Lees, as life departs from
it (figure 50). Qaisar tracks down the second brother in a traditional slaugh
terhouse where he works and, amid carcasses of skinned animals hanging
from meat hooks and knives cutting and peeling flesh and skin, mercilessly
murders him. The shots of his silent murder are dramatically intercut with
the shots of the butchers slaughtering and skinning cattle. The first two mur
ders occur in traditional spaces now undergoing changes due to moderniza
tion: public bathhouses were being replaced with home showers and slaugh
terhouses were becoming mechanized. The final murder, however, occurs in
a place replete with the cost and the detritus of modernity: a massive grave
yard for abandoned railroad cars and industrial machinery. Qaisar chases the
last brother into this space, but he is himself followed by the police who are
now convinced that he has committed the other two murders. In an alterca
tion with his victim, Qaisar is injured but still succeeds in stabbing the fi
nal brother to death, while he himself is shot by the police. The movie ends
with him wounded and cornered in an abandoned restaurant car surrounded
by the police, leaving the fate of Qaisar to the spectators imagination and
inclination.
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50 Masud Kimiai quoting Hitchcocks

Psycho in his Qaisar. The bloodied
hand of one of Farmans killers, who
has been stabbed, slides down the
bath wall as he falls to the floor.
51 Qaisar (Behrouz Vossoughi),
dressed in the all-black outfit of the
modern toughs, pulls up the back
of his shoes as a cue that he is on
the warpath to avenge Farmans
murder. Frame enlargement.
Each of the murders begins in a dramatic fashion, with Qaisar pulling up

the back of his black shoes to zurkhaneh drumbeats (by Monfaredzadeh). As a
modern luti or jahel, he wears an all-black outfit: black suit, black shirt, black
see-through nylon socks, and black pointed shoes, the backs of which have
been broken down so that they can be worn like slippers (figure 51). Unlike his
more traditional older brother, Farman, he does not wear the signature fedora
hat, and unlike him, who goes into battle with bare hands, he is armed with
knives and razors. He also sports a worry bead.
As is required by the conventions of the jaheli genre, the film not only con
tains fight scenes but also caf scenes. Qaisar goes to neighborhood cafs in
his search for the brothers, where he drinks with fellow lutis and listens to a
colorful and masterly soliloquy of a tough guy passing his defeat off as vic
tory. He also attends the modern Ferdows Caf, where he drinks vodka and
watches an attractive luti woman named Sohaila Ferdows (Shahrzad) perform
classic tough-guy songs and dances for a predominantly male audience. Her
performance is filmed with a leering, voyeuristic camera gaze that singles out
parts of her body and her sexually suggestive gestures and dancing. Her lyrics
are also sexually loaded and good-naturedly make fun of the musicians who
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52 The caf dancer Shahrzad

(Sohaila Ferdows) performs
a sexualized dance in Qaisar,
filmed from a male point of
view. Frame enlargement.
accompany her (figure 52). From her Qaisar learns the whereabouts of the last
remaining brother, and he spends the night with her in her home.
Sohaila represents the fallen woman with whom Qaisar is authorized to
have sexual relations. In public she wears no veils and dresses boldly in a
miniskirt, while in her room she undresses for Qaisar and the camera, both
of whom she seduces. Qaisars sister and his fiance, Azam (Puri Banai), on
the other hand, represent angelic women, both of whom are asexual and wear
the chador in public. The sister, who was sexually molested, disappears from
the scene to wipe out the shame caused to her brothers honor, while Qaisars
relationship to the second woman must remain only platonic. Following the
generic formula, the fallen womans name is modern and secular (Sohaila),
while those of the sister, Fati (short for Fatemeh), and the fiance, Azam, are
traditional and religious. The mother, too, represents the typical suffering
matriarch and tragic victim of the genre, who must sobbingly mourn and en
dure all the calamities of her family, to which she succumbs, reinforcing Qa
isars resolve to seek revenge. In the end, nothing is left of the nuclear family
but the broken-down great-uncle, a former luti, who with stooped shoulders
and downcast eyes silently mourns the multiple losses while reading his
Shahnameh, which is filled with stories of Iranian heroism in the past.
Critics correctly characterized the movie as an elegy for lost values (Davai
1990/1369:93). As a more mournful elegy than Dash Akol, it laments not only
the passing of the old luti values of manliness and generosity but also that of
the heroic and masculine characters whom they represented, and their re
placement by vigilante thugs or by an indifferent authoritarian state. In a way
the movie is about the cost of modernity to individuals, to social and fam
ily structures, and to Iranian traditions, represented by the many institu
tions that it shows on the wane and whose passing it mourns. Kimiai depicts
these institutions and places tenderly: the traditional public bathhouse, the
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slaughterhouse, the coffeehouse, the neighborhood bazaar, old homes with

water tanks in their yards, pilgrimages to holy Shiite sites, and mourning cer
emonies for the dead in cemeteries. Such nostalgic depictions of disappear
ing traditions, which some critics put down as touristic, are emblematic of
modernity, in whose constitution cinema played a significant part. By such
depictions, Kimiai and the other new-wave filmmakers before the revolution
and art-house filmmakers after the revolution engaged, to borrow from an
thropology, in salvage filmmaking.
What caused Qaisar to jolt the filmfarsi industry and turn it controversial
was not only this modernist nostalgic construction of Iran in the past but
also the modernist cinematic style with which it accomplished that rendering.
Critics attacked the film not only because of its touristic view of an exotic
Iran but also because of the incongruity of its modernist style with its nativist
contents. In other words, they rejected the films syncretism. The new-wave
filmmaker and critic Hajir Daryoush, for example, disdainfully opined that
Kimiai had planted a foreign camera inside an Iranian dcor (quoted in
Moazezinia 1999/1378:43). The controversy about the film continued in film
periodicals for quite some time, fueled by well-known critics.30
In addition to being an elegy, however, Qaisar, like many dash mashti and
jaheli movies, offered a discourse on ethics by mobilizing the ethos of the an
cient oral narratives. It also issued a call to arms against the forces of evil and
oppression. Kimiai, whose cinematic trajectory has involved films that exam
ine male power and authoritarianism as well as resistance to them (Balducci
and Shirozhan 1998), here offers individual action as the solution to the ills
of a society whose laws fail to protect or to serve citizens. What he prescribed,
had it been widely taken up, would surely have resulted in vigilantism and
chaos, but given the political climate of the time, when Savak had stifled all
legitimate and nonviolent forms of expression, this solution seemed inevitable
and acceptable. The films wide screening in December 1969 in twelve Teh
ran cinemas and its high box-office sales of 1,800,000 tomans pointed to the
popularity of Kimiais solution. As its star Vossoughi relates, during its suc
cessful first run, the mca censors withdrew Qaisar from the screens because
it went against the public interests and was considered corrupting. Appar
ently, after watching the movie, two boys imitating Farman and Qaisar had
engaged in a knife fight, one killing the other, causing a media flurry about
the negative effects of vigilante movies on youth. The movie was rereleased
only after it was reedited to reduce the number of Qaisars knife attacks. The
audience did not seem to take notice of this change, as its popularity grew
with both the ordinary and the powerful. Following a request by the Shahs
300
sister, Ashraf, Vossoughi took a print of Qaisar and screened it for the royal
family at the Sadabad Palace, an event that inaugurated the stars entry into
the royal court, where he socialized and showed his movies frequently. After
the screening before some forty people, Ashraf told Vossoughi that she had
liked his performance but that the movie itself contained not much more
than knife-w ielding (Zeraati 2004:13949). Despite its narrative disconti
nuities and flaws of realism, which Kavusi enumerated encyclopedically, the
films violent call to action was prescient, for within a decade the mass of peo
ple would rise up against the oppressive Iranian regime to topple it.
The Conventions of Jaheli Movies

The binarist and comparative thematic and narrative structures of filmfarsi
their morphologywhich encoded the clash of values and worldviews, as well
as that of premodernity and modernity can be found in the jaheli movies as
well, except that these are mobilized in the service of luti worldview and char
acters. They also evolved with time. With the consolidation of Westernization
and modernity in the 1960s and the 1970s, the style of clothing and the per
sonal accessories of the urban toughs underwent a Westernizing evolution
both in real life and in the movies, demonstrating the toughs capacity for
syncretic adaptation, which is the secret of their historical longevity. Thanks
to its massive circulation in the mass media and the movies, the jaheli style
became a professional uniform: black suit (sometimes the jacket was slung
over one shoulder); black fedora hat worn cockily; solid black or solid white
shirt, with buttons open in front; thick handlebar mustache; wide leather belt;
and black pointed-toe shoes with the backs stepped on.31 The good lutis, such
as Farman and Qaisar in Qaisar, both wore all-black outfits, while the dress
code of the louts, such as the Aq Mangol brothers, was not as uniform. West
ern fashion then the rage in Iran also affected the jahels, as shoes with plat
form heels and thin see-through socks became popular. Some prominent
lutis, such as Tayyeb Hajj Rezai, were so well dressed, at least in their photo
graphs, that they appeared like dandies.32 This new tough-guy style surfaced
in most jaheli movies, including in Ismail Kushans Velvet Hat Wearer (Kolah
Makhmali, 1962), the first blockbuster movie in which Malekmotii appeared
as a jahel, and in Qaisar, also starring Malekmotii, which consolidated the sty
listic conventions of this subgenre. The style of dress and the toughs personal
articles set this genre apart from the stewpot films, which otherwise shared
many attributes with the tough-guy genre. The importance of the dress code
cannot be underestimated, for whether the star wore a particular article or
301
not had an impact on the films narrative and the stars persona, as well as
on his earnings and on the films budget and box-office receipts. As Ali Mor
tazavi told me in an interview, the superstar of the jaheli movies, Malekmotii,
demanded twice as much for acting in a film if he wore the jaheli fedora hat
(Naficy 1984b:6). Yet in many films, all that the movie toughs possessed of the
luti attributes were the external semiotics of their characters, not their inter
nal psychology. As a result, a majority of the actors remained only dressed-up
stereotypes of ideal characters.
The language of the movie toughs changed from dash mashti films to jaheli
films, becoming more realistic, vernacular, and colorful, thus more accurately
reflecting the jaheli argot and the changing times. Skillful screenplay and dia
logue writers, such as Feraidun Goleh and Ahmad Najibzadeh, specialized in
this argot, creating memorable film exchanges. Kimiai also demonstrated his
own skills at writing tough-guy dialogues, as in the caf scene in Qaisar, in
which a tough named Muti (short for Morteza and played by Mofid) delivers
a memorable drunken soliloquy to his buddies. In it he colorfully relates how
he fought with a rival but was beaten up by him, a fact that he wants to pass
on as a victory or keep private to avoid losing face. What makes this scene fas
cinating is not only the loving accuracy and humor with which Kimiai repro
duces the nuanced argot but also the mastery with which Mofid tells the story,
replete with the typical tough guys special intonations, accents, and gestures.
In the process, he turns a simple story of a street skirmish into the pure po
etry of manhood under threat. Many of the stars of the jaheli movies, such as
Mofid, Malekmotii, and Fardin, who were well-versed in the lifestyle and argot
of the jahels, contributed considerably by adding their own dialogues during
filming, consolidating the improvisational style of filmfarsi.
The movie tough-guy characters also evolved in response to the modern,
authoritarian, state-driven, petroleum-fuelled, Westernizing, and capitalist
political economy under the Shah. Embodying the tensions caused by these
developments, the tough guys began to transgress their inherited and generic
conventions, to go against type, and become hybridized. Like Qaisar, some
became vigilantes, taking the law into their own hands in the absence of both
just laws and just law enforcement. In Kimiais following film, The Deer, vio
lent personal revenge was read as an attempt to gain social justice through
armed struggle against a government whose security forces not only failed to
protect people but harassed them. This violent and individualized take-charge
attitude was both a vestige of the fading improvisational system and a symp
tom of emerging modernity and capitalism, both of which rewarded individu
ality and personal initiatives.
302
Like other Iranians, the movie toughs gradually became more cosmopoli
tan and transnational as they traveled to Western megalopolises or befriended
Westerners in Iran, resulting in comic situations that sometimes pitched Ira
nian authenticity against Western modernity. Two Pars Film Studio produc
tions, which also fit the foreign-travel and foreign-bride subgenres, provide
examples. In Ismail Kushans Ebram in Paris (Ebram dar Paris, 1964), a jahel
named Ebram (Naser Malekmotii) falls in love with a Parisian girl, Nicole,
whom he wishes to marry. However, after touring the famous sights of the
French capital, cultural contradictions force him to realize the incompatibil
ity of the jaheli lifestyle with the modern world, resulting in his return home
to marry a native girl. The favored return home is coded as a return to tra
dition and to the self. This movie was the first coproduction with a French
film concern, which dictated setting the story in France. Kushan assembled
a large crew of twenty-five members and filmed his comic story of the jahel
sightseeing and seeking a bride in various popular tourist spots in France.
Although narratively the movie favors Iranian culture, the majority of its run
ning time is devoted to Ebrams adventures in France as the ideal of moder
nity (the scenes filmed in Iran comprise only the first twenty-t wo minutes of
the movie). The film is ambivalent; it wants to have it both ways, traditional
and modern.
In Nezam Fatemis Black Mehdi and the Hot Pants (Mehdi Meshki va
Shalvarake Dagh, 1972), Mehdi (Malekmotii) falls in love with a Western
woman (Christine Paterson) who also loves him. However, before marrying
her, Mehdi has to abide by his fathers will and find a suitable husband for his
sister. He succeeds with both goals, proving that one can have a traditional,
monocultural marriage (that of his sister) and a modern, bicultural marriage
(his own). If cultural contradictions had made the jahels intermarriage with
foreigners impossible in Ebram in Paris eight years earlier, they no longer
posed a problem.
The validation of an authentic self to which return was urged showed how
much commercial filmfarsi cinema, particularly the popular tough-guy and
stewpot movies, was in touch with the peoples sentiments. It was attuned to
the tastes and aspirations of paying audiences more than the new-wave auteur
films, which were largely state funded and shielded from the vagaries of pub
lic taste. This affinity, in addition to the spontaneity of the hybrid production
mode, turned filmfarsi movies into powerful collective expressions of the cul
ture at large. Significantly, their diagnosis of Iranian social ills of the 1970s
(Westonitis) and their solution (a return to self) coincided with those of lead
ing intellectuals, such as Jalal Ale Ahmad and Ali Shariati, and of anti-Shah
303
forces, which ironically used these films embrace of things Western as one
reason for opposing the Shah.
With the shift from dash mashti to jaheli movies the star system also came
of age. A shift from the artisanal production mode to the hybrid mode re
flected the rise of industrial production methods in the 1960s, with the first
car-assembly plants introducing a Fordist workflow, television ushering in
standardized productions, and popular culture and consumer industries inte
grating into a mass marketing industry. Industrialization also resulted in the
emergence of a star system, which transformed actors into bankable commod
ities. The most frequently featured actors playing the luti and jahel parts were
Malekmotii, Fardin, Manuchehr Vosuq, Mofid, Reza Fazeli, Yadollah Shi
randami, Vossoughi, Morteza Aqili, Abbas Mosaddeq, Bahram Vatanparast,
Mohsen Arasteh, Akbar Hashemi, Mohammad Ali Homayun, Hasan Sha
hin, Taqi Zohuri, and Reza Baikimanverdi. Many of these became stars, al
beit at the price of being typecast. Malekmotii and Fardin played their tough-
guy types in a plethora of movies. Malekmotii, for example, played in about
ninety-t wo features, perhaps half of which were tough-guy movies, mostly of
the jaheli subgenre. Likewise, Fardin acted in about forty movies featuring
toughs before 1970 (Bahrami 1972/1351) and in many more thereafter, stamp
ing his own style of acting, language, and personality on the films, which be
came known simply as Fardin Films.
While typecasting limited these mens options, their popularity as super
stars gave them the authority to introduce individuality and variation of the
types. In thus changing the types, they were able to remain the samestars.
There was also a coterie of actors who played villainous lout character, among
them Jalal Pishvaian and Gholamreza Sarkub, as well as some of the afore
mentioned performers who played both types of roles. These stars salaries
topped filmfarsi budgets. Economy-minded producers often cast only one star
in each movie, hoping that his drawing power would attract a sufficient num
ber of moviegoers. This proved shortsighted, for top stars often shone better
in the light of strong supporting actors.
The industrialized star system, of course, involved women as well, but in
subsidiary roles. Foruzan, Shurangiz Tabatabai, Shabnam Jahangiri, Shah
rzad, Puri Banai, Haleh, Sepideh, Katayun, Zhaleh, and Marjan frequently
played the female leads in the luti movies. Qaisars cast included a whos who
of male and female tough-guy character actors: Malekmotii, Vossoughi, Mo
fid, Sarkub, Pishvaian, Shahrzad, and Banai. Famous entertainers such as
Mahvash, Afat, Paria, and Delkash were instrumental to these films success
as well, even though they may have performed only a few numbers.
304
Although the world of these films was one of male superiority and patriar
chy, the tough-guy genre was flexible, allowing certain gender-bending prac
tices, often as comedy. To serve narrative purposes, several women, such as
Puran in The Twentieth-Century Man (Aqaye Qarne Bistom, 1964), Azar Shiva
in Champion of Champions (Qahremane Qahremanan, 1965), and Foruzan in
Shamsi the Champion (Shamsi Pahlevun, 1966) appeared as male characters
or as tough guys in disguise (all directed by Siamak Yasami).33 They also car
ried typical colorful male luti names, such as Akbar Lancaster (Shivas name
in Champion of Champions) and Shamsi the Champion (Foruzans name in
Shamsi the Champion). In these movies, the women cross-dressed in typical
dark suits and fedora hats, wore fake mustaches, swaggered like male toughs,
and spoke their argot. Although she does not cross-dress as a male luti in Qa
isar, Sohaila Ferdows talks like one. And Foruzan sings and dances a number
while wearing a black fedora. Audiences appreciated the comic and sexualized
incongruities that masquerade created. These films, and the later tough-guy
music videos by women entertainers in the United States, mimic and good-
naturedly mock the lutis both as social figures and as cinematic characters.
As in stewpot movies, film actresses and female singers in many tough-guy
movies used a single-name pseudonym: Foruzan (Parvin Kairbakhsh), Haleh
(Nasrin Kahzak), Katayun (Shahpar Amirebrahimi), Shahrzad (Kobra Saidi),
Sepideh (Nasrin Kahzak), Zhaleh (Showkat Olov), Marjan (Shahla Safizamir),
Mahvash (Akram), Afat, and Delkash (Esmat Baqerpur) (known real names
are given in parentheses).
Tone and outlook shifted over time. While dash mashti films were gener
ally hopeful and lightweight, the jaheli films became bitter and pessimistic. A
jaheli protagonist often engaged in reprisals that ended in his own death. The
best of the jaheli movies were the noir versions of the stewpot films.
Popularity
As a male genre, tough-guy movies were very popular with young lower-class
male spectators, many of whom were either soldiers on leave in cities or vil
lagers who had immigrated as laborers and lived in shantytowns. While the
upper and upper-middle classes had other entertainments available, only the
movies were affordable for the lower classes. In the absence of a rating system,
the males of a family would often first attend a movie. If they approved, they
would later take their families with them (Naficy 1984b:28).
Accurate statistics for the tough-guy genres popularity are difficult to ob
tain, but indirect sources provide some evidence. The first, and least satisfac
305
tory, is the work of social science researchers, who largely ignored the genre.
For example, neither the audience polls conducted by the mca nor those by
nirt asked their subjects opinions about the popular native genre. However,
both inquired about two popular foreign genres, westerns and martial arts
films (Ministry of Culture and Art 1977/2536:34, 85; Assadi 197374:1415).34
The omission reveals an intellectual bias. One comprehensive study of the
leisure-time activities of residents of Yazd in 1974 showed that 9.3 percent of
the polled audience named the tough-guy movies as their favorite (Assadi and
Hakimzadeh 1975:16). If the percentage seems low, it is perhaps because Yazd
at this time was not a major urban center with large uprooted and marginal
ized populations, the types that the tough-guy movies attracted. It is also prob
able that, aware of the researchers and intellectuals disdain for the genre, the
respondents told the surveyors what they thought they wanted to hear.
Another source for determining the genres popularity is output. My own
survey of films produced up to 1976 shows that between 1950 and 1966, fewer
than ten tough-guy movies were produced annually. In 1971, twenty-one were
made, and forty in 1972 (of a total of sixty-t wo films made in 1972).35 Accord
ing to a magazine report, about fifty jaheli movies were in the works in 1972
alone.36 These numbers did not last, for reasons I will discuss later.
The films popularity also reveals itself in movie-house numbers. For ex
ample, Black Mehdi and the Hot Pants was shown simultaneously in thirteen
theaters in Tehran; Mr. Mehdi Arrives (Aqa Mehdi Vared Mishavad, 1974, dir.
Feraidun Zhurak) was shown in eleven theaters in Tehran and simultane
ously in seventeen theaters in twelve other cities; and The Golden Heel (Pash
neh Tala, 1975, dir. Nezam Fatemi) was exhibited simultaneously in eleven
cinemas in Tehran and in twenty-t wo provincial cinemas in eighteen cities.37
Numbers for moviegoers, particularly broken down by film genres, are hard to
come by. But the number of cinemas nationwide and their seating capacities
increased steeply until 1976, so one can surmise that the number of specta
tors also rose. This nationwide pattern was amplified by the emergence of sev
eral national film distribution networks and chain cinemas capable of accom
modating audience demandsanother aspect of the hybrid production mode.
The tough-guy movies and characters proved popular in neighboring coun
tries as well. Orhan Aksoy remade Qaisar in Turkey almost scene by scene,
resulting in Destiny (Alin Yazisi, 1972), in which Cnet Arkin starred as Qa
isar (Naficy 2000). This remake formed part of regional cinematic exchange
relations between Iran and Turkey that involved coproductions with Turkey,
the export and remake of Iranian movies in Turkey, and the export of Iranian
306
tough-guy stars, such as Jahangir Gaffary, Banai, and Homayun Tabrizian, to

act in Turkish films (Ozguc 1991).
Decline
The doubling in the number of tough-guy movies from twenty-one in 1971
to roughly forty in 1972 indicates the genres popularity and profitability. It
eventually began to lose steam, however. For one, the movies did not seri
ously delve beneath the veneer of the social ills they depicted. The industrial
ization of the industry encouraged the high output of shallow and entertain
ing tough-guy movies.
Government censorship limited the choice of topics for all films. Article 55
of the Regulations for Cinemas and Performing Arts Institutions of 1950 was
still in force in the 1970s, prohibiting fifteen types of actions that, if shown in
a domestic or imported film, would lead to censorship or an exhibition ban.
These regulations hamstrung film producers, directors, exhibitors, and dis
tributors. Government censorship of socially critical material was thus partly
responsible for the proliferation of the stereotypical jaheli genre, for although
film critics and government censors condemned it as sleazy or trite, its pro
duction and exhibition was officially tolerated. But the genres creative limita
tions doomed it.38 Many years later, from a position in exile, the famed tough-
guy actor Mofid called the second Pahlavi-era jahels the vilest, the most
parasitical, and the most corrupt characters around . . . who like tapeworm
thrived in the filthiest part of the Iranian national body. They [the jahels] were
no lutis (Naficy 1984a:34). This distortion of the laudable luti characters, in
which Mofid had a hand himself, may have been another reason for the de
cline of this genre.
Pressure groups further narrowed filmmakers options. The magazine edi
tor Ali Mortazavi and Aman Manteqi, a director and writer of tough-guy mov
ies, contend that since all social strata other than the toughs and prostitutes
had strong lobbyists and unions protecting their filmic representation, film
makers found it convenient to focus on the lives of the undesirables, creating
formulaic genres.39
The government, which since the enormous popularity of Qaisar had be
gan to clean jahels off the streets of Tehran, issued an edict in 1972 that es
sentially outlawed the genre. Since it had crushed the riots in Tehran in 1963
and had executed their luti leaders, the Pahlavi governmentnow strong with
muscular, coercive nationwide apparatusesviewed the tough guys with dis
307
trust and had no use for their middleman functions. Perhaps, too, the nativ
istic tendencies of these movies, and their privileging of idealized traditions
over modernity were undermining the governments project of authoritarian
modernization. Those films that dealt with the lives of the contemporary ja
hels and the urban poor often emphasized personal revenge and vigilantism,
which could be read by savvy spectators as advocating antigovernment action.
These escapist movies reflected badly on the modern and civilized image of
Iran promoted by the Pahlavi regime. Finally, the films did not openly circu
late the iconography of the Pahlavi state, which included the mandatory and
prominent display of the portraits of the Shah and his wife in offices. Accord
ing to Mofid, silent resistance by the purveyors of low culture took the form
of prominently displaying the Shahs picture in the diegesis only on the walls
of prisons, police stations, cabarets, and whorehouses. If this is true, then
one can understand Mofids counterintuitive contention that filmfarsi was
the only trench in the warfare with the unpopular regime. To back this con
tention, Mofid claims that after the revolution Savak spies were discovered
in many social strata, including among poets and writers who had tradition
ally championed freedom of expression and resistance literature, but no spies
turned up among the filmfarsi cadres (Naficy 1984a:47).
It is important to understand the immediate social context of the mca edict
of 1972 against filmfarsi movies. In October 1971, the Shah staged the elabo
rate anniversary celebration of the founding of the Persian Empire, to which
scores of world leaders had been invited. It was in the heady atmosphere sur
rounding this event and its aftermath that the mca issued its decree, pub
lished in the trade journal Film va Honar, whose aim seemed to be to set
straight the image of Iran under the Pahlavi regime that filmfarsi movies
were projecting. In convoluted language, the edict banned the production of
all trite and valueless films, which contain superstitious materials or materi
als contrary to all that is religiously sacred or to all that is of national pride. It
further forbade the production of films that contained scenes of personal re
venge, knife-w ielding, playing at being a jahel, producing shameless sounds,
uttering indecent and meaningless words, gambling with knuckle-bones,
pigeon-flying, and displaying of details of sexual relations for the sole pur
pose of satisfying prurient desires and attracting customers.40
Because of its ideology of syncretic Westernization, the Pahlavi govern
ment did not oppose reviving ancient, pre-Islamic institutions such as luti
chivalry, oral narratives, and traditional religious and comic performing arts.
Indeed, it required their revival for its historical legitimacy. Yet it wanted this
done in an authorized, respectable, secular, and modernist manner, one ap
308
pealing to the elite both at home and abroad. Indeed, in its various efforts at
creating a syncretic culture of spectacle, it sponsored a government-r un Shi
raz Art Festival, the Tus Festival in Mashhad, and Isfahan Folklore Festival
performances and conferences that celebrated the institutions of javanmardi
and chivalry, oral storytelling, art music performances, traditional comic per
formances, and taziyeh religious performances, many of which undergirded
the tough-guy ideology and genre conventions. These festivals, particularly
the one in Tus, featured Shahnameh storytelling and movies and plays on luti
and ayyari themes. For example, the theme of the fourth festival in the sum
mer of 1978 was javanmardi.41 In addition, in 197475, Channel One Televi
sion broadcast Shahnameh recitations and naqqali performances nationally
and on a daily basis (Motamed-Nejad 1979:58). These festivals and broadcasts
during the 1970s helped spread the authorized, generally secular, highbrow,
and nationalistic forms of the tough-guy ideologies that suited the govern
ment and the elite. The popular jaheli movies of the 1970s undermined those
ideological constructs.
Almost all the elements the edict banned were conventions of the jaheli
genre.42 By banning these features, the government was forcing the filmmak
ers either to change the genre drastically or to abandon it altogether. Both
routes seem to have been adopted. By 1975, the number of movies made had
declined from forty to twenty-four, and by 1978, the year of the revolution, it
had dropped to a mere five. Yet filmmakers, both those who made filmfarsi
movies and those who made new-wave films, objected to the governments
new ruling. Mehdi Misaqiyeh, the prominent commercial cinema producer,
summarized their feelings when he characterized the edict as a cute joke.43
He contended that the government could not award a top filmmaking prize
(the Royal Prize) to the jaheli movie Qaisar and then turn around and outlaw
the whole genre. He claimed that if the film industry was forced to comply
with the decree, there would be no subjects left for filmmakers: When we
make a film we must use our local conditions, customs, and national dress,
and I do not think this is a crime.44 Yet the decree stood fast, and the dra
matic drop in tough-guy movies points to its dampening effect, though the
genre was not eradicated. Its continued resilience, in fact, angered the Tehran
City Council, which found the reduction in films insufficient. In 1975, one
council member, Farhang Farrahi, condemned filmfarsi producers for por
traying knife-w ielding tough guys and jahels, whom he considered negative
role models, as if they were the luminaries of Iranian ethics.45
In this light it can be seen that the cute joke to which Misaqiyeh referred
was nothing but the complex process of cultural negotiation through genre
309
formation and evolution, involving film producers, governmental policymak

ers, film critics, and film spectators. One plausible scenario for this multi
part negotiation could be summarized as follows: Western-style moderniza
tion, enforced through the Shahs White Revolution, stirred up deep anxieties,
which surfaced in jaheli movies. In them, age-old Iranian character ideals
(lutis, jahels, and ayyars) were made to grapple with a modern world filled with
the temptations of modernization and consumerism, which were degraded
by being coded as immoral, violent, materialistic, and exploitative. Of course,
such coding did not always have the effect intended; instead, at times it made
modernity and Westernization even more alluring. Their traditional power
bases undermined by modernity and by a brutal centralized state, the toughs
in the movies resorted to personal revenge, which sometimes audiences took
to have a larger political import. Many Westernized local movie critics dis
dained both the types of traditional values mobilized in these films and their
low technical quality and apparent artisanal style and the disjointed and cha
otic narratives. The government, for its part, wanted to encourage neither the
toughs take-charge attitude via violence, nor the tough-guy films condemna
tion of Westernization as corrupt, nor the portrayal of poverty and margin
ality as the norm in a modernizing Iran. The spectators, on the other hand,
largely comprising recent rural migrs and the urban poor living in the sti
fling society of the 1970s, found in the jahel characters worthy authority fig
ures, however distorted their portrayal of these characters and of Iranian soci
ety may have been. They often cheered on the lutis and jahels as they redressed
a wrong or took violent revenge. One might speculate that the increased vio
lence on the screens was a harbinger of the return of the politically repressed.
The number of tough-guy films dwindled precipitously, but until the demise
of the Pahlavi era, they did continue to be made.
The Reemergence of an Islamicate Tough Guy

From its installment in January 1979, the new Islamic government distrusted
what it called the un-Islamic leanings of the second Pahlavi-era tough guys
and jahels whom it associated with that eras corrupting Western influences.
This was ironic, for the films coding of Westernization as corrupt, which was
partly a political oppositional strategy and partly an economic measure to at
tract mass audiences, was now being interpreted as propagating that very cor
ruption. Within a year, in March 1980, the Revolutionary Court published
several orders in major national dailies summoning some thirty actors, both
male and female, for preliminary investigation. The unusual step of widely
310
advertising the order was apparently taken because the court did not know the
whereabouts of the entertainers, some of whom might have been in hiding
out of fear. All of them had starred in filmfarsi movies, particularly in stew
pot and tough-guy films. Among those listed were Fardin, Malekmotii, Vos
soughi, Simin Ghaffari, Banai, Baikimanverdi, Iraj Qaderi, Manuchehr Vo
suq, Morteza Aqili, Shahnaz Tehrani, Sarkub, and Foruzan. As if to reassure
them that nothing terrible awaited them, the summon noted that the actors
who had voluntarily appeared before the court had been released after prom
ising to change their ways and abstain from activities that were against Is
lamic values.46
Regardless of whether they appeared before the court, Pahlavi-era stewpot
and tough-guy movie actors were soon banned from screens as part of the
purification process to which the Islamic Republic subjected the entire film
industry. Some stayed in Iran and chose other careers, while others escaped
into exile, predominantly to the United States, where they attempted to revive
their acting careers.
Yet genres, particularly those with heavy cultural and ideological invest
ments, do not die; they just evolve. Genres change to stay the samepopular.
Understandably, Pahlavi-era tough-guy movies were not screened publicly in
the Islamic Republic because of their display of women without veils, nudity,
sexual relations, and song-and-dance numbers, but the genres masculinist
ideology and narrative conventions did not disappear entirely. Instead, they
were reworked into new variations.
This took at least three forms. First, immediately after the revolution, film
producers tried to recycle the Pahlavi-era tough-guy types and formulas with
only minor modifications and updates, but these efforts were unfavorably re
ceived. A reviewer, for example, complained that postrevolution film entrepre
neurs had exchanged the trappings of the lutis, louts, and jahels with those of
the anti-Pahlavi guerrillas. As a result, the toughs who in prerevolution mov
ies had worn fedora hats and dark suits and brandished knives and machetes,
had, in the postrevolution movies, become scruffy lumpens who wore berets
and guerrilla jackets and carried guns (Ebrahimian 1979/1358:5).
Sometimes updating was limited to a mere title change or to other mi
nor modifications hoping to make the movies palatable to the new audiences.
Amir Shervans The Jahel and the Student (Jahel va Mohassel, 1978), filmed in
the throes of the revolution, was renamed Heroin and released with minor
alternations. Yet it was never publicly shown. Qaderis movie about the Iraq-
Iran war, Living in Purgatory (Barzakhiha, 1980), which starred Malekmotii,
Fardin, and Qaderi himself, tried to recycle the Pahlavi-era tough types and
311
formulas by updating them to fit the revolutionary eras ethos. Critics con
demned it. In Aman Manteqis The Soldier of Islam (Sarbaze Eslam, 1980) and
in Parviz Nuris Dawn of Explosion (Tolue Enfejar, 1981), Malekmotii played
an anti-Savak, pro-revolution character, but the movies did not do well, and
he was forced to abandon acting altogether. Mofid, too, acted in a few films af
ter the revolution that supported revolutionary movements, such as in M
ehdi
Madanians Cry of the Mojahed (Faryade Mojahed, 1979), which dealt sym
pathetically with the clerical opposition to the Shah and re-created the at
tack of Savak forces on the Faiziyeh Seminary in Qom. However, it did badly
at the box office and, according to Mofid, its negative was destroyed (Naficy
1984a:22).
These last few movies, along with Tehranis From Shout to Assassination
(Az Faryad ta Teror, 1980), formed what might be called a subgenre of Savak
films, an opportunistic and failed thriller or noir genre, in which gangsters
and toughs acted like revolutionaries. Not all the movies of this genre involved
the reformulated tough guys, and although some of them dealt with real so
cial and political conditions under the Shah, such as repression and corrup
tion, the majority proved amateurish and unsuccessful. The critics roundly
condemned them as phony and exploitative. One critic warned the producers
of these movies that, if you are not truthful, the audience will edit you out
into the dustbin of history. He called on them to abandon commercialism
and to pick up the pen of the camera to create accurate reports of life under
the Pahlavis (Ebrahimian 1979).
Second, if Pahlavi-era toughs appeared in postrevolution movies, they were
usually coded as corrupt and unethical, in other words, as louts, not as lutis.
For example, in Mehdi Sabbaghzadehs Dossier (Parvandeh, 1983), a tough guy
acts as a stool pigeon for the authorities while in prison, an action that violates
the lutis idealized code of conduct of loyalty to comrades and independence
from centers of power.
Third, a new Islamicate tough guy surfaced in the postrevolution mov
ies, one who subscribed to an altered but recognizable form of masculine
dress, posture, and mannerism whose aims were now strictly and selflessly
to help the Islamic community (ummah). Unlike the Pahlavi-era lutis, these
Islamicized toughs were not idealized; thus they were susceptible to develop
ment and transformation. An example is the illiterate protagonist of the tele
vision series The Neighbors (Hamsayeh-ha), a former luti who learns to read
and write from a boy, obtains a decent job, and carries out his missionary
tasks, thereby serving the community. Deviant toughs were thus reformed
and brought into the fold, letting the genre survive, albeit formulaically. In
312
53 The transformation of
Pahlavi-era toughs in Kimiais
postrevolution movies. Poster
for his film Snake Fang.
Khosrow Malekans feature, The Night Breaker (Shab Shekan, 1985), an ex

tough guy war veteran, who has redeemed himself by fighting in the Iraq-Iran
war, manages to reform an addicted tough guy.47 These transformations differ
from the ways in which dandies were reformed from dandies to lutis, namely,
through marriage and a change of status. In Kimiais postrevolutionary films,
tough guys resurface in different guises, leaving them sometimes almost un
recognizable. As in his prerevolution movie The Deer, in his postrevolution
Snake Fang (Dandane Mar, 1989), the toughs are involved in drug running
and smuggling, this time against the background of the war with Iraq (figure
53). However, in the latter movie, they are no longer coded as revolutionary. It
appears that the Islamic Republics censorship was more airtight than that of
the Pahlavi regime, but also that Kimiai felt a greater affinity with the Islamic
rulers than with the Pahlavis. A few years later, however, his movie The Wolfs
Footprints (Radde Paye Gorg, 199294) was heavily criticized for reviving the
same old retrogressive toughs in a new form, essentially offering, to borrow
from the films title, the old wolf in the new sheeps clothing.48 The primary
scene of the little bazaar apparently continued its hold on him. Said Naderis
313
Tricksters and Pickpockets (Ayyaran va Tarraran, 1986) uses another tactic for
incorporating the toughs: it places its story in an apparently timeless past,
when a trickster (ayyar), in an idealized Robin Hood form, returns to their
owners the goods that thieves had stolen.49
By being involved in the process of cultural negotiation and social change,
by continually coding and recoding its contents and conventions, the tough-
guy genre managed to survive, but it did not thrive as before. The most dar
ing and entertaining recoding occurred in Davud Mirbaqeris The Snowman
(Adam Barfi, 19948), produced by the Art Center of the Islamic Propaganda
Organization, which was partly filmed in Turkey. The movie was banned in
Iran for several years, and it was released only after the election in 1997 of Mo
hammad Khatami to the presidency and the appointment of Ataollah Moha
jerani as the new minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Immediately, the
film became very controversial as Islamist hard-liners, including the militant
Supporters of the Party of God (Ansare Hezbollah), attacked the theaters that
showed the film in major cities, including in Tehran and Isfahan (Peterson
1997). However, government officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khame
nei and the popularly elected president Khatami, voiced support for the film,
and audiences flocked to the movie houses. It became so popular that the Is
fahan movie house that had been attacked continued to show the film for over
a month thereafter. Ostensibly, the reason for the attack was the films theme
of transvestitism.
The story of The Snowman involves a protagonist named Abbas (Akbar
Abdi), who dreams of going to the United States; yet because there is no U.S.
embassy in Iran, he travels to Turkey to obtain a visa under disguise. After
his various disguises fail to procure him a visa there, he gets involved in a
scheme, hatched by expatriate Iranian tough guys, to disguise himself as a
woman willing to marry an American man for $6,000. Abbas dons womens
clothes, hair, and makeup; thus dressed, he appears unveiled in public (which
is unlawful in Iran), and he skillfully adopts a camp gay masquerade (also un
lawful). He befriends a woman, Donya, with whom he falls in love, introduc
ing interesting homoerotic sensibilities and textuality into the narrative, as
he does not reveal to Donya his true gender. Another reason for the protest,
therefore, may have been the movies treatment of such taboo subjects as un
veiled women, homoeroticism, and gender crossing, all of which are punish
able in the Islamic Republic, where boundaries segregating the sexes, divid
ing inside and outside, and keeping apart the self and the Other are strictly
patrolled and enforced. Gendered passing seemed possible only outside the
country where normative national categories of citizenship and gender are,
314
if not suspended, more elastic. Eventually, Abbas and Donya return home,
where heteronormativity requires that Abbas either come clean about his sex
uality and cross-dressing or use a ruse to kill the female character he was
playing. He opts for the latter.
A yet more subtle, but no less serious, reason both for the attack on The
Snowman and for its popularity may have been the films open, even appre
ciative, display of transplanted Iranian toughs in Turkey (who happen to be
involved in shady smuggling operations). They sing the toughs favorite ja
heli songs from prerevolution days, sprinkle their conversations with color
ful jaheli expressions and gestures not heard or seen in the cinema of the
Islamic Republic, and wear some of the coded tough-guy clothing.50 They
also frequent a bar, a favorite hangout of toughs before the revolution, where
they drink amber drinks that strongly suggest beer (outlawed in Iran). These
scenes and others involving unveiled women could not have been staged so
openly in Iran. It is as though the genre had to cross the national borders
to remain true to its generic codesperhaps resembling the many Irani
ans who left the Islamic Republic instead of putting up with unacceptable
compromises.
The Snowmans audiences recognized the transgression of the banned ja
heli codes with appreciation, as they clapped to the beat of the tough guys
singing and cheered on the actors. The film not only revived the tough guys
lifestyle but also reworked the genres revenge theme, so that the toughs
ended up defending not so much their personal honor as the national honor
of Iranian refugees and migrs in Turkey.
The revolutionary changes caused much transformation, some voluntary
and some involuntary, in the fortunes and psyches of Iranians. The possibil
ity, indeed, the necessity, of change was reflected in the postrevolutionary
movies. It is in this context that one can understand the changed role of the
Islamicate toughs. The change from social deviants to agents of social change
is so drastic and its didacticism so strong that, as a leading Pahlavi-era female
movie star, Fakhri Khorvash, told me, the new Islamicate toughs perform
the tasks that Friday prayer leaders are supposed to perform (Naficy 1987).
In this role, they were pressed in the service of purifying and ameliorating
the moral ills of a society perceived to have become corrupted by the culture
of taqut (idolatry), by excessive and wrong-headed Westernization, and most
ironic of all, by the tough guys themselves. Under the Islamic Republic, the
toughs both in the real and in the diegetic world changed to remain tough.51
Their continued currency is indexed by the sale of luti dolls, which drivers
hang on their cars windows and mirrors (figure 54).
315
54 A luti doll in a car.

Reemergence in Exile
That the tough-guy characters, ideology, and movies are enduringly fascinat
ing to Iranians and serve to continually renegotiate and reinterpret their iden
tity is again illustrated by the resurgence of the tough-guy movies, television
series, music videos, and plays in exile, particularly in Europe and in North
America.52 The cinematic resurgence took the form initially of exhibiting pre
viously made tough-guy movies and then producing new films and television
serials. My survey of the exhibition practices of Iranians in exile shows that
in the 1980s, nearly two dozen tough-guy movies produced before the revolu
tion of 197879 were imported and screened in commercial cinemas in the
United States, principally in New York and Los Angeles. Many of these later
became available on video, including the compilation tape Colorful (Ranga
rang), which contains favorite song-and-dance numbers from filmfarsi mov
ies, including tough-guy films.
More significant was the role of exilic television whose production cen
ter was Los Angeles and whose various channels offered a home for several
tough-guy television serials and movies (Naficy 1993a). All tough-guy movies
made in exile were first produced on video, then shown on exile television in
316
a serial form, and subsequently distributed for sale or rental on videocassettes

and dvds to Iranian ethnic grocery stores, bookstores, and music stores. That
many well-known luti and jaheli character actors and entertainers as well as
filmfarsi industry personnel were in exile in Los Angeles facilitated the re
vival and yet another transformation of the luti genre. The most important
movies of this genre are briefly discussed here.
Beyond Laughter (Balatar az Khandeh, 1985) is directed by Morteza Aqili
and stars transplanted Pahlavi-era tough-guy character actors such as Mofid,
Bahram Vatanparast, and Aqili himself. It comically chronicles the luti life
style in Iran before and after the revolution, as well as in exile in the United
States. It was first aired as a weekly serial on Jame Jam Television in Los Ange
les in 1985 and was later released as a ninety-minute video. Strangers (Ghari
beh-ha, 1986), a feature-length comedy starring Aqili, humorously treated the
tough guys lives in the United States. Like Beyond Laughter, this movie com
piles segments originally shown in serial form on Aqilis own television vari
ety show in Los Angeles called Jomeh Television. In fact, during its entire life
time, this shows standard opening sequence featured a jahel, played by Aqili,
the producer and host of the show, even though the show as a whole was not
about toughs. The Tough Guys Company in Los Angeles (Sherkate Jahelan dar
Los Anjeles) is another feature-length jaheli movie produced on video in the
1980s, and it parodied the toughs lifestyle in exile.
The syncretic malleability and parodic attitude of the movie tough guys to
ward the world allowed them not only to engage in exchange relations with
the West while in Iran but also to engage in exchange relations with Iran
when relocated abroad, where their parodic work continued. Before the revolu
tion, for example, foreign-travel and foreign-bride movies had been filmed in
Europe and North America, where the tough guys exploits and Iranian tradi
tions of dating and marriage had been parodically defamiliarized in a foreign
context, and a touristic one at that.
These television serials made in exile provided a reverse view of the lutis
by Iranians living abroad, and they proved more critical, even more parodic,
of the lutis than their counterpart movies made in Iran. Even the title of Be
yond Laughter parodically reworks the title of the American television spy se
ries, Mission Impossible, popular in Iran in the 1970s under the title Beyond
Danger (Balatar az Khatar). The team featured in the Mission Impossible se
ries triumphed over third world dictators, strongmen, and other assorted bad
guys thanks to superior American technology, know-how, morality, and laws.
The team and the American triumphalist and exceptionalist ideology that it
embraced were never questioned and in fact became the basis for judging the
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various third world countries into which they made their forays. Perhaps to
counter the social uncertainties of the Vietnam War, textual certainty was wo
ven into the fabric of this series.
In Beyond Laughter and Strangers, on the other hand, a team of displaced
Iranian tough guys attempts to recreate in exile its former lifestyle and narra
tive traditions. In neither of them are the toughs able to determine their exilic
context the way the American team could in Mission Impossible. The toughs
are wholly out of place. These shows weave in ambivalence, not certainty. Like
the dandies, the modern toughs are ambiguous and hybridized figures who
assimilate certain aspects of Western cultures at the same time that they criti
cize them. It is their villainous lout aspect that generally allows them to take
up the new modern ways through mimicry. They syncretically adopted fea
tures of Western fashion in the 1970s at the same time that they, through the
exaggeration of other features (see-t hrough nylon socks and platform shoes),
made fun of Western dress and, unknowingly, of themselves. In this process,
they reproduced not whole or authentic subjects (Westernized or Iranian) but
ambivalent, inappropriate, half-finished, and hybrid subjects.
In exile, too, they engaged in similar syncretism, with similar results. The
tough guys accessories and mannerismssuch as maybe carrying a drawn
macheteare all out of place in the streets of Los Angeles, with English let
tering on shops and Spanish and gang graffiti on the walls. In such a con
text, their concerns with meting out personal justice and their penchant for
mysticism and exaggerated emotionality seem old-fashioned or comic. Like
wise, the stereotypical characterization of the toughs as men with giant ap
petites is put to comic effect in Beyond Laughter, where Mofids character in
a restaurant orders multiple kebob and rice dishes for himself in one sitting
(figures 55a and 55b). Finally, these displaced toughs adoption of the Iranian
exiles lingo, Penglish (a mixture of Persian and English), which they fur
ther mingled with their own argot, produced a rich, hybridized, and humor
ous language that required a knowing audience to decode and fully appreci
ate. Through them as much as through high literature the Persian language
evolved and was enriched.
The Iranian professional wrestler Hossein Khosrow Vaziri (the Iron Sheik)
provides another fascinating example of tough-guy transplantation to and
mimicry in exile. During the so-called hostage crisis in the early 1980s, when
Iranian hard-liners were holding Americans hostage in their embassy in Teh
ran, he took advantage of Iranians unpopularity in the United States by par
ticipating in the commodification and caricaturing practices of what had be
come an anti-Iranian hostage industry. As I explain fully in another chapter,
318
55a, 55b Tough-guy characters

in exile are decontextualized,
inappropriate, excessive, and comic.
Bahman Mofid in Beyond Laughter
chases a rival with a drawn machete
in the streets of Los Angeles and
in a restaurant orders a mountain
of kebob and rice. The stack of
empty dishes signifies his insatiable
appetite. Frame enlargements.
the burley Iron Sheik, a former champion wrestler, luti, and friend of Sha
ban the Brainless who wore a typical tough-guy handlebar mustache, became
a popular and notorious figure in American professional wrestling circuits
and on mainstream television while working out of Southern California. For
Iranians familiar with the tough guys honor code, which required loyalty to
neighborhood and country, the Iron Sheiks riff on national honor for per
sonal gain was a betrayal of those codes and values.
Iranians infatuation with the toughs enriched not only the older media
arts, such as film and television, but also newer forms, such as music videos.
This was partly due to the syncretism with which the toughs both brought
in the new and tapped into the old. As Manuchehr Bibian, the executive pro
ducer of Jame Jam Television, told me: The tough guys are representatives
of Iranian culture and tradition. The Islamic regime is destroying all that.
But by doing this series, we help preserve that culture and tradition (Naficy
1985b). Since the tough-guy genre is filled with culturally specific formulas,
it requires the active complicity of viewers. Their understanding validates the
audience as culturally competent, something the older generation could not
claim vis--vis its knowledge of the host society. Younger viewers, on the other
hand, turned to them to learn about, and to have fun with, those values and
319
traditions. In these senses, then, both producers and viewers, uprooted from
home, became guardians of what Teshome Gabriel called popular memory,
which conferred and confirmed a shared Iranian cultural and national iden
tity (1989), this time from the diaspora.
Tough-Guy Music Videos in the Diaspora

Tough-guy characters surfaced in pop concerts and music videos produced
by migrs of a younger generation long after the lutis heyday on exile televi
sion. Concerts and videos were powerful means by which multicultural Irani
ans negotiated and defined their new hybridized identities in the West (Naficy
2002). The tough guys reappearance in these venues, unlike their reappear
ance in the Islamic Republic, did not generally serve moralistic and didactic
goals. It recuperated the tough guys parodic excess in the service of enter
tainment, the transgression of identities, and market capitalism, again dem
onstrating both the rootedness and the routing capabilities of the tough-guy
ideology.
Produced by the younger or second generation, the bicultural generation,
tough-guy music videos inscribed more successfully and densely than the
earlier tough-guy television serials and movies the layers of ambivalence and
cultural negotiations around the tough-guy phenomenon, creating texts that
seemed puzzlingly contradictory. An example was a six-minute video by Jak
lyn, Mafia, which provides a critical (if moralist) catalogue of life in the United
States. In it, Jaklyn Dardarianan Armenian Iranian and the daughter of
the famed pop singer Vigenappears in two personas, one female, the other
male. In one, she is a sexy singer, doning long, flowing hair and a short, se
quined dress, performing on the stage with her all-male band. In the other,
she is dressed as a male tough, looking very much like an Italian Mafia don
or an Iranian jahel in a black suit and a black fedora hat, and in some scenes
brandishing a machine gun (figure 56). The video images accompanying
these two personas posit that the United States is imbued with the Mafia
ethics of greed, violence, corruption, and crime and the social ills of injus
tice, homelessness, addiction, the degradation of women, and lax morality.
Her lyrics develop ironic and critical resonances with the images. In some of
them, she calls the United States a prison that is worth nothing and from
which she urges her compatriots to return to the homeland. This modern mu
sic video thus appears surprisingly old-fashioned and traditional, much like
tough-guy movies that paraded alluring Westernization throughout just to
moralize and condemn it in the end.
320
56 The pop singer Jaklyn (Jaklyn

Dardarian), dressed in an outfit
that at once borrows from
American Mafia figures and
Iranian lutis, in her music video
Mafia. Frame enlargement.
The video was produced at a time when American outrage about the hos
tage taking was still strong. Iranian migrs in the United States were both
fearful and resentful at being harassed for the actions of a government they
opposed and detested. The videos contradictions and ambivalence mobilized
the moralism of Iranian traditions and the exiles discourse of nostalgic re
turn, as well as the discourse of mimicry. In both of her two personas, Jak
lyn borrows ironically from the videos own catalogue of negative images of
America as oversexed and Mafia-driven. By adopting these negative images
of the Other at the same time that she critiques them, the singer engages in
mimicry, not imitation. This and other music videos were widely screened
by Iranian television in Los Angeles, reaching a potentially global audience.53
Another female entertainer, Leila Foruhar, also produced a music video,
Cry of Exultation (Helheleh), in which she and other women dancers, dressed
exactly like the tough guys (with the exception of the mustache), danced in the
toughs macho style and playfully parodied them. Similarly, Mortezas music
video, Heart to Heart (Del Beh Del), shows him on the stage singing and danc
ing with three female dancers dressed like Iranian toughs, who dance in the
style of the lutis (figure 57).54 In the Black Cats slick, ten-minute video, Pul
(Money, 1991), an Asian-looking warrior resembling Rostam performs a Per
sian rap against materialism that constitutes an inspired combination of the
Iranian tough-guy singing style and American hip hop. Money is even more
direct in its criticism of materialism and more conservative than Jaklyns Ma
fia video. It shows how an Arab sheik millionaire wastes all his money on
fancy cars, palatial homes, leggy blonde women, and oversexed sycophants
and in the end finds himself in a desolate, parched desert with only a single
penny lying in the cracked earth. As though this was not clear enough, the
video ends with a title card: The root of all evil is money. No parody seems
to be at work here.
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57 Mortezas music video Heart

to Heart, featuring female
dancers dressed in tough-guy
outfits and dancing in the toughguy style. Frame enlargement.
Baba Karam is a Persian rap video featuring the young male singer Foze
Aghili who, unlike the other performers discussed here, sings in English, rep
resenting the second generation of Iranians in the United States. The video
opens with his arrival at a concert hall in a stretch limousine, surrounded
by beefy bodyguards who push back his fans to make room for his grand en
trance. The middle section of the video shows him and his female dancers
on the stage and in what passes as the graffiti-marked streets of Los Ange
les, dressed in various formal dance outfits and Chicano/a street attire. Dur
ing this section, the lead singer and his dancers demonstrate Baba Karam,
a luti dance (and song) originally made famous by Mahvash and the tough
guy movies, but this rap version does not much resemble its original. The
videos third section, a bookend to the first, shows Aghilis departure from
the hall. From a narrative point of view, the videos opening and closing cre
ate its young performer as a star. Iconographically, the midsection creates a
multiculturally hybridized world, poaching from both Iranian and American
styles. This hybrid text knowingly and ironically comments on and critiques
its originals. In creating this hybridized space of identity, the video speaks
forcefully and good-humoredly to its young multicultural audience.
Mimicry and its discrepancies can become economically fruitful and ideo
logically productive when the mimicking personas (Iron Sheik, Jaklyn, Foru
har, Morteza, the Black Cats, and Aghili) and the dissonant texts they inhabit
are circulated by the capitalist global media in music videos, concerts, ra
dio broadcasts, commercial television, and satellite television. By associating
themselves with the American pop performance styles and icons, so popular
with second-generation Iranians, the migr and hyphenated entertainers at
tempted to transfer to themselves the fondness of this generation and to capi
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58 Young women dancers

from the Beshkan Dance
Academy perform a toughguy song-and-dance at an
Iranian New Years outing
in April 2006 at Vasona
Park, Los Gatos, northern
California. Photograph
by Talieh Shahrokhi.
Courtesy of Talieh
Shahrokhi and the Iranian.
talize on the economic rewards of the transfer. In the process, they consoli
dated the commodification of themselves and their own images, along with
that of their fellow exiles as consumers. This economic diffusion of exilic mu
sic videos, along with their political and moral conservatism, defused their
subversive potentiality.
The waning of the hostility from the hostage crisis reduced the strict bi
narist construction of identity among Iranians in the diaspora, encouraging
hybrid and critical playfulness, both with the host countries and with the
homeland. The tough-guy movies and their attributes formed part of this
playfulness. A graphic artist named Mahmoud drew many cartoons in the
1990s and posted them on the Iranian, an online magazine. The cartoons cir
culated and deftly poked fun at the images of the tough guys in Pahlavi-era
movies, of those toughs who were absorbed into the Islamic government, and
of those in diaspora.55 Visually, these cartoons engaged with stereotypes for
easy recognition; the parody was chiefly embedded in the elaborate text and
in references to the original movies, characters, and social formations, re
quiring much extratextual knowledge. The toughs were also a regular feature
in many performances that Iranian Americans organized on celebratory oc
casions, performances that both circulated and good-naturedly critiqued the
toughs and the Iranians themselves (figure 58). Such critical playfulness de
rived from the diaspora communitys increased self-confidence, based on its
accomplishments.
The feedback loop of the tough-guy representations is completed when
these televisual, cinematic, musical, and theatrical tough-guy texts produced
outside Iran were beamed back to the homeland by Iranian satellite televi
sion channels in Los Angeles. These diasporic representations, as well as re
323
cent reworkings in Iran, have resulted in the emergence of an Iranian rap and
hip-hop genre involving the toughs inside the Islamic Republic. For example,
Shahkar Bineshpazhuhs musical album Eskenas (Toman Bill) contains not
only samples of jaheli songs from before the revolution but also contemporary
rap versions.56 It is as though in these music videos, films, and television pro
grams at least three mirrors are held facing each other. One mirror reflects
the representations of tough guys made in Iran before the revolution; a sec
ond displays the representations made in the diaspora during the 1980s and
1990s in response to the first; and a third shows the representations of tough
guys in the Islamic Republic in the 1990s, again in response to the first two
reflections. None of these representations maps squarely onto reality, as each
feeds and is fed by the other, creating an infinite series of self-and-other re
flections, representations, and refractions. Such is the national and diasporic
optics of the global media.
324
6
a dissiden t cinem a
New-Wave Films and
the End of an Era
f culture and cinema in the United States are primarily commercial, in Iran
they are principally political, even the commercial culture and cinema. The
state constitutes both a powerful friend and a pillar of support for the film
industry and an irresistible foe and punching bag for the filmmakers. In the
spring of 1962, Ismail Kushan, the head of the Film Producers Syndicate, in
vited the U.S.-supported prime minister Ali Amini to his Pars Film Studio to
inspect the premises and to listen to the movie producers assessment of their
problems and needs. In his presentation, Kushan boasted that the countrys
fiction cinema had progressed tremendously in its brief existence compared
to countries in the region with longer film histories, for Iranians beat those
cinemas to color and to Cinemascope filming. However, he warned of emerg
ing problems, the biggest being foreign movies dubbed into Persian, which
were imported plentifully and with complete freedom and ease, without
any obstacles, hindrance, or control. He noted that Western movie studios
through their subsidiaries dubbed the movies, imported them into Iran, and
took their substantial profits20 million tomans in 1961out of the coun
try. The countrys economy suffered from this unequal flow of capital and cul
ture. He did not own up to the low quality of domestic commercial movies and
to the imitative pattern that plagued them. Instead, he pleaded with the prime
minister for political help to control film imports, to prevent foreign compa
nies from dubbing their own movies, and to encourage the export of Iranian
movies. In reply, Amini admitted that this new industry needed state support,
and he confessed that the government should perhaps have acted earlier in
that direction. He promised to help, but he astutely reminded the gathered
dignitaries of the film industry that government support was a double-edged
weapon. For if the government supported the industry, it would also expect
to have a hand in guiding and controlling it. One cannot regard cinema
from a strictly commercial viewpoint, for its spiritual and moral aspects are
even more important, he remarked (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:34144).
Amini was removed from his post as prime minister before he could fol
low up on his promise of assistance. It took almost a decade, until Amir Abbas
Hoveyda became prime minister and the Shahs so-called White Revolution
was well underway, before the government became a serious and systematic
supporter of cinema. By then, the reciprocal equation that Amini had pre
dicted had become a reality.
The film industry also had commercial and artistic problems. Kushans
blockbuster tough-guy movie Velvet Hat Wearer (Kolah Makhmali, 1962) and
Samuel Khachikians crime drama Panic (Delhoreh, 1962) were much imi
tated. Critics were relentless about the low quality of popular films, saying
it hurt both industry profits and Irans national identity. Amirhushang Ka
vusi called a spate of such recent movies both a stigma and a testimony
to our countrys failures and an abject humiliation. He accused Khachikian
of copying the lighting scheme, shot composition, and even camera move
ments of Charles Vidors Gilda (1946) in making his Midnight Cry (1961). He
was so disdainful of the imitative and improvised narratives of these commer
cial movies that he memorably called them authorless. If a ladder without
any rungs could still be called a ladder, then a movie without a director can
also be called a movie (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:337, 347). Another critic,
Karim Emami, titled his review of the state of Iranian cinema and of Kha
chikians Panic, The Disaster of the Iranian Cinema. In the past, he admit
ted, Khachikians crime movies had scored very well in the market and were
imitated. Yet many of these were themselves copies of Western originals, re
sulting in dissonant texts in which Iranian and Western elements clashed.
He explained:
What is unpleasant about Khachikians works is his lack of attention to
reality and his evasion of realism. In his movies, the stories occur in
Iran and his protagonists speak Persian; however, their behavior and
movements are more like Hollywood characters than Iranian charac
326
a di s s i de nt ci n ema
ters. And the fight scenes that he inserts in his movies are totally like
Hollywood westerns. Khachikian is under the spell of American movies
to an amazing degree, and his chief problem is that he does not have an
Iranian view of the world. As a result, the financial success of his mov
ies cannot help the Iranian film industry at all. . . . We cannot build the
foundation and principle of a countrys film industry on the basis of im
itation. What we need now is a cinema that can stand on its own feet, an
independent cinema. (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:349)
In a way, Kavusi and Emami were both charging that Khachikian and other
commercial directors were suffering from a case of epistemic violence caused
by American movies, that they were seeing the world through Western narra
tive schemas and textual formations.
However, this was not a case of total identification with things Western.
The clashing aesthetics of Khachikians movies pointed to their (perhaps un
conscious) resistive strategies: imperfect imitation, exaggeration, and mim
icry. Iranians tended both to assimilate and to resist modernity and to create
a modernity with a difference. In a montage culture suffused with oral litera
ture and traditional performances, originality was rare.
And modernity was stirring originality. Jalal Moqaddams Three Madmen
(Seh Divaneh, 1968) combined aspects of what would become the new-wave
cinemaoriginal screenplay, continuity filming, and realistic character de
velopmentin a movie made for the commercial film industry. While the
critics appreciated this effort, spectators did not. Davud Mowlapurs Ahus
Husband (Showhare Ahu Khanom, 1968), based on Ali Mohammad Afghanis
award-w inning novel of the same name about a polygamous family, was an
other progenitor for the new wave. Produced and directed by Mowlapur, who
had studied filmmaking in London, it was unexpectedly successful at the box
office and controversial with the critics, primarily because of a dispute over
screenplay credits between Mowlapur and Arby Ovanessian. The rise of intel
lectual new-wave cinema would require an additional impetus.
There is a long history of patronage in the Iranian arts, whereby the royalty
and secular and religious elite underwrote the arts and even the life of visual
artists, craftspeople, calligraphers, architects, performers, or poets who made
their arts for, in honor of, and sometimes about their patrons. Panegyric and
imitative arts were one outcome; so were original arts of great distinction. It is
ironic but not unprecedented that the independent cinema Emami demanded
proved impossible without government patronageboth under the Pahlavi
and the Islamic Republic regimes. By August 1968, a more enlightened gov
a d issid ent c inema
327
ernment had learned that to control cinema one could simply patronize it,
rather than censor it. On 21 August, the prime minister, Amir Abbas Hov
eyda, told a gathering of the Movie Artists Syndicate, Iranian movies must
have originality and be inspired by Iranian history. He then announced that
a sum of 10 million tomans was designated in the fourth national develop
ment plan for investing in the film industry (Omid 1995/1374:432). One ironic
and felicitous result was the emergence of a countercinema, the new-wave
cinema (sinemaye mowje no), at odds with both commercial cinema and the
government that largely funded it. State censorship shaped commercial cin
ema in the 1950s and 1960s; the new-wave cinema in the 1970s was formed
by both censorship and the states courtship of film. The hybrid production
mode also facilitated its emergence. It was not so much a genre cinema as an
authorial cinema: each filmmaker engaged with the social and intellectual
discourses of the time and developed his own more or less individual style
(and, yes, they were almost all men). Many young filmmakers produced nu
merous features, documentaries, and animated films. A wide range of factors
and formations converged to provide the foundations for this film movement.
Formations of the Culture Industry

Supporting New-Wave Films
From the 1960s onward, the Shah intensified his policy of syncretic Western
ization, creating an official culture of spectacle that depended both on West
ernizing Iran and on revitalizing a partly fabricated monarchic and chauvin
istic ideology and history that predated Islam. The state sponsored grandiose
spectacles such as the Shahs coronation in 1967, celebrated for a week na
tionwide, during which Empress Farah was also crowned as regent. Grand
pageantry in 1971 honored the twenty-five hundredth anniversary of the Per
sian Empire; yearlong festivities in 1975 celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of
Pahlavi rule. Annual festivals such as the Shiraz Festival of Culture and Art,
Isfahans Popular Tradition Festival, and Mashhads Tus Arts Festival, were
organized by the mca, nirt, and other institutions. The media covered them,
and their organizers commissioned and screened films and hosted filmmak
ers from around the world, resulting in an unprecedented flurry of produc
tions and exchanges.
The anniversary celebration of the Persian Empire in particular marked
the height of spectacles centering on the Shah, what James A. Bill called in
creasing megalomania for the Shah, who at the Persepolis ceremonies di
328
rectly linked himself to Cyrus the Great, addressing him directly: Cyrus!
Great King of Kings. Noblest of the Noble. Hero of the history of Iran and
the world! Rest in peace, for we are awake and we will always stay awake
(1988:184). Average Iranians were not allowed in, and police rounded up hun
dreds of suspected troublemakers in anticipation of the celebrations. In Jan
uary 1971, Ayatollah Khomeini sent a message from his exile in Iraq urging
Iranians to stay away from the celebrations: Anyone who organizes or par
ticipates in these festivals is a traitor to Islam and the Iranian nation (quoted
in Fischer 1980:189).
Spectacle was clearly part of the top-down reforms whose overarching la
bels evolved over the years: The White Revolution became the Shah-People
Revolution and the Great Civilization. In seeking massive financial aid from
the United States, the Shah presented the funding of these reform programs
as instrumental to making Iran the showcase for all of Asia, the place with
the best prospects of a great transformation (Richards 1975:22). The birth of
his son, Reza, and the appointment of Empress Farah as regent removed the
Shahs anxiety about succession. He began believing his own projection of
power and was in fact mesmerized by it, instead of remaining awake to the
worsening social conditions in the country. By the mid-1970s, he had built a
formidable modern armed force (the fifth largest in the world) and had filled
the vacuum created by the British naval forces withdrawal from the Persian
Gulf by taking over three small islands (Abu Musa, Small Tunb, and Large
Tunb). His top-down, co-optive institutions shielded the Shah and the ruling
strata from brewing social discontent. In moves that consolidated his projec
tion of ancient power (and confirmed his megalomania), the Shah now called
himself Shahanshah Aryamehr (King of Kings, the Light of the Aryans)
and retitled his empress Shahbanu (Shahs Lady). In interviews with for
eign correspondents, he began lecturing leaders of Western liberal democra
cies about democracy and statecraft.1 What Jeremy Tunstall wrote about his
use of television in creating this mesmerizing culture of spectacle was also
true of his support for all the other arts. Television was a weapon to consoli
date power, confer prestige, divide the bureaucracy, to project a single na
tional cultureand generally to identify his personality and office with na
tional plans and prestige. . . . The television conception of Iranian tradition
appears to resemble a Cecil B. DeMille movie in which the part of the Shah is
played by the Shah (1977:247). State revenues were funneled to filmmakers
and art and culture institutions, many of which were pressed into servicing
the Shahs personal status. All the arts were censored and dissenting voices
suppressed.
329
Nepotism and cronyism suffused national broadcasting, culture, arts, and

censorship organizations. Reza Ghotbi, the empresss close cousin, was the
director general of nirt; Mehrdad Pahlbod, the Shahs brother-in-law, was
the minister of culture and art; Mehdi Boushehri, another brother-in-law,
headed the Film Industry Development Company of Iran (fidci); and Lili
Amir-Arjomand, a close childhood friend of Empress Farah, headed the Cen
ter for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (cidcya).
These formed part of the inner circle of the Shahs circles of power, and
their long tenure throughout the life of their organizations under the Shah
provided these institutions with historical continuity. However, these people
were not all equal in power, prestige, capability, and influence. Ghotbi in par
ticular was much more powerful than the head of national broadcasting in
other authoritarian countries, and he was more powerful than perhaps all the
cabinet ministers in Iran, a power demonstrated late in 1978, when after re
signing his post at nirt in the run-up to the revolution, he negotiated with
secular opposition groups on behalf of the Shah (Green 1982:23). Because of
her personal connections to these key figures and her own interest in culture
and arts institutions, Empress Farah had a deep, extensive influence on the
arts, culture, and social services, which empowered her protgs. In a Sixty
Minutes program segment called The Empress, aired on 24 August 1973,
the cbs correspondent Mike Wallace called her, Irans unofficial secretary of
culture, health, education, and welfare (Naficy 1984c:102). Such support for
the film industry was only partly driven by nepotism and by the ideological
imperatives of the spectacle-driven Pahlavi state. There was also a genuine de
sire among the institutions to promote and to professionalize Iranian media.2
The mca and nirt set up professional film production centers and labs,
both of which employed civil servant filmmakers and commissioned free
lance filmmakers to produce a variety of feature movies, dramatic television
films and film serials, documentary and educational films, short films, and
animated films. As will be seen, the fidci, too, was very active in new-wave
film and in coproductions with Western studios. Established in 1967 as an
autonomous institution, the cidcya was nevertheless a government agency,
for various state bodies underwrote its budget, including the mca, the Min
istry of Education, and the National Iranian Oil Company. Its heads of film
production (Ebrahim Foruzesh and Firuz Shirvanlu, among others) gathered
a group of creative freelance and commissioned filmmakers to make short
live-action and animated films, ostensibly aimed at children. Yet most of the
films addressed adult audiences as well and were often philosophical in tone
and critical in approach, encouraging the questioning of traditions and of re
330
ceived notions of authority. These films and their filmmakers, some of whom
crossed into feature-film production, created a large body of work and ush
ered in a childrens cinema, a short-subject cinema, and the new-wave cin
ema.3 Through its other major division the cidcya also produced beautifully
illustrated books for children, including translations, and established several
cidcya branches throughout the country, often located in pleasant city parks,
offering children library facilities, crafts and music classes, and theater work
shops and film screenings.4
While the mca and nirt both were nationwide government agencies, and
trusted royal relatives headed them, they were not united. One of the fictions
of Pahlavi-era cultural politics, which both proponents and opponents of the
regime promoted, was the supposed homogeneity of the states ideological
apparatuses. If these apparatuses tended to be hegemonic, they were not ho
mogeneous; state agencies held different institutional ideologies, histories,
and duties, followed various modi operandi, and employed distinct personali
ties. And differences among their leaders also ensured that other differences
were intractable. Filmmakers played on these distinctions to get their projects
done, at the same time that many fanned the homogeneity myth. While all the
ideological apparatuses worked together to propagate the Pahlavi state and its
ideological projects, they often competed on strategies, tactics, and policies.
Pahlbod and Ghotbi had personal differences: Pahlbod was more conserva
tive and Ghotbi more liberal. They had competing family loyalties, one being
more loyal to the Shah, the other to the empress. Such allegiances and dis
tinctions emphasized the institutional differences among their respective or
ganizations. Pahlbod alluded to some of these when in an interview he stated
that the mca and nirt were ideologically opposite. The television organiza
tion was among liberal organizations that tended toward freedom; while we
were conservative. In general, we had these two currents of thought: I consid
ered the television organization as liberal and the culture and art organization
as conservative (Pahlbod 1984:6768).5 Institutional politics and turf issues
were also involved, as nirt, which Pahlbod considered more directly politi
cal, trespassed on the mcas turf, which was to be more cultural. The list
of progressive subsidiary arts and culture institutions that nirt created, and
which competed with the mcas missions and institutions, was very impres
sive indeed.6 nirt and its subsidiaries attracted creative and managerial per
sonnel from the mca and other organizations, creating further resentments.
Its wide-ranging efforts, progressive stance, and successes, which pushed the
number of its personnel to more than eight thousand people in a decade, at
tracted educated and foreign-trained fresh talent. This pushed the mca to
331
create its own subsidiary institutions of research, production, performance,

publication, and distribution. The competition generally proved good for the
culture.
In the 1970s, Empress Farah, a cosmopolitan lover of the arts with lib
eral tendencies, who had left her study of architecture in Paris unfinished to
marry the Shah, became an unofficial but powerful force in the national cul
ture scenePahlbod called her another power basewhose support was
behind not only the cidcya and nirt but also behind many other arts, cul
ture, music, ballet, theater, and cinema festivals. She could influence not only
the countrys larger cultural policies but also small decisions regarding indi
vidual cases, such as rescuing a movie from mca censorship (as happened in
the case of Dariush Mehrjuis The Cycle). She, along with Ghotbi, initiated and
strongly supported the Shiraz Festival of Culture and Art, which throughout
its lifespan (196777) served as a venue for important original traditional art
as well as modern, avant-garde, and sometimes controversial foreign and Ira
nian arts.7 As Ovanessian, a film and theater director and a member of the
Shiraz organizing committee whose own works were regularly showcased at
the festival, noted, several banned movies were screened at the Shiraz festi
val: Mehrjuis The Cow (Gav, 1969) and The Cycle (Dayerehye Mina, 1974) and
Naser Taqvais Tranquility in the Presence of Others (Aramesh dar Hozure Diga
ran, 1973). Inevitably, this intervention by an agency that was part of the sys
tem subverted and displeased the mca officials who had banned the movies
(Ovanessian 1983:22).
Even film censorship, officially charged to the mca, had many competing
proponents and opponents, from Savak to the prime ministers office, from the
minister of court to the Senate and the Majles, from the National Iranian Oil
Company to nirt, from the Iranian Medical Association to university presi
dents, from the religious establishment to the bazaar merchants, and from the
Tehran Chamber of Commerce and armed forces chiefs to the heads of the
commercial movie studios and the film producers union. The examination
of Farrokh Gaffarys South of the City (Jonube Shahr, 1958) in an earlier chap
ter provided a case study of these complicated and competing censorship rela
tions. Pahlbod insisted that censorship rightly belonged to the mca, not to the
Ministry of the Interior, to which it had belonged beforeduring the era of
Nilla Cram Cookfor this ministry did not have any understanding of the arts
and artists. However, he admitted that censorship had a bad name, and he
claimed that the mca was not as monolithic in censorship as it was perceived
to be. We were caught among extraordinary diverse and changing currents
of thought and coordinating these was totally impossible (Pahlbod 1984:66).
332
The establishment of state-sponsored, degree-granting university and col

lege programs in film and television (affiliated with the mca, nirt, and Teh
ran University), the nationwide Super 8 film training network Free Cinema
(Cinemaye Azad), and the cidcya with its national network of libraries and
film production centers helped decentralize and systematize the education
and training of new talent from film production to film connoisseurship. The
mca, nirt, the cidcya, the fidci, Telfilm (nirts film production arm), and
Free Cinema were also involved in the distribution, exhibition, and archiving
of various professional and amateur films. The state thus constituted a formi
dable player in facilitating the emergence of the hybrid production mode and
the promotion of a film culture conducive to an auteur cinema.
In the meantime, as described in chapter 3, the private and commercial
sector also developed its own studio-based industrial formations for the pro
duction, importation, dubbing, and nationwide exhibition and distribution
of foreign and domestic movies. This sector was equally important in pro
viding infrastructure for new-
wave cinema. Several commercial studios
also financed or produced new-wave movies, such as Masud Kimiais Qaisar
(1969) and Dash Akol (1971), Ali Hatamis Bald Hasan (Hasan Kachal, 1970)
and Towqi (1970), Soleiman Minasians and Herand Minasians Sunrise (Tolu,
1970), and Mehrjuis Mr. Gullible (Aqaye Halu, 1970). Their successes led to
imitations and increased production. As a result, increasing numbers of in
vestors and spectators were attracted to the movies. One factor that kept the
artisanal features of the hybrid mode in play was the high number of produc
ers and directors who in the 1960s and the 1970s embarked on film careers
with no training in film, who tended toward opportunistic practices of impro
vised, unplanned, and chaotic filmmaking. Occasionally, a new-wave director
would establish a commercial studio devoted entirely to new-wave projects,
such as the Golestan Film Workshop. As shown in table 6, the emerging hy
brid production mode, consisting of public-sector (government) and private-
sector (commercial) funding, generated a high volume of products to mass
audiences nationallyup to ninety-two movies annuallyhelping feed the
expanding number of movie houses.
Numerous national film festivals, which showcased both domestic and
foreign movies, also helped propagate cinema and film culture nationally.
Among these were the following: the Tehran Film Festival (began in 1958), the
Educational Film Festival (1963, organized by the mca), the International Fes
tival of Films for Children and Young Adults (1966, organized by the cidcya),
the Sepass Film Festival (1969, organized by Film and Art magazine), the Free
Cinema Film Festival (1970, organized by Sinemaye Azad), the National Ira
333
nian Film Festival (1970, organized by the mca), the Tehran International
Film Festival (1972, organized by the mca), the Asian Youth Film Festival
(1974, organized by nirt and the Asian Broadcasting Union), and the Festi
val of Young Filmmakers Cinema (1975, organized by the mcas Society of
Young Filmmakers). Other more specialized festivals showcased advertising
films (1974, organized by nirts College of Cinema and Television), womens
films (1976, organized by the Womens Organization of Iran), university stu
dent films (1977), and film music (1978). 8 Some, like the Tehran International
Film Festival, also produced publications that widened their impact. In addi
tion, film clubs, such as the National Film Center (Kanune Melliye Film),
the Farabi Film Club, the Cinmathque of the Tehran Museum of Contem
porary Arts, and various university film societies, as well as the cultural arms
of foreign embassies, screened foreign movies in their original languages on a
regular basis for the public. These proved instrumental to increasing the pub
lics exposure to quality films and to raising the general level of film culture
in the country. The emergence of active film journalism, explained in chapter
3, contributed greatly to these discursive formations of film culture.
Powerful state-funded and commercially funded film production com
paniesTelfilm (associated with nirt), the fidci, and the Progressive Film
makers Cooperativeinvested in films directed by Iranians and channeled
coproduction deals with international companies. Several well-known Euro
pean and American directors received coproduction funding for their mov
ies from the government-supported companies, among them Orson Welles
for F for Fake (1976), Patrice Chreau for La Chair de LOrchide (Flesh of the
Orchid, 1976), Junya Sato for Gogol 13 (1976), Valerio Zurlini for The Desert of
Tartars (1977), Leslie Matinson for Missile X (1978), and James Fargo for Cara
vans (1978). None of them, however, fulfilled the financial or image-building
expectations of their Iranian financiers, and they did not revive Irans film
industry.9 Yet the movies that Iranian directors made under the auspices of
these public and private companies proved much more successful and con
tributed to the new-wave cinema.
Commercial film studios, too, engaged in coproductions with foreign film
companies. One early example was an Iran-Lebanon coproduction, A Man
from Tehran (Mardi az Tehran, 1966), directed by the Egyptian-born Lebanese
Faruk Agrama, starring Mohammad Ali Fardin and Foruzan, which was pat
terned after the James Bond movies and dealt with international smuggling.
Another was the Misaqiyeh Film Studios coproduction with Lebanese Orient
Films on the crime melodrama Fate (Sarnevesht, 1967), which Hekmat Aqani
kian directed. With an Armenian director and star (Arman), this film became
334
a tripartite coproduction. In 1969, Pars Film Studios Kushan also signed a

six-movie coproduction deal with the Turkish filmmaker Turker Inanoqlu,
which used cast and crewmembers from both countries. Among the films
produced, The Pretty Pickpocket (Jibbor Khosgeleh, 1969) was highly success
ful. Aryana Film Studio coproduced Bird of Happiness (Homaye Saadat, 1971)
with Indian Ganesh Prasad Movies. The Indian Fabi Chanakia directed the
film, but most of the cast was Iranian, and the film did well in Iran with box-
office receipts of nine hundred thousand tomans. In general, coproductions
with non-Western countries may have benefited Iranians more than their col
laborations with Western countries. These involved a more equitable partic
ipation of Iranian cast and crew, and their movies were actually made for
screening in Iran and the Middle East, not for screening in Europe.
These multidimensional public and private industrial, sociopolitical, cul
tural, and spectatorial infrastructures would not have come to fruition had
it not been for the rising quality and quantity of the film industry products
that the energetic, young, and educated new-wave filmmakers were creating.
Many of the new-wave filmmakers, and a few of the commercial ones, had
been trained abroadin Europe and the United Statesand, like those in
the Qajar period, they had a significant collective impact. Among Western-
trained new-wave filmmakers were Feraidun Rahnema (France), Farrokh
Gaffary (France), Bahman Farmanara (usa), Dariush Mehrjui (usa), Kam
ran Shirdel (Italy), Parviz Kimiavi (France), Sohrab Shahid Saless (Austria,
France), Khosrow Haritash (usa), and Hajir Daryoush (France) (those work
ing in the documentary field are named elsewhere). These transnationals
helped give Iranian cinema its specificity and its universality. Their impact
was enhanced by the contributions of the self-taught or domestically trained
cinastes such as Bahram Baizai, Abbas Kiarostami, Masud Kimiai, Naser
Taqvai, Parviz Sayyad, and Amir Naderi. Together, these formed a formidable
(but all-male) cinematic authorial force.
The almost simultaneous emergence of a new generation of socially con
scious leftist and secular writers, such as Gholamhosain Saedi, Sadegh Chu
bak, Hushang Golshiri, and Mahmood Dowlatabadiagain all malewhose
works these filmmakers adapted or with whom they collaborated on original
screenplays, meant abandoning the traditional commercial movie genres in
favor of new-wave films that were imbued with enhanced realism and criti
cism, character interiority, narrative continuity, a coherence of space, time,
and causality, and improved technical qualities.
What added to the enhanced realism and higher quality of the new-wave
films was another form of collaboration, that between the filmmakers and a
335
new generation of theater actors, trained in modern representational acting,

many of whom worked in mca theaters. In fact, this was an important side
effect of mca funding: filmmakers access to the ministrys cadre of trained
actors. It accounts for the regular and repeated presence of certain actors in
new-wave films. Many of the narrative, stylistic, and acting features emanat
ing from these collaborations remained absent from the products of earlier
commercial filmmakers. The collaborative synergy of intellectual directors
and dissident writers and actors, the resultant textual innovations, and the
aforementioned professionalization and developments created the rhizomatic
webs of relations, dispositions, and formations that overdetermined the emer
gence of the new-wave film movement in the 1970s.
The Emergence of New-Wave Films:

Dariush Mehrjuis The Cow (Gav, 1969)
What was needed to turn this potential into a reality was a few good mov
ies. The spark that social-realist filmmakers Gaffary and Golestan had ig
nited with their South of the City, Night of the Hunchback (Shabe Quzi, 1964),
and Mudbrick and Mirror (Khesht va Ayeneh, 1965) was fanned by Rahnemas
modernist Siavash in Persepolis (Siavash dar Persepolis, 1967) and Mowlapurs
realist Ahus Husband (Showhare Ahu Khanom, 1968), and finally burst into
full flame with Kimiais Qaisar and Mehrjuis second film, The Cow.10 If Qai
sar gave rise to the modernized tough-guy movies, the jaheli genre, The Cow
led to the new-wave film movement. Together, they shook up the complacent
commercial movie industry and helped strengthen the emerging hybrid pro
duction mode. In the first Festival of Iranian Cinema in 1970 Qaisar won the
top film award, The Cow second place, and Ahus Husband came up third. Box-
office returns for that year rose thanks to the successes of Qaisar and The Cow,
the number of commercial movies released the following year increased by
nine, and the box-office earnings of at least twenty movies in 1970 exceeded
seven hundred thousand tomans, which was much higher than in previous
years (Omid 1995/1374:551). In many ways, The Cow provides an example of
the complexities, accomplishments, constraints, stylistic and narrative fea
tures, and double-edged circumstances of the new-wave cinema.
This black-and-white film concerns a farmer named Mash Hasan (Ezatol
lah Entezami) who lives in a very poor village and whose pregnant cow is very
dear to him, as it is the sole source of his livelihood and the only source of
milk for the entire village. However, Mash Hasans attachment to the cow ex
336
59 Love and tenderness

between man, Mash Hasan
(Ezatollah Entezami), and
animal in Dariush Mehrjuis
The Cow. Frame enlargement.
tends to a deep psychological bond of love with another sentient being, touch
ingly demonstrated when he tenderly washes her in the river and talks with
her playfully. In a parallel gesture, Mash Hasan pours water over his own
head and washes it. Later at night, Mash Hasan in the cowshed caresses the
cow lovingly, hugs her head and kisses it, and offers her handfuls of hay. He
mirrors her by eating some hay himself. This scene ends when he whispers to
the cow tenderly, nazam, janam! (my dear, my soul) (figure 59).
One day Mash Hasan goes to another village for overnight business. In the
dark of the night, sinister thieves invade his village; the cow is mysteriously
killed, creating a mystery that remains unsolved to the end. These thieves, al
ways in a three-man formation, silhouetted against a darkening sky or lurk
ing and scurrying in the shadows of village walls and alleys, form a recurrent
visual and psychological motif of fear and anxiety. Ironically, the villagers
call these dark, shadowy figures the Crystallines (Boluriha). Fearful of the
disastrous effects that this bad news will have on Mash Hasan and perhaps
ashamed of their own negligence, the villagers, headed by the village wise
man, Mash Islam (Ali Nasirian), bury the cow and tell Mash Hasan on his
return that his cow ran away. They let the carcass fall into the grave, and the
slow-motion image freezes on the head of the cow with its eyes open, looking
at the camera. This and other scenes of reciprocal affection between Mash
Hasan and the cow endow both of them with subjectivity.
On his return, Mash Hasan suspects that the villagers are hiding some
thing, as his wait for the cow at the edge of the desert proves fruitless. His
desperation spirals into a psychological breakdown. Both his inability to de
termine the truth of what happened to his beloved cow and his total identifi
cation with her drive him into madness. This type of identification points to
a key feature of Iranian mystic and Sufi philosophy and poetry, which is also
337
60 The shadowy figures, Boluriha,

representing feared outsiders in
The Cow. Frame enlargement.
prominent in new-wave films, whereby the lover and the beloved disappear
as distinct individuals and fuse into one another, forming a union. Mehrjui,
himself a student of philosophy, pointed to this mystic dimension of Mash
Hasans relation with the cow in his interview in Akramis The Lost Cinema:
Iranian Political Films in the Seventies (2006).11 Soon, Mash Hasan makes the
darkened womb of the cowshed his home, and he feeds on hay. Mash Islam
encounters this bewildering transformation when the next day he enters the
cowshed and asks, How are you, Mash Hasan? His friend responds, I am
not Mash Hasan, I am Mash Hasans cow. When Mash Islam and others try
to convince him that he is not the cow, he implores his master, Mash Hasan,
rescue your cow, the thieves have come to slaughter me. This conflation of
the villagers with the invading thieves constitutes an important moment in
the film, one repeated toward the end. The distressed villagers are offended
by the accusation that they have become their own enemy, the Crystallines,
and they are convinced that Mash Hasan is beyond hope, a belief reinforced
when their attempts to exorcise the evil by traditional practices and rituals
prove fruitless (figure 60).
Finally, three villagers decide to take him to town to the hospital under
a heavy downpour. This threesome formation now echoes the Crystallines,
confirming Mash Hasans suspicions (they also echo the three Aq Mangol
brothers, who terrorized the protagonists in Qaisar). Mash Hasan obstinately
fights being taken away, forcing the villagers to treat him more like a recal
citrant cow than a human being. Indeed, they begin to treat him like a cow:
they chase him, capture him, tie him up with ropes, and pull him out of the
village by force as he stubbornly resists them. The film builds into a ferocious
battle of the wills between the man-gone-mad, marked by Entezamis bravura
338
performance, and the frantic villagers, with the powerful performance of Na

sirian as Mash Islam, who out of exasperation and anger beats Mash Hasan
mercilessly with a rope. Mash Hasan eventually breaks loose from their grasp,
runs up a hill, and falls off a cliff to his death in front of his astonished friends.
This death scene echoes the burial scene of the cow, as Mash Hasan falls into
a mud puddle in slow motion and dies motionless, like his cow.
In these scenes of death, as in the scenes of intimacy at the river and in the
cowshed, the film emphasizes the close material and psychological bonds be
tween the cow and his owner. Like Mash Hasan and the villagers, the film has
come to this same understanding. Its deep sincerity and empathy for its char
acters and their world shows a kind of inner purity (safaye baten), which is in
fectious, as the spectators also come to it. The film ends with the celebratory
wedding of two young villagers, whose romance had been building through
out, softening the sorrow of the primary plotline. But even this scene of happi
ness and rebirth is tinged with the loss of Mash Hasan, as his wife is seen on
the rooftop looking beyond the horizon for her husband, the way Mash Hasan
had gazed at the desert earlier looking for his cow. Such waiting and longing
for someonea beloved, a savior, a Mahdiconstitutes another one of the
primal themes of Iranian mysticism, literature, and cinema.
The film broke many conventions of Iranian cinema. Its focus on villag
ers echoed in a different genre the tough-guy films return to the authentic
bedrock of Iranian society and psychology. Its rural locations countered the
commercial movies preoccupation with urban life and ersatz modernity. This
turn to rural folk at their most humble was also a declaration of a turn to
ward the masses of poor people who formed the majority of the population, in
whose defense leftist intellectuals were speaking. The film established a kind
of modernist village genre in which the drama of self and other, Iran and
the West, could unfold in favor of Iranian authenticity.
The films treatment of village lifedepicting its inner purity and show
ing empathy toward its subjectswas reinforced by sparse, raw, and invisible
style of classic realism, resembling neorealism. This was a breath of fresh air
in the context of the fantasy-ridden, textually chaotic filmfarsi movies. The
Cow was not a neorealist film, however, for Mash Hasans possession by the
cow injected a powerful surrealistic element, pushing the film toward philo
sophical transcendence and psychoanalytic understanding. On the surface,
Mash Hasans relation with the cow resembles the obsession of the workman
in Vittorio De Sicas The Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di Biciclette, 1948), the exem
plar of Italian neorealism. But through shot composition, acting, and point-
of-view filming, Mehrjui endowed both the cow and Mash Hasan with inte
339
riority and reciprocity. There is no interiority and reciprocity in The Bicycle

Thieves on behalf of the bicycle. The relationship of Mash Hasan and the cow
echoes the mutual longing of lover and beloved in Sufi mysticism. If in life
the cow and the owner inhabited two bodies, in death they are united spiri
tually, achieving the highest level of mystic unionannihilation ( fana). This
philosophical view, evident in most of Mehrjuis movies since The Cow, is in
line with his training in philosophy. As he states, for me the practice of phi
losophy is cinema (quoted in Saberi 1996/1376:89).
Textual Formation: Luminous Truth

If Kimiais movies Dash Akol and Qaisar consolidated the conventions of the
tough-guy subgenres of dash mashti and jaheli movies, respectively, Mehrjuis
The Cow consolidated some of the textual features that became character
istic of many new-wave movies, particularly those of Sohrab Shahid Saless,
the most loyal dramatist of naturalism and realism in Iranian cinema. Real
ity (faithfulness to the external world) and realism (faithfulness to conven
tions of classic realist cinema) were two intertwined features that set the new-
wave films apart from the fantasy-driven and narratively chaotic commercial
filmfarsi movies. They constituted the foundational features of this counter
cinema, which set the reality of ordinary peoples lives, treated with empathy
and respect, against the fiction of the official culture of spectacle perpetrated
by the government and the commercial cinema. These features gave the new-
wave films their luminous truth, a phrase Giuseppe Ferrara used to de
scribe the Italian neorealist films (quoted in Liehm 1984:132).
In addition, the marriage of gritty realism and uncanny surrealism (such
as a man becoming a cow) became a hallmark of some of the best new-wave
products, among them Golestans The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni Val
ley (Asrare Ganje Darrehye Jenni, 1972), Parviz Kimiavis The Mongols (Mog
holha, 1973), Baizais Stranger and the Fog (Gharibeh va Meh, 1975), Bahman
Farmanaras Tall Shadows of the Wind (Sayehhaye Bolande Bad, 1978), and
Kimiavis O.K. Mister (1978). To be sure, surrealism interjected fantasy into
the realistic plots and narratives, but unlike in commercial movies, it was
driven by the psychology and internal urges of diegetic characters, not by the
extradiegetic directors desires, market forces, or genre conventions, or by cha
otic and improvised narratives. This combination of realism and surrealism
resurfaced in the postrevolution art-cinema movement as well.
Surrealism is integral to modernism, and its surfacing in the new-wave
340
cinema is one mark of the emergence of Iranian modernity. Iranian surreal

ism differed from the surrealism prevalent in European modernism, for as
Michael Fischer notes, European surrealism and modernism are based on
the assumption that the world has become technological and dehumanized,
while Iranian surrealism and modernism are driven by reactions against a
rigidified, fundamentalist, and patriarchal universe (2004:195). These tra
ditional structures were so strong that few authorized avenues of protest re
mained, forcing modern subjects into violent revolts, madness, hysteria, pos
session, or surrealism. All these responses can be found in the new-wave
films. It is against these rigidified structures that Mash Hasans madness
and possession by the cow become meaningful. However, Iranian surrealism
is not entirely driven by opposition to traditionalism; Kimiais The Mongols
and O.K. Mister, for example, drive against both modernisms dehumaniza
tion and traditions rigidity.
Surrealism was not the only element that disrupted or enhanced these
films realism. As both subjects and agents of modernity, some of the movies
inscribed textual disruptions in the forms of narrative discontinuity, repeti
tion, spatial and temporal discontinuity, and flashbacks. Again, what differ
entiated these sorts of discontinuities from those of filmfarsi movies was the
way they were motivated by modernity and by character psychology, not by im
provisational practices of the artisanal mode or by the exigencies of commer
cial cinema. Noted examples were Ovanessians The Spring (Cheshmeh, 1972),
which surrealistically explored a complicated and morbid adulterous love
and its deadly consequences in an Armenian village family, and Farmanaras
flashback-laden Prince Ehtejab (see below).
The new-wave films broke with presentational filming and acting. Mehrjui
used the invisible style of continuity filming and editing, character isolation
through close-ups, and the effective relay of gazes between characters to es
tablish interiority, plot development, and relationships without having to use
verbose or expository dialogue. The relays of gazes among villagers effectively
expressed their fear, astonishment, and bewilderment. Unlike hallmark neo
realist movies with nonactors, Mehrjuis film employed professional Ministry
of Culture and Arts theater actors for its principal characters. Their sensitive
and nuanced performances enhanced the realism of the entire film. The prin
cipal actors had previously performed in a televised play based on Saedis story
The Cow. They had a deep engagement with their roles.
The gritty realism that the new-wave directors mobilized so effectively to
represent the people as authentic, countering ersatz spectacle, ironically
tended to promote its opposite: the dominant ideology of bourgeois capital
341
ism and the emerging style of bourgeois realism. It appears that despite its
counterhegemonic content, the realist style worked hegemonically because,
like capitalism, which lures its subjects into becoming good consumers, it in
terpellated its spectators into becoming the subjects of the realist texts. The
engine of attraction for both capitalism and realism is the invisible mecha
nism at the heart of each, which satisfies human desires, among other things,
for possession and narration and renders the dominant power immanent and
natural. In the case of capitalism, this mechanism is the invisible hand, and
in the case of film realism, it is the invisible style. The spectator is sutured
into the film in the same manner that a consumer is constituted by capital
ism. Only surreal movies, such as Farmanaras Tall Shadows of the Wind, or
avant-garde films, such as Kimiavis The Mongols and Shirdels The Night It
Rained, or Baizais Stranger and the Fog, which exaggerated or subverted both
reality and realism, or mixed fantasy and reality critically and in the process
made visible the artifact of the invisible style, could sever this marriage of
capitalism and realism. Nevertheless, there is a strong sense in the new-wave
films that realism serves the cause of Iranian modernity and with it the cause
of nationalism, rationality, and subjectivity.
Another distinctive feature of the new-wave films is the tight imbrication
of gritty realism with lyricism, resulting in what might be called a poetic
realist style. Multiple sources nourish this relationship: the collaboration of
filmmakers with writers and poets (on screenplays, the adaptation of literary
works, even in film acting); the use of poetry as dialogue, including quoting
famous lines of poetry (from Khajeh Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez, Mow
lana Jalal al-Din Rumi, Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Ahmad Shamlu, and Forugh
Farrokhzad) either by characters or by the film; a poetic vision of the world
(in describing and invoking the world and in commenting on it); mysticism
and mystic love in which the individual identities of lover and beloved dis
solve into a fused identity (this typifies many character relationships and even
sometimes that of humans and animals); and the use of the poetic devices of
symbolism, simile, metaphor, ellipsis, and ambiguity. I will reference these
features throughout this chapter.
New-wave style tended to be secular, but the themes of the movies tended
to be religious and counterhegemonic. The Cow, for example, introduced re
ligion and spirituality, but not in aestheticized or exoticized form, as in the
fine arts and ethnographic documentaries of the period, and not as an irrel
evant ritual or a comic vestige of bygone traditions, as in some commercial
movies, but as a living ideology and belief system that affected its subjects
individual psychology, social relationships, and personal and collective iden
342
tity. And it was not necessarily an organized, official religion, but included
informal popular beliefs in nonmaterial worlds, magical mysteries, invisi
ble forces, natural phenomena, and psychological states such as possession.
The battle of individuals with premodern or inexplicable formations often
involved surreal spirituality. Mash Hasans inexplicable loss of the cow and
the disappearance of its carcass create a formidably irrational structure. They
spur his descent into possession and transform realism into surrealism. The
villagers first deny and with cruelty ridicule Mash Hasans transformation
into the cow in the same way that the children ridicule and harass the vil
lage idiot throughout the movie. Soon, however, they are forced to accept the
truth of the possession and, finally, during their fateful struggle toward the
hospital, they become willing participants in the possession by treating him
like a mad cow. They realize their participation in this process dramatically in
a profound moment of self-consciousness, as one of the three villagers, sur
prised by Mash Islams ferocious beating of Mash Hasan, orders him to stop.
Mash Islam suddenly comes to himself and stops in midair, self-aware, and
ashamed of beating his friend and of the way they have all become what Mash
Hasan had accused them of earlierthe three thieves coming to slaughter
him. The burden of being modern and an adult is self-consciousness. The vil
lagers are no longer naive believers; they have acquired historical conscious
ness. When at the films end Mash Hasans wife longingly looks for him in
the far distance, perhaps she partly longs for the villagers innocence before
modernitys disruption, before self-consciousness.
The Cow contains iconography and rituals of Shiite Muslims in the scenes
of mourning over the cows death and in their homespun attempts to heal
Mash Hasan. But these are tangential to the plot and ineffective. Baizais pre
revolution and postrevolution films Stranger and the Fog and Bashu, the Little
Stranger (Bashu, Gharibehye Kuchak, 1985), as well as Farmanaras Tall Shad
ows of the Wind, also deal with both popular and official religious themes of
this sort.
Another theme that entered the new-wave movies forcefully with The Cow
was fearfear of modernity, of patriarchal traditions, of the totalitarian state,
of foreign powers, of internal enemies, and of forces of the unconscious. That
the three thieves are not identified allows multiple interpretations about who
they are and what they represent. Mehrjui elaborated some of these by sug
gesting that what is fearedt he thievesis not necessarily an external force
but an internal psychic or collective source. Ascribing the sources of fear to
the inside and to the self went against what became an intellectual trend in
the 1970s, to place the source of fear outside the individual and often to blame
343
it on the authoritarian states coercive apparatuses, patriarchal and religious

traditions, or a foreign governments colonial and imperial designs.
Fear was also often associated with a particular structure of vision and
voice involving surveillance and voyeurism. In this, cinema seemed to rep
licate the structure of vision and orality of Persian miniature paintings, in
which people are shown in various positions of voyeurism and eavesdrop
ping. In The Cow, there are many shots in which men, women, and children
are gazing at the world, at Mash Hasan, at the village square, and at the vil
lage idiot through windows and half-open doors, and from behind mud walls
and from rooftops. Their structure of vision and hearing is driven by the gen
dered and hierarchical segregation of space, and by the desire of the powerless
to gain information, to witness, and to control what is seen and heard.
To the extent that they are often one-way and pervasive among a population
atomized by fear, these structures of vision and hearing tend to be panoptic.
In the authoritarian political atmosphere of the second Pahlavi period it was
easy to ascribe the source of fear and panopticism to the government and its
feared security organization, Savak, which was seen as omniscient and omni
present. Because Savak encouraged the idea that its agents were everywhere
and within every family, political fear transformed into a paralyzing paranoia.
During the era of the Islamic Republic, another source of fear and panoptic
vision emerged: the patriarchal, paternalistic Islamic forces, which policed
morality, private behavior, public conduct, and gender construction and seg
regation. Baizais Stranger and the Fog and Downpour provide good examples
of both political and patriarchal fears and surveillance.
Another related new-wave theme was the intrusion of a stranger, or a
group of strangers, into often small, closed communities, which they terror
ize and destabilize. Sometimes these strangers were real, sometimes fanta
sies of the diegetic characters, and sometimes symbolic presences. In The
Cow, the Crystallines could be construed as real or imaginary intruders, and
while the cows intrusion into Mash Hasans psychehis possessionis psy
chological, it has real consequences. The presentation of the strangers con
tributes to the films surrealism. In Baizais Strangers and the Fog and Bashu,
the Little Stranger and in Farmanaras Tall Shadows of the Wind the strangers
entry into the primordial village follows the formula of American horror mov
ies in the 1980s, in which a monster disturbs the stability and tranquility of a
community and must be eradicated to return it to normal. However, in these
Iranian movies normality is not restored; the strangers leave indelible marks.
What these strangers represented varied from film to film. Mehrjui states
that in The Cow, the thieves, whose nickname (Crystallines) implies immate
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riality, signified foreigners appearing from nowhere to destroy the natives

property and way of life (quoted in Amiri 1998:28). This makes sense not
only in the context of what Western governments, industries, and technolo
gies were doing to Iran in the 1970s but also in view of what many foreign
invasions had done to Iranian civilization. Some critics even read the figure
of Mash Hasan and his villages total dependence on a single cow politically.
To them, Mash Hasan symbolized the Shah, whose ascendance to power and
stability in power depended on a single source of national wealth, namely, oil
(Sadr 2003/1381:197). Like the cow in the movie, oil was vulnerable to foreign
manipulations or to exhaustion, making its owner vulnerable.
Authorial and Spectatorial Formations

Mehrjui, an American-educated director with a baccalaureate in philosophy
from ucla, wrote the screenplay for The Cow with the leading dissident writer
Saedi, a physician whose further studies in psychiatry were sabotaged by Sa
vak arrests and torture, and who worked in a clinic with his brother, Ali Akbar
Saedi, in a poor area of Tehran.12 The collaboration that adapted for the screen
Saedis storiesmany of which dealt with psychic traumas of modernity
legitimized cinema as an intellectual medium, rather than being the prop
erty of commercial forces or government institutions. In a way, the educated
and modern strata had already ratified cinema, as they had already uncon
sciously internalized aspects of it. And this included not only filmmakers
but also modern writers, such a Saedi and Golshiri, whose stories and styles
were cinematic in that their characters had psychological interiority and
their narratives involved temporal, spatial, and point-of-view shifts. The liter
ary critic Reza Baraheni argued that cinema, in particular Charlie Chaplins
silent movies, had influenced both the characters in Saedis stories and the
style of his one-act plays, which he collectively called lalbazi (literally, play
ing with muteness, or pantomime). Chaplin also influenced Saedis personal
posture, carriage, and gestures (Baraheni 1994/1373:291305). Cinema had
formed the author as well as his texts.
Mehrjui and Saedi adapted The Cow from the latters book of eight stories,
Bayals Mourners (Azadarane Bayal). It was mostly based on one story, with
additional elements brought in from other stories to enlarge it. That Saedi had
studied medicine and psychiatry and had also conducted ethnographic stud
ies of possession (zar) among villagers and had a deep understanding of rural
life and psychology deepened the project. Although this kind of collaboration
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was instrumental in the rise of new-wave authorial cinema it did not exhaust
the filmmakers relations with literature. Directors did adaptations and wrote
original scripts. The point is that directing was modernized and transformed
into film authorship, rewarding professional attention and spectatorial scru
tiny more than did the artisanal filmfarsi movies.
The Cow embodied the political contradictions that became the hallmark
of the new-wave movement: its sponsorship by the state and its censorship
and banning by the statein both cases by the mca. To obtain funding and
permission to film Mehrjui concocted a lie by presenting the screenplay to
the mca as if it were a documentary. To ensure an exhibition license later, he
engaged in another subterfuge. Even before the mca had given him filming
permission, Mehrjui whitewashed the village walls and spruced up the village
setting to make it presentable. The advantage of working with the ministry
was that it not only financed the film but also put at the directors disposal a
cadre of experienced actors that it employed in its theater division. When the
completed film print went for mca review to obtain an exhibition permit, the
director was asked to add a caption at the films head that would historically
place the story forty years earlier, before Reza Shahs main reforms had been
inaugurated (Davai 1996/1375:149). These preproduction and postproduction
changes constituted attempts to deny the existence of poor villages like the
one in which The Cow was filmed. Even after these changes, the film was
banned for a year because the government feared it might contradict the official image of Iran as a modern nation of promise and plenty.13 In fact, the
film was finished during the run-up to the twenty-five hundredth anniversary
celebrations, when, as Mehrjui said to me, government officials were her
alding everywhere our nations arrival at the gates of a new civilization, and
here was a film about a village so poor that there was only one cow to nourish
them all, a pregnant cow which dies. The censors could not believe this was
Iran. So they banned the film. This first experience was so traumatic that
the fear of being banned has been with me ever since, the director noted
(Naficy 2008).
Nonetheless, the film was screened at the Shiraz Festival of Culture and
Art. It was denied an export permit, but one of Mehrjuis French friends
smuggled a print out of the country in his suitcase. That print was entered
without subtitles in the Venice International Film Festival in 1971, where it
garnered the international film critics award. Highly impressed by the work,
Italian critics compared Mehrjui to Pier Paolo Pasolini, Akira Kurosawa, and
Satyajit Ray (Omid 1995/1374:548). Almost immediately foreign film festivals
346
became important players in the politics of domestic cinema. As one critic put
it, Iranian cinema . . . undoubtedly owes its international recognition to Dari
ush Mehrjui (Akrami 1996/1375:50). This success caused the mca to lift the
ban. Great critical and public enthusiasm greeted the films release in Iran,
generating high box-office revenues and some controversy.14 Most critics had
only praise. One called it nearly the best Iranian movie (Nuri 1996/1375:152);
another, one step from being an extraordinary film (Kavusi 1996/1375:153);
a third, the birth of the first Iranian film (Bahrami 1996/1375:160); and a
fourth, an extraordinary leap in cinema (Hesami 1996/1375:168).
The films widespread domestic and foreign successes opened the way for
government support of the new wave, which it hoped would create a positive
international profile for it at a time when it had come under criticism by an
increasingly vociferous population of Iranian students abroad. In this way,
the culture of the spectacle widened its reach beyond national borders. Yet
the new wave was essentially a dissident cinema, whose critical assessments
of contemporary social conditions often contradicted the aims of its sponsors,
causing tensions in the relationships among filmmakers, the state, and the
film industry and resulting in censorship and the confiscation of the works.
In that sense, the new-wave films also constituted a cinma refus.15 These
relations both compromised the films and heightened audience interest in
them, putting the filmmakers in a double bind. On the one hand, their ac
claim at international festivals and their censorship at home raised the pro
file of filmmaking as a legitimate art, a form of intellectual and authorial la
bor, and a commercial enterprise. Foreign film festivals and filmgoers thus
became an alternative audience whom these filmmakers began to address.
On the other hand, some discontented critics and commercial movie rivals
unfairly charged that the new-wave cinema was basically a festival cinema
without an audience at home. It is true that some new-wave films were dense
and obtuse textually, compromising intelligibility and causing exhibitor dis
content and spectator protestations. For example, Golestan had to rent a movie
house himself to screen his Mudbrick and Mirror because no commercial ex
hibitor would pick it up; Gaffarys Night of the Hunchback did poorly in a pub
lic theater; and when Rahnemas Siavash in Persepolis was screened in a com
mercial cinema, enraged spectators, used to song-and-dance movies, tore
up the seat covers with knives to protest it. Khosrow Haritashs Kingdom of
Heaven (Malakut, 1976) received only one sanctioned public screening, at the
fifth Tehran International Film Festival, apparently because during the festi
val spectators had expressed their discontent by widespread catcalls and whis
347
tling (Zeraati 2004:309). Despite these negative reactions, however, new-wave

movies were not generally received with such disdain, or not by all audiences,
for educated spectators awaited them with bated breath.
The bifurcation of spectators into domestic and international proved a
mixed blessing. Success abroad generally guaranteed the films more political
or commercial freedom at home; but the foreign audiences and their expecta
tions also somewhat distorted the directors work, earning them criticism at
home for peddling third world misery to outsiders instead of paying attention
to domestic filmgoers tastes and desires. The bifurcation of domestic audi
ences into simple and educated also opened the new-wave films to the charge
of elitism. Other great third world filmmakers, such as Ray and Ousmane
Sembene, encountered similar rebukes at the time.
Auteur filmmakers political dissent encouraged educated spectators to
read all their movies politically, expecting political commitment. As Meh
rjui states, Artistic works were then only studied from a political point of
view to see to what extent they spoke of peoples grievances and the tough
existing conditions (quoted in Amiri 1998:28). Some filmmakers bowed
to such demands and became more directly political, turning their movies
into what Mehrjui called advertising slogans. Others camouflaged and ex
pressed their politics by means of indirection, symbolism, and surrealism, all
of which required parsing and interpretation. In his lengthy introduction to
his translation of Herbert Marcuses The Aesthetic Dimension, Mehrjui spelled
out his own idea of the relationship of art to reality: Art does not aim to over
throw or destroy reality, as it is not equipped with the cutting weapon of ven
geance. It does not wish to take revenge on reality or uproot it. On the con
trary, it negates and critiques it from affection, or in the words of Marcuse,
from love for it (Eros) (see Marcuse 1987/1368:100). This idea served as the
guiding light throughout Mehrjuis oeuvre.
The Cows financial and critical successes at home and abroadas well
as those of Qaisarencouraged other filmmakers and producers, causing
a surge of original films, as though a dam had been broken.16 The Iranian
new wave had begun. The cidcya produced such important short movies as
Baizais Mustachioed Uncle (Amu Sibilu, 1970) and Journey (Safar 1972), Na
deris Harmonica (Saze Dahani, 1973), Kiarostamis Traveler (Mosafer, 1974),
and much of the finest animated movies in the country. The fidci (its pro
duction arm headed by the U.S.-trained Farmanara), Telfilm (headed by the
French-educated Sassan Veissi), and commercial movie studios, with Misaqi
yeh Film Studio prominent among them, all funded the production of new-
wave feature movies. Two general points about these latter movies are in order:
348
private-sector new-wave films were fewer than those produced or coproduced

with government institutions, and commercially supported new-wave movies
seemed to be more directly political. It could be that commercial filmmakers
were responding not only to their authorial visions but also to market forces
and audience desires, which were gradually turning against the government.
Neorealist Attributes
Much has been made by domestic and foreign critics of the impact Italian
neorealism had on Iranian authorial cinemas, both before the revolution
(new-wave cinema) and after (art cinema). This section examines the neo
realist dimensions of the new wave. There has been some controversy about
what constitutes neorealism, even among its defenders. For the purpose of
this study, I invoke Georges Sadouls definition. Sadoul was one of the first
to call neorealism a school and offered five reasonable prerequisite charac
teristics for it.
Geographically bounded (concentrated in Rome, Italy)
Temporally bounded (post-ww ii phenomenon, 194551)
Existence of masters (e.g., Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Cesare
Zavattini, Luchino Visconti)
Existence of disciples (e.g., Luigi Zampa, Pietro Germi, Renato
Castellani, Giuseppe De Santis)
Formation of a set of rules (location shooting, long takes, invisible style
of filming and editing, predominance of medium and long shots, use
of contemporary true-to-life subjects, open-ended plots, working class
protagonists, non-professional cast, vernacular dialogue, implied social
criticism) (quoted in Marcus 1986:2122)17
If we apply these criteria, the similarities and differences between Iranian
neorealism and its Italian progenitor become clear. In terms of the first char
acteristic, the Iranian new-wave cinema was limited to fictional films (fea
tures and short subjects) made inside Iran. Even though a majority of the
filmmakers operated out of Tehran, they often chose as the diegetic locations
of their movies villages and the countryside, as in The Cow. Unlike the com
mercial stewpot and tough-guy genres, the new-wave films thus did not con
stitute an urban cinema. Temporally, the new wave lasted for about a decade.
Specifically, the movement began with Mehrjuis The Cow in 1969, while its
demise coincided with 1978, the last year before the revolution, when such
349
films as Sayyads Dead-End (Bonbast, 1977), Farmanaras Tall Shadows of the

Wind, and Kimiavis O.K. Mister were released.
In terms of the master-and-disciple structure, the situation was more com
plicated than in Italy, in part because no generational hierarchy separated
masters from disciples. Almost all the new-wave filmmakers belonged to the
same generation, with some directors a few years older than others or with a
few more years of experience in cinema. It is difficult to establish the master-
disciple hierarchy during the Pahlavi period. However, if we include the post
revolution period, then the new-wave filmmakers of the Pahlavi period may be
regarded as the masters for the art-cinema filmmakers of the Islamic Repub
lic. Such masters would include Mehrjui, Kiarostami, Shahid Saless, Gaffary,
Golestan, Kimiai, Kimiavi, Shirdel, Baizai, Taqvai, Farmanara, and Naderi.
Both their courageous precedence under the Pahlavi state and their status as
elder filmmakersmost remained active after the revolutiongained them
respect and influence among the younger generation. Even here, however,
problems arise, as some of the new-wave filmmakers themselvesMehrjui,
Kiarostami, Kimiai, Baizai, Kimiavi, Taqvai, and Farmanarabecame instru
mental in the rise of the art cinema after the revolution, fighting in the same
trenches as the postrevolution neophytes. And there were some in-between
filmmakers, such as Nosrat Karimi, who made commercial movies, yet with
a knowing nod and a wink to the thematics and aesthetics of neorealism, par
ticularly in his comic sendups of Iranian traditions, Carriage Driver (Dorosh
gehchi, 1971) and Interim Husband (Mohallel, 1971).18
In terms of a set of rules, the features of the textual and authorial forma
tions recounted for Mehrjuis The Cow became influential guideposts. Stylisti
cally, the films employed realism, surrealism, representational acting, and in
visible continuity filming and editing. Thematically, they dealt with religion,
popular beliefs, spirituality, pervasive fear and anxiety, surveillance, social
criticism, hostility and intolerance toward outsiders, and the often disturb
ing and destructive impact of strangers and intruders on society. In terms
of authorial formation, the liminal position of the filmmakers kept them be
tween a rock and a number of hard placest he state that both supported and
banned them, the public that demanded political commitment, and a film in
dustry bent on maximizing profits.
Some of the Iranian films textual and thematic characteristics resembled
those of Italian neorealism, but they also benefited from the domestic hybrid
mode of production, which mixed improvisational and industrial practices,
public and private funding, and Western and native expressive styles. For ex
ample, the use of the invisible style ensured realism and the continuity of
350
time, space, and causality. Yet Iranian-style improvisation rendered causal

ity in the new-wave movies looser than in neorealist films. Camera positions
and camera movements were both regulated and enjoyed creative improvisa
tion. On the other hand, as in Italian neorealism, long shots and long takes
prevailed. Filmmakers often used exterior and natural locations, instead of
interior and artificial (studio-based) ones. They employed artificial lighting
minimally, and outdoor sequences were generally filmed entirely with natural
light. The cast consisted of both nonactors and seasoned actors. Postdubbing
was de rigueur, although it was more precise than in the commercial cin
ema. The protagonists were in the main working-class, lower-class, or rural
folk. Many stories were contemporary ones. New-wave fiction films often con
tained sequences reminiscent of documentaries, and they often ended unhap
pily, ambiguously, and sometimes circularly. Humanism, a hunger for unvar
nished reality, social criticism, anti-authoritarianism, and moral and ethical
considerations made for frequent themes. Many of these elements matched
the Ten Points of Neorealism that the Parisian journal Films et Documents
published in 1952.19
Although critics differed about the specific textual features of Italian ne
orealism and on whether it constituted a school, a movement, a style, or a
tendency, they agreed on its general philosophy. According to it, neorealism
was principally a moral statement about the world told with a certain poetics,
whose aim was to promote true objectivity, one that would force viewers to
abandon the limitations of a strictly personal perspective and to embrace the
reality of the others, be they persons or things, with all the ethical responsi
bility that such a vision entails. It was hoped that this shared moral commit
ment would eliminate individual differences among filmmakers and unite
them on larger social issues (Marcus 1986:23).
In the case of Iranian new-wave directors, this moral commitment to real
ity and the poetics of realism also involved a political commitment to society
and a critique of traditions and the government. Since they could not directly
inscribe these criticisms into their work without inviting censorship, they re
sorted to symbolism, surrealism, mysticism, abstraction, and indirection,
which tended to subvert the other tenets of neorealism, particularly those
that emphasized clarity and realism. As a result, Iranian new-wave neoreal
ism constituted an amphibolic movement, style, school, or, as we will see, a
filmmaking moment.
Irans sociopolitical and ideological formations and its industrial film for
mations did not resemble those in Italy after the Second World War. Foreign
cinemas impact on the new wave was not limited to neorealism, and Iran in
351
the 1970s faced different kinds of turmoil and destruction, both societally and
in terms of the film industry, than did Italy after 1945. In addition to Italian
neorealism, the French new wave (nouvelle vague), which gave its moniker to
the Iranian authorial cinema, proved highly influential, as were the Ameri
can art cinemas and other world cinemas, particularly those of India, Japan,
and Eastern bloc countries. Iranian filmmakers were nothing if not cinemati
cally literate and cosmopolitan; even those who had not studied filmmaking
abroad had been exposed to, and trained by, the many movies they had seen
in commercial cinemas, cine-clubs, the cultural arms of various Western em
bassies, and universities.
The New Wave: A Movement or a Moment?

Film movements emerge under favorable sociopolitical conditions and require
the coalescence of certain institutions, practices, tendencies, formations, and
creative individuals. They do not usually last. As conditions and individual
filmmakers change, film movements metamorphose or end. New-wave films
emerged in the context of the second Pahlavi periods official culture indus
try, and they were both enabled and enchained by it. The new wave began in
1969 and lasted for about a decade, though it did not die entirely. Instead, it
metamorphosed into the art cinema of the mid-1980s thanks to the continu
ity that several key filmmakerst he new-wave mastersand other enabling
state institutions provided. During its decade, the new wave was neither ho
mogenous nor harmonious. Commercial cinema and new-wave cinema over
lapped. Filmmakers such as Kimiai and Naderi, made both commercial mov
ies and new-wave films, and commercial cinema filmmakers at times made
movies in the vein of the new wave, such as Sayyad with his Dead-End, Goleh
with his Under the Skin of the City (Zire Puste Shab, 1974), and Mohammad
Motovasselani with his Compromise (Sazesh, 1974).
New-wave films (despite state support) did not constitute panegyric odes
to the regime. They were critical of the prevailing social conditions, and their
objects of criticism included the government. For this the filmmakers paid a
price, but they also thereby gained some prestige as oppositional, intellectual
cinastes. Both state sponsorship and filmmakers political commitment to
the people proved to be double-edged swords.
The new wave did not constitute a cohesive film movement. A group of am
bitious intellectuals with diverse class backgrounds, film training, and ethno-
religious affiliations who had individual tastes, aspirations, and styles main
352
tained competitive and even antagonistic relationships. Film and cultural

magazines discussed the new-wave films and promoted them; however, un
like the European movements with publications such as Cahiers du Cinma,
the Iranian new wave had no organ of its own that published on a sustained
basis. These factors, the divisive politics of the government, and the com
mercial stranglehold of major distributors, importers, and exhibitors discour
aged the formation of sustained independent civil society organizations such
as professional unions, pressure groups, and an independent media through
which the above-t he-line and below-t he-line filmmaking personnel and film
critics could discuss issues freely, represent themselves, and exert collective
influence. Most new-wave filmmakers were leftist and opposed the Shahs gov
ernment, but a majority of them also benefited from its largesse, ultimately
biting the hand that fed themlike many great East European filmmakers of
the same era, whom they admired. They were atomized and somewhat com
promised: new-wave cinema was not so much a filmmaking movement as a
filmmaking moment.
The Progressive Filmmakers Cooperative (pfc)

One important counteraction to the fragmentation was the attempt to create
an independent film collective in support of new-wave cinema as a movement.
It began with the resignation in July 1973 of nineteen well-known produc
ers, directors, cinematographers, composers, and actors (almost all new wave)
from the National Syndicate of Film Industries, an organization to which, ac
cording to an unwritten law, every person working in cinema had to belong
(Daryoush 1975:222). The resignation itself and the manner of its announce
ment, at a news conference, were unprecedented. Eleven of the signatories
attended the news conference in the Tehran Palace Hotel, where they out
numbered the reporters (this ratio would have been reversed had commercial
movie stars given a news conference).20 They claimed their resignations re
sulted from a desire to create a new cinema against the commercial cinema,
a cinema worthy of our culture and nationality, a culture in which even an
illiterate villager in the farthest village in daily conversation cited poems
by Sadi, Hafez, and Ferdowsi. Mehrjui claimed that the only feature of the
rich Iranian culture that commercial movies employed was Persian dialogue.
Hajir Daryoush declared that progressive filmmakers would use every legal
means possible, including private-sector financing and help from his Excel
lency, Satan, to circumvent the distribution monopoly of the commercial
353
sector. Rumors circulated of a government contribution of some 50 million

tomans to the new group, but they remained unconfirmed. Sayyad stated that
the dissenters ultimately aimed to satisfy both the needs of consumers and
their own desires to make films that while representing our culture, national
characteristics, and artistic growth, could also earn the country some foreign
exchange.21
This news conference and the formation a month later of the Progressive
Filmmakers Cooperative (pfc, Kanune Sinemagarane Pishro) officially de
clared the existence of a dual-track movie industrycommercial and new
wave. Members of the pfc stressed that the new-wave cinema did not pose a
threat to the commercial cinema or to its syndicates because, while the com
mercial film industry put out about ninety movies annually, members of
the pfc would probably only manage to make fifteen films. All they wanted to
do was to provide the spectators with the right to choose. In fact, they wel
comed the future formation of another, more progressive, group to protest
the pfc and bring in another alternative cinema.
The official film artists syndicate held its own news conference in which
members denied the pfcs criticism that the syndicate was under the thumb
of private-sector producers and that it supported only popular commercial
movies and filmmakers, stating that the syndicate had fought for the rights of
all filmmakers by attempting to reduce censorship and taxes, that it had sup
ported and given awards to some of the new-wave films, and that progressive
filmmakers could form their own cooperative without having to resign from
the existing syndicate. The producers syndicate also responded to the pfc
members criticism by noting that they had financed several new-wave films,
films that had lost them money, yet were willing to sign more contracts with
them.
Some members of the producers syndicate, such as Mehdi Misaqiyeh, the
owner of Misaqiyeh Film Studio, welcomed the criticism as necessary for an
overall improvement in the industry. But he pointed to the mcas practice of
issuing exhibition licenses only to movies produced by members of the pro
ducers and artists syndicates. With their resignation, the filmmakers would
deprive themselves of exhibition venues. He suggested that pfc members
withdraw their resignations and work to push the government to recognize
cinema as an industry and to reward good movies and encourage film exports.
To create financially successful, high-quality movies worthy of our culture
and nationality, pfc members invested their own funds in their films; but,
ironically, a great portion of the funding eventually came from governmental
and semigovernmental agencies, such as the mca, nirt, Telfilm, the Minis
354
try of the Economy, and the fidci.22 Some pfc members did make films inde
pendently, with aid from the private sector. The first films produced under the
aegis of the pfc were very impressive: Mehrjuis The Cycle (Dayerehye Mina,
1974), Shahid Salesss Still Life (Tabiate Bijan, 1975), and Sayyads Dead-End
(1977).
The Cycle centers on the story of an old man (Esmail Mohammadi) and his
teenage son, Ali (Said Kangarani), who move to Tehran to seek treatment for
the old mans terminal gastrointestinal problems. The film graphically charts
Alis metamorphosis resulting from his involvement with corrupt and ruth
less blood banks that procure tainted blood from down-and-out addicts and
sell it to hospitals, whose staff, from cooks to physicians, seems driven by av
arice. By the films end, Ali has been fully initiated into the art of procuring
tainted blood for banks and of the exploitation of others. In spite of its humor,
colorful language, lively characters, and good cast, The Cycle is darkly pessi
mistic about and critical of the cost of unbridled modernization. The scenes of
poor and sick blood donors at the blood bank appear devastatingly real, docu
menting with precision the state of the donors, who seem barely alive, and the
degradation of social relations based on the contaminated blood trade. The
film ingenuously embodies the dark side of the national transition from pre
modernity to modernity and of Alis personal metamorphosis from youthful
innocence to wily sophistication by staging much of the action at night or dur
ing dawn and dusk (Naficy 1985a:704).
The films pessimism is tinged with Iranian mysticism and lyricism, sig
naled by its Persian title, Dayerehye Mina, translated as the cycle of heavens,
a line taken from the poet Hafez, which refers to the cycle of the universe and
the cycle of life within it. A touching scene toward the end provides another
glimpse both of Mehrjuis and of the films mystic philosophy. The old man
is sick on the pavement outside a hospital when a blind musician appears and
delivers the following lines, revealing what the old man must be feeling in
side: O eternal wheel, running forever here and there is killing us, one denial
and all these tribulations / O death come, for life is killing us. The title also
refers to the cycle of blood through the body and through the blood-bank sys
tem and indicates the way corruption cyclically regenerates itself. Finally, the
title may refer to the closed cycle of film production and censorship, which be
fell many new-wave films, including The Cycle: a circular closed path led from
production to the censorship office and the archive, without public exhibition.
Having written the screenplay of the film with Saedi, based on the writers
story Garbage Dump (Ashghalduni), Mehrjui submitted it for approval to
the mca, who forwarded it to the Iranian Medical Association (ima) for review.
355
After meeting several times about it, members of the ima finally approved the
screenplay but requested to review the completed film as well. On the films
completion, the release of The Cycle, coproduced by the pfc (Sayyad), Telfilm
(Sasan Veissi), and the fidci (Farmanara), was postponed for four years be
cause of objections by some members of the ima board. According to Mehr
jui, the mca finally approved the films release because numerous books and
films had been banned and they didnt want to lengthen the list by adding
The Cycle to it! (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:736). However, rumors have it
that three years of behind-the-scenes negotiations and appeals to the ruling
powers were necessary to finally obtain clearance for release in 1977. Appar
ently Empress Farah and the Shah supported it, while Dr. Manuchehr Eqbal,
a physician and the head of the ima and the managing director of the nioc,
opposed it because it would cast a negative light on Iranian modernity and the
medical professions. Mehrjui himself later credited the pressure President
Jimmy Carter put on the Shah to liberalize the political atmosphere in Iran as
the impetus for releasing his film (Naficy 2008). During this period, the di
rector was essentially banned from commercial movie screens and forced to
work on television projects such as Alamut (1977), about Hasan Sabbah and
the Assassins, while Saedi was imprisoned for his politics and tortured.
Like the new wave itself, the pfc was not homogenous. Differing politics,
personalities, authorial styles, and political developments overrode the forces
of cohesion. Within a year, Baizai withdrew from the group, and within a few
years public discontent would lead to a general uprising and a revolution, re
ducing filmmaking to a trickle.
The Poetics and Politics of Closed-Form and Open-Form Films

New-wave films primarily inscribed a dystopian and closed chronotope; how
ever, at times they also gave in to a utopian, open-form depiction. These forms
are encoded in mise-en-scne, filming, and narrative structure. Each form
has its own poetics and politics, with spatial, temporal, philosophical, and
thematic dimensions.
The closed form uses a closed mise-en-scne: interior locations, tight liv
ing quarters, and small villages; a dark lighting scheme to create a sense of
constriction and claustrophobia; and characters restricted in their movements
and perspective by spatial, bodily, psychic, or other barriers and disabilities,
including fear. These elements result in claustrophobic diegetic worlds peo
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pled with brooding, passive characters who are attracted to mysteries, myths,
mysticism, and mystification. In response, liberatory impulses arise, involv
ing other-directed characters attracted to materialism, justice, rebellion, and
passionate outbursts. Narratologically, the closed form is driven by themes of
panic and fear; pursuit, subterfuge, entrapment, and escape create temporal
claustrophobia. Philosophically, the closed form is given to recession, with
drawal, and dystopia. The closed form appears to be self-conscious and delib
erate, and it may be associated with formalism. Its mise-en-scne and static
framing give the impression that space and time are predetermined by an
agency external to the diegesis. It therefore suggests social forces and state
apparatuses beyond the individuals control, or even destiny and the futility
of the will. At the same time, this form offers a type of embodied criticism
against an invasive authoritarian state.
Conversely, open-form mise-en-scne favors external locations and open
settings such as landscapes, deserts, ruins, and roads; bright natural lighting;
and mobile and wandering diegetic characters. Long shots, mobile framing,
and long takes situate characters within their open settings, preserving their
spatiotemporal integrity. Spirituality is expressed in open forms imbued with
continuity, introspection, and retrospection. The present is often shown retro
actively by means of a nostalgically reconstructed past or a lost Eden dating
back to the early years of Islam. This setup is in line with Fredric Jamesons
assertion that massive displacement and globalization
modernity
have
forced humans to experience and express time as loss (1989). Philosophically,
adventure, projection, and utopian longings dominate. The open form ap
pears to be spontaneous and accidental and it may be associated with realism.
The closed form emphasizes control, distance, and unfamiliarity, while the
open form connotes immediacy, intimacy, and familiarity. And if the closed
form implies the futility of the will, the open form suggests a freedom of
choice (Naficy 2001:15254).
In the main, intellectuals during the second Pahlavi period emphasized
the closed form. They often referred to this period as the era of suffocation
(dowrane ekhtenaq) and to its artistic products as the literature of suffoca
tion. The new-wave cinemas deployment of the poetics and politics of the
closed form contributed considerably to this literature. The closed form also
dominated Iranian films made in the diaspora. While some instances of the
open form did occur in new-wave movies, principally in Kimiavis films, these
remained few. Ironically, the open form seemed to surface forcefully during
the subsequent Islamic Republic period, at least for a time.
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Fear and Trembling

Like filmfarsi, new-wave films tended to concentrate on certain themes. Mi
chael Hillmann developed a thematic taxonomy for modernist literature and
discusses the social impact of six of these themes: opposition to the Pahlavi
government; the rejection of aspects of Shiite institutions and practices; con
cern with the countrys economic and social backwardness; a criticism of
Westernization; the expression of culture-specific alienation and the loss of
roots; and the expression of cultural nationalism (1982:11). The new-wave and
pfc movies explored most of these themes, and I will touch on some of them
in due course; but I want to concentrate on a cluster of themes whose space-
time representations in the movies give us access to the psychological and
philosophical traumas of modernity. Of these, two stand out, one primarily
occurring in the closed form, the other occurring both in open and in closed
forms. The first deals with fear and panic, which in their various guises per
meated new-wave movies. There were the fear of strangers, of censors, of in
ternal enemies, of modernity, of sexual impotence, of the unconscious, and
of Savak and its pervasive surveillance, as well as more diffuse fears of un
known origin. Both the causes of fear and the individualized subjectivities,
self-doubts, and identity crises that resulted emblematized authoritarian mo
dernity in Iran.
Gaffarys Night of the Hunchback (1964), a progenitor of the new wave, was
one of the first movies to inscribe a sense of generalized fear, one that ex
tended beyond the frame to point to social fears. Gaffary produced, directed,
and cowrote with Jalal Moqaddam this tale of what to do with the corpse of a
comic entertainer who choked on his meager food and suddenly died. Based
on a story from One Thousand and One Nights, the screenplay underwent sev
eral revisions as required by the censors. As Gaffary stated years later, in the
film fear overtakes the entire story, from the beginning to the end (1983
84:22). The couple who thinks that their prank has caused the comedians
death secretly takes his corpse to a neighbor. Discovering the corpse, the fear
ful neighbor in turn passes it on to another, who tries to escape from it. This
process is repeated in various darkly comical ways, and no one calls in the po
lice because all characters have something to hide.23
Golestans Mudbrick and Mirror (1965) exposed similar anxieties and inse
curities, this time by means of a baby without a parent. A taxi driver named
Hashem (Zakaria Hashemi) discovers a baby in the back seat after a female
passenger tightly wrapped in a black chador (Forugh Farrokhzad) leaves his
cab.24 The baby, like the corpse in Gaffarys film, becomes a vehicle that al
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lows Golestan, in a tour de force of modernist cinematic flneuring, to explore

the modern city of Tehrana caf, high rises, city streets jammed with traffic and passersby, a Ministry of Justice building, a police station, ancient back
alleys, a coppersmiths bazaar, and a modern orphanageand to comment
on the fears of the places various inhabitants. The gritty visuals of the city
are punctuated by strong lines of dialogue recorded in synchronous sound
(perhaps the first in the country) and by well-timed sound effects, including
footsteps and radio programs heard in the taxi. Together, the visuals and the
sounds create an Iranian city symphony. One diegetic radio program, spo
ken by Golestan himself at the films beginning, about a dark city in which it
is hard to tell the hunter from the prey, sets the mood for the entire filmas
well as providing an apt metaphor for the whole era of suffocation. These sen
timents of fear and anxiety are not only on the air (radio) but also in the air.
They permeate the relationship of the two attractive protagonsits, Hashem
and Taji (Taji Ahmadi), who love each other, though asymmetrically. Taji loves
Hashem wholly and wants to marry him and keep the orphan baby, while
Hashem loves her too, but anxiously, hesitating to commit himself. The baby
brings them closer than ever before in a tenderly acted and beautifully crafted
middle section in which they make lovea rare instance in Iranian cinema
both for its tenderness and its candorbut the fears win out (figure 61). Al
though the relationship of Hashem and Taji can be read politically, it can also
be interpreted personally as a metaphor for the complex relationship between
Golestan and Farrokhzad at the time.
The films mise-en-scneabandoned buildings, high walls, steep stair
cases that lead to mysterious dark places, night scenes, Kafkaesque offices in
the Ministry of Justice, strange characters, and the repeated discussion be
tween Hashem and Taji of walls, fear and hatred of darkness, and worry about
61 Fear and anxiety undermine

intimacy in Ebrahim Golestans
Mudbrick and Mirror. Courtesy
of Ebrahim Golestan.
359
neighbors prying eyesunderscores a strong sense of modernist anxiety and

claustrophobia. Some of these images and subjects formed part of the vocab
ulary of antistate resistance among modernist writers and filmmakers who
wished for the eradication of obscurity and prying patriarchal and political
surveillance. The frequent invocation of these themes gives the entire night
of anxious togetherness between the lovers, both waiting for and fearing the
new dawn, a strong erotic and political charge. The presence of the lovely little
baby girl (the daughter of Golestans brother) in that atmosphere of tension
needy, hungry, and by turns crying and cooingheightens the sense of hu
man vulnerability in the midst of modernitys angst.
The cinematic piece de rsistance, in which fears overcome the couple, oc
curs during a long, heated argument one day while they walk through the
tight alleys of poor neighborhoods in Tehrans South End and through the
historical Seyyed Ismail Bazaar, filmed by Soleiman Minasians inquisitive
and active handheld camera, which like a hunter pursues (and ultimately cap
tures) its restless prey.25 Taji ferociously argues for marriage and for keeping
the baby, while Hashem refuses commitment. She directs her criticism at
the patriarchal system as she accuses him of being a coward, a living corpse,
bound too much by collective traditions and by the opinions of others.26 The
public spaces in which this argument unfolds provide stunning visual evi
dence for the weight of ancient traditions stifling individuality.
Mudbrick and Mirror is perhaps the best example of existentialism in
Pahlavi-era cinema, coterminous with the height of existentialist philosophy
in Iran, for it questions and condemns the human desire to seek a savior. In
this it is also a modernist work. Taji wants to keep the baby, as she thinks that
the little girls arrival brought the lovers together as never before. Without that
baby, the bond between the two seems tenuous. If Hashem is hesitant about
that theory, Golestan was not, for as he said in the postscreening discussion
of the film in Chicago (5 May 2007), humans are alone and responsible for
their own fate; there is no external savior. The film endorses this view, for it
ends with the two protagonists contemplating their respective next steps, one
in traffic in his cab, the other in the hall of an orphanage.
The film follows an episodic structure consisting of autonomous set
pieces of varying quality. The long ending sequence that shows Taji visit
ing an orphanage in search of the abandoned baby that Hashem deposited
there against her wishes is shot with sensitivity to the diversity of babies ware
housed in rows of cribs in various states of joy, curiosity, activity, and men
tal illness. It creates a powerful miniature documentary with a narrative arch
and some pathos that ends with Taji exiting the holding room and leaning
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distraught against the wall as the camera slowly pulls back, leaving her be
reft, abandoned, and lonely.27 On the other hand, a caf scene early in the film
appears long and self-indulgent, as effeminate intellectuals, dandies, and luti
types incongruously gather and endlessly discus abstruse ideas and engage
in obscure wordplay. The parodies are too broad and the portrayal of the intel
lectuals too stereotypical (germs of the problem in The Secrets of the Treasure
of the Jenni Valley). Nevertheless, Hillmann correctly observes that the films
depiction of hypocrisy, pseudo-intellectualism, sterile urbanization, insen
sitive bureaucracy, impersonal governmental institutions and red tape, and
individual insecurity and unwillingness to help one another are echoed in
Farrokhzads famous poem, O Bejewel Land, and in its criticism of Iranian
ersatz modernity (1987:55).
Golestan said that Mudbrick and Mirror screened in Tehran for three weeks
but not in other cities and provided two anecdotes about its public reception.
Outside the movie house where the film was being shown he one day over
heard a spectator proclaim that his time and money had been wasted. Another
spectator took issue with this comment, and their argument escalated into a
fistfight. An amused Golestan stood by and looked on. When he attended the
films last scheduled screening, a film critic there told him he had seen the
film fifty times. Yet this did not prevent him from panning the film in his re
view a week later as the stupidest film he had ever seen. Golestan told the
critic that he found it even stupider to spend all that money and time watch
ing a stupid film. These anecdotes exemplify the divided sentiments the film
aroused in its spectators.
The pervasive but vague fear attached to a homeless corpse and a parent
less baby became less symbolic and more directly political in the following
decade. Fear was cathected not only to modernity and its chief promoter, the
state, but also, and more specifically, to the Savak, which had come to be re
garded as an omniscient and omnipresent bureaucratic machine. Dread of the
Savak was pervasive and profound, afflicting people from all walks of life, and
it involved a fear of both aural and visual surveillance. Kambiz Mahmoudi,
the deputy director of nirt, a high-ranking official of a politically powerful
institution, thus described eavesdropping: No one, not even a fifth-ranking
manager of a small administrative unit in the country, was free from think
ing that his home phone or his work phone was under surveillance. I can tell
you that I, too, thought this way. I thought that my home phone was bugged,
that my office phone was bugged, that even the internal nirt phones were
bugged. I say this, but I never saw anyone bugging a phone, nor any one ever
told me that they had overheard my phone conversations. But this was the
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atmosphere that the security organization had created to show its presence
everywhere and to make people think that it controlled peoples thoughts
(Mahmoudi 1982:57).
Sayyads Dead-End, made under the aegis of the pfc in the final year of
the Shahs rule, expressed this profound fear of the organization. It posits a
direct link between the states panoptic surveillance and omnipresent power
by dramatizing how people internalize the states controlling gaze or misread
it with tragic consequences. Sayyad had made a name for himself as a pro
lific and multifaceted comic actor, producer, performer in theater and televi
sion shows, and a director of commercial movies including a series of popu
lar comedies about the adventures of a wily country bumpkin named Samad,
which he played himself. He deftly made his successful television shows into
wholesome movie comedies, which brought back into the movie houses fam
ily audiences who had turned away from the cinema because of its recent em
phasis on sex and violence. Yet Sayyad seems to have become radicalized in
the late 1970s, perhaps partly because of his involvement with the pfc and his
coproduction of Shahid Salesss uncompromising Still Life: in Dead-End his
social criticism, previously sugarcoated by comedy, assumed the mantle of
the harsh, paranoid realism so characteristic of new-wave movies. It became a
protoexilic film for him, as he completed it the year the revolution started, and
it may have been the reason behind his political asylum in the United States
(Naficy 2001:25860). In exile, he revived the Samad character to mock the
regime of the Islamic Republic (Naficy 1993a, 1993b).
In some ways like Yilmaz Gneys powerful rendition of Turkey in his
own protoexilic film Yol (The Way, 1982), Dead-End posits Iranian society un
der the Shah as a claustrophobic total prison, a panopticon, whose inhabi
tants suffer constant police surveillance. The story centers on the life of a
young woman (Mary Apik) who is pursued by a handsome man she thinks
a suitor but who turns out to be a security agent tailing her brother, who has
apparently engaged in some sort of antigovernment activity. As in Mehrjuis
The Cow and Golestans Mudbrick and Mirror, fear is palpable throughout this
movie. However, this fear is not of mysterious villagers or of walls and night
fall but of the ever-present gaze of Savak agents. The gaze takes on two guises:
the official one of the secret police and the personal one of a suitor. Looking
out of the window of her claustrophobic room overlooking a cul-de-sac, the
woman misreads, with disastrous consequences, the surveying gaze of the
secret agent lurking outside for her brother as the desiring gaze of a potential
suitor. In the end, the agent captures and takes away her brother, leaving her
both defeated in love and disappointed in life. The title refers not only to the
362
alley in which the heroine lives but also to the dead-end lives of women and
othersat least politicallyin the last years of the Pahlavi period. The film
sees no way out of the hermetic panopticon, no way to resist or to rebel, for
those who dare to do so, like the brother, pay dearly. Dead-End, which won a
top award from the Moscow Film Festival (for Apiks performance), was Say
yads most serious and politically nuanced work, and both the Pahlavi and the
Islamist regimes banned it. The first banned it perhaps because it dared to
represent the Pahlavi periods open secret: the pervasive surveillance and ar
bitrary arrests and disappearances of civilians. The latter banned it perhaps
because it represented the unrepresentable in the Islamic Republic: an un
veiled young woman with subjectivity and passion who locks eyes with an
unrelated male.
One of the pfc signatories who made films independently was Baizai,
a playwright, theater scholar and director, and a short film director (for cidcya). His first feature, Downpour (Ragbar, 1972), produced by his cinematog
rapher Barbod Taheri, placed him among the top new-wave directors. Baizai
revisited its theme in several other films: fear of a stranger entering a com
munity upsets its traditional harmony, unleashing strong reactions of attrac
tion and repulsion, as if the stranger were a sci-fi monster. Only after the to
tal elimination of the threatening strangers could the community return to
harmony. Downpour wove a rich tapestry involving a budding love between a
new teacher, Mr. Hekmati (Parviz Fannizadeh), and Atefeh, the sister of one
of his students (Parvaneh Masumi), against a background of the politically
charged fear of strangers and the secret police in Tehrans South End. The
public arrival of the stranger (the new schoolteacher), with all his belongings
loaded on a cart, is observed cautiously by the neighbors and good-naturedly
by noisy children. The teacher attracts and repels because he brings change.
The films voyeuristic structure of vision positions the students to spy on a
scene in which Atefeh complains to Mr. Hekmati about his punishment of
her brother, a scene that the school children interpret as intimacy. This in
terpretation soon mushrooms into a neighborhood rumor and the exchange
of various knowing and derisive gazes among his fellow teachers. Thus be
fore Mr. Hekmati and Atefeh own up to their love for one another, the whole
neighborhoodand the spectatorsalready know about it. In a collective and
closed community that camouflages core values, people sometimes end up
keeping their secrets more from themselves than from others, who through
voyeurism, eavesdropping, and rumors gain access to them. The frequent re
lays of furtive and controlling gazes are also, in the words of Taheri in an
interview, symbolic of the observing and controlling look of Savaks secret
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agents in society. These were what we called Savaki looks (Naficy 1988b).
These fear-driven looks are also characteristic of the Persian miniatures.
At the same time, Atefeh and her family are beholden to the neighborhood
tough guy Aqa Rahim Qassab (Manuchr Farid), a burley butcher, who has
been helping them in various ways in hopes of winning Atefehs hand in mar
riage. The butcher is to the neighborhood what Savak is to the country: mus
cular, arrogant, secretive, and bullying. He beats up Mr. Hekmati in front of
the children and competes with him in reconstructing the school and its au
ditorium. Their rivalry replays the archetypal rivalry between a luti (Mr. Hek
mati) and a lout (Aqa Rahim Qassab). Mr. Hekmati takes the students side
and learns about their poverty-stricken but honorable livesunder a heavy
downpourand thereby gains the trust and sympathy of the children and
their families. However, in the end, he is transferred out of the area to an
other school. Like a transplanted organ, the stranger-teacher is rejected, not
so much by the community itself, which has grown to like him, but by un
known forces, perhaps by a mysterious physical ailment (drops of blood on
his shirt) or by behind-t he-scenes Savak machinations (symbolized by furtive
looks and by an officious-looking stranger wearing sunglasses). His depar
ture without Atefeh, who decides to stay, is as public as his arrival, though this
time the children see him off with honor, and his teary-eyed coworkers fol
low his cart, bearing a mysterious coffin, as though it were a hearse carrying
his dead body. Such symbolism both rendered the film more profound and
detracted from its realistic integrity. Like Dash Akol, Downpours circular end
ing mourns the passing of honest, heroic men; but it is a eulogy, not a call to
arms. The symbolism of a Savak agent hiding behind sunglasses and of a coffin, as well as all the furtive looks and gossip, were like slips of the tongue, in
dexes of some fear that could not be named or expressed openly. Significantly,
Mr. Hekmatis departure does not return the community to its former state,
for it has changed as a result of his efforts; even Atefeh has undergone change
through him and her affection for him.
Downpour has narrative problems and technical rough spots in photogra
phy, sound recording, and editing, which may be attributed to the fact that
this was Baizais first feature film. He accepted no funding from either the
state or the commercial sector. Thus the film exemplified a cinema of nega
tion. As an artistic strategy, negation and refusal are very powerful, almost
aphrodisiac. As Baizai states, The day that we lost all hopes [of assistance
from others] and we decided to make the film ourselves . . . we realized that
we had become very powerful (quoted in Qukasian 1991b/1370:246). This
inability and/or refusal imposed an artisanal mode of production on the film
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crew but also granted it certain freedoms, which in the hands of an author
can become an impetus for creativity. It is worth hearing this in Baizais own
words, paraphrased and condensed here.28 As he tells it, without the support
of either commercial studios or government institutions with their profes
sional equipment and crew,
each of us did the work of four crew members, and each of us regarded
those jobs as belonging to us. No supervisor or nosy censor metamor
phosed our story, and the day we began cinematography, I still had to
write seventeen pages of the screenplay. We sought assistance from all
our friends and we used all of our own resources. We thank everyone
who took a step to help us, and we wish whoever blocked our way, or
snickered at us, more wisdom and culture. We are sorry that because
of financial and technical deficiencies we were not able to create our
mise-en-scne as well as we wished. . . . We shot the film in twenty-
four neighborhoods of Tehran, with the aid of, and as witnessed by,
the residents, many of whom will find their daily lives reflected in it.
We did not have any special equipment to film in the alleys and streets;
we filmed very close to our reality. Much of the film was shot without
the usual notes, in a very improvised manner, but this does not mean
that I did not have any plans in mind. On the contrary, my ideas and
plans became real and alive under real conditions. This even helped
me to rediscover the meanings of the story. Downpour was made with a
minimum budget and resources and was beset by many difficulties that
postponed its production; it was made with the smallest film crew, over
a five-month period, and all with the aid of memory. In many cases, we
could not have done any differently than we did. On the other hand, it
was made with the overwhelming passion of its crew members and ac
tors, and its only claim is that it did not want to tell a lie. (quoted in Qu
kasian 1991b/1370:24647)
Despite its attempts at political symbolism, this authenticity in creating the
composite diegetic neighborhood out of dozens of real neighborhoods allowed
the film, released more than three decades ago, to retain much of its fresh
ness. It received the top jury award at the first Tehran International Film Fes
tival and was greeted with positive reviews, but it did not do well at the box office when it opened in sixteen movie houses in Tehran, landing its producer,
Taheri, in jail because of unpaid debts.
Baizais next film, Stranger and the Fog (1975), made for Cinema Rex The
ater Company (Rashidian brothers), was an epic in terms of length (140 min
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utes), budget (the unheard of $300,000 for an Iranian movie), the length
of time it took to film (two years), scale (large cast, massive battle scenes in
dense forests), and film style (realism, surrealism, symbolism). For the latter
he deftly combined the representational realism of the invisible style with the
presentational performativity of taziyeh passion plays, which he had written
about in his book on the history of Iranian theater (Baizai 1965/1344).
In this and his other films, a tension exists between the different sources
of his style, between the epic, the ritualistic, and the realistic, the first two
rooted in Iranian performance traditions and the latter in modernist and real
ist styles of representation. Other features of his style are a claustrophobic
mise-en-scne, archetypal but brooding characters, male-female magnetism,
passionate displays of emotions, circular structures, and the themes of in
tolerance, injustice, heroism, and martyrdom, mostly involving women and
strangers. Elements of surrealism and symbolism are strewn throughout. In
most of Baizais films, there is also a back story, both national and diegetic,
that informs, even haunts, both the films narrative and the psyches of its
characters. These hauntings are part of modernitys fears and trembling.
In Stranger and the Fog the harmonious life of a fishing village is disturbed
by a group of strangers arriving by sea, whose presence throws into question
the established order, threatening the communitys very existence. The reac
tion of the isolated inhabitants to the strangers, headed by a man named Ayat
(Khosrow Shojazadeh), badly wounded and amnesiac, evolves from suspicion
to fear, from undergoing tests to assimilation by marriage, and from sorrow
ful separation to return by sea. Ayat seems to have escaped a terrible catas
trophe, the fear of which is ever present in him. After various ordeals, the
community accepts Ayat and allows him to take as his wife a widow named
Rana (Parvaneh Masumi), who herself lives on the margins of the commu
nity. Soon other strangers, who beckon Ayat to go with them to Him, shake
him out of his newly established harmonious family life during a nighttime
hunt in the foggy woods. Their answer to his question as to who He is, is
given in the literate and philosophical language typical of Baizais characters:
The earth belongs to Him, the trees, the seashores, the hills, and the four
seasons. Our dreams all belong to Him. Think about it, find out for yourself
who He is. This tension between the material and the metaphysical contin
ues to tear Ayat and the community apartand makes the comprehension of
the film difficult.
The film offers a palimpsest of strangers. In addition to Ayat and Rana,
there are the newly arrived strangers who beckon Ayat, and there is also Ra
nas former husband, Zakaria (Manuchr Farid), who was martyred but whose
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reincarnated presence intrudes into Ranas psyche and the village commu
nity, aiding them in their fight against other intruders. The presence of char
acters real and visible and those mythical and invisible raises philosophical
and religious questions about their identity and import: Does Ayat represent
Bahaullah, the Bahai prophet? is Zakaria a symbol of the Mahdi, the Shi
ite messiah? Do the violent strangers represent modernitys disruptive forces
(Naficy 1985e:2954)? By raising these sorts of questions, Baizai transforms
the rather simple Crystalline invaders of The Cow into a complex palimpsest,
the interpretation of which challenges its spectators, rendering the film an
open, if somewhat opaque, text. Overall, Baizai is less concerned about the
relationship of contemporary times with modernity than about that of con
temporary times with history and mythology. That many of his films deal less
with individuals than with archetypes consolidates this interpretation of his
works. Like The Cow, which had an internal Other, a village idiot, Stranger and
the Fog features an inside outsider, a disabled boy who drags his feet on the
ground behind him like rags. Here, the limitations of the closed form mani
fest themselves as psychological and physical disabilities. Baizai explores this
figure more fully than did Mehrjui and endows him with premonition and
clairvoyance, which offers a way out of the hermetically closed form.
Of all the new-wave directors, Baizai most concentrated on the problematic
of female concerns and subjectivity both in contemporary society and in an
cient history. While Downpour concentrates on Mr. Hekmati, Atefehs story is
equally important. In fact, as Baizai himself noted in a piece in Sinema 6, the
stories of seven women are woven into that film, each story completing the
others, so that together they represent the womens situation in contempo
rary society (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:689). In Stranger and the Fog, there
are two strong women, Rana and her mother, with Rana reflecting her moth
ers youth and her mother representing Ranas old age. In addition, Rana is a
narrative agent as she bears the films plot and meaning; she is neither a deco
rative figure nor a silent observer of male drama. She begins as a reactant but
gradually evolves into an actant, an agent of her own destiny, whose decisions
affect the community. According to Baizai, Rana, who symbolizes the earths
fecunditya somewhat hackneyed and patriarchal ideamay have imagined
the entire story. For it is she who brings the stranger Ayat into being, nurtures
him, loves him, lives with him, and eventually kills and mourns him (ibid.).
As such, she represents both life and death, the amphibolic meanings and
characters that Baizai claims he cherishes.
Filmed with sophisticated elegance, deep-focus photography, and sweep
ing crane shots, the messianic Ayat arrives and departs by the sea mysteri
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ously. Unlike the stranger in Downpour, who is pushed out, Ayat leaves the
community to find out what, or who, is on the other side, thus offering lib
eratory promise, although the community is not restored. His brief sojourn
represents the journey of life and the human search for identity, truth, and
companionship. His departure could also symbolize a return to some mysti
cal origins. These motifs of quest, journey, and return introduce elements of
the open form into this closed-form movie. Stranger and the Fogs religious
and philosophical musings and its various epic dimensions made it unique
among new-wave films. Time and place are not identified; the villagers cus
toms are a mixture of Iranian, Islamic, Japanese, and African, encouraging
allegorical speculations.
If interpreted as a return or reunion, the ending shares this theme with
other key new-wave films, among them Kimiais Dash Akol and Mehrjuis The
Cow. A return to origins (before modernitys disruption) is one of the char
acteristics of Frantz Fanons second phase of creating a national culture
against colonial onslaught, and of its cinematic elaboration by Teshome Ga
briel (Fanon 1963:20648; Gabriel 1989b). It is significant that the return to
the past, or to some originary culture, which some new-wave films seemed to
long for, was also a key feature of the Shahs attempts at creating an official
syncretic national culture, which these filmmakers opposed. This correspon
dence in the official and oppositional cultures demonstrates that the opposi
tional filmmakers had more in common with the official regime than they
either realized or admitted. The film received good critical reviews interna
tionally, but it did poorly, critically and financially, in Iran.
For his devastating chronicle of Qajar-era cruelty, Prince Ehtejab (Shazdeh
Ehtejab, 1974), Farmanara, trained in filmmaking at University of Southern
California, adapted a seminal modernist novel of the same title by Hushang
Golshiri, a leading dissident writer. Telfilm produced it. Like most engag
writers, Golshiri was a leftist, and he had spent two six-month stints in
Pahlavi jails, once for being a communist in 196061, and another time for
his writings in 197374. According to Farmanara, the mca would not give the
green light to a script penned by Golshiri, forcing the director to resort to a
ruse: he gave the name of his wife, Farideh Labbakhi-Nezhad, as the writer,
which resulted in her receiving half a page of commendation for one of the
best scripts that they had ever read (quoted in Dabashi 2001:120). The origi
nal story, too, met with high praise: Heshmat Moayyad in his introduction to
Golshiris short stories calls Prince Ehtejab the second-most innovative novel
in Persian literature next to Hedayats The Blind Owl (Golshiri 2003:10).29
In one of his letters to a friend, Hedayat (writing from India) had described
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62 Evoking modernitys psychic

disruption and the feeling of having
aged amid the new. Poster for
Bahman Farmanaras Prince Ehtejab,
designed by Farshid Mesghali.
succinctly the psychological chronotope of modernity for Iranians: I was born

in a new world, already defeated, wounded, and aged (quoted in Katouzian
2003:242). What distinguished Prince Ehtejab the movie as a great modern
ist work was, first, its evocation of modernitys psychic disruption and feeling
of being aged in the midst of newness, of being wounded and defeated be
fore the start. Second, it was the films depiction in evocative black-and-white
of the claustrophobic life of a dying tubercular Qajar prince, Prince Ehtejab,
ensconced in a lonely room surrounded by a myriad of ticking clocks and
photographs of his family, recollecting their past corruption and cruelties (fig
ure 62). The prince recalls, and the film recreates graphically, how his grand
father killed his brother and mother (the latter by suffocation under a pillow),
how his father machine-gunned demonstrators, and how he himself caused
the death of his own wife, Farrokhnesa. All these stories are told in a series
of complicated flashbacks within flashbacks, resembling a palimpsest. Time
does not flow linearly; rather, it is framed and fragmented, and it accumulates
into something material, as in one dramatic sequence in which many differ
ent clocks of varying sizes, shapes, and ages form a forest of ticking instru
ments whose sounds build into a disturbing concert of tick-tocks. Arbitrary
369
violence and cruelty imbues the film, as well as the fear of the past that haunts
the present. This is a modernist haunting, one underscored by the films set
ting inside an old mansion, its flashback narrative, and the chiaroscuro light
ing. Farmanara said that what interested him in the story was the suspension
between two time frames (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:679). When the past
haunts the present that moment of suspension is reached; but it is a delicate
moment. The past is corrupt yet the film eulogizes it; it mourns for lost times,
like Marcel Prousts Remembrance of Lost Time. As Jamsheed Akrami noted in
the magazine Rudaki, the mournful funerals, killings, and deaths outnumber
the births and weddings (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:680). Prince Ehtejabs ele
gant and evocative opening title sequence by the great illustrator and animator
Farshid Mesghali is also noteworthy. The film won the best film award at the
third Tehran International Film Festival.
Fear of personal impotence and national emasculation surfaced in several
movies, including in Mehrjuis The Postman (Postchi, 1970), based on a Georg
Bchner story and produced by Misaqiyeh Film Studio. In fits and starts the
film gives stylish expression to the crisis of cultural identity and to the forms
that imperialism can take in third world countries. It is about an impotent
mailman (Ali Nasirian) married to a beautiful wife (Zhaleh Sam), who even
tually goes postal on her and kills her out of jealousy. It is also about a young,
Western-educated man (Ahmadreza Ahmadi) who wants to convert his un
cles animal husbandry business from raising sheep to raising hogs. This prof
itable attempt at capitalist transformation raises fundamental religious issues,
as Islam forbids pork. In a way this mans action is as disruptive and devastat
ing to the village traditions as that of the postman toward his wife.
Taqvais Tranquility in the Presence of Others (1973), based on a story by Saedi
and produced by Taqvai and Telfilm, centers on the life of a retired army gen
eral (Akbar Meshkin) who suffers from a mysterious ailment or from some
sort of melancholia and who moves to town with his new young wife, where
he witnesses the suicide and unhappiness of his daughter from his previous
marriage. Like Prince Ehtejab, he lives on his memories, on drunken recollec
tions of a putative glorious military past. As Taqvai notes, he discarded many
elements of Saedis story but retained its principle theme, anxiety (quoted
in Omid 1995/1374:643). Significantly, the book from which Taqvai adapted
Saedis story was titled Anxieties of Unknown Origin (Vahamehhaye bi Nam
va Neshan). Both works described the fears that suffused the diegetic and ex
tradiegetic worlds. Taqvai worked these anxieties and their corrosive psycho
logical and social consequences effectively into the films spatial configura
tions by using the closed forms claustrophobic mise-en-scne and filming:
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tight living quarters resembling prisons and hospital rooms; a dark lighting
scheme; lonely, isolated, and anxious characters; and static framing. Reces
sion, withdrawal, and dystopia extend beyond the ex-army man to dominate
all relationships. The film shows scarcely any tranquility; if anyone has it, it is
Manizheh (Soraya Qasemi), the military mans wife. That three modernist po
ets acted in the movieManuchehr Atashi, Partow Nuriala, and Mohammad
Ali Sepanlooreconfirms the close interconnection of new-wave filmmakers
and contemporary modernist writers.
Made in 1970, this film about anxiety provoked much anxiety among
higher-ups, leading to its ban for three years after its first screening at the
Shiraz Festival of Culture and Art. Perhaps the reason was its dystopian vi
sion of the country, which went against state-sanctioned utopianism. Accord
ing to Taqvai, the ban was extended for an additional three years after Gaffary
and the nirt chief Reza Ghotbi brought in Fereydoun Hoveyda, a Cahiers du
Cinma film critic during the nouvelle vagues ascendancy, who was also the
prime ministers brother and a high official in the Foreign Ministry, to inter
cede with Pahlbod, the minister of culture and art, to lift the original ban.
This development again evidenced the rivalry between a liberal nirt and a
conservative mca over cinema.30 Apparently, Hoveyda had liked the film very
much, but in a later heated discussion of his book about the Palestinians,
Quarantine, during which Taqvai expressed admiration for the book but cri
tiqued its characterization of the Palestinians tactic of hijacking of planes as
barbarous, Hoveyda became so angry that he had called in the Savak to take
Taqvai away. Golestan, who participated in the gathering, helped defuse the
situation. As a result, Taqvai was not jailed but needed to accept an extended
ban on his film. In another ironic twist in this complicated tale of censorship,
the mca, which wished to enter Tranquility in the Presence of Others as part of
the Week of Iranian Movies in Paris to promote the dynamism of Iranian cin
ema, subsequently sought Taqvais approval. Astutely, he agreed only on the
condition that the mca release his film domestically, which is how the film
finally screened publicly at Misaqiyehs Capri Cinema in the mid-1970s. The
screening proved lucrative though shortlived (only eleven nights), for the film
received another ban, this time a permanent one. Apparently the nursing as
sociation had objected to the way the film depicted nurses (quoted in Talebine
zhad 1996/1375:4445). The tale of the films censorship and troubled release
further underscores the existential link between sociopolitical claustrophobia
and its closed-form expression in new-wave films.
Kiumars Derambakhsh made Blind Owl (Bufe Kur, 1975) for nirt. It was
a fifty-five-minute film based on Hedayats novel, which is widely considered
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the first Iranian modernist one and an exemplar of a Western novel (Beard
1990). First published in 1936 when the author was in exile in Calcutta, it is
considered his masterpiece, marking the climax of his psychological fic
tions (Katouzian 1991:113). It focuses on the claustrophobic, interior world of
a disaffected painter, who is a reincarnated version of an ancient artist, nar
rating his lifes story and his obsessive love for a woman to his own shadow
cast on the wall. The novel abounds with attributes of modernist literature, in
particular with doubles, shadows, doppelgngers, twins, and the difficulty of
distinguishing between these shifting characters. His lover, wife, and mother
all seem to be doubles of each other; the latter he calls the harlot who sleeps
with many men, including his father, and he himself attempts to sleep with
her, not as himself but disguised as someone else. His uncle and father are
biological twins but also doubles of each other and of him. The profound
threats and disruptions of modernity and exile to social integrity and individ
ual sovereignty are embodied by means of these fractured and unstable multi
ple characters and by means of times and places that are often indeterminate,
out of joint, and confused. At the same time, modernitys liberatory promises
of individuality, autonomy, and subjectivity are expressed through the same
configuration of identity, time, and space. The use of a narrating subject en
hances the modernity of the novel and the film, but he is not a reliable narra
tor; in fact, he is basically insane. Claustrophobic spatiality and temporality,
closed-form aesthetics, and a characters withdrawal from society not only ex
press the individuals fear of the dominant society but also constitute a form
of rejection and embodied protest against those fearful forces and social for
mations. Thematically, The Blind Owl offers a searing social criticism of Reza
Shahs time and of a public that Hedayat paints as an avaricious, gluttonous,
and oversexed rabble, from which to protect himself the protagonist must
seek the closed and phobic structures of his mind and recollections. These offer their subjectt he nameless protagonistboth a safe haven and a prison.
Hedayats despondent writings and his suicide by gas in a Paris hotel room
in 1951 gave intellectuals a potent martyr. Hedayatmania conquered the land,
affecting the young literati who mourned and emulated him both in their de
spondent lives and in their suicides, and Hedayatism as a literary genre came
to the fore. In addition to Derambakhsh, Bozorgmehr Rafia made a film ver
sion of The Blind Owl (1972) as his mfa thesis for the ucla film school.31 He
dayats novel, which provided a high but elusive standard for the expression of
modernitys fears and anxieties, proved a challenge to these and other directors
who attempted to adapt it to the screen. Neither Dermabakhshs nor Rafias
films did justice to the refractory original, leaving room for further efforts.32
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Resistance and Rebellion

The second prominent theme and philosophical tendency in new-wave films
was that of resistance and rebellion. Since censorship regulations did not allow
direct depictions because these would be construed as acts of uprising against
the state, filmmakers resorted to indirect means: symbolic resistance and sub
version and personal revenge narratives that were coded, and read, as social
protest. Filmmakers acted like the oppositional modernist writers who, as
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak notes, developed a codified diction, a canon of allu
sions, metaphors, symbols, and mythsa poetic language almost (1983:151),
particularly as they adopted many of these works to the screen. By inscrib
ing modes of resistance and rebellion, these films imagined what Golshiri
called a prognostication of a future beyond the reality of this world, which
may yet come into being because it is imagined (Golshiri 1990b/1369:46).
These narratives of resistance and rebellion dealt with future possibilities,
openings, and transformations, not with paralysis, confinement, and stasis,
as was the case with many narratives of fear and trembling. In some cases,
resistance and rebellion manifested not so much in the films themes, narra
tives, or characters as in the fact of their making. Ironically, various govern
ment agencies were instrumental in supporting such works of indirect criti
cism, and dissident writers and filmmakers did not hesitate to bite the hand
that fed them.
Kimiais Qaisar was an early movie that forcefully posited personal revenge
as a substitute for absent social justice. The films success spawned a genre
of revenge movies in which various tough guys righted wrongs. Kimiais sub
sequent films also tapped into the public perception, and reality, of social
inequality and injustice. His Baluch (1972), released around the time of the
twenty-five hundredth anniversary celebrations, was banned for a while be
cause the eponymous protagonist belonged to an ethnoreligious minority
from the southeast at a time when the government was pushing national cohe
siveness. The films producer, Misaqiyeh Film Studio, and Kimiai suggested
alternative titles. Eventually, after some delays, the film was released with its
original title to a successful run. The film centers on the story of a rural man,
Baluch, whose wife is raped by two smugglers. He chases them until dur
ing a shootout the smugglers kill two gendarmes and get away in their uni
forms. The police arrest Baluch on murder charges, condemning him to life
in prison. On his release a dozen years later, he finds the smugglers in town,
which sets Baluch on his violent, single-minded path. His search through the
streets of Tehran (opulently decorated for the anniversary celebrations) politi
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cized the film, making it the revenge of the downtrodden against a corrupt
and mighty state. Baluch kills one of the smugglers, now an antique dealer,
and searching for the other, a cabaret owner, he befriends a loose woman who
puts him up and turns him into a corrupt gigolo. Yet he continues on his re
venge mission and ultimately kills the second smuggler. He finally finds his
own wife who, predictably, has become a prostitute. He forgives her and takes
her back home to Baluchestan. The problem with most personal revenge nar
ratives was that even when coded and read as social protest, they were local
ized rebellions that did not affect the corrupt governing system.
Taqvais Sadeq the Kurd (Sadeq Kordeh, 1972), based on Taqvais own screen
play and also produced by Misaqiyeh Film Studio, gave force and realism to
the psychological thriller-revenge genre. It dealt with the story of Sadeq, a caf
owner on a main highway (Said Rad), whose wife is raped and murdered by
a driver, which causes him to go on a murderous rampage against drivers in
hopes of finding the rapist. The police assign an agent to capture a rapist, who
turns out to be his father-in-law, which creates complications. Naderis Tight
Spot (Tangna, 1973) created a claustrophobic and fear-laden world in a story
about a vagrant, Ali Khoshdast (Said Rad), who during a dispute over a game
of billiards accidentally kills one of three brothers, sending him on the run in
fear of the brothers revenge and of the police. Fear is palpable in street scenes
where cries of Stop him! Stop him! ring out. All he needs to escape town is
a small amount of money, which he does not have, thus making him roam
the streets. Critics called the films gritty social realism and pervasive claus
trophobia bitter, and that bitterness may have kept spectators stay away from
this acclaimed film (Omid 1995/1374:649). Thus Naderi began his long-term
dystopian investigation of the underbellies of cities and their beaten (though
not beaten down), scrappy, and resilient male protagonists, first in Iran and
later in exile in the United States. His Tangsir (1973), produced like Tight Spot
by the Payam Cinema Organization, was based on Sadeq Chubaks novel of
the same title and Naderis own research and interviews with old-timers of
Bushehr, a city on the Persian Gulf. It turned the real-life story of Zaer Mo
hammad (Behrouz Vossoughi) and his personal battle to retrieve the money
that city leaders owed him (money they had promised to invest for him and
now claimed they had lost) into a symbol of the struggle of the downtrodden
for dignity and justice. When street people joined forces with him, Moham
mads personal revenge became a popular rebellion against oppressors.
In the mid-1970s, a female television producer entered the world of film
with a movie on female resistance and rebellion, a subject rare in new-wave
cinema. Marva Nabili was a producer, director, and sometimes writer of An
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cient Fairy Tales (Afsanehhaye Kohan), a series of hour-long films for nirt
that explored traditional folk tales. The nirt connection allowed her to film
around the country, in small towns and villages, which were otherwise difficult to shoot because of government fear and restrictions. As she told me in an
interview, it was under the guise of filming one of these television tales that
she and her small crew clandestinely shot her first feature film, The Sealed
Soil (Khake Sar Beh Mohr, also known as Khake Mohr Shodeh or Mohr va
Khak, 1976, released in the United States in 1978), at the breakneck speed of
six days in the village of Qaleh Nurasghar, in southwest Iran (Naficy 1985d).
What made the filming possible in such a short time was Nabilis prepara
tion, including a detailed shooting script with camera positions throughout,
and frugality, filming mos, in available light, on 16mm stock, and with a low
filming ratio of one to two.33 That the films female protagonist, Rooy Bekheir
(Flora Shabaviz), was married to the cinematographer (Barbod Taheri) also
helped, as did the fact that all cast members but Shabaviz lived in the village
and were nonprofessional, cutting down on complexity and cost. As the anti-
Shah uprising began to unreel, Nabili smuggled her negatives and the rough
cut out of the country in her suitcase and into the United States, where she
completed the fine cut. The film, which cost about $45,000, has never been
shown inside Iran.
With The Sealed Soil Nabili became the second woman who directed a fea
ture movie in the history of Iranian cinema, after Shahla Riahi. The film
deals with two types of transitions, one personal, the other national, with
Rooy Bekheir, an eighteen-year-old girl, at the center of both. She moves from
adolescence to adulthood at the same time that her rural community is mod
ernizing. While she rejects several suitors, a large agribusiness company that
wants to relocate them to a nearby town is courting the villagers. Her par
ents pressure Rooy Bekheir to marry in the traditional fashion, a pressure
from which she takes refuge in the woods, where she sheds her clothes in a
kind of union with nature, exposing her bare back in a daring close-up (one
of very few close-ups in the film). Yet she is corralled into an arranged mar
riage, to which she reacts hysterically, chasing the chickens in the courtyard,
frantically screaming and weeping, and finally collapsing on the ground. An
exorcist cures her, and she is prepared for her wedding, dressed in a white
gown that symbolizes her purification from the evil of individuality. She also
steps over a flaming oven and throws her old clothes into it, symbolizing her
transition to a new social identity. Likewise, the village undergoes changes.
Although still ensconced within its ancient protective yet claustrophobia-
inducing walls, modernity is lapping at its edges. A paved highway runs
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nearby, tapped water arrives, and a modern school has opened in the adja
cent village.
The style of The Sealed Soil is consciously experimental, influenced by the
austere aesthetics of the Japanese director Kenji Mizogouchi, by the tableau
like Persian miniature paintings, and, most important, by Bertolt Brechts
alienation effect. The film began as Nabilis masters thesis on the applica
tion of Brechts theory of epic theater to cinema. Brecht used distantiation and
alienation to prevent identification with characters because he wanted to force
spectators to concentrate on the forces that shaped individuals (Willett 1964).
Nabili attempted distantiation by an austere visual style consisting of static
long takes, long shots, with almost no close-ups and rare camera movements
(no tilts or zooms, only pans, necessitated by the tight physical space of film
ing). The film is shot in available light, including the interiors, giving it a flat
and dark palette. Acting is understated, punctuated by infrequent dialogue;
characters voices are monotonous; and the pace is slow and deliberate. Cin
ematic elements that increase or vary pacing to enhance emotional involve
ment are shunned.
As Nabili told me, Persian miniatures provided an iconographic model, as
figures in these paintings are part of their surroundings. Applied to cinema,
this idea results in long shots that, like the paintings, contain many motifs
and elements. They often show several villagers in routine life, not singled
out or separated from their environment by emotionally charged close-ups.
The shots are full of information, and the slow pacing presumably gives the
spectators time to study the details and to think about what they are seeing.
The application of these principles to cinema did not prove entirely suc
cessful; literal and didactic, the work smacks of a theoretical justification af
ter the fact. While the long shots showed several people engaged in different
activitiesstirring a pot, cleaning rice, or baking breadt hey supplied little
detail. The camera is too far, the lighting too dim, and the acting too under
stated for those unfamiliar with village life in southwest Iran to decipher ex
pressions or details. While the activities are ethnographic, the shots are bereft
of ethnographic understanding, turning villagers actions into ritualized be
havior. The principles as employed here certainly discourage any emotional
involvement with the characters, but they do not necessarily promote an un
derstanding of their sociopolitical situation.
Those who manage to sit through the film, however, are rewarded by its
exploration of the psychological disruptions of modernity in the life of Rooy
Bekheir, of her rebellion against the patriarchal order, and of the social dis
ruptions that affect the larger society beyond the frame. Although the film
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does not deal with national problems, the encroachment of modernity on vil
lage life and the timing of the films productionjust before the revolution
allow us to back-read those problems into it. In that sense, the film can be
seen as a prophetic, woman-centered work about the incipient uprising.
Late Pahlavi authoritarianism forced the writer Golshiri and the director
Farmanara to express symbolically their opposition to escalating political sup
pression and claustrophobia. Their Tall Shadows of the Wind was produced
by Telfilm and Farmanaras own Iran Biograph Center. The film had a size
able budget of around $200,000 and tells a story of authoritarian power and
opposition to it. It notes that humans create deitiescapitalism, Marxism,
Islamto whom they fall captive. This visually engrossing film begins with
a slow tracking shot of a large group of villagers seated on the ground, chant
ing. As the shots truck, pan, and cut from one somber face to another, a Zoro
astrian chant is heard: May he come to help us, may he come to care for us,
may he come to comfort us, may he come to untie our knots, may he come for
our victory, may he come for our happiness, may he come for our justice. The
villagers are praying for a liberator. Throughout the sequence, the wind whis
tles and blows the villagers colorful shawls.
This mystical beginning sets the tone. The villagers construct a scarecrow
and install it in the fields outside the village. It has only one leg and wears
a long black robe; its head and face are wrapped with white cloth. When a
bus fails to ascend the steep grade into the village, the driver Abdollah (Fara
marz Gharibian) sends the passengers and his assistant to the village for help.
Meanwhile, he ambles along toward a brook. While drinking vodka from his
pocket flask, he notices first one pebble, then another, then another falling
into the brook. A cut to the scarecrow in the distance creates the impression
that it is responsible for throwing the pebbles. Abdollah reaches into the brook
and retrieves one of them. This tiny monolith becomes a symbol of power and
liberation.
Abdollah walks toward the scarecrow and faces its mysterious wrapped
face, which is reminiscent of Ren Magrittes surrealist painting The Lovers
(1928). He draws features on the scarecrow and puts his own hat on its head.
The scarecrow is thus empowered. But will it prove a liberator or an oppres
sor? This is the films question.
Back in the village coffeehouse, the villagers congratulate Abdollah for his
lifelike rendering of the scarecrows face. That night, while Abdollah and his
mother are sleeping, in a parallel editing sequence, the villagers furtively talk
in their beds about what Abdollah has done to the scarecrow at the same time
that outside, the empty alleys seem alive with premonition. Ahmad Pezhmans
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lush mix of Persian and Western score gives the images force. A similar paral
lel sequence is used again later when villagers whisper fearfully inside while
the wind howls angrily outside and strange things begin to happen (a woman
becomes possessed and hysterical and chickens and dogs turn up dead).
When Abdollahs fiance Nargess (Nadia Khalilpur) disappears and later
is found dazed and possessed near the scarecrow, where she seems to have
buried somethingperhaps the child conceived by the evil scarecrowterror
seizes the villagers. Abdollah visits the scarecrow at night to dig up the burial
site, but his shriek reveals that he has mutilated his toes with the shovel, and
his wound later develops gangrene. He refuses amputation for fear of becom
ing one-legged, resembling the scarecrow. Now the power has worked its way
full circle, and it is beginning to consume its creator. Before he dies, Abdol
lah has a visually stunning dream. A group of sixteen black-robed scarecrows
are lined up across a hilly field. Suddenly, a large group of villagers, including
Abdollah and his schoolmaster friend Mohammad (Said Nikpur), all of them
wearing shocking red outfits and carrying red banners, run across the fields
toward the scarecrows. High-angle shots establish the battle lines. Close-ups
express the intensity of the villagers emotions. Abdollah gives a war cry, and
the villagers attack the scarecrows and burn them, leaving only their charred
skeletons. A long dissolve between one such skeleton and the dying driver
in his bed completes the identification of the scarecrow with the driver. But
it makes the scene of the rebellion of the masses against their oppressors a
dream. When he awakens, Abdollah reaches in his pocket and, with his last
breath, hands Mohammad the little stone, transferring the mission of libera
tor to him.
Late that night, Mohammad is at his desk. The wind blows his papers
around. He rises, puts the stone on the papers to weigh them down, and reso
lutely walks toward the window and gazes outside. He has made up his mind
to carry on the mission left to him by the driver, to destroy the scarecrow. The
last shot shows the stone on a sheet of paper bearing the following line from
the dissident poet Ahmad Shamlu: The sea is jealous of the drops of water
you have drunk from the well.34
The film examines how power and fear are created, sustained, and de
stroyed by their subjects. Traditional societies, it posits, turn to mystical forces
for answers. In the process, they create political leaders, religious guides, and
deities, such as the scarecrow, whom they can no longer control. Tall Shadows
of the Wind is ambivalent about intellectuals abilities to combat these fears
and figures. The intellectual Mohammad is rational and progressive, but he
is politically impotent; separate from average people, he somewhat resembles
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the new-wave filmmakers themselves. The driver is uneducated but enlight

ened; the headmaster is educated but given to speculation, and there is no evi
dence that he will be capable of carrying the torch that the driver has passed
on to him. The film suggests that irrational fear eats at a community, dissolv
ing existing structures and preventing rational solutions. In this atmosphere,
authoritarianism finds fertile ground. Rising levels of fear are correlated with
the increasing powerlessness of the community in the film. As fear mounts,
the music becomes more haunting and infuses the scenes with suspense. The
director has purposely employed color for expressive purposes. At the begin
ning, colors are bright and intense. Fear subdues them, making the dream
sequence at the end shockingly vivid by contrast.
To fend off the threat of self-created gods and irrational fears, the film sug
gests, individuals must themselves discover the sources of power and fear
the windsand seek collective action, as represented by Abdollahs dream of
the battle between the black and the red forces. The films symbolic iconog
raphy was both enlightening and politically radical for its time. The most ob
vious symbol was the scarecrow. Dressed in a long, black robe and imbued
with mystical powers, it symbolized retrogressive religion, particularly Islam,
which the regime had dubbed black reaction. On the other hand, the villag
ers, dressed in red and carrying red banners in Abdollahs dream, symbolized
the people, which progressive filmmakers and revolutionary groups claimed
to represent. At the height of the clandestine guerrilla struggle against the
Shah and his security forces, the film offered another world, the world of
armed resistancea radical political solution rare in Iranian cinema. Yet this
other world was not just anti-Shah but also anticlerical. The showdown in the
dream between black forces (Islamists) and red forces (communists) was pre
scient; after the Shah, the Islamic government engaged in a nationwide battle
that decimated its leftist opponents, who had been supporters.
It is a testimony to Farmanaras astuteness as a socially conscious film
maker and to the power of symbolic filmmaking that the film was viewed
with disfavor by both the Pahlavi regime, under which it was produced, and
the Islamic Republic regime, under which it was first publicly exhibited. As
Farmanara told me in an interview, Ironically, both the Shah and the Is
lamic regimes interpreted the scarecrow that in the film terrorizes a village
as symbolizing their own rule and tried to ban it (Naficy 1985f) Indeed, af
ter only three days of public exhibition in Tehran after the revolution, dur
ing which audiences applauded the film, the Forbidden Acts Bureau accused
Farmanara of making anti-Islamic films, and the authorities banned it.
And when in March 1983 Farmanara returned to Iran after four years of ex
379
ile, he was prevented from exiting, held hostage in his own country, on ac
count of the film (Naficy 1985f ). According to Golshiri, the authorities viewed
and reviewed the films dream sequence carefully several times, even frame
by frame, counting the scarecrows to make sure they were not twelve, for
had they been twelve, their destruction would have symbolized the destruc
tion of the twelve Shiite imams, an act of supreme sacrilege. Fortunately for
Farmanara (and for Golshiri), they discovered a varied number of scarecrows
in each shot, and thus gave Farmanara an exit permit, but the film was never
released (1990b/1369:52).
After three years of voluntary exile to Europe, Golestan returned in the fall
of 1970 to make his second and last feature movie, The Secrets of the Treasure
of the Jenni Valley, an allegorical farce produced, directed, written, and edited
by him for gfw that made savage, if broad, fun of the avarice and corruption
of the newly rich, particularly the Shah and his longtime prime minister Hov
eyda, with whom Golestan was friends. A nameless, wily villager represents
the Shah (played by Parviz Sayyad), who very much resembles Sayyads popu
lar comic movie character, Samad. Sayyad emerges as the key figure in the
film not only because he is the protagonist but also because he contributed to
the movie in other ways, particularly by providing 200,000 of the 1,200,000
tomans budget.
The movie begins as a fairy tale: while an invisible narrator sets the scene
of new road construction in the countryside, the villager is plowing his field
with his single cow.35 In the process, he comes across a hidden underground
treasure-trove, full of gold and precious stones, which he wastes on a bizarre
material life: a second wife, all sorts of household utilities that require electric
ity, gas, and piped water not available in his village, an assortment of statues
of naked women, and a building that resembles a giant erect penis flanked by
two domes. This waste parodies what the Shah, the government, and the up
per classes did with oil, the national treasure.
Like some buildings of the time, the one acquired by the villager is phony
and rickety, but its Styrofoam exterior looks like solid marble. A wise school
teacher, who like Hoveyda is a bit of a dandy and carries a cane and sometimes
wears a flower in his lapel, becomes an advisor to the newly rich farmer and
gradually is transformed against his own inclination, perhaps like Hoveyda,
into a sycophant architect of the farmers new vision. The inauguration of the
new building and the wedding of the farmer, now dressed in formal black
tails, are elaborate, much like the Shahs twenty-five hundredth anniversary
celebration. During an intricate, long tracking shot of the celebrants greed
ily devouring food along a table full of delicacies, the farmer grandiloquently
380
63 Villagers celebrate a
rich farmers wedding next
to the phallic tower of his
new home in Golestans
The Secrets of the Treasure
of the Jenni Valley. Courtesy
of Ebrahim Golestan.
claims that earlier Iranian architecture was characterized by one dome and
two minarets but that the new architecture demands two domes and one min
aret. A brief cut to the erect minaret between two spherical domes delivers the
punch line. Further satirizing the elaborate language of the Shahs panegyric
nationalism, the teacher-t urnedvisionary architect connects the two domes/
testicles to the concept of duality in Iranian philosophy, exemplified by the
battle of light and dark, good and evil, and day and night (figure 63).
This is a decidedly angry film that leaves no aspect or social class of
the Shahs era unscathed, even though much of it is painted with a broad
comic brush. The pervasive structure of surveillance is spoofed as various
charactersthe gendarme, the mayor, the coffeehouse owner, and the jeweler
comically duck behind a bush or a rock as each one tries to spy on the other
to find out the location of the treasure-trove. The nationalist gendarmes, bu
reaucrats, Westernized intellectuals, traditional poets, entertainers, simple
peasants, village heads, merchants, and businessmen and their ambitious
wives are all satirized. Soon the dynamite blasts for the new road make the
foundations of the phallic house tremble, destroying it completelyalso shak
ing off the various leeches and sycophants gathered around the newly rich
farmer. In the end, all is in ruins and he is left alone and bereftan uncanny
foretelling of the Shahs end nearly a decade before it actually happened.36
Golestan released a statement before the screening of the film during his
Chicago retrospective that alluded to the movies anger and comedy, as well
as to its ending.37 It said in part: The aim was to show the main and essen
tial components of a society and the consequences unavoidable for being that
way. The prediction of what was bound to happen was made some nine years
before it did. And it did. I never intended to ridicule anyone; the comedy, the
381
anger, and the pity were already inherent in the situation. My slight attempts
at comedy were fruitless, since anger at reality left no room for frivolity. The
farmer and other village leaders remain surprisingly oblivious to the conse
quences of their actions, as did the Shah and government officials. What is
all the more surprising is that, according to Golestan, obliviousness was not
limited to government officials. It extended to the cast and crew, who knew
nothing about the allegorical dimensions of the movie (with the exception of
perhaps Sayyad), and to the film censors, to Savak officials, and to film exhibi
tors. Golestan claimed that high-level Savak officials and government digni
taries saw the film at a private screening at the Moulin Rouge Cinema but
they did not recognize themselves. They thought it was a continuation of Say
yads comic television series involving the character Samad. When the film
opened at Capri Cinema, spectators responded so enthusiastically that Goles
tans wife and his son, Kaveh, urged him to hide the films negative to safe
guard it against what they thought would be the imminent confiscation by the
police. He took their advice. Yet the film remained on screens for nearly thirty
days. The spectators understood the films allegory, that is why they liked it
and that is why my family was fearful for the original negative, he said.38 Af
ter that initial successful exhibition, the film was pulled off the screens sud
denly and without explanation, never to be shown inside the country again.39
Perhaps some official finally got the joke.
Abbas Milani in his biography of Hoveyda gives two reasons for the can
cellation. One explanation that Golestan himself had heard from friends was
that The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni Valley was screened for the Shah
and Empress Farah in their palace so they could judge the controversial film
for themselves. During the film, Hoveyda apparently offered a running com
mentary about the works symbolism, causing the ban. The other explanation
came from a famous but anonymous security official, who claimed that it
was he who banned both the film and the book that Golestan subsequently
wrote based on the film by ordering that all copies of both be withdrawn. He
also claimed that he wrote a fifteen-page report and interpreted the dan
gerous meanings of the film and the book, which he sent to the Shah, with
a copy to the prime minister.40 Civilians in the government apparently op
posed the films ban, but the security official prohibited it because he be
lieved the countrys security at stake. One night after the film was banned,
Golestan and Hoveyda met again, at the residence of Feraidun Hoveyda, the
prime ministers brother. During their conversation an argument broke out
between the prime minister and Golestan, which escalated into an ugly mu
tual personal attack. According to Milani, Hoveyda had made a snide com
382
ment about Golestans shirt, which caused him to take it off and angrily throw
it at the official, telling him, smell it, it smells of conscience . . . not of the
putrid smell of someone who has sold his soul. In a following conversation
over cognac, Hoveyda tried to exculpate himself by complaining of the Shahs
increasing authoritarianism, claiming that he had been betrayed, that he
himself opposed the single-party system. The last time the two friends and
adversaries met was at an official function for the French president Jacques
Chirac, during which Hoveyda introduced Golestan as our countrys best
writer and filmmaker, whose works we regularly censor (quoted in Milani
2001:34041).
Despite its overall verve, humorously concise dialogue, accurate charac
terization of Iranian types, elaborately staged tracking shots, dramatically as
saultive handheld sequences when the farmer first breaks the news to his
family and village (filmed by Golestan himself), and its political prescience,
The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni Valley is a flawed film, for its humor
is often broad, heavy-handed, and condescending, both toward the diegetic
characters and toward the spectators. It resembles Golestans broad satire of
effeminate intellectuals in Mudbrick and Mirror. It is as though the film does
not trust the spectators to get its message. Long dialogues between charac
ters drive the films message home in rather obvious language. This flaw may
have stemmed from Golestans seething anger at the state of affairs and the
passivity of all strata in the face of rampant corruption and moral degradation.
Considered in the context of Golestans earlier art and archaeology docu
mentaries, The Hills of Marlik (Tapehhaye Marlik, 1963) and Iran Crown Jew
els (Ganjinehhaye Gowhar, 1965), The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni Valley
takes on a different intertextual resonance: one critical of the state but self-
critical as well. In the latter film Golestan makes savage fun of the treasures
the farmer discovers by having characters, particularly the gendarme who
symbolizes the state, mouth platitudes about antique treasures being part of
the Iranian national heritage, thus requiring preservation rather than being
sold off to the highest bidder. This critique of the language of national heri
tage extends to the filmmakers institutional documentaries in which price
less crown jewels and unique ancient archaeological objects were lauded and
celebrated as valuable national treasures (even if in these films allusions were
made to the injustices and violence by which these treasures were produced
or acquired).
Kimiais The Deer (Gavaznha, 1975), made for Misaqiyeh Film Studio, was
screened at the Tehran International Film Festival, in whose official publica
tion Kimiai explained the meaning of the films enigmatic title. He remem
383
64 The phoenix-like rise and

transformation of a heroin addict
into a revolutionary hero in Masud
Kimiais The Deer. Seyyed Rasul
(Behrouz Vossoughi) punches the
walls with fury. Frame enlargement.
bers as a schoolchild his teacher telling the class that deer have ugly legs
but beautiful horns; and that what saves them in a tight spot is their speed,
thanks to their ugly, scrawny legs, while that which snares them is their long,
pretty horns. The reverse is true of the films main characters: two close
friends with a vast potential for social good fall victim to viceone to heroin
addiction, the other to robbery.41 What keeps them in the end from giving
in totally to corruption is their innate innocence and purity, as well as their
childhood friendship (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:696). The films opening
title sequence, designed by Kiarostami, which juxtaposes close-ups of harsh
and tangled barbed wires with delicate feathers and floating dandelion seed
balls, makes visible the contrast between beauty and innocence, on the one
hand, and ugliness and corruption, on the other. Qodrat (Faramarz Qaribian),
on the run after committing armed robbery, seeks shelter with a childhood
friend, Seyyed Rasul (Behrouz Vossoughi), who lives with a theater actress
in a poor multifamily house. When they were students, Seyyed was a brave
young man, but now, as an addict, he has fallen on hard times. Under the
spell of their renewed friendship, however, Seyyed begins to rise, phoenixlike,
from his own ashes in a dramatic scene in which Qodrat and Seyyed angrily
punch their closed fists into the wall to prove both their deeply rooted friend
ship and their renewed sense of power and courage to fight back (figure 64).
The first proof of that renewed empowerment comes in the form of Seyyeds
murder of his ruthless heroin dealer; then he beats the greedy landlord whose
humiliating behavior he had tolerated; finally he saves not his own addicted
skin but his friend. Police put the house under siege, evacuating all the ten
ants but Qodrat. Seyyed volunteers to act as a go-between, but as he enters
the house to mediate, he decides instead to join his friend. In the subsequent
shootout Seyyed is fatally wounded, telling his friend, It is better to die by a
bullet than to die of a natural death in the gutter. Presumably, both men per
ish in the shootout, for the camera exits the building as it is engulfed in fire.
384
65 Security forces amass for the

ending shootout, which helped
turn The Deer into a guerrilla
movie. Frame enlargement.
What made the film controversial and caused the spectators to read it politi
cally was how Kimiai coded it. Qodrat was armed, on the run, and at times
spewed out utterances in defense of the people. The films ending shootout
was also coded politically, for Kimiai amassed a disproportionate number of
policemen and staged an elaborate security operation for it, giving the impres
sion that the two friends were not just ordinary criminals but urban guerril
las fighting an unjust regime (figure 65). In the same vein, the multifamily
house and the neighborhood poor could be interpreted as symbolizing the so
ciety that sympathetically harbors the guerrilla fighters. Some spectators saw
in Seyyed the reincarnation of Qaisar, as did Vossoughi himself who, in act
ing the part of Seyyed, kept Qaisar in mind as his model (Zeraati 2004:274).
This was not the defiant Qaisar of the earlier movie, Qaisar, who had obtained
justice for the underdog; this character is defeated by unjust social circum
stances and addiction. The political resistance seen here quickly spread so
cially, and after the films successful screening at the Tehran International
Film Festival the film was banned.
The mca brought in the producer of The Deer, Mehdi Misaqiyeh, and its
star, Vossoughi, to explain the politics of the movie, whose script and festi
val exhibition the ministry had previously approved. Savak also summoned
Vossoughi, accusing him of knowingly acting in an antigovernment guer
rilla movie ( filme cheriki), a charge that he rejected, pointing to the movies
official production and exhibition permits and to the top acting award that
he himself deservedly received at the Tehran festival from Empress Farah.
However, the young Savak agent, while confessing to having seen all of Vos
soughis movies and liking them very much, threatened him with death: See,
it is so easy to annihilate you, he said, offering the story of a staged car ac
cident late one night as one possible method. Vossoughi said that for six
months this nightmare and terror was with me. Ashraf Pahlavi, too, who saw
the movie in the royal courts cinema with Vossoughi, reacted angrily, telling
385
him: Dont you think that we know what is happening in the country? . . .
We know it all. We know that such things exist, but it is not necessary to show
them in the movies (quoted in Zeraati 2004:288, 290). It is interesting that
in this case neither the producer nor the director, who were responsible for the
movie, were apparently threatened. Vossoughi internalized this censorship;
from then on he took care to make only apolitical films.
After a year of tampering with the film, altering some of the dialogue and
reshooting and reediting parts of it with fewer police in the final shootout,
the makers of The Deer were finally allowed to release it in a popular chain
cinema, where it did very well, earning some 2,600,000 tomans during its
first run. The most dramatic change occurred at the end. While the award-
winning festival version showed the two protagonists being gunned down by
the heavily armed, massive police force, the censored version has Qodrat turn
on his friend Seyyed and shoot him in a dispute. In the latter version, the men
are not killed but arrested, on which occasion they promise that after their
prison term, they will seek honorable jobs and become productive citizens.
Such eruptions of the social into the diegeticK imiais politicized coding,
the states imposition of drastic changes, and Vossoughis internalization of
censorshipconstituted some of the distortions that draconian Pahlavi cen
sorship forced on filmmakers and spectators hungry for social relevance and
political commitment. Censorings, sometimes applied serially to a single film
over a period of time, pose a problem for the analysis of Iranian movies be
cause it is difficult to determine the final text. In fact, there may not be a sin
gle authoritative film, as each censored movie may have several different ver
sions and any given critic may not have seen all of them.
The censored version of The Deer screened widely, but what permanently
carved the film into the minds of Iranians of a certain age was its exhibi
tion in the throes of the revolution in the summer of 1978 at the Rex Cinema
in Abadan, during which Islamist arsonists torched the theater, burning to
death hundreds of innocent spectators. Since the installation of the Islamic
Republic, the film has proven that it has legs. Ordinary people have liked
and praised it, while intellectuals have had negative reactions to it partly be
cause of its popularity and financial success and partly because of what they
regard as Kimiais opportunism and demagoguery and his pandering to
the peoples emotions (Najafi 1990/1369:322). Other new-wave films, such as
Kimiais Journey of Stone (Safare Sang, 1978) and Naderis Elegy (Marsiyeh,
1978), whose treatment of social discontent would place them in this section
on resistance and rebellion, are discussed later.
386
Avant-Garde, Minimalist, and Formalist Styles

Some important new-wave directors produced works that appeared to be apo
litical. Yet these films were political in a larger and deeper sense in that they
were iconoclastic both vis--vis commercial movies and new-wave films in
their authorial and formalist innovations and philosophical concerns. Three
filmmakers stand out: Kimiavi, Shahid Saless, and Kiarostami, all of whom
began their careers during the Pahlavi era but continued to make films dur
ing the Islamic Republic either inside Iran or in Europe. As a result, I discuss
them only partially in this chapter.
Parviz Kimiavi (b. 1939)

Kimiavi, born in Tehran, was trained in filmmaking at the premier French
film school, the Institut des Hautes-tudes Cinmatographiques (idhec).
After working for French television for three years, he returned to Iran and
worked for nirt, where he made many documentaries and several feature
films, until the revolution of 197879. In all of these he employed an autho
rial, surrealist, and avant-gardist style consisting of real people enacting ei
ther their own lives or fictionalized versions thereof; the seamless mixing of
fantasy and documentary; ironic, humorous, contrastive, and critical juxta
positions of worlds, elements, and scenes; fragmented, nonlinear narrative
structures; dialogues often developed with the aid of eccentric, outsider char
acters; and the directors self-inscription, cinematic self-reflexivity, and autho
rial self-referentiality.
Many of these stylistic features surfaced early, in what may be called Kimi
avis lyrical documentaries, P as in Pelican (Pe Mesle Pelikan, 1972), a short-
subject film, and The Stone Garden (Baghe Sangi, 1976), a feature-length film,
both of them international award winners. Both films follow an open form.
In them he casts isolated, real-life, odd old men, who are not professional ac
tors, as protagonists. These appear to be crazy outcasts but ultimately they re
veal themselves to be mystical seers. Instead of being recessive and brooding,
living in claustrophobic spaces, these characters are loquacious, rebellious,
and outgoing, living in a ruin and an open desert, respectively. They offer a
variant to the paradigm of the lone strangers who tell us something about,
and comment on, both the diegetic society and the larger society beyond the
screen. Despite, or perhaps because of, severe poverty, each character has de
veloped a rich imagination and an alternative reality, enriching his barren
and isolated life.
387
66 In Parviz Kimiavis
experimental documentary
P as in Pelican, Aqa Seyyed
Ali Mirzas life in a ruin is
enriched by imagination and
poetry. Publicity photo.
P as in Pelican centers on Aqa Seyyed Ali Mirza, who has been living alone
in an old ruin outside the northeastern desert town of Tabas for forty years.
He is the object of neighborhood childrens cruel harassment. The film pres
ents him as a wise poet who transcends his tormentors and reality (figure 66).
This is emphasized in the films ending sequence, which in elegiac and lyri
cal slow motion shows Mirza joyfully chasing a white pelican in the pool of
the towns historic garden, Baghe Golshan, a scene that is intercut with the
similarly slow-motion crumbling of the ruins which he has made his home.
Life, joy, beauty, togetherness, and the liquidity of water win over death, ugli
ness, and the solidity of the ruins. The mysterious pelican making this beau
tiful garden and pool at the edge of the desert her home had become a legend,
bringing joy to visitors in Tabas. In the devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake
of 16 September 1978, Tabas and the garden were completely destroyed, leav
ing thousands dead. The pelican survived but succumbed soon thereafter,
making P as in Pelican a cinematic document not only of a past joyous reality
but also of a wish against future ruins and devastation.
In Stone Garden, Darvish Khan Esfandiarpur, a deaf-mute shepherd, lives
with his wife and two sons in a remote desert in the southeast, near Kerman.
By hanging scores of rocks and stones like so many leaves from bare tree
branches and poles he has created a magic garden. He tells the camera that
he began his enterprise after being inspired by a glorious vision of an angelic
sage during a spiritual desert sunrise (figures 67a and 67b). His detractors,
on the other hand, call him a nut or a charlatan. Yet enough rural folk believe
him to turn his garden into a religious shrine, to which they make pilgrim
age in buses and pickup trucks, and where they tie their colored wish cloths
and ask for miracles and mercy. In the meantime, a gendarme arrives to draft
Darvish Khans eldest son for military service, causing his mother to worry
388
67a, 67b In Kimiavis Stone

Garden, a saintly vision induces
the deaf-mute shepherd Darvish
Khan Esfandiarpur to create
an alternative surrealist reality
by assembling a garden of
stones. Frame enlargements.
about who will take care of the flock. The film is full of Kimiavis ironic jokes
and asides, often poking fun at authority figures or at the contradictions of
modernity. In one scene, Darvish Khans son drives the old mans herd of
sheep by riding a motorcycle, instead of employing the traditional method
of herding on foot. In another scene, a cleric steals a stone from a tree as
though stealing a fruit. In yet another scene, repeated several times, various
official visitors to Darvish Khan engage in interminable rounds of exchang
ing phony pleasantries (accismus/taarof ) while the ground beneath them lit
erally spins. Further, reminiscent of the Luddite turn in Kimiavis film The
Mongols, which critiques modern communications, Darvish Khan cuts off the
telegraph and telephone lines as soon as company technicians have put them
up. It is via these lines that a gendarme tries to reach the draft board to get
permission to postpone the sons draft. Intertextuality and self-referentiality,
hallmarks of Kimiavis authorial signature, work Aqa Seyyed Ali, the protago
nist of P As in Pelican, into The Stone Garden, where he plays a similar vision
ary role. In the end, the army takes away Darvish Khans son, and the villag
389
ers rebel against him and his wife, accusing them of stealing their offerings to
the saints. As much as they had shown reverence for the stone garden earlier,
they now demonstrate disdain. Instead of kissing the stones they now spit on
them. Soon, public health agents arrive to spray the area with ddt and other
chemicals. A chagrined Darvish Khan ends up hanging himself from one of
the trees, becoming the newest addition to his stone garden. But even here hu
mor is present: he hangs himself by the foot.
As he told me in an interview, Kimiavi became interested in isolated and
eccentric figures when he attended middle school in Naishapur. One day, the
literature teacher asked the students to find a subject for their essay not in the
clich topics assigned in those days but in their personal research. This un
usual freedom brought Kimiavi to a blind and bald bean-seller on the edge of
a bazaar. The essay the young Kimiavi wrote about him caught the teachers
attention, who liked it very much but refused to read it to the class because it
contained a poem critical of their hometown: One is bald, one is blind, and
the other is mute / damn to the city of Naishapur (Naficy 1989:92). His in
terest in the bald and blind bean-seller was not political but ethnographic, and
that same interest drew him to the eccentric and disabled characters in both
P as in Pelican and The Stone Garden. Blindness and deafness can also be read
as symbolizing censored and silenced intellectuals. Yet instead of imposing
the forceful seriousness of closed-form aesthetics, Kimiavi has his charac
ters transcend those limitations by the power of their playful imagination. In
both, the dramatic, open locations externalize the characters imagined and
surreal internal worlds.
The lone eccentric character with a poetic vision became so ingrained in
Kimiavis vocabulary that a decade later it insinuated itself in another film,
this time in France. In his moving The Trench (La Tranche, 1981), he focused
on an isolated poor man on the margins of French society who lives a rich
imaginary life in a war trench. Perhaps each of these madmen is a victim of
the epistemic violence and disruptions of modernity. Each of them is also a
poet and philosopher who transcends his own circumstances and reflects on
and judges his own society as well as humankind. Like the madmen of his
films, Kimiavi is a lone poet and a philosopher who discovers and ruminates
on life, art, beauty, and hope where lesser directors find only death, ugliness,
hopelessness, and cynicism.
Kimiavi also made three thought-provoking and highly visual fictional fea
tures in which his signature style found further expression. Thematically,
The Mongols (Mogholha, 1973) deals with the fear of the OtherMongols, mo
dernity, and technology, particularly televisionbut treats it playfully. Here
390
he memorably parallels the Mongol invasion of Iran and the resulting wide
spread destruction of the social and economic fabrics of society in the Mid
dle Ages to the countrys invasion by cinema and television in the twentieth
century. The history of the Mongol invasion is the subject of a university the
sis by the protagonists wife (Fahimeh Rastegar), while cinema history is the
subject of a television show that the protagonist (Parviz Kimiavi) is working
on. Bored with each other personally, the couple relate to each other through
their common interests in history. The man is also concerned with the cur
rent history of television in the making, as the television network that em
ploys him assigns him to supervise the installation of a new microwave tower
for television reception in the remote desert town of Zahedan. While on this
trip, whose ostensible aim is to spread television to the far corners of the coun
try, the invading Mongols of his wifes thesis appear in the desert, sealing the
parallel between the current media invasion and the past Mongol invasion (in
some scenes the Mongols even carry television antennas instead of weapons).
Realism, surrealism, symbolism, and comic fantasy conjoin to create strik
ing visuals, contrasting narratives, and biting criticism. For example, the
Mongols, dissatisfied with their filming conditions, self-reflexively complain
about it to the director and accuse him of not doing his job well, and when
they become aware of the protagonists marital problems, they take his wifes
side. In a village, a curtain reciter performs the story of the Shiite martyrs for
a large audience when a throng of men dressed uniformly in tribal outfits ar
rives bearing a television set, which they install in a room. Soon, the steady
tone of the television test pattern draws away the curtain reciters audience,
symbolizing modern medias threat to traditional performances (figures 68a
and 68b). In another scene, which critiques the medias destructive power
and the Pahlavi regimes censorship and mistreatment of intellectuals, Kimi
avis head is placed in a guillotine; when the blade drops, it looks like a televi
sion screen barreling down on his neck, and what rolls off is a can of 35mm
film, not his head (figures 69a and 69b). Beyond self-inscription and self-
reflexivity, the film contains moments of self-referentiality in which charac
ters from Kimiavis past films appear, updating us about what has happened
to them since Kimiavis previous film.
That this film, which was the first feature to seriously explore the disrup
tions of Iranian traditions by television, was funded by nirts film subsidiary,
Telfilm, shows again that the state ideological apparatuses were not mono
lithic. Voices of dissent could be heard in the atmosphere of relative freedom
at nirt, given the liberalism of its director, Ghotbi (Gaffary 198384:65). The
film is expansive because of Kimiavis deft humor and irony, rare in new-wave
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68a, 68b Modernity, symbolized

by television, invades villagers
traditional curtain-reciting session
in Kimiavis The Mongols. Frame
enlargements.
69a, 69b A darkly comic

representation of film censorship
and of medias power to deracinate.
The director of The Mongols
is beheaded. What rolls off
the guillotine, however, is not
Kimiavis head but a film can.
Frame enlargements.
features. It received universally positive critical appraisal and, remarkably, it

did well at the box office. The critic Hushang Taheri wrote the following in
Cinema magazine: Without a doubt The Mongols is not only the best and the
brightest film in this years festival [Tehran International Film Festival] but
also surely it is the most distinguished film in the entire history of Iranian
cinema (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:664).
The release of Kimiavis English-titled movie O.K. Mister (1979) coin
cided with the revolution. Like The Mongols, this film is both closed and open
and embodies fear and rebellion. Starring Gaffary as William Knox DArcy,
the English-Australian who signed the first contract for oil exploration with
Iran in the early 1900s, the film makes devastating fun of the way oil and oil
wealth distorted Iranian society and turned it into a consumerist monster in
the 1970s. DArcy enters a resistant village to seek permission for oil explora
tion, creating a scheme to win the villagers over. He imports a blonde West
ern beauty, the mythical Cinderella, to attract them. With her come all sorts of
consumer products like Coca Cola, toys, and radio and television sets. Villag
ers adopt this caricature of Western consumer society, abandoning all of their
own cultural forms, including their own language. They comically attempt to
speak English all the time, and one local man even marries Cinderella. Only
one old man holds out against this foreign onslaught; and finally the villagers
see the light and rebel. However, in the end, the entire village is smothered by
trashy oil by-products, as huge sheets of billowing plastic fill the alleyways up
to the rooftops, flowing in them like floodwater.42
O.K. Misters criticism was so biting that, according to Gaffary, when
Mahmud Jafarian, nirts deputy director in charge of liaison with the se
curity services, read the screenplay for approval, he wrote on the margins:
This is the biggest attack against imperialism that is possible in a movie.
Apparently, Gaffaryhimself a nirt deputy director for cultural affairs
had to work with Kimiavi to tone down the criticism and to improve the dia
logues (Gaffary 198384:65). Like The Mongols, this film was produced by the
state. Yet since it was completed during the revolution and contained unveiled
women, it never screened inside Iran, even though its anti-imperialist mes
sage would have suited postrevolution politics. O.K. Mister was shown only
abroad, including in a commercial cinema in Los Angeles in the early 1980s.
Sohrab Shahid Saless (194498)

Shahid Saless was born in Tehran, received film production training in Aus
tria and France, and began making films in Iran in the late 1960s as a contract
393
employee of the mca, earning 9,000 tomans monthly. He made twenty-t wo

documentaries and short films there, several of them about the performing
arts and dances, designed for foreign distribution through Iranian embas
sies and consulates. He directed his first feature, A Simple Event (Yek Ettefaqe
Sadeh, 1973), under the guise of working on a twenty-minute film. Unlike
Kimiavi, who had a generally optimistic and expansive view of the world and
a playful and open style, Shahid Saless was pessimistic and followed a reces
sive and closed film style. His actionstaged with meticulous Chekhovian
naturalismis filmed in a signature minimalist, formalist style: slow pace;
a rather static and observational camera prone to long takes, long shots, and
slow pans; and a concern for the life of ordinary people and their daily rou
tines, rendered with an ironic and objective distance. Space is closed and pre
ordained; time is still or passing slowly. Unlike some new-wave filmmakers,
Shahid Saless generally shunned symbolism.
A Simple Event concerns the daily routines of a student, who lives in Ban
dar Shah at the end of the south-north rail line with his alcoholic fisherman
father, and his sick mother who soon dies. Because he has to help his fathers
fish smuggling business and take care of his mother he falls behind in his
studies and is forced to do homework and extra work during the recess period
when every other student is playing. This joyless life of drudgery was a high
contrast to the time during which it was filmed, the twenty-five hundredth
anniversary celebration of the Iranian monarchy. The characters are played by
nonactors, but the film treats these ordinary people with dignity, the dignity
that the state withdrew from its citizens. Critics praised it; it influenced rising
filmmakers such as Kiarostami. Jamal Omid called it a sincere, noble, and
truthful work; Feraidun Moezimoqaddam characterized it as a long poem;
and Jamsheed Akrami, playing on its title, called it a significant event (in
Omid 1995/1374:65962). Shahid Saless himself called it the noblest film I
ever made in my life (quoted in Sar Reshtehdari 1998:45). With this semi
nal film he made a name for himself nationally by winning the top directo
rial award from the second Tehran International Film Festival. In 1998 a bi
lingual English-Persian anthology was published posthumously, containing
the films screenplay, interviews with the director, and critical writing, to cele
brate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of this small but weighty film
(Shahid Saless 1998/1377).
First evidence of his realist-minimalist style surfaced in this filma style
that intensified with his exile in Germany. It was more emphatically on dis
play in his next film, Still Life, produced by the pfc and Sayyad, which consti
tuted a rigorous work of great power that catapulted Shahid Saless onto the
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70a, 70b Sohrab Shahid Salesss

minimalist and formalist style
in Still Life. We witness the static
frontal framing of the old man
smoking against window frames
next to a ticking clock and a long
take of his wife patiently threading
a needle. Frame enlargements.
international arena. Filmed in eleven days, it became a breakthrough film for

him. His formalist experimentation created a sensitive portrayal of an elderly
railway guard and his family living at an isolated rural junction. Its attention
to daily details and to the nuances of suppressed feelings and relationships,
combined with the depiction, at once harsh and poetic, of the life of the guard,
of his family, and of his approaching retirement, had a powerful impact on
audiences at home and abroad. Time passes slowly but inevitably like a calm
but deadly powerful river, sweeping away everything in its path. The guard
and his wife are forced to vacate their small house to make room for a new
young guard, and their son is drafted, leaving them alone. In one scene last
ing seemingly for minutes, the guards aged wife, filmed in extreme close-up,
attempts to thread a needle to repair her sons uniform. With weak eyesight
and trembling fingers she tries many times but misses; she wets the thread
and tries again and again, the camera holding the shot. In one public viewing
I attended, when she finally succeeded in passing the thread through the nee
dles eye, the movie-house audience burst into jubilant applause (figures 70a
and 70b).43 In the films last shot, the guard stares at himself for quite some
time in the small blemished mirror hanging on the wall. Does he see years of
memories of silent living, eating, smoking, and sleeping in that room with his
395
wife? Or a vision of an uncertain squalid future, a vision emphasized when he

removes the mirror to leave, revealing a defaced wall behind? The scene can
be read as a reverse mirror phase; the old mans gaze at himself does not
produce the misplaced empowered self as the Other or its resultant jubilant
smile. What he sees is the reality of the face of a defeated old man losing his
ground to modernity and to youth. Mesmerized, he keeps staring.
Both A Simple Event and Still Life were entered in the Berlin International
Film Festival, where they both won awards, the latter the Silver Bear (for best
film). Such awards brought to Iranians a sense of pride, helping reverse mo
dernitys epistemic violence. Ironically, Iranians (mis)recognized themselves
in the dark mirror that Shahid Saless held before them. That films such as
those of Shahid Saless had become a source of pride was evident from the
critic Feraidun Moezimoqadams review in Sinema 53 magazine: I feel proud
and honored. My international friends all congratulate me, and the Iranian
residents and students in Germany (even those with criticism) are delighted
and proud . . . I think the highest reward that Shahid Saless received was the
compassionate looks of Iranians who had made their way to Berlin from all
around Germany and witnessed that he was not returning home with empty
hands, thanks to his films (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:691). In Iran only Still
Life received a public screening, and only in one movie house, Capri Cinema.
It did unexpectedly well. Despite, or perhaps because of, its success, the gov
ernment did not give the director a production permit for his next film, Quar
antine (Qarantineh), causing Shahid Saless to voluntarily exile to Germany,
where in twenty-three years he made fifteen films.44 Exile internationalized
Iranian filmmakers in a more fundamental way than either their training
abroad or their participation in film festivals. Of Shahid Salesss movies made
in exile, the only one shown in Iran before the revolution, in a packed audi
torium in the Iran-Germany Cultural Society, a venue for the Tehran Inter
national Film Festival, was his Far From Home (In der Fremde/Dar Ghorbat,
1975), coproduced by the pfc, Telfilm, and the Probis Company of Hamburg,
starring Sayyad in the lead role. Like his other exilic films, this one steered
clear of Iranian matters, but it dealt with a personal issue: life as an immi
grant in an inhospitable foreign land. With this film the directors closed-
form aesthetics became more prominent (figure 71). It deals with Turkish
industrial guest workers in Germany. An alienated worker named Hussein
(Sayyad) maintains a crushingly routinized job as a beaten-down but earnest
operator of a factorys monstrously noisy machines. While work gives him
income and a much-desired structure, it is a prison. His austere life outside
the factory is laden with fear and lonely; his attempts to enter German soci
396
71 Far from Home, Shahid Salesss

first dystopic movie of exile,
which intensifies his closed-form
filming. The film poster, designed
by Morteza Momayez, reflects the
rigors of this kind of filming.
ety fail. Even though he shares an overcrowded communal apartment with

other guest workers, he feels isolated. Husseins only contact is a younger man
named Kalim, who claims to have a German girlfriend. He borrows money
from Hussein to sustain this relationshipmoney that he gambles away and
never returns. In the end, the girlfriend turns out to have been imaginary, a
figure of desire with which both men emplaced themselves in the midst of
their total displacement. An urgent letter forces Kalim to return to Turkeya
return that is dreaded, foreclosing his dream of freedom and connection to
Germany, even though his actual experience of Germany is far removed from
that idyllic German dream of an elsewhere (Fernweh). In this dystopic figura
tion of the exilic return, Far From Home ran counter to the accented films that
celebrate actual or imaginary returns. Shahid Saless himself never returned
to Iran.
What the L.A. Readers film reviewer Dan Sallitt noted about Shahid Sa
lesss later film Utopia (1982) is true for his earlier films as well. He contended
that one of the filmmakers many accomplishments in that film was the mu
397
tual reinforcement of the concrete and the symbolic. The concrete behavior
keeps the film from floating off into metaphysical realms, and the abstraction
of style gives the story an odd sense of universality without straining the de
mands of realism.45 The exhibition of Far From Home at the Berlin Interna
tional Film Festival, the controversy over its not winning the top prize, and
the news of its winning awards elsewhere all helped keep Shahid Salesss
name and Iranian new-wave cinema in play in international film circles. The
sustained internationalization of Shahid Saless and other new-wave directors
through their travels abroad, their exile in Europe and the United States, and
the exhibitions of their movies in international festivals contributed to the
perception of a national cinema in Iran during the Pahlavi period.
Abbas Kiarostami (b. 1940)

Kiarostami is the most celebrated Iranian filmmaker in the world. He was
born in Tehran, where he received his bachelor of arts in painting from the
Fine Arts College of the University of Tehran in 1973. It took him thirteen
years to complete the degree because he had to support himself by working at
jobs that seem to have had a decisive impact on his cinematic style. He worked
for Tehrans highway office, where he supervised road repairs at night while
attending daytime classes. His concern with the road as a cinematic trope
may have roots in this early experience.
In 1961 Kiarostami began working in advertising agencies, designing book
covers and posters and advertising films. He was at Tabli Film, the ad agency
headed by Bijan Jazani, a painter who became an anti-Shah Marxist theorist
and the leader of the Fadaiyane Khalq urban guerrillas, who was imprisoned
and eventually assassinated in prison in 1975 along with other leaders (Beh
rooz 1999:54). Kiarostamis first fifty advertising films featured no women,
a fact that surprised him when it was brought to his attention. The lack of
women in principal roles continued until Ten (Dah, 2001), which starred a
female taxi driver.46 His 150 brief advertising films influenced his later style.
As he noted, You had to tell the introduction, the body, the message, and
the theme and convince the viewers quickly, immediately, and concisely
(Baharlu 2000a/1379:17). He learned temporal precision and economy, hall
marks of his style.
Institutional conditions also had an impact on his career and cinema. He
made most of his films with commercial advertising agencies and govern
mental agencies. At the ad agencies he made films for clients such as the Melli
Shoe Company or Arj, a household utility company. Agencies told him they
398
were good films, but since they did not sell products, they were bad films
for them (Kiarostami quoted in Omid 1995/1374:677). In the late 1960s, the
cidcya hired him to make the centers and his own first nonadvertising film,
Bread and Alley (Nan va Kucheh, 1970), and all his subsequent short-subject
and feature movies until 1994. For a time he headed the cidcyas film sec
tion. Most of his films at the center involved children as primary diegetic sub
jects, but the works were not necessarily aimed at children. I dont consider
myself in any way as a director who makes films for children, Kiarostami
said. Ive only shot one film for children; all the rest are about children
(quoted in Elena 2005:33).
Some of Kiarostamis stylistic features emerged with maturity (discussed
in another chapter), but several, such as realism, sly humor, and a focus on
lone male leads who are on a quest of some sort, revealed themselves from the
start. In his Traveler (Mosafer, 1974), for example, he focuses on a small-town
child fascinated with soccer, who, to reach Tehran to see an important match,
resorts to all sorts of shenanigans and devious means to collect the money he
needs for his long sleepless trip. In one of these schemes he takes pictures of
children and adults without any film in his camera, though he does charge a
fee. Once he finally gets to the stadium, he is too early; tired, he takes a nap
nearby, and sleeps deeply. When he wakes from a guilt-ridden nightmare, he
realizes that he has missed the match; the stadium is empty.
Although morally correct, the films ethical lessonthat crime does not
payis not heavy-handed, and this lack of didacticism forms a constitutive
element of Kiarostamis style. Rather, the childs deceptiveness, resourceful
ness, and dashed hopes are all rendered with terse economy, humanist under
standing, and incisive humor. The boys empty-camera photo scam implies
the filmmaker in the act of swindling, like the charactert his too occurs in
many of Kiarostamis films. His use of nonprofessional actors and his ability
to obtain natural acting from them became another hallmark. A final stylistic
feature was his recording of synchronized sound during filming, instead of
filming mos and postdubbing the dialogue. This enhanced the films realism.
In his last feature before the revolution, Report (Gozaresh, 1977), Kiar
ostami focused on one week in the life of a minor civil servant (Kurosh Af
sharpanah), his wife (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and their two-year-old baby in a
rented apartment. The civil servant feels alienated not only from his work but
also from his family and his roots (reflecting Kiarostamis own family and
professional situation at the time). Both his problems at work and the con
flicts with his wife at home escalate into a terrific public row, beatings, and
attempted suicide (the latter revisited in Taste of Cherry). Apartment living in
399
itself was at the time an alien but an increasing form of dwelling in Tehrans
modern sectors. The films honesty and violent realism in depicting this new
lifestyle and the range of acting displayed by the two principal performers, not
to mention their extraordinary child, was greeted as a breakthrough by film
lovers and general audiences. Of how he obtained such realistic acting from
an infant, Kiarostami said in an interview in Cinema 6 that during the twenty
days of filming, they tried to convince him that he had two sets of parents, his
real ones, and his acting, daytime ones, who treated him as real parents are
supposed to treat their children, satisfying all his needs for food, bathroom
breaks, naps, love, and hugs. Kiarostami also defended his practice of synch-
sound filming for the enhanced realism that it offered the actors, even though
the sound quality did not turn out as clean as in postdubbed films (quoted in
Omid 1995/1374:74041). As the first Kiarostami film to be commercially ex
hibited, The Report was screened in Cine Monde Cinema in Tehran for eight
weeks to good box-office sales.
Avant-garde filmmakers, like socially conscious directors, suffered from
heavy censorship in content and form. Faramarz Otan, an Iranian Bahai who
had studied filmmaking in Sweden, made several films for nirt that were
mutilated. His The End of One Day (Paiane Yek Ruz, 1973), a formally inter
esting, subjective, self-reflexive narrative about a woman and a filmmaker
whose interactions during filming form part of the narrative, was heavily cen
sored. It was reduced from fifty-four to twenty-four minutes. It begins with
the cameraman and soundman saying: Lets go to town to film the first per
son we see, which allows them to record shocking scenes of poverty among
hovel dwellers in Tehran streets, where loose newspapers carry pictures of
President Nixons visit to Tehran accompanied by Prime Minister Hoveyda. As
Otan told me, the censors seized on poverty and nudity, including the wom
ans shower scenes, all of which were cut (Naficy 1982b). The censors also
changed the films title from The End of One Day to Lens (Lenz). nirt aired
this version four times. Otans other film, Parallelogram (Chaharzeli, 1973),
a surrealistic film about four characters in an old empty mansion in Tehran
(Moshir al-Dowlehs house), where the borders between reality and imagina
tion and past and present are blurred, was also heavily censored. Among its
risqu narratives was one of incest between a daughter and her father, where
the daughter rubs her breasts before a mirror while thinking of her father,
whose image is conjured up in the mirror. Among violent scenes, there is that
of a butcher slaughtering a live chicken, whose bloody, headless body flutters
about furiously in the throes of death. Doors open and close, a revolver ma
terializes, and in the end, the daughter apparently commits suicide with this
400
weapon. The films original sixty-eight minutes were cut down to forty, both
for the movies risqu adult theme and graphic violence. The closed forms for
mal attributes abound in both of Otans films.
Collaboration of Writers and Filmmakers

As demonstrated throughout this volume and particularly in this chapter, the
collaboration of modernist oppositional writers and dissident filmmakers en
hanced the quality of resulting new-wave movies. However, this collaboration
was not always amicable or straightforward. Writers and directors sometimes
clashed over credits, at other times over the process of adaptation.47 Most of
the writer-director disagreements brewed or were settled privately. However,
one that flared into a public controversy was Kimiais adaptation of Dowlataba
dis novel Osanehye Baba Sobhan (The Story of Baba Sobhan) for his film The
Earth (Khak, 1973). When the film was released, the novelist took the unusual
step of publishing an angry booklet, Baba Sobhan Buried in the Earth: An Ad
dendum to the Film The Earth (Baba Sobhan dar Khak: Zamimehye Filme
Khak), in which he detailed his many objections to the film.48 He protested to
the process of adaptation, which was undertaken without his assistance, and
to the many fundamental changes that Kimiai had made to the characters and
the story line. These latter included turning the wife of the landlord into a for
eign Western woman and changing the primary relationship of the characters
from one based on feudal relations to one based on colonialism (Dowlatabadi
1990/1369:287318).
The relationship among novelists, screenplay writers, and directors is a
fraught one in all cinemas of the world, but it was more so in Iran, whose
film industry was improvisational, autocratic, and contingent, where profes
sional union bylaws, national laws, and international laws protecting author
ship and adaptations were neither fully developed nor enforced. Nonethe
less, modernist fiction writers seemed magnetically attracted to cinema for
several reasons. One was the financial reward of writing for films. Because
most writers could not make a living from their own art (Hillmann 1982:
2324), they found it necessary to find employment in the public school sys
tem, the government bureaucracy, or the private sector. They wrote during
their spare time and moonlighted as screenplay writers, particularly for com
mercial movies. Many writers and traditional poets such as Ali Kasmai, Ho
sain Qoli Mostaan, Mohammad Maimandinezhad, and Mehdi Sohaili, as well
as modernist poets such as Esmail Nuriala and Ahmad Shamlu, worked in
401
the commercial cinema sector in the 1950s and 1960s. The modernist poet
Mehdi Akhavan Saless worked at the gfw, supervising the dubbing of docu
mentaries. Working on screenplays was financially rewarding for the writ
ers, particularly in the 1970s. For example, as Farmanara told me, Golshiri
received $3,500 and $14,000, respectively, for writing the screenplays of his
movies Prince Ehtejab and Tall Shadows of the Wind, which made for large
amounts at the time (Naficy 1985f). The adaptation of their works for the
screen conferred prestige and recognition on the writers, which in turn bene
fited the sale of their works. Golshiri admitted that the film adaptation of his
Prince Ehtejab was wholly responsible for whatever fame he enjoyed beyond
the small readership of modernist Persian literature (Golshiri 1976:250). The
success of the film, and perhaps the subsequent arrest of Golshiri on political
charges, helped enhance the readership and sales of his book. According to
Farmanara, the books first run had a circulation of two thousand, only eight
hundred copies of which had been sold by the time the movie came out. When
the film was in distribution, the book was reprinted five times.
Perhaps uneven censorship frightened some writers away from publica
tion, and the deep respect that the new-wave films garnered attracted them
to screenplay writing in the 1970s. Moreover, the reach of the movies, with
nearly three hundred thousand movie-house seats in 197374 (see chapter
3), far surpassed the average print run of one thousand to three thousand for
books. Indeed, the possibility and desirability of reaching a wider audience
was the reason that Golestan, after publishing several translations and collec
tions of short stories, turned to making feature films (Hillmann 1982).
Both writers and filmmakers benefited from collaboration, as movies affected the art of the writers as well. In cases where a movie was turned into a
literary work, such as Golestans The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni Valley,
the cinematic influences were clearly detectable (Sprachman 1982). The in
fluence is sometimes less obvious, but it has been suggested that the stories
of Mostaan, who wrote extensively for commercial movies, were greatly influ
enced by filmic techniques. More research is necessary to establish the fact of
influence and the forms it took. Extensive film viewing has also been credited
with having a major impact on writers stories and styles. Kimiai claims that
Iranian stories written after the spread of cinema differed vastly from those
written prior to its inception. In his opinion, the differences occur in plot de
velopment, rhythm, and mode of expression (quoted in Naficy 1985c:246).
Barahenis contention that Charlie Chaplins movies influenced Saedis one-
act pantomimes and possibly his physical carriage is also worth examining
(Baraheni 1994/1373:291305). The point is that contemporary literature and
402
cinema mutually enriched each other. Mehrjui paid the ultimate homage to
a writer when, speaking of Mehdi Akhavan Saless, he stated that one of my
dreams is to one day make a film that matches the beauty, the depth, and the
strength of Akhavans Akhare Shahnameh [both a celebrated poem and the
title of his anthology of poems] (quoted in Akrami 1996/1375:58).
In the stifling political atmosphere of the 1970s, the act of collabora
tion itself had psychological, political, and professional value for both writ
ers and filmmakers, since it drew them closer as an oppositional and pro
fessional community. Modernist writers and new-wave filmmakers knew
and respected one another and shared views. They all belonged to the disen
chanted leftist intelligentsia. Filmmakers collaborated with modernist writers
in forming the Writers Association of Iran (Kanune Nevisandehgane Iran)
in 1967. The forty-nine founders counted among them several filmmakers-
cum-w riters: Baizai, Nader Ebrahimi, Farideh Farjam, Heshmat Jazani, and
Nuriala. Golshiri and Saedi, whose works formed the backbone of the new-
wave cinema, were also very active members. As Mohammad Ali Sepanloo
notes, membership varied over the years as the politics of the association and
its members underwent transformations and as the association disbanded
and restarted several times. Nevertheless, this was the first civil-society for
mation that defined and fought for the professional rights and free expression
of all writers, which included those who wrote for publication, oral presenta
tion, theater, cinema, radio, and television (Sepanloo 2002:44). The associa
tion spearheaded the writing of some of the famed open letters, signed by
scores of intellectuals and addressed to government officials, that became im
portant stimuli for political resistance both during the Pahlavi regime and
during the period of the Islamic Republic.
Despite the affinities noted, a key difference exists between poetry and
cinema that seems to have eluded those most invested in the two arts link
age. Since the 1950s, classical poetry and modern poetry, also known as new
poetry (shre no) have been opposites. Modern poetry no longer followed the
rigid formal rules and generic division of the classical poetry. . . . The appar
ent unevenness of poetic lines on the page and the irregularity of the rhyme
and meter that make the new poetry visibly and audibly different from the
classical models render it conceptually opposed to them (Karimi-Hakkak
1995:3). The change from stilted classic structure to free-verse expression en
abled the poets to better express modern subjectivity and authorial person
ality. In the realm of cinema in the same period, a gradual retreat from the
premodern artisanal mode of production was occurring, which meant that
formerly chaotic and idiosyncratic texts were replaced by a modern hybrid
403
ized mode with rule-bound production and textuality. Modernity in the mode
of expression necessitates modernity in the mode of production. But moder
nity for each form followed an opposite trajectory, from order to improvisatory
freedom or the reverse.
Gathering Storm: The Emergence of a Culture of Resistance

New-wave movies depictions of fear, anxiety, and rebellion, and the mere
fact of their creation, constituted acts of resistance both against the dominant
commercial filmfarsi cinema and against the authoritarian political system.
Undoubtedly, this cinema and its influence on the intelligentsia and the stu
dent population was one of the sparks that ignited the revolution. This influ
ence did not occur in a vacuum. Rather, it was part of the emerging forma
tions, dispositions, contingencies, discourses, and microphysics of power and
protest that amplified each other rhizomatically. There was, for example, the
formation of the pfc and of the Writers Association of Iran, which signaled
a gathering political storm and facilitated both the making of new-wave films
and their favorable reception. Ironically, some oppositional formations were
state institutions ostensibly charged with propagating the official culture of
spectacle, even while they contributed to the Shahs fall.
The Center for the Intellectual Development of

Children and Young Adults (CIDCYA)
The work of the cidcya in film production and publishing contributed to the
formation of the culture and literature of resistance. If the reason behind cre
ating the cidcyas film division, as some critics claimed, was to keep dissident
intellectuals busy and to create a display window for festival products
(Mehrabi 1984/1375:352), the effort succeeded, though not in the way the au
thorities may have wanted it, for the resulting high-quality films proved coun
terhegemonic on two important grounds. They were not commercially made,
and they did not follow the commercial cinemas entertainment formulas and
genres. Free from capital and the box office, the films addressed intellectual
and pedagogical concerns that filmmakers and the cidcya considered impor
tant. This involved extensive work on the screenplays. Kyumars Purahmad
relates that as a novice filmmaker he had to rewrite his first screenplay for the
center thirteen times before it met with the approval of its head of production,
Ebrahim Foruzesh (Purahmad 2001/1380:274). This was a far cry from the
404
improvised screenplays of filmfarsi. Also, in the age of Pahlavi positivist spec

tacles, the center encouraged critical thinking, not loyalty. The films protag
onists were generally determined children who never gave up, who through
logic, guile, or sheer obstinacy bore ahead toward their goalscharacters and
characteristics that migrated into the feature films that some of the center
directors made. The films tone tended to be somber and philosophical. One
critic called them black and pessimistic (Mohammadi 1994/1373:57), while
another characterized their humor as darkly ironic and sarcastic (Talebi
nezhad 1994/1373:63). Among the filmmakers supported by the cidcya were
key future cinastes including Baizai, Kiarostami, Kimiai, Naderi, Purah
mad, and Arsalane Sasani. The cidcya also supported a productive group of
film animators, among them Farshid Mesghali, Morteza Momayyez, Nafiseh
Riahi, Nurreddin Zarrinkelk, Aliakbar Sadeqi, and Parviz Naderi, who put
Iranian animated films on the world map (Mehrabi 1984/1363:35276; Omid
1995/1374:102733).
The cidcyas film division also created a childrens film archive for which
it purchased films from around the world. At Plaza Cinema in Tehran it
screened Iranian and foreign childrens movies on a regular basis at a nomi
nal fee (two tomans a ticket). Soon, the center began to teach amateur, Super
8 filmmaking to children by establishing small workshops in its network of li
braries in major cities, which attracted many children and young adults to the
art. This and the efforts of the Free Cinema Society went a long way to create
a nationally recognized amateur cinema. Finally, the cidcyas annual Inter
national Childrens Film Festival grew into a respectable international venue
for cultural and cinematic exchanges.
The cidcyas books division published a plethora of beautifully designed,
colorful, and illustrated original works and translations, some of which con
tained symbolically coded stories that adults and children read as subversive,
making them part of the emerging resistance literature. Samad Behrangis
story The Little Black Fish (Mahiye Siahe Kuchulu, 1968), which Mesghali ele
gantly illustrated, achieved a mythic impact. In it, a little fish in a school of
fish in a lagoon, against the advice of her elders and risking her life, swims
away from familiar surroundings in hopes of reaching the freedom of the
oceans and the unknown world beyond. This simple quest narrative became
an allegory for the young student rebels gathering clandestinely to form un
derground guerrilla groups, both inside and outside the country, against the
Shahs regime and who willingly put aside their personal safety to sacrifice
themselves for the common good and for the liberation of their country.
Empress Farah, the cidcyas chief benefactor, stated in her diary that the
405
centers editorial board was reluctant at first to publish The Little Black Fish
because of its political message, but it finally green-lighted its publication
because it did not want to give the opposition any further ammunition. Yet
when this back story was leaked, the public endowed the book with all the
virtues of the resistance (Pahlavi 2004:147). She is only partly correct, in
that being censored or banned often bestowed on sometimes inferior works
a higher artistic status than they deserved. However, this occurred because
the regime had stifled most of the meaningful and legal means of artistic
and political protest. When Behrangi, a leftist, pro-Soviet schoolteacher work
ing in the northeast of the country drowned in the Aras River, as his friend
Saedi claims, rumors fanned by Jalal Ale Ahmad had it that Savak foul play
had done him in (quoted in Mojabi 1999/1378:18889). For most people the
rumors of murder achieved mythic truth, because the authors watery death
for the cause of political liberation resonated with his story of the little black
fishs self-sacrifice. Fiction corroborated reality; Behrangi became the little
black fish. The martyrology of dissident intellectuals and artists sacrificed by
a ruthless monolithic regime would during the next decade accumulate more
members, such as the leftist-t urned-Islamist writer Ale Ahmad, the Muslim
sociologist Ali Shariati, the Marxist poet Khosrow Golsorkhi, the Marxist civil
servantfilmmaker Keramatollah Daneshian, and the Marxist theater director
Said Soltanpur, as well as many leaders of the guerrilla movements.
Behrangis metaphor of the little black fish was received so politically that
no movie could be made of it under the Shah. Yet shortly after the estab
lishment of the Islamic Republic, Afkham Makui made The Little Black Fish
(1980), an eighteen-minute animated film based on Behrangis tale, for the
national television network, now renamed Voice and Vision of the Islamic
Republic (vvir).49 At least one of Behrangis stories was filmed during the
Pahlavi period. Hasan Tehrani wrote and directed the live action film The Tale
of the Peach Tree (Qessehye Derakhte Holu, 1971) for the cidcya, which was
based on One Peach, a Thousand Peaches.
Most of the cidcyas diverse movies were designed to offer their pedagogi
cal lessons to their main subjectschildren and young adultsin the form
of entertaining and imaginative tales. However, even if they were not coded
as political, the stories that encouraged independent thinking, bravery, ini
tiative, truthfulness, the fighting of oppressive bullies, and cooperation for
the common good could be interpreted as political, because these qualities
went against those of subservience and loyalty to authority that the regime de
manded from its citizens. Perhaps some of the most counterhegemonic and
anti-imperialistic films of this period were produced by the animation work
406
shops and animators housed within, or commissioned by, the mca and the
cidcya. The tale of this dynamic animated cinema waits to be fully written.50
Television Confessions, Recantations, and Show Trials

Co-optation and censorship compromised and hamstrung political parties,
trade unions, and the mass media, making dissent impossible. The few chan
nels of dissenting expression were the illegal guerrilla movements (intellec
tuals talked ominously of the octopus of censorship). An armed uprising
occurred in February 1971, just before the twenty-five hundredth anniver
sary celebrations, when a small band of heavily armed Marxist guerrillas,
later known as the Peoples Fadaian Organization of Iran (pfoi, Sazmane
Fadaiane Khalqe Iran), attacked a gendarmerie post in the village of Siahkal
near the Caspian Sea. In March, after weeks of hunting, thirteen men were
captured, charged with the attack, and executed, subsequently becoming leg
ends because they had dared to take action against the Great Octopus and had
shown its vulnerability.
Even though the armed action resulted in material failure, it offered a
sense of psychological victory and motivated several other Muslim and Marx
ist revolutionary groups, as well as democratic groups of varying ideologies
and tactics, to break through the thick fog of fear, despondency, and impo
tence that had fallen over the land. Perhaps surprised by the depth and au
dacity of the opposition, the government took a harsh view of it, and between
1971 and 1977 it annihilated at least 368 opposition figures. Of these, 197
were killed in fighting, 93 were executed, 45 were tortured to death, 15 dis
appeared, 9 committed suicide, and 9 were murdered in prison. The major
ity belonged to three groups: the Marxist pfoi, the Muslim Mujahedin, and
the Peoples Mujahedin Organization of Iran (pmoi, Sazmane Mojahedine
Khalqe Iran), a Marxist-Islamist offshoot of the Muslim Mujahedin (Abraha
mian 1999:1023). New prisons, or new wings of existing ones, were built to
deal with the emerging rebellion. By the mid-1970s, the number of political
prisoners in the country had reached a new peak of at least seventy-five hun
dred (108).
The government staged televised confessions, recantations, and trials for
the captured dissidents to discredit them and to put the fear back into the pop
ulace, particularly into the young, educated men and women attracted to the
guerrilla movement. The numbers of college students had grown exponen
tially, providing a rich ground for antigovernment movements.51 Some fifty
thousand to sixty-six thousand Iranians were studying in the United States
407
in the 1970s, more than from any other country (Matin-Asgari 2002:225;
Green 1982:30). Many of these returned to teach in Iranian universities in the
1970s, widening intellectual horizons and raising educational standards.52
This large, newly educated class attracted to modernity, personal freedom,
democracy, individuality, and to the alluring guerrillas, had to be persuaded
of the legitimacy of the regime and dissuaded from joining its opponents.
This resulted in the intersection of film, media, and politics in the service
both of dissent and its suppression, which took paths that became more and
more curious.
In October 1973, Savak announced that a group of twelve anarchists with
Marxist and Tudeh tendencies had been arrested on charges of plotting to as
sassinate the Shah and to kidnap Empress Farah and the crown prince, Reza,
at the cidcyas International Childrens Film Festival.53 Among these were
several cameramen and a filmmaker, who had studied at nirts Cinema and
Television College: Daneshian, Abbasali Samakar, Taifur Patai, and Moham
mad Reza Allamehzadeh.54 The government tried the group in a televised
military tribunal, an event that mesmerized the population but backfired, as
it served to consolidate the image of dissident intellectuals and guerrillas as
fearless leaders and heroic martyrs. A bit of media background is germane.
In the 1970s, the government created a curious type of television program,
aired by nirt, that characterized many totalitarian states. Reminiscent of Sta
lins show trials of 193739, arrested and tortured dissidents were forced to
confess to, and recant, their political crimes before television cameras. Pop
ularly called Savak Shows, these programs typically involved an interview:
the dissident was interrogated and goaded into recounting his or her crimes
by an anonymous man, dressed in civilian clothes, who was euphemistically
called a security official (maqame amniati). Often this official was none
other than the head of the internal security division of Savak, the feared but
debonair Parviz Sabeti. One of the first people to have his recantation tele
vised was Parviz Nikkhah, a physicist educated in the United Kingdom, a
member of the Confederation of Iranian Students abroad, and a man active
in the Marxist Revolutionary Organization. He had been arrested in 1965 as
a member of a group that had attempted to assassinate the Shah.55 Although
the assassination charge was later dropped, the other charges sufficed to con
demn Nikkhah and his cohorts to ten or more years of imprisonment. Af
ter six years, Nikkhah had a crisis of faith and underwent a conversion, be
coming a staunch believer in the Shahs White Revolution, a belief that he
declared in news conferences and published statements, which the regime
widely disseminated.
408
According to Ervand Abrahamian, the success of Nikkhahs conversion

and recantation caused Savak to torture political prisoners not only to gain
information from them but also to convince them to appear in public recanta
tions. Nikkhah and eight other confederation leaders gave public recantations
in the form of radio, television, and press interviews, in which they admitted
that they had made mistakes and had failed to recognize the progress that
Iran had made under the White Revolution. They warned Iranian students
not to be swayed by leftist and communist propaganda against the regime
(1999:11415). These media recantations became part of the Shahs culture
of spectacle by which the omnipresence of his power was consolidated. Soon,
Nikkhah was released and began working for nirt, where he rose in the ranks
to become the head of the research and news analysis department and reput
edly a liaison for Savak. No longer its mere subject, Nikkhah became the ar
chitect of that culture and power, presiding over the televised confessions and
recantations of others.
The Savak Shows intensified fear of Savak as omnipresent, omniscient,
and omnipotent and discredited the dissidents, because many of them broke
down under torture and recanted. In the military tribunal of 1973, at least two
of the accused, the poet Golsorkhi and the filmmaker Daneshian, openly de
fied the military judge, denied his charges, bravely declared that they were
Marxist-Leninist, and offered impassioned analyses of the countrys sociopo
litical inequalities, oppression, economic injustice, and backwardness. Gol
sorkhis defense proved particularly moving as he was an eloquent speaker
and cleverly tapped into both the Shiite Karbala paradigm of martyrdom and
the Marxist analysis of class strugglet he two engines driving the guerrilla
groups and the revolution to come. He said: I begin my defense with the
words of Imam Hossein, the great martyr of Middle Eastern masses. I, who
am a Marxist-Leninist, first sought social justice in the school of Islam, and
then arrived at socialism. I do not bargain in this court for my soul or for my
life. I am only an insignificant drop in the immense ocean of suffering that
is the struggling people of Iran.56 He tapped into Shiite Islams ideology of
defiance and martyrdom and indirectly into the third world liberation and de
colonization discourses inspired by Marxism and popularized by thinkers like
Fanon, Aim Csaire, Albert Memmi, and Kwame Nkrumah and by revolu
tionary leaders like Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Mao Zedong.
These Shiite and third word ideologies formed part of the discourses of au
thenticity and nativism that Iranian intellectuals such as Ale Ahmad, Shari
ati, Behrangi, and Golsorkhi had mobilized in defense of the masses and
the people, and that others like Ayatollah Khomeini would later mobilize in
409
defense of the Islamic community (ummat) and the worlds barefoot people
(pa berahnehha) and disinherited people (mostazafan). The desire to give
voice and to shape this authentic culture of the people had become the driving
force behind the new-wave film movement, starting with Mehrjuis The Cow
and Kimiais Qaisar. Ironically, the government simultaneously attempted to
co-opt the discourse of authentic culture by spearheading the various official
authenticating cultures and arts festivals.
Not only Golsorkhis uncompromising words and decisive delivery but also
his fearless interaction with the members of the military tribunal were elec
trifying, because for the first time an opposition leader had dared not only to
talk in his own defense on live television but also to simply talk back. At one
point, he declared that he had been tortured to the point of urinating blood,
whereupon an off-screen voice shouted, He is lying. He continued. Soon,
one of the military judges interrupted Golsorkhis analysis of the ills of the
country under the Shah, ordering him, In your last defense, defend yourself
and do not ask me any questions. You are given notice to defend yourself, for
your own benefit only. Golsorkhi shot back: I have nothing to say for my
own benefit. I only speak in defense of my people. If I dont have the freedom
to do so, I would rather sit down. The judge replied: You have the freedom
to defend yourself only. Golsorkhi said: Then, I will sit down, and he sat in
his seat, ending his defense.
Beginning with the dramatic statement that there is an undeclared mar
tial law in our country, Daneshian nevertheless chose a less confrontational
tack, for whenever the judge interrupted him to order him to stick to his own
defense, he said that he would get there soon or that he had only a few more
sentences to read before getting to his own defense. However, his artful eva
sions and sly civility frustrated the military tribunal. He was ordered to stop
telling stories, tales, and spreading propaganda. Only speak in your own de
fense. A shocked Daneshian, staring directly at the judges bench, declared,
If you consider all these to be stories and tales, I will hand in my defense in
writing, and then he, too, took his seat, terminating his defense (figures 72a
and 72b).
Five months after the television trial, in February 1974, the military ap
peals tribunal, headed by Major General Ahmad Behravan, condemned to
death by execution five of the accused who had refused to recant (Patai, Gol
sorkhi, Daneshian, Allamehzadeh, and Samakar); the remaining seven, who
recanted and pleaded for royal mercy, were condemned to imprisonment
ranging from three years to life (Agheli 1997/1376:281).
The original planners of the kidnapping plot at the film festival were the
410
72a, 72b A military show trial of

dissidents and filmmakers that
electrified the nation in 1973. The
poet, Khosrow Golsorkhi (above),
and the filmmaker, Keramatollah
Daneshian, vigorously defend their
Marxist ideologies. They are later
executed. Frame enlargements.
cameraman Samakar and the filmmaker Allamehzadeh. Because of their pro

fessional association with nirt and the cidcya, respectively, they had access
to politically sensitive places and events involving the royal family. As Sama
kar tells it in his biography, the fact that the security people considered nirt
cameramen one of them because of their security clearances tempted them
to spearhead the kidnapping plot (2001:36). Allamehzadeh was to receive an
award for one of his short films from Empress Farah at the festival, while Sa
makar, filming the event for the television network, was to hide a weapon in
his camera. Daneshian and Patai were to play supportive roles. Their plan was
to kidnap the empress and the crown prince and to hold them hostage out
side the country until a number of political prisoners and guerrillas had been
released from Iranian jails (13345). The figure of the underground guerrilla
fighter had assumed such a romantic and heroic dimension as to have become
mythic, capturing the imagination of many youths, or of anyone who har
bored resentments against the government and the ruling elite. Thus, their
release would itself have been considered a heroic act and worth the risk. As
Samakar notes: The guerrillas were at the pinnacle of our thoughts, and they
ruled over our psyche and soul. They were an invisible element endowed with
411
fantastic powersinvigorating and exciting powers (99). Even inside pris

ons, both ordinary and hardened criminals, as well as, sometimes, seasoned
guards, interrogators, and torturers showed extra respect toward political pris
oners and guerrillas. Yet none of the various plots of which the twelve were
accused had been implemented or had gone beyond preliminary discussions.
In essence, they were being tried and punished for thinking and discussing
the plots.
Unlike the previous and later Savak Shows, the airing of this military tribu
nal had the opposite effect of what was intended, a boomerang media effect,
because of the defendants defiance and because the trial itself demonstrated
the lack of due processno independent lawyers, evidence, witnesses, and
protection against self-incrimination. The show proved a government blun
der, causing angry demonstrations in high schools and universities, which
resulted in the closure of Tehran University after the death of several students
and policemen (Matin-Asgari 2002:142). Philosophically and psychologically,
this trial demonstrated the omnipresence of the security forces but it failed to
establish their omnipotence. Thus it drove a wedge into the monolithic and
hegemonic panoptic structure that Savak had carefully nurtured, and this
wedge would widen into deep cracks to bring the edifice down.
The two most outspoken and defiant defendants, Golsorkhi and Daneshian,
were soon executed publicly in Tehrans Chitgar Square, while the Shah com
muted the death sentences of Allamehzadeh, Samakar, and Patai to life in
prison. With their execution, Golsorkhi and Daneshian achieved that glorious
and mythic position of guerrilla martyrdombeatitude. The mere mention
of their names even today engenders passionate respect and reverence, and
bad and mutilated copies of the tapes of the tv trial are sold in Iranian grocery
stores, video stores, and bookshops in the United States and on the Internet.
Golsorkhis last words, uttered in his will years before the revolution, are pre
scient, even prophetic: Rest assured that the deprived masses of Iranians will
take revenge for the spilled blood of their children. Trust that from each drop
of our blood will arise a new martyr [ fadai] to pierce the enemys heart. Have
faith that the illegal government of Iran, which the black 28th of Mordad [the
coup of 1953] imposed on Iranians by the United States, is in the throes of
death and sooner or later a violent revolution by the oppressed masses will
bring it down (quoted in Samakar 2001:260).
Allamehzadeh, along with his cohorts, spent several years of his life sen
tence in various prisons, and, as he told me, they were released only during
the revolution (Naficy 1998). However, the plight of these dissident filmmak
ers was not over. For after a period of political activity under an increasingly
412
intolerant Islamic Republic, working for the pmois culture and art commit
tee, both Samakar and Allamehzadeh found it necessary to escape the coun
try for Europe, where they received political asylum. The full, uncensored
tape of the televised tribunal was screened by vvir soon after the success of
the revolution in March 1979, casting a new spell on a younger generation of
would-be revolutionaries who had only heard about the mythmaking tribunal.
Years later, a leftist migr filmmaker in Los Angeles with an mfa from
ucla film school, Rafigh Pooya, made a documentary feature about the events
leading up to the revolution of 197879, In Defense of People (Dar Defa az Mar
dom, 1981), in which the footage of the televised military tribunal and the Gol
sorkhi and Daneshian defenses served as narrative backbones. From time to
time, the film cuts away from the trial visually, while keeping its soundtrack
as voice-over for additional documentary and evidentiary footage, which serve
to illustrate the truth of the defendants statements. Pooyas footage acted as
the trial lawyers that the defendants did not have. Years later, Allamehzadeh
and Pooya would collaborate in exile on an antiIslamic Republic feature film,
The Guests of Hotel Astoria (1989).
Saedi, too, was forced into one of these Savak Shows in the mid-1970s, by
interrogators who tortured him to gain a public television recantation, not a
private confession.57 This is how he relates the darkly comical scene: [After
some torture] I would go on a fast in protest and demand that I must have a
trial. They would say, no, you must have an interview, . . . and they took me
by force to the television station. Before the show, the Savak interviewer gave
the writer both the questions he was going to ask him and the answers that he
was expected to give on the air. The director of the show in the control room
was Nikkhah. These details are important because they help to explain why
Nikkhah was one of the two high-level nirt officials who would be executed
in the early days of the revolution.58 According to Saedi, he did not answer the
questions as the interrogator had scripted them, so Nikkhah abruptly ended
the show and Savak tortured Saedi further. Dissatisfied with the aborted Sa
vak Show, the government subsequently published in the daily Kayhan (19
June 1975) an apparently concocted confession by Saedi with his picture to
discredit him (quoted in Mojabi 1999/1378:19495).
The controversial writer and literary critic Baraheni, too, was arrested in
1973, partly for an article titled The Culture of the Oppressor and the Culture
of the Oppressed in the daily Ettelaat, in which he had argued that Iranians
suffered from double alienation due to a government cultural policy that
alienated them from their true histories and accomplishments and from those
of the West (Baraheni 1984/1373:31118). He was tortured in prison, where Sa
413
beti urged a television recantation interview on him that would buy him his
freedom. Baraheni refused. He was offered as interviewers either Sabeti, Nik
khah, Farhang Farrahi, or Iraj Gorgin (Baraheni 1977:196). After 102 days
of imprisonment, the international campaign launched by pen and by the
Committee for the Artistic and Intellectual Freedom of Iran (caifi) in New
York finally succeeded in obtaining his freedom. On his release, nirt aired
a heavily edited version of a statement from Baraheni that he had recorded
for later broadcast, which gave the impression that he had broken down and
confessed as a condition of his release. According to Mohammad Falsafi,
the caifis acting secretary, the text of the broadcast that the government had
printed in the two major dailies, Kayhan and Ettelaat, was so mutilated, gar
bled, and varied that they could only with difficulty be attributed to the same
person.59 Subsequently, Baraheni left for exile in the United States and Can
ada, where he worked to expose the Shahs repressive system. 60
Audiocassette: The Little Medium That Could

Since the 1950s audiotapes were used to record and to listen to religious ser
mons in Islamic countries, such as in Afghanistan (Roy 1990:187), and the
tapes of Ayatollah Khomeinis famous speech of 15 Khordad 1342 (5 June
1963), his sermons when he was under house arrest in 1964 in Qom, and his
sermons from exile in Iraq from 1965 onward were all recorded and distrib
uted in Iran (Sreberny-Mohammadi and Mohammadi 1994:11920). How
ever, it was the revolution of 197879 that catapulted the small medium of
audiocassette into the pantheon of the big media in terms of its sociopoliti
cal impact as an oppositional means of religious and political communica
tion within and beyond national borders (Naficy 1995a). The French philoso
pher Michel Foucault, who was an early supporter of the Islamic Revolution
and who on his second trip to Iran in November 1978 observed the operation
of one grassroots cell of information, presciently declared, If the Shah is
about to fall, it will be due largely to the cassette tape. It is the tool par excel
lence of counterinformation (quoted in Afary and Anderson 2005:219).
The political impact of the audiocassette began in the decade leading to
the revolution, during which tapes of clandestine anti-Shah radio broadcasts
beamed from abroad, such as those by the pmoi, provided a link between
guerrilla organizations and their members and sympathizers. However, it
was the use of audiocassettes in the 1970s by two charismatic leaders that
demonstrated their power.
This medium differed in significant ways from the big media of broad
414
casting, which in Iran, as in much of the developing and Islamic worlds, were
state monopolies pressed into serving national development and moderniza
tion projects and repressive governments. The big media followed a vertical
architecture: production, distribution, exhibition, and control were central
ized. Big media required highly trained technical and professional staff and
an industrial production mode. Because of their hegemonic and homogeniz
ing roles, large segments of the population distrusted these media, which is
one of the reasons why the televised trials of dissidents backfired.
The audiocassette, on the other hand, was architecturally both vertical
and horizontal in that it was potentially a two-way, grass-roots medium, re
usable, durable, portable, and inexpensive. The production and distribution
of cassettes was not centralized. Their reception was flexible and cheap. They
could hold studio-recorded productions or impromptu interviews, speeches,
sermons, Quranic recitations, music and songs, and documentary materials.
Cassettes could be listened to individually or collectively and at different times
and in diverse locations. Women and ethnoreligious minorities could enter
the public sphere through listening to, retaping, and exchanging cassettes:
the receivers of cassettes could become transmitters. Audiocassettes were not
prone to centralized censorship and control, and they could be employed as an
effective diversifying, participatory medium in support of alternative causes,
minority aspirations, or revolutionary ideologies.
Cassettes became forces for change because the central hegemonic control
of mass media by a repressive government created a need for them; popular
social, religious, and educational institutions distributed them; and charis
matic leaders provided content. Traditional economic and professional for
mations provided financial assistance, networking, and linkage with expa
triate groups, and an orally oriented population enabled the cassettes social
functioning. The ready availability, accessibility, and use of national and in
ternational telephones, low-cost publishing and duplicating, clandestine ra
dio stations broadcasting from abroad, widely distributed open letters and
samizdats by leading intellectuals, and exile periodicals and radio programs
abroad also proved instrumental in the further relay and propagation of cas
settes messages to and from the nation-state.
Two points of caution, however. First, each of these enabling conditions re
mained insufficient by itself to transform the little medium of audiocassette
into one with a mighty social impact. Linkage, cross-fertilization, and inter
textuality among sociopolitical, economic, cultural, technological, and artistic
forces were essential. Second, as I have illustrated elsewhere (Naficy 1995a),
the use of such a potentially democratic, grass-roots peoples medium by op
415
positional forces against the Shah did not necessarily guarantee a progressive,
democratic, or humane outcome in the following regime.
The enabling institutions and formations for the wide oppositional uses
of cassettes included a network of between sixty thousand and two hundred
thousand mullahs with organic ties to the people and to some ninety thou
sand mosques throughout the country (Tehranian 1980:1718). The mosques
and bazaars were important sites of information and nodes of communi
cation, whose messages their allied institutions amplified and recirculated
(Rawan 2001). These included numerous seminaries (howzehye elmiyeh); re
ligious councils (heiate mazhabi), often sponsored by bazaar merchants and
guilds; and shrines (emamzadeh) to which the heiats organized pilgrimages.
Additionally, there were taziyeh amphitheaters (tekkiyeh), religious and sec
ular salons (dowreh), religious community centers (hosainiyeh), and secular
colleges and universities. Whether located in cities or in villages, in these
locations and gatherings religious leaders, scholars, and preachers lectured,
gave sermons, led prayers, recited verses from the Quran, and recounted tales
of lamentation for the martyrdom of Shiite imams (rowzeh). Mourning cere
monies for the martyrs of the anti-Shah movement, repeated at seven-day,
forty-day, and annual intervals, and annual religious processions and taziyeh
passion plays also took place at appropriate sites. The established networks of
bazaars and crafts guilds throughout the country and the emerging networks
of anti-Shah leftist, Islamist, and guerrilla organizations provided financial
backing, human power, and ideological support that further interlinked and
imbricated these disparate institutions and practices. All of these constituted
venues in which more cassettes could be taped and distributed. Annabelle
Sreberny-Mohammadi and Ali Mohammadi also cite the roughly 130,000 pil
grims allowed after an accord between Iran and Iraq in 1976 to visit the Shi
ite holy sites in Iraq, such as Karbala and in particular Najaf, where Ayatollah
Khomeini was residing, as another important group feeding the above reli
gious institutions and networks with cassettes (1994:120).
During the 1970s, many of the speeches of the French-educated religious
scholar Shariati, who combined a revisionist Islamist rereading of Shiite ide
ology with Fanonist liberation ideology and various European philosophies
such as Marxism and phenomenology, were recorded at Mashhad Univer
sity and at the famous Hosainiyeh Ershad in Tehran. His most influential
concept, return to the self (bazgasht beh khishtan), which ruled the 1970s,
complemented Ale Ahmads discourse from the 1960s of Westonitis. While
Fanons return to the roots, a key phase in forming an independent post
colonial national culture, was basically secular, emphasizing racial, colo
416
nial, and historical elements as bedrocks of the national culture (Fanon 1963),
Shariatis and Ale Ahmads return to the self emphasized religious roots.
Like the intellectuals of the earlier Qajar and the first Pahlavi periods, they
wanted modernity; yet they wanted it not in its fusion with the West, but in its
refusion with the East. Unlike Shariati, who was basically a religious thinker,
Ale Ahmad had been a secular leftist who had once belonged to the Tudeh
Party, had broken with it in the 1950s to create with Khalil Maleki the inde
pendent leftist party Third Force (Niruye Sevvom), and toward the end of his
life in the mid-1960s manifested pro-Islamic religious tendencies. Although
their outlooks diverged, both hoped that refusion would result not in self-
othering but in self-empowerment. In advocating this return, even Shariati
did not absolve Islam from the need to reform. His critique targeted the West
and Weststruck Iranians, but also traditional Islamic thought. He advocated
Islamic reformation, which he called Islamic Protestantism, to activate new
social movements. This caused Shiite clerics and their supporters to charge
that he was an infidel, a materialist, a Sunni, and a Marxist (Boroujerdi
1996:115). Finally, Shariati reinterpreted the Shiite martyrdom paradigm to
justify uprisings against unjust contemporary rulers.
Shariati was a charismatic performer and an eloquent speaker, and his
lectures were electrifying. They were piped into the streets outside the ho
sainiyeh, causing crowds of listeners and traffic jams on Friday afternoons.
His students and supporters taped his speeches and published and distrib
uted them nationwide (Rahnema 2000:177). Many were sold and passed on
clandestinely in Iran and abroad through the aforementioned nexus of insti
tutions and network formations (some people spent as much as a month and
half worth of their salaries to purchase the tapes). Shariati did not live to see
the consequences, as he died of a heart attack in London in 1977 in circum
stances that fed rumors of Savak foul play. These proved to be false.
By the mid-1970s, Ayatollah Khomeini, too, had begun sending from his
exile in Iraq increasingly radical antigovernment messages via leaflets and
cassettes. The tapes were transcribed and distributed via similar channels.
When in early 1978 he was forced into a double exile to France, his access to
Western mass media increased manyfold, as did his taped messages, which
seemed more resolute than ever, uncompromisingly calling for the ouster of
the Shah. These were either transmitted via telephone lines to banks of cas
sette recorders in Tehran and other cities or transported by visitors for dupli
cation and distribution. Sreberny-Mohammadi and Mohammadi state that
two tape machines in Khomeinis residence worked constantly, recording and
duplicating his speeches and announcements for transmission by telephone
417
to Iran (1994:12021). The Canadian journalist Carole Jerome relates that

once Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti took her to a small room in his home
in Tehran, which was crammed with electronic equipment, including tape
machines, a patch console, recording gear and telephone, where he asked
her, You remember the phone at Neauphle [Neauphle-le-Chteau, the vil
lage outside Paris where Khomeini resided in exile]? Then he answered his
own question: Well, this is the other end (1987:1089). The anthropologist
Mehdy Naficy notes that in Yazd, Ayatollah Saduqis house was turned into a
cassette manufacturing center: for four or five hours a day, half a dozen phone
lines received Khomeinis taped messages from Paris and duplicated them
on cassettes at high speed for distribution (1993:23132). These cassettes and
their transcripts were passed clandestinely among the population in univer
sities, high schools, bazaars, industrial plants, and among family members.
They were also sold in shops, apparently outselling music tapes in 1977.61 In
his dispatch of November 1978 published in the Italian paper Corriere Della
Sera, Foucault provides an accurate if somewhat poetic description of the
tapes widespread uses: But one can find, outside the doors of most provin
cial mosques, tapes of the most renowned orators at a very low price. One en
counters children walking down the most crowded streets with tape recorders
in their hands. They play these recorded voices from Qom, Mashhad, and Is
fahan so loudly that they drown out the sound of cars; passersby do not need
to stop to be able to hear them. From town to town, the strikes start, die out,
and start again, like flickering fires on the eve of the nights of Muharram
(quoted in Afary and Anderson 2005:21920). The medium of the audiocas
sette proved a highly suitable oppositional weapon. Revolutionary speakers
such as Shariati and Khomeini turned their pronouncements into powerfully
crafted messages by taking advantage of the intimacy of the live lecture situ
ation, the narrative structure of Iranian oral and folk traditions, and the rhe
torical, symbolic, and performative patterns of religious sermons, recitation,
and mourning ritualsso familiar to Iranians, literate or not, and used so
effectively in filmfarsi movie genres. Second, the taped messages suited the
oral orientation of the increasingly globalized electronic news media, which
were eager for sensational sound bites. The political impact of the messages
increased vastly when the release of each cassette or message became the
source of news, quoted by Western news organizations, the Persian-language
programs of Western broadcasting agencies (particularly the bbc), and the
clandestine antigovernment radios operating from outside Iran. Each impor
tant taped pronouncement from Khomeini or quotation based on it would
cause widespread reaction in Iran, which would in turn lead to another mes
418
sage, escalating the effect of the previous one. This complex interconnection
of forces, media, technologies, personalities, and narrative forms turned the
traditional local pulpit (Fathi 1979) into a powerful, interactive, transnational,
long-distance electronic one.
Both the distribution and reception of these cassettes defied the perva
sive censorship system of the Shahs government, turning the exchange of
tapes or the mere listening to them into acts of commitment and opposition.
Immediately after the revolution, a wide array of religious and revolution
ary tapes were distributed by the aforementioned networks and by the newly
formed Islamic agencies such as the Reconstruction Crusade, which claimed
that in 1983 alone it distributed 74,789 audiocassettes nationwide, with a pro
fusion of other audiovisual materials (Naficy 1992b:198). In the immediate
postrevolution era, for a variety of sociopolitical reasonsnot least of which
was the fall of the Pahlavi regimet he enabling mechanisms were disabled,
causing the Islamist audiocassette genie to be put back into the bottle. Yet
with the regimes takeover of the television and radio networks and of cinema,
the vertical, one-way, authoritarian system was reinstated, opening the way
for exile-produced Iranian pop, rock, rap, and hip-hop music from Los Ange
les and elsewhere. Soon, young Iranians would generate their own hybridized
popular music inside Iran within a dynamic and forceful underground music
scene documented illuminatingly in Amir Hamzs and Mark Lazars Sounds
of Silence (2006).
Ten Nights of Poetry

Another significant event that helped nourish both the growing culture, liter
ature, and media of resistance and the impending revolution were the ten con
secutive nights of poetry and talks, starting on 10 October 1977, that the re
vived independent Writers Association of Iran co-organized with the Goethe
Institut at the site of Iran-Germany Cultural Society in Tehran. The event cre
ated a supercharged atmosphere among both security people and intellectu
als. Armed police and security agents with military vehicles surrounded the
site, but according to Saedi between 10,000 and 20,000 people attended the
events each night, without any mishaps. The atmosphere at what was popu
larly dubbed the Ten Nights of Poetry was both celebratory and combative
(quoted in Mojabi 1999/1378:204).
Incredible as it may seem, given the fear of the states disciplinary appara
tuses, over fifty speakers rose to criticize the government for its violations of
the constitutional rights of assembly, representation, and expression and ofa d issid ent c inema
419
fered many examples of draconian censorship and thought control. On the

third night, Shams Ale Ahmad declared that he had a list of one thousand
books that had been banned, which he did not read to save time. However, he
read the names of twenty-six prominent writers and poets whose pens were
banned (mamnu al-qalam), including some of those who spoke at the Ten
Nights of Poetry. Among these writers were several whose works the new-
wave directors had adapted into successful movies, including Golshiri and
Saedi. He also read a list of the titles of novels, poetry books, and nonfic
tion works that had been banned from school libraries, all written by promi
nent writers, some of which were adapted into new-wave films. Finally, he
read a list of words that the the mca Office of Censorship (Edareh Negaresh)
had banned, including the following: night (shab), winter (zemestan), tulip (la
leh), peony (shaqayeq), jungle/forest ( jangal), red rose (gole sorkh), and guerrilla
(cherik) (Moazen 1978:vol. 1:11819). A majority of these words had symbolic
political meanings. On the fifth night, another writer, Baqer Momeni in a
speech on censorship and its pathology, noted more banned words based on
those struck from his own works: police (polis), fence (parchin), and Babri Khan
(Moazen 1978:vol. 2:256).
One new-wave filmmaker and playwright also spoke: Baizai. Titled On
the Situation of Theater and Cinema, his speech critiqued not only official
censorship but also the various unofficial, indirect measures, such as harass
ments, impediments, snubs, rejections, and rivalries, to which filmmakers
were subjected by financiers, producers, exhibitors, local civil and police officials, and labor unions, which amounted to insidious forms of censorship for
theater and movie directors. The consequences were manifold, one of them
being that the unproduced works of playwrights and screenplay writers out
numbered those produced. This problem afflicted Bazai himself more than
any other new-wave filmmaker or playwright: during his four-decade-long ca
reer, which spanned both the Pahlavi period and that of the Islamic Repub
lic, he published the plays and screenplays of more than a dozen unproduced
works. He claimed that the multiple parties involved with filmmaking com
promised the reality on-screen, but that total censorship was impossible, for
that which is not allowed expression will eventually slip out. This slippage
created artworks that were indirect, knotted, and convoluted (ironically, his
own films are prime cases in point). In addition, censorship threatened art
ists with silence, forcing them to pour everything they knew into each work,
fearful that they may not get another chance. Their works thus became un
necessarily complicated and unwieldy. Finally, he stated that widespread cen
sorship had forced audiences to expect all the arts to be political and all artists
420
to act as mouthpieces of various causes and social ailments. This forced one
mediumcinemato perform the work of another that was even more cir
cumscribed by censorship, the press. He concluded by saying that expecting
the movies to perform the task of an editorial was a disservice to cinema, to
the press, and to their clienteles (quoted in Moazen 1978:vol. 1:12025).
The fear of pervasive government censorship had additional consequences.
Filmmakers and television program makers internalized the censorship ap
paratus and became their own worst censors, sometimes without knowing it.
This is one of the conditions of the panopticon. To avoid censorship or entan
glement with Savak, many artists evaded taking risks and became overly cau
tious. Worst of all, they learned not to take responsibility for their own works
or to believe in them sufficiently to fight for them. They could always, and
many did, blame the shortcomings or problems of their works on others, or
they could claim, and many did, that the censors in the mca and nirt were
either too stringent or not sufficiently vigilant.
These consequences of censorship bedeviled and shaped both the commer
cial and new-wave cinemas.
Audiotapes of the Ten Nights of Poetry and books containing transcripts of
speeches and poems were widely distributed, feeding the hungry resistance
networks, which coalesced around the flag of secular and leftist students. The
Ten Nights collectively served as an enabling spark to the gathering revolu
tion. The apparent death of one student at one of the nights events when the
police tried to close it down fed the fire. Only after the widespread Tabriz dem
onstrations (popularly known as the uprising) a few months later would the
anti-Pahlavi Islamist forces come to the fore.
While the pfcs products were highly promising, this programmatic effort
at creating an alternative cinema movement did not produce many films, and
it lasted only for one decade. In fact, despite the groups remarkable output in
terms of high quality, innovation, and controversy, new-wave film represents
only a small portion of the fifty-nine to ninety-two feature films produced
annually in the 1970s, a majority of which were escapist filmfarsi movies.
An uncanny relationship existed between filmfarsi movies, particularly the
tough-guy films, and new-wave films. While filmfarsi movies often looked to
the West, their narrative system, based on oral storytelling and characteriza
tion, was deeply Iranian. On the other hand, the new-wave films often looked
to Iranian and Persian roots, while their narrative system, based on realism,
surrealism, neorealism, avant-gardism, and the classical Hollywood style, was
highly Western.
421
Crisis Grips the Industry

The gathering storm also engulfed the film industry. By the mid-1960s,
Hollywood studios, which had exported their movies to Iran via Beirut,
opened their own offices in Tehran: Twentieth CenturyFox, United Artists,
Paramount, Columbia, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Warner Bros. Faced with
the American juggernaut, independent domestic importers began importing
French, Italian, and Spanish movies. The British Arthur Rank Company con
tinued to be represented by the Rashidian brothers, who had participated in
the cia/m16 coup against Mosaddeq in the 1950s. The importers of Holly
wood majors monopolized the top movie houses in northern Tehran, while
the independents with their European products occupied primarily the cen
tral movie houses. This left the cinemas of the poor South End to Iranian
filmfarsi movies. The flooding of the top markets with foreign action and sex
movies forced domestic commercial producers to join the deluge. Film mar
kets became saturated with foreign movies and their local imitations. Signs
of crisis began to surface.
In 1969, six movie houses in Tehran burned, and two of them perma
nently closed down.62 This reduction in venues temporarily drove up the ex
hibition cost, and a recent increase in the fees of cast and crew raised produc
tion costs. This minor crisis became more pronounced in the early 1970s,
when the annual fiction feature output reached its all-time high of ninety-t wo
movies in 1972 (see table 6). By adding sex and action to compete with for
eign movies, domestic producers brought on government censorship and de
lays in the release of films, which hurt them and their investors. The outlook
was bleak because the domestic film industry could not really compete with
the higher-quality and cheaper foreign movies. As a result, despite achieving
the highest output in 1972, of the forty-six movies exhibited in that years first
six months, only nine earned a profit, seven hoped to break even, while the re
maining thirty faced absolute failure.
The film industry was slow to respond to the situation, and the production
of movies already in the works continued. However, some producers, such as
Ali Abbasi, called for government intervention to slow both the import and
the exhibition of foreign movies so as to prevent the certain annihilation of
the national cinema (Omid 1995/1374:6012). The government did not in
tervene, and the negative effects of the free flow of imports showed them
selves in the steady downward spiral of domestic productions in the following
few years. In 1973 the output fell from ninety-t wo to eighty-t hree, and it took
a precipitous fall a year later, when it hit sixty features, a figure that dimin
422
ished by at least ten films every year thereafter. Producers were also driven
into bankruptcy at an alarming rate, so that by 1974, of the 120 established
feature-film producers, only twenty remained financially solvent and active
(Daryoush 1974:211).
The political economy of this deteriorating situation involved several ele
ments. Import laws made it more lucrative to import movies than to produce
them domestically. As a result, many producers went into film importation.
A crisis of creativity, compounded by heavy and arbitrary censorship, com
promised the new-wave films, and a drive by commercial studios toward the
lowest common denominator led to the production of movies that matched
neither the aspirations nor the realities of most spectators lives. Mounir Ab
boud reported, song and dance mixture, scenes of physical violence, the ap
peal to sentimentality and attempt at historic portrayals have all failed. Peo
ple are no longer attracted to the cinema even by bare bosoms and bottoms
(1973:n.p.). Mostafa Izadi Najafabadis book presented a massive compilation
of quotations from periodicals against the intrusion of sex, violence, and amo
rality in domestic movies and television (1974/1353). The dissatisfaction con
tinued throughout the decade, as in the late 1970s an mca survey of filmgoers
in Tehran reported that 34 percent of the sample blamed the lack of quality
movies on low audience attendance, while 82 percent of the same sample de
clared that if better quality movies were offered, they would be willing to pay
a higher ticket price (Ministry of Culture and Art 1977/2536:23, 29).
A quarter of the box office sales went for taxes5 percent national and
20 percent to municipalitieswhich the producers felt excessive. Inflation
was pushing the cost of raw stock, equipment, services, and salaries, while
an imperial decree by the Shah, who had vetoed the cabinets plan of a price
increase, kept ticket prices low for years. Fixed ticket prices were a feature
of his anti-inflation drive; they showed resistance to the Motion Picture Ex
port Association of America (mpaa), which in the wake of the quadrupling of
oil prices by opec in 1974 wanted Irans government to increase the price of
movie-house tickets by 400 percent. Jack Valenti, the president of the mpaa,
in a letter to the minister of culture and art, claimed that the low ticket prices
subsidized Iranian moviegoers. The real impetus behind this mpaa action
was Charles G. Bluhdorn, the chairman of Paramounts parent company, Gulf
+ Western Industries, which had vast oil interests. He was annoyed at fixed-
price movies in Iran, held below African and Middle Eastern countries. Amer
ican film companies were making around $2.5 million annually then from ex
porting between 100 and 125 movies to Iran, a figure Bluhdorn wanted raised
commensurately with the rise in oil prices. That oil was an important factor in
423
this affair is proven by the fact that only Paramount boycotted Iran. When Val
entis agreement with Iranians to raise prices 40 percent through increases in
admission prices and a reduction in taxes fell through because of a rebellion
by Iranian local authorities, Bluhdorn thought Valenti had not been sufficiently forceful. He threatened to leave the mpaa cartel (Segrave 1997:223
24). By spring 1975, when further negotiations also failed, five other majors
joined Paramount in its boycott. Starting 31 March 1975, Warner Bros., United
Artists, Twentieth CenturyFox, Paramount, Universal, and Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer joined in halting all shipment of their films to Iran (Columbia stayed
out). Iranians counteracted by placing the distribution of foreign movies in
the hands of domestic companies. Within a year, in a typically opportunistic
move by Hollywood, Warner Bros., Columbia, United Artists, and Twentieth
CenturyFox moved back into Iran, creating their own domestic company,
the Film Importers Association (now Paramount stayed out).
The embargo led to an influx of kung fu movies from Hong Kong and of
sexual comedies and spaghetti westerns from Italy. These were cheap, and
drove Iranian film producers, waiting to exhibit their films with high interest
rates (of up to 28 percent) accumulating daily, into bankruptcy. These two fac
tors, combined with the governments desire to appear as a champion of the
masses by keeping the most popular pastime inexpensive, forced inflation-
ridden domestic film production to simply stop making movies.
Low budgets for movies procured at high interest rates created so much
instability that even a short lag time between a films completion and its re
lease could drive producers into bankruptcy. The widespread censorship of
political themes meant that completed films waited months or years for ex
hibition permits. Recall that Mehrjuis The Cycle waited for three years be
cause of a medical associations objection to it. Haritashs Naked Till Noon with
Speed (Berahneh ta Zohr ba Sorat, 1976) waited for twenty-seven months be
cause a loathsome money-changers business called Imperial could be inter
preted as referring to the government (Omid 1995/1374:709). As Haritash told
me, this film was banned because it was about a university student and had
political overtones. Authorities ordered re-editing that shortened the film by
thirty minutes (Naficy 1979a). Haritashs Doorman (Saraydar, 1976) was also
banned for some months, and he was prevented from exporting it because it
dealt with poverty, while his Kingdom of Heaven was not exhibited publicly
after its negative reception during its debut at Tehran festival. Naderis Elegy
(1978) was confiscated for three years, perhaps due to its superrealist portrayal
of social marginalia, which countered official positivist representations. All
these delays, cuts, and censorship measures jeopardized the producers finan
424
cially and forced the directors into timidity, symbolism, obfuscation, indirec
tion, and the extensive rearrangement of scenes, characters, and dialogue,
which contributed to the films chaotic narratives (Zand 1976/2535, Moezimo
qaddam 197374/135253).
The commercial movie industry considered nirts and the mcas support
for new-wave features and documentaries, nirts production of television se
rials, and its broadcast of feature movies tantamount to government competi
tion with the private sector (Badie 1978b). The government, bent on absolute
control, perhaps wanted no opposition in any field. By the mid-1970s, all po
litical parties had been banned or dissolved; they were replaced with the all-
encompassing Rastakhiz (Resurgence) Party to which all people had to vol
untarily belong! The same tendency seemed to operate in the motion-picture
area. One government, one party, and one broadcasting organization were
already in place; now was the time to monopolize motion-picture production
and distribution. The industry was too complicated, however, and, at any rate,
time ran out on this effort.
Ironically, new-wave films eroded domestic film production by fragment
ing the audience. Tired of formulaic filmfarsi movies, some spectators sought
relief in the new-wave films, which because of pervasive censorship were un
able to meet their heightened expectations. Unsatisfied by their compromised
films and unhappy about their elitism or the abstruse and abstract filmic lan
guage employed partly to evade censorship and partly to display authorial
uniqueness, the audience turned once again to foreign movies.
Faced with dismay among the spectators, disarray in the domestic indus
try, boycott by American film distributors, and the resultant fall in available
movies, the government finally acceded to the mpaa demand. In May 1976
it increased movie-house admission prices by 35 percent, allocated a sizable
credit to filmmaking, created the Film Import Association to negotiate with
Hollywood majors the streamlining of imports, and invested in coproduction
projects with European and American companies.63 The changes created a
rapid resurgence of film activity. Deals were made to import blockbuster mov
ies from Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros. such as Godfather I, (1972,
dir. Francis Ford Coppola), The Sting (1973, dir. George Roy Hill), The Tow
ering Inferno (1974, dir. John Guillermin), Earthquake (1974, dir. Mark Rob
son), and Godfather II (1974, dir. Francis Ford Coppola). Coproduction proj
ects, however, did not result in large financial returns to Iran. Payam Film
Organization produced Ali Hatamis powerful Broken-Hearted (Suteh Delan,
1977), about a mentally retarded man, ably played by Vossoughi, who is taken
care of by his brother (Jamshid Mashayekhi). And almost immediately, the
425
fidci commissioned several new-wave films, including Haritashs Kingdom

of Heaven, Mohammad Reza Aslanis Chess of the Wind (Shatranje Bad, 1976),
Baizais nostalgic The Crow (Kalagh, 1977), and Kiarostamis landmark first
feature, The Report (1978). 64
After spending four years in censorship dormancy, Mehrjuis The Cycle
was finally released and screened in Tehran starting in March 1977 at Atlan
tic Cinema (for five weeks) and Diana Cinema (for six weeks). With the excep
tion of its special screening at the Shiraz Festival of Culture and Art, this was
its first commercial public exhibition. The film was also screened by the Paris
and Berlin film festivals in 1977 and 1978, respectively, winning awards and
praise, and it was subsequently exhibited commercially in France, Britain,
and the United States. International audiences used to hearing about the re
pressive regime of the Shah were surprised at the candor with which the film
exposed and criticized corruption in the medical system. According to Meh
rjui, the films preproduction research and production had opened not only
his own eyes to the serious problems of corruption in the countrys blood-
supply system but also those of public health officials. The films release, like
wise, had a real social impact, as it led to the establishment of a national blood
bank, the Blood Transfusion Organization of Iran, whose director was highly
supportive of the film and of its wide exhibition (Omid 1995/1374:736).65
Naderis Elegy, made for Khaneh Filme Iran, like many of the directors
films focused primarily on a single protagonist and followed his downward
spiral in an alienated urban setting. Naderis realism is generally less bound
by a tight, dialogue-driven narrative than that of other realists, such as Kimiai
and Mehrjui, for many of his films have moments in which his observational
camera is freed from the exigencies of the plot, revealing the directors back
ground in photography. In this, Naderis style resembles Kiarostamis. Elegy
allowed him to indulge in those digressional observational moments while
relating the story of Nasrollah (Manuchehr Ahmadi), who is released from
prison after eight years. Having lost his only family member, his mother, he
makes a meager living by roaming the streets with his air gun and a card
board target, offering passersby a chance to shoot at the target for a small fee.
His life improves when he becomes a close friend of a curtain reciter and a
luti who derives his livelihood from his dancing monkey. Yet these friend
ships eventually come to sad ends, as the luti dies of an illness and the curtain
reciter marries a lottery ticket seller, leaving the protagonist with the lonely
monkey. Despondent, one day he releases the monkey in the outskirts of town
and wanders off aimlessly in the city. Naderis precise observations produce
a realistic, critical, and ultimately sad portrait of life on the margins of Ira
426
nian modernity, one countering the official rosy picture. It is perhaps this un
varnished portrayal that relegated the film to the closed cycle of production-
censorship-archiving for three years. Its release and screening in April 1978
by Capri Cinema in Tehran coincided with Mehrjuis The Cycle, but it did not
do as well as the latter film in terms of box-office sales.
Kimiais Journey of Stone (1978) was prescient about anti-Shah feeling. It fo
cuses on a cruel landlord and miller. Villagers bent on escaping his monopoly
carve out a huge millstone, but the landlord prevents them from construct
ing a mill, until a wanderer (Said Rad) enters the village. Like a gunslinger
entering a besieged Western town, he galvanizes the residents to rise. They
roll the gigantic stone wheel down to the village, in the process destroying the
landlord.
Despite this sudden jolt of production, the crumbling of industry infra
structures continued. The downward spiral of production caused a major
chain of twelve Tehran movie houses to fold in 1977 due to a lack of films. 66
While bemoaning the demise of this chain cinema, the industry trade maga
zine, Setareh Sinema (Movie Star), reported that only one movie had received
an exhibition permit in March 1976, compared to fourteen in the same month
the previous year. Two months later, the daily newspaper Kayhan listed fifteen
reasons for the film industrys deep crisis:
The steep rise in the price of raw film stock
The steep rise in laboratory costs for film processing
The steep rise in salaries and fees at all levels of the industry
The steep rise in the cost of movie advertising
An interest rate of 28 percent that money-lenders charged movie investors
The unauthorized exhibition of movies in small provincial towns (whose
income was neither reported nor passed on to producers)
A tax of 20 percent that municipalities levied against the gross income of
each film
The payment of an additional 5 percent of the gross to the mca
Censorship of the movies
A refusal of the first-grade movie houses in Tehran to show Iranian
movies
A lack of cooperation between mca officials and the film industry
A lack of cooperation between other government ministries and
departments and the film industry
Insufficient support of the domestic industry in its competition with low-
quality but popular foreign movies
427
nirts competition with film exhibitors by broadcasting feature movies

A lack of appropriate regulations governing the distribution of movies
Alarmed by these and other press reports of the crisis, the sole authorized
government-r un political party, Rastakhiz, convened a series of meetings with
industry representatives, professional film unions, and relevant government
officials to examine the industrys problems and to devise solutions. The re
sult was a letter written in May 1977 to the mca chief Pahlbod, in which the
case studies of two movies, Khachikians Anxiety (Ezterab, 1974) and Hasan
Mohammadzadehs Middlemen (Vasetehha, 1974), were presented to highlight
the film industrys dire financial situation. Citing production figures, box-
office earnings in Tehran and in the provinces, and various taxes, the letter
proved that both movies, and by extrapolation the entire film industry, were
losing money. In the end, it offered sixteen itemized solutions to the crisis.
The minister of culture and art and the officials in charge of film produc
tion and supervision at the mca discussed the solutions and presented their
own plans for the speedy improvement of the industry to the Rastakhiz Party.
These measures were as follows:
Reduce the municipality taxes on domestic films if their first-r un box-
office earning is less than their production cost.
Recognize cinema as an industry, so that filmmakers may be entitled to
the benefits of that designation.
Facilitate the export and sale of Iranian movies.
Tie the exhibition of foreign movies to the exhibition of domestic movies.
Force the exhibitors of Iranian movies to pay the movie producers their
percentage from each nights box office.
Allow the exhibitors of Iranian movies to charge as little for movie tickets
as the market bears.
Reduce the cost of advertising domestic movies on television and in the
press.
Limit the exhibition of low-quality foreign movies or increase their taxes.
Increase the number of low-price movie houses and create an equitable
rating system for them.
Create a company to import all the raw stock for the industry at a reduced
bulk rate.
Increase cooperation among public and private-sector organizations for
the purpose of producing movies.
Combine small or incomplete studios into larger entities and offer them
financial and technical support to increase the quality of their films.
428
Carefully investigate the membership of various unions to make sure that

only appropriate people are involved in and represent them.
Engage the appropriate film industry union representatives in
governmental decisions pertaining to the industry.
Train new cadres of young people for the industry either at home or
through scholarships for study abroad.
While laudable, these measures were only recommendations. They do show
the extent of the problems and the types of solutions that might have been
implementedsolutions that other cinemas had implemented in their com
petition with global Hollywood. The mca plan remained silent about one ma
jor issue: what to do about prior censorship, postproduction censorship, and
the outright banning of films. In subsequent Rastakhiz Party meetings with
industry representatives and government officials, more proposals were dis
cussed. A Plan for Expanding Iranian Cinema was announced and a commit
tee was appointed to draft an implementation proposal for the prime minister.
Yet both the proposed plan and the implementation plan ran into internecine
warfare among various industry factions, pitting, for example, the represen
tatives of domestic film producers and directors against those of film exhibi
tors and importers. The result was that the ball was kicked back into the mcas
court, where the ministry tried to implement some of its own recommenda
tions. So much for a planned, national solution, engineered by the official
party, to fix the film industrys problems.67
The crisis continued to deepen: in 1977 forty-six films were made; in 1978
sixteen. Misaqiyeh Film Studio, a major commercial production center, closed
its doors in 1977 after its last movie, The Fish Die on Land (Mahiha dar Khak
Mimirand, 1977), directed by Amir Mojahed and Mohammad Delju, was re
leased to a lukewarm reception. It was not the only studio to go under. By
the last year of the Pahlavi regime, of fifty-eight film studios only sixteen re
mained in operation.
Once ticket prices were raised, the Americans lifted their export embargo
of Iran, helping flood the market with what looked soft-core to Iranians. In
early 1978, just before the revolution, the daily newspaper Kayhan reported
that of Tehrans 120 moviehouses, 67 were showing seksi or sexploitation
movies, most from Italy and the United States. The mca announced in Febru
ary 1978 that it would ban such movies.68 Similar plans had been announced
previously to little effect. In the meantime, exhibitors clamored with mca officials and with the Tehran mayors office for further hikes in ticket prices, for
lowering their taxes, and for accountability in their insurance plans, claiming
429
that insurers did not honor their contracts. This latter issue would soon turn
out to be important as movie houses became targets. Film importers joined
the exhibitors, who set a deadline to go on strike. In fact, Kimiais Journey of
Stone was exhibited under the threat of strike; Kimiai forced the exhibition,
as he and his composer-producer, Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh, needed to pay
their investors.
After a one-day strike, on 2 August 1978, about 108 Tehran movie houses
went on strike. A few exhibitors broke ranks to honor their contracts with film
owners and distributors. More negotiations took place with the mca chief, one
lasting eight hours. In the meantime, political demonstrations and strikes in
various industries became militant and the security forces violent. Soon revo
lutionaries would begin to burn down movie houses.
During the previous two years of turmoil, the government had countered
by promoting an image of Iran as an island of stability in a turbulent re
gion. It had done so by creating a massive, modern, centralized broadcasting
system and a state-supported culture industry at home, and by creating what
I described in chapter 2 as reinforcing concentric circles of influences that
bounded the Shah and his regime to the United States, involving presidents,
businessmen, public relations firms, congressional leaders, and media report
ers. An outspoken writer, Ali Asghar Hadj Seyyed Javadi, charged that in its
effort to so represent Iran, the government was presenting by means of mov
ies and television every dissident as a spy, a saboteur, a drug addict or a car
rier of arms and explosives (1978:1011). Cinastes, such as Kimiai in his The
Deer, manipulated such representations in reverse by coding drug addicts and
gun-toting criminals as freedom-fighting guerrillas. Noted writers and mem
bers of the Writers Association of Iran met with Hoveyda to complain about
widespread censorship of the arts, and they wrote open letters to him pro
testing the total cultural sterility afflicting the land, all to no avail. 69
A year later, on 15 June 1978, Saedi in a news conference in New York City
spoke to the censorship issue. He stated, Despite the claims of government
officials, harsh and stifling censorship in todays Iran has destroyed all ut
terances of opinions and all freedoms of the pen and of expression. The ex
traordinary domination and supervision of the state does not only control the
peoples daily existence and routines but also aims to control the way each of
them thinks, even in their moments of privacy. He complained that censor
ship had become internalized, forbidding even the use of common words. He
went on: The multicentered censorship apparatus [the Octopus] is playing it
smart. On the one hand, it destroys and, on the other hand, it constructs. It
prevents all independent thinking, and it promotes its own authorized think
430
ing. It bans all original cultural works but constructs a false and useless cul
ture for the people. It stops an artistic film, but allows the influx of valueless
commercial foreign movies into the country, or it commissions highly expen
sive propaganda and phony films (quoted in Mojabi 1999/1378:16770).70
Difficult times were ahead. Film production dropped steadily. Martial law was
declared and the military took over nirt. Many filmmakers stayed to bat
tle the pressures, threats, and persecutions, but with the transformation of
the revolution from one based on liberation from the Pahlavi regime to one
channeled into forming an Islamist government intolerant both of alterna
tive worldviews and of Pahlavi-era entertainers, a massive exodus of media
personnel occurred, as well as an unprecedented silencing of those who re
mained. These are documented in volume 3 of the current work, as are the
new structures, regulations, and procedures that transformed Pahlavi cinema
into an Islamicate cinema.
Some of the new-wave directors who stayed filmed documentary footage
of the unfolding revolution, and after a period of forced hiatus, they began
to make feature films under the Islamic Republic, contributing to the rise
of a new auteur cinema, to which I devote a chapter in volume 4. These in
cluded Mehrjui, Kiarostami, Kimiai, Hatami, Naderi, Shirdel, Sinai, Baizai,
and Taqvai. In the meantime, new talented filmmakers arose after the revolu
tion, putting Iranian cinema on the world map of dynamic cinemas. Some of
these new filmmakers were women, to whom I devote another chapter in vol
ume 4. Those who went into exile belonged to both the commercial and new-
wave cinemas, and some of them made films with mixed results in the dias
pora: Naderi, Shahid Saless, Sayyad, Tayyab, Allamehzadeh, Aslani, Taheri,
Golestan, and Nabili. All of these, and many more newcomers who turned to
filmmaking abroad, collectively created an Iranian diaspora cinemaan ac
cented cinemat he subject of yet another chapter in that volume.
Finally, a deepening sociopolitical struggle over the cultural invasion of
Iran and ultimately over the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic emerged be
ginning in the 1990s, fanned by a new form of public diplomacy, chiefly be
tween Iran, the United States, and the Iranians in diaspora. The antagonis
tic parties recruited all sorts of mutual domestic, diasporic, and international
film, television, radio, and Internet media and formations to serve this diplo
macy and to encourage or to fight fundamental reforms in Iran. A chapter in
volume 3 examines this new crucial development.
431
no t es
Chapter 1 International Haggling

1 Initially called Anjomane Ravabete Iran va Emrika (Iran-America Relations
Society), it was later renamed Anjomane Iran va Emrika (Iran-America So
ciety).
2 Nilla Cram Cook, Memorandum of Understanding: Department of Stateowi, 14 January 1945, microfilm publication M 1202, roll 11, 1. This memo
randum, addressed to the U.S. embassy in Tehran, is marked secret.
3 Eventually, this responsibility was given solely to the Interior Ministry, which
held it until the creation of the Ministry of Culture and Art in 1965.
4 Cooks contract with the State Department made her responsible for deliver
ing the following services: scheduling, supervising, and operating all screen
ings of films for the noncommercial film circuit for which the U.S. embassy
supplied documentary films. She was to supervise the maintenance of all the
film equipment under the control of the embassy and on loan to the film cir
cuit. She also provided periodic written reports about both the state of nefc
films and equipment and the state of commercial movies shown in Iran. See
Enclosing Contract between Embassy and Miss Nilla Cram Cook for Opera
tion of Non-commercial Film Circuit in Iran, cuscfIran, 19451949, writ
ten by A. Ward, Counselor of the Embassy to the Secretary of State, letter no,
137, 5 November 1945, microfilm publication M 1202, roll 11, 1.
5 Famous Iowans: Cook, Nilla Cram, Des Moines Register, http://www
.desmoinesregister.com (last accessed 5 January 2011).
6 Nilla Cram Cook, Memorandum of Understanding: Department of Stateowi, 15 February 1945, cuscfIran, 19451949, microfilm publication M
1202, roll 11, 1.
7 Davenport girl, Nila [sic] Cook, Once Follower of Gandhi, Des Moines Reg
ister, 31 January 1948. The Eleanor Fitzgerald papers at the archives of the
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, contain letters Nilla Cook wrote in the

1930s from India to Fitzgerald (her stepmother), as well as a few photographs
of Cook as a child and as a young woman in a Greek toga. See M. Eleanor
Fitzgerald (18771955) Papers, 19151974, Manuscript Collection 13, Univer
sity of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
8 This contention offers another reason, beside weariness of war movies, for
the requests made to the British Council by the British consuls of Ahvaz, Ker
manshah, Hamadan, and Tabriz to send more documentaries for their local
film shows.
9 On the politics and aesthetics of live comic forestage skits (called pishpardeh
khani), see the book-length interview with Entezami (Golmakani 1997:2228).
10 Mohammad Ali Zarandi, a ballet dancer trained in Cooks studio, was a key
actor in the feature film Love Bandit (Rahzane Eshq, also known as Rahzan,
dir. Siamak Yasami, 1955) (Tahaminejad 1986/1365:39).
11 T. Cuyler Young, Memorandum: The Non-theatrical Film Circuit in Iran, at
tached to letter no. 8, 11 June 1945, written by Wallace Murray, American am
bassador in Tehran, to the secretary of state. Transmitting Memorandum on
the Non-theatrical Film Circuit in Iran, cuscfIran, 19451949, microfilm
publication M 1202, roll 11, 23.
12 Ibid., 2.
13 Ibid., 34.
14 Western Electrical Research Products Inc. (erpi), was a subsidiary of Western
Electric and at&t, set up in 1927 to commercialize equipment for the field of
sound motion pictures. A collection of sound films for the classroom were re
leased under erpi Films. In the 1940s, Encyclopaedia Britannica Films pur
chased the erpi Films collection and distributed it.
The American embassy film library holdings were divided into several cat
egories. One list contained the following number of films in each category:
five sports films, twelve military training films, five agricultural films, two in
dustry films, two social films, one music film, and six Technicolor films (the
latter were presumably entertainment films).
15 The Iran-America Society continued to show individual films as well as to
sponsor important festivals of American movies throughout the reign of Mo
hammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
16 T. Cuyler Young, Memorandum of Understanding: Department of State
Office of War Information, October 1944, cuscfIran, 19451949, letter no.
220 to the secretary of state, 1 March 1945, microfilm publication M 1202, roll
11, 4.
17 Nilla Cram Cook, Bearing of Present Raw Film Shortage on Future of Amer
ican Film Interests, 6 July 1945, cuscfIran, 19451949, dispatch no. 33 to
the U.S. embassy in Tehran, microfilm publication M 1202, roll 11, 1.
18 Nilla Cram Cook, Sixteen Millimeter Provincial Film Circuit, 1 June 1945,
cuscfIran, 19451949, addendum no. 3 to T. Cuyler Young, microfilm pub
lication M 1202, roll 11, 1.
434
no t e s
19 J. Sanderson, The British Council, Shiraz, 12 December 1944, British Pub

lic Record Office, bw 49/1, 19431946, 2.
20 Cook, Bearing of Present Raw Film Shortage on Future of American Film
Interests, 1.
21 The concept of foreign service and consular staff as a lighthouse comes from
the writings of the British diplomat Sir Arnold Wilson, who during the Consti
tutional Revolution meticulously surveyed and mapped southern Iran for con
structing oil pipelines, oil refineries, ports, and railways. He states: The F.O.
[Foreign Office] house their people fairly well and have a very fine lot of men
in the Consular Service, whose job it is to be lighthousesislands of British
culture, British ideas, and English civilization, in the choppy seas of foreign
waters (Wilson 1941:198).
22 British Cultural Propaganda, report by C. G. Bidwell, British Public Record
Office, bw 49/1, 19431946, 79.
23 T. Cuyler Young, British Documentary Films in Iran, cuscfIran, 1945
1949, letter no. 10, 18 June 1945, microfilm publication M 1202, roll 11, 1. The
letter, marked confidential, has an attachment that contains the titles of all
thirty-six films.
24 Anglo-Persian InstituteTehran, Annual Report 194647, British Public
Record Office, bw 49/4, 19451948, Tehran Report.
25 Anglo-Persian Institute, Isfahan, British Public Record Office, bw 49/1,
19431946. According to this report, my father, Aboutorab Naficy, was among
the physicians attending this film screening on 17 March 1944.
26 Anglo-Persian InstituteTehran, Annual Report 194748, Tehran Report,
6. The films shown in 194647, all nonfictional, included: Mr. English at
Home (silent film with running live commentary), How the Telephone Works,
The Hidden Kingdom, Coastal Village, Morning Paper, and Good Sport.
27 In the month of Aban (coinciding with NovemberDecember), for example,
talks were given by Mr. P. Gibbs alongside screenings of the documentary
films North East Corner and Royal Mile; by L. S. Pearson alongside The History
of the English Language; and by Miss. F. Gladman alongside Around the Village
Green, Fast Trains to Town, and London Transport.
28 Anglo-Persian InstituteTehran, Report for June 23July 23, 1947, British
Public Record Office, bw 49/4, 19471948, 12.
29 Anglo-Persian InstituteTehran, Annual Report 194647, British Public
Record Office, bw 49/4, 19471948, 34.
30 Anglo-Persian InstituteTehran, Report for April 1947, British Public Rec
ord Office, bw 49/4, 19471948, 3.
31 When in 1946 the Democratic Republic of Azarbaijan was created, the theater
group of the Iran-Soviet Cultural Relations Society was transferred to form
the republics state theater (Ranjbar Fakhri 2004/1383:523)
32 See Soviet Propaganda FilmIran, Tabriz 194546, YouTube, http://www
.youtube.com (last accessed 3 January 2011).
33 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Appendix L to sr-6 Iran, Soviet Activities
no tes
435
in Iran, 7 April 1948, 39. Microfiche 1981-18a, Declassified Documents Ref

erence System (Arlington, Va.: Carrollton, 1981). The societys members in ad
dition to Galishian, Naficy, Alavi, and Keshavarz were Amir Alam, Aliasghar
Hekmat, Abdol Samad Kambakhsh, Karim Keshavarz, Rafi Amin, and Nabil
Samii.
34 Ibid., 37.
35 The cinemas that specialized in showing Soviet newsreels and other war films
were Setareh, Homa, Jahan, Tehran, and Rowshan (Omid 1995/1374:103). The
managers of the Mayak Cinema in Tehran were Grisha Zakhari and his wife,
a Jewish migr couple from Georgia. After the apparent kidnapping of Gri
sha and his exile to Siberia, his wife, known as Mrs. Mayak, ran the cinema.
The manager of Tehran Cinema was also a Georgian Jewish migr named
Gugan, who used to show German films but with the war switched to Soviet
movies. There were other Tehran movie houses that showed Soviet movies:
Rey Cinema, Berelian (Diamond) Cinema, and Atlas Cinema (Tahaminejad
2004a:3842).
in Iran, 7 April 1948, 41. Microfiche 1981-18a. Declassified Documents Ref
erence System (Arlington, Va.: Carrollton, 1981).
37 Gozareshe Nakhostin Ejraye Sorude Ey Iran, Ey Marze Porgohar. . . . ,
Marze Porgohar (Los Angeles), January 2001, 3031. For more on the contrast
between the popular and the official anthems, see Mir Alinaqi 2005:25, 27.
38 U.S. Department of State, Office of Intelligence Research, Factors Significant
for or Conditioning the Effectiveness of a U.S. Information Program, 28 Jan
uary 1949, oir Report no. 4849, 92. Microfiche 1980-201b. Declassified Doc
uments Reference System (Arlington, Va.: Carrollton, 1980).
in Iran, 7 April 1948, 38. Microfiche 1981-18a. Declassified Documents Ref
erence System (Arlington, Va.: Carrollton, 1981).
40 According to his wife, after his arrest, Savak searched the entire Tabli Film
premises and forced its board of directors to remove Bijan Jazani as a ceo,
replace him with two trusted Savak dependents, and change the company
name to Pakhsh Iran. Mihan received 450,000 tomans as compensation (Ja
zani 1999/1378:84).
41 Young, Memorandum: The Non-theatrical Film Circuit in Iran, 5.
42 In October 1945, responding to Cooks letter of 14 July complaining of film
shortage in Iran, the Department of State told its embassy in Tehran that the
Foreign Economic Administration had revised the country group classifica
tion of Iran, thus henceforth allowing Iranian importers to import films pur
chased for use in Iran without any objections. cuscfIran, 19451949, letter
no. 159 by Byrnes Acheson addressed to Tehran embassy, 18 October 1945, mi
crofilm publication M 1202, roll 11, 1.
Interests, 1.
436
no t e s
4 Young, Memorandum: The Non-theatrical Film Circuit in Iran, 7.

4
45 Nilla Cram Cook, Importance of Supplementary 35mm. Equipment to Suc
cess of Long-Term Non-theatrical Motion Picture Programs, cuscfIran,
19451949, addendum no. 2 to the U.S. embassy in Tehran, 20 May 1945, mi
crofilm publication M 1202, roll 11, 1.
Interests, 2.
47 Ibid.
48 Cook, Memorandum of Understanding: Department of State-owi, 14 Janu
ary 1945, 3.
49 Ibid., 1.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 Cook, Memorandum of Understanding: Department of State-owi, 15 Feb
ruary 1945, 1. The former Soviet-U.S. alliance during the Second World War
created curious situations after it turned into Cold War enmity. In 1951, for ex
ample, after the start of the Cold War, the pro-Soviet American feature films
Days of Glory and North Star were still being screened in Tabriz, causing a
flurry of correspondence between Iranian and U.S. officials. The controversy
had two sources, commercial and political. The films were being screened
without a proper license from their American distributor, rko Radio Pictures,
and such pro-Soviet films counteracted the effectiveness of the U.S. embassys
anti-Soviet information program. See, among other dispatches, no. 2226, 30
March 1951, cuscfIran, 19501954, reel 41, 1.
53 Cook, Memorandum of Understanding: Department of State-owi, 14 Janu
ary 1945, 12.
54 There were so many wartime newsreels about Iran that in my filmography on
Western films about Iran, Iran Media Index (Naficy 1984c), I broke them into
topical categories (sections 11624): American forces in Iran; British forces in
Iran; Germans in Iran; Soviet forces in Iran; lend-lease: delivery and unload
ing; lend-lease: assembly and repair; lend-lease: transportation to Russia; Pol
ish refugees in Iran; the Tehran Conference; and the oil industry during the
Second World War. The Tehran Conference footage shows primarily the Al
lied leaders and their staff. The young and inexperienced Shah is given short
shrift not only by the Allied leaders but also by the newsreel cameramen, as
he generally does not appear in the films I have seen; if he does appear, he is
often filmed from the side or from a distance.
55 Mohammad Tahaminejad describes the contents of some of these newsreels,
which were found in the Iranian archives (2004a). It is not certain whether
these were shown in Iran at the time or not, but it is likely.
56 For the items these newsreels showed on Iran, see Naficy 1984c.
57 For the newsreel, see The Occupation of Iran, Gaumont British News, 25 Sep
tember 1941, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBKGl7Q-l14 (last
accessed 6 January 2011).
no tes
437
58 Shahrokh was the son of a prominent Zoroastrian member of the Majles,

Arbab Keikhosrow Shahrokh, who for thirty years capably represented the
Zoroastrian community and headed the Majless audit office, printing press,
and library. According to his niece, Nesta Ramazani, Bahram Shahrokh was
an eloquent and persuasive speaker who was married to a German woman,
and he was not only the voice-over narrator of German newsreels but also
the announcer of Nazi radios Persian-language service. Despite his appar
ently pro-Nazi sympathies, rumors circulated about his being a double agent,
working simultaneously for the Allied and Axis powers during the Second
World War (Ramazani 2002:256). The historian Ervand Abrahamian states
that Arbab Keikhosrow Shahrokh, who had been a loyal supporter of Reza
Shah since 1921, was gunned down in Tehran streets in 1941 because of his
sons broadcast of a series of pro-Nazi speeches against his fathers wishes
(1982:163). However, both the date and the manner of death that Abrahamian
gives appear to be incorrect, as Shahrokhs memoir, edited by his grandson,
notes that the father died on 2 July 1940, without mentioning any violence
(Shahrokh and Writer 1994:189).
59 As Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi states in his autobiography, Mission for
My Country, at the time many German commercial concerns had representa
tives in Iran, Iranians were studying in Germany, German professors were
teaching in Iran, and Germany had donated a large collection of pro-Nazi and
other books to Irans National Library. In addition, Germany broadcast hours
of Persian-language radio propaganda to Iran, distributed news and propa
ganda material to the Iranian press through its official news agency, and es
tablished propaganda centers in Iranian cities (Pahlavi 1960:66). The famous
German diplomat-spy in Iran, Wilhelm Wassmuss, also known as the Ger
man Lawrence, was so popular with Iranians, particularly because of his role
in fomenting an anti-British uprising among the Tangestan tribesmen, that a
blue-eyed, blond puppet character was added in his honor to the puppet shows
that traditionally performed in coffeehouses (Behnam 2000/1379:38).
60 Another aioc film, Rig 20 (1952), about a fierce fire, the first in the companys
fifty-year history of drilling, won the first prize at the Venice Film Festival.
61 White House, Operations Coordinating Board, Detailed Development of Ma
jor Actions Related to Iran, nsc 5504, 16 June 1955. Microfiche 1993-243, 1.
Declassified Documents Reference System (Arlington, Va.: Carrollton, 1993).
62 White House, Operations Coordinating Board, Memorandum for the Board
AssistantsSubject: Internal Security in Iran, 18 June 1957. Microfiche
1989-96, 4. Declassified Documents Reference System (Arlington, Va.: Car
rollton, 1989).
63 While Schiller focused on the collective operations of diverse U.S. govern
ment and private-sector economic, cultural, philanthropic, and media organi
zations abroad (Schiller 1989, 1971), the journalist Michael Mooney centered
on their impact on the home front (1980).
438
no t e s
64 Point IV (Asle Chahar) was a program of economic and technical assistance

by the United States.
65 White House, Operations Coordinating Board, 22 May 1957. Microfiche 198996, 11. Declassified Documents Reference System (Arlington, Va.: Carrollton,
1989).
66 That these efforts at enhancing the Shahs prestige were bearing some fruit is
indicated by the following anecdote. The Persian service of the Voice of Amer
ica (voa) offered to its listeners a copy of a calendar that bore pictures of the
Shahs trips abroad. This resulted in the largest single mail response that voa
had ever received in one month, over fifteen thousand letters. White House,
Operations Coordinating Board, Detailed Development of Major Actions Re
lated to Iran, nsc 5504, 2.
67 For a full filmography of Iran News newsreels, see Issari 1979, 1989; and Na
ficy 1984c.
68 For a list of titles and contents of Iran-Washington Report and American
Sketches newsreels, see Naficy 1984c:21820.
69 U.S. Department of State, Office of Intelligence Research, Factors Significant
for or Conditioning the Effectiveness of a U.S. Information Program, 101.
70 One of these was Family of Man (1957), a twenty-six-minute film about the fa
mous photography exhibition that Edward Steichen created for the Museum
of Modern Art in New York in 1955, which traveled to sixty-eight countries.
Three-hundred prints of this film, which promoted a kind of pro-American
sentimental humanism, were struck in twenty-two languages, including
Persian, and distributed worldwide by the usia. For more on this film and the
exhibition, see Sandeen 1995.
71 Combined Annual Motion Picture Report, by Robert M. Carr, Counselor for
Economic Affairs, U.S. embassy Tehran, no. 230, 18 August 1951, cuscfIran,
19501954, reel 41, 14.
72 Letter from C. Edward Wells, public affairs officer, American Embassy, Teh
ran, no. 299, 31 October 1950, cuscfIran, 19501954, reel 41, 4.
73 These specialists did not all hail from Syracuse University but were selected
from many universities and from among freelance and Hollywood produc
tion people. For their names, specializations, and affiliations, see Issari 1989:
34243.
74 In the 1920s and the 1930s the French also had created a system of mobile
film units, which showed educational films on sanitation and public health in
France and in its various African colonies. For these, see Bloom 20002001.
75 The team also made thirty-eight filmstrips on health, agricultural, and edu
cational issues, which were extensively used by Point IV technical assistance
programs and shown throughout the country by the mobile film units.
76 These films are North of Iran (Shomale Iran, 1951), Tehran, Capital of Our
Country (Tehran, Paitakhte Keshvare ma, 1953), From the Land of Medes to the
Safavid Capital (Az Sarzamine Mad ta Paietakhte Salatine Safavieh, 1954),
no tes
439
From the Edge of the Desert to the Cradle of Achaemenian King of Kings (Az
Kenare Kavir ta Mahde Shahanshahane Hakhamaneshi, 1954), and Abadan,
Land of Black Gold (Abadan, Sarzamine Talaie Siah, 1953). John Humphreys
directed the series, Viruir Babayan and M. A. Issari wrote and narrated it, and
the archaeologist Mohammad Taqi Mostafavi, a member of the Fine Arts Ad
ministration, provided technical assistance.
7 7 On usia/usis productions, see, in addition to Issari 1989, Omid 1995/1374:
84951.
78 Letter by C. Edward Wells, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. embassy, Tehran, no.
271, 27 August 1951, cuscfIran, 19501954, reel 41, 2.
79 For Issaris eyewitness account of film screenings in Iranian villages and au
dience reactions, see Issari and Paul 1977:chap. 5.
80 The American embassy in Tehran reported that before the usis mobile units
were operational, there was only one privately owned Iranian 16mm mobile
film unit in the country. Abdolhosain Rezai operated this unit, which showed
very old feature films to rural audiences near Mashhad. Combined Annual
Motion Picture Report, by Robert M. Carr, Counselor for Economic Affairs,
U.S. embassy Tehran, no. 230, 18 August 1951, cuscfIran, 19501954, reel
41, 12.
81 Quoted in letter from Ernest H. Fisk, 24 July 1951, cuscfIran, 19501954,
reel 41, 1.
82 H. S. Sepanlou and Elaine D. Smith, Combined Annual Motion Picture Re
port, 18 August 1951, cuscfIran, 19501954, reel 41, 8.

83 Sale Avvale Komake Asle Chaharome Truman Beh Payan Rasid,
Ettelaate Mahaneh no. 57 (November 1952/Azar 1331), 25.
84 Letter by Walter C. McPherson, assistant public affairs officer, U.S. Embassy,
Tehran, no. 631, 9 November 1951, cuscfIran, 19501954, reel 41, 1.
85 White House, Operations Coordinating Board, Detailed Development of Ma
jor Actions Related to Iran, nsc 5504, 2.
86 U.S. Department of State, Attachment to ica Report, 22 June 1956. Micro
fiche 1992-87. Declassified Documents Reference System (Arlington, Va.: Car
rollton, 1992).
87 The State Department film Strategic Iran (1952), which emphasizes the strate
gic importance of Iran and of Iranian oil to the West, is a reverse military film,
in the sense that it was not designed to educate the Iranian armed forces but
the U.S. forces, which might have had to fight to defend that strategic asset.
88 White House, Operations Coordinating Board, Progress Report of the ocb
on Nuclear Energy Projects Related to Information Programs (including nsc
5431/1), 1 December 1954. Microfiche 1990-158, 5. Declassified Documents
Reference System (Arlington, Va.: Carrollton, 1990).
89 U.S. Department of State, International Cooperation Administration Evalu
ation of Iran Program, 15 August 1957. Microfiche 1994-18, 168. Declassified
Documents Reference System (Arlington, Va.: Carrollton, 1994).
440
no t e s
90 Ibid., 169.
91 Ibid., 170.
92 Ibid., 168.
Chapter 2 The Statist Documentary Cinema

1 Development of Tourist Traffic to Persia, 8 June 1934, written by the United
States charg daffaires, William H. Hornibrook, Records of the Department of
State relating to Internal Affairs of Iran, 19301939 (Washington: National Ar
chives Microfilm Publication, 1981), M 1202, roll 5, target 2, letter no. 100, 2.
2 Nilla Cram Cook, Memorandum of Understanding: Department of Stateowi, 15 February 1945, cuscfIran, 19451949, microfilm publication M
1202, roll 11, 2.
3 M. A. Issari kindly put at my disposal a copy of this letter of 21 July 1965 that
Bennett had written to him.
4 He codirected the following films with David Oliver: Azarbaijan Day (1952),
about the defeat of the procommunist autonomous movement in Azarbaijan;
Education Corps in Iran (Sepahe Danesh, ca. 195464), about the activities of
the knowledge corps men and women in spreading literacy in villages; Tribal
Schools (Madarese Ashayeri, 1964), about the tent schools among the Qashqai
tribes; Toward a Modern Iran (1963), on the progress made in Iran during the
1950s; Peace Corps in Iran (Sepahe Solh dar Iran, 1965), about the activities of
the American Peace Corps volunteers; and CARE (ca. 195465), on the care
organizations activities.
In addition, he directed the following films himself: Civic Action (1965), on
the civic programs of the Imperial Iranian Army; CENTO Helps the Farmers
(ca. 195465), on the agricultural developments achieved through the cento
programs; Earthquake Village (1963), on Point IV aid to victims of an earth
quake in Iran; Fulbright in Iran (1965), on the Fulbright program in Iran; and
Exercise Delaware (1965), about the military exercises in the Khuzestan region
between the U.S. and Iranian military, which involved airlifting the troops of
the American Strategic Air Command from Fort Campbell to Iran. This latter
activity was included as part of the U.S. armed forces newsreel The Big Pic
ture. See Issari 1989:18283; Naficy 1984c:190204.
5 Like Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi liked to
watch movies in his palace. Empress Soraya reports in her memoirs that al
most every night the royal family gathered at the Ekhtesasi Palace, where af
ter dinner they watched movies lent to them by one of the commercial exhibi
tors or by the House of America (Esfandiary 1964:60). After Soraya and the
Shah divorced and she moved to Europe, Soraya appeared in Three Faces of a
Woman (I Tre Volti, 1965), a tripartite movie directed by three directors. Soraya
appeared as herself in Michelangelo Antonionis segment, Il Provino. She
also appeared in Robert Days She (1965). Her official website reports that
when the Shah heard that she was to appear in a movie, he was so infuriated
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that the whole world would now [see] his ex-wife in romantic scenes that he
ordered all the copies be bought and destroyed. Soraya kept one print, which
was sold at the auction of her estate in Paris in May 2002 alongside all her
personal effects. See her website, http://www.bakhtiarifamily.com/soraya.php
(last accessed 7 January 2011).
6 The film may have been withdrawn from public screenings in its time, but
decades later it appears to have assumed the status of historical document.
The Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History in Los Angeles screened A Mother
for Shamsi during its annual conference-cum-film festival twice in 1999 and
2001, among other films made by Iranian Jewish filmmakers. See the centers
website, http://www.cijoh.org (last accessed 7 January 2011).
7 Complaints of Iranian Photographic Equipment Dealers and Motion Picture
Theater Owners, no. 215, American Embassy, Tehran, cuscfIran, 1950
1954, reel 41, 1.
8 Ibid., 17071. Among the confidential State Department central files are let
ters indicating rivalry between the State Department/usis and American film
companies, in particular Paramount Studios, over filming Point IV materials
in Iran. For an example, see letter no. 2191, 28 March 1951, cuscfIran, 1950
1954, reel 41.
9 ntsc stands for National Television Standard Committee.
10 secam stands for Systme lectronique pour Couleur avec Mmoire.
11 The deputy director of nirt, Kambiz Mahmoudi, reported to unesco that in
1977 only 30 percent of nirts First Network programming consisted of for
eign serials and feature movies (1977:13). This is lower than the 40 percent
that Elihu Katz and Dov Shinar reported in 1974. The reason might be that
the former work covers only First Networks programming, while the latter in
cludes the entire output of nirt.
12 Mehrdad Pahlbod headed the mca from 1964 to 1978 and Reza Ghotbi nirt
from 1971 to 1978. Both left Iran just before the revolution of 197879 re
moved the Shah; they both live in the United States.
13 In addition to producing the regular newsreels, the mca cameramen filmed
many news films of the Shahs activities, in particular his travels abroad, often
accompanied by the Empress. Released under the general title of Royal Travel
to . . . , each film covered an official trip to one country, including to the fol
lowing listed in the mcas film archives in the mid-1970s: Argentina, Brazil,
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Canada, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Kuwait,
Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Romania, Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, Thai
land, Turkey, and Yugoslavia. Most were filmed in color, with sound, and they
were stand-alone films that ranged in length from ten minutes (Royal Travel
to Kuwait) to forty minutes (Royal Travel to India).
14 The films that in the early 1980s were denied certification included The Kill
ing Ground (1979), an Emmy-winning abc News documentary critical of toxic
waste disposal in the United States; Susanna Styrons and Pam Joness In
Our Own Backyards (1981), which was critical of the health hazards posed
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no t e s
by uranium mining and milling operations; and Nick Broomfields and Joan
Churchills critically acclaimed Soldier Girls (1981), which showed some of the
negative sides of the basic training of women recruits. Filmed during the Ira
nian hostage crisis, the last film follows a platoon of fifty women recruits un
dergoing fourteen weeks of basic combat training at Fort Gordon, Georgia. In
one scene the platoon is shown running and chanting the following: I want
to go to Iran, I want to kill an Iranian; pillage, plunder, burn, rape.
15 The titles of the films are indicative of the issues and the lessons to be learned:
Said Learns about Asphyxiation, Said Learns about Gardens, Said Learns about
Microbes, Said Learns about the Penalty of Neglect, Said Learns to Dress a Simple
Wound, Said Learns to Read, Said Learns to Read a Map, Said Learns to Save
a Life, Said Makes a Reading Book, and Said Prepares a Meal at School. All of
these are dated 195159. For titles of all the usia and usis/Tehran films, see
Issari 1989:34547.
16 This was an episode of a four-part film about marriage traditions in four coun
tries, Iran, India, Italy (Sicily), and Canada. Allan Wargon is credited as the di
rector of the entire documentary, which the website of the National Film Board
of Canada (nfb) quaintly describes as a film that contrasts the arranged mar
riages of Eastern cultures with the free choice of marriage partners in our
Western culture (http://www.nfb.ca; last accessed 7 January 2011). Golestan
had cast Farrokhzad as a lead in Why the Sea Has Become Stormy (Chera Darya
Tufani Shodeh, 1961), based on a short story by Sadeq Chubak, but the film was
never completed.
17 Another notable film about disability is Ahmad Faruqi Qajars A View of An
other World . . . (Didi az Doniyaye Digar, 1966), filmed inside the Razi Insane
Asylum, which partly focused on mentally ill artists.
18 For more on the voice-over narrations adaptation of biblical passages, see
Tahaminejad 2002:5661.

19 Jalsehye Jenjaliye Kanune Film: Vaqti Jozamiha Mikhaband, Zanan,
AugustSeptember 1995/Mordar-Shahrivar 1374, 38. This issue of the maga
zine contains a dossier on The House in Black (2143), containing several ar
ticles that span the films thirty-three-year history.
20 Karim Emami, Recollections and Afterthoughts, Forugh Farrokhzads

Open Forum website, http://www.forughfarrokhzad.org (last accessed 7 Jan
uary 2011).
21 Farrokhzad lost the custody of her biological son, Kamyar, to her husband,
Parviz Shapur, when they divorced. Ironically, Hossein followed her model
and adopted a boy in Germany, Roman Toulany, who appears with him in
some scenes in Moon Sun Flower Game.
22 On 46 May 2007 an unprecedented retrospective of Golestan Film Work
shops films in Chicago screened most of Golestans documentaries and his
two features films (including Farrokhzads The House Is Black), and in a sym
posium at Northwestern University, Tom Gunning and I analyzed the films.
Called Ebrahim Golestan: Lion of Iranian Cinema, this multisited event
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was cosponsored by various institutions and key individuals within them:

Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa (Columbia College), Hamid Naficy (Northwestern Uni
versity), Will Schmenner (Northwestern University Block Cinema), Barbara
Scharres (Gene Siskel Film Center), and Julia Gibbs (University of Chicago
Film Center). Golestan appeared at all the events and for the first time in four
decades interacted with the audience after the screenings and the symposium.
23 For extensive readings on her cinematic career, including the screenplay of
The House Is Black, see Haidari 1998/1377. Also see Naficy 1978/1357:34144.
Several films have been made about Farrokhzad, an unusual homage to a
poet, which testifies to her stature and deep impact on Iranian intellectuals.
Naser Taqvai wrote and directed for nirt a nineteen-minute black-and-white
16mm documentary, Forugh Farrokhzad 13131345 (1967), which contains
shots of her grave and her burial, as well as eulogies offered by her friends
and an interview with her. For the text of the films voice-over narration, see
Haidari 1990a/1369:15051. The list of nirt film archive holdings before the
revolution, which I have in my possession, also contains a thirty-eight-minute
16mm film, Forugh Farrokhzad, whose director is not identified. It was broad
cast as part of the Todays Literature (Adabe Emruz) program. Toward the end
of the century, Naser Safarian made a trilogy of sixty-minute documentaries
about Farrokhzad. The first film, Green Cypress (Sarve Sabz, 2000), explores
her brief life and biography, while the second, Cup of Soul (Jame Jan, 2000),
deals with her poetry and includes interviews with many poets, writers, and
intellectuals who read and interpret her work, including the often referenced
but rarely seen interview that the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci con
ducted with Farrokhzad. The third film, The Pinnacle of the Wave (Owje Mowj,
2000), is devoted to her films. That Farrokhzad continues to be controversial
nearly four decades after her death is borne out by the obstacles that Safar
ian says various groups put in his way. He reported in January 2003 that a
group of unidentified people beat his film crew and absconded with the foot
age for the first film (its negative?), which they then destroyed. And now that
the films are complete, he faces many difficulties in promoting and distribut
ing them (Asheghaneh, January 2003/Dey 1381, 13).
24 With the international renown of Iranian cinema in the 1990s, this film was
resubtitled and put into commercial circulation in the United States by Facets
Multi-media. However, the effort to subtitle the film for screening at the New
York Film Festival in 1997 during the Iranian cinema retrospective became
controversial, as Golestan objected to the new translations of the films voiceover soundtrack. The Iranian film scholar and filmmaker Jamsheed Akrami,
who collaborated on the subtitling with the festival director Richard Pea, dis
covered that there was more than one version of The House Is Black. The origi
nal, which had been in circulation for decades, appeared to differ from the ver
sion that the New York festival had obtained for screening from the Locarno
Film Festival. Specifically, Akrami identified in the latter eight voice-over pas
sages that the original did not contain, although it kept all the visuals of the
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no t e s
original (the transcripts from the original had been published before). Some
of these missing passages were complete sentences, while others were parts
of sentences, which had been removed with precision. He conjectured that
they could not have been torn accidentally through overuse or misuse of the
film print in the projector. Without knowing the films production history
and the provenance of the release print, it was impossible to determine the
reasons for their removal. The director, Farrokhzad, was now dead and the
producer, Golestan, apparently uncooperative. Akrami published his findings
in the journal Mahnamehye Sinemaiye Film, at the end of which, referring
to one of the directors poems and claiming that it is the voice that remains,
he lamented that Farrokhzads voice has not remained on earlier versions of
the film. Then, he asked, Why? Months later, in a vitriolic eight-page letter
published in the same periodical, Golestan offered his answer: he denied that
another version of the film existed and instead accused Pea, Akrami, and
others of incompetence, ignorance, evasiveness, underhandedness, and un
ethical behavior in their translation of the original narration and subtitling.
His barrage of nitpicking and outlandish charges did not shed light on the
mystery of the missing passages, and they motivated further printed letters
from the accused, which clarified only some of the issues (Akrami 1997/1376,
1999/1377; Golestan 1998; Pea 1999/1377). The mystery surrounding the
existence of a second film version and the identity of whoever had edited out
passages from the films soundtrack and for what reason remained, even af
ter a new book-length interview with Golestan was published a few years later
(Jahed 2005/1384). Golestans controlling and protective attitude regarding
his life, work, legacy, image, and the films of Farrokhzad produced by his
company fed the mystery instead of solving it. For a screening of The House
Is Black at the Northwestern University symposium in May 2007, we rented
the copy of the film that Golestan had given to the Cinmathque Franaise,
which bore French subtitles. We handed out a printed English text of the sub
titles to spectators, which Golestan himself had prepared. Golestan had an
other public row, this time with Rose Issa, the cocurator of a major festival of
Iranian art at the Barbican in London (Golestan 2001a, 2001b, and Issa 2001).
25 An unsubstantiated rumor circulated in the 1970s that the mca had spon
sored a film about the lepers, The House Is Bright, (Khaneh Roshan Ast), to
counter Farrokhzads The House Is Black.
26 Golestan had broken his leg just before shooting began, causing him to ask
Stuart Legg at the National Film Board of Canada for help in finding someone
to assist in shooting the film. This resulted in the hiring of Pendry, who had
worked with the famed Dutch documentarian Bert Haanstra.
27 This is less the case with the English voice-over by Thomas McLeod, a Cana
dian diplomat in Tehran whom Golestan recruited, which is less flowery and
mostly descriptive.
28 For the narration of Golestans major documentaries, see Golestan 1998.
29 The four other Gaffary documentaries on the oil industry are Fars Island
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(Jazirehye Fars, 1960), Life of Oil (Zendegiye Naft, 1962), Oil Communication
(Mokhaberate Nafti, 1963), and Pars Sea (Daryaye Pars, 1966).
30 In 2004, Farzin Rezaeian directed a forty-minute film, Persepolis Recreated,
in which he lavishly restored the Persepolis Palace. In reworking Rahnemas
Persepolis in the age of computer graphics and digital visualization, it uses the
real-life images of the present remains of this vast, about twenty-five hundredyear-old ceremonial palace as the foundation on which to simulate and visu
alize both what the palace would have looked like in its glory days and what it
looked like when it was sacked and burned by Alexander two hundred years
later. In its lavish three-dimensional visualization of the palace, its people,
and the objects within it (down to massive carpets), the film seems to pay
homage to the Shahs efforts in 1971 to recreate the Persepolis as an Iranian
ur-national chronotope. That the production of Persepolis Recreated in Iran and
its screening in the United States was supported in large part by the Iranian
government points to the power of this chronotope in forming the national
consciousness of Iranians, regardless of the regime or government in power.
Even a regime, such as the Islamic Republic, which at first opposed any secu
lar or non-Islamic icons and monuments, could not evade its hold. For more
on this film and the accompanying book, see the website of the private pro
duction company Sunrise Films, http://www.sunrisefilmco.com.
31 Zabane Sinema; Tasvir va Tadvin, Hamshahri, 6 July 1998/15 Tir 1377.
32 This film, made for nirt, is not readily available, although its complete
screenplay is (see Tahaminejad 1993/1372). The film was banned soon after
its completion and was screened only twice in public, once at an Azad Cinema
gathering, the other at the First Festival of Student Films at Isfahan Univer
sity (Naficy 2005b).
33 That this acceptance was not widespread is indicated by the fact that Rezai
himself was physically attacked and injured by a religious fanatic, who be
lieved that filming sacred sites desecrates them, causing Rezai to leave Iran
for a permanent exile in the United States.
34 Tayyab continued to make films about Iranian religions in the 1990s, as well
as undertaking major photography and filming assignments about Iranian
landscapes and deserts. Among these is the film The Soul of the Mother Earth
Complained (Va Angah Ravane Jahan Geleh Kard, 1993), about the desert city
of Yazd and the Zoroastrian religion, particularly the Zoroastrians annual
pilgrimage to the shrine of Pire Sabz, or Chak Chak, in the mountains near
Yazd, which he transforms into an aesthetic experience. According to Tayyab,
the films title comes from a moving Zoroastrian hymn: The soul of mother
earth complained / Why did you create me? / Who transformed me into a phys
ical body? Anger, darkness, injustice, violence, and envy / Have conquered
the world / I have no friend and no mentor other than you. See Afsune
Kavir, Hamshahri (7 July 1998 / 16 Tir 1377).
35 The playwright and social critic Gholamhosain Saedi, who was trained as a
psychiatrist, wrote a valuable book, the first, about zar ceremonies, Ahle Hava
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no t e s
(Tehran, 1966), after conducting research in the Persian Gulf. Since then, the
anthropologist Shahnaz Nadjmabadi has conducted further research on zar
in that area (Nadjmabadi 2004).
36 For more on Taqvais life and works, see Haidari 1990a/1369 and Baharlu
2003/1382.
37 Sympathetic Western filmmakers also made films of these exotic Qaderi prac
tices. The most notable is Brian Mosers Dervishes of Kurdestan (1973), which
avoids the generalizations and prejudices typical of ethnographic films about
Iran, treating his subjects with understanding, candor, and respect. Made for
the Disappearing World series of British Granada Television, it presents an ac
count of the daily life and religious beliefs of Qaderi dervishes in the village
of Bayveh, near the Iraqi border. It details the routine activities of the der
vishes as they work in the fields, herd sheep, and attend a wedding, explaining
their life in their own voice-over narration. All along, the film provides am
ple evidence of the dervishes devotion to their master, who can purportedly
protect them from harm when they perform their extraordinary ceremonies,
which are similar to those in Tabaris A Few Moments with Qaderi Dervishes.
These include a man attached to a 220-volt electric current, passing the cur
rent through his body and turning on a light bulb that is placed on his head,
without any wires and socket, and several children licking a red-hot iron spat
ula without apparent injury. At the same time that the film acknowledges the
comfort and security the dervishes derive from their devotion to their master,
it shows his economic exploitation of them.
38 After the anti-Shah revolution of 1979, several fictional films dealt with the
tribes and their way of life. Like their prerevolution Iranian and Western coun
terparts, these films tended to romanticize the tribes, view them through a fil
ter of nostalgia, and posit them as simpler and more authentic than modern
citizens. Among the best of these are Masud Jafari Jozanis In the Winds Eye
(Dar Cheshme Tonde Bad, 1988) and Mohsen Makhmalbafs Gabbeh (1995).
39 Western filmmakers attempts at updating Grass and at making their versions
of tribal migration resulted in better and more sophisticated documentaries.
The British filmmaker Anthony Howarths visually beautiful and evocative
People of the Wind (1978) presents the daily activities of the Babadi subtribe of
the Bakhtiari, cooking, milking, herding, migrating, participating in a wed
ding, shopping, and trading. In an internal monologue, Jafar Qoli, the tribal
chief, decries the governments efforts at settling the migrating tribes, declar
ing that, migration is what we are. He also talks about tribal rivalry, feuds,
and the manner in which reconciliation and coexistence are achieved. The
British actor James Mason delivers the chiefs thoughts and speech in Eng
lish, while the Iranian British singer and writer Shusha Guppy sings several
famous tribal ballads on the soundtrack in Persian. Had it not been released
simultaneously with the revolution, the film would likely have energized a
new wave of tourism to Iran.
40 By the mid-1970s rapid modernization had intensified the impulse toward
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salvage ethnography by means of photography and cinematography. Sasan

Veissi, the director of Telfilm, told me that he was embarking on an encyclo
pedic project to document on film all the plants in the Iranian plateau (Naficy
1976/1355).
41 Other films the center produced were Evolution of Higher Education in the
Pahlavi Era (Tahavvole Amuzeshe Ali dar Asre Pahlavi, 1975), directed by
Azad Homayunnezhad, and What Is the Free University? (Daneshgahe Azade
Iran Chist?, 1976), directed by Javad Hashtroudian. The center also commis
sioned the new-wave filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui and the writer Hushang
Golshiri to collaborate in the production of up to four thirty-minute historical
documentaries on the Ashkanian Empire. Each man received sixty thousand
tomans to start the research phase, but a tightening university budget and
other exigencies forced the project into dormancy. The centers photographers
accompanied the university geologists on field trips, where they documented
their travels and produced scientific photographs. Audiovisual specialists at
the center produced audiotapes and slide tapes for various courses. Several
educational films were slated for dubbing into Persian. Finally, the center es
tablished the Little Cinema (Sinemaye Kuchak), a film club that screened
new and classic films in collaboration with the mca, nirt, the cidcya, and
Sinemaye Azad.
42 My narrative about their travel and filming is based on the documentary film
The Omidvar Brothers (Baradarane Omidvar, 1981), directed by Bijan Mir
baqeri for the Center for the Development of Documentary and Experimental
Film (Markaze Gostareshe Sinemaye Mostanad va Tajrebi), which contains
interviews with Issa and a visit with him to the brothers childhood home in
Tehran, as well as film clips of their adventures. It is also based on the broth
ers published travelogue and films (Omidvar 2001/1380).
43 Interestingly, in Mecca the Omidvars met the construction mogul Ben Ladin,
the Rockefeller of Saudi Arabia, presumably the father of the infamous mas
termind of the airplane bombing of the Pentagon and the New Yorks twin
towers on 11 September 2001, Osama bin Laden, who feasted them on a great
meal in his tent, including on sheeps eyes (Omidvar 2001:430).
4 4 See http://www.omidvar-brothers.com/En/Dastavard.aspx?type=mu.
45 Avvalin Jahangardane Iran, bbc Persian Service, 24 December 2004, http://
www.bbc.co.uk.
46 Didari az Qalehye Shahre No, Khandaniha, 30 June 1959 / 8 Tir 1338, 15.
47 Womens Prison is available on YouTube, Womens Prison (Prison de Femmes)
Kamran Shirdel, http://www.youtube.com (last accessed 8 January 2011).
48 Shadiye Yek Filmsaz, Ayandegan, 22 April 1979 / 2 Ordibehesht 1358, 12.
49 Fortress: The Red Light District is available on YouTube, although the Eng
lish title that is attached to it is Womens Quarter, http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=1dyG9q7hnJ8&feature=player_embedded# (last accessed 23 January
2011).
50 Such a use of the classroom as a site to dramatize the contradictions of Ira
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nian society between the ideal and the real, and between the official and the
popular, is probably picked up from Farrokhzads film The House Is Black.
51 See the film on YouTube under the title Teheran Is the Capital of Iran, http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Uc4BoKKSo&feature=related (last accessed 23
January 2011).
52 Mehrjuis The School We Went to plays with the contrast between the inside
and the outside in Iranian culture most directly. The film centers on the
Shamse Afaq School for boys in Tehran, where a student named Kaveh Ka
mali organizes a group of youngsters to stage a play. The assistant principal
forbids it, setting the stage for the films major confrontation. With the autho
rization of a sympathetic teacher of literature, Kaveh writes a critical article in
the schools newspaper, which compares the front yards and backyards of the
school. The front yard, he declares, is filled with apparent justice and friend
ship, while the backyard, hidden from outsiders, is filled with lies and injus
ticeno freedom is allowed there. This essay causes the confiscation of the
paper, which in turn motivates students and instructors alike to take action.
The ethical center of the film is the school librarian who sympathizes with the
students. With much humor, a sharp eye for the childrens worldview, and a
keen ear for their dialogue, Mehrjui explores the nature of repressive author
ity through the eyes of youngsters who prove to be adept at deconstructing the
hypocritical world of the adults who say one thing and do another. The origi
nal title of the film, The Backyard of the Adle Afaq School (Hayate Poshtieye
Madresehye Adle Afaq) pointed to this difference between back and front, out
side and inside, private and public. Mehrjui was forced to change it before the
works release, eight years later.
53 The narrator of the Persian-language version is Golestan himself and that of
the English-language version is Brian Spooner, who later became a professor
of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.
54 In the postscreening session about the film in Chicago, Golestan related that
in an audience with the Shah, the latter asked him to make the film on the
crown jewels, the pride of our country, which shows the power and greatness
of our past, ending with a question: Isnt that so? (Nah intor?), to which
Golestan in his usual frankness had replied, No. When the Shah asked him
why, he responded that these precious stones were probably gifts of lazy re
gional governors or of foreign leaders. There is no glory in them. Sensing the
Shahs displeasure with his answer, he quickly recovered: But they became a
pride of our country when your father designated them as guarantors of our
currency. At this the Shah beamed broadly, asking him to repeat it to Em
press Farah. When Golestan demurred, the Shah himself did so.
55 The only versions of the film that Golestan approves of are the one he de
posited at the Cinmathque Franaise in Paris (with French subtitles) and
the English version that University of Chicago Film Center owns. The Ci
nmathque Franaise has many of Golestans documentaries and fiction
films. In the English-speaking world, the University of Chicago Film Center
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449
is the only place that owns 35mm prints of his films: his features, Mudbrick
and Mirror and The Secret of the Treasures of the Jenni Valley, and four of his
documentariesWave, Coral, and Rock; The Hills of Marlik; Irans Crown Jew
els; and A Fire.
56 Instead of extolling the achievements of the Shahs grandiose syncretic West
ernization policy, The Temptation of Power (La Tentation de la Puissance, 1976),
made by the French filmmakers Gordian Troeller, Marie Defarrage, and Fran
ois Partant, critically examines the policys social, economic, and cultural
toll on society. It paints a realistic and grim picture of Iran, graphically and
methodically analyzing the disastrous social and economic consequences of
such programs as the White Revolution, land reform, comprador industrial
ization, foreign-dominated agribusiness, massive military spending, military
adventurism, and widespread political repression. It concludes that the Shahs
top-down revolution was not as benign as its title implies, that it was not made
for the people, or even in spite of them, but against them, and it presciently
anticipates the bottom-up revolution that would topple the Shah in just two
years. The film was not shown in Iran, but it was widely circulated among op
positional and leftist Iranians and Westerners abroad in commercial cinemas,
universities, churches, and schools.
57 The inclusion of the train story in childrens textbooks as a model of civic re
sponsibility is reminiscent of another story printed in textbooks of the 1950s
in Iran about the Dutch boy Hans Brinker, the hero of Haarlem, who saved
his town by inserting his finger into a dike.
58 The Night It Rained is available on YouTube, The Night It RainedKamran
Shirdel, http://www.youtube.com (last accessed 8 January 2011).
59 Although delivered in English, the narration is overly poetic and flowery, as
though it was translated from the ornate and wordy narrations of institutional
lyrical realist films.
60 In Tehran, the film shows the glittering lights and streets, including the
movie palaces Miami Cinema and Universal Cinema, with their giant multi
colored, neon-lit marquees flashing.
61 This is the version I saw at the Ministry of Culture and Art in Tehran in 1977.
62 In 2002, Mehrdad Azarmi donated a copy of the Oscar-nominated The Lovers
Wind to the ucla Film and Television Archive. I curated the screening of a
pristine copy of this film owned by ucla for the twentieth annual celebration
of Iranian films at ucla in February 2011.
63 Nearly a decade later, Lamorisses widow, Claude, and his son, Pascal, reed
ited the film based on Lamorisses notes and released it as Le Vent des Amour
eux (1978), which was nominated for the best documentary Oscar in 1979.
The full film and its preamble are available online at http://ubu.com/film/
lamorisse_vent.html and http://ubu.com/film/lamorisse_postscript.html, re
spectively (last accessed 8 January 2011).
64 The Greek-French filmmaker Agns Varda made an epistolary film, One Sings,
the Other Doesnt (Lun Chante, lAutre Pas, 1976), involving a love between an
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Iranian man and a French woman. While making that feature in Iran, Varda
filmed a short movie in Isfahan (six minutes long, shot inside the Shah/Imam
Mosque), Plaisir dAmour en Iran (1976), which features the two lovers from
One Sings, the Other Doesnt in an affectionate tribute to what the film suggests
is the sensual design of Iranian mosques, visual arts, and poetry that echo the
lovers voluptuous emotions. The film is available on YouTube, http://www
.youtube.com/watch?v=m3uNpwoA_7U.
65 The discovery in Egyptian deserts in 2009 of what are thought to be the re
mains of the Persian army of Cambyses II, a force fifty thousand strong said
to have drowned in a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 bc, moves Lovers Wind
from the realm of cinematic fantasy and mythology to reality and history. It is
said that a hot khamsin wind was the cause of the soldiers demise (Lorenzi
2009). This archeological finding about the ruinous effects of evil winds from
Africa also gives credence to the claims of another documentary, Taqvais The
Sorcerers Wind (1970).
66 For an illustrated and supportive account of this event, see: National Geo
graphic, March 1968, 30120.
67 For an analytic report on the politics and aesthetics of the musical portions of
the Shiraz festival, see Gluck 2007.
68 Among these were Houshang Shaftis Irans Industrial Achievements (Pish
rafthaye Sanatiye Iran, 1971), Pars Film Studios Life History of the Shah
(Tarikhchehye Zendeganiye Shah, 1971), Esmail Kushans A Day in the Life of
the Shah (Yek Ruz az Zendegiye Shah, 1970), Homayun Purmands Shahyad
Monument (Shahyade Aryamehr, 1971), Mostafa Farzanehs Cyrus the Great
(Kuroshe Kabir, 1971), and nirts Inheritors of Cyrus the Great (Mirasdarane
Kuroshe Kabir, 1972).
69 For a French take on the event, see Persepolis, a twenty-eight-minute program
aired by the French network ortf, in which the journalist Lon Zitrone re
ports. It is available online through the Iranian at http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=YU_ug4smbKg&feature=player_embedded.
70 It must be noted that for the occasion of the twenty-five hundredth anniver
sary, many valuable as well as propagandistic, literary, artistic, historical, eth
nographic, archaeological, and linguistic studies were commissioned. For
extensive primary documents about these projects and various events, see Ha
didi 1998/1377. For a critical account from an eyewitness to the anniversary
celebrations, see Ball 1982:43436. For a sympathetic account by one of the ar
chitects of the event, Abdolreza Ansari, see Kadivar 2002.
71 The first seven programs were titled Origins and Evidence, Heroes of History,
Guardians of the Sacred Flame, The Shadow of God on Earth, The Descent of the
Hordes, Half the World, and The Predators.
72 Anthony Mayer, letter to the editor, Iranian Studies 14, nos. 12 (1981), 132.
Mayer wrote this letter in response to my article, which had suggested the
series pulled its punches in dealing with the Shah as its sponsor (see Naficy
1979b).
no tes
451
73 For more on the series, see Mayer 1977 and the entire June 1977 issue of
American Cinematographer, which is devoted to Crossroads of Civilization.
74 Resistance 5, no. 3 (1977), 1517.
75 Ibid., 15.
76 The three films, which ranged between forty-eight and fifty-two minutes,
were filmed on 16mm. They are: Beginning of Human Achievements to Elamite
Cities (100,000640 B.C.), Life on the Iranian Plateau (3,000800 B.C.), and
The First World Empire (800530 B.C.). According to Issari, after the demise
of the Ancient Iran project, all the footage and research materials collected for
the series were sent back to nirt via Manuchehr Asgarinasab, who worked for
the network.
7 7 Individual programs were titled Overview, Oil, Mobility; Home Life; Pam and
Jim; Changing Culture; and Television.
78 For a detailed analysis of the Western news reporting bias in favor of the Shah
and his government up to and beyond the revolution of 197879, see Ad
ams and Heyl 1981; Said 1981; Naficy 1984c; Beeman 1984; Tehranian 1984;
Mowlana 1984; Kamalipour 1995; Dorman and Farhang 1987; Dorman and
Omeed 1979; Dorman and Omeed 1978; and Naficy 1995b.
Chapter 3 Commercial Cinemas Evolution

1 Abgushti film refers to abgusht, a stew made of lamb, potatoes, chickpeas,
tomato, and other vegetables, which is eaten with bread. It is a favorite meal
of the tough guys and the lower classes and is featured frequently in stew
pot and tough-guy movies. Bandtonbani film literally means pajama pants
drawstring film, referring to poorly written, low-quality comedies. Roya
pardaz, literally meaning dream weaving, refers to the tendency of these
films to engage in escapist entertainment full of fantasy, comedy, tears, mu
sic, and dance.
2 For a further discussion of the various labels for and the views of film crit
ics about the commercial cinema and filmfarsi movies, in addition to sources
cited in the text, see Moazezinia 1999/1378:710; Abdi 1999/1378; and Taha
minejad 1986/1365. See also Mize Gerde Sinemaye Iran, 1, Farhang O
Zendegi, no. 18 (1975/1345), 59, 67, in which such filmmakers and the critics
Houshang Kavusi, Jalal Sattari, Khosrow Sinai, and Farrokh Gaffary discuss
the causes of sleazy films.
3 For more about Kavusis history in film criticism, production, and in the es
tablishment of film magazines and cinema clubs, see the following interview
with him, Nasle Avvale Montaqedin: Yek Rishehyabi, Daftarhaye Sinema,
no. 3 (1981/1959), 2533.
4 The next three provinces in terms of ticket-sale volume were Khorasan, with
643,642,074 rials, Isfahan with 122,970,760 rials, and Gilan with 68,266,875
rials.
5 Banu Delkash, Khandaniha, no. 82 (1953/1332), 25.
6 The anthropologist Michael Fischer, who lived in Yazd in the early 1970s,
452
no t e s
states that the city had had three cinemas but that one had gone out of busi
ness. Of the remaining two, a Zoroastrian and a Bahai owned Sohail Cinema,
but a Muslim manager fronted for them, and Mahtab Cinema was Muslim
owned. According to Fischer, hostility to the cinema was deep and strong, as
the first movie house, which a Zoroastrian had opened in the 1930s, had been
closed long ago and the Yazdis claimed that the patrons of the contemporary
movie houses were not long-time Yazdis but outsiders who had moved in for
work (2004:159).
7 Such wild variations point not only to real changes but also to possible mis
takes and to the unreliability of government statistics, which should be con
sulted with some caution.
8 Variety, 29 October 1952, n.p.
9 A good example is Siamak Yasamis Top Dog (Avval Haikal, 1960), which was
very popular and emerged as the top box-office earner of the year.
10 These local production figures do not include the number of feature films,
which may have been produced but denied an exhibition permit or whose
exhibition permits were delayed (sometimes for years) due to government
censorship.
11 The original Persian is this: Yeki sakht masjed, yeki sinema. / Yeki gasht
gomrah, yeki Rahnema. / To khod didehye aql ra bazkon, / Tafavot behbin az
koja ta koja (Fischer 2004:159).
12 I thank Houchang Chehabi for letting me know about this travelogue.
13 Yek No Zendegi: Majeraye Aks va Aksforushi, Khandaniha, no. 1958/1337,
1417.
14 After a while, the first two partners, disappointed with the film business, emi
grated to other countries (Omid 1995/1374:24142).
15 Iran Executes Six Men on Brothel Charges, Los Angeles Times, 14 July 1979.
16 One by the name of Mr. Fatal lent money at the high rate of 1518 percent, for
which he paid a heavy price, when after the revolution his business was expro
priated while he was in London (Omid 1995/1374:352).
17 For boureka films, see Shohat 1989; Loshitzky 2001; and Yosef 2004.
18 For a list of commercial film studios established between the Second World
War and 1965, see Issari 1989:25763.
19 Setareh Sinema magazine reported that by 1959, sixty-three studios and film
production centers were operating in Iran (Omid 1995/1374:321. The accuracy
of Iranian statistics is always somewhat suspect.
20 Jamal Omid contends that Kushan directed some of Pars Film Studios movies
but gave the credit to others as payment or in gratitude (1995/1374:23940).
21 Mehdi Misaqiyeh, too, while running Misaqiyeh Studio, produced, directed,
and wrote some of the studios films and served as the president of the film in
dustry union, fighting both to bring down the skyrocketing fees of the movie
stars and to streamline film censorship (Baharlu 2000e/1379:26770).
22 Among the movies that deal with motorcyclist film runners is Masud Kimiais
Reza the Biker (Reza Motori, 1970), starring Behrouz Vossoughi.
no tes
453
23 For more on film clubs and film archives, see Omid 1995/1374:94763, and
Baharlu 2000c/1379. For more on Gaffarys various filmic activities, see Gaffary 1996.
24 In other cities, the local representatives of these national institutions formed
screen committees that issued permits to local exhibitors.
25 The classification of the movie houses evolved over the years. As noted earlier,
in the 1970s movie houses were classified as distinguished (momtaz), first
class, second class, and third class.
26 For the full text of these regulations, comprising nine chapters and seventyseven articles, see Shoai 1975/1354:515.
27 In Parviz Khatibis Governor for a Day (Hakeme Yek Ruzeh, 1952), a Qajar-era
peasant is mistaken for a governor, as a result of which he is able to rule for
a few days until he is discovered to be an imposter. Although dealing with a
bygone royalty, which the Pahlavis themselves had deposed, the movie was
banned because it had insulted the institution of monarchy (Khatibi 1994:
11516).
Chapter 4 Family Melodramas and Comedies

1 Culturally significant popular genre films are sometimes named after popu
lar national or regional foods, such as boureka films in Israel, masala films in
India, and abgushti films in Iran, not to mention regional, national, or autho
rial reworkings of other nations genres, such as the western, which has pro
duced the following subgenres: the burrito western (Robert Rodriguezs west
erns), the spaghetti western, the curry western, the kraut western, the dim
sum western (John Woos westerns), or the sashimi Western (the animated tv
series Samurai Jack, for example).
2 Such multifunctionality was one reason for his claim that Iranian cinema
owes me a debt, for most commercial film directors are following my foot
steps by imitating my stories and even borrowing my dialogues, songs, and
dance ideas (quoted in Moazezinia 1999/1378:14).
3 For Fardins full filmography, see Rahimipur 2000.
4 With the onset of the anti-Shah revolution, Khatibi escaped Iran in 1977 for
exile in the United States, where he continued to produce comic songs and
television shows with assistance from his wife, Zinat Khatibi, such as MullaEating Story (Qesehye Molla Khorun, 1981), which made broad fun of, and cri
tiqued, the Islamic Republic. He also worked with exile radio programs, such
as Familiar Voice (Sedaye Ashena) (Khatibi 1994:21213).
5 For examples of this situation, see Omid 1995/1374:23538.
6 Mohammad-Ali Fardin, 70, Iranian Film Star, New York Times, 11 April
2000.
7 See, for example, Mahnamehye Sinemaiye Film, April 2000/Ordibehesht
1379, and Gozareshe Film, April 2000/Farvardin 1379. For more on the
contribution of wrestlers and other sportsmen to Iranian cinema, see Fathi
1997/1376.
454
no t e s
8 Jamshid Farrahi filmed silent footage of Vossoughis tumultuous appearance

in Tabriz, footage that Vossoughi owns (Zeraati 2004:15461).
9 Although Shahla received credit for producing the film, a friend of her hus
band, Esmail Riahi, supplied most of the funds. Since he did not wish his
name to appear on-screen as a producer, Shahla took that credit (Arian 2003/
1382).
10 When in June she was called before the court for publishing her autobiogra
phy, several wearers of velvet hats and rich toughs who were fans of Mahvash
escorted her to the courthouse with their documents proving house owner
ship to bail her out. The court levied a bail of 4,000 tomans, which she paid.
See Mahvash Yaqi Shodeh Ast, Tehran Mossavar, June 1960/Khordad 1339,
n.p.
11 According to Erik Nakjavani, she chose her moniker Delkash based on the
name of a well-known Persian musical mode called gushehye delkash (2000:3).
12 The ballad begins with these words: What have you seen from my cruel and
unreliable heart (cheh didi az mane sangin dele bietebar akhar).
13 Ghazalha va Dash Mashdihaye Latife Radio, Khandaniha, no. 1959/1337,
29.
14 Also, see http://googoosh.com (last accessed 10 January 2011).
15 Mohammad Reza Shahs wives were variously called queen, empress, and
Shahbanu. For more on their star status, see Sadr 2003/1381:14246.
16 Some critics noted the similarity of this presentational acting style in com
mercial movies, particularly in comedies, to that in the traditional ruhozi the
ater, but generally as a condemnation, not as style. See the criticism of Henrik
Estepanians Returnee from Paris (Az Paris Bargashteh, 1960) in Poste Tehrane
Sinemai, no. 139 (quoted in Omid 1995/1374:333). The movie was banned be
cause of nudity.
17 Baikimanverdi was very prolific. In 1968, he appeared in eight commercial
movies and in 1977 in nine. Overall, he acted in about 120 features. Like
other major movie stars, he also produced, directed, and wrote screenplays
for films. One year after the Iranian revolution, in 1980, he emigrated to West
Germany and later to the United States, where he led an apparently sad and
ordinary life in exile, resorting to his precinema profession, driving taxicabs
and trucks. He died in Arizona in 2003.
18 On adaptation in Iranian cinema, see Moradi 1989/1368.
19 For some data on this relationship, see Abedini 1990/1369:chap. 2.
20 The original negatives of many of Pars Film Studio movies, filmed on flam
mable nitrate stock, were destroyed in a fire that burned down the studio, in
cluding Tempest of Life, Prisoner of the Emir, Spring Variety, Disgraced, Mother,
and Drunk with Love (Omid 1995/1374:220).
21 For a detailed analysis of the formal features of Persian popular romances, see
Hanaway 1970: 22687 and Hanaway 1971a.
22 Oral tradition is not a homogeneous category. Finnegans three criteria of
production, transmission, and performance are meant to assess what is oral
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455
in a given oral tradition. In some cases, the composition uses writing but the
performance is oral. In other casesas that of Homer according to Parry
(1987) and Lord (1976)the composition, transmission, and performance are
all oral and, in fact, all the same: this is the concept of composition in perfor
mance. For more on this, refer to the works of John Miles Foley (1988).
23 For more on Naqqali, see Mahjoub 2003/1382:vol. 2.
24 Naghmeh Samini, too, studied the thematic similarities of commercial mov
ies with newspaper serials and social romances (1999/1378).
25 The story behind Soodi Sharifis Movie Set (figure 38) germane to this con
text is this: Struck by how to convey in her photography the overwhelming
crowdedness and contradictoriness of Iranian society during her return vis
its from the United States, she discovered in the Persian miniatures multi
perspectivalism an expressive vehicle. She combined the original manuscript
painting The Portrait of Khosrow Is Shown to Shirin, by Muhammadi in the
Khamseh of Nezami created for Shah Tahmasp I (153943), with the photo
graphs of contemporary Iranians filming a scene in the same poses as char
acters in that painting. She cut and pasted these photos into their appropri
ate places in the scanned original using Photoshop. She thus transformed a
scene of pictorial presentation, where a messenger is showing a portrait of
the forlorn lover Khosrow to his beloved Shirin, into a film production set and
a scene of hybridized representation. She removed certain figures, changed
aspects of other figures (the figure in center showing Khosrows portrait to
Shirin is now holding a film clapperboard), replaced others with production
personnel (applying makeup, setting up camera, someone on cell phone), or
added entirely new contemporary figures (man watering the garden with a
hose). Mediated and indirect glancing is overdetermined in both Muhamma
dis original manuscript painting and Sharifis movie set photograph, and in
the latter women dominate: Three women in the set are looking through cam
era lenses. Other men and women watch and listen to each other in person or
by means of technology (cell phones). Incongruous multiple visual motifs and
planes are observable simultaneously. The modern and the ancient, real and
idealized, and photographed and painted are wonderfully juxtaposed.
26 For themes in literary works, see Taslimi 2004/1383 and Abedini 1990/1369.
27 Princess Ashrafs telling reaction to the social import of Baluch, expressed
to its star Behrouz Vossoughi, was this: The things that you show in the
movie are in the news as well. The news tells you that Baluchestan is without
water and grass, and that the life of the people there is bad. There is no rea
son for you, too, to go to these places and to make films about them (Zeraati
2004:220).
28 Sayyad transplanted the Samad character into exile, unleashing him against
the Islamic Republic in television shows and theatrical plays, which toured
throughout Europe and North America.
29 For more on the career and films of Samuel Khachikian, see Haidari 1992/
1371.
456
no t e s
30 The linkage between Iranian national identity and land, literally the earth of
Iran, is powerful, existential, and highly cathected for ordinary people and
rulers. For example, it is said that Reza Shah carried a pot of Iranian earth
with him when he was forced into foreign exile in 1941 and that his son, Mo
hammad Reza Shah, also took some Iranian earth with him into his exile in
1979. Empress Farah placed some of this earth under his pillow on his death
bed in Egypt.
31 Mohammad Reza Shah was a fan of the movies. As he states in his autobi
ography, he frequently watched them in the residential palace at night and
took pleasure in the change of mood and pace they provided. He particularly
liked historical and detective movies (Pahlavi 1960:31819). He believed in
the movies didactic power: in one meeting with the cabinet he explained to
the ministers the importance of the documentaries in informing the people
of progress on our development programme (323). In addition, he had busi
ness interests in the movies, for his Pahlavi Foundation invested in the pro
duction of Iranian films and in the construction of movie houses (190).
32 For more on point of view in Iranian cinema, see Haidari 1990b/1369.
33 Indeed, the Indian popular cinema has much in common in this regard with
Iranian commercial cinema (Dissanayake and Sahai 1992; Thomas 1995;
Prasad 1998).
34 For a list of these singers in commercial movies of the 1950s, see Sepanta
1987/1366:32225.
35 Most of the early features in the 1950s were filmed on 16mm stock, as Iranian
cameramen had been able to purchase used 16mm cameras and equipment
from the Americans after they evacuated from Iran in the late 1940s. Filming
on this format was cheaper and raw stock was readily available at the time.
36 On the concept of functional near-equivalency between originals and

dubbed versions, see Durovicov 2003a:2.
37 Alex Aqababian was the son of Satenik Aqababian and Satopari Aqababov, who
ran Pari Cinema, the first mixed-gender cinema in Iran in 1928 (Muzehye
Sinemaye Iran 2004/1383:78).
38 The studios dubbing films into Persian in Italy included the following: Cine
Studio, Niece Film, Lux Film, Ferno Film, and Titanus Film.
39 For the Film Dubbers Union constitution, see Omid 1995/1374:94445.
40 On occasion, however, certain voice-over artists developed their own fan base.
For years, Hushang Kazemi dubbed the voice of Raymond Burr, the star of
the American television series Ironside. When he traveled abroad for a period
and another veteran voice artist, Manuchehr Esmaili, was brought in as his
replacement, audiences objected, demanding Kazemis reinstatement.
41 Here some examples of the work done by female voice-over artists: Taji Ah
madi dubbed the voices of Claudia Cardinale and Jane Fonda; Iran Bozorg
mehr often dubbed Doris Day; Zhaleh Kazemi dubbed Sophia Loren; Ma
hin Kasmai dubbed the voices of Maria Schell and Foruzan. Male voice-over
artists did the following work, for example: Manuchehr Esmaili dubbed the
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457
voices of Peter Falk, Terry Thomas, Peter Sellers, Anthony Quinn, Charlton
Heston, and Reza Baikimanverdi; Parviz Bahram dubbed Naser Malekmotii
in the Sultane Sahabqeran television serial; Abdolhosain Tahami dubbed the
singing voice of Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady; Changiz Jalilvand dubbed the
voices of the domestic tough guys Mohammad Ali Fardin and Iraj Qaderi and
of the foreign toughs Paul Newman and Marlon Brando; Khosrow Khosrow
shahi dubbed the voices of Alain Delon and Al Pacino; Iraj Doustdar usually
dubbed John Waynes voice, and he dubbed Charlton Hestons voice in Ben
Hur and El Cid; Mohammad Ali Zarandi dubbed the voice of the British comic
Norman Wisdom. Naser Tahmasb dubbed the voices of Dustin Hoffman and
Dirk Bogarde; Hasan Abbasi dubbed Stan Laurel; Ataollah Kameli dubbed the
voices of Kirk Douglas and Ezztollah Entezami; Jalal Maqami dubbed Robert
Redford; Manuchehr Valizadeh dubbed Robert Wagner; and Siamak Yasami
dubbed Fernandel (Mehrabi 1984/1363:44246).
42 The censors, for example, changed unfaithful wives into harmless mistresses
or fiances in Jules Dassins Phaedra (1962) and Richard Brookss The Profes
sionals (1966) (Akrami 1992b:585).
43 For the kind of alterations achieved during dubbing before and after the Is
lamic Revolution, see Jairani 1985/1363.
Chapter 5 Males, Masculinity, and Power

1 See, in addition to Akbari 1973/1352; Tahaminejad 1986/1365; Karimi 1990;
Mehrabi 1984/1363, 1978/1357; Moazezinia 1999/1378; and the special dos
sier section of Mahnamehye Sinemaiye Film, containing seven articles on
lutis: Parvandehye yek Mozu: Lompanism dar Sinemaye Iran, Mahn
amehye Sinemaiye Film, July 1990/Tir 1369, 1536.
2 For English translations of Ale Ahmads Gharbzadegi see: Gharbzadegi
(Westernstruckness), trans. John Green and Ahmad Alizadeh (Lexington, Ky.:
Mazda, 1982); Plagued by the West (Gharbzadegi), trans. Paul Sprachman (Del
mar, N.Y.: Caravan, 1982); Occidentosis: A Plague from the West, ed. Hamid Al
gar, trans. Robert Campbell (Berkeley: Mizan, 1985).
3 For example, in both dash mashti and jaheli genres, Majid Mohseni produced,
directed, wrote the screenplay, and starred in Generous Tough (Late Javan
mard, 1958); Amin Amini directed, cowrote the screenplay, and edited The
Wise Girls (Dokhtarane Bamarefat, 1964); Mohammad Ali Fardin produced,
directed, wrote the screenplay, and starred in Prettiest of Them All (Khoshgele
Khoshgela, 1965); Said Kamyar produced, directed, and wrote the screenplay
for Thick Neck (Gardan Koloft, 1965); Hosain Madani was the producer, direc
tor, and screenplay writer of both Wise Ones (Bamareftha, 1963) and Ignorant
Toughs and Dandies (Jahelha va Zhigoloha, 1964); and Siamak Yasami pro
duced, directed, and wrote or cowrote the screenplays for Twentieth-Century
Man (Aqaye Qarne Bistom, 1964), Qaruns Treasure (Ganje Qarun, 1965), and
Shamsi the Champion (Shamsi Pahlevun, 1966).
4 For the historical roots and evolution of lutis, consult the following, among
458
no t e s
others cited: Kashefi Sabzevari 1970/1350; Khanlari 1969a/1348, 1969b/1348,

1969c/1348, 1985/1364; Mahjoub 2000; and Kazemeini 1964/1343.
5 Among a range of negative terms for the toughs are the following: lokhti,
pacheh pareh, penti, moft khor, bezan bahador, arbadeh kesh, arbadeh ju, cho
maq dar, qaddareh band, gardan koloft, bi sar o pa, qalandar, rend, owbash, sar
keshan, ashrar, ajamer, and arazel. Among further neutral and positive charac
terizations are the following: shater, fata, shabro, sarhang, mehtar, and esfahsa
lar. Some of the English equivalents are: rowdies, cutthroats, ruffians, hooli
gans, thugs, hoodlums, bums, runners, messengers, lowlifes, scums, rogues,
pederasts, champions, generous and brave ones, loafers, rabble-rousers, clubwielders, and bandits.
6 The luti and lat characters are not unique to Iranian society, literature, and
cinema. For the Sicilian Mafia, see Blok 1974; for British peasant rebels, see
Hobsbawm 1959; for French sans-culottes, see Cobb 1970; for Arab al-fotowah,
see Armbrust 2000; and for American toughs, see Wilkinson 1984. As far as
cinema is concerned, there are many similarities among the three national
genres of American western, Japanese samurai, and Iranian luti movies. For
a comparison between westerns and samurai movies, see Anderson 1982.
7 The anthropologists Sekandar Amanolahi and Edward Norbeck have written
about a group of rural lutis, an outcast tribal group in southwest Iran, who
make their living as entertainers, circumcisers, and beggars (1975:4). Ac
cording to them, other tribes consider the food these lutis prepare, their pro
fessions, and even their persons to be religiously defiling (haram). It appears
that performing music constituted the main reason for their defilement. The
connection between this rural, ethnic, and tribal subgroup and the urban lutis
under study here is unclear but fascinating.
8 Abolqasem Jannati Atai describes how lutis with nicknames, such as Hasan
the Cat (Hasan Gorbeh), Smoky Hosain (Hosain Dudi), and Sheikh Trumpet
(Shaikh Shaipur), acted as buffoons and clowns, entertaining audiences by
telling gross jokes or risqu stories and by making funny facial gestures and
taking odd body postures (1954/1333:56). Bahram Baizai also discusses the
lutis as entertainers (1965/1344:166216). Naser Najmi focuses both on the
luti entertainers (1991/1370:52837) and on the enforcers and religious orga
nizers (1991/1370:55462). For more on the lutis role in organizing religious
ceremonies, see also Mostofi 1997:37677.
9 For examples of lutis role as middlemen, cooperating with clerics, see Nateq
(1983/1362:4057); for accounts of their subservience to local power elites in
the Fars province, see Sirjani (1982/1361:257); for instances of their acting as
armed thugs on behalf of the elite in Azerbaijan, see Ghaffari (1982/1361:146
53); and for an account of contemporary lutis acting as a coercive formation
during the Pahlavis, see Shaban Jafaris autobiography as told to the journal
ist Homa Sarshar (Sarshar 2002).
10 Zurkhaneh is traditionally translated as house of strength, but I prefer
house of power, for this term not only alludes to the association of zurkha
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459
neh with physical and spiritual strength but also with political power, with the
use of muscle power in the service of political ends.
11 Significantly, the theorization of inner purity in modern terms occurred
in the 1970s, when both Westernizing and nativist tendencies among edu
cated Iranians reached their height and when a negative perception of Irani
ans held that interaction with them was fraught with insecurity, fear of dou
ble dealing, and cynical expectations (Fischer 1980:140). This theorization
was timely as it helped to explain the complexity of this behavior in a cultur
ally meaningful and morally justified way. A cultural salon, the Culture and
Personality Circle, consisting of Iranian and American intellectuals, met on
a regular basis to discuss such issues, which resulted in few but key publica
tions. See Bateson et al. 1977 and Fischer 1980:14042.
12 Scholars have offered similar analyses about the impact of Indian classical
epic narratives, such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and of the Is
lamicate and Persian epic and oral literatures, on Indian popular films, such
as masala movies; for a review, see Lutgendorf 2002.
13 For the original short story of Dash Akol in Persian, see Hedayat 1965. For
the English version, see Hedayat 1979.
14 For example, Esmail Kushan directed Hosain the Kurd (Hosaine Kord, 1965)
and The Cunning Nasim (Nasime Ayyar, 1967), Shapur Yasami directed The
Illustrious Amir Arsalan (Amir Arsalane Namdar, 1955), and Aman Manteqi di
rected The One and Only Champion (Pahlevan Mofrad, 1971)all of them for
Pars Film Studio.
15 For more on Kimiais career and films, and for reviews of Dash Akol, see Qu
kasian 1990/1369 and Naficy 1985c.
16 Dash Akol was shown at the third and the fifth Tehran International Film Fes
tival in 1974 and 1976, respectively. It won best film, best cinematography,
and best supporting actor prizes from Sepas Film Festival, and the Diploma
of Praise from the Tashkent Film Festival in 1972. Dash Akol has also been
screened publicly in U.S. cinemas and is available on video.
17 The quotations in the film synopsis are translated from the films soundtrack.
18 For more on The Blind Owl, see Beard 1990 and Hillmann 1978.
19 Surprisingly, Hedayat, who was an iconoclast and in all likelihood a homosex
ual, did not bring this back story into his short story. On his possible homo
sexuality, see Katouzian 1991; Beard 1990; and Farzaneh 1988.
20 For example, the refrain of Aqasis parodic song goes like this: Dash, dash,
dasham man, nashmehye khashkhasham man, ru chamana abpasham
man, ashehqe donbakam man, sayyade ordakam man (I am a dash [slick
brother], I am a lover of poppies [opium], I water the lawns [perhaps by peeing
on them], I am a lover of drums, I am a hunter of ducks).
21 For a comprehensive history of wrestling, houses of power, and wrestling
champions throughout the ages, see the five-volume book by Mehdi Abbasi
(1998/1377). Also, see Partow Baizai 1958/1337 and Kazemeini 1964/1343.
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no t e s
22 Films made by foreigners about luti lifestyles chiefly focus on the zurkhaneh
and traditions and rituals associated with it. In my book Iran Media Index,
several filmstrips, documentary films, and newsreels of this nature are cited
(Naficy 1984c): Life and Leisure (1976); Tehrans Largest Bank and Zurkhaneh
(1971); Iran Scenes: A Persian Gymnasium (Movietone News, 1959); Odd World:
Tehran, Capital of Iran (1967); Zurkhaneh (1973); Iran News #3 (1954); and Iran
News #281 (1961). The only significant documentary made in Iran that at
tempts a historical analysis of the institution of zurkhaneh is Hajir Daryoushs
stylish The Sacred Pit (Gowde Moqqadas, 1964). Parviz Kimiavis Zurkhaneh:
The House of Power (Zourkhaneh: La Maison de Force, 1988), which he made in
Paris, attempted a similar effort at analysis. For more on features and docu
mentaries about sports in general, see Fathi 1997/1376.
23 For more details on the clothing of old lutis and ayyars and their accessories,
see Khanlari 1969b/1348, 1985/1364; Mostofi 1997:40812; and Hanaway
1970:16466.
24 A sampling of these expressions are given below as examples, with their Eng
lish equivalents: bi khialesh (dont worry about it), inqadeh leftesh nadeh
(quit dragging your feet), khodeto nagir, geda (dont be stuck up, you beg
gar), tu sare mal nazan (dont sell the item short), bezan rowshan shim
(lets get high), nokaretam lakerdar (youre the boss, tough guy), dareh gan
desh dar miad, shekam goshneh (the cats out of the bag, greedy gut), and fi
nally, berim dava khori (lets go get drunk).
25 Shaban Jafari (Shaban the Brainless), in his book-length interviews with
Homa Sarshar (2002), gives many examples of such colorful nicknames
for actual lutis in Tehran. Among them are: Mostafa the Crazy (Mostafa Di
vuneh), Asghar Tattoo (Asghar Khaldar), Ismail the Bald (Ismail Kachal),
Mostafa the Cow-Killer (Mostafa Gavkosh), Mohsen the Monster (Mohsen
Ghul), Qasem the Blind (Qasem Kuri), Mahmud the Dog (Mahmud Sagi),
Reza the Cow (Reza Gavi), Hosain the Executioner (Hosain Mirghazab),
Mehdi the Butcher (Mehdi Qassab), and Naser the Liver Seller (Naser Jiga
raki). He also speaks of a famous female luti called Parvin the Policemans
Wife (Parvin Azhdan Qezi). Sina Mirzai in his book about Tayyeb Haj Rezai
gives additional nicknames for Tehrani tough guys (2002/1381): Mohammad
the Cheeky (Mohammad Porru), Three-Headed Hasan (Hasan Sehkaleh),
Hasan the Oil Seller (Hasan Nafti), Gluttonous Kazem (Kazem Porkhor),
Scary Asghar (Asghar Khofnak), Esmail the Leopard (Esmail Palang), Hasan
from Qom (Hasan Qomi), Ahmad the Genie (Ahmad Jenni), Pigeon-Breasted
Morteza (Mortaza Sinehkaftari), Limber Reza (Reza Sholi), Hasan the Tai
lor (Hasan Khayat), Qasem the Train (Qasem Teren), Mohammad the Far
rier (Mohammad Nalband), Naughty Ali (Ali Shaitun), Gholamreza the Ant
(Gholamreza Murchehi), Horned Hosain (Hosain Shakhi), Khosrow the Deaf
(Khosrow Kareh), Southpaw Hasan (Hasan Chapeh), Hosain the Mouse (Ho
sain Mushi), Blue-Eyed Ebram (Ebram Zaghi), Black Asghar (Asghar Siah),
no tes
461
Tiny Hosain (Hosain Rizeh), Hare-Lipped Abdol (Abdol Labshekari), and Ho

sain the Perfume Seller (Hosain Atri). Several luti strongmen bore effemi
nate nicknames, such as Lady Mahmud the Cantor (Mahmud Khanome Mor
shed), Lady Hosain (Hosain Khanom), and Hosain the Bride (Hosain Arus),
presumably because they were handsome, blond, or blue-eyed.
26 For an analysis of the portrayal of women in cinema, particularly in luti films,
see Eshqi 1990/1369.
27 For names given to women by ayyars in popular romances, see Hanaway
1970:24041.
28 According to his father, Khalil Tahmasebi, another Fadaiyane Eslam mem
ber who assassinated Prime Minister Razmara, lived next door to their house
(Shokrollah and Turanpur 2000/1379:145).
29 For more on this and other shifts in the luti genre, see Karimi 1990; Eshqi
1990/1369; Esbati 1990/1369; Baharlu 1990/1369; Talebinezhad 1990/1369;
and Sadr 1990/1369.
30 For more on the wide critical reactions to Qaisar, see Moazezinia 1999/1378;
Qukasian 1990/1369; and Omid 1995/1374:52437.
31 According to Mofid in his interview with me, the origin of the fedora hat
goes back to Reza Shahs decree that forced men to wear the Pahlavi hat. Un
happy with this decree, the tough guys subverted it by wearing under the fe
dora their traditional felt hat, making the dome of the fedora stand very high
(Naficy 1984a). For more on the clothing and personal articles of the toughs
in the 1970s, see Esbati 1990/1369.
32 He wore fashionable and neat clothing consisting of a black fedora hat, a fulllength black overcoat whose collar was lined with velvet, and a massive gold
and turquoise ring. He wore a large gold pendant around his neck on which
was carved the phrase Ya Ali (Mirzai 2002/1381:88, 97).
33 In Wise Girls (Dokhtarane Bamarefat, 1964) two women disguise themselves
as male lutis. The female star of Thick Neck (Gardan Koloft, 1965) also dis
guises herself as a male driver.
34 The genres listed in their research were the crime thriller (polisi-jenai), the
drama (deram), the romance (eshqi), historical films (tarikhi), the western
(vestern), the musical (muzikal), the comedy (komedi), and martial arts films
(karatehi).
35 These figures on the tough-guy movies are rather impressionistic, but they
help give an idea of the evolution and trajectory of these films. They are based
on my analysis of content summaries of films provided by Omid (1987a/
1366, 1987b/1366) and on my own viewing of a large number of them. I used
the following conventions of the genre to identify the films from their de
scriptions: song-and-dance routines; women dancers; caf life; tough-guy life;
zurkhaneh champions; drivers of automobiles, buses, and trucks; loafers and
rabble-rousers; and prostitutes. Almost a third (266) of all films (901) made
between 1930 (when the first fiction feature was made) and 1975 dealt with
462
no t e s
one of these themes. See also Mostafa Zamani-Nia 1984/1363 and Ministry of
Culture and Art 1975/1354, 1976a/2534, 1976b/2534.
36 Haftehye Gozashteh Nagahan Sinemaye Iran Motovaqef Shod!, Film va
Honar, no. 389 (1972/1351).
37 I have gleaned this information from advertisements for the movies in the fol
lowing periodicals: Film va Honar, 6 April 1972/17 Farvardin 1351; Kayhan, 31
December 1974/10 Dey 1352; and Kayhan, 18 March 1975/27 Esfand 1352.
38 Azar Ahmadieh, a member of the High Council of Film responsible for film
licensing, mentions these characteristics as reasons for the government cen
soring jaheli films (Goftogu ba Yeki az Azaye Showraye Aliye Film, Far
hang O Zendegi, no. 18 [1975/1345], 9199).
39 See Naficy 1984b and Mize Gerde Sinemaye Iran, 2, Farhang va Honar,
no. 18 (1976/1345), 8182.
40 Haftehye Gozashteh Nagahan Sinemaye Iran Motovaqef Shod!, Film va
Honar, no. 389 (1972/1351). The report by the Hollywood trade paper Variety
about the edict stated that the government had banned sequences that show
hooligans revenge, pigeon flying by pigeon fanciers, gambling on sidewalks,
slums, actors with torn clothing and sexual relations. See Iranian Film In
dustry Blasts Government Ruling that Bans Slums, Sex Scenes, Variety, 26
July 1972, n.p.
41 Tamasha, no. 364, (1978/2537), 89.
42 Ali Mortazavi told me that pigeon flying was banned only because the large
number of pigeon fanciers who flew and raced their birds in the vicinity
of Tehrans Mehrabad International Airport had caused difficulties for the
planes, as pigeons were sometimes sucked into jet engines (Naficy 1984b:18).
There were other moral and social reasons for the ban, as pigeon fanciers
gambled with their pigeons, raced them, stole each others birds, and caused
fights. In addition, operating from rooftops, they voyeuristically looked into
other peoples homes, violating the Islamic rules of gender segregation
and privacy. Moreover, while engaged in pigeon flying, they were not pro
ductive members of society. As hooligans, they whiled their time away and
initiated the degeneration of the neighborhoods morals by attracting other
young boys. Finally, their private passion for the birds and for flying took
on a sexualized and homoerotic dimension, which went against the rules of
normalizing social decorum. For similar reasons, pigeon flying is currently
banned in the Islamic Republic. For more on this topic, see Goushegir 1997.
Gholamreza Sarkubs film Khan Nayeb (1979), whose protagonist is a pigeon
fancier, was banned for a while, until some of the offending scenes were
removed.
43 Iranian Film Industry Blasts Government Ruling That Bans Slums, Sex
Scenes, Variety, 26 July 1972, n.p.
4 4 Ibid.
45 Dar Filmha, Jahelhaye Dashneh Behdast ra Bejaye Bozorgane Akhlaq
no tes
463
Moarrefi Mikonand, Kayhan, 9 September 1975/18 Shahrivar 1354, 10. See

also Jahel Baziye Sinemai Chashniye Filmhaye Farsi, Kayhan, 10 Septem
ber 1975/19 Shahrivar 1354, 5.
46 See Honarpishehgane Sinema beh Dadgahe Enqelab Ehzar Shodand,
Ettelaat, 11 March 1980/22 Esfand 1358. The Revolutionary Court similarly
summoned singers and entertainers for preliminary investigation. Among
those named were Faeqeh Atashin (Googoosh), Leila Foruhar and her father
Jahangir Foruhar, Firuzeh, Feraidun Farrokhzad, Ahdiyeh Badii, Tuti Salimi,
Puneh, and Parvaneh known as Homaira. Failure to appear before the court
was prosecutable.
47 Shab Shekan, Mahnamehye Sinemaiye Film, no. 28 (1985/1364), 3839.
48 Filmi keh Pahluye Jashnvarehye Fajr ra Darid, Kayhane Havai, 10 Febru
ary 1993 / 21 Bahman 1371, 2.
49 Ayyaran va Tarraran, Mahnamehye Sinemaiye Film, no. 37 (1986/1365), 41.
50 Cleverly, the film uses only brief excerpts of these songs, long enough to be
recognized and appreciated by those who knew them but short enough not to
arouse the censors ire. According to Parviz Parastui, who played one of the
transplanted Jahels, he patterned his performance after that of famous Shahera tough guys and even sang a jaheli song in the style of the singer Aghasi,
which was edited out from the film (Sharifi 2003/1382:96).
51 The most successful theatrical performance in the Islamic Republic was a ja
heli play, Golden Teeth (Dandun Tala, 1999), written and directed by Davud
Mirbaqeri, which by 2000 had earned nearly 90 million tomans. Despite this
unprecedented public reception, critics were not so sanguine, with one con
demning the jaheli culture, which has no place in our society anymore . . .
and must be forgotten. See Farhange Jaheli az Bain Raft, Hamshahri, 16
Dey 1378/6 January 2000, Adab va Honar page.
52 Many plays dealt humorously with the tough guys exploits in Europe and
North America. Many of these toured to cities with large displaced popula
tion of Iranians, helping consolidate an Iranian diasporic community. Among
these were the comic plays of the Andaruni Group, spearheaded by Maryam
Akhundi, based in Germany, in which the female director and star of the
show cross-dressed as a champion or as a tough guy and made fun of them,
their homosexual tendencies, and their special singing style. Another play,
Courtship (Khastegari), written, directed, and starring the well-known toughguy actor Morteza Aqili, toured the United States in 2002. In it he humor
ously revived some of the tough guys style of conduct, dress, and language in
the context of a modern courtship in the diaspora. Some of these plays were
videotaped, aired on Iranian exile television, and sold on video in Iranian
stores.
53 Iranian Television aired Jaklyns Mafia music video in 1990.
54 Jame Jam Television aired Heart to Heart in March 1992.
55 Mahmoud also has one series called Abgooshti, containing thirty-three car
toons of famous stewpot movies. These cartoons are regularly featured online
464
no t e s
in the Iranian, an electronic newspaper edited by Jahanshah Javid. See the pa

pers website at http://www.iranian.com.
56 The cover of the Eskenas cassette tape shows a U.S. dollar bill on which the
picture of the singer has replaced the image of George Washington.
Chapter 6 A Dissident Cinema

1 An example is Shah or Iran, a segment of cbss Sixty Minutes, hosted by Mike
Wallace, which aired on 10 March 1974 (Naficy 1984c:110).
2 nirt created a sophisticated research organization, a think tank, called Ira
nian Communications and Development Institute, headed by a former op
positional student activist, Majid Tehranian, which worked on broadcasting
planning and strategies. The institute organized seminars, invited Western
scholars, and published an English-language journal, Communications and
Development Review, which Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi edited.
3 At least three books offer annotated directories of short-subject films and
films made for children and young adults, many of them by the cidcyas film
makers. These are Mehrabi 1989/1368, 1990/1369; and Jahangirian 1988/
1367.
4 Empress Farah Pahlavi, the cidcyas chief benefactor, translated and illus
trated the book The Little Mermaid (Pahlavi 2004:146).
5 Since the fall of the Shah in the revolution of 197879, many rumors about
nirts alleged responsibility for speeding up the revolution have circulated.
As Farrokh Gaffary, the deputy director of nirt, notes, accusations were
made, even by the Shah, that communist agitators had been active at nirt
and had engaged in antinational activities (Gaffary 198384:45).
6 These included Shirazs Festival of Culture and Arts (headed by Farrokh Gaffary), the Folklore Festival in Isfahan (Mahmud Khaliqi), Tus Arts Festival in
Mashhad (Ziaeddin Sajjadi), the Center for the Preservation and Propagation
of Iranian Music (Dariush Safvat), the Center for Collecting Regional Music
(Fowzieh Majd), the Center for the Study of Cultures (Dariush Shayegan),
the Workshop for Teaching Music to Children and Young Adults (Said Khad
iri), the Center for Traditional Rituals and Performances (Gaffary), the The
ater Workshop (Bijan Saffari), the Center for Folk Culture (Abolqasem An
javi Shirazi), the Sinemaye Azad Society (Basir Nassibi), the Cinmathque
(Amirhushang Kavusi), the College of Cinema and Television (Feraidun Me
kanik), Soroush Publications, which published Soroush and Tamasha mag
azines and books on media (Iraj Gorgin, later Reza Mirhosaini and Karim
Emami), the Open Theater (Davud Rashidi), the Communications and De
velopment Institute (Majid Tehranian), the Social Research and Public Opin
ion Evaluation Center (Ali Assadi), the Iranzamin Research Group (Feraidun
Rahnema), and Pars Ballet (Abdollah Nazemi). nirt also maintained the City
Theater of Tehran and a chamber orchestra.
7 For Empress Farahs description of the history and impact of Shirazs Festi
val of Culture and Arts, see Pahlavi 2004:22738. For a documentary on the
no tes
465
festival, see Naser Taqvais The Fifth Shiraz Festival of Culture and Arts (1971),
made for nirt.
8 For more on film festivals, see Omid 1995/1374:96590.
9 And those that made money, such as Caravans, coproduced by fidci and Ibex
(Elmo Williams), allegedly took advantage of the revolutionary situation in
Iran to cook the books and to show loss (Omid 1995/1374:751). However, this
movie benefited one of its Iranian stars, Behrouz Vossoughi, who because
of acting in it was able to become a member of the Screen Actors Guild in
the United States, which facilitated his application later for a permanent-resi
dency green card (Zeraati 2004:334).
10 For more on the three progenitors of the new wave, Gaffary, Golestan, and
Rahnema, see Mohammad Kashi 2001/1380.
11 Mehrjui not only received his bachelors degree in philosophy from ucla but
also translated into the Persian Herbert Marcuses The Aesthetic Dimension.
It also contains a longer essay by Mehrjui, Zibashenakhtiye Vaqeiyat (Aes
thetics of Reality), which acts as an introduction (see Marcuse 1987/1368).
12 Soon after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Saedi, who opposed
the rule of the mullahs, left Iran for exile in Paris, where he died in 1985.
According to the filmmaker Reza Allamehzadeh, who visited Saedi in Paris
before his death, Saedi had worked up a screenplay with Mehrjui, who had
moved to France for several years after the revolution, for a film about Iranian
immigrants and exiles. This promising project was torpedoed when the Ira
nian regime, fearful of the lethal combination of Saedi and Mehrjui working
on the same film, persuaded Mehrjui to return to make his movies in Iran
(1991:21921). For more on Saedis career and works, see Mojabi 1999/1378.
13 Persian Filmmakers Map Expansion into International Market: Eye Co-pro
ductions, Variety, 12 November 1969, n.p.
14 For a collection of reviews of Mehrjuis films and interviews with him, see
Zeraati 1996/1375. Also see, Omid 1995/1374:53849.
15 Of the new-wave films, the following were banned for months or years, as ex
plained in the text: Farmanaras Tall Shadows of the Wind; Golestans Secrets
of the Treasure of the Jenni Valley; Kimiais Baluch and The Deer; Mehrjuis The
Cow and The Cycle; Naderis Elegy; Sayyads Dead End; Taqvais Tranquility in
the Presence of Others.
16 The Cow was also perhaps the first Iranian movie shown in a commercial cin
ema in the United States in the early 1970s. It was shown in Los Angeles and
proved to be an eye-opening film for the large Iranian student body that op
posed the Shah and his government.
17 For a reader on neorealism, see Overbey 1978.
18 On Karimis take on neorealism, see Omid 1995/1374:58283.
19 These were:
A message for the Italian filmmakers, cinema is a way of expression and
communication in the true sense of this world.
466
no t e s
Topical scripts inspired by concrete events; great historical and social

issues are tackled from the point of view of the common people.
A sense of detail as a means of authentification.
A sense of the masses and the ability to surprise (De Sica) or manipulate
them in front of the camera (De Santis, Visconti); the protagonists are
captured in their relationship to the masses.
Realism; but reality is filtered by a very delicate sensitivity.
The truth of actors, often nonprofessionals.
The truth of the dcor and a refusal of the studio.
The truth of the lighting.
Photography reminiscent of the reportage style stresses the impression of
truth.
An extremely free camera; its unrestricted movements result from the use
of postsynchronization (quoted in Liehm 1984:13132).
20 Originally, there were sixteen filmmakers who broke away, but this number
increased to at least nineteen. The original signatories were Bahram Baizai,
Naser Taqvai, Manuchr Anvar, Nemat Haqiqi, Hushang Baharlu, Masud Kim
iai, Behrouz Vossoughi, Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh, Zakaria Hashemi, Ali
Hatami, Parviz Sayyad, Dariush Mehrjui, Ezatollah Entezami, Ali Nasirian,
Davud Rashidi, and Hajir Daryoush. Jalal Moqaddam, Khosrow Haritash, and
others were added later.
21 Unless otherwise noted, all quotations about the pfc in this section are from
Shoai 1975:38188.
22 Film Cooperative Emerges as Key Unit in Tehran Production, Variety, 14
August 1974, n.p.
23 The film did not do well domestically at the box office, although Iranian intel
lectuals and the Cannes International Film Festival that year praised it.
24 Zakaria Hashemi had been a bodybuilder before this film, and the pictures of
his bodybuilding days adorn his one room apartment in Mudbrick and Mirror.
Later he became a director and a novelist, and after the revolution he served
in the war with Iraq as a filmmaker and wrote affectingly about it (see chapter
1 of volume 4 on the postrevolution documentaries).
25 Of historical importance is the anecdote that Golestan related in his post
screening discussion of the film in Chicago (5 May 2007). He was filming af
ter the so-called 1963 uprising, which had led to Ayatollah Khomeinis exile,
an event that has since been construed to have been widespread and a precur
sor to the revolution of 197879. His anecdote cast doubt on how well known
Khomeini was in what was thought to be his power base, the bazaar. Golestan
had placed a picture of the ayatollah in a shop in the bazaar for filming, but
the shopkeeper asked whose picture it was.
26 The film subtly critiques the state by showing how the ineffectual police and
justice system fail to serve citizens under the watchful eyes of the Shah and
Empress Farah peering from their mandatory portraits on all official walls.
no tes
467
Particularly pointed is one poster, which lauds the coup of 1953 against Mo
saddeq by calling it a resurrection, not a coup.
27 Golestan believes that his experience as a newsreel cameraman made this se
quence so realistic.
28 For a more detailed version, see Qukasian 1991a/1370:4951.
29 For further readings on Farmanaras career and films, see Rastegar and Aqiqi
2002/1381; and Qukasian 2001.
30 For samples of Fereydoun Hoveydas film criticism published from the late
1950s to the late 1960s in Cahiers du Cinma, translated into English, see Hill
ier 1985, 1986.
31 Derambakhsh also made The Last Days of Sadeq Hedayat (Akharin Ruzhaye
Sadeq Hedayat, 1977). The list of nirt film archive holdings before the revo
lution contains another 16mm film called Sadeq Hedayat, which is thirteen
minutes long, whose director is not identified. In the 1980s, Ali Limondai de
voted a one-hour special of his weekly television show, Iranian, to Hedayat.
32 Khosrow Haritash adapted the short novel of another modernist writer, Bah
ram Sadeqi, for his Kingdom of Heaven (Malakut, 1976) for the fidci. Like The
Blind Owl, this too is a difficult, hallucinatory, closed-form short novel and
film, narrated by the protagonist. The protagonists narration establishes in
dividual consciousness and subjectivity and clarifies the films attempt at vi
sualizing his inner world. Kingdom of Heaven was screened only once at the
fifth Tehran International Film Festival and caused much controversy about
Haritashs subjective approach, the difficulty of comprehension, and the type
of characters used. Haritash responded that the novel itself is subjective and
complicated, requiring several readings for comprehension, and that his char
acters are all symbolic, in the same way that time and place in the movie and
the novel are indeterminate. Modernism does not reveal all issues; rather, it
conceals some of them behind the veil of ambiguity and ambivalence (quoted
in Omid 1995/1374:710).
33 Nabili postdubbed the sound effects and voices, which because of the difficulty of finding a professional dubber who could render childrens voices with
out dramatizing them, took six months (Shafa 199293:42).
34 This line is taken from Shamlus poem titled Sorud Baraye Marde Rowshan
keh Beh Sayeh Raft (literally: A Song for the Enlightened Man Who Went
into the Shadow).
35 The film was shot in the hills of north Tehran, in a place that according to
Golestan was actually named Darrehye Jenni (Haunted Valley), hence my re
tention of Jenni in the films title as an untranslated proper noun.
36 Begun in the fall of 1970, the film took nearly a year and a half to complete
until the end of 1972principally due to the large size of the cast and crew,
unusual for Golestans modus operandi, and due to his taking on multiple
functions in the creation of the film, which slowed the process.
37 Several entities collaborated to create an unprecedented retrospective of Gole
stans feature films and documentaries in Chicago, including a symposium
468
no t e s
on his works, in all of which he participated for the first time in nearly four
decades. Under the title Ebrahim Golestan: Lion of Iranian Cinema, a Selec
tive Retrospective, the films were shown at the Gene Siskel Film Center and
the symposium was held at Northwestern University (46 May 2007). These
events were organized at the Gene Siskel Film Center by Barbara Scharess, at
Columbia College by Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa, at Northwestern University by me,
and at the University of Chicago Film Center by Julia Gibbs. Golestan took
questions from the spectators after each screening. The symposium at North
western University consisted of a talk by Tom Gunning of the University of
Chicago on Mudbrick and Mirror and one by me on the gfw and The House Is
Black, followed by the screening of The House Is Black and Golestans ques
tion-and-answer session with the spectators.
38 According to Golestan, he was arrested and imprisoned briefly before the
films public exhibition, not because of the film but because in the papers of
two people who had been arrested Savak agents had found a sentence from
one of Golestans stories to the effect that I went to see the fireworks, but rain
came and made the gunpowder wet. This had been interpreted as a reference
to armed struggle.
39 In the 1980s, it was briefly screened in a cinema in Los Angeles, to Golestans
protest, perhaps because he had not authorized it.
40 According to Golestan in his postscreening appearance in Chicago on 4 May
2007, he wrote the book in ten days on the cutting table as he was edit
ing the film, using the films soundtrack as a guide. When the printed book
was submitted for approval, Golestan found out from a friend on the cen
sorship board that the mca would not give it a license because of two allit
erative words, jendeh (whore) and jasus (spy), which he did not want to ex
cise or change. Finally, he found a clever solution, one typical of the type of
cat-and-mouse games of resistance that intellectuals played with censors: he
printed one copy of the book in which the two pages with these words had
been changed and presented that version to the censors, leaving the rest of the
three thousand run intact. The censors approved the changed copy. The un
changed book was released just before the Noruz holidays, a deliberate timing
to take advantage of government offices closure for a few weeks, allowing the
book to find its readers. Within two weeks the censors caught onto the ruse
and ordered all copies collected. By that time, only fifteen books remained,
which were then confiscated.
41 According to the films star Behrouz Vossoughi, the films original title was
the sensational Execution by Firing Squad (Tirbaran), to which the mca ob
jected, forcing it to be changed (quoted in Zeraati 2004:292).
42 The film was shot in the small village of Chaleh Qarreh between Natanz and
Kashan in central Iran, whose walls Kimiavi painted to show the changes that
Westernization had brought to it.
43 According to a Japanese reviewer, the same audience applause occurred when
Still Life was screened in Japan in 1974 (Omid 1995/1374:692).
no tes
469
4 4 For more on Shahid Salesss works at home and in exile, see Naficy 2001:199
207 and Dehbashi 1999.
45 Quoted in the films publicity package, without a date or page number.
46 For more on Kiarostamis uses of women in his films, see Saeed-Vafa and
Rosenbaum 2003:6871.
47 For example, Golshiri, who collaborated with Mehrjui on the screenplay of
his movie Alamut, about Hasan Sabbah and the Assassins, complained in a
meeting that Mehrjui, Golshiri, and I had in the mid-1970s that the director
did not give the writers whose works he adapted sufficient screen credit, for
he listed them second to himself in the screenplay credits. Mehrjui argued,
on the other hand, that by taking the lead in fundamentally transforming the
written story into a screenplay, the director must receive the first credit. Not
all new-wave directors felt this way about the assignment of screenplay cred
its, and not all collaborations resulted in a similar arrangement. For example,
in another collaboration involving an adaptation of Golshiris work, Tall Shad
ows of the Wind, Golshiri received the first credit for screenplay writing while
the director, Farmanara, received the second credit.
48 Produced by the Misaqiyeh Film Studio, Kimiais The Earth focused on the
peasants deep bond with the land and on the disastrous attempts by the for
eign bride of a feudal landowner to evict the farmers from her land on the
death of her husband.
49 The change of political regime caused a change in approach to animation,
from indirect criticism to direct criticism and propaganda movies, and the
vvir commissioned many anti-Pahlavi propaganda animated films.
50 For a history of animated films during the Pahlavi and Islamic Republic pe
riods, one containing an annual listing of films and brief biographies of the
animators, see Javaherian 1999.
51 According to Ervand Abrahamian, between 1963 and 1979, enrollment in inter
nal colleges grew from 24,885 to 154,215; enrollment in foreign colleges grew
from 18,000 to more than 80,000; and enrollment in technical, vocational,
and teacher-training institutions rose from 14,240 to 227,497 (1999:11213).
52 Mehrzad Boroujerdis analysis shows that by the 197576 academic year, of
the 5,430 Iranian faculty members teaching at universities and institutions
of higher education, 3,037 (almost 60 percent) had received at least one de
gree from a foreign university (1996:131). According to Afshin Matin-Asgari,
among the American universities, the University of Southern California had
the highest enrollment of Iranian students in the entire country in the 1970s,
with nine hundred Iranians in a student body of twenty-five thousand. ucla,
California State universities, and other universities and colleges also had
a sizable Iranian student body, which brought the number of Iranian stu
dents in the Los Angeles area to around fourteen thousand in the late 1970s
(2002:225).
53 Empress Farah Pahlavi mentions only the charge of kidnapping (2004:191),
while Agheli mentions only assassination (Agheli 1997/1376:vol. 2:277). Ab
470
no t e s
bas Samakar, one of the accused in the kidnapping plot, mentions both kid
napping and assassination (2001).
54 Daneshian had left his filmmaking studies at the nirt college unfinished, al
legedly because school officials disliked his socially critical film Dowlat Abad,
about poverty in Tehrans South End (Samakar 2001:256). Samakar was a
film cameraman for the Shiraz and Tehran nirt stations, generally involved
in recording news events; Patai was a Kurd and a television studio camera
man for nirt, and Allamehzadeh was a filmmaker who had made short films
for the cidcya, among others. All three had graduated from the nirt college.
The other accused were: Khosrow Golsorkhi, Manuchehr Moqaddam Salimi,
Morteza Siahpush, Farhad Qaisari, Ebrahim Farhangrazi, Rahmatollah Jam
shidi, Shokuh Farhangrazi (Mirzadegi), and Maryam Ettehadieh.
55 For more on the history of the Confederation of Iranian Students, various
anti-Shah oppositional groups, and Nikkhahs story, see Matin-Asgari 2002.
56 All trial quotations are taken from the soundtrack of Pooyas film In Defense
of the People, which contains the trial footage. For the full transcript of his de
fense, see Golsorkhi 1998/1377:199204.
57 Another sensational press interview with a famous personality in 1972 in
volved Parviz Qelichkhani, a star soccer player. See Abrahamian 1999:11617.
58 Abbas Samakar states that before deciding on the plot to kidnap the empress
and the crown prince, he and Allamehzadeh had discussed assassinating Nik
khah because of his operations against nirt dissidents (Samakar 2001:38).
59 Mohammad Falsafi, Harpers, January 1975, 99.
60 For Barahenis further elaborations on the story of his alleged television con
fession, which he vehemently denies, see Baraheni 1975:3852.
61 In his PhD dissertation, Yaron Shemer notes that some directors of Miz
rahi cinema in Israel, particularly Yamin Messika, adapted Khomeinis cas
sette revolution as a model for distributing their protest films in informal
and direct-sale venues, such as in the streets and in bus stations, instead of
attempting to break into the mainstream Ashkenazi hegemony that com
pletely controlled the music, film production, broadcasting, and distribution
industries (2005:25152).
62 Sadi and Feri closed down permanently, while Pacific, Olympia, Asia, and
Iran opened up within a few months (Omid 1995/1374:548). In February 1973,
six men were condemned to death for setting fire to the Land Reform Organi
zations vehicles and the Taj Cinema (Agheli 1997/1376:vol. 2:282).
63 Iran Filmmakers Shake Off Setbacks, See Bright Future, Variety, 10 May
1976, 67, 90.
64 On Farmanaras participation in the operation of the fidci, see the interview
with him in Rastegar and Aqiqi 2002/1381:15367.
65 Having gained considerable knowledge about the system, Mehrjui subse
quently made a documentary for the Blood Transfusion Organization of Iran.
66 The movie houses were Alvand, Astara, Europa, Kayhan, Marlik, Miami, Nia
gara, Ray, Shahram, Sharq, Syvlana, and Uranus.
no tes
471
67 This section about the film industry crisis and the Rastakhiz Partys attempt
to head off troubles is based on Omid 1995/1374:71927.
68 Qaichiye Sansur Baraye Badanhaye Lokht Lebas Miduzad, Kayhan, (5 Feb
ruary 1978/16 Bahman 2536), 5.
69 First Open Letter of the Writers, Index on Censorship 7, no. 1 (1978), 1920.
70 In his speech at the Ten Nights of Poetry, he had charged that government cen
sorship and support for the arts had bred a class of artists he called pseudo
artists (Saedi 1978/1357).
472
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inde x
Abbasi, Ali, 207, 422

Abboud, Mounir, 423
Abgushti films, 154, 199, 23132, 284
Abrahamian, Ervand, 22, 148, 409
Acorn (Afshar Naderi), 10911
Acorn (Taheridoust), 109, 11011
Actors Syndicate, 168
Adl, Shahryar, 97, 98
Adorno, Theodor, 150, 264
Advertising: American-style, 65, 69; cost
of, 15758, 427; before films, 15859;
of films, 23, 117, 160, 334, 398; movie
going and, 165; in periodicals, 3; stars
and, 176, 208
Aesthetic Dimension, The (Marcuse), 348
Afat, 304, 305
Afghani, Ali Mohammad, 327
Afrashteh, Mahmud, 22
afrts (Armed Forces Radio and Televi
sion), 46, 66
Afshar, Toghrol, 183, 219, 245
Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar
(Mohtasham), 152
Aghravi, Naji, 172
Agrama, Faruk, 335
Ahus Husband (Mowlapur), 327, 336
aioc (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company), 13,
31, 32, 77, 91, 156
Air-dome cinemas, 157, 158
ajjdc (American-Jewish Joint Distribu
tion Committee), 5859
Akbar Dilmaj (Parvizi), 244

Akbari, Ali Akbar, 262
Akhavan, Morteza, 174
Akhavan, Mostafa, 174
Akhavan Saless, Mehdi, 402, 403
Akhbar Cinema, 13, 14
Akhbar-e Iran, 3639, 46, 53, 5556, 72
Akram, 158, 166, 172, 20911, 248, 304,
305, 322
Akrami, Jamsheed, 102, 338, 370, 394
Aksoy, Orhan, 306
Alam-e Honar (magazine), 175
Alami, Akbar, 98
Al-Atrash, Farid, 159
Alavi, Bozorg, 3, 13, 18, 23
Alborz Cinema, 52
Alborz Film Studio, 170, 180, 204, 253
Al-e Ahmad, Jalal, 22, 79, 264, 303,
406, 41617
Al-e Ahmad, Shams, 420
Allamehzadeh, Mohammad Reza,
12627, 408, 410, 411, 412, 413, 431
Allied Forces, 1, 2, 3
All-Union Society for Cultural Relations
with Foreign Countries (voks), 1624
Al-Rashid, Harun, 54
American Bazaar, The (Issari), 59
American Forces Radio Network, 3
American-Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee (ajjdc), 5859
American Sketches (newsreel), 38
Amini, Ali, 32526

Amini, Amin, 239
Amirarjomand, Laili, 70
Amir Arsalan (Kushan), 205
Amir Arsalan (television serial), 67
Amirebrahimi, Shahpar, 304, 305
Amirmoez, Alireza, 13
Ancient Fairy Tales (Nabili), 37475
Ancient Iran (film series), 14143
Ancient Tales of Iran (television serial),
68
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (aioc), 13,
31, 32, 77, 91, 156
Anglo/Persian Cooperation (newsreel), 29
Anglo-Persian Institute (api), 1216
Anglo/Soviet Control (newsreel), 29
Animated films, 4057
Antonioni, Michaelangelo, 119, 183
Anvar, Manuchehr, 134
Anxieties of Unknown Origin (Saedi), 370
Anxiety (Khachikian), 428
api (Anglo-Persian Institute), 1216
Aqa, Seyyed Ali, 389
Aqababian, Alex, 119, 253
Aqamalian, Armais, 234
Aqanikian, Hekmat, 334
Aqili, Mehri, 252, 311
Aqili, Morteza, 317
Aram, Ahmad, 22
Arani, Taqi, 3, 22
Aras Khan (Malekmotii), 234
Arbab, Mohammad Karim, 17576
Arbain (Taqvai), 1045, 129
Arhamsadr, Reza, 256
Aria Film Studio, 253
Ariana Cinema, 60, 139
Armed Forces Radio and Television
(afrts), 46, 66
Army Air Force Film Report (newsreel),
28
Arranged marriage theme, 23233
Arrival of HIM the Shah into Tabriz, The
(newsreel), 53
Artesh Cinema, 10, 52
Artesh Film Studio, 5, 5155, 61, 62
498
i nd e x
Arthur Rank Company, 422

Artisanal production mode: continua
tion of, 67, 148, 175, 177, 333; critique
of, 310; multifunctional, 2035, 222;
negation and, 364265; shift to hybrid
mode, 34, 49, 14748, 154, 156, 166,
304, 341, 4034
Asgarian, Ali Asgar, 106
Asgarinasab, Manuchehr, 95
Ashraf, Princess, 87
Asian Youth Film Festival, 334
Aslani, Mohammad Reza, 426, 431
Asr-e Talai Studio, 152, 170, 252
Atashin, Faeqeh, 172, 209, 21112
Atlas Film Studio, 171
Atomic Energy in Medicine (film), 46
Atomic Energy Works for Peace (film), 46
Atoms for Peace Program, 46
Attapour, Orod, 98
At the End of Darkness (Malakuti), 235
Audience. See Spectatorship
Audiocassettes: censorship and, 415,
419; Khomeinis use of, 41618
Ayandegan (newspaper), 182
Azarbaijan: Democratic Party defeated
in, 5354, 238; independence move
ment in, 21, 238; nationalism and, 18,
21; popular movies in, 14; Shahsavan
nomads in, 107; Soviet forces expelled
from, 28, 31
Azarbaijan Day (documentary), 53
Azar Cinema, 21
Azarian, Serzh, 16970, 232
Azari autonomy movement, 21, 238
Azhir Film Studio, 170, 260
Babadaghi Leper Colony, 82
Baba Karam (music video), 322
Baba Shamal (periodical), 2
Baby Dandy (R. Safai), 204
Badie Film Studio, 37, 78, 174
Badie, Mohsen, 60, 174, 221
Badiya, Reza, 63
Baghasarian, Johnny, 170
Baghdad Pact, 3637
Bahar, Malek al-Shoara, 22

Bahar, Mehrdad, 266
Bahar, Shamim, 87
Baharmast, Ahmad, 51
Bahrami, Sadegh, 54, 221
Baikimanverdi, Reza, 21920, 268, 311
Baizai, Bahram, 89, 335, 350, 356,
36368, 403, 405, 420, 431
Bakhtiar, Taymur, 189
Bakhtiari tribe, 1078
Bald Hasan (Hatami), 333
Ballet of Azerbaijan, 9
Baluch (Kimiai), 234, 292, 373
Banai, Puri, 208, 304, 311
Baqeri, Ebrahim, 191
Baqerpur, Esmat, 175, 209, 21011, 220,
234, 248, 3045
Baraheni, Reza, 345
Barmaki, Jafar, 54
Barnouw, Erik, 62
Bashu, the Little Stranger (Baizai), 343,
344
Baxter, Neilson, 89
Bayals Mourners (Saedi), 345
bbc (British Broadcasting Corporation),
3, 61, 77, 99, 115, 418
Beale, Betty, 144
Beaver, Walter, 244
Behazin, 22
Beheshti, Mohammad, 418
Behind the Doctor (film), 14
Behrangi, Samad, 4056
Beirut Agreement (1948), 72
Bennett, Lowell, 55
Bergman, Ingrid, 187
Berlin International Film Festival, 398
Berthomieu, Andr, 252
Beshkan Dance Academy, 323
Beyond Laughter (television serial), 317,
318, 319
Beyond the Barrier of Sound (Sinai), 126
Bhuhdorn, Charles G., 423
Bibian, Manuchehr, 319
Bicycle Thieves, The (De Sica), 33940
Bigdeli, Naser Majd, 173
Bill, James, 143, 17071

Bineshpazhuh, Shahkar, 324
Bird of Happiness (Chanakia), 335
Bita (Dariush), 233
Black Eyes (Sepanta), 222
Black Friday, 108
Black Mehdi and the Hot Pants (Fatemi),
244, 303, 306
Black n White (magazine), 58
Black Veins (Gaffary), 91
Blind Owl (Derambaksh), 37172
Blind Owl, The (Hedayat), 274, 289, 368,
37172
Blood and Honor (Khachikian), 54, 153
Boghosian, Arkadi, 170
Bohlul (Bahrami), 54
Bojnurd Folkdances (Shahid Saless), 96
Borchgrave, Arnaud de, 144
Borges, Jorge Luis, 290
Borna Tone Studio, 253
Boulting, Roy, 13
Boureka films, 17272
Bozorg, Alavi, 3, 13
Branded with Shame (Shamlu), 221
Breadwinners of Illiteracy (Taqvai), 102
Brecht, Bertolt, 376
Bride of the Tigris, The (Mohtasham),
54, 152
Bride of Tigris (Shabpareh and
Mohtasham), 152
Bride on the Run (Kushan), 221
British and Russian Forces (newsreel), 29
British Broadcasting Corporation (bbc),
3, 61, 77, 99, 115, 418
British Council, 1216, 24, 26, 34, 55,
182
British Embassy, 14, 55
British Foreign Office Embassy Informa
tion Department, 16
British Movietone News (newsreel), 14,
28, 29, 30, 36
British Paramount News (newsreel), 28,
3132
British Path Tone (newsreel), 28
Brokaw, Tom, 144
ind ex
499
Broken Column (Shafti), 95

Broken-Hearted (Hatami), 425
Bchner, Georg, 370
Buuel, Luis, 85
Burdett, Winston, 32
Bush, George W., 46
Bushehri, Mehdi, 70
caifi (Committee for the Artistic and
Intellectual Freedom of Iran), 414
Canby, Sheila, 229
Capri Cinema, 171, 371, 382, 396, 427
Caravan Film Corporation, 3
Caravans (Fargo), 334
Carnegie Foundation, 35
Carnival of Flowers (Sani al-Saltaneh), 98
Cassettes: censorship and, 415, 419;
Khomeinis use of, 41618
cbs Broadcasting Inc, 32, 57, 77, 95, 330
Censorship: archived films and, 355, 371,
427; audiocassettes and, 415, 419;
authoritarianism and, 195; avantgarde films and, 400; certification as,
73; conditions for banning, 18586; by
Cook, 49, 2526; criticism of, 419
21; of documentaries, 26, 50, 118, 126;
doubling, dubbing, and, 254, 258;
effects of, 70, 176, 25960, 328, 407,
42131; exhibition permits and, 424;
filmfarsi movies and, 247, 25960;
film output and, 22122; Golestan
and, 78, 88, 125, 126; hybrid produc
tion mode and, 184, 259; by Islamic
Republic, 313; by mca, 149, 160, 183,
184, 191, 194, 259, 300, 308, 332, 347,
35356, 385, 41921; by Ministry of
Education, 5, 9, 193; by Ministry of
the Interior, 5, 26, 332; Mohammad
Reza Shah and, 356, 406; narrative
chaos and, 247; nepotism in organiza
tions and, 330; new-wave films and,
183, 346, 347, 351, 354, 355, 400, 402,
420, 421, 423; by nioc, 332; by nirt,
133, 332, 400, 414, 421; pfc and, 354;
of press, 421; pro-Shah films and,
500
i nd e x
239; public morality and, 8; radio

and, 191; regulations for, 18495,
307; representation of, 391, 392; script
approval and, 133; self-censorship,
259, 260, 386, 421, 430; techniques to
avoid, 88, 90, 97, 128, 235, 373, 421,
42425; of television programming,
421; tough-guy films and, 262, 264,
307; by usia, 73; women and, 186,
193, 31415, 393
Center for the Dialogue of Civilizations,
68
Center for the Intellectual Develop
ment of Children and Young Adults
(cidcya): animated movies and,
348; book publishing and, 331, 405;
cultural impact and, 331, 333, 404,
405; Empress Farah and, 330, 332,
405; film animators and, 405, 406,
407; film festival and, 408; filmmak
ers and, 399, 405, 406, 411; film style,
128
cento (Central Treaty Organization),
3637, 38
Centonization, 214
Central Film Studio, 253
Central Intelligence Agency (cia), 17,
19, 171; coup dtat of 1953, 31, 204,
280, 422
Central Treaty Organization (cento),
3637, 38
Ceramics (Tayyab), 95
Certificates of International Educational
Character, 7273
Chair de lorchide (Chreau), 334
Chaknavarian, Loris, 95
Champion of Champions (Siamak
Yasami), 19
Chanakia, Fabi, 335
Chance, Love, and Accident (Madani),
211, 241
Chaplin, Charlie, 14, 345, 402
Chaplin Studio, 170
Charley and a Half (Zvuloni), 173
Chreau, Patrice, 334
Chess of the Wind (Aslani), 426

Childrens cinema, 331, 405
Childrens Holiday Film Shows, 15
Christopher Columbus (MacDonald), 187
Chronicle of a Summer (Rouch and
Morin), 110
Chubak, Sadeq, 22, 79, 335
Churchill, Winston, 28
cia (Central Intelligence Agency), 17,
19, 171; in coup dtat of 1953, 31, 204,
280, 422
cidcya. See Center for the Intellectual
Development of Children and Young
Adults
Cine-clubs, 18283, 334
Cinema Owners Syndicate, 168
Cinemascope, 325
Cinema 6 (periodical), 400
Cinema-Theater Rex, 170, 171, 220, 252,
386
Clair, Ren, 253
Cleanliness Brings Health (documentary),
41
Clean Water (documentary), 42
Cocteau, Jean, 253
Cold War: beginnings of, 31; ideological
struggles of, 4; newsreels on, 3132;
public defense programming in, 35;
superpower geopolitics in, 45, 62;
U.S. policy and, 34, 37
College of Cinema and Television
(nirt), 69, 71, 127, 334
Columbia Pictures, 422, 424
Combat Film Report (newsreel), 28
Committee for the Artistic and Intellec
tual Freedom of Iran (caifi), 414
Communication and Development
Institute, 68
Communism, 21, 33, 34, 35, 44, 47, 62.
See also Cold War
Congress, U.S., 48, 143
Congress of Iranian Writers, 21
Consecrated to Life (documentary), 46
Constantin, Simik, 170
Cook, George Cram, 5
Cook, Nilla Cram, 6, 2427, 52, 70; as

censorship czar, 49, 2526
Cooper, Gary, 209
Cooper, Merian C., 106
Copyright, 16768
Cordova, Frederick de, 198
Countercoup (Roosevelt), 171
Course of the River, The (Rahbar), 219
Courtship (E. Golestan), 81
Cow, The (Mehrjui), 337, 338; censorship
of, 332, 346, 424, 426; as part of new
wave, 349; plot elements of, 33640;
screenplay of, 345; as seminal film,
410; style of, 284, 341; success of,
34647, 348; themes of, 34345, 362,
368
Crisis in Iran (newsreel), 31
Cronyism, 7072, 330
Crossroads of Civilization (film series),
14041
Crow, The (Baizai), 426
Crown for the Nation, A (S. Golestan),
60
Cry of Exultation (Foruhar), 321
Cry of the Mojahed (Madanian), 312
Crystal Cinema, 33, 164, 251
Cultural exchange, 16, 35, 63, 80, 230,
241, 284, 306, 317
Cultural Report of Iran (mca), 158
Culture Inc, 3435, 37, 62
Culture of spectacle, 47, 53, 60, 13638,
309, 32830, 340, 4045, 409
Cycle, The (Mehrjui), 332, 35556, 424,
426, 427
Cyrus the Great (Issari), 141
Dailaman Dance (Shamlu), 96
Dallalfar, Arlene, 1078
Dancer of Love, The (Tabari), 105
Daneshian, Keramatollah, 406, 408,
40913
Dardarian, Jaklyn, 32021
Dariabandari, Najaf, 78
Dariush, Hajir, 71, 335
Dariush, Parviz, 81
ind ex
501
Dariush Film Studio, 119, 253

Darrieux, Danielle, 251
Daryabaigi, Ali, 232, 248
Daryoush, Hajir, 71, 335
Dash Akol (Hedayat), 270, 27879, 285
Dash Akol (Kimiai), 272, 273, 275, 333,
334, 368; acting style in, 284; casting
for, 28384; character development
in, 27780; critical praise of, 27071;
homosexuality and homosociality
in, 28788; language in, 28687;
lifestyle in, 28082; masculinity in,
27677, 28788, 28991; nostalgia
and, 28486; plot of, 27174, 276;
style of dress in, 283; violence in, 282;
womens representation in, 28991,
293
Dash mashti subgenre, 26970; conven
tions of, 26294
Dastmalchi, Abbas, 102
Davai, Parviz, 151, 154, 191
Dawn of Explosion (Nuri), 312
Dawn of the Capricorn (Faruqi Qajar),
128
Dayhim, Mahin, 252
Dead-End (Sayyad), 350, 352, 355, 36263
De Carlo, Yvonne, 187
Decoin, Henri, 251
Deer, The (Kimiai), 256, 285, 384, 385;
censorship and, 386; coding and,
292, 313, 430; making of, 268; plot
elements in, 313, 38385; social justice
and, 302
Defarrage, Marie, 480 n.56
Defense Audiovisual Agency, 46
Delgado, Fernando, 251
Delju, Mohammad, 429
Delkash, 175, 209, 21011, 220, 234,
248, 3045
DeMille, Cecil B., 187
Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, 53
Department of Propaganda and Radio, 9
Derambaksh, Kyumars, 129
Derambaksh, Mohammad, 54
Dervishes, 105, 269, 447 n.37
502
i nd e x
Desert Caravans (Derambaksh), 129

Desert Hawk, The (Cordova), 198
Desert of Tartars, The (Zurlini), 334
Desert Victory (Boulting), 13
De Sica, Vittorio, 339
Desired Ones, The (Ovadia), 172
Des Moines Register (newspaper), 5
Destiny (Aksoy), 306
Deulig Weekly (newsreel), 28
Dezadurian, Rubik, 170
Diana Cinema, 117, 169, 252, 253, 426
Diana Film Studio, 54, 15354, 169, 170,
253
Dickman, Irving R., 58
Dilmaj, 15, 4243, 75, 244, 247, 256
Disgraced (Kushan), 175, 21011, 220,
234
Disney films, 39
Documentaries: agricultural, 14, 40;
avant-garde, 12933; censorship of,
26, 50, 118, 126; in civil government,
6263; contrapuntal strategies in,
76, 8485, 106, 119, 12021, 123, 128;
coproduction of, 13343; dubbing of,
3940; ethnographic, 9916; on
film history, 9799; fine arts and,
9297; on indigenous technolo
gies, 11113; industrial, 81, 89, 91;
institutional, 7576; mca and, 64;
medical, 14; official style of, 5051,
7275; poetic realist, 76, 7980,
8284, 88, 91, 125; on public health,
41; on religious culture, 1016; on
social protest, 11828; state control of,
5051; textual formation in, 49, 62;
on travel, 11318; on tribes, 10611;
of usia, 4748, 54; of usis, 3948,
49, 5253, 55, 56, 65; Western com
mercial, 2833. See also Educational
films; Newsreels
Domestic Prey (Bahrami and Daryabegi),
221
Doniya (journal), 3
Doorman (Haritash), 424
Dossier (Sabbaghzadeh), 312
Doubling, 251, 256, 258. See also

Dubbing
Douglas, William O., 31
Dowlatabadi, Mahmood, 335, 401
Downpour (Baizai), 36365, 367
Drama and Opera Performers Society,
18
Dreams Betrayed (Akrami), 99
Drive-in cinemas, 157
Dubbing, 256, 257; censorship and,
254, 258; of documentaries, 3940;
early film studios and, 169, 25159;
educational films and, 1011; film
studios specializing in, 170; hybrid
production mode and, 25051; nirt
and, 170; for television, 258; union,
254. See also Live screen interpreters
Dysentery (documentary), 41
Earth, The (Kimiai), 235, 401
Eastern Man and Western Woman
(Qarib), 244
Ebrahimi, Ahmad, 249
Ebrahimi, Nader, 68, 403
Ebram in Paris (Kushan), 221, 303
Ebtehaj, Gholamhosain, 51
Educational certificates, 7273
Educational Film Festival, 333
Educational films: audience identifica
tion and, 74; censorship of, 5, 26;
dubbing and, 1011; educational
certificates for, 7273; Educational
Television Channel and, 66, 71;
mobile film units and, 439 n.74;
nefc and, 5, 10, 2425, 26; Soviet,
18; by Syracuse Team, 40; usis and,
3941, 64
Educational Television Channel, 66, 71
Education Corps (documentary), 56
Eighth Day of the Week, The (Rejaiyan),
24041
Eisenhower, Dwight, 34
Elegy (Amir Naderi), 386, 424, 426
Elton, Arthur, 78, 80
Elwell-Sutton, L. P., 13
Emad, Siavash, 190

Emami, Esmail, 106
Emami, Karim, 78, 84, 32627
Emami, Ruhollah, 78
Empire Marketing Board (emb), 12, 80
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 32
End of One Day, The (Otan), 400401
Enemy of Women, The (Khatibi), 171,
18788
Entertainer (Nuriala), 221
Entezam, Abdollah, 91
Entezam, Nasrollah, 31
Eqbal, Manucher, 189
erpi (Western Electrical Research
Products), 10
Esfandiari, Ali, 22
Eshqi, Salar, 191
Eskenas (Bineshpazhuh), 324
Esmal in New York (Madani), 275
Estepanian, Henrik, 191
Etemad, Akbar, 138
Etemadzadeh, Mahmud, 22
Eternal Flame (S. Golestan), 60, 13839
Eternal Night (Allamehzadeh), 12627
Eternal Return (Delannoy), 253
Ettelaat (newspaper), 182, 413, 414
Ettelaat-e Mahaneh (magazine), 44
Ettelaat Haftegi (magazine), 19
Exchange relations, 16, 35, 63, 80, 230,
241, 284, 306, 317
Exhibition Committee, 18487, 188,
19091
faa. See Fine Arts Administration (faa)
Fahmi, Ahmad, 171, 212
Faijani, Mohammad, 63
Fakur, Karim, 152
Family themes, 23132
Fannizadeh, Parviz, 255
Fanon, Frantz, 368, 416
Farah, Shahbanu, 55; arts and, 21213,
330, 332, 385; censorship and, 356;
cidcya and, 405; coronation of, 60;
film festivals and, 385, 411; kidnap
ping plot and, 408; marriage of, 65;
ind ex
503
Farah, Shahbanu (cont.)

nepotism and, 66, 6970, 330;
private screenings for, 87, 271, 382;
regency and, 328, 329; Society for
Assistance to Lepers and, 8788
Fardin, Mohammad Ali, 169, 177; career
decline of, 206; improvisation and,
21719, 245; on investigation list, 311;
lip synching and, 248; in Man from
Tehran, 334; Qaruns Treasure and,
198202, 241; as superstar, 2047; as
wrestler, 201, 268
Far from Home (Shahid Saless), 39697,
398
Fargo, James, 334
Farhang Club, 16
Farhang Scientific Company, 16
Farmanara, Bahman, 335, 340, 36870,
37980
Farman Khan (A. Safai), 234, 297
Farrokhzad, Forugh, 82, 1023, 342;
Golestan and, 8188, 90, 359
Faruqi Qajar, Ahmad, 128
Farzaneh, Mostafa, 22, 93, 183
Fatalism theme, 23738
Fate (Aqanikian), 33435
Fatemi, Nezam, 244, 306
Fawziah, Queen, 14, 212
Fear and Hope (Obadia), 172, 212
Fekri, Moezoddin, 238
Female seduction theme, 23334
Ferdows, Sohaila, 208, 299, 304, 305
Ferdowsi, Abolqasem, 20, 139, 224, 342,
353
Ferdowsi Cinema, 173
Ferdowsi Films, 176
Feri Cinema, 115
Ferrara, Giuseppe, 340
Festival of Young Filmmakers Cinema,
334
Festivals: exile, 127; foreign, 194, 346
47, 398, 426; growth of, 7172, 176;
Khomeini and, 329; in Pahlavi era,
3089, 328; as showcases, 33334;
state sponsorship of, 51
504
i nd e x
Few Moments with Qaderi Dervishes, A

(Tabari), 105
ff. See Filmfarsi movies
F for Fake (Welles), 334
fidci (Film Industry Development
Corporation of Iran), 70, 143, 330, 333,
334, 348, 355, 356, 426
Film clubs, 18283, 334
Filmco Films, 172
Film distribution, 24, 156, 158
Film Dubbers Union, 254
Film equipment: British Council and,
16, 24; in mobile units, 41; nefc and,
5, 10; small studios and, 169; U.S.
investment in, 62; usis and, 64
Film exhibition: censorship and, 9, 424;
migr producers and, 172; film rota
tions, 56; improvisational, 9; licenses
for, 5, 8, 26, 191, 354; permits for, 160,
184; provincial movie houses and,
157; regulation of, 19192; spinoffs
and, 16566. See also Movie houses;
National Educational Film Circuit;
Spectatorship
Filmfarsi movies: censorship and, 247,
25960; characteristics of, 149,
221, 22930; continuity in, 21617,
219; discontinuity in, 24548; edict
against, 3089; fantastical, 246;
female stars in, 2079; genres of,
15254, 173; in Hebrew, 17273;
improvisation in, 21522, 302; investi
gation of actors in, 31011; miniature
paintings and, 22629; oral tradition
and, 22325; popularity of, 15152,
154; repetition in, 22930, 245;
screenplays of, 221; sound synching
in, 216; state intervention and, 149;
themes of, 23044; urban settings
for, 235; village films, 234; Western
ization in, 150, 24041, 310. See also
Stewpot films; Tough-guy films
Film festivals: exile, 127; foreign, 194,
34647, 398, 426; growth of, 7172,
176; Khomeini and, 329; in Pahlavi
era, 3089, 328; as showcases,

33334; state sponsorship of, 51
Film importation, 42224
Film Importers Association, 424
Film Industry Development Corporation
of Iran (fidci), 70, 143, 330, 333, 334,
348, 355, 356, 426
Film-Or, 173
Film Shows in the Garden, 15
Film studios: commercial, 50, 71, 168
76, 33435; coproductions by, 33435;
decline of, 429; establishment of,
17376; ethnic influences on, 16973;
evolution of, 169; filmfarsi and, 149;
increase in, 17374; independent, 50,
71; integration of, 17476; new-wave
cinema and, 333; nonfiction films and,
50, 71; star-owned, 207
Film va Honar (periodical), 308
Fine Arts Administration (faa), 27, 49,
52, 60, 180, 181; Audiovisual Depart
ment, 63; film style and, 73, 74; mca
and, 65
Finnegan, Ruth, 223, 225
Firdausi (Sepanta), 222
Fire, A (Golestan and Farrokhzad), 81,
125
Fire without Smoke (television serial), 68
Fischer, Michael, 276, 341, 45354 n.6
Fish Die on Land, The (Mojahed and
Delju), 429
Flaherty, Robert, 90, 183
Flames of Persia (S. Golestan), 60,
13839
Flaming Poppies, The (documentary), 107
Fleming, Victor, 187
Floor, Willem, 287
Forbidden Acts Bureau, 379
Ford Foundation, 35
Foreign Bride (Vahdat), 243
Foreign-bride movies, 24244
For Gods Sake Give Generously (R. Safai),
221
Forsi, Bahman, 129
Fortress (Shirdel), 11921
Forugh Farrokhzad (Taqvai), 1023

Foruhar, Leila, 321
Foruzan, 200, 201, 208, 248, 334; on
investigation list, 311; star system and,
3045
Foruzesh, Ebrahim, 404
Foucault, Michel, 414, 418
Fox News (newsreel), 28
Francisci, Pietro, 253
Free Cinema Film Festival, 333
Free Cinema Society, 405
Free University of Iran, 71, 111
From Shout to Assassination (S. Tehrani),
312
Frost, David, 140
Funeral of Reza Shah, The (newsreel), 45
Gabriel, Teshome, 368
Gaffary, Farrokh: censorship and, 371,
393; on continuity, 217; documenta
ries and, 91; film clubs and, 18283;
gfw and, 79; as Kavusi critic, 152; as
part of new wave, 336, 350; as nirt
official, 138; Savak and, 18990
Gaffary, Hosainali, 189
Galishian, Grigori, 17
Gamble of Life (Kasai), 211
Game of Love (Beaver), 244
Gandhi, Mahatma, 5
Gaumont British News (newsreel), 28,
29, 32
General Department of Cinema Affairs,
191
General Post Office (gpo) Film Unit,
12, 80
Generous Tough, The (Mohseni), 234,
261, 294
gfw. See Golestan Film Workshop
Ghaffari, Simin, 311
Ghazal (Kimiai), 290
Ghotbi, Reza, 66, 70, 330, 331, 332, 371
Gilda (Vidor), 326
Girl Cries Out, A (Parvizi), 221
Girl from Shiraz, A (Khachikian), 245
Gitanilla, La (Delgado), 251, 252
ind ex
505
Glass (Haanstra), 9192

Godard, Jean-Luc, 119
Goethe Institut, 419
Gogol (Sato), 334
Gol Aqa (Aqamalian), 234
Golden Army of Genghis Khan (film), 52
Golden Heel (Fatemi), 306
Goleh, Feraidun, 244, 302
Golestan, Ebrahim, 79; censorship and,
78, 88, 125, 126; documentaries by,
80, 88, 124, 125; Farrokhzad and,
8188; as freelancer, 78; gfw and,
71, 7680, 88, 90; mca and, 60, 124,
13839; multifunctionality of, 81;
name change of, 76; nioc and, 33;
poetry used by, 88, 89, 96; Tudeh
Party and, 22
Golestan, Esmail, 55, 6061, 78, 81, 88,
89, 99, 138
Golestan, Kaveh, 121
Golestan, Shahrokh, 55, 6061, 78, 81,
88, 89, 99, 138
Golestan Film Workshop (gfw), 71,
170, 173; art cinema and, 78; auteur
ist fiction and, 80; creation of, 77;
documentaries by, 88, 124, 125;
multifunctionality and, 79; personnel
of, 76; sale of, 9091
Golestan Palace, 97, 99
Golnesa (Azarian), 232
Golnesa in Paris (R. Safai), 2034, 243
Golshan, Faezeh, 156
Golshan Cinema, 156
Golshiri, Hushang, 270, 334, 335, 345,
368, 373, 377, 380, 402, 403, 420
Golsorkhi, Khosrow, 406, 40913
Golsorkhi, Mehdi, 5, 910, 24, 5152, 53,
55, 61, 15153
Googoosh, 172, 209, 21112
Gopalan, Lalitha, 246
Gorgani, Fakhreddin, 22
Gorji, Ahmad, 171, 212
gpo Film Unit, 12, 80
Grass (Cooper, Schoedsack, and Har
rison), 1067
506
i nd e x
Great Game, The (film), 15

Greene, Richard, 187
Greenpark Productions, 32
Green Room Theater, 55
Grierson, John, 12, 80, 182
Grimes, J. H., 1516
Group-53 communists, 2, 21, 23
Guests of Hotel Astoria, The (Pooya), 413
Gney, Yilmaz, 362
Gypsy Girl, The (Delgado), 251, 252
Haanstra, Bert, 91
Habib, Mounir, 172
Habib, Nuri, 175
Habibi, Imam Ali, 268
Hadj Seyyed Javadi, Ali Asghar, 430
Haeri, Tusi, 81
Hafez, Mohammad, 20, 342, 353, 355
Haggling, 185, 217, 219, 258
Hailing, 44, 185, 258
Haji Aqa, the Movie Actor (Ohanians),
99, 240
Haji Jabbar in Paris (Soruri), 242
Haj Mossavar al-Mokly (Sinai), 96
Hakimian, Habibollah, 170
Haleh, 304, 305
Hamilton, John, 37
Hamlet film studio, 170
Hamoon (Mehrjui), 269
Hamz, Amir, 419
Hanaway, William, 224, 27475, 276
Hangval, Mahmud, 78, 81
Hangval, Shahrokh, 78
Haqiqi, Nemat, 102
Harirforush, Ismail. See Kushan,
Ismail
Haritash, Khosrow, 129, 255, 347, 424,
426
Harmonica (Amir Naderi), 348
Harrison, Marguerite, 1067
Hashemi, Zakaria, 268
Hatami, Ali, 68, 333, 425, 431
Havelock, Eric, 223
Hazardous Crossroads (Khachikian), 153,
170, 239
Hearst Metrotone News (newsreel), 28,

32, 46
Heart to Heart (Morteza), 321, 322
Hedayat, Sadeq: Dash Akol film and,
27075, 28485; as martyr, 372;
return from exile of, 2; self-described,
36869; Tudeh party and, 22
Henduja, Nandaras, 172
Her Eyes (Alavi), 23
Heroin (Shervan), 311
Hidden Treasures (television series), 98
Hillmann, Michael, 213
Hills of Marlik (E. Golestan), 96, 383
Hip-hop genre, 324
Hoek, Lotte, 105
Hogi, Salman, 172
Holivud (periodical), 9, 13, 14
Hollywood movies: banned, 8, 26;
critique of, 77; exportation of, 42225;
in little cinemas, 1112; as model,
21415; new wave influenced by, 421;
realism in, 20, 246; shorts, 10; U.S.
Embassy and, 24
Homa Cinema, 172
Homay Cinema, 19, 20, 220
Homayun Cinema, 165
Homeless (television serial), 6768
Homework (Kiarostami), 124
Hope, Bob, 186
Horkheimer, Max, 150, 264
Hosainiyeh Ershad, 416
Hosain the Cop (R. Safai), 204
House Is Black (Farrakhzad), 8587;
poetic realism in, 8284, 88; versions
of, 44445 n.24
House of Culture, 17, 18, 23
House of God, The (Rezai), 1012
Hoveyda, Amir Abbas, 12526, 326, 328,
380, 38283, 400, 430
Hoveyda, Fereydoun, 371, 382
Humphrey, John, 43
Hybrid production mode, 155; audience
and, 306; censorship and, 184, 259;
chaotic narratives in, 247; dubbing,
doubling, and, 25051; improvisation
and, 188, 21322, 228, 244, 35051;

institutionalization of, 177; multi
functionality and, 2035; new-wave
cinema and, 328, 336; shift from
artisanal mode, 34, 49, 14748, 154,
156, 166, 176, 212, 229, 304, 333,
341, 4034; spontaneity of, 303; star
system and, 20513; textual forma
tions and, 20229; tough-guy genre
and, 270
Imbrie, Robert, 74
Improvisation: in editing, 24445;
ethos of, 148, 21314; film exhibi
tions and, 9; filmfarsi and, 21522,
302; in hybrid production mode,
186, 21522, 228, 35051; in music,
21314; narrative, 237; in oral poetry,
224; translators and, 25758
Inanoqlu, Turker, 335
In Defense of People (Pooya), 413
Indigenous technologies, 11113
International Childrens Film Festival,
71, 333, 405, 408
International Police (television serial),
254
In the Land of the Shah (film), 29
In the News (newsreel), 32
Into the Night (Sayyad), 212
Into the Wilderness (Omidvar brothers),
117
Iraj, 199
Iran (Soviet film), 14
Iran: Between Two Worlds (Richter), 32
Iran: Brittle Ally (cbs Reports), 32, 33
Iran: Old Faces and New (film series),
144
Iran: The Land of Religions (Tayyab), 102
Iran-America Relations Society, 3, 10, 11,
18, 123
Iran Cine-Club, 183
Iran Cinema, 11, 19, 20, 24, 15657
Iran Crown Jewels (Golestan), 383
Iran-e no Cinema, 157, 252
Iran Film Studio, 37, 101, 180, 253
ind ex
507
Iran-Germany Cultural Society, 419

Irani, Ardeshir, 99, 211, 248
Iranian cinema: American influence
on, 16970; American investment
in, 62; crisis in, 42231; ethnic influ
ences on, 16973; genre statistics,
16667; improvisation and, 21522,
401; national cinema genres, 154, 172;
official documentary filmmaking,
5562, 100; patronage in, 171, 327;
politics and, 164; production output,
17779, 22122; professionalization
of, 176, 2045, 330, 336; propaganda
and, 5; religiosity and, 163; state role
in, 32526; vertical and horizontal
integration in, 17476
Iranian Cinema, from the Constitution to
Sepanta (Tahaminejad), 98
Iranian communist party, 18; banned,
239; demonstrations and, 164; intelli
gentsia and, 22; periodicals of, 19, 77;
political meetings and, 23; popularity
of, 31; Savak and, 408
Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization,
100
Iranian Homeland (nirt program), 95
Iranian in Latin America (A. Omidvar),
117
Iranian Revolution (197879), 31, 262,
414
Iranian Society of Film Critics, 168
Iran Nama Film, 189
Iran News (usis newsreel), 3639, 46, 53,
5556, 72
Iran News Review (usis newsreel), 3738
Iran News Special Release (usis news
reel), 3738
Iran Occupied (newsreel), 29
Iran-Rockefeller and Near East Founda
tions, 40
Irans Crown Jewels (E. Golestan),
12425, 383
Iran-Soviet Cultural Relations Society, 3,
13, 1719, 21, 23
Iran Television, 38, 66, 211
508
i nd e x
Iran-Washington Report (usis newsreel),

3839
Irving, Clive, 140, 141
Isfahan (Sattar), 93
Isfahani in New York, An (Nazerian),
24243
Isfahani in the Land of Hitler, An (Vah
dat), 243
Isfahan Medical Association, 14
Islamic Protestantism, 417
Islamic Republic: auteur cinema in,
431; censorship in, 124, 12829, 136,
313, 379, 420; dubbing in, 258; exile
and, 41213; Fardin and, 206; female
performers in, 211, 311; film patronage
and, 327; Foruzan and, 311; industry
purification in, 311; lutis and, 315,
320, 324; open form and, 357; orality
and, 228; political resistance in, 403;
religiosity in, 163; sexuality in, 314,
363; as source of fear, 344; visuality
and, 228
Islamic Revolution (197879), 31, 262,
414
Issari, Mohammad Ali: British Council
and, 13; as cameraman, 102; on
German newsreels, 30; as official
documentary filmmaker, 5560; as
pioneer, 61; Syracuse Team and, 63;
usis and, 37, 41, 42, 45, 56; U.S. stud
ies and, 14143
Jackson, Ronald, 112
Jacobson, Arnold, 11, 13
Jafari, Shaban, 171, 280, 319
Jafar Khan is Back from Europe (Moqad
dam), 16
Jaffe, Samuel, 58
Jahangiri, Shabnam, 304
Jahel and the Student, The (Shervan), 311
Jaheli subgenre, 26970, 294; conven
tions of, 3015; edict against, 3089.
See also Qaisar
Jahels. See Tough guys
Jaklyn, 32021
Jamal, Samia, 159

Jam-e Mosque (Tayyab), 95
Javaheri, Mahmud, 22
Javits, Jacob, 14344
Javits, Marion, 144
Jazani, Bijan, 23, 403
Jazani, Heshmat, 403
Jazani, Mihan, 23
Jerome, Carole, 418
Joan of Arc (Fleming), 187
Journey (Baizai), 348
Journey of Stone (Kimiai), 292, 386, 427,
430
Journey to Adventure (travel series), 144
Jowdat, Hosain, 16
Junk prints, 159
Kahzak, Nasrin, 304, 305
Kairbakhsh, Parvin, 200, 201, 208, 248,
334; on investigation list, 311; star
system and, 3045
Kamali, Sasan, 137
Kameli, Ataollah, 258
Kardan, Parviz, 67, 68
Kardavani, Azizollah, 170
Karimi, Nosrat, 130, 131, 256
Karimi, Reza, 209
Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad, 373
Kasai, Abbas, 211
Kashani, Ayatollah, 43, 77
Kasmai, Ali, 154, 175, 221, 23334, 256,
401
Katayun, 304, 305
Katouzian, Homa, 270
Kavusi, Amir Hushang: censorship and,
191, 194, 195, 220; cine-clubs and,
183; dubbing and, 256; as film critic,
89, 295, 301, 32627; filmfarsi and,
149, 152, 215; improvisation and, 217
Kayhan (newspaper), 130, 182, 413, 414,
427, 429
Keene, Ralph, 32
Kennedy, John F., 33
Keshavarz, Karim, 3, 16, 18
Keyvan, Morteza, 22
Khachaturian, Sanasar, 169

Khachikian, Samuel, 54, 55, 153, 157,
187, 236, 428; censorship and, 245,
25960; Iranian noir cinema and,
17071, 239; as studio owner, 17071;
Western influence on, 32627
Khairbakhsh, Parvin, 200, 201, 208,
248, 334; on investigation list, 311;
star system and, 3045
Khakdan, Valiollah, 174
Khaleqi, Ruhollah, 20, 21
Khaliqi, Mehdi, 5152
Khaneh Film-e Iran, 426
Khatibi, Parviz, 18, 53, 54, 170, 171, 204,
217, 239, 24849
Khazai, Malekjahan, 68
Kheradmand, Hasan, 234
Khojastegi, Banu, 16
Khomeini, Ruhollah, 5758; cassettes of,
41618; in exile, 137, 280, 329, 417,
418; poor people and, 237, 40910;
views of, 264
Khorasan Folkdances (Shafti), 97
Khorvash, Fakhri, 207, 315
Khoshabeh, Ilush, 268
Khosrowshahi, Khosrow, 254
Kia, Alavi, 189
Kiarostami, Abbas, 124, 255, 295, 296,
335, 350, 384, 387, 398401, 405
Kimiai, Masud, 207; acting styles and,
284; adaptation and, 401; auteur cin
ema and, 431; as authorial force, 335,
350; authorial formation of, 29294;
biography of, 29192; cidcya sup
port and, 405; coding and, 38386;
Googoosh and, 212; Islamic Republic
and, 313; new wave and, 352; nostalgia
and, 28486; social justice and, 373;
village films and, 234; as writer, 302,
402, 426
Kimiavi, Parviz, 95, 106, 38793; as part
of avant-garde, 1056, 128; influence
of, 350; nirt and, 95, 1056; open
form and, 357; surrealism and, 340,
342
ind ex
509
Kingdom of Heaven (Haritash), 255, 347,

424, 426
King for a Day (Khatibi), 249
King Kong (film), 2
King of Kings (anthem), 21
King of the Universe (television serial),
68
Kinley, Myron, 81
Kolthum, Um, 159
Kuh-e Nur Film Studio, 172
Kurdish Dance (Shafti), 97
Kurosawa, Akira, 346
Kushan, Ismail, 33, 71; coproductions
and, 335; dubbing and, 25152;
Film Producers Syndicate and,
325; foreign bride movies and, 303;
improvisation and, 21718; influence
of, 204; multifunctionality and, 204,
220; narrative chaos and, 205; studio
ownership by, 168, 174. See also Pars
Film Studio
Labbakhi-Nezhad, Farideh, 368
Laili and Majnun (Sepanta), 222
Lamorisse, Albert, 133, 135
Landers, John, 144
Land without Bread (Buuel), 85
Last Passage, The (Parvizi), 235
Laughing Windows, The (Fatemi), 221
Laurel and Hardy, 14
Lazars, Mark, 419
Lenczowski, George, 144
Lend-Lease to Russia (newsreels), 29
Lens (Otan), 400401
Less, Gunther, 144
Levine, Irving R., 144
Liakhov, Vladimir, 6
Licenses, 5, 8, 26, 191, 354
Lichenski, Georges, 170
Light of the Time (Gaffary), 91
Linen, James A., 144
Lip-synching, 199, 241, 248, 255
Little Black Fish (Makui), 406
Little Black Fish, The (Behrangi),
4056
510
i nd e x
Live screen interpreters, 15, 4243, 75,

244, 247, 256
Long Live Auntie (Khatibi), 238
Lord, Alfred, 223
Lorenz, Pare, 14
Loretta, 22
Lor Girl, The (Sepanta and Irani), 99,
211, 248
Lost Cinema, The (Akrami), 99, 102, 338
Lost Reels (Zahedian), 98
Louisiana Story (Flaherty), 90, 183
Lovers, The (Magritte), 377
Lovers Wind, The (Lamorisse), 13336
Lumpenism, 26263
Luti movies. See Tough-guy films
Lutis. See Tough guys
Macbeth (Welles), 22
MacDonald, David, 187
Madanian, Mehdi, 312
Madani, Hasan, 275
Madani, Hosain, 211, 241
Mafia (Jaklyn), 32021
Magic Lantern (S. Golestan), 99
Magic Lantern, The (Reipur), 99
Magritte, Ren, 377
Mahdavi, Zhaleh, 271
Mahini Hasanzadeh, Mohammad
Hosain, 127
Mahjubi, Manuchehr, 67
Mahmoud, 323
Mahmoudi, Kambiz, 66, 361
Mahvash, Banu, 158, 166, 172, 20910,
211, 248, 304, 305, 322
Maimandinezhad, Mohammad, 221, 401
Majalleh-ye Iran va Amrika (periodical), 3
Makhmalbaf, Mohsen, 9899
Makui, Af kham, 406
Malekan, Khosrow, 313
Maleki, Khalil, 22, 417
Malekmotii, Naser, 208, 234, 239, 284,
295, 297, 3014, 31112
Male temptation theme, 23334
Manazer-e Iran (Poselski), 19
Man from Tehran, A (Agrama), 335
Man of the Amazon (Omidvar brothers),

116
Mansouri, Hossein, 86
Mansur, Ali, 189
Manteqi, Aman, 307, 312
Marandi, Hasan, 68
March of Time (newsreel), 31
Marcuse, Herbert, 348
Mardom (periodical), 77
Marjan, 304, 305
Marjan (Riahi), 207, 210
Marker, Chris, 85
Marx Brothers, 2
Marxism, 23, 231, 409, 416
Masculinity. See Stewpot films; Toughguy films; Tough guys
Mashhadi Ebad (Sabahi), 170
Mashhad University, 416
Masumi, Parvaneh, 207
Matinson, Leslie, 334
Mayak Cinema, 19, 20, 23, 26, 165
Mayer, Anthony, 14041
mca. See Ministry of Culture and Art
McCarthy, Joseph, 34
mcig, 100, 206, 314
Media: autonomy of, 71; big, 41415; cen
sorship of, 7, 407; cross-fertilization
of, 176, 204; educational film circuit
and, 27; emergence of, 208; foreign
imports, 148; global circulation and,
222, 322, 324, 41819; ideology and,
35, 6263, 6870, 163; image forma
tion and, 126, 14345; influence of,
166, 284, 301; on land reform, 237;
martial law and, 431; national identity
and, 100; national spectacles and,
137; Pahlavi campaigns and, 14345;
power of, 47; professionalization of,
330; propaganda and, 53, 66; recanta
tions and, 4089; resistance and,
412, 419; statistics in, 158; Western
mediawork, 114, 145. See also Press
Medical Films, 13, 14
Medvedkin, Alexander, 36
Mehring, Margaret, 141
Mehrjui, Dariush, 124, 234; authorial

formation and, 345; censorship and,
332, 34647; commercial movies and,
353; influence of, 350; Islamic Repub
lic and, 431; as part of new wave, 335;
on political commitment, 348; style
of, 341
Men of Dawn (Nuriala), 221
Mesdaqi, Hamid, 232
Mesghali, Farshid, 405
Messenger from Heaven (Khachikian),
187, 259
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (mgm), 11, 24, 65,
422, 424
Metropole Cinema, 207, 220
mgm (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), 11, 24,
65, 422, 424
Michigan State University film series,
14142
Mickey Mouse, 15
Middlemen (Mohammadzadeh), 428
Midnight Cry (Khachikian), 153, 171,
326
Milani, Abbas, 382
Milani, Farzaneh, 289
Milani, Naqi, 22
Millspaugh, Arthur, 6
Minasian, Herand, 78, 170, 333
Minasian, Soleiman, 78, 96, 170, 333,
360
Ministry of Culture and Art (mca):
actors and, 336; animated films and,
4067; audience surveys, 16061,
166, 205, 306, 423; budget, 70;
censorship by, 149, 160, 183, 191, 194,
259, 300, 308, 332, 347, 35356, 385,
41921, 429; college programs and,
333; copyright and, 16768; creation
of, 49, 6365; cultural report by, 158;
Empress Farah and, 332; Exhibition
Committee of, 18487, 188, 19091;
exhibition permits and, 160, 184, 188,
346; film confiscation and, 125; film
farsi and, 308; film festivals and, 328,
33334; film promotion and, 133, 194;
ind ex
511
Ministry of Culture and Art (mca), (cont.)

fine arts and, 9293; foreign screen
ings and, 73; funding and, 336, 346,
354; General Department of Cinema
Affairs and, 191; Golestan and, 60,
124, 13839; gross revenues and, 427;
High Council of Exhibition and, 184;
homogeneity and, 331; mobile film
units and, 156; movie houses and, 159;
National Film Archive, 183; nirt and,
68, 69, 70, 71, 139, 331, 371; Office of
Supervision and Exhibition and, 191;
private sector and, 177; production
centers and, 330; propaganda aims
of, 73; Reipur and, 99; response to
film crisis, 42729; responsibilities
of, 133; Saless and, 96, 39394; score
commissions by, 139; Shafti and, 107;
Shirdel and, 11923, 130; Sinai and,
96; strikes and, 430; Tayyab and, 95,
102, 129; technical support and, 140;
ticket prices and, 429
Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guid
ance (mcig), 100, 206, 314
Ministry of Education: audiovisual
center, 40; film circuits and, 27;
mca and, 64; nefc and, 4. See also
Syracuse Team
Ministry of Information and Publica
tion, 175
Ministry of the Interior: Department of
Theaters, 45, 9, 11, 26; Exhibition
Committee and, 184, 191; tourism
and, 51
Mirbaha, Reza, 112
Mirbaqeri, Davud, 314
Misaqiyeh, Mehdi, 171, 191, 309
Misaqiyeh Film Studio, 171, 174, 334,
348, 370, 373, 374, 383, 429
MI6, 31, 171, 204, 280, 422
Missile X (Matinson), 334
Mission Impossible (television series), 33,
317, 318
Mistaken identity theme, 23738
512
i nd e x
Mitra Film Studio, 71, 169, 251, 252. See

also Pars Film Studio
Mizogouchi, Kenji, 376
Moayyad, Heshmat, 368
Mobile film units: British, 1314, 16;
Exhibition Committee and, 185;
French, 439 n.74; mca and, 93, 156;
military and, 52; nefc and, 24; oppo
sition to, 43; Soviet, 19; usia and, 45;
usis and, 10, 27, 36, 3944, 45, 5556
Mode of production: censorship and,
22122; improvisational, 186, 228,
35051; shift from artisanal to hybrid,
34, 49, 14748, 154, 156, 166, 304,
341, 4034. See also Artisanal produc
tion mode; Hybrid production mode
Modernity: characteristics of, 229; clash
ing aesthetics and, 327; documentary
films and, 33; identity and, 242; indi
vidualism and, 231; nationalism and,
3, 101, 342; new-wave cinema and,
327, 34041; tough-guy films and,
310; Westernization and, 24041, 301,
310
Moezimoqaddam, Feraidun, 394, 396
Mofid, Bahman, 319
Mohajer, Bijan, 72
Mohajerani, Ataollah, 206
Mohammad, Zaer, 374
Mohammadi, Ali, 416, 417
Mohammad Reza Shah: accession of,
1; assassination attempts on, 408;
authoritarianism of, 184, 19495,
212; autobiography of, 158; coronation
of, 60; criticism of, 12526, 372;
dependence on U.S. of, 45, 329; dress
codes and, 240; exile of, 58; goals of,
12, 56; iconography of, 308; image
creation and, 14, 1920, 28, 29, 31,
3637, 38, 49, 14344; Khomeini vs.,
5758; marriage and, 65, 21213, 332;
media controlled by, 69; megaloma
nia of, 32829; modernization and,
242, 302; monarchic genealogy and,
126; National Educational Film Cir

cuit and, 25, 51; official photographers
and, 5961, 12526; opposition to,
312, 37982, 40421; price controls
and, 423; propaganda and, 4748,
53, 61, 23839; reinstatement of, 31,
54, 73, 145, 280; religious tolerance
and, 194; unpopularity of, 139, 140,
141, 143, 144, 145, 235; U.S. media
and, 13945; Westernization and,
328; White Revolution of, 33, 87, 96,
118, 122, 137, 148, 237, 310, 326, 329,
4089, 450 n.56
Mohassesi, Mohammad Said, 92
Mohseni, Majid, 154, 234, 242, 26163,
294
Mohtasham, Nosratollah, 54, 152
Moin, Mohammad, 22
Mojahed, Amir, 429
Mojtahedi, Hamid, 236
Momayyez, Morteza, 397, 405
Momeni, Baqwe, 420
Moment of Truth, The (Rosi), 183
Monfaredzadeh, Esfandiar, 430
Mongols, The (Kimiavi), 340, 342, 389,
39093
Monsieur Beaucaire (Marshall), 186
Montage culture, 138, 14849, 214, 327
Montgomery, Bernard Law, 14
Moqaddam, Hasan, 16
Moqaddam, Jalal, 188, 218, 327, 358
Morad Barqi (television serial), 6869
Moradi film studio, 169
Mordadian, Mehri, 252
Morin, Edgar, 110
Mortazavi, Ali, 161, 197, 302, 307
Mosaddeq, Mohammad, 29, 164; coup
and, 31, 34, 73, 77, 115, 145, 238, 422;
expulsion of British and, 171; nation
alization and, 32, 39, 159; United
Nations and, 33
Moshiri, Ataollah, 64
Mostaan, Hosain Qoli, 221, 401
Mostofi, Abdollah, 6
Motazedi, Khanbabakhan, 51, 52, 55

Mother for Shamsi, A (Issari), 58
Motion Picture Export Association of
America (mpaa), 62, 42324, 425
Motovasselani, Mohammad, 242
Mottahedeh Group, 173
Mottahed Movie House Group, 173
Moulin Rouge Cinema, 165, 174, 382
Moulin Rouge Film Company, 174
Mourning of the Fourth Day, The
(Shirdel), 123
Movie houses: air-dome, 157, 158;
attendance at, 22, 306; chains of, 173;
classification of, 15859; commercial,
2, 19, 36, 39, 52, 53, 102; conditions
in, 2, 157; construction of, 198, 255,
333; decline of, 195, 427; destruction
of, 16364; distribution of, 162; drivein, 157; film rotations, 56; first- and
second-run, 173; importers and, 422;
as lighthouses, 13; little cinemas,
1112, 25; nationwide, 15659; regula
tion of, 184, 19192; Soviet, 16, 23, 26,
436 n.35; star-owned, 207; statistics
on, 15556; strike, 430; ticket prices
at, 156, 159, 42324, 425, 429. See also
Film exhibition; Spectatorship
Movie Set (Sharifi), 227
Movie stars: advertising and, 176, 208;
creation of, 161; genre-driven, 2078;
hybrid production mode and, 20513;
television and, 209; women as,
2079, 304
Movietone News (newsreel), 32, 46
Mowlapur, Davud, 327
Mr. Gullible (Mehrjui), 234, 333
Mr. Haji the Movie Actor (Ohanians), 99,
240
Mr. Mehdi Arrives (Zhurak), 306
Mr. Officer (television serial), 67
Mrs. Qamars House (television serial),
67
Mudbrick and Mirror (E. Golestan), 79,
81, 88, 90, 336, 347, 35861, 383
ind ex
513
Mujahedin, 407
Multifunctionality, 81, 2035, 207, 222
Murrow, Edward R., 32
Music videos, 32024
Mustachioed Uncle (Baizai), 348
My Road to India (Cook), 5
My Uncle Napoleon (Taqvai), 68
Nabili, Marva, 68, 37475
Nadereh, 208
Naderi, Afshar, 108, 10911
Naderi, Amir, 207, 335, 350, 352, 405
Naderi, Nader Afshar, 108
Naderi, Parviz, 405
Naderi, Said, 31314
Naderpour, Nader, 22
Naficy, Hamid, 79
Naficy, Mehdy, 418
Naficy, Mohammad, 69
Naficy, Nahal, 69
Naficy, Said, 18, 22
Nafisi, Azar, 289
Naft Cinema, 156
Najafabadi, Mostafa Izadi, 423
Naji Aghravi Company, 169
Najibzadeh, Ahmad, 302
Naked Till Noon with Speed (Haritash),
424
Naqshineh, Gholamhosein, 18, 54, 238
Nashuri, Fatemeh, 16
Nasimian, Farajollah, 170
Nassibi, Basir, 95
National Anthem, 3, 21, 51, 56
National Broadcasting Company (nbc),
65, 77, 115, 137, 139, 144
National Educational Film Circuit
(nefc), 412, 2427, 30, 40, 51, 52,
62
National Film Archive, 183
National Film Board of Canada, 81
National Film Center, 182, 183
National identity: cinema and, 4, 100,
194, 269, 320, 326; film quality and,
326; Israeli, 17273; land and, 457
n.30; Shiraz festival and, 138; song
514
i nd e x
and dance and, 24850; tough-guy

movies and, 269, 320
National Iranian Film Festival, 33334
National Iranian Oil Company (nioc),
33; Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and,
77; film production and, 50, 71, 78,
91, 356; as film underwriter, 135, 330;
freelance filmmakers and, 190
National Iranian Radio and Television
(nirt), 65, 67; audience surveys, 306;
budget, 70; College of Cinema and
Television, 69, 71, 127, 334; creation
of, 4950; Educational Television
Channel, 66, 71; Exhibition Com
mittee and, 184; film festivals, 328,
330, 334; film organization, 71; film
production centers, 330; homogeneity
and, 331; industrial film broadcasting
by, 92; martial law and, 431; mca
and, 68, 69, 70, 71, 139, 331, 371; msu
commission, 14143; nepotism in,
7071, 330; private sector vs., 425; as
publisher, 182; score commissions
by, 139; state ideology and, 149, 391;
strike and, 108; television serials,
6768. See also Telfilm
Nationalism, 20, 27, 97; antimonarchy,
39, 159; Azari, 18; in childrens films,
163; dubbing and, 258; modern, 3,
101, 342; promotion of, 54, 135; rise
of, 31
National Musical Society, 20
National Opera and Ballet, 5, 8
National Syndicate of Film Industries,
353
Naus, Joseph, 6
Nazerian, Shaollah, 24243
Nazi Ministry of Propaganda, 251
nbc (National Broadcasting Company),
65, 77, 115, 137, 139, 144
Neal, Stephen, 265
nefc (National Educational Film Cir
cuit), 412, 2427, 30, 40, 51, 52, 62
Negahban, Ezzatollah, 96
Neglect (Kasmai), 220, 23334
Neige sur les Pas, La (Berthomieu), 252

Neighbors, The (television series), 312
Neorealism, 34952
Nepotism, 7072, 330
News (newsreel), 48, 72
News of the Day (newsreel), 30
Newsreels: American, 28, 3132, 46;
British, 1314, 2829; competition
in, 4; German, 2829, 30, 251; of
Iranian government, 51; official style
in, 52, 7275; oil films, 3133; Shah
travel films, 442 n.13; Soviet, 19; of
usia, 38; of usis, 3639, 4748, 52,
55, 65; wartime, 21, 2830; Western
commercial, 2833, 46. See also
Documentaries
New-wave cinema: animated films,
4057; audience fragmentation and,
425; authorial formation in, 34549;
censorship and, 183, 328, 346, 347,
351, 354, 355, 400, 402, 420, 421, 423;
closed vs. open forms in, 35657,
358; collaboration in, 33536, 4014;
coproduction in, 33435; criticism of,
34748; culture of resistance and,
404; emergence of, 33640; fear as
theme in, 35872; as filmmaking
moment, 35253; Hollywood influ
ence on, 421; hybrid production mode
and, 328, 336; iconoclastic styles in,
387; luminous truth in, 340; masterdisciple structure in, 350; modernity
and, 327, 370; neorealism in, 34952;
nepotism and cronyism in, 330;
poetic realist style in, 342; resistance
and rebellion theme in, 37286;
rural themes in, 23435; screenplays
in, 4014; spectatorship of, 22223,
34748; support for, 33336, 347;
surrealism and, 34041; textual
formation in, 34045; themes of,
34245, 358, 373; Westernization in,
23435, 358; Western training for, 335;
women in, 207
Night Breaker, The (Malekan), 313
Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The (Far

rows), 22
Nightingale of the Farm (Mohseni), 154,
234
Night It Rained, The (Shirdel), 12933,
342
Night of the Hunchback, The (Gaffary),
239, 336, 347, 358
Nikkah, Parviz, 4089, 413
nioc (National Iranian Oil Company),
33; Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and,
77; film production and, 50, 71, 78,
91, 356; as film underwriter, 135, 330;
freelance filmmakers and, 190
nirt. See National Iranian Radio and
Television
Noqlali (Khatibi), 18, 53, 204, 238
Noruz (Shirdel), 12324
Nuclear power, 46
Nurai, Shahid, 17
Nuri, Parviz, 87, 152, 342
Nuriala, Esmail, 130, 221, 4012, 403
Nuriala, Partow, 289, 371
Nushin, Abdolhosein, 22
Oath (film), 20
Obadia, Gorji, 171, 212
O Bejeweled Land (anthem), 21
Occupation of Iran, The (newsreel), 29
Octopus (television serial), 67
O Deer Savior (Kimiavi), 1056
Oedipus Rex (Pasolini), 183
Office of War Information, U.S., 10, 26
Ohanians, Ovanes Gregory, 99, 240
Ohanians film studio, 169
Oil films, 2831, 3133, 8889
Oil Operating Companies, 89
O.K. Mister (Kimiavi), 340, 350, 393
Olov, Showkat, 304, 305
Omid, Jamal, 6, 8, 99, 187, 394
Omidvar, Abdullah, 11318
Omidvar, Issa, 11318
One Golden-Voiced, One Golden Hand
(R. Safai), 151
One Step to Death (Khachikian), 153
ind ex
515
On Top of the World (Omidvar brothers),

116
Operation Ajax, 145, 171
Oral tradition, 9, 213, 22225, 257,
27475, 291, 45556 n.22
Organization Plan, 148
Orient Films, 334
Ornamentation in performing arts, 214
Osaneh-ye Baba Sobhan (Dowlatabadi),
401
Osanlu, Parviz, 63
Otan, Faramarz, 400401
Ovadia, George, 16273
Ovanessian, Arby, 91, 138, 327, 332, 342
Ovedisian, Anik, 170
Ovedisian, Henrik, 170
Page, Mary Ellen, 224
Pahlbod, Mehrdad, 60, 330
Pahlevan, Abbas, 68
Panic (Khachikian), 326
Parallelogram (Otan), 400401
Paramount News (newsreel), 28, 32
Paramount Studios, 11, 28, 32, 174, 422,
42324, 425
Paria, 304
Park Cinema, 25253
Parry, Milam, 223
Pars Film Studio, 152, 15354, 17475,
211, 217, 220, 270, 303, 325, 335
Partant, Franois, 480 n.56
Partow, Maziyar, 63
Party in Hell, A (Khachikian and Sar
vari), 157
Parvizi, Khosrow, 221, 235, 242, 244
Parvizi, Rasul, 22
Pasal, Iraj Sabet, 65, 211
P as in Pelican (Kimiavi), 269, 387, 388,
389, 390
Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 183, 346
Patai, Taifur, 408, 410, 411, 412
Path Sound News (newsreel), 28, 32
Patriot, The (Naqshineh), 18, 54, 238
Patronage, 171, 327
Payam-e No (periodical), 3
516
i nd e x
pen, 414
Pendry, Alan, 89
People of Iran (documentary), 40
Peoples Fadaian Organization of Iran
(pfoi), 23, 407
Peoples Mujahedin Organization of Iran
(pmoi), 407, 413, 414
Persepolis (Rahnema), 9395
Persepolis Recreated (Rezaeian), 446
n.30
Persian miniatures, 22829, 364, 376
Persian Miniatures (Farzaneh), 93, 183
Persian Oil Industry, The (documentary),
29
Persian Story (Keene), 32, 33
Peykan (Shirdel), 9192
Pezhman, Ahmad, 37778
pfc (Progressive Filmmakers Coopera
tive), 168, 334, 35356
pfoi (Peoples Fadaian Organization of
Iran), 23, 407
Pigeon Towers (Mirbaha), 112
Pioneers (television series), 99
Pishehvari, Jafar, 18, 21, 53, 54, 204, 238
Pishehvaris Uprising (Khatibi), 18, 5354,
204, 23839
Pishvaian, Jalal, 304
Plaza Cinema, 405
pmoi (Peoples Mujhedin Organization
of Iran), 407, 413, 414
Poetic realism, 76, 7980, 8284, 88,
91, 125, 342
Poetry event, 41921
pogo (Public Opinion Guidance Organi
zation), 11, 17, 18, 25, 27, 51
Point IV program, 36, 4244, 62
Poirier, Lon, 113
Police films, 15
Pooya, Rafigh, 413
Popular Tradition Festival, 328
Poselski, Iosif, 19
Postman (Mehrjui), 235, 370
Potsdam Conference (Lorenz), 14
Power and the Land (Lorenz), 14
Power themes, 23840
Press: censorship of, 421; diplomacy

and, 3; film journalism, 17982; film
reviews and, 14, 18283; freedom of,
80; golden age of, 23, 117; on land
reform, 237; pro-Soviet, 2021; usis
and, 35, 37. See also Media
Pretty Pickpocket, The (Inanoqlu), 335
Prince Ehtejab (Farmanara), 341, 36870
Prisoner of the Emir (Kushan), 175, 216
Probis Company, 396
Production mode. See Artisanal produc
tion mode; Hybrid production mode;
Mode of production
Progressive Filmmakers Cooperative
(pfc), 168, 334, 35356
Projection of England, The (Tallents), 12
Propaganda: British, 12; films, 17, 20, 21,
2526, 44, 50, 63, 76, 80, 13839, 175,
187, 23839; German, 438 n.59; mca
and, 73; media and, 53, 66; military
and, 54; nefc and, 24, 27; role of, 5,
23; against Shiite Islam, 185; Soviet,
21, 26, 4445, 187, 409; by usia and
usis, 34, 36, 48, 72
Propp, Vladimir, 223, 224
Provincetown Players, 5
Public diplomacy: attempts at, 7; British,
12; four-partner, 2427; Iranian, 135,
14345; negotiations on, 4; Soviet, 17,
20; strategies of, 3; U.S., 20, 3436, 41
Public Opinion Guidance Organization
(pogo), 11, 17, 18, 25, 27, 51
Pul (Black Cats), 321
Purahmad, Kyumars, 404
Puran, 305
Purkamali, Samad, 78
Pursaid, Ismail, 221, 241
Qaderi, Iraj, 311
Qaisar (Kimiai), 207, 230, 298, 299;
awards won by, 336; cross-dressing
and, 305; decline of genre and,
30710; dialogue and, 302; fatalism
and, 238; as inspiration, 348, 385; as
jaheli, 270, 295; making of, 268; new
wave and, 333, 410; plot of, 232, 233,

293, 295301; popularity of, 294, 307;
social justice and, 373; social realism
and, 336; stylistic conventions of,
301, 340; subjectivity and, 278, 284;
tough-guy genre and, 26162; Turk
ish remake of, 3067
Qajar, Soraya, 17
Qaliov, Sobhan, 17
Qanat Tradition of Iran, The (Mirbaha),
112
Qanbari, Hamid, 257
Qarib, Shapur, 244
Qaruns Treasure (Siamak Yasami),
199, 201, 203; camera techniques in,
24547; chivalry and, 225; cowriters
of, 203; Fardin and, 205, 206, 248,
258; Foruzlan and, 208, 248, 258;
as genre, 232; narrative chaos and,
24647; oral tradition and, 224; plot
of, 198202; songs and, 241, 28182;
success of, 151, 155; themes of, 23641
Qavam, Ahmad, 31
Qavanlu, Nurieh, 251
Qezel, Arsalan (Shapur Yasami), 15354
Quarantine (Shahid Saless), 396
Quran, 2, 5, 6
Radi, Akbar, 27071
Radio: advertising and, 208; Allied
control of, 34, 67; clandestine,
414, 415, 418; as corrupting force,
163; cross-fertilization and, 176, 250;
Islamic Republic control of, 419;
public recantations and, 409; Shah
and, 212; Soviet, 18, 45; tourism and,
51; unavailability of, 41; usis and, 35;
writers and, 403
Radio Corporation of America (rca), 3
Radio Free Iran, 251, 257
Radio Iran, 211
Radio Mottafeqin, 13
Radio Tehran, 2, 3, 13
Rafi, Shahrokh, 154
Rahbar, Saber, 219
ind ex
517
Rahbar (periodical), 77
Rahnema, Feraidun, 22, 67, 78, 9395,
183, 335
Rain, Esmail, 78
Raisfiruz, Mehdi, 154
Ramazani, Nesta, 8, 9
Ramezan Yakhi, Hosain, 267
Rap, 324
Rape (Mesdaqi), 232
Rashidian, Asadollah, 17071, 280, 422
Rashidian, Qodratollah, 17071, 280,
422
Rashidian, Saifollah, 17071, 280, 422
Rastakhiz Party, 425, 42829
Ray of Hope (Saker), 188
Raypur, Bahram, 152
rca (Radio Corporation of America), 3
Reconstruction Crusade, 419
Red Desert, The (Antonioni), 183
Red Lion and Sun Society, 64
Regulations for Cinemas and Perform
ing Arts Institutions, 184. See also
Censorship
Reipur, Bahram, 99
Rejaiyan, Hosain, 240
Reminiscence (Haritash), 129
Renowned Amir Arsalan, The (Shapur
Yasami), 153, 157
Repentance (Pursaid), 241
Repetition: in filmfarsi, 22930, 245;
in performing arts, 214
Report (Kiarostami), 255, 399400, 426
Republic of Uzbekistan (film), 20
Return (Khachikian), 236
Returned from Paris (Eshqi and Estepan
ian), 191
Rey Film Studio, 54
Rezaeian, Farazin, 446 n.30
Rezai, Abolqasem, 63, 1012, 180
Rezai, Tayyeb Hajj, 188, 191, 280, 301
Reza Motori (Kimiai), 286
Reza Shah Pahlavi: abdication of, 1;
banned traditions and, 2, 3; com
munism and, 2, 13; exile op, 1, 29, 53;
film production under, 148; funeral
518
i nd e x
of, 45, 5253; intellectuals and, 21;

monarchic genealogy and, 136; as
Nazi sympathizer, 2930; pogo and,
25, 51
Rhythm (Tayyab), 129
Riahi, Ismail, 172
Riahi, Nafiseh, 405
Riahi, Shahla, 207, 208
Richter, Kenneth, 32
Rivalry in the City (Gaffary), 190
Robinson, Edward G., 23
Rockefeller, David, 143
Rockefeller, Nelson, 143
Rockefeller Foundation, 35
Rommel, Erwin, 14
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 28
Roosevelt, Kermit, 145, 171
Rose, Ernest, 28
Rosenbaum, Jonathan, 82
Rosi, Francesco, 183
Rostam and Sohrab (Raisfiruz and Rafi),
154
Rouch, Jean, 110
Round the World with Empty Pockets
(Shabaviz and Parvizi), 242
Rowen, Carl, 144
Rowshanfekr (magazine), 174
Royal Family of Persia, The (film), 14
Roya-ye Shirin (Clair), 253
Runaway Girl (Decoin), 25152
Rural Associations (E. Golestan), 124
Sabahi, Samad, 170
Sabbaghzadeh, Mehdi, 312
Sabeti, Parviz, 408
Sacred Pit, The (Daryoush), 129
Sadeqi, Aliakbar, 405
Sadeq the Kurd (Taqvai), 232, 374
Sadi, 20, 353
Sadoul, Georges, 349
Saduqi, Ayatollah, 418
Saedi, Ali Akbar, 345
Saedi, Gholamhosain, 335, 345, 370, 419,
420, 430
Saeed-Vafa, Mehrnaz, 82
Safai, Ahmad, 234

Safai, Reza, 151, 2034, 21920, 221, 243
Safavid Architecture (Tayyab), 95
Safizadeh, Fereydoun, 1078
Safizamir, Shahla, 304, 305
Saidi, Kobra, 208, 299, 304, 305
Saker, Sardar, 172, 188, 209
Saleh, Seyyed Ebrahim, 195
Sallitt, Dan, 39798
Salome (Zhurak), 248, 249
Salvage style, 100, 107, 108, 300
Samads Adventures (Sayyad), 68
Samakar, Abbasali, 408, 410, 411, 412
Samii, Mehdi, 125
Samii, Mohammad Ali, 186
Samson and Delilah (DeMille), 187
Sana Film, 173
Sanderson, J, 12
Sani al-Saltaneh, Ebrahim Khan Akkas
bashi, 99
Sarkub, Gholamreza, 304, 311
Sato, Junya, 334
Sattar, Mohammad Qoli, 93
Savak, 59, 312; censorship and, 184,
18990, 239, 300, 332, 371, 382,
385; confiscations by, 121; creation
of, 187; Faiziyeh Seminary and, 362;
fear of, 344, 361, 364, 385, 406, 421;
human rights and, 118; leadership of,
189; nirt and, 67; show trials and,
40814; spying and, 308, 358, 362;
studio closures and, 126; torture and,
345, 4089
Sayyad, Parviz, 67, 68; as authorial
force, 335; as creator of Samad, 234;
dubbing and, 255; exile of, 396; in Far
from Home, 396; National Syndicate
of Film Industries and, 35455; as
producer, 356, 394; in Secrets of the
Treasure of the Jenni Valley, 380; as
social critic, 36263
Sayyar, Mohammad Qoli, 63
Schiller, Herbert, 35
Schoedsack, Ernst, 106
School We Went To, The (Mehrjui), 124
Screen News Digest (newsreel), 28

Sealed Soil, The (Nabili), 37577
Sea Tulip (Baqeri), 191
Secret of the Jujube Tree, The (Moqad
dam), 218
Secrets of Sexual Fulfillment (Mahvash),
209
Secrets of the Treasure of the Jenni Valley,
The (E. Golestan), 79, 90, 12526,
340, 361, 38083, 402
Selected Images from the Qajar Era
(Makhmalbaf), 98
Sepanloo, Mohammad Ali, 403
Sepanta, Abdolhosain, 9, 17, 99, 211,
222, 248
Sepass Film Festival, 333
Sepideh, 304, 305
Sepid O Siah (magazine), 275
Sergeant Ghazanfars Family (Gaffary),
239
Setareh Cinema, 19, 26, 180
Setareh Sinema (magazine), 152, 190,
194, 208, 211, 427
Seventeen Days to Execution (Kavusi),
152
Shaban the Brainless, 171, 280, 319
Shabaviz, Abbas, 242
Shabdiz, Sirus, 63
Shabpareh, Mohammad, 54, 152
Shadow, The (Amini), 239
Shafti, Houshang, 63, 93, 95, 97, 107
Shahab film studio, 170
Shah and Sorayas Trip to Shiraz, The
(S. Golestan), 60
Shahbaz, Hasan, 68
Shahid Saless, Sohrab, 35, 78, 96, 335,
340, 350, 362, 387, 39398, 431
Shahin-e Tus (Fakur), 152
Shahin Studio, 170
Shahnameh (epic poem), 139, 222, 224,
229, 237, 295, 299, 309
Shahnavaz, Homayun, 68
Shahnaz, Hasan, 406
Shahnaz, Hosain, 129
Shahnaz Cinema, 52
ind ex
519
Shah of Iran Reviews Troops (newsreel),

29
Shah of Iran Visits the United States, The
(newsreel), 45
Shahriar Studio, 54
Shahrohk, Shah Bahram, 30
Shahrzad, 208, 299, 304, 305
Shahsavan Nomads of Iran, The (Safiza
deh and Dallalfar), 107, 1089
Shaibani, Jamshid, 63
Shaikhi, Jamileh, 207
Shamlu, Ahmad, 22, 96, 103, 221, 342,
378, 4012
Shariati, Ali, 303, 406, 41617, 418
Sharifi, Soody, 227, 22829
Sharq Cinema, 20
Shayegan, Dariush, 68
Shelterless (film), 17172
Shelterless Years (television serial), 68
Shervan, Amir, 216, 217, 222, 311
Shiite Islam: audiocassettes and, 416;
critique of, 106; ideology of, 225,
40910; laws and filming, 73, 192,
194; martyrdom paradigm, 409, 417;
propaganda against, 185; rejection of,
358; rituals of, 77, 102, 104, 106, 129,
267
Shiraz Festival of Culture and Arts, 137,
138, 328, 332, 346, 371, 426
Shirazi, Ahmad, 102
Shirdel, Kamran, 9192, 11924,
12933, 335, 350, 431
Shirin and Farhad (Sepanta), 222
Shiva, Azar, 305
Short-subject cinema, 50, 331, 349
Showman, The (Mirbaqeri), 31415
Shuster, Morgan, 6
Siasat (newspaper), 19
Siavash in Persepolis (Rahnema), 95, 336,
347
Silent movies, 98, 169, 345
Simple Event, A (Shahid Saless), 394,
396
Sina Film Studio, 170
Sinai, Khosrow, 96, 126, 431
520
i nd e x
Sin City (Zarandi), 236

Sinema-ye Azad, 71
Sinner, The (Garami), 221
Smith-Mundt Act (1948), 35
Snake Fang (Kimiai), 313
Social and class themes, 23437
Society for Assistance to Lepers, 8788
Society of the Iranian Film Industry,
168
Sohaili, Mehdi, 221, 401
Soldier of Islam, The (Manteqi), 312
Somerville-Large, Peter, 164
Son of Iran Has No News from His
Mother, The (Rahnema), 95
Soraya, Empress, 55, 60, 212
Sorcerers Wind, The (Taqvai), 1034
Soroush (magazine), 182
Soruri, Mosheq, 242
Sounds of Silence (Hamz and Lazars),
419
South of the City (Gaffary), 18890, 259,
261, 332, 336
Soviet Propaganda FilmIran, Tabriz
194546 (film), 18
Soviet Union: agitprop trains and, 36;
Azari Nationalism and, 18; departure
from Iran and, 31; diplomatic strategy
of, 3; as external threat, 54; film
imports and, 160; lend-lease and, 7,
27, 28; movie houses and, 13, 23, 26,
436 n.35; newsreels of, 19; occupation
by, 1, 3, 16, 20; propaganda films of,
17, 23, 45; Tudeh Party and, 2122. See
also Cold War
Sovkino, 16, 19, 20
Spectacle: authenticity and, 34142;
culture of, 47, 53, 60, 13638, 309,
32830, 340, 4045, 409; of excess,
281, 293; syncretic, 136, 309
Spectatorship: audience identification,
74; audience profiles, 16163, 167,
362; experience, 15758; formation,
16166; fragmentation in, 425;
improvisation and, 214; of new-wave
cinema, 22223, 348
Sports films, 15
Spring, The (Ovanessian), 341
Spring Variety (Kushan), 175
Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle, 416,
417
Stalin, Joseph, 28, 164, 408
Star Cinema, 164
Starless Sky, The (Mojtahedi), 236
Star system: advertising and, 176, 208;
creation of, 161; genre-driven, 2078;
hybrid production mode and, 20513;
television and, 209; women in,
2079, 304
Star Twinkled, A (Badie), 221
State Department, U.S., 27, 39, 44, 47,
64
Stewpot films, 154, 199, 23132, 284
Still Life (Shahid Saless), 355, 362,
39496
Stone Garden (Kimiavi), 269, 38790
Storm Over Our Town (Khachikian), 170,
245
Story of Miserable Feraidun, The (Fran
cisci), 253
Stranger, The (Welles), 22
Stranger and the Fog (Baizai), 340, 342,
343, 344, 36568
Strangers (film), 317, 318
Strategic Iran (U.S. Dept. of Defense), 32
Street Barbers (Taqvai), 102
Stuart Memorial College, 55
Studio for the Revival of the Classical
Arts of Iran, 9
Sufism, 266
Sumikh, Salim, 172
Sunrise (Minasian and Minasian), 333
Sun Shines, The (Saker), 172, 209
Super 8 filmmaking, 71, 75, 333, 405
Supreme Court, U.S., 31
Surgery of Chest Diseases (film), 14
Swallows Return to Their Nests
(Mohseni), 234
Sword Dance (Taqvai), 96
Syncretic Westernization, 18, 55, 73, 80,
114, 136, 264, 308, 328
Syracuse Team, 28, 40, 47, 49, 61, 63,

107
Syracuse University Audiovisual Center,
40, 61
Tabari, Manuchehr, 105
Tabatabai, Shurangiz, 304
Tabli Film, 23, 398
Tafakkori, Asghar, 53
Tafazzoli, Mohammad, 22
Taghavi, Hayedeh, 81
Tahaminejad, Mohammad, 98, 225
Taheri, Abolqasem, 29
Taheri, Aslani, 431
Taheri, Barbod, 65, 75, 363
Taheri, Hushang, 393
Taheridoust, Gholam Hosain, 109,
11011
Taidi, Farzaneh, 240
Taj Cinema, 156
Takestan Day (newsreel), 53
Tale of the Peach Tree, The (H. Tehrani),
406
Tales from a Book of Kings (documen
tary), 139
Tallents, Stephen, 12
Tall Shadows of the Wind (Farmanara),
340, 342, 343, 344, 350, 37780, 402
Tamasha (magazine), 182
Tangestan Braves, The (television serial),
68
Taqvai, Naser, 68, 95, 1025, 335, 350,
37071, 431
Tarian, Varto, 22
Taslimi, Susan, 207
Tavalloli, Feraidun, 22
Taxi Meter (Taqvai), 102
Tayyab, Manuchehr, 93, 95, 102, 129,
431
Taziyeh: documentary on, 106; influence
of, 219, 225, 246, 366; return of, 2,
416; toughs and, 267, 268, 277, 281,
284
Taziyeh of Martyrdom, The (Asgarian),
106
ind ex
521
Tehran Cement Company, 190

Tehran Cinema, 19, 22
Tehran Conference, The, 28
Tehran Daily News (periodical), 3
Tehran Film Festival, 333
Tehrani, Hasan, 406
Tehrani, Hosain, 129
Tehrani, Shahnaz, 311, 312
Tehranian, Majid, 68
Tehran International Film Festival, 334
Tehran Is Irans Capital (Shirdel), 12123
Tehran Nights (Shapur Yasami), 232
Tehran Radio, 2, 3, 13
Telenews (newsreel), 32, 57
Telephone, The (Taqvai), 102
Television Picture Export Association,
62
Television programming: American
investment, 62; American produc
tions, 46, 65, 68, 145; censorship of,
421; confessional, 40714; culture of
spectacle and, 329; dubbing for, 258;
exilic, 316; female stars and, 209;
French standards for, 66; government
interest, 63, 137, 425; newsreels,
3132, 38; popularity statistics on, 69;
serials, 6768, 140, 31718; toughguy, 31617. See also National Iranian
Radio and Television
Televizion Film Studio, 170
Telfilm: film production by, 67, 90, 333,
356, 368, 370, 377, 396; funding by,
334, 348, 354, 391; television serials,
6768
Tempest of Life, The (Daryabaigi), 232,
248, 252
Temptation of Power, The (film), 480
n.56
Ten Nights of Poetry, 41921
Terpanchian, Vahan, 170
Third Force, 417
Thirsty Ones, The (Kushan), 233
Three Madmen (Moqaddam), 327
Three Naughty Men in Japan (Moto
vasselani), 242
522
i nd e x
Tight Spot (Amir Naderi), 374

Top Dog (Siamak Yasami), 211
Torbat-e Jam Folkdances (Shahid Saless),
9697
Tough-guy films, 199; acting style in,
284; actresses in, 305; authorless,
265; casting for, 28384; censorship
and, 262, 264, 307; character devel
opment in, 27780; conventions
of, 26566, 27694; conventions
of jaheli movies, 3015; decline of,
30710; exile and, 31620; female
stars in, 211; as genre, 264, 29495;
homosexuality and homosociality
in, 28788; hybrid production mode
and, 270; ideal of masculinity and,
269; Islamic, 31016; language
in, 28687; lifestyle in, 28082;
lumpenist, 26263; masculinity in,
27677, 28788, 28991; modernity
and, 310; narrative structure of,
26970; as national cinema, 154;
nostalgia and, 28486; plot of,
276; popularity of, 3057; roots
of, 26162; style of dress in, 283;
subgenres of, 269; themes of, 240;
violence in, 282; Westernization and,
310, 320; womens representation in,
240, 26263, 277, 283, 28991, 293,
299, 3045
Tough-guy music videos, 32024
Tough guys: corruption and, 315; homo
sexuality and, 288; houses of power
for, 26768; inner purity and, 269;
lifestyle of, 28081; luti dolls, 315,
316; nicknames for, 459 n.8, 46162
n.25; as social formation, 26669
Tough Guys Company in Los Angeles, The
(film), 317
Towqi (Hatami), 333
Traditional Bazaars (Taqvai), 103
Traditions, 2, 8; oral, 9, 213, 22225, 257,
27475, 291, 45556 n.22
Tranquility in the Presence of Others
(Taqvai), 332, 344, 37071
Transfer of Reza Shahs Corpse from Cairo

to Tehran (newsreel), 5253
Translations, improvisation in, 25758
Traveler (Kiarostami), 348, 399
Travel films: documentaries, 11318; ff
movies, 24144; of Shah travels, 442
n.13
Treaty of Alliance (1942), 67
Trench, The (Kimiavi), 390
Tricksters and Pickpockets (Naderi),
31314
Troeller, Gordian, 480 n.56
Tudeh Party: banned, 239; as com
munist, 18; demonstrations and, 164;
intelligentsia and, 22; periodicals,
19, 77; political meetings and, 23;
popularity of, 31; Savak and, 408
Turkman Folkdances (Shahid Saless), 97
Turkmen Dance (Shamlu), 96
Tus Arts Festival, 328
Twentieth CenturyFox, 422, 424
Twentieth-Century Gentleman (Siamak
Yasami), 197
Twentieth-Century Tough, The (R. Safai),
203
Inc. and, 62; documentaries of,

4748, 54; film certification and, 72;
mission of, 3435, 37, 54; newsreels
of, 38; Office of Private Cooperation,
35; propaganda by, 34, 36, 48, 72; style
and, 72, 74; Syracuse Team and, 40;
usis and, 39, 4349, 65
United States Information Service
(usis): documentaries of, 3948,
49, 5253, 55, 56, 65; legacy of, 49;
libraries of, 35; loan program of, 64;
mobile film units of, 10, 27, 36, 156;
newsreels of, 3639, 4748, 52, 55,
65; official style of, 63, 7275; press
and, 35, 37; propaganda by, 34, 36, 48,
72; technical training and, 63, 64,
95, 141; U.S. exhibition and, 48; usia
and, 39, 4349, 65
Universal Film Studios, 424, 425
Universal News (newsreels), 28, 32
Universum Film ag (ufa), 251
usia. See United States Information
Agency
usis. See United States Information
Service
Utopia (Shahid Saless), 39798
ufa, 251
UFA Schmalfilm Magazine (newsreel),

28
UFA Sound Weekly (newsreel), 28
Under the Little Bazaar (television
serial), 68
Under the Skin of the Night (Goleh), 244
Undying Fire, An (S. Golestan), 60
Union of Cinema Attendants, 22
Unions, professional, 168, 254
United Artists, 422, 424
United Jewish Appeal, 59
United Nations, 31, 33, 72
United News (newsreel), 28, 30
United Press International, 57
United States Embassy, 4; film program
of, 10, 24, 26, 30, 40, 64
United States Information Agency
(usia), 30; censorship by, 73; Culture
Vaezian, Joseph, 170

Vafadoust, Qodratzaman, 207, 208
Vagabond (television serial), 67
Vahabzadeh, Ahmad, 253
Vahdat, Nosratollah, 243, 255
Vahdat, Parirokh, 16
Vakili, Ali, 11, 180
Valenti, Jack, 423
Vazifeh (newspaper), 21
Veissi, Malek Sasan, 67, 348, 356
Velvet Hat Wearer (Kushan), 326
Venice International Film Festival, 346
Vertov, Dziga, 36
Victory House, 13, 14, 24
Victory of the Chinese People (film), 44
View, A (Farrokhzad and Golestan), 81
Village Bride (Malekmotii), 235
Village Song (Mohseni), 234
ind ex
523
Visit of Prime Minister and Envoys to the

United States, The (Kushan), 33
Visnews, 57
voa (Voice of America) radio, 37, 48
Voice and Vision of the Islamic Republic
(vvir), 98, 100, 108, 206, 406, 413
Voice of America (voa) radio, 37, 48
Voice of England (radio program), 3
Voice-of-God narration, 41, 74, 76, 88,
107
Voice of the Globe, The (travelogue
series), 11
Voice-over narration, 29, 32, 42, 52, 55,
7475, 76, 9596, 112, 116, 45758
n.41
voks (All-Union Society for Cultural
Relations with Foreign Countries),
1624
Vossoughi, Behrouz, 256, 272, 298; in
Broken Hearted, 425; censorship and,
386; as Dash Akol, 27174; in Deer,
384; dubbing and, 254, 255, 256;
Googoosh and, 212; on investigation
list, 311; as luti, 268, 304; Revolution
ary Court and, 31011; as star of
Qaisar, 207, 29599, 300301; in
Tangsir, 374; as wrestler, 268
Vossuq, Manuchehr, 311
vvir (Voice and Vision of the Islamic
Republic), 98, 100, 108, 206, 406, 413
Waifu (Fekri), 238
Wallach, Eli, 5859
Walters, Barbara, 144
Warne, William, 43
Warner Bros., 422, 424, 425
Warner Path News (newsreel), 28
War Pictorial News (newsreel), 14, 28
Water and Heat (Farrokhzad and Goles
tan), 81
Wave Coral and Rock (Pendry, Baxter,
and Golestan), 8891, 125
Wedding Dance (Shafti), 97
Weekly Events (newsreel), 72
524
i nd e x
Welles, Orson, 22, 139, 334

Wells, C. Edward, 43
Were Your Servant, Master Karim
(Kushan), 218
Western Electrical Research Products
(erpi), 10
Westernization: concerns about, 97,
163, 244; desire for, 24, 33, 285; in
filmfarsi movies, 150, 24041, 310;
modernity and, 24041, 301, 310;
montage culture and, 149; new-wave
films on, 23435, 358; occupying
forces and, 2; syncretic, 18, 55, 73,
80, 114, 136, 264, 308, 328; urban vs.
rural, 32
Western mediawork, 114, 145
What Is My Guilt (Ovadia), 173
Whats the Difference (Karimi), 209
Whirlpool (Kheradmand), 234
White Glove, The (Khatibi), 170, 24849
White Revolution, 33, 87, 96, 118, 122,
137, 148, 237, 310, 326, 329, 4089,
450 n.56
Why Korea? (Fox), 44
Wilber, Donald N., 14445
Wirth, Andrzej, 277
With Our Supplies into Iran (newsreel),
29
Wolfs Footprints, The (Kimiai), 313
Woman and Animal (Farzaneh), 93
Woman and Her Dolls (Riahi), 172
Women: audiocassettes and, 415; censor
ship and, 186, 193, 31415, 393; crime
and, 11920; favorite genres, 166, 167;
female seduction theme, 23334; film
farsi movie stars, 2079; filming of,
7374, 108, 115; as filmmakers, 431;
Islamic Republic on performers, 211,
311; moviegoing by, 16162, 167; in
movie houses, 15, 41, 157; in new-wave
cinema, 207; oral tradition and, 222;
plays for, 16; prostitution and, 11921;
religious attire for, 2; representation
in films of, 151, 201, 208, 23132, 234,
240, 241, 244, 250, 26263, 277, 283,

28991, 293, 299, 3045, 367; star
system and, 2079, 304; television
programming and, 209; as voice-over
artists, 25152
Women are Angels (Pursaid), 221
Womens Prison (Shirdel), 119
Wonders of Omidvar Brothers Travels, The
(Omidvar brothers), 117
Work Camp (Mahini Hasanzadeh), 127
World Ethnology Museum of Omidvar
Brothers, 116
World in Film (newsreel), 32
Writers Association of Iran, 403, 419,
430
Yaqub Lais Saffari (Kasmai), 154
Yarshater, Ehsan, 213, 266
Yasami, Shapur, 67, 15354, 211
Yasami, Siamak, 154, 197202, 208, 211,
247, 261, 305
Yashayai, Harun, 23
Yassin, Ismail, 159
Yazdani, Shahin, 220

Yellow Cruise, The (Poirier), 113
Yol (Gney), 362
Young, T. Cuyler, 10, 14
Young Peoples Cinema Society, 72
YouTube, 18
Yushij, Nima, 22
Zahed, Ataollah, 252
Zahedi, Ardeshir, 59, 140, 144
Zahedi, Fazlollah, 171
Zahedian, Mehrdad, 98
Zarandi, Mohammad Ali, 236
Zarrinkelk, Nurreddin, 405
Zebulani, Natail, 170
Zhaleh, 304, 305
Zhaleh Square massacre, 108
Zhurak, Fereidun, 248, 249, 306
Zolriasatein, Shahrokh, 68
Zonis, Ella, 214
Zurlini, Valerio, 334
Zvuloni, Natail, 173
Zvuloni, Simcha, 173
ind ex
525
Hamid Naficy is a professor of radio-television-film and the

Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor in Communication
at Northwestern University. He is the author of An Accented
Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (2001), The Making
of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television in Los Angeles (1993), and
Filme Mostanad (Documentary Film, 2 volumes, 1979).
The Library of Congress has catalogued the

first volume in this series as follows:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Naficy, Hamid.
A social history of Iranian cinema / Hamid Naficy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8223-4754-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8223-4775-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Motion picturesIranHistory.
2. Motion picturesSocial aspectsIran. I. Title.
pn1993.5.i846n34 2011
791.430955dc222011010869
isbn 0-8223-978-0-8223-4755-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 0-8223-978-0-8223-4774-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

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a soci a l his t ory of ir a ni a n cinem a

Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 18971941

praise for A Social History of Iranian Cinema

A Social History of Iranian Cinema

a soci a l his t ory

2011 Duke University Press

Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support of

1 International Haggling over Iranian Public Screens, 1

2 The Statist Documentary Cinema and Its Alternatives, 49

6 A Dissident Cinema: New-Wave Films and the End of an Era, 325

1 Nilla Cram Cook, 6

49 Farman (Naser Malekmotii) is compelled to seek revenge for the dishonor

ack now l edgmen t s

Dariush Mehrjui, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Bahman Mofid, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb,

my research assistants Neha Kamdar, Daniel Bashara, John Nicolau, Jason

ac kno wled gments

orga niz at ion of t he volumes

Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 18971941

o r g ani zat i on of t he v olu mes

Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 19411978

Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 19781984

ing anti-Shah movement, resulting in the destruction of a third of all movie

Volume 4: The Globalizing Era, 19842010

o r g ani zat i on of t he v olu mes

org a n izatio n o f the vo lumes

a wor d a bou t il lus t r at ions

have used several types of illustration here, each providing supplementary

api Anglo Persian Institute

ff Filmfarsi (Farsi-language films)

gfw Golestan Film Workshop

mca Ministry of Culture and Art

mcig Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance

mos Mithout (without) sound, filming without sound

nefc National Educational Film Circuit

pfc Progressive Filmmakers Cooperative (Kanun-e Sinemagaran-e Pishro)

pfoi Peoples Fadaian Organization of Iran

n 25 August 1941 (3 Shahrivar 1320) at 8 p.m. the electricity in Tehran

American Involvement: The National Educational

1 Nilla Cram Cook, Irans first

as It is essential, if we would be truly Iranian, to satirize ourselves on the

British Involvement: The British Council

Grimess supervision) and organized the screening events in each location

The Soviet Unions Involvement: voks and Sovkino

i nter natio nal haggling

that Edward G. Robinsons remarkable acting is truly watchable (Keyvan

i nter natio nal haggling

A Four-Partner National Cinema Dance:

Western Commercial Newsreels and Documentaries

Oil Nationalization Films

i nter natio nal haggling

2 Production still from

The Ministry of Culture or Culture Inc.?

Iran News (Akhbare Iran) and Other USIS Newsreels

Baghdad Pact and cento (Central Treaty Organization), by featuring films

mediating institutions, they served to overdetermine modernity in Iran, ide

USIS Educational, Public Health, and Agricultural Documentaries

feeling of security that will make communist penetration more difficult,78

3 A typical usis mobile film

visually unsophisticated. According to William Warne, the first director of the

5 Enthusiasm for usis

In 1957, the State Department sent a team to Iran to evaluate American

The Legacy of usia Productions

he inchoate, ad hoc patterns of the Reza Shah period, which transformed