Close Up: Iranian Cinema: Past, Present and Future

by Hamid Dabashi

Overview

Abbas Kiraostami planted Iran firmly on the map of world cinema when he won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival in 1997 for his film A Taste of Cherry. In this book Hamid Dabashi examines the growing reputation of Iranian cinema from its origines in the films of Kimiyai and Mehrjui, through the work of established directors such as Kiraostami, Beyzai and Bani-Etemad, to young film-makers like Samira Makhmalbaf and Bahman Qobadi, who triumphed at the Cannes 2000 festival. Dabashi combines exclusive interviews with directors, detailed and insightful commentary, critical cultural context, an extensive filmography, and generous illustration to provide an indispensable guide to globally celebrated but little-studied cinematic genre.

Unabashedly polemical, he dissects the idea of the oriental in western perceptions of Iranian cinema and details the way that film festivals and distribution in the west have shaped domestic output in Iran. He looks, too, at the particular difficulties faced by women film-makers in a country of Islamic orthodoxy, and the obstacles placed in the path of directors attempting to introduce dissident politics in their work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781859843321
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	11/17/2001
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He is the founder of Dreams of a Nation: A Palestinian Film Project, committed to the preservation and dissemination of Palestinian cinema. His Close Up: Iranian Cinema: Past, Present and Future is also published by Verso.

Table of Contents

	List of illustrations	ix
	Introduction	1
1	On Modernity and the Making of a National Cinema	12
	The commencement of modernity
	A window unto the world
	The constitutional revolution
2	The Making of an Iranian Filmmaker: Abbas Kiarostami	33
	The 1950s
	The 1960s
	The 1970s
	The year of the revolution
	The 1980s
	The 1990s
3	The Sight of the Invisible World: The Cinema of Bahram Beiza'i	76
	Daybreak
	Remythologizing the real
	Mythologies
	Ritual birth
	Urban legends
4	Bahman Farmanara: Twice upon a Time	112
	Studying in Los Angeles
	Back to Iran
	The early films
	After Prince Ehtejab
	At the dawn of the revolution
	The rise of a new generation of filmmakers
	Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine
5	Once upon a Filmmaker: Conversation with Mohsen Makhmalbaf	156
	To the manner born
	Precociously political
	To take arms, ... and by opposing end them
	In Pahlavi prison
	At the dawn of the revolution
	The politics of a poetic turn
	Cinema saves
	The totality of a cinematic career
	The loss of a partner
	Art as a future
	The poetics of a visionary
	Sources of cultural maladies
6	In the Speculum of the Other: The Feminine Figure of Modernity	213
	Successive sites of resistance
	In the curvature of the speculum
	Deterritorializing the Iranian subject
	A threesome arrangement
7	Whither Iranian Cinema? The Perils and Promises of Globalization	244
	Tehran
	Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine (2000)
	Mix (2000)
	Protest (2000)
	The Wind Will Carry Us Away (1999)
	Cannes
	Jom'eh (2000)
	A Time for Drunken Horses (2000)
	The Apple (1998)
	Blackboard (2000)
	Whither Iranian cinema?
	Filmography	283
	Notes	291
	Acknowledgments	299

Editorial Reviews

Hamid Dabashi’s learned book on Iranian cinema in the era of globalization sparkles with verve and a sometimes punishing wit. Encyclopedic in scope, informal in tone, shrewd in its interpretation, it is the indispensable work on one of the most extraordinary artistic and social adventures of our time. Dabashi is the perfect guide.”—Edward W. Said

“With Hamid Dabashi’s new book, we finally have a reading of the post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema from within Iranian culture and society. Dabashi traces the deep roots of the work of filmmakers such as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Rakshan Bani-Etemad, and shows how their work opens up a fascinating and far-reaching interrogation of contemporary cultural production.”—Richard Peña

“A better understanding of Iranian cinema needed someone as much aware of its global significance as knowledgeable of its immediate social roots—Hamid Dabashi is one of those rare cultural critics who has been able to add such a perspective.”—Mohsen Makhmalbaf

From the Publisher

A better understanding of Iranian cinema needed someone as much aware of its global significance as knowledgeable of its immediate social roots — Hamid Dabashi is one of those rare cultural critics who has been able to add such a perspective.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf

With Hamid Dabashi's new book, we finally have a reading of the post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema from within Iranian culture and society. Dabashi traces the deep roots of the work of filmmakers such as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Rakshan Bani-Etemad, and shows how their work opens up a fascinating and far-reaching interrogation of contemporary cultural production.

Richard Pena

Hamid Dabashi's learned book on Iranian cinema in the era of globalization sparkles with verve and a sometimes punishing wit. Encyclopedic in its scope, informal in tone, shrewd in its interpretation, it is the indispensable work on one of the most extraordinary artistic and social adventures of our time. Dabashi is the perfect guide.

Edward W. Said

Arguing that Iranian cinema has emerged as "the staple of cultural currency that defies the logic of nativism and challenges the problems of globalization," Dabashi (Iranian studies, Columbia U.) concentrates on the contributions on four key filmmakers, presenting critical readings of their work and interviews with a couple of his subjects. An introductory chapter seeks to place Iranian cinema in the context of modernity. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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