Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema

461 Pages·2007·12.75 MB·English

by  Hamid Dabashi

Masters &
Masterpieces
of Iranian
Cinema
Hamid Dabashi
Forugh Farrokhzad The House Is Black Ebrahim Golestan Mud
Brick and Mirror Dariush Mehrjui The Cow Arby Ovanessian
Spring Bahman Farmanara Prince Ehtejab Sohrab Shahid
Sales Still Life Amir Naderi The Runner Bahram Beizai Bashu,
the Little Stranger Abbas Kiarostami Through the Olive "frees
Mohsen Makhmalbaf A Moment of Innocence Marziyeh
Meshkini The Day I Became a Woman Jafar Panahi Crimson Gold
COPYRIGHT © HAMID DABASHI 2007
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this
book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dabashi, Hamid, 1951-
Masters & masterpieces of Iranian cinema / by Hamid Dabashi.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-934211-85-X (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Motion pictures—Iran. 2. Motion picture producers and
directors—Iran—Biography. I. Tide. II. Tide: Masters and
masterpieces of Iranian cinema.
PN1993.5.I846D33 2007
791.430955-dc2
Book design by Hugh MacDonald
The book is set in Akzidenz Grotesk and Janson
Mage books are available at bookstores or directly from the publisher.
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For Ahang Bashi,
Little sister, solid comrade, future filmmaker

All art is autobiographical—the pearl is the
oyster's autobiography,
-Federico Felllnl

Contents
11 Introduction
Letter to a Young Filmmaker
39 Forugh Farrokhzad
The House Is Black
71 Ebrahim Golestan
Mud Brick and Mirror
107 Dariush Mehrjui
The Cow
135 Arby Ovanessian
Spring
167 Bahman Farmanara
Prince Ehtejab
193 Sohrab Shahid Sales
Still Life
221 Amir Naderi
The Runner
253 Bahram Beizai
Bashu, the Little Stranger
281 Abbas Kiarostami
Through the Olive Trees
325 Mohsen Makhmalbaff
A Moment off Innocence
369 Marzlyeh Meshkini
The Day I Became a Woman
393 Jaffar Panahi
Crimson Gold
429 An Epistolary
Conclusion
453 Acknowledgments
Much travel is needed before the raw is cooked.
-Sa'di
Introduction
Letter to a Young Filmmaker
YOU MUST BE THE MOST PERSISTENT LITTLE REBEL roaming the streets of
Tehran, planting seeds of fear in the hearts of all the reigning and poten
tial tyrants of our homeland! I must tell you, I find myself in something
of a quandary. We see each other once in a blue moon somewhere on
this planet, and as soon as our conversations begin to build momentum,
we must depart and travel in two opposite directions; usually you fly east
and I west—except of course the time I flew to Tehran after an absence
of twenty years.
You were born a year after the Iranian revolution of 1979. You are
the walking embodiment of all its hopes and aspirations, the fragile tar
get of all its terrors and tribulations. You are not just a young Iranian. To
me, you are'the embodiment of an era, the symbol of a nation in defiance
and despair. Since your birth, Iran has not been relieved of a moment
of anguish—not that it was a garden of flowering hope before you were
born and the revolution betrayed.
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Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema
It's the beginning of a glorious summer here in New York. The out
side world is, of course, in more of a mess than ever—but it no longer
bothers me, I am happy in my apartment and during my early morning
walks by the Hudson. I still have some nuisances at the office to take care
of—the last few months of chairing my department. But other than that
I am in a pretty good mood and feel quite talkative. The only problem
is that you are not here. Do you remember that beautiful story by Rumi
about the man who had a donkey but no saddle and when he finally found
a saddle thieves had stolen his donkey?
Well, that's our story.
A good mood, I said, except I have been away from my writing desk for
too long, and editors and publishers are breathing down my neck. I have
promised to write a book on the masters and masterpieces of Iranian cin
ema—how do you like that! But my head is anywhere but in writing that
book. My mind is instead full of things that I wanted to tell you in peace.
We have never had enough time together for me to tell you my ver
sion of how we have come to where we are now. What is the moral
and imaginative parentage of this art, and what precisely is the texture
and disposition of this precious heritage with which your generation is
gifted? I have no intention of making this conversation a lesson in his
tory—art, in fact, has no history. The more Iranian cinema forgets its
own history the more creative it becomes. It has never been in the spirit
of history but with a sense of wonder that I have thought of having a
conversation with you about Iranian cinema and its place in Iranian cul
ture. And I wish I could use the occasion of talking about Iranian cinema
to talk about something more.
There is a sense of wonder about what the world now celebrates as
Iranian cinema, and I have always hoped that I would have an occasion to
share with you in some detail what it is that I cherish about this national
cinematic project. There is so much I wish I could tell you, but I wonder
if I will ever get a chance to do so. Life is short, art is long, the occasion
instant, and the experiment perilous. A Greek once said that, I think.
I still remember our first serious conversation. It was in May 1998,
immediately after Mohammad Khatami's election, and there was so much
hope and expectation in all of us. You were wondering what I thought
the differences between our generations were. So I was trying to explain
to you the differences, as I saw them, between your generation—those
who were born in Iran soon after the Islamic revolution of 1979—and
mine, those who were born and bred during or after the 1953 coup that
restored the Pahlavi monarchy to power.
We had heroes, I remember I was trying to tell you, while your
generation is heroic. That's our difference. We were scared and hope-
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