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Religion 0 SocieTy . Poli’ry . Ar’rs
Celebrating World Order’s Thirty-Fifrh Volume
with Two Issues on Global Cinema
In this issue...
Cinema and Literacy of the
Eyes, Ears. and Hear!
Editorial
International Film Festivals and the Growth of World Communlty
From Local Films To Global Perspecfive Gwy L. Morrison
The Unveiling in the West of Iran's Distinctive Cinematic Presence
Anne Gordon Pen'y
Anime An Introduc’rion To a
Growing Global Phenomenon Jason Schlesinger David Schlesinger
AflerWord Studying and Appreciating Film A Bibliographical Review of Selected Materials
2003-2004 Volume 35, No. 2
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Religion 0 Society 0 Poli’ry . Arts
2003-2004 VOLUME 35, NUMBER 2
WORLD ORDER AIMS TO
STIMULATE, INSPIRE, AND SERVE
ITS READERS IN THEIR SEARCH
TO UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND
CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS
AND PHILOSOPHY.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Betty J. Fisher
Arosh Abizodeh Monireh Kozemzodeh Dione Loffi
Kevin A. Morrison Robert H. Sfockmon Jim Stokes
CONSULTANT IN POETRY Herbert Woodward Martin
INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS
\Vorld Order is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, 536 Sheridan Road, Wilmette, IL 60091—1811. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher or of the Editorial
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external blind peer review if they fall outside the expertise of the editorial board or upon request by the author.
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Articles may range in length from some 3,750 to 6,250 words.
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Poems should be single spaced with clearly marked stanza breaks.
World Order is indexed in the Index of American Periodiml Verse, the ATLA Religion Database, and The American Humanitiex Index.
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2004 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States; all rights reserved. World Order is protected through trademark registration in the U.S. Patent Office. Printed in the U.S.A. ISSN 00438804.
ART CREDITS
Cover design by Richard Doering, cover photograph, courtesyJohn Bohannon; p. 6, photograph, Linsay Carlson; p. 13, cartoon, reprinted by permission, Corky Trinidad, from the Honolulu StarBul/etin, October 30, 2000; p. 16, photograph, Glenford E. Mitchell; pp 34, 41, photographs, Steve Garrigues.
2 Cinema and Literacy of the Eyes, Ears, and Heart, Editorial
4 Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor
7 International Film Festivals and the Growth of World Community: From Local Films to Global Perspective by Gary L. Morrison
15 Beauty, a poem by Peter E. Murphy
17 The Unveiling in the West of Iran’s Distinctive Cinematic Presence by Anne Gordan Perry
35 Anime: An Introduction to a Growing Global Phenomenon by Jeremy Schlesinger and David Schlesinger
41 The Days Before Naw-Rúz, a poem by Druzelle Cederquist
43 AfterWord—Studying and Appreciating Film: A Bibliographical Review of Selected Materials
Edi’roriol Cinema and Literacy of the Eyes, Ears, and Heart
Today it is widely recognized that cinema is one of The principal art forms of our age, that it oppeols widely To many peoples and cultures, and That it is extremely important in Transmitting ideos, shaping opinions, and influencing oo’rions. But how much time do we devote To
learning how to watch films, to developing a literacy of the eyes, the ears, and, most important, the heart?
We take as a given the importance of reading and writing. Virtually every nation and every culture values the literacy of its citizens. Only a few years after the European colonists first settled in Massachusetts, they founded Harvard University. As settlers moved west in what would become the United States, one can track the importance of literacy in the many small, local schoolhouses and in the tracts of land set aside for what became land—grant universities. Soon after the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, the government, aided by donor institutions, began the arduous task of making available once again literacy opportunities at the primary level for women and children.
Film, with its enormous power, cries out for attention to visual and auditory literacy that trains our eyes, ears, and hearts to be discriminating about what we see and hear and process in movie theaters. While the Bahá’í writings have little to say about cinema, they do comment on the performing arts, saying that “drama has been a great educational power in the past” and that “it will be so again.” They also speak of the power of music and art to touch the heart, to “add immeasurably to the vitality and spirit of the community,” and to contribute to “the advancement of civilization.”
We have come a long way from the shock experienced by early film audiences upon seeing footage by the Lumiere brothers of a train pulling into a station, the camera angle low and oblique so that it appeared to be coming toward them. Viewers ran from the room in panic, became ill, or fainted. Even today we instinctively flinch (feeling a bit foolish) when a three-dimensional object looks as if it is being hurled at us from what we know is a flat screen. But we have adjusted to taking journeys in dark movie theaters and, for the most part, to absorbing the many images shown in films—be they realistic or fantastical, propagandist or truthful, inspirational or degrading.
To increase our film literacy and to understand the messages available through cinema, we need help in evaluating films critically, help in interpreting them and
2 World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2
understanding how stereotypes and biased programming influence us. Moreover, as we master the challenges of critical evaluation, learning to consider the merits and demerits and to judge accordingly, we also need instruction in film techniques, which can reveal layers of meaning and intention in the story depicted. And we need to know more about the characteristics of films made in various periods, genres, and countries. We cannot properly appreciate the dome of a mosque without knowing that the blue, green, and blue green often found on them are sacred colors, evoking paradise. Neither can we truly appreciate the “melodies of instrument and voice” without knowledge of music. In like manner, we cannot fully appreciate cinema without knowing its unique language and how it works.
It is especially important that we develop our visual and auditory literacy, since the “destructive forces” that have deranged “the political, economic, scientific, literary, and moral equilibrium of the world” have also affected music, art and literature. If any of our perceptions (including our eyes, ears, and hearts) are dull or untrained, we cannot apprehend the full effect of films. It is both in knowing how film works—how it utilizes the medium to achieve results, how it conveys truth or propaganda, how it degrades or inspires—that we exercise our ability to investigate truth independently, with literate eyes, literate ears, and literate hearts.
World Order. 2003—04, Vol. 35, Not 2 3
Interchange
Letters from and to the Editor
World Order, which has devoted Thirty—five volumes to exploring what a global community should look like, including the role chil dren play in it, shares an anniversary With an icon of children’s television, Sesame Street, which has devoted thirtyfive years to educating and empowering children worldwide. Premiering in 1969 in New York City, and now reaching more than 120 countries, Sesame Street is, according to the New Yorle Times, “the most widely watched children’s series in the world.” But statistics are only indicators of the success of the show’s mission: developing in children “the cognitive, social, and emotional skills essential in today’s world.”
The themes explored in Sesame Street are myriad: marriage, birth, adoption, aging, death; gender and racial equality; cultural diversity in the neighborhood and around the globe; developing skills with letters and numbers; developing emotional skills in such areas as conflict resolution and reasoning. The episodes seem effortless, but behind every character, theme, and plot, Sesame Street is “firmly grounded in research,” which “informs every step . . . , from defining needs and developing curriculum goals to guiding content development and measuring impact.”
4 World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2
Our hats are off to Sesame Street for its thitty—five successful years. May life at 123 Sesame Street, which is nowhere and everywhere, continue to educate children worldwide, honoring “the richness—and complexity—of a child’s world.”
Cinema, the topic of this second in a two-part series, is, like television, a vehicle for exploring social, cultural, political, and spiritual issues.
“International Film Festivals and the Growth of World Community,” by Gary L. Morrison, examines how viewing films from a variety of countries causes us to modify our parochial points of view and to develop global perspectives. His survey of international film festivals is an eye opener in that the breadth and scope of state, national, continental, and international film festivals that he describes is staggering. We could scarcely go a day while we worked on the essay (and since then) without finding yet one more example of the diverse countries and directors being showcased at such festivals. For example, in 2004 the Hong Kong International Film Festival honored a Cambodian/French director, and the Sixth Festival of World Culture in London premiered films by Kazakhstani, Georgian, and Thai directors. International festivals, Morrison concludes,
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provide glimpses into other worlds, values, and cultures that can serve to diminish barriers between cultures.
“The Unveiling in the West of Iran’s Distinctive Cinematic Presence,” by Anne Gordon Perry, surveys recent developments in a single national cinema. Her essay introduces us to the themes, the directors, and the censorship that shape Iranian films. More important, it shows how film can be an avenue that promotes “understanding between Iran and the West.”
“Anime: An Introduction to a Growing Global Phenomenon,” by Jason and David Schlesinger, grew out of a conversation between a father and his teenage son at a Bahá’í academic conference. Anime, a form of animated cartoon (which has its own international film festival), draws a worldwide audience of children, youth, and adults. The Schlesingets explain the phenomenon’s history (it has roots in American comic books), the conventions it uses for portraying characters and their emotions, its use of technology and magic, and its themes. The themes, more than anything else, the authors observe, transcend cultural boundaries, exploring complex and nuanced representations of human personality and human experience.
Finally, we offer an annotated bibliographical review of selected books, journals (printed and on-line), and film
INTERCHANGE
critics. This bibliography, which is broken into general introductions, using Hitchcock to study film, and specific approaches (psychoanalytic, cultural, and historical critical methods), provides the reader with an overview of the directions in which scholarly and popular film criticism have been moving in recent years.
Congratulations to two of our fellow publications that won awards in 2004 from the Religion Communicators Council, an interfaith association at work in print and electronic communications, marketing, and public relations. Brilliant Star, a magazine fostering the spiritual education of children and junior youth published by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, was honored during its thirtyfifth year of publication (an anniversary it shares with Sesame Street and erd Order) with two awards—an Award for Excellence and a Best of Class Award in the national magazine category for its six 2003 issues. One Country, the newsletter of the Bahá’í International Community, won an Award of Excellence for its April—June 2003 story “In Vanuatu, a Proving Ground for Coconut Oil as an Alternative Fuel” (which can be read at http://www.onecountry.org/e151/ e15101asv Deameriprofilehtm).
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 5
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GARY L. MORRISON
International Film Festivals and the Growth of World Community: From Local Films to Global Perspectives
My first experience with “foreign” films come when I was a high—school student. I remember vividly the experience of entering the old Balboa Theater in the white, middle-Closs conservative Orange County, California, community of Newport Beach, to see my first foreign film,
Satyajit Ray’s Father Panckali, the first in his Apu Pilogy. My world was never the same again. From the first sitar chords of Ravi Shankar’s haunting and evocative score, I was transported into village India. I found myself experiencing deep wells of empathy for children and families living in rural poverty, yet finding joy in little things and the ability to survive and move on in life with so little. It made me realize how parochial my experience in Orange County was, and it set me on a course of discovery of the world that has never ended—all through the power of cinema and through having access to films from out of my culture.
Since that day in the late 19505, our ability to experience films from other countries has grown exponentially. From individuals and small groups seeking out the occasional art—house cinema daring to show foreign films, we now have mass audiences willing to flock to theaters to see films in languages requiring subtitles. Along the way international film festivals have become a ubiquitous part of cultural life around much of the globe. These festivals bring together diverse artistic visual expressions including works in progress and completed film, digital, and video works. Converging, mingling, and for a brief moment in time experiencing a growing sense of a single community are the artists who comprise the film community, talent scouts, distribution and marketing managers, journalists and critics,
Copyright © 2004 by Gary L. Morrison.
GARY L MORRISON
is a lifelong film buff and in our Winter 1968—69 Issue the first author to write a film review for World Order (a review of Jeon-Luc Godord‘s Weekend). He Is the assistant director of the Yew Chung Education Foundation and heads the international education services for Yew Chung International Schools in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beljing, 0nd Chongqing and in the Silicon Valley in California. He is currentty chairing the Steering Committee for the establishment and occreditcmon of the new Yew Chung College of International Studies as a two-year Associate Degreegronfing tertiary Institution to open in Hong Kong In 2005.
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 7
GARY L. MORRISON
and a discerning film audiencewall eager to see new, experimental, and foreign films. As major markets for the exchange of ideas, the arts, design, and technology, international film festivals are surprisingly an overlooked and underreported stimulus to the globalization of artistic expression and visual imagery.
Since the mid—twentieth century the proliferation of international film festivals has broadened the base of the market in films, widening the attention and participation of an ever-increasing audience around the world. Film audiences can see how other peoples of the world live, how they communicate and express them SINCE THE MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY THE PROLIFERATION OF
INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS HAS BROADENED THE selves, and the values other BASE OF THE MARKET IN FILMS, societies emphasize, interWIDENING THE ATTENTION nalize, or ignore. The re AND PARTICIPATION OF AN EVER-INCREASING sult has been an eXpansion AUDIENCE AROUND THE WORLD. Of Vi€W€r§ sense of com munity, of belonging to a world community in which others, too, feel, think, behave, act, and express themselves in stories, anecdotes, myths, symbols through film imagery that is culturally determined. Among films that have emerged from limited local or regional interest into international prominence, thereby influencing our worldviews, are the works of Eisenstein and Pudovkin (Russia), Satyajit Ray (India), Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu (Japan), Rosellini, DeSica, and Pasolini (Italy), Renoir, Godard, and Truffaut (France), Bergman (Sweden), Ousmene Sembéne (Senegal), Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige (China), Tsui Hark, Wong Kar—Wai, and John Woo (Hong Kong),
Bufiuel (Mexico), Saura and Almodévar (Spain), among countless others.
The Nature of International Film Festivals International film festivals have become popular events wherever they open. Someone has reportedly said, although I cannot find a reference for it, that a film festival is created somewhere in the world every thirty—six minutes. Once there was Cannes, which, more than a geographic location, has become synonymous with film festivals. Now there are established world-class festivals all over Europe including Venice, Berlin, London, Edinburgh, Moscow, Athens, and Thessaloniki. In the United States there are major festivals in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Hawaii. In Canada the most influential film festivals include Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Latin America has major festivals in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City. The rise of film industries in Australia and New Zealand has spawned festivals in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and Auckland. International film festivals have proliferated in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Bangkok, Singapore, and Mumbai. Underreported Africa and the Middle East have significant international film festivals in South Africa, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Teheran, and Tel Aviv. This far—from—exhaustive list touches upon just some of the literally hundreds of film festivals now sponsored locally, nationally, and internationally throughout the world.
Many festivals focus on a particular theme, or showcase regional talent or inde 8 World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, NO. 2
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INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS
pendent filmmakers, or highlight special interests. There are film festivals (all seeking to be international in selection and scope) for human rights, women, Latinos and Hispanics, African Americans, gays and lesbians, animated films, documentaries, videos, and so on. Some festivals focus on a nation’s art with a specific objective of raising consciousness of a region or national oeuvre—an African Film Festival in Seattle or the French Film Festival in Hong Kong. The Cause and effect Film Festival, held in Canada in 2003, was the first festival to focus on the universal religious principle of the oneness of humankind.1
With the proliferation of special—interest and thematic film festivals has come an increasing trend toward bringing together films from East and West axis countries and from North and South axis countries. Film festivals in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico highlight the creative energy of Hispanic cultures. Although Africa has influenced literature, music, dance, sports, and diplomacy WITH THE PROLIFERATION OF SPEClAL‘lNTEREST
(with three Nobel prize Win— AND THEMATIC FILM FESTIVALS HAS COME
ners in literature; music and AN INCREASING TREND TOWARD
music groups traveling world— BRINGING TOGETHER FILMS FROM EAST AND WEST Wide; dance troupes With large AXIS COUNTRIES AND FROM NORTH AND SOUTH followings in Europe and AXIS COUNTRIES.
America; Olympic athletes; and
renowned international statesmen serving the United Nations community), nevertheless, African filmmakers and the African film community remain largely unknown outside the continent. Yet the Ouagadougou Pan-African Film and Television Festival, better known as FESPACO, has been held every two years since the late 19605 in Burkina Faso. It regularly draws crowds of nearly five hundred thousand film enthusiasts and shows a selection of more than two hundred films. Senegalese director Ousmane Sembéne was the first major African director to be featured at FESPACO and to gain international recognition. Today many African filmmakers exhibit their work at FESPACO. From this event, the continent’s only film library and film training school have grown and are contributing to worldwide cultural integration. Black civilization and black social and economic issues are being seen, defined, and projected in images uniquely African in the greater North—South axis.
The Purpose of International Film Festivals
International film festivals serve several purposes. They provide a venue for bringing together significant films and filmmakers from various parts of the world and films many people otherwise might not have opportunities to see. What is generally shown in commercial theaters today is governed by an elaborate, complex film—distribution system and dictated by cost, marketing, and profits. The selection of films for festivals is not based on popularity or on potential profit or audience accessibility. In most cases an independent panel chooses films for festival Viewing based solely
1. For a report on the Cause and effect film festival, held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, October 6—8, 2003, see era’ Order 35.1 (2003): 43—46.
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on artistic merits. The festival allows distributors opportunities to preview films and to purchase distribution rights for films that they feel have some potential to turn a profit and that they wish to promote in their home countries. In the end, a festival is comprised of a variety of international films that allow viewers a glimpse of other worlds, values, and cultures; a chance to begin to understand other peoples; and
an opportunity to compare
IN THE END, A FESTIVAL lS COMPRISED OF A and contrast what they see
VARIETY OF INTERNATIONAL FILMS with their own culture and THAT ALLOW VIEWERS A GLIMPSE values.
OF OTHER WORLDS, VALUES, AND CULTURES. . . . International film festi vals also bring together local, national, and international viewers representing a multitude of ethnicities and cultures. For the duration of the festival the viewers find a unity of purpose, establish informal associations, and build networks of professional contacts and friends. In the process they are developing their visual literacy and learning to discuss films from many angles at many different levels. Hence groups can develop an international solidarity with fellow compatriots, link together across national boundaries to build an international cause or identity, and, at the same time, attract viewers to raise consciousness through focus on a particular theme.
Two Major Film Festivals
Two major film festivals that aim to bring together East and West are the underreported Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF), founded in 1981, and the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), founded six years earlier. While the HIFF, in an annual November festival, highlights “Where Strangers Meet,” the Hong Kong Festival grapples annually in April with variations of “Global Visions” and “Asian Perspectives.” Both international festivals make major contributions to developing world-mindedness and world community through film.
THE HAWAII INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
The Hawaii International Film Festival started as a project under the communityrelations office of the East-West Center, an educational and research institution created by the US. Congress and located on the University of Hawaii—Manoa campus in Honolulu. The HIFF has maintained one constant theme: “Where Strangers Meet.” The title sums up its purpose, which is to advance understanding and cultural exchange among the peoples of Asia and the Pacific Rim through the medium of film. For the first fifteen years, under the dynamic leadership of its founding director Jeannette Paulson, now Paulson-Hereniko, the HIFF grew into a unique event. Subsequent directors have functioned under her shadow, fulfilling the vision she gave to the festival. It is the only statewide film festival in the United States. Asian and Pacific Rim films, documentaries, and videos are screened over the course of three weeks in various venues around Honolulu and elsewhere on the main island of Oahu, with a smaller selection of the same works subsequently being screened on neighboring islands. More than two—dozen screening sites on six islands draw an average of some sixty thousand to ninety thousand participants from the
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state, the nation, and other countries. Consequently, HIFF has gained widespread local community support in addition to worldwide recognition. In 1997 the Hawaii Bahá’í community honored the Hawaii International Film Festival with its annual Agnes Baldwin Alexander Award for Service to Humanity, noting HIFF’S influence in generating a world consciousness among Hawaii’s citizenry.2
The HIFF has grown in stature over the years. It was the first international film festival to sponsor a retrospective of the works of China’s Zhang Yimou, thereby launching him into the worldcinema community. Grateful for the exposure, Zhang has returned to the HIFF again and again. For its twentieth anniversary in 2001, the HIFF scored a coup when it opened the festival with the first American screening of Ang Lee’s Crouching nger, Hidden Dragon, a winner of multiple film—festival awards around the world before it reached Hawaii. World premieres, American premieres, independent and experimental films, first features showcasing new and unrecognized directors of talent, films with social and ethnic issues, documentaries from Asia made by Asians, films of the Pacific produced by Pacific Islanders, and retrospectives of a nation’s or individual filmmaker’s works typically represent at least thirty countries. From fourteen features selected for the first Hawaii International Film Festival in 1981, the HIFF now previews more than one thousand feature films, documentaries, and videos to choose an average of one hundred to screen during the festival.
In addition to the usual selections from around the Pacific Rim, the 2002 HIFF included features, usually with some Asian theme or connection, from Brazil, Finland, France, and Germany, as well as groupings of films under various subthemes: “Images of Iran” (three), “Salaam! India” (eight), “Spotlight on Korea” (twelve), “Taiwan’s Emerging Cinema” (eight), Japanese animation “Planet Anime” (three), and “China’s New Wave” (eight). All HIFF entries must depict in some way the central theme “Where Strangers Meet.” Last year the festival included the first Inuitlanguage film (Atamzrjuat/Tbe Fast Runner) and the first Hawaiian language film (Ka’i’z'auo/ee/eoa), reflecting the selection panel’s great care and sensitivity in choosing films that have the power to transport viewers into another culture and another world; that are challenging in content, ideas, and values expressed; and that generate visual expressions or points of view. In this way, the HIFF fulfills the aim of the festival, which is to serve as a platform for international film exchange and a window to the world.
THE HIFF WAS THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL TO SPONSOR A RETROSPECTIVE OF THE WORKS OF CHlNAIS ZHANG YIMOU, THEREBY LAUNCHING HIM INTO THE WORLD-CINEMA COMMUNITY.
The HIFF is also unique in that it supports an educative and consciousness-raising process by sponsoring seminars; workshops; post—film discussions, often with those involved in the film; receptions with top Asian, Pacific, and North American
2. The award is named after Agnes Baldwin Alexander, born of two of the great missionary families who settled in Hawaii in the nineteenth century. Alexander became a follower of Bahá’u’lláh and established the first Bahá’í community in Hawaii and the Pacific Rim.
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filmmakers participating; and various awards presentations and ceremonies. American film critic Roger Ebert is a regular who gives film seminars during the festival. The HIFF has developed film—based curricula for use in schools and supports a Cultural and Visual Literacy Program to reach students in grades seven through twelve. It also provides teachers with film study guides designed to help students develop critical viewing skills before they watch selected features and to facilitate
discussing cultural, global,
AN IMPORTANT FEATURE QFd Cintempof’fy tlgmes t r m . OF THE HAWAII INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL a e, t Cy see 5 ence an important feature of the IS ITS EDUCATIVE ROLE IN THE COMMUNITY .. . . Hawaii International Film STIMULATING THE GROWTH OF
Festival is its educative role CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AND VISUAL LITERACY. in the community stimulat ing the growth of critical thinking skills and visual literacy. At times HIFF has adapted study guides for its website (http://hiff.org) so that they could be downloaded in classrooms in foreign countries. Thus the impact of the Hawaii International Film Festival is far—reaching. Several years ago a friend in Hawaii sent me a cartoon called “Corky’s World,” which he clipped out of the 30 October 2000 edition of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, a local weekly newspaper. The legends under six images of tourists exploring various overseas regions read: “Went to China . . . Saw Malaysia and the Philippines . . . Visited the Pacific and Australia . . . Spent time in Japan and Korea . . . And India . . . Without leaving the Islands” (see figure 1). The narrator stands in front of a marquee advertising the Hawaii International Film Festival. This cartoon reminds us of the power of films and the significance of a film festival in transporting viewers to other times and other places; in exploring different cultural values, perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, languages, and cultures; and in reexamining one’s own.
THE HONG KONG INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
“Global Visions” and “Asian Perspectives” are the two overarching themes of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, now approaching its twenty-eighth year (see www.hkiff.org.hk). The HKIFF is the major channel for showcasing the films of Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea, and other areas of Northeast Asia, mixed with major works coming out of Southeast Asia, Europe, and America and some from Latin America and even from such distant places as Iceland. Created and launched by the Urban Council of the colonial British government in 1977, the Hong Kong International Film Festival was taken over in 2000 by the Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Services Department. In 2002 the Hong Kong Arts Development Council became the sole organizer of all future festivals. The HKIFF has three goals: (1) providing the people of Hong Kong with a window on quality films from around the world and introducing them to the latest in cinematic form and content; (2) fostering film culture and local talent through screening their works; and (3) highlighting the achievements and deepening the appreciation of Hong Kong cinema history.
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INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS
Fig. l. A CARTOONIST'S VIEW OF HOW INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS TRANSPORT VIEWERS INTO FOREIGN CULTURES
Corky's Hawaii
Reproduced by permisson of Corky Trinidad from the Honolulu Star Bulletin. October 30. 2000, Copyright ©2000 by Corky Trinidad.
Whereas the Hawaii International Film Festival has an international jury to select main event awards for best film, the HKIFF is a noncompetitive film festival. However, there are some categories designated for awards that particularly honor and encourage young filmmakers. The Asian Digital Video competition recognizes young artists working with digital technology. Humanitarian awards are given to best documentaries. An International Film Critics Federation Award is given for young Asian filmmakers.
The HKIFF presents a balance of features, documentaries, shorts, and animated films in four areas. International cinema is comprised of sixty to seventy new works. Asian cinema includes forty to fifty new works. A Hong Kong Panorama is made up of ten to twenty representative works of the current past year. A Hong Kong cinema retrospective is contributed by the Hong Kong Film Archive and shows twenty to thirty films. The sole conditions are that all entries except Hong Kong films must not have been shown in Hong Kong before the festival screenings and that films not in English must have English subtitles.
Among the highlights of the twenty—seventh Hong Kong International Film Festival in April 2003 were special programs and tributes including uItalian Cinema Today,” “Avant—Garde,” “Animation,” 21 filmmaking master class, and a one hundredth anniversary tribute to famed Japanese director Ozu Yasujiro. Films from China, India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Afghanistan, England, Ireland, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Brazil, Canada, and the United States, among others, were mixed with premieres of Hong Kong films and retrospectives of Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese, and Italian cinema. Over the course of an intensive sixteen—day festival, “Global Visions” and “Asian Perspectives” captured the attention of a wide segment of the general community with film screenings not only in the cultural heart of Hong Kong—the Hong Kong Cultural Arts Center and City Hall Theaters—but also in
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GARY L. MORRISON
outlying district arts centers. The month of April in Hong Kong and the month of November in Hawaii resonate with the blending of East and West through their international film festivals.
Conclusion Film festivals have become truly international events, even though one longs to see a greater inclusion of the wide variety of African films and more films from fledgling film industries in developing countries—for example, films from Cambodia or Kazakhstan. However, today, with the widespread dissemination of film as a universal art form and the proliferation of international film festivals, viewers have greater access to diverse cultures than ever before.3 Moreover, the greater exposure encourages them to absorb and translate “Global Visions” into local perspectiveswand vice versa. Participation in the
THROUGH THE ACT OF SHARING, VIEWERS DEVELOP international film festivals, THEIR VISUAL LITERACY AND BEGIN TO SHIFT either professionally or as
FROM PAROCHIAL VIEWS OF THEIR PLACE IN SOCIETY viewers longing to see the TO A WIDER, MORE UNIVERSAL IDENTITY world and other cultures,
AS DIVERSE PARTS OF A WORLD COMMUNITY. facilitates a gradual filSion
of artistic and cultural values so that what viewers anywhere experience vicariously is no longer of “others” but the shared imagery, signs, symbols, content, thought, and perceptions that can be seen, learned, understood, and incorporated into a worldmindedness that is a sum of common human experiences. We are no longer separate and other but interconnected, and suddenly the world and its peoples and cultures becomes a far more interesting and alive place for all those who inhabit the earth. Through the act of sharing, viewers develop their visual literacy and begin to shift from parochial views of their place in society to a Wider, more universal identity as diverse parts of a world community. Through the sharing in international film festivals, viewers’ sense of self and of others intermingle, each becoming less foreign and more familiar in a process of cultural integration that allows them to expand and enhance their understanding of what it means to be a human being. “Where Strangers Meet” is a common ground where the world becomes more known, more familiar, and more
friendly.
3. Film festivals are still singular events. We need greater transfer of film to video and wider distribution on video of films from developing countries. For example, Rithy Panh is one of only a handful of film directors working to build a film industry in Cambodia, yet his detailed and touching Rice People (Le: gem de [a riziére; Nea/e Ire, 1994) has limited availability outside of a few festival viewings. The film is not available on video even in Cambodia and hence will probably be lost to generations seeking to understand the rice culture at the heart of Cambodian life and society.
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[Page 15]
Beauty
For Qurmtu ’l—Ayn
It was suicide at Badagt in old Persia when you revealed your face and sat down next to Quddl’is.
What were you thinking, that beauty unveiled is not a dangerous thing? That men would love you for it?
Tea steamed out of samovars, trays stuffed with figs shuddered to the ground, bowls of pale pistachios
spilled over the clay earth, and Abdu’l—fléliq-i—Isféhéni, shamed—shocked
when he saw your countenance, shook
out his razor and slashed his own throat! Later, it would be the death of you.
—PETER E. MURPHY
Copyright © 2004 by Peter E. Murphy
PETER E. MURPHY, a poet and a teacher ofEnglish and creative writing in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is a consultant to the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation’s poetry program and has been an educational adviser to five PBS television series on poetry. He is the founder and director of the annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway (www.wintergetaway.com).
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[Page 17]
ANNE GORDON PERRY
The Unveiling in the West of Iran’s Distinctive Cinematic Presence
Iron offers a striking cinematic presence that, since the late 19803, has become increasingly accessible to audiences in the West and around the world. A country undergoing tremendous change and internal unrest, Iron grapples with its sense of identity and relative isolation in 0 world generally more modernized 0nd Westernized than its current
theocratic republic condones. Lively debates surround contemporary [rdm’yat (Iranian national identity), with such dialectical poles as Iran as homeland and Persian as dominant language and culture—Islamic or otherwise; traditional politics of monopolization versus the possibility of democracy and pluralism; and the widespread diaspora of Iranians to numerous countries and their interaction with host cultures where life is quite different from life back home. Cinema has become a major forum internationally for these discussions and debates, with scholars affirming that cinema “has become an important medium for the renegotiation of Iranian cultural identity.”1 Thus the films produced in Iran have much to teach us about the beauty and the struggle of one culture and its identity and much to show us about distinctive aspects of the art and craft of filmmaking.
A Brief History of Iranian Cinema
Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian Studies and chair of the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages at Columbia University, describes the world of cinema in Iran during his boyhood as “our window to a modernity we experienced only vicariously.” He goes on to say that the “intersection of art and modernity has made
Copyright © 2004 by Anne Gordon Perry. 1. Richard Tapper, “Introduction,” in Richard Tapper, ed., The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity (London: Tauris, 2002) 22.
ANNE GORDON PERRY
is a lecturer at the University of Texas at Antngton, where sh
writing, and film studies Her Ph. D. in aesthetic studies
on the Intersection of art and religion. She is the 601
affiliated with the Assodation for Bohéu' StUdieS, ohd
poetry, and historical biography In numerous publtccfl”
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 l7
ANNE GORDON PERRY
aspects of Iranian cinema signify something beyond itself.” Part of this significance pertains to the widespread reception of Iranian film by Iranians and a more recent critical acceptance by a global audience. Dabashi explains that Iranian culture has been quintessentially a verbal one, noted especially for its literary traditions, but with the development of cinema, Iran “exploded into a visuality that made our cinema a particularly powerful art. . . . This cinema became the focal point of an
entirely new generation of hopes and anxieties.”2 Cinema was introduced to Iran in 1900 after Muzaffar al—Din Shah (reigned, 1896—1907) purchased a moving—picture camera in Paris, and his official photographer began shooting foot CINEMA WAS INTRODUCED TO IRAN IN 1900 age during a royal visit to AFTER MUZAFFAR AL-DIN SHAH PURCHASED A Belgium. In the same year MOVING-PICTURE CAMERA IN PARIS, a public, though not comAND HIS OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER BEGAN merdala Cinema was opened
SHOOTING FOOTAGE DURING A ROYAL VISIT 1“ Tabríz’ Iran- Called 501i
Cinema, it was founded by Roman Catholic missionaries to spread Christianity.3 The earliest filmmakers were not Muslims but members of religious minorities—Armenians, Jews, and Zoroastrians.
Opposition from Muslim fanatics who “despised the idea of recreating the human face and human body on the screen” was “immediate and emphatic.” Muslim theologians, who even objected to the use of still photography, had at least four doctrinal objections to any mode of visual representation: (1) fear that through visual representation the imaginative faculties would overcome reason; (2) the assumption that visual representations of real things prevent one from examining the realities they represent; (3) historical opposition by Muhammad to idolatry and the prohibition of depicting the human form in art; and (4) the belief that any act of creation that simulates the original creation by God is blasphemous.4
Nonetheless, in 1904 the first commercial movie theater was opened, giving Iranians a window to the wider world through films imported from abroad. Under Mohammad Ali Shah (reigned, 1907—09), additional theaters were established, but with his loss of power in 1909, they were destroyed. In 1912 theaters reopened, but until the early 19305 there were only about twenty—five in all of Iran.
During the 1925—41 reign of Reza Shah, Ovanes Ohanian, an Armenian—Iranian who had studied cinema in Moscow, returned to Iran and started a film school. At the same time Khan-baba Khan Mo’tazedi, an Iranian engineering student in Paris, returned to Iran with some filmmaking equipment and began a career as a cinematographer. He is credited with arranging public screenings for women. In 1930 the first Iranian silent films were born. In 1931 Reza Shah banned the traditional Iranian performing art, Yh‘ziyela, the only form of indigenous music drama in the Islamic world. Religious in nature and often associated with mourning and
TO BELGIUM.
2. Hamid Dabashi, Close Up:1mnian Cinema Part, Present, andFuture (London: Verso, 2001) 3—4, 4. 3. Dabashi, Close Up 12. 4. Dabashi, Clare Up 14.
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IRAN’S DISTINCTIVE CINEMATIC PRESENCE
dramatic epics such as the martyrdom Of Hussein (the grandson of Muhammad), Ta‘ziyeh went underground.5 The ban coincided with the rise of Iranian cinema. In 1932 the first Persian—language sound newsreel was shown; in 1934 Abdolhossein Sepanta, an expatriate Iranian writer and director, directed Ferdowsi, an adaptation for the screen about the national poet. The collective experiences of more people going to theaters—previously thought by Muslims to be transgressive sites frequented only by religious mi norities—contributed t0 the THE COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCES OF MORE PEOPLE
development of a visual literacy GOING TO THEATERS—PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT BY within Iran. MUSLIMS TO BE TRANSGRESSIVE SITESWhen AfdeShlf Irani Pdeuced CONTRIBUTED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A
The Lor Girl (Dolehmr—e Lor) in India in 1933 using Iranian actors, Iran was undergoing “forced and colonially militated modernization.”6 The first Iranian “talkie,” The Lor Girl was used as a propaganda tool by Reza Shah for his program of state-sponsored modernization. In 1936, the year the film was released, Reza Shah banned the wearing of the chador by women. Dabashi comments that the “coincidence marked the parallel fate of modernity and Iranian cinema. The unveiling of women thus became a major feature of the newly imported art.”7 Not until the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the “Islamization” of the cinema were women required to appear with their hair covered.
In her examination of women in Iranian cinema, Shahla Lahiji, director of Rowshangaran Publishing and the Women’s Studies Center, Inc., in Tehran, notes that The Lor Girl challenged traditional perceptions of women’s role and yet was successful at the box office. But fifteen years later, after World War II ended, the political climate had changed, and the public removal of the veil had suddenly turned women and their lives “into a political bone of contention.” The difference was evident in Esma‘il Kushan’s 1948 film The Pmpest of Life (Tufim—e Zendegi), which was “a tepid family melodrama” that was only moderately successful.8
The post-1948 films produced in Iran were commercial, low—quality melodramas and comedies based on popular Western movies. A new genre— film fizrsi—sprang up, using song—and—dance cabaret scenes and scantily clothed women. Between 1950
VISUAL LITERACY WITHIN IRAN.
5. Ta‘ziyeh has subsequently had some revivals but is rarely performed outside of Iran. See httpzll www.asiasociety.org.
6. The Lor Girl depicts a love affair between Jafar and Golnar who are threatened by a group of bandits. Also called The Iran Of I’Z’Sterday and the Iran of Today, the film served as propaganda for Reza Shah. A poster advertising it states that “in this film you will see and compare the condition of Iran as it used to be and the rapid progress of the country under the reign of the Just and Capable Shahanshah, His Majesty Pahlavi.” This film and others, such as Shirin and Farhaa’ (Shirin wz Farhaa’, 1934), The Darla Eyes (Chathman—e Sz'yah, 1936), and Leilz' and Majnun (Leili wz Majmm, 1937) were produced by the East India Company in Calcutta by Irani and Sepanta, who drew from classics of Persian poetry. See Dabashi, Close Up 20—21.
7. Dabashi, Close Up 20.
8. Shahla Lahiji, “Chaste Dolls and Unchaste Dolls: Women in Iranian Cinema,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 217—18.
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ANNE GORDON PERRY
and 1965 the industry grew rapidly; 324 films were produced, and more than two hundred movie theaters sprang up. Nationalism as a theme developed in such works as Gholamhossein Naqshineh’s T/ae Nationalist (1953) and Ali Kasma’i’s Ya’qub Layth Saflizri (1957), in which anti—Arab ideas were expressed.9 In 1965 Siamak Yasami’s The 73mm}? of Qarun (Ganj—e Qarun), which contrasted “the worthless life of the upper class with the poor, yet happy lower class, which is rich in morals,” initiated a new genre of Iranian cinema.10
Forough Farrokhzad’s The House [5 Black (Kbaneb Szyab Ast, 1962) is considered by Dabashi the most significant work of its period—a “film that with its poetic
treatment of leprosy anticipated much that was to follow. . . .”” A few years later Daryush Mehrju’i’s The Cow
THE DECADE BEFORE THE 1979 REVOLUTION (GM, 1969) received high aid WAS MARKED BY THE EMERGENCE OF AN cal acclaim.12 The decade be“IRANIAN NEW WAVE" AND CHARACTERIZED fore the 1979 Revolution was
BY FlLMS OF HIGHER CINEMATIC QUALITY marked by the emergence of AND SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS. an “Iranian New Wave” and
characterized by films of higher cinematic quality and social consciousness. Art cinema and the idea of director as auteur contrasted popular ideas of film, cultivating a small elite local audience and the interest of foreign critics.13 Important filmmakers emerged from this era—Abbas Kiarostami, Bahram Bahá’í, and Daryush Mehrju’i, now called “the old masters of Iranian cinema.”14 They endured strict censorship but managed to be creative in representing social and political issues symbolically.
Initially the 1979 Islamic Revolution stifled cinema production because films were seen as agents of moral corruption, but in the early 19805 there was a drive for Islamic, anti—imperialist cinema production—under tight regulation. The state poured money into films that supported the Revolution but prevented the most gifted filmmakers from working. In 1983 a group of young intellectuals working under then—Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Khatami (now Iran’s president) created a plan for reviving Iran’s cinema, in part so that serious artistic
9. Titles of Iranian films are generally given in English and in Persian. But at times it is not possible to ascertain one title or the other. Films bearing the given names of Iranians cannot be translated into English.
10. Skidmore College, Women, the Visual Arts, 8C Islam, “History of Iranian Film,” http:// www.skidmore.edu/academics/arthistory/ah369/history.htm. T/ae 7724mm Of Qarun was a “huge box office success and grossed over seventy million Rials, the equivalent of one million dollars.”
11. Dabashi, Close Up 26.
12. A study of a man’s relationship with his cow, the film, according to Dabashi (Close Up 28), “evolves into a rich examination of the nature of the animality of man,” becoming “the touchstone of every major cinematic event since.” It was originally banned because of its depiction of despair in an impoverished village, but after it won praise at the Venice Film Festival, it was conditionally released in Iran.
13. Hamid Naficy, “Islamizing Film Culture in Iran: A Post—Khatami Update,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 51.
14. Jamsheed Akrami, “Sixty Six Years of Film Production in Iran,” http://www.zeitgeistfilms. com/ current/closeup/iranfilmhistory.html.
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|RAN’S DISTINCTIVE CINEMATIC PRESENCE
works could win favorable attention for Iran at foreign festivals. The older filmmakers were joined by younger filmmakers such as Moshen Makhmalbaf and Rakhshan Bani—Etemad and were not only allowed to work again but were given support and encouragement.15
In the mid-19805 there was further improvement in the quality of Iranian films, most notably evident in Amir Naderi’s T176 Runner (Damnde/y, 1986), in which a young, lonely, hopeless boy runs for his
life. In 1997 the reformist movement NOW, MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS initiated more change. Now, more than AFTER THE 1979 REVOLUTION, twenty Years after the 1979 Revolu- iRAN's CHANGING IDENTITY AND DIRECTION don) Iran’s Changing identity and di' AS A SOCIETY IS CLEARLY REFLECTED
rection as a society is clearly reflected in its filmmaking. With the increased availability of Iranian films such as the recently released Under the Skin of 13/16 City (Zir—e Pust—e S/m/m directed by Bani-Etemad, 2000) and 7271 (D417, directed by Kiarostami, 2003), Westerners have gained a new perspective on the genre.
IN ITS FILMMAKING.
Social Issues in Iranian Cinema
Assumptions about social issues in Iran, including the role of women, are often based on the more popular and readily available Iranian films. Yet it is difficult to make generalizations, for Iranian cinema reflects many new and dynamic directions. But it can be said that social issues and change or the need for change present a strong motivation for filmmaking in Iran and a plethora of subjects for filmmakers.
THE ROLE OF CHILDREN IN FlLM Filmgoers who have seen such works as T173 White Balloon (Bad/eona/ee-e Sefid, 1995), Children of Heaven (Backe—lm—ye Asmtm, 1997), and The Color of Paradise (Range [010514, 1999) may assume that the subject of most Iranian films is the plight of children or the struggles of the lower class. Because of the current status of women in Iran and the strong element of censorship, Westerners may also assume that women in Iran are not allowed to play major roles, that deep or intimate relationships between men and women cannot be portrayed, and that the voice of women in filmmaking is silent—all of which might explain the focus on children in some films. It is true that the cinematic treatment of women and children in relation to censorship provides insight into the current culture of Iran. Azadeh Farahmand, a doctoral candidate in film at UCLA, notes that, before the 1979 Revolution, children represented a synthesis of “aggressiveness and innocence, the adult’s world and the child’s, as well as vulnerability and pride,” whereas the purified prototypes of children in films made after the Revolution are linked “to the emerging post-war desire to renegotiate an image of Iranian society and to counter militant revolutionary stereotypes of Iranians through representations of children.”16 Richard Tapper,
15. Dabashi, Close Up 32. 16. Azadeh Farahmand, “Perspectives on Recent (International Acclaim for) Iranian Cinema,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 105.
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ANNE GORDON PERRY
professor of anthropology at the University of London and author of books on Iran and Iranian cinema, notes that children have emerged as surrogate adults because of restrictions related to women, and Hamid Reza Sadr, a film writer in Tehran, describes children as “majestic statues of men and women, and sometimes as everyone’s alter egos”; moreover, they are sexless and innocent embodiments of freedom and love in contemporary film.17
THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN FILM The role of women in Iranian films has been a challenging one. In early Iranian films, the focus was on romanticism or on inculcating morals, and women were generally depicted as victims of male immorality. During the 19605, films depicted female characters who were promiscuous and a virtuous male hero who would aid women in changing their life—styles.
Since the 19605 the film industry of Iran has taken some steps toward portraying women more realistically, providing a greater social critique of women’s rights and calling for or engendering their empowerment. A good example is the internationally
acclaimed film, The Circle
THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN IRANIAN FILMS (DayW/L 2000) directed by HAS BEEN A CHALLENGING ONE. Jafar Panahi. As the film opens,
IN EARLY IRANIAN FILMS, THE FOCUS WAS ON awoman is giving birth. When ROMANTICISM OR ON lNCULCATING MORALS, the child is pronounced a girl,
AND WOMEN WERE GENERALLY DEPICTED AS the mother eXpresses disapVICTIMS OF M ALE IMMORALITY. pointment and insists that the
sonogram had shown her baby to be a boy. When she tells her family members, they are fearful that her in—laws will ask for a divorce, forcing the new mother into financial difficulties. The baby girl will grow up in an environment where her life would be more valued had she been male. Thereafter, the film focuses on women who have escaped from prison and are running from the police, victims of institutionalized political and sexual repression. Banned in Iran, the film was consciously made available to an international audience who could protest the plight of women in contemporary Iran. At times, however, feminist themes are mixed with strong moral or religious messages. In Tbe Legend of a Sigh (Afiane/a-ye Ala, 1990), Tahmineh Milani’s striking film, the protagonist experiences the life of four women from various social strata after a man named Sigh appears (in flowing robes and without a turban, looking like a figure from the Bible) whenever she heaves a heavy sigh of sorrow. To ease her suffering, Sigh allows her to change places with someone she thinks has a happier life, and she learns that everyone suffers. Marva Nabili’s T/Je Sealed Soil (Khale-e—Sar Be}; Mark, 1978), the first feature film by a woman, also has a moral message. The film is about an eighteen-year—old woman who refuses to comply when her relatives try to arrange her marriage. She incurs
2
17. See Tapper, “Introduction,’ in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 16, and Hamid Reza Sadr, “Children in Contemporary Iranian Cinema: When we were Children,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 228, 235.
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IRAN’S DISTINCTIVE CINEMATIC PRESENCE
the displeasure of her family and community, resulting in harsh attempts to get her to conform, including an exorcism by a local priest.
But moral messages and attempts at providing social critiques of women’s rights are not the only feminist themes in Iranian films. Ebrahim Mokhtari’s Zz'mzt (1994) movingly chronicles a female medical worker’s attempt to run a health clinic as she battles rural prejudice. Tahmineh Milani’s Two Wmm (Do Zan, 1999) provides a revealing glimpse into daily modern Iranian life and explores the friendship of two women who have vastly different lives.
Marziyeh Meshkini’s The Day I Became a Wman (Roozi Khe Zan Shodam, 2000) looks carefully at the way culture and tradition affect Iranian women from girlhood to old age. In a memorable scene,
a group of Women are riding b1- MARZIYEH MESHKINIIS THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN
cycles (Iranian women are not al— LOOKS CAREFULLY AT THE WAY CULTURE lowed to ride bicycles, except on AND TRADITION AFFECT IRANIAN WOMEN one island off the coast of Iran FROM GIRLHOOD TO OLD AGE.
where this film was shot). The husband of one woman rides a horse alongside her, shouting threats of divorce if she does not get off her bicycle and come home.‘8
In Majid Majidi’s Baum (2001), a young Afghan refugee girl named Baran is disguised as a boy to help support her family. When a boy named Latif sees through her disguise and begins to court her, Baran “flips her mantle over her head so it becomes an Afghani burqa, the head—to—toe covering for women with mesh portal at face—level.” One reviewer comments that “it is a moment of finality for their telationship—but the beginning of a new, more precarious life for Latif.” Majidi uses the burqa to represent “the cultural and logistical barriers between Baran and Latif, who will now be separated, maybe forever.”19
The diversity of feminist themes in Iranian films is also seen in Rakhshan BaniEtemad’s Under the Skin of the City (2000), a remarkable work with a female protagonist.20 Tuba, who works in a factory and is caught up in the contradictions in Iranian society, sees her family torn apart by poverty, drugs, and property concerns. Her oldest daughter, Hamideh, is a gentle, pregnant woman who is physically abused and returns often to the family home with her young son to escape her husband. Tuba’s son, Abbas, smuggles heroin for a shady businessman and
18. The government restricted the screening of The Day I Became a Wmum by featuring it only in poor areas of Tehran where few could afford the price of admission. Meshkini herself was surprised it was shown at all and was afraid she would be arrested. See Makhmalbaf Film House, httpz/l ww.makhmalba£com, for information on the film achievements and artistic statements of the Makhmalbaf family.
19. David Lipfert, uA Widening Gulf,” OFFOFFOFF: The Guide to Alternative New York, http:// www.offoflbfhcom/film/ZOOI/baran.php3.
20. Set in Tehran against the backdrop of the 1996 parliamentary elections, Under the Slain of the City is more dynamic than many Iranian works. Trains and cars move so rapidly that they nearly become abstracted; women in billowing black chadors streak down sidewalks. Tehran, in its diverse aspects, plays a major role in the film. Westerners interested in modern—day Iran should find the views of Tehran fascinating.
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 23
ANNE GORDON PERRY
ultimately faces dire consequences. Tuba emerges as the strong one. At the beginning of the film, she is interviewed for television, but she stumbles in her inarticulateness, lacking a political consciousness and a sense of personal identity. At the end of the film, Tuba is interviewed again and responds eloquently, linking the political situation with her own personal suffering and challenging the interviewer: “Who the hell do you show these films to anyway?”21
Other recent films dealing With women’s issues include Tahmineh Milani’s Hidden Half (Nime/y—ye Pen/mn, 2001); Manijeh Hekmat’s lVomen’sPrison (Zendan-e Zamm, 2002); and Zia Mojabi’s WJman on Fire (2003). These films all push the boundaries
of censorship and offer social cri RECENT FILMS DEALING WITH WOMEN'S ISSUES tiques. But not a11 of the feminist PUSH THE BOUNDARIES OF CENSORSHIP films in Iran are ponderous social AND OFFER SOCIAL CRITIQUES. commentaries. For example,
Mohammad Latifi’s Through Sunglasses (Ayna/e—e—Doodie, 2002) is a comedy about how men view women and how women View men.
Overall, Iranian film has begun to explore the many ways in which women are gaining a presence and voice in Iranian culture. Hamid Naficy, professor of film and author of Cinema and National Identity: A Social History of the Iranian Cinema, comments that, “although women continue to be the most regulated and officially controlled sector of Iranian society and cinema, their presence and influence both behind and in front of the cameras has steadily grown.”22 Lahiji observes that,
today, Iranian films have risen to the level of international acceptance and adopted
a different approach, with an attitude to women that is far more progressive than
attitudes before the Revolution. . . . The Iranian film industry, having ignored
women’s lives for almost 50 years, is purging itself of the notions of chaste and unchaste dolls in order to paint a real and realistic portrait of women and their presence.”
OTHER SOCIAL ISSUES
In addition to social issues involving women and children, Iranian films also explore a variety of other topics, including problems with border relationships, the plight of refugees, and problems with marginalization in specific populations (such as the Kurds or Afghans), especially in films following the Iran'Iráq war. Issues of marginalization, for example, are explored in Bashu, the Little Stranger (Bas/m, G/mrz'beb—ye Kut/Ja/e); 31mm; A Time for Drunken Horses (Zamam' Barfly Mastz' Asbba); and Marooned in Iráq (Gomgas/ytei dar Armb).
21. Howard Feinstein, “An Iranian Jewel, ‘Under the Skin of the City,” indieWIRE, http:// www.indiewire.com/movies/movies _030310under.html. See also Marcia Garcia, “Under the Skin of the City,” Rotten Tomatoes, Film Journal International, http://www.rottentomatocs.com/click/movie1121199/reviews.php?ctitic=columns&sortby=default&page=2&rid:1119622, and “Rakhshan BaniEtemad Retrospective,” City of Women, http://www.cityofwomen—asi/2001/bani.html.
22. Naficy, “Islamizing Film Culture in Iran,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 54.
23. Lahiji, “Chaste Dolls and Unchaste Dolls,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 225—26.
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IRAN’S DISTINCTIVE CINEMATIC PRESENCE
Ethical and social issues surface in films that relate to urban versus rural life—styles, poverty, crime, divorce, infidelity, inbreeding, mental illness, single parenting, modernization, and Westernization. Examples include Tree of Life, Dance of Dust (Raqr—e K/m/e), Nargess, Divorce Imm'tm Style (Pietro Germz), T/ae Peddlar (Dast—fbrus/a), The Cyclist (Baysi/eelmn), The Color of Paradise, and so on. In such films one sees the voice of the filmmaker as a powerful tool for expressing current conditions in Iran and as an agent of social change.
IRANIANS AND THE WEST
Side by side with Iranian films depicting a variety of social situations and problems in Iran, a new genre of films focusing on the intercultural aspects of Iranians and the West is beginning to emerge abroad. It includes the American independent film W11: of Sand (1994) by Erica Jordan and Shirin Etessam, a gripping drama of friendship between two women and the quest for freedom of the protagonist, a young Iranian living in the United States; Ramin Serry’s absorbing film, Maryam (2000), which takes place in 1979 in New Jersey and tracks an Iranian-American family before and after the American Embassy takeover; Brian Gilbert’s Not Wit/yaut My Daughter (1991), a depiction of an American woman, trapped in Islamic Iran by her brutish husband, who must find a way to escape with her daughter; and, more recently, Vadim Perelman’s House of Sand and Fog (2003), a humane and profound drama in which an exiled Iranian air force colonel buys a California house put up for public auction and finds himself pitted against a young American woman who is desperate not to lose her house. In the tragic struggle the line between protagonist and antagonist is blurred so that neither emerges as the foe. Ultimately the film suggests that, just as two individuals bring their “side” and limitations to any conflict, so might two cultures.”1
A NEW GENRE OF FILMS FOCUSING ON THE INTERCULTURAL ASPECTS OF IRANIANS AND THE WEST IS BEGINNING TO EMERGE ABROAD.
Distinctive Qualities of Iranian Cinema
While some of the themes explored in past and recent Iranian films resonate with those in films from other countries, Iran’s social and economic isolation has contributed to a filmmaking style distinct from the high—budget, action—driven films one often finds in contemporary America. While Bani—Etemad’s fast-paeed Under the Skin Of the City is an exception, Iranian films usually have a slow, methodical pace, reflecting the influence of French and American cinémzz vérz'té, Italian neorealism, and Russian kiné-pmz/da. Andrew Sarris, author of The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929—1968 and former critic for the Village Voice, notes that “‘the pace is generally a bit slow for Western tastes, but the cumulative effect of this very
24. These films might be compared to recent popular Indian/Anglo films such as Momoon \Vm’ding (2001) and Bend It Li/ee Berle/mm (2002). The Iranian/Anglo films tend to have more somber subject matter than do those with Indian/Anglo themes.
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 25
ANNE GORDON PERRY
slowness is one of inexorability and inevitability.”25 As with many “foreign” films, active mental participation, rather than passive observation, is required.
While each work may differ substantially, Iranian films have some common elements: utilization of documentary; :1 focus on politics, government, and society; attention to the day-to-day lives of ordinary people; the humanization of social and political problems; and the plight of those who are marginalized. Critics have noted a general tendency of Iranian films to reflect both humanistic compassion for those who suffer and artistic sophistication. Tapper describes the international fascination with Iranian cinema, which is now widely recognized “not merely as a distinctive ‘national’ cinema but as one of the most innovative and exciting in the world,” as it relates to its roots in the rich cultural traditions of drama, poetry, and the visual arts that have survived many centuries of political and social change.26
Censorship in Iran
An important aspect of the distinctiveness of Iranian cinema stems from its being
censored by the government. For it is under strict governmental control, with codes
restricting the representation of female characters, a censorship system, and a rating
system, all of which dictate the acceptable content for films and determine classification. Western-style violence, ob IRANIAN CINEMA IS UNDER STRICT scenity, and sex are prohibGOVERNMENTALCONTROL,WITH CODES ited, and 311 screenplays, RESTRICTING THE REPRESENTATION OF choice of actors, and final FEMALE CHARACTERS,A CENSORSHIP SYSTEM, versions of films require
AND A RATING SYSTEM. government approval. Hence
filmmakers choose their sub jects carefully and generally engage in indirect, allegorical, and poetic storytelling. When the Revolution broke out in 1979, cinema theaters were burned down in the name of morality and cultural independence.” The Revolution was a rejection of the Pahlavis and all they stood for, including values reflected in films. Nevertheless, Tapper notes, “Iranian cinema has become more active and lively than ever before.” But he raises a pertinent question without a clear answer: How much has Iranian cinema’s international success been achieved despite, or because of, the Iranian government’s intervention.>28 Farahmand observes that “tight circumstances often have the ironic blessing of further motivating artists to invent indirect means of expressing their ideas and creativity to seek metaphors and allusions. This,
25. Andrew Sarris, quoted in Hugo Berkeley, “Iranian Films Merit Increased Attention on Campus," http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/C0ntent/1998/03/05/Arts/iran.html, under Archives.
26. Tapper, “Introduction,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 2.
27. At least one theater was burned before the Revolution. In 1978 the Rex Theater in Abadan was torched by anti—Shah revolutionaries, trapping three hundred people inside. From then on, “the destruction of cinemas became a key symbolic act against the government of the Shah, during whose time cinema was considered—especially by clerics and religious folk—to be filled with Western mores of sex and violence” (Naficy, “Islamizing Film Culture in Iran,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 27).
28. Tapper, “Introduction,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 1, 9.
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IRAN'S DISTINCTIVE CINEMATIC PRESENCE
however, does not mean that censorship is good because it makes artists more creative.”29
Formal censorship, mostly related to issues of morality and sexuality, had begun in the 19205 in response to foreign imports. Political censorship increased in the
19505 and 19605, while greater freedom was allowed in the TIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES OFTEN HAVE THE IRONIC BLESSING
area of sex, This changed OF FURTHER MOTIVATING ARTISTS
abruptly after the 1979 Revo- TO INVENT |NDIRECT MEANS OF EXPRESSING THEIR lution. When the state became IDEAS AND CREATIVITY
Islamic, jurists were forced to T0 SEEK METAPHORS AND ALLUSIONS.
deal with the issue of cinema.
Tapper notes that “they had two options: they could either forbid it (as the Taliban did in Afghanistan 15 years later) or Islamicize it.”3° Recognizing the usefulness of the medium, they decided to use it as an ideological tool for combating Pahlavi culture.
Debate followed on what Islamic art and cinema might be, during a period of accommodation and growth, relaxed morality codes, and international attention. Naficy explains that the cinema that developed under Islamic rule was “not a monolithic, ptopagandistic cinema in support of a ruling ideology” but that at least two cinemas emerged: (1) the populist cinema affirming post—Revolutionary Islamic values concerning plot, theme, characterization, portrayal of women, mise—en-scéne, and exposing the former regime’s corruption, and (2) the art cinema that engages with Islamic values but tends to critique social conditions under the Islamic government.31
Purification measures intensified during the 19905 with the curbing of imports, the re—editing and re—naming of existent Iranian films to conform to Islamic standards, haphazard application of censorship, and the flight of many film professionals into exile.32 Eventually, standards of censorship were established. For a film to be produced in Iran and shown in a cinema, it must pass through four phases of censorship and a rating system. In the first plum the script is approved for content. The laws of censorship that apply to this phase forbid tight clothes on females; “showing any part of a woman’s body except the face or hands; physical contact and tender words or jokes between men and women; jokes on the army, police, or family; negative characters with a beard (which could assimilate [sic] them with religious figures); foreign or coarse words; foreign music or any type of music which brings joy; showing a favorable character who prefers solitude to collective life”; and “policemen and soldiers badly dressed or having a disagreement. Films should also include a prayer scene and should exalt religion and wartime heroism and denounce Western cultural invasion.”33
29. Farahmand, “Perspectives,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 92.
30. Tapper, “Introduction,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 5.
31. Naficy, “Islamizing Film Culture in Iran,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 32.
32. Naficy, “Islamizing Film Culture in Iran,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 34.
33. Skidmore College, Women, the Visual Arts, 8C Islam, “Women in Iranian Film: Iranian Film, Current Rules and Regulations,” httpz//www.skidmore.edu/academics/arthistory/ah369/rules.htm.
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ANNE GORDON PERRY
In the second phase a list of the cast and crew members must be submitted and approved for the film to receive a production permit. In the third phase the film is sent to a censorship board that approves it, requires changes, or bans it altogether. In the fourth andfinalplmse the producers apply for a screening permit that includes a rating system for the film that “determines the film[’]s public access and promotion possibilities.”34
Iranian directors seem to be fairly accepting of the censorship and the rating systems that constrain them, and it is generally acknowledged that the constraints
have made them more skill IRANIAN DIRECTORS SEEM TO BE FAIRLY ACCEPTING ful and determined. In an OF THE CENSORSHIP AND THE RATING SYSTEMS interview, Kiarostami says THAT CONSTRA|N THEM. that the Problem of ten sorship has always existed; to him, censorship is a natural part of culture. He notes that directors find ways to counter it; true art, he says, is often born out of difficult situations.35 But he has chosen to make and distribute his recent films through a production company in France.
Makhmalbaf describes how his critics inadvertently helped him to become better known so that he could pursue his work: “The leftists said that I was religious. The religious people said, ‘What do we have to do with art?’ . . . The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance itself, which is the government, demanded ‘Who are these people and why are they making films?’ Everyone had insulted me. And I had become a problem. And so my fame, in this early period, was 90 percent due to my opponents.” However, censorship continues to plague him, as some of his films are still banned in Iran, and the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has refused a permit for his latest film Amnesia (a study of “two decades of pain and suffering by Iranian people and artists”), set to begin shooting in Tehran.36
Most filmmakers in Iran may seem to be reconciled with the system of censorship, but many flirt 0n the edge of its rules. Film critic Deborah Young comments that “‘Bani-Etemad pushes the Iranian censorship code to the limit, managing to make her outsider characters believable and moving.”37 Indeed, in Under the Skin of the City, Bani-Etemad shows us a glimpse of Tehran most of us have never imagined. One reviewer comments:
Rakhshan Bani-Etemad’s Tehran is a sputtering, cacophonous, kinetic monster,
Vitiating the people it was meant to shelter and sustain. Thriving on brutality
and lawlessness, on men who beat their female relatives, drug lords who mas 34. Skidmore College, Women, the Visual Arts, 8C Islam, “Women in Iranian Film: Iranian Film, Current Rules and Regulations,” http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/arthistory/ah369/ruleshtm.
35. See interview on DVD version of A Taste of Cherry.
36. Makhmalbaf, quoted in Dabashi, Cloxe Up 184—86, and Facets Front Page, “Makhmalbaf Stopped from Making Latest Film,” http://www.facets.org/asticat?function=web8cpweb=main8£psub= 8Cpitm=&pmnu=&path=%2Farticle5%2Fartic167720040506142255712.
37. Deborah Young, Vizrz'ety, quoted in “Rakhshan Bani—Etemad: Retrospective Film,” http:// www.cityofwomen—asi/2001/bani.html.
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IRAN'S DISTINCTIVE CINEMATIC PRESENCE
querade as clothing manufacturers, and real estate developers who exploit the poor, it’s volcanic and exigent. In the fetid air of Tehran’s unregulated factories, and on the shifting ground of its farraginous development projects, the dreams of the young are dashed, and the hopes of the old die quietly, like potted plants in a dark yard.38 Thus, despite stringent censorship, Iranian filmmakers give us a glimpse of the diversity of conditions in Iranian society. However, censorship in Iran remains a complex problem that is unlikely to disappear in the near future.
The Directors of Iranian Cinema
The distinctiveness of Iranian cinema flows from a number of sources—its stylistic elements, the social issues it explores, and government censorship, among others. But it is the directors who provide filmgoers worldwide with poignant and thoughtprovoking glimpses into their culture. It is noteworthy that in Iran the director is renowned and celebrated, not the
performers (Who are often un- IN IRAN THE DIRECTOR IS RENOWNED AND CELEBRATED,
known actors or ordinary people). NOT THE PERFORMERS Directors are known for their (WHO ARE OFTEN UNKNOWN ACTORS body of work and the themes OR ORDINARY pEopLE)
they tend to utilize, in the way
that we know and recognize such filmmakers as Ftangois Truffaut, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini, and Ingmar Bergman. In the past decade Iranian films have won nearly three hundred awards at international festivals, where directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Majid Majidi are recognized as among cinema’s most accomplished artists.
Abbas Kiarostami, the best known among talented Iranian filmmakers and an international celebrity, has remained consistent through the upheavals of the Iranian Revolution and the sharp response of “Islam” to modernity. However, he is more artist than social commentator, though some try to reduce his works to political allegory: In Fellow Citizen (Hams/Ja/arz', 1983) traffic jams appear to relate to the psychology of revolutionary crowds; in First—Gmders (Azzz/ali-lm, 1985) secular intellectuals are disgusted by the theocratic turn of the Revolution.
Kiarostami’s 1989 film Homework (Maslaq-e 5/945) depicts the difficulty and futility of a systematized, inhumane education and is described as a “scathing snapshot of a system in which every child knows the meaning of ‘punishment’ but few have heard of ‘encouragement.’”39 The Taste of Cherry (??z’m-e Gilas, 1997), proclaimed by film critic Richard Corliss in Time magazine the best film of its year, is Kiarostami’s best-known work outside of Iran and deals with the subject of suicide in a way that does
38. Garcia, “Under the Skin of the City,” Rotten Tomatoes, Film Journal International, http:// www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie—1121199/reviews.php?critic=columns&sortby=defaulttkpage: 2&rid=1119622.
39. See http://www.fullframefest.org/archives/programO1.html#homework.
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 29
ANNE GORDON PERRY
not dwell upon despair but displays the visual grace and philosophical concerns that characterize its director.40 Kiarostami’s most recent film 7271 (Dab, 2003) depicts the emotional life of a divorced mother and psychologist who has been forced to close her office and, therefore, meets with her patients in her own car———while driving. 72% was shot with two small digital video cameras mounted on the dashboard and aimed at the front seats of the car. Kiarostami then edited the twenty—three hours of footage into ten scenes of open-ended dialogue (between the driver and her patients or difficult son). While the film explores the status of women in today’s Iranian society, Kiarostami says, “‘It’s about existential problems that affect the relationships between women and men in any country.”41 Critics have called it “quietly audacious” and “vibrant, gritty filmmaking that proves that Kiarostami is still one of the most consistently fascinating filmmakers of our times.”42 Though increasingly recognized outside of Iran as one of Iran’s greatest filmmakers, Kiarostami is isolated and largely scorned in his own country. In contrast, Stephen Holden in the New Hzr/e Times writes that “Mr. Kiarostami, like no other filmmaker, has a Vision of human scale that is simultaneously epic and precisely minuscule.”43 ’ The revered Japanese direc THOUGH INCREASINGLY RECOGNIZED OUTSIDE OF IRAN tor Akira Kurosawa praised AS ONE OF IRAN'S GREATEST FILMMAKERS, Kiarostami as a filmmaker KIAROSTAMI IS ISOLATED AND LARGELY SCORNED with the ability to touch IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. everyone, regardless of
nationality, with stories about the human condition. “When Satyajit Ray [a noted Indian filmmaker] died, I became quite depressed,” said Kurosawa. “But after watching Kiarostami’s films, I thought God had found the right person to take his place.”44 Mohsen Makhmalbaf is another well—known, post—revolutionary filmmaker. Despite his early antipathy toward films and his work for the Arts Bureau of the Organization for the Propagation of Islamic Thought, Makhmalbaf absorbed such influences as Hitchcock, Fellini, Bufiuel, and film flair, and has become a major voice in film.
40. Richard Corliss, Time, quoted in “Taste of Cherry,” Zeitgeist Films, http://zeitgeistfilms.com/ current/closeup/iranfilmhistory.html, link to Taste of Cherry. In A 721m of Cherry, a man seeks someone to help him commit suicide and bury him. In the process he meets people who refuse to accede to his plan or who embody affirmations of life and its experiences, such as the taste of cherries. The film challenged moral positions in Iran but was given a special launch at the 1998 Cannes festival and won the Palme d’Or prize.
41. Kiarostami, quoted in Jessica Winters, “Two Iranian Films Put Women in the Driver’s Seat: The Long Roads Home,” Village Voice online, http://Villagevoice.com/issues/0311/winter.php.
42. Jamie Russell, “Ten,” review, BBC News online, http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/09/10/ ten72002 rreview.shtml. See also Jessica Winter, “Two Iranian Films Put Women in the Driver’s Seat: The Long Roads Home,” Village Voice online, http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0511/winter.php.
43. Stephen Holden, New Yor/z Times, quoted in “Taste of Cherry,” Zeitgeist Films, httpz/l www.zeitgeistfilms.com/current/Closeup/iranfilmhistoryhtml, link to Taste of Cherry.
44. See John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh, The Encyclopedia of Great Filmmakers (New York: Checkmarks, 2002) 145.
30 World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2
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IRAN’S DISTINCTIVE CINEMATIC PRESENCE
He has also created a film school and has taught and influenced family members, especially his daughter Samira Makhmalbaf, who now direct their own films.45
While Kiarostami is essentially allegorical and poetic, Makhmalbaf is often caustic and agitating. The latter’s poetic work Gabbe/J (1996) is an exception with its glimpse of magical elements in the life of nomadic tribes of southeastern Iran.46 In 1990 Makhmalbaf and Kiarostami collaborated in a celebrated film, Close Up (Nama—ye Nazdik) the true story of Ali Sabzian, an unemployed young man who insinuates himself into the life of a wealthy family by passing himself of? as the well—known director Makhmalbaf, who plays himself. The film was immensely popular in Iran because it brought two stellar directors together, making it a celebrated national event.
Makhmalbaf is also known for his extraordinary homage to the history of Iranian cinema, Once Upon a Time, Cinema (Naseroa'a’in S/aa/a, A/etor—e Sinema, 1991), which references many films and film styles outside and within Iran and depicts “the Cinematographer” (a character who resembles Charlie Chaplin) as being in almost constant political danger, depending on
the whims of the current shah. In 2001 MAKHMALBAF '5 KNOWN
Makhmalbaf made the poignant film FOR HIS EXTRAORDINARY HOMAGE Kandahar (Safor—e Qande/mr), which TO THE HISTORY OF |RAN|AN CINEMA, highlights the plight of the Afghan people ONCE UPON A TIME, CINEMA.
under the Taliban and also examines the
presence of tribal hatred, poverty, famine, and the omnipresent danger of land mines in Afghanistan. Despite its fictional nature, Kandahar has documentary aspects. It thus works both as an educational tool and as a narrative film, bringing awareness to the West of conditions often ignored by news media.
But not all filmmakers reach or speak to the masses. For example, Bahram Bahá’í is considered by Iranian critics to be “too complicated and obscure for his audience.”47 Dabashi refers to him as “the most visually literate Iranian filmmaker” whose “epic cinema, overtly influenced by Akira Kurosawa, renders the enduring challenge of the divergent traits of Iranian patriarchy in their own terms.“8
45. In an interview with Dabashi, Makhmalbaf describes how he spent six months reading more than four hundred books on cinema and then distilled the information into a pocket—sized notebook with one hundred headings (See Dabashi, Close Up 185). For information on the film achievements of the Makhmalbaf family, see also “Salaam Cinema: The Films of Mohsen Makhmalbaf,” Cinematheque Archives, http://www.cinematheque.bc.ca/archives/makh.html, and Makhmalbaf Film House, http:// ww.makhmalba£com.
46. Gabbeh is a sublimely beautiful folk tale in which viewers are taken on a magic carpet ride with the nomadic tribes of southeastern Iran. The title derives from the region’s distinctive gabbeh carpets, on which the narratives of tribal lives are woven. The tale of a young woman’s rebellious love for a horseman who is deemed unacceptable by her guardians, 6455:}; is pure magical surrealism.
47. Bahá’í is an artist who reminds us of the importance of new revelations and myths through what Dabashi (Close Up 100—01) calls “a radical, surgical break from the historical bondage to myths that has occasioned our slavery.”
48. Dabashi, Close Up 65.
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 31
ANNE GORDON PERRY
Majid Majidi, on the contrary, is one of the more accessible directors, which might account, in part, for his great popularity in the West. His 1997 film Children of Heaven was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an Academy Award in the foreign film category. It provides an important introduction for viewers wishing to develop their taste for the genre.
Value as a National Cinema and Emergence on the World Stage Along with China, Iran has been hailed as one of the great exporters of films during the past fifteen years. Yet because of the absence of diplomatic and cultural ties between Iran and Western countries, Iranian films, until recently, have been, so to speak, hidden behind a veil for most people. A Search for Common Ground, an organization founded in Washington, D.C., in 1984 to promote cultural understanding between Iran and the West, reported in 1998 that “‘American and Iranian film festivals and programs
IRANIAN CINEMA HAS BEEN REDISCOVERED ha? fofyijrfsiishowed HITS AS A PROMISING MEANS THROUGH WHICH a,“ "mm m Pefsonal ties from each other 3 counTO RENEGOTIATE THE IMAGERY OF A NATION, . . . tries. What 15 new 18 that 21 AND GRADUALLY TO RECLAIM A PLACE FOR
window of opportunity is THE COUNTRY WITHIN THE GLOBAL ESONOMV now open, making p055ibl€ IN THE NAME OF ART.
cinema activities of much higher impact.”49 Now, Farahmand notes, “Iranian cinema has been rediscovered as a promising means through which to renegotiate the imagery of a nation, and gradually to reclaim a place for the country within the global economy in the name of art.”50
Response by Iranians living abroad is mixed and often heated. Tapper notes that many Claim that the films shown internationally hide the strict censorship or distort the reality of Iranian society; some reject images that suggest backwardness, underdevelopment, or extreme poverty and blame foreign festivals for promoting such imagery.Sl Laura Mulvey, a professor of film and media studies at the University of London and author of books on film theory, points out that festivals embrace what is novel and artistic without asking questions about their origins, “so an oppressive regime, working with strict censorship, is no barrier to the production of films that fit this market.”52
The emergence of Iranian films on the world stage and divergent responses to them is timely and dramatic. Critics and film advocates are often astonished at what they have missed for so long—the potent and richly nuanced voices of Iranian
49. A Search for Common Ground, quoted in Farahmand, “Perspectives,” in Tapper, ed., New Imm'zm Cinema 96.
50. Farahmand, “Perspectives,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 87.
51. See Tapper, “Introduction,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 21, and Sadr, “Children in Contemporary Iranian Cinema,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 201.
52. Laura Mulvey, “Afterword,” in Tapper, ed., New Iranian Cinema 255.
32 World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2
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IRAN'S DISTINCTIVE CINEMATIC PRESENCE
filmmakers reaching out to the rest of the world. For example, Samira Makhmalbaf’s emotional acceptance speech at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000 for the Jury Prize awarded to her for The Apple (Sih) “conveyed a strong yearning: ‘On behalf of a new generation of hope in my homeland, I accept this prize to honor the heroic efforts of all young Iranians who struggle for democracy and the promise of a better life in Iran.”53
Indeed, a new generation of filmmakers with many new voices is leading the way in Iran. Some of the best films produced in 2003 are now being shown at film festivals: Asghar Farhadi’s Dance: in the Dust; Alireza Amini’s Letter: of the W/ind (Nameha—ye Bad); Kamal Tabrízi’s Glimpses at the Sky Every Now and Then; and Ahmadreza Motamedi’s The Mad Flew Out the Cage. And we can look forward to such forthcoming films as Bani—Etemad’s [My Mother Yboha; Rasul Mollaqolipour’s The Paternal Farm; and Behrooz Afkhami’s Gavekhooni. Though film only provides one arena of reflection on a culture and can represent neither the reality nor the totality of that culture, Iran’s film industry offers one of the best avenues for understanding between Iran and the West during this remarkable time of transition.
Conclusion
In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and the spread of anti-Muslim sentiment, much of the Western world seems increasingly puzzled by and wary of most things Middle Eastern. But this is one reason why Iranian films should be seen. It is ignorance about the Muslim religion and about the Middle East in general that leads to the public’s perception of Muslims as terrorists. Viewing Iranian films—some of which are deeply religious and have a clear moral perspective, others of which show a society in need of and in the midst of social change—can link us more compassionately to fellow humans in that part of the world, teaching us that art often transcends cultural boundaries and reaches areas of depth and distinct perspective through the multifaceted expressions of a culture. To the extent that Iranian cinema is unveiled, we in the West will benefit from its rich legacy and promising future, and Iran will be more closely connected to a world moving rapidly toward globalization.
53. Samira Makhmalbaf, quoted in Dabashi, Close Up 267. For more on Samira Makhmalbaf, including her article “The Cinema of Tomorrow,” see also Makhmalbaf Film House, http:// ww.makhmalba£com, link to Samira and then link to Articles.
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 33
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JASON SCHLESINGER AND DAVID SCHLESINGER
Anime: An Introduction to a Growing Global Phenomenon
Visitors To Japan are as surprised To see adult Japanese reading what appear To be “comic books” as They are To Turn on Their hotel Television se’rs To find ’rho’r prime Time can often consist, To a great extent, of “cartoons.” The surprise is understandable, of course, as cartoons in
the United States have been designed largely for children. The few exceptions intended for a more mature audience are typically humorous and/or vulgar. That is, rarely in the United States have comic strips or animated films for adults been seen or used as a vehicle for addressing serious social, cultural, or political concerns. In Japan, however, mzmga, which are illustrated Japanese books, and their animated film version, anime, explore topics of broad social concern and are read and Viewed by all ages and segments of Japanese society.1
Although the origins of both manga and anime can be traced to American comic strips during the post-World War II occupation, they quickly became distinctively Japanese. They are now evolving forms that, while retaining their Japanese cultural identity, are also becoming more global in appeal. Thus in recent years manga and anime have become commercially successful in nations such as France, Spain, and Brazil, and their popularity in the United States is on the rise.
Copyright © 2004 by Jason Schlesinger and David Schlesinger.
1. Anime do not often appear as a continuously scheduled weekly show. For the most part, anime are produced as miniseries, or a set of miniseries adventures, announced ahead of time so that people can arrange their schedules to watch or tape them.
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World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 35
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_.._._..__ __ .1 444
JASON SCHLESlNGER AND DAVID SCHLESINGER
While manga evolved from printed American comics in the immediate aftermath of World War II, anime branched off from manga. Yet both forms share a number of formal and thematic conventions that distinguish them from their American counterparts: (1) characters in both manga and anime tend to be portrayed in similar ways; (2) body language, gesticulation, and the manner in which emotions are communicated tend to be comparable; (3) both mix technology with magic; and (4) both explore similar themes through a story—arc format closer to a miniseries than self—contained “episodes.”2 These conventions can be an obstacle to those who are neither aware of the history of the two genres nor of Japanese cultural practices. But an overview of them helps make both manga and anime accessible and helps explain their increasing global appeal.
Conventions in Portraying Characters
The bodies of characters in anime and manga, while differing from artist to artist, follow a pattern: Heads are more realistic (pentagonal, not the oval or round style conventional in American comics). Eyes are larger than life and more expressive. The pupils of the eyes are well-defined, and one can clearly see in them reflections of other Characters or their surroundings. Hair color varies, but many Characters have blonde hair. The women are frequently thin and shapely with clothing that accentuates their figures. Men are also frequently thin and have either a lot of hair that is difficult to manage or are completely bald. Although many of the characters tend to have a Western physical appearance, the Japanese reader/viewer recognizes them as Japanese, primarily through another convention—the values and worldviews held by the characters individually and in common. Japanese anime and manga illustrators give greater attention to detail than do their counterparts in Americafor example, in realistic folds or wrinkles in clothes. Finally, characters in anime and manga, except for their hair, conform to the laws of gravity.
Conventions in Body Language Conventions in manga and anime for body language, gesticulations, and the manner in which emotions are communicated also tend to be comparable, although anime has the capability of depicting greater degrees of facial and bodily expression than manga. In both, characters are drawn similarly and express their emotions through similar body language. One can assume that, since certain conventions, such as the rendering of bodily types and the physical expressions of emotion, were well understood in manga, there was no particular reason to change them in anime. To Western eyes some bodily expressions by characters in anime may be offputting or confusing. For example, a large bubble of phlegm coming from the character’s nose signifies that he or she is sleeping; blood gushing from the nose,
2. In the story—arc format, the story is not confined to a single episode or to a series of self—contained episodes but, rather, unfolds over a number of episodes or over a season. Once a series is over, additional story arcs are often produced using the same characters, who may be depicted as having grown older or wiser.
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ANIME
big eyes, and a big smile signify that a character is sexually aroused. Other conventions ate more accessible:
° Scratching the back of the head when mildly embarrassed.
0 Red cheeks when moderately embarrassed.
° A glowing face that emits red light when a character is very embarrassed.
' Giant drops of sweat on the face or an outline of a large letter X on the character’s temple when the character is stressed.
° Rivers of tears that, depending on the intensity of the pain or happiness, can flow down the face only (when slightly moved) or down to the hips (when extremely moved).
° Rivers of tears from closed eyes, indicating exasperation, that are outward like water from a squirt gun.
' A female person expressing displeasure with a male’s inappropriate remarks by hitting him with an oversized mallet.
One particular facial movement in anime requires special comment: The mouths of characters either do not move when the character is talking or do not move with the rapidity required for normal vocalization. But the limited mouth movements and what might appear as incomplete renderings have a specifically Japanese cultural context. In Japanese theater mouth movements have not been significant. In Noh theater the characters wear masks SO that the actor’s mouth cannot be ANIME CANNOT BE FULLY UNDERSTOOD
seen, thereby giving the character APART FROM MANGA,
no mouth movements when lines A DERIVATIVE OF AMERICAN COMlC STRIPS,
are spoken. Also, mouth movements AND FROM THE SPECIFIC CULTURAL CONTEXT are not used with Bunraku pup- OF JAPAN.
pets.3
Thus anime cannot be fully understood apart from manga, a derivative of American comic strips, and from the specific cultural context of Japan. In an increasingly global society connected by the internet, a smiley face and a variety of other conventions quickly communicate ideas across cultures, but others—such as LOL (lots of laughs)—require knowledge from both the sender and the receiver to understand. Anime and manga have similar conventions that require cultural knowledge for them to be understood in other cultures.
Technology and Magic
Another convention that stems from the Japanese worldview but that is not often found in American cartoons is anime’s mixing of technology with magie—a culturally shared assumption that the limits of the environment are not known and that much is possible. For example, in Dnc/n' Muyo, Ryoko’s space ship is a creature that is somewhat rabbit-like and can become her space ship at her request and the animal’s desire. The series also has a magical tree and a sword related to Tenchi’s
3. In the West, early Greek theater used masks for the actors, but the convention was dropped several thousand years ago.
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, NO. 2 37
JASON SCHLESINGER AND DAVID SCHLESINGER
ancestral traditions and myths. In Outlaw Star, technology, which dates from a period far earlier than that in which the story is set, merges with magic in such devices as the caster, a gun that can cast spells. In Gundam IVing, a series about space—manufactured fighting suits called Mobile Suits that think and give advice, the technology is so advanced that the line between it and magic is even less clear. For example, the Mobile Suit named “Wing Zero” shows Quetre, the pilot, a character who is the “True Enemy”; however, Quetre does not believe the character to be his enemy. But “Wing Zero” is correct. How the suit knows the truth is a mixture of technology and magic. In this way realism can be suspended to incorporate unknown or unexplained phenomena. In live-action film, this same convention was used by director Ang Lee in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and by director Gordon Chan in The Medallion (2003). Magic and technology usually go hand in hand in anime and are normally not in conflict. There may be a cultural belief that the unknown potential of the universe is so great that one cannot limit what might be possible in the future. This ability to accept that there will be undiscovered truths in the fullness of time may be the result of a worldview in Japan that reflects belief in the long—term evolution of society.
Thematic Conventions
What allows anime to transcend its own culture and to become increasingly relevant
for a global audience is less its specific formal features than its thematic content.
The formal features of the genre, after all, such as the way mouths are rendered,
can appear kitschy, poorly drawn, or in keeping with cultural practices, depending on the audience. The themes
WHAT ALLOWS ANIME TO TRANSCEND that anime most often exITS OWN CULTURE AND TO BECOME plores, however, and the way INCREASINGLV RELEVANT FOR A GLOBAL AUDIENCE in WhiCh they are exploredIS LESS ITS SPECIFIC FORMAL FEATURES through the StOIY-afc for THAN ITS THEMATIC CONTENT. mat—‘m’ more universally
compelling than those in American cartoons. At the same time anime also offers a window into modern and traditional Japanese culture. Thus one way of accounting for the growing commercial success of anime outside of Japan is to recognize its dual function—raising universal issues and themes yet exploring those themes in a context informed by Japanese cultural traditions.
While deriving many of its formal features from manga or Japanese culture, anirne must also be understood in its evolution away from American comic strips. There are a number of thematic differences between anime and the traditional American cartoon story. In anime for children, themes are based on morals, finding oneself, love, friendship, and exploring most good values in this world. Some focus more on particular aspects. For example, Pokémon deals more with self—discovery, while Hamtaro deals more with love and friendship.
In anime for teenagers and adults, the theme of violence is introduced, but as violence is added, so are antiviolent messages. No battle is without great reason, and after it is done, there is a period of reflection for one or several characters in
38 World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2
[Page 39]
ANIME
which it is decided whether the battle was necessary. In addition, a battle is depicted not only as a physical ordeal but also as one testing the mental strength or weakness of an individual. Frequently the mental “battle” is the focus of the conflict. This personal struggle and mental strength come from the Bushido tradition of the Samurai warrior who was not only physically well trained in weaponry but also mentally trained to act nobly.‘ Along with discussions of violence and antiviolence, there may also be elements of situation comedies, personal-relationship issues, battles to the death, sacrifice, honor, treachery, and philosophical discussions about the nature of warfare and peace. Many of these distinguishing elements are possible because anime, whether for children, teenagers, or adults, tells its stories in an arc format.
Indeed, the story-arc format allows for a greater degree of character development. American cartoons and comic strips are self—contained “episodes” in which characters largely confront variations of the same problems. These characters are also depicted as having particular qualities that remain consistent from episode to episode. Bugs Bunny is a jokester who is always smarter than his adversary. Eddy, in Ed, Edd, n Eddy, is always looking to make a quick buck, and week after week has a new scheme to pocket quartets from the other kids in the cul—de-sac. Dexter, in an American series titled after its hero, is a boy genius who is always inventing something new, and DeeDee, his sister, always manages to be his undoing. Consistency and repetition are thus important features of self-contained episodes of American cartoons.
Telling stories in an arc format, however, allows greater complexity and character development. For example, in many American comic strips the hero is good, and the villain is bad. Superman loves all people, and his nemesis Lex Luther hates all people. Voldemort, in the Harry Potter books, is patently evil. In anime many heroes have flaws, and many antagonists have the ability to reform. Similarly, during conflicts the anime hero frequently examines the situation, his own motives, and asks himself what is the right thing to do for the good of the group. The answer is not always simple or straightforward and takes deep inner reflection on the character’s part. Thus a character’s identity is neither stable, since villains can and often do reform, nor secure, in that “good” characters are not always aligned with a clear definition of the good.5 The choices characters make are often informed by a number of values prized by the Japanese: belonging to and bringing honor to the group; the harmony of the group or the civilization; accepting the differences of other cultures; politeness; and smiling in the face of adversity.
Themes such as good and evil are represented in manga and anime with more nuance and greater complexity than in American cartoons, something that is facilitated by the story-arc format. In Gundam an, there are two entirely separate
J
4. This concept exists in today’s training in the martial arts, such as karate.
5. In one episode of 21 Gundam Wing, for example, Quetre, a pacifistic warrior, is forced to destroy a space colony because he feels it is important to bring peace to the galaxy, but he knows that fighting will not solve anything. He destroys the colony and then weeps with the sadness of it all, as the death and destruction changed nothing. Such an emotional response from a victor is usually missing from Western stories of battle.
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 39
JASON SCHLESINGER AND DAVID SCHLESINGER
continuums that define “good” and “bad”: honesty versus lying, and pacifism versus war. In the Gundam Wing anime series, the main protagonists are not model people, for they feel the only way that everyone can obtain peace is if they destroy all who oppose the idea of peace. A second group, OZ, which has the most technically advanced army and attempts to gain military control, frequently tells lies. A third group, the Sanch Kingdom, tries to preach pacifism. The three groups in the series exemplify three points of view about values and conflicts.
The idea of a “good” enemy is arguably more like life than the idea of a hero who loves everyone, and an enemy who hates everyone. In anime it is not uncommon to have an antagonist who winds up helping out near the end. It is also not uncommon to leave the decision of who is good and who is bad up to the audience. The director might help the audience by following the people who wind up winning in the end, but that is not always the case. Characters who show conflict within themselves and their own values appeal to a more mature audience.
The appeal of the complex THE APPEAL OF THE COMPLEXITY lty and nuance in representaAND NUANCE IN REPRESENTATIONS tions of human personality and
OF HUMAN PERSONALITY AND HUMAN EXPERIENCE human CXPCYiCnCC ll’l manga and IN MANGA AND ANIME TRANSCENDS anime transcends cultural bounCULTURAL BOUNDARIES. daries. Even though some of
the formal qualities of both the written and animated versions may only communicate across cultures with explanation, the complexities of characters and the situations in which those characters find themselves appear more universal. People, after all, are rarely all good or all bad. In both manga and anime, as in life, each individual’s personality is multifaceted, and characters are depicted as having a variety of often—conflicting desires and needs. This complexity is universal and fits the times, which probably has contributed to the growing acceptance of manga and anime by worldwide audiences. Like many other aspects of the new Internet culture, manga and anime will be one more point of collective understanding and shared experience for the next generation of humanity.
Sites Offering a Glimpse into the World of Mango and Anime
www.animenewsnetworkcom Information on manga and anime. www.theotaku.com Unofficial site that includes an excellent variety of anime. www.tenchi.com Pnc/n' Muya web site. www.sailormoon.com Sailor Moon web site. www.sailormoon.org Fan site for Sailor Moon that is more informative than the official Sailor Moon site. www.pokemon.com Pokémon web site. www.hamtaro.com Hamtaro web site. www.megatokyo.com/ Online manga.
40 World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2
[Page 41]
The Days Before Naw-Raz
Naw—Ru’z—March 21. Paditional Persian New Year and, within the last two
centuries, New Year preceded by a nineteen-dayfisting periodfbr members of the Bahá’í Faith.
Even the lean days
come layered in beauty
when trees stand tall and spare
at winter’s edge
unencumbered yet with spring,
their serried lines
softening the hills like fur;
when snow has melted back
to a few crisp eddies of ice
swirled among the milkweed their rich brown pods already spent—swaddling thickets of rushes that stand like wheat, wrapping ochre and umber grasses
in parchment white;
when the sun’s great tongues
spill degree by degree into day, burnishing the Earth,
steeping the dark trees in light,
laying down and lifting up shadows
hour by hour
in broad and delicate brush strokes
that draw the heart to read
deep between the lines of their calligraphy a foreshadowing of the season to comethe moving language of a new Spiritwhile the red—tailed hawk,
alert and searching,
spirals slowly eastward.
—DRUZELLE CEDERQUIST
Copyright © 2004 by Druullc Cederquist
DRUZELLE CEDERQUIST is a working author with a Master’s degree in bicultural and bilingual Studies with a concentration in English as a second language. Her casy—to—rcad story of the life of Bahá’u’lláh, The Story ofBa/m’h’l/a’b, Premixed One of All Religions, will be available in Fall 2004.
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2 4]
[Page 43]
AfterWord
Studying and Appreciating Film: A Bibliographical Review of Selected Materials
Introduction Cinema is a little more than a hundred years old, having celebrated its centenary in 1995. Throughout the twentieth century, and into the twenty—first century, the academic, journalistic, and popular study of film has grown in importance. Whereas film was, and to some extent still is, studied in relationship to other disciplines—chiefly art history and literature—there has also been growing recognition of the special social and cultural role that film plays in society. Cinema’s distinctiveness, it has been argued, lies chiefly in its relationship to mass audience and in its formal qualities as an artistic form. This distinctiveness gave rise, in the twentieth century, to a number of differing theoretical and critical approaches to the study of film. Readers wishing to learn more about film, from the point of view of varied scholarly inquiry, may find the following books and articles useful. They represent only a fraction of the materials available for studying film. This bibliographic essay is not a review of the most important works in cinema—studies scholarship, for such an exercise would be entirely subjective. It does aim, however, to look at the diversity and range of critical and theoretical perspectives on film.
General Introductions to Film
A number of introductions to film are widely available in bookstores. One of the most popular, and a frequent textbook for cinema studies courses on college and university campuses, is David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s Film Art: An Introduction, 6th ed. (New York: McGraw—Hill, 2001). This classic reference work covers film production, distribution, and exhibition; the significance of the medium; types and styles of films; and an introduction to film criticism and history.
Whereas Bordwell and Thompson’s book is an important resource for studying the technological aspects of film, Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen’s edited volume Film Theory and Criticism: IntroductmyReadings, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1999) provides an excellent introduction to various methodological approaches. The volume includes excerpts from scholarly articles and books covering the full range of historical periods and approaches. Indeed, this volume provides an essential background to debates in cinema studies, including some of the questions being considered in this issue (and the next one) of \Vorla’ Order about film language, the relationship of film to reality, and the social, psychological, and ideological dimensions of
World Order, 2003-04, Vol. 35, No. 2 43
AFTERWORD
film. Braudy and Cohen have grouped selected works according to what they, as editors, identify as three distinct but, at times, overlapping periods in cinema studies scholarship. In the early part of the twentieth century, a period often referred to as fbrmalist, film theorists (who were also, like Sergei Eisenstein, practitioners) argued, and attempted to demonstrate, that film was an art in opposition to nature—that is, cinema is an art that exceeds reality. With the advent of sound, formalist theorists worried that realism would ruin the medium by blurring the lines between art and nature. This inaugurated a second phase in which writers, such as André Bazin and Siegfried Krakauer, argued that film could not be supposed to be in opposition to nature because film testifies to the efficacy of nature.
The third phase identified by Braudy and Cohen emerged in the 19605 and 19705 when a range of new interpretive theories was introduced. The array of approaches to film’s study is derived from an astonishing number of disciplinesamong them, linguistics, structural anthropology, cultural history, sociology, psychoanalysis, women’s and gender studies, and literary criticism. There is, then, no singular approach to cinema studies. Some may have purely formalist concerns, while others may employ methodologies ranging from historicist to psychoanalytic. Even among practitioners of specific forms of film analysis there are substantial disagreements. By selecting representative examples of many
of these approaches, Braudy and Cohen
1. Lindsay Anderson, “Alfred Hitchcock,” in Albert J. La Valley, ed., Focus on Hitchcock (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice—Hall, 1972) 48.
44 World Order, 2003—04,Vol. 35, No. 2
help to chart the at times quite murky depth and range of film scholarship.
Using Hitchcock to Study Film One way of beginning to study film and of understanding the differences among the methodologies used by film theorists and scholars is to explore the vast scholarship on Alfred Hitchcock. Within and outside academe, Alfred Hitchcock remains among of the most important figures in film, one often hearing this or that film referred to as Hitchcockian, as if particular films with Hitchcockian elements constitute a genre. Indeed, few directors have been of greater interest to film scholars. This interest is attributable to the fact that Hitchcock’s career coincides with most of the major developments in both cinema and the moving image, beginning with silent film and moving through stereo sound, Technicolor, and even into commercial television. Thus one can account for the critical and theoretical interest in Hitchcock because, as one critic in 1949 observed, “Hitchcock’s long career is intimately bound up with the history of cinema.”1
Studying Hitchcock’s films is an excellent introduction to the various methodological approaches to cinema studies. Richard Allen and S. Ishii—Gonzalés’s edited work Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays (London: British Film Institute, 1999) includes a substantial number of articles that employ wide—ranging methodological approaches from primarily aesthetic concerns to “readings” of his films based on psychoanalysis to works examining the cultural, political, or ideological themes and contexts. Rent some of Hitchcock’s films, and then read some of these essays—you will find the exercise an informative introduction to
the varied approaches to the study of film.2
Specific Approaches
to Studying Film
The tremendous array of film theories and criticism makes indispensable anthologies such as Braudy and Cohen’s. Yet two broad approaches are particularly important and bear mentioning. The first is the attempt by critics to study films within a psychoanalytic framework; the second is the attempt to place films in their historical and cultural context.
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CINEMA
Psychoanalysis was the dominant paradigm in the twentieth century for the study of film. Many have noted that its importance makes sense, given the concomitant emergence of film and psychoanalysis in the late nineteenth century. Yet the history of film scholarship’s relationship to psychoanalysis is incredibly complex—not only because there are various branches indebted to either Sigmund Freud’s or Jacques Lacan’s theories of psychosocial development but for the way in which psychoanalytic theories have become intertwined with developments in other areas (including semiotics and poststructuralism). How 2. Hitchcock has been of particular interest to what has become known as the Slovenian School of Lacanians—Slovenian—bom theorists who owe their intellectual lineage to the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. For an introduction to this group, see Slavoj Ziiek’s edited volume, Everything You Always W/anted to Know Abaut Lawn . . . But lVere Afraid to Ask Hitchcock (New York: Verso, 1992). Despite its title, however, some background in psychoanalytic theory is essential for understanding most of the essays included in the volume.
AFTERWORD
ever, one does not need to have read either Freud or Lacan to recognize how their theories pervade both scholarly and popular criticism of film. For example, concepts like narcissism, castration, hysteria, the Oedipal complex, the unconscious, and many others are all in some way attributable to either Freud or Lacan, regardless of whether you are reading a scholarly study or the “Now Playing” section in your Friday’s newspaper.
A difficulty in familiarizing yourself with psychoanalytic approaches to film is that, to the uninitiated, they can seem so dense as to be all but impenetrable. Nevertheless, psychoanalytic accounts of film remain important especially, though by no means exclusively, because of the way in which psychoanalysis has been used to study the sexual politics of representation.
Christian Metz’s The Imaginary Szgmfier.-P.91c/wamlysis and Cinema (trans. Celia Britton [Londonz Macmillan, 1977]) was the first book-length attempt to apply psychoanalysis to film by studying the relationship between the spectator and the screen. One of the crucial points that Metz makes is that cinema viewing is essentially voyeuristic—there is always a distance between the viewing subject (audience) and its object (film) because the film cannot return the viewing subject’s gaze. Metz’s theories, first available as an article in Screen, a highly influential cinema—studies journal in the 19705 and 19805 that continues to publish today, became an important part of film scholars’ attempts to study the filmic apparatus—the various parts that make up the “whole” of the Viewing experience from the mechanisms that produce and screen a film (the camera, the picture, sound, beaming projection, and so
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, NO. 2 45
AFTERWORD
on) to the actual substance of the movie itself to the psychological makeup of the abstract viewer (defined within Freudian or Lacanian terms).
In the 19705, feminist film scholar and director Laura Mulvey wrote a highly influential essay that reformulated the concept of the voyeuristic gaze in her provocative essay on “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”3 In Mulvey’s account, the cinematic apparatus upholds patriarchal gender relations because the majority of action in most films is assigned to the male stars while female stars are consigned to a passive function, as an object/image subjected to the active male gaze. Thus, Mulvey argued, film spectatorship was delineated according to gender lines in which the female spectator either identifies with the passive female, and assumes that position for herself, or engages in transgendered identification by moving between the represented masculine and feminine positions. Needless to say, Mulvey’s theories have been both vigorously defended and expanded on as well as heatedly contested.
Without dispensing with the psychoanalytic model altogether, some scholars have moved away from the centrality of Freud and Lacan, in part because of what they have perceived to be the theoristis’ rather severe model of women’s psychosocial development. Some have turned, instead, for inspiration to psychoanalytic thinkers like Jessica Benjamin, who has recently delineated a model of development that takes into account “intersubjective dynamics” or the
3. Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16:3 (1975): 6—18.
46 World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, No. 2
role others play in the construction of one’s own sense of identity. Eva Rueschmann’s Sisters on Screen: Siblings in Cantemporary Cinema (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2000) is an important example of this sort of criticism, exploring the way in which bonds between biological sisters help to construct their private and political identities.
THE CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS OF CINEMA In recent years the influence of psychoanalysis has begun to wane and film scholarship has increasingly addressed issues of broad social concern by studying film in its cultural and historical contexts. As is implied, studies of film within such contexts tend to be somewhat less interested in the film text itself than in the conditions in which a film emerges and is consumed. The emphasis in recent years on the cultural and historical forces that shape the way a film is produced, and the way in which an audience receives it, has emerged, in part, from what has been perceived as psychoanalysis’ ahistoricality. That is, some scholars have felt that psychoanalytic theories (for example, the castration anxieties that films generate) are far removed from pressing social issues. One particular concern has been with studying the ways in which certain racialized stereotypes, repeatedly played out in cinema, have taken on the status of “truth.” A recent work of this sort is Linda Williams’ Playing the Race Card: Melodrama: OfBlac/e andW/Jite From Uncle Tom to 0.]. Simpson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2001). Williams probes the racial fantasies that play themselves out in filmic themes and audience reception.
Joan Hawkins’ Cutting Edge: Art
Horror and the Horrzfie Avant-Gam’e (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2000) considers the role that “splatter films”generally low-budget horror and avantgarde films—play in Western culture. Most scholarship on film tends to focus on “canonical” works whereas Hawkins turns to cult classics, exploring their social and political implications and their disturbing though not-always—negative depictions of women.
Joel Black’s The Reality Efiect: Film Culture and the Graphic Imperative (New York: Routledge, 2002) examines film’s relationship to the explosion of interest in making every aspect of our lives visible—from reality television to webcams. A highly readable and entertaining analysis of making lives visible is also found in Neal Gabler’s Life: The Movie—How Entertainment Conquered Reality (New York: Vintage Books, 1998).
Audience reception, which is concerned with situating film in its social, cultural, and historical contexts, is another rapidly developing area in cinema studies. By moving toward examining audience research, such studies are as likely now to be about a particular film text or director’s work as industrial histories of production companies or issues in the international trade of film. David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson’s The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Made of Production to 1960 (New York: Columbia UP, 1987) surveys this direction. Because reception studies look at the social structures that generate various groupings as audiences, they may range from examining a particular national cinema to the ways in which films resonate with certain ethnic or gender groups.
Miriam Hansen’s Babel and Babylon: Spectatorshz'p in American Silent Film
AFTERWORD
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1991) is a historiographical work that attempts to raise feminist concerns by examining audience reception. In a particularly interesting chapter, Hansen argues that the obsession with Rudolph Valentino in the 19205 is significant for the way in which it brings female sexuality into both modernity and the public sphere.
Rosa Linda Fregoso’s edited volume The Devil Never Sleep; and Other “York: by Lourdes Portillo (Austin: U of Texas P, 2001) approaches issues of audience reception, feminist authorial concerns, and production processes in the work of Latina documentary filmmaker Lourdes Portillo.
Peter Lehman’s edited volume Masculinity: Bodies, Movies, Culture (New York: Routledge, 2001) features a range of articles on masculinity in film—an area in which relatively little work has been done.
Hamid Naficy’s edited volume Home, Exile, Homeland: Film, Media, and the Politics of Place (New York: Routledge, 1999) explores film’s relationship to globalization and postcolonial studies.
Noticeably absent is a body of literature on religion and film, no doubt in part because the academy has generally distrusted religion. But it also represents an area in which those who engage in both the serious academic study of religion and of film can make important contributions.
Criticism:
Journals and Associations Dozens of journals are devoted solely to the study of cinema: Camera Obscura publishes works most often informed by psychoanalysis and feminism. Framework: The journal of Cinema and Media offers articles that often take into account the
World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35, NO. 2 47
AFTERWORD
cultural contexts of films’ production and reception. Film Quarterly is a highly readable yet scholarly approach to film. Cineem‘e combines scholarly articles with book and film reviews and interviews with directors. October remains an important source for studying avant—garde and non-Western cinema. erd Order, too, has published a number of film reviews and analyses ranging from a study of the works of Jean—Luc Godard to an article on the relationship between Erasmus’s theories and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.
The Society for Cinema and Media studies is an international association that publishes Cinema journal, available only to individual or institutional members. More than one thousand people generally participate in the Society’s annual conference, which, over the years, has offered an array of workshops, lectures, and panel discussions and has featured film screenings and lectures by directors from Iran, Cuba, and other places that have significant (but relatively unknown in the U.S.) national cinemas.
The Society for Media and Cinema Studies and all of the journals listed above have websites where more information may be obtained.
Popular Criticism in Print,
Television, and the Web
Roger Ebert is, perhaps, so well known as to need no introduction. But beyond his “thumbs up/thumbs down” approach, Ebert is known for his enthusiasm for the filmic medium and for his incisive analyses. More important, Ebert and his original partner, the late Gene Siskel, pioneered the use of television to talk about film. Ebert’s television show, Ehert and Roeper at the Movies, remains one of
48 World Order, 2003—04, Vol. 35. NO. 2
the most important popular forms of film criticism.
Pauline Kael, the venerable if controversial film critic who died in 2001, has contributed much to the popular study of film. In particular, see her For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies (New York: Dutton, 1994).
With the advent of the World Wide Web, there are many online film journals. The journal of Religion and Film (http://www.cid.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/), published online through the Department of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Nebraska—Omaha, is one of the few places where nonfundamentalist discussions of religion’s relationship to film can be found. The recent controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s ThePaxsz'on Of the Christ has sparked, as one commentator on National Public Radio put it, some of the most analytical and incisive critiques on religion and film in part because critics have exerted enormous effort not to offend the sensibilities of any particular audience.
Scope (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ film/journal/) is one of the few fully refereed online journals devoted to the study of all aspects of film. It publishes articles, book and film reviews, and conference reports.
Conclusion
Film was, as it has often been called, the art form of the twentieth century. While it remains to be seen what art form will define the twenty—first century, it seems certain that it will owe much to the medium that, in just a little more than a hundred years, has moved from the grainy, early attempts by the Lumiere brothers to capture a train moving into a station to the fictive, digitally created world of The Matrix.
[Page 49]
CALL FOR PAPERS
A Special Iddue on T beater
SUBMISSION DEADLINE:
October I , 2004
Theater, together with music and dance, is among the world’s oldest expressive art forms. Nearly every society known to humanity has left traces indicating that it used some form of public performance for one purpose or another. The reason for the enduring presence of theater is clear enough. As the “imiration of an action in the form of action” (in Aristotle's phrase), drama promises to hold a mirror up to nature, as Shakespeare put it, giving us images of ourselves as we think we are, as we might once have been, as we wish to be.
As is true of other genres, drama flourishes in some eras but not in others. Like poetry or prose, it may lie relatively fallow in one century, then spring forth with new life in anothert Drama tends to emerge revitalized when a society is trying, with great intensity, to “imagine” its new self, or to reimagine a self that it feels in danger of losing, or bothas was simultaneously the case in Classical Greece, Elizabethan England, and sixteenth’ century Japan, for example.
We seem to be living in such a time. In spite of (or perhaps because of) the power
of film, theater has reemerged as an essential form of expression. Once again it is vital, thriving, bumptious, challenging, sometimes offensive, often moving.
To discuss contemporary theater is to discuss one of the most compelling ways in which our fellow human beings are addressing the important matters of the age. For that reason we are devoting a special issue of World Order to the topic of theater in all its forms. We invite submissions reflecting die verse approaches to this rich subject. Topics and approaches might include (but are certainly not limited to):
0 Theater and religion 0 Theater and education ' Theater and social change
‘ Reviews of specific performances or of trends and developments
' Theatrical traditions, both contemporary and historical, that are often overlooked
' Themes, issues, and concerns being explored in contemporary theater
' And many more
Manuscript Submission Information
For a copy of the World Order style sheet for preparing a manuscript (and other tips), send an e—mail to
<worldorder@usbnc.org>, or write the address below.
Submissions to the journal will be subject to external blind peer review if they fall outside the expertise ol the editorial board or upon request by the author.
Manuscripts (in Word or WordPerfect) should be sent to World Order,
Dr. Betty J. Fisher, Managing Editor, 7311 Quail Springs Place, NE, Albuquerque, NM 87113-1780, USA or <worldorder@usbnc.org>.
World Order has been published quarterly since 1966 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States.
Rellglon u Society - Pollvy - Ans
[Page 50]
Forthcoming...
Seena Fazel reviews Making the Crooked Straight: A Contribution to Bahá’íApologefics
An international roundtable explores issues raised in Making the Crooked Straight, with essays by Firuz Kazemzadeh, Roshan Danesh, Arash Abizadeh, and others
Charles V. Carnegie responds in “Models and Enoc‘rmen’rs of Transformation" To essays on his Postnaflona/ism Prefigured
Jim Stokes comments on Shakespeare as a Touchstone in modern London Theater
Michelle Maynerick explores “Radical Block Feminism and the Bahá’í Foi’rh: Moments of Connection, Models of Change"
Julio Savi reflects on Alessandro Bousoni, on Italian scholar of Islam
ISSN 0043-8804
