By Hamid Naficy
Hamid Naficy is among the world’s major experts on Iranian movie, and A Social background of Iranian Cinema is his magnum opus. masking the overdue 19th century to the early twenty-first and addressing documentaries, well known genres, and paintings motion pictures, it explains Iran’s abnormal cinematic creation modes, in addition to the function of cinema and media in shaping modernity and a latest nationwide identification in Iran. This accomplished social historical past unfolds throughout 4 volumes, each one of which are liked on its own.
Volume 2 spans the interval of Mohammad Reza Shah’s rule, from 1941 till 1978. in this time Iranian cinema flourished and have become industrialized, at its top generating greater than 90 motion pictures every year. The nation was once instrumental in development the infrastructures of the cinema and tv industries, and it instituted an unlimited equipment of censorship and patronage. through the moment international battle the Allied powers competed to regulate the flicks proven in Iran. within the following a long time, particular indigenous cinemas emerged. The extra renowned, conventional, and advertisement filmfarsi video clips incorporated tough-guy motion pictures and the “stewpot” style of melodrama, with plots reflecting the quick adjustments in Iranian society. The new-wave cinema used to be a smaller yet extra influential cinema of dissent, made regularly through foreign-trained filmmakers and modernist writers against the regime. sarcastically, the kingdom either funded and censored a lot of the new-wave cinema, which grew bolder in its feedback as kingdom authoritarianism consolidated. an essential documentary cinema additionally constructed within the prerevolutionary period.
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Additional info for A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2: The Industrializing Years
Sample text
The names of the writers who were either members or sympathizers constitute a who’s who of postwar modern literature and poetry: Mahmud Afrashteh, Jalal Al‑e Ahmad, Ahmad Aram, Taqi Arani, Malek al-Shoara Bahar, Sadeq Chu‑ bak, Mahmud Etemadzadeh (Behazin), Ebrahim Golestan, Fakhreddin Gor‑ gani, Sadeq Hedayat, Mahmud Javaheri, Morteza Keyvan, Loretta (Varto Tar‑ ian), Khalil Maleki, Naqi Milani, Mohammad Moin, Nader Naderpour, Said Naficy, Abdolhosain Nushin, Rasul Parvizi, Ahmad Shamlu, Mohammad Ta‑ fazzoli, Feraidun Tavalloli, and Nima Yushij (Ali Esfandiari).
13 Five Iranian operators in training would man the additional projec‑ tors and vehicles. He also requested a 35mm projector with which the film circuit could show entertaining shorts made in Hollywood. In what was a precursor to the usis (United States Information Service) film-screening pro‑ gram via mobile film units of the 1950s, these projectors were transported in a jeep and a trailer owned by the Iranian army and in a 1942 Chevrolet fur‑ nished by the United States Office of War Information.
A teacher asks a female student to name three “beautiful words” that begin with the letter alif (a). Answer: ana (mother), Azarbaijan, and azadi (freedom). Many other short news films about Azari nationalism and the in‑ dependence movement are now posted on YouTube. 33 However, prominent cosmopolitan fig‑ ures like Naficy were members of both the Iran-Soviet Cultural Relations So‑ ciety and the Iran-America Relations Society. The Iran-Soviet Cultural Re‑ lations Society in 1944 had ambitious goals for film: the dissemination of Soviet educational films; the making of documentaries about Iranian arts, 18 i nt e r nat i o n a l ha g g li n g scenery, and social life to publicize the country’s “greatness” abroad; facilitat‑ ing the insertion into Soviet movies of historical and literary items related to Iran; the training of Iranian film actors; and the creation of the foundations for a film industry in Iran (Tahaminejad 2004a:35).