Hamid Naficy

A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 1897–1941

Hamid Naficy is one of the world’s leading authorities on Iranian film, and A Social History of Iranian Cinema is his magnum opus. Covering the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first and addressing documentaries, popular genres, and art films, it explains Iran’s peculiar cinematic production modes, as well as the role of cinema and media in shaping modernity and a modern national identity in Iran. This comprehensive social history unfolds across four volumes, each of which can be appreciated on its own. Volume 1 depicts and analyzes the early years of Iranian cinema. Film was introduced in Iran in 1900, three years after the country’s first commercial film exhibitor saw the new medium in Great Britain. An artisanal cinema industry sponsored by the ruling shahs and other elites soon emerged. The presence of women, both on the screen and in movie houses, proved controversial until 1925, when Reza Shah Pahlavi dissolved the Qajar dynasty. Ruling until 1941, Reza Shah implemented a Westernization program intended to unite, modernize, and secularize his multicultural, multilingual, and multiethnic country. Cinematic representations of a fast-modernizing Iran were encouraged, the veil was outlawed, and dandies flourished. At the same time, photography, movie production, and movie houses were tightly controlled. Film production ultimately proved marginal to state formation. Only four silent feature films were produced in Iran; of the five Persian-language sound features shown in the country before 1941, four were made by an Iranian expatriate in India. A Social History of Iranian Cinema Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 1897–1941Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 1941–1978Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 1978–1984Volume 4: The Globalizing Era, 1984–2010

A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 1941–1978

Hamid Naficy is one of the world’s leading authorities on Iranian film, and A Social History of Iranian Cinema is his magnum opus. Covering the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first and addressing documentaries, popular genres, and art films, it explains Iran’s peculiar cinematic production modes, as well as the role of cinema and media in shaping modernity and a modern national identity in Iran. This comprehensive social history unfolds across four volumes, each of which can be appreciated on its own. Volume 2 spans the period of Mohammad Reza Shah’s rule, from 1941 until 1978. During this time Iranian cinema flourished and became industrialized, at its height producing more than ninety films each year. The state was instrumental in building the infrastructures of the cinema and television industries, and it instituted a vast apparatus of censorship and patronage. During the Second World War the Allied powers competed to control the movies shown in Iran. In the following decades, two distinct indigenous cinemas emerged. The more popular, traditional, and commercial filmfarsi movies included tough-guy films and the “stewpot” genre of melodrama, with plots reflecting the rapid changes in Iranian society. The new-wave cinema was a smaller but more influential cinema of dissent, made mostly by foreign-trained filmmakers and modernist writers opposed to the regime. Ironically, the state both funded and censored much of the new-wave cinema, which grew bolder in its criticism as state authoritarianism consolidated. A vital documentary cinema also developed in the prerevolutionary era. A Social History of Iranian Cinema Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 1897–1941Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 1941–1978Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 1978–1984Volume 4: The Globalizing Era, 1984–2010

A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 1978–1984

Hamid Naficy is one of the world’s leading authorities on Iranian film, and A Social History of Iranian Cinema is his magnum opus. Covering the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first and addressing documentaries, popular genres, and art films, it explains Iran’s peculiar cinematic production modes, as well as the role of cinema and media in shaping modernity and a modern national identity in Iran. This comprehensive social history unfolds across four volumes, each of which can be appreciated on its own. In Volume 3 , Naficy assesses the profound effects of the Islamic Revolution on Irans cinema and film industry. Throughout the book, he uses the term Islamicate, rather than Islamic, to indicate that the values of the postrevolutionary state, culture, and cinema were informed not only by Islam but also by Persian traditions. Naficy examines documentary films made to record events prior to, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. He describes how certain institutions and individuals, including prerevolutionary cinema and filmmakers, were associated with the Pahlavi regime, the West, and modernity and therefore perceived as corrupt and immoral. Many of the nations moviehouses were burned down. Prerevolutionary films were subject to strict review and often banned, to be replaced with films commensurate with Islamicate values. Filmmakers and entertainers were thrown out of the industry, exiled, imprisoned, and even executed. Yet, out of this revolutionary turmoil, an extraordinary Islamicate cinema and film culture emerged. Naficy traces its development and explains how Irans long war with Iraq, the gendered segregation of space, and the imposition of the veil on women encouraged certain ideological and aesthetic trends in film and related media. Finally, he discusses the structural, administrative, and regulatory measures that helped to institutionalize the new evolving cinema. A Social History of Iranian Cinema Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 1897–1941Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 1941–1978Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 1978–1984Volume 4: The Globalizing Era, 1984–2010

A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 4: The Globalizing Era, 1984–2010

Hamid Naficy is one of the worlds leading authorities on Iranian film, and A Social History of Iranian Cinema is his magnum opus. Covering the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first and addressing documentaries, popular genres, and art films, it explains Irans peculiar cinematic production modes, as well as the role of cinema and media in shaping modernity and a modern national identity in Iran. This comprehensive social history unfolds across four volumes, each of which can be appreciated on its own. The extraordinary efflorescence in Iranian film, TV, and the new media since the consolidation of the Islamic Revolution animates Volume 4 . During this time, documentary films proliferated. Many filmmakers took as their subject the revolution and the bloody eight-year war with Iraq; others critiqued postrevolution society. The strong presence of women on screen and behind the camera led to a dynamic womens cinema. A dissident art-house cinema—involving some of the best Pahlavi-era new-wave directors and a younger generation of innovative postrevolution directors—placed Iranian cinema on the map of world cinemas, bringing prestige to Iranians at home and abroad. A struggle over cinema, media, culture, and, ultimately, the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, emerged and intensified. The media became a contested site of public diplomacy as the Islamic Republic regime as well as foreign governments antagonistic to it sought to harness Iranian popular culture and media toward their own ends, within and outside of Iran. The broad international circulation of films made in Iran and its diaspora, the vast dispersion of media-savvy filmmakers abroad, and new filmmaking and communication technologies helped to globalize Iranian cinema. A Social History of Iranian Cinema Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 1897–1941Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 1941–1978Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 1978–1984Volume 4: The Globalizing Era, 1984–2010

From accented cinema to multiplex cinema

Part One: New Methods. 1. From Accented Cinema to Multiplex Cinema, Hamid Naficy. 2. Franchise Histories: Marvel, X-Men, and the Negotiated Process of Expansion, Derek Johnson. 3. When Pierre Bourdieu Meets the Political Economists: RKO and the Leftists-in-Hollywood Problematic, Chris Cagle. 4. Touch, Taste, Breath: Synaesthesia, Sense Memory, and the Selling of Cigarettes on Television, Marsha Cassidy. 5. Rewiring Media History: Intermedial Borders, Mark Williams. Part Two: New Subjects. 6. Provincial Modernity? Film Exhibition at the 1907 Jamestown Exposition, Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley. 7. Exhibition in Mexico during the Early 1920s: Nationalist Discourse and Transnational Capital, Laura Isabel Serna. 8. The Recording Industrys Role in Media History, Kyle S. Barnett. 9. Forging a Citizen Audience: Broadcasting from the 1920s through the 1940s, Richard Butsch. 10. Bobby Jones, Warner Bros., and the Short Instructional Film, Harper Cossar. Part Three: New Approaches. 11. Bonding with the Crowd: Silent Film Stars, Liveness, and the Public Sphere, Sue Collins. 12. The Comfort of Carnage: Neorealism and Americas World, Karl Schoonover. 13. Talk about Bad Taste: Camp, Cult, and the Reception of Whats New Pussycat? Ken Feil. 14. Selling Out, Buying In: Brakhage, Warhol, and BAVC Understanding, Dan Leopard. 15. Whatever Happened to the Movie-of-the-Week? Alisa Perren. Part IV: Research Issues. 16. Doing Soap Opera History: Challenges and Triumphs, Elana Levine. 17. Stalking the Wild Evidence: Capturing Media History through Elusive and Ephemeral Archives, Pamela Wilson. 18. Historicizing Web Design: Software, Style, and the Look of the Web, Megan Sapnar Ankerson.

Branch-Campus Initiatives to Train Media-Makers and Journalists: Northwestern University’s Branch Campus in Doha, Qatar

In recent years, several prestigious American and European universities have opened campuses in the Persian Gulf region with the aim of transferring to it knowledge, educational systems, and a whole way of seeing and making the world. This was part of the “internationalization” of American and European higher education, which also included the recruitment and enrollment of large numbers of foreign students at American and European universities. These initiatives were also part of the rigorous efforts of the governments in the Persian Gulf region to import higher education, culture, and media industries in order to develop cultural and other forms of capital and to diversify their economies away from extractive industries such as oil and gas. While these efforts at internationalization and globalization are commendable and productive in many ways, there are certain liabilities associated with them as well. After laying out the terrain, this chapter will deal with a new effort by Northwestern University to create a third campus in Doha, Qatar (the other two campuses are in Evanston and downtown Chicago). The campus in question here offers undergraduate degree programs in two areas—communication and journalism—both of which integrate histories, theories, and practices of film, television, new media, and journalism. The aim is to examine some of the advantages and liabilities of such transfers of media and culture industries, and of educational systems, from the global north to the global south.

The anthropological unconscious of Iranian ethnographic films: a brief take

Ethnographic filmmaking emerged strongly in Iran in the 1960s, partly because rapid modernization and its resulting population displacements and social restructuring brought urgency to the task of documenting and analyzing the country’s traditions and ways of life before they disappeared, and partly because of institutional support by the state. Nationalism was also a factor, both in its secular and religious – particularly Islamic – manifestations. Most ethnographic documentaries in Iran were not made by anthropologists or filmmakers trained in anthropology or ethnography. Neither were they deeply linked to university anthropology departments or research centers – all of which were state funded. As such, few films were part of larger academic anthropological studies or were organically informed by anthropological or ethnographic concerns. Nevertheless, the majority of the filmmakers were supported by powerful national governmental cultural and media organizations, such as the Pahlavi era’s Ministry of Culture and Art and National Iranian Radio and Television; and the post-revolution era’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and Voice and Vision of the Islamic Republic. Some of them were freelance filmmakers commissioned by the state, private sector or non-governmental agencies to make ethnographic documentaries, some were civil servants employed by state organizations. Because of these structural and contextual features, the ethnographic documentaries were often embedded in politics, from their conception to reception. Textually, they tended to be straightforward, linear films that relied heavily on a wordy voice-of-God narration. However, there were many that experimented with visual, musical, lyrical and structural innovations. They can be divided into several thematic types, which evolved over time, particularly during the 1978–9 revolution and the subsequent eight-year war with Iraq.

For a theory of regional cinemas: Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian cinemas

One of the most resilient critical categories in cinema studies has been that of the ‘National Cinema’, applied to a grouping of a nation-state’s film output during a particular period. This grouping benefited from both certain contextual formations – film industry practices, market forces, government support, reception and censorship practices – and certain textual and authorial formations – thematic, generic and stylistic conventions and innovations. However, the specificities of this definition were often elided and it was applied inaccurately to all the films of a nation. This is how the films of a dozen or so art-house filmmakers in post-revolution Iran – Kiarostami, the Makhmalbafs, Banietemad, Milani, Mehrjui, Baizai, Panahi, Majidi, Qobadi – came to be known abroad as the ‘Iranian cinema’, ignoring the much larger and more diverse output of other types of films there. By the 1990s, corporate globalization, political upheavals, population displacements and technological innovations had problematized the certainties both of the notions of nations and of national cinemas. Attention was turned to examining the transnational, exilic and diasporic cinemas that were being produced in the new interstitial and globalized environments, leading to new critical categories, such as the ‘Accented Cinemas’. Other theoretical paradigms resulting from the destabilization of nation-state categories fell under the rubrics of ‘Third Cinema’, ‘Postcolonial Cinema’, ‘World Cinema’ and ‘Global Cinema’. Some of these were rather loosely and promiscuously theorized. Meanwhile, a plethora of books, essays, films and film festivals celebrated another critical category – that of ‘Regional Cinema’, among them, ‘Latin American Cinema’ (and its offspring, the ‘New Latin American Cinema’), ‘Third World Cinema’, ‘African Cinema’, ‘Asian Cinema’ and ‘Balkan Cinema’. These generally identified shared features of films from contiguous geographic regions without developing a coherent theory of regional cinema formation. Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian countries, which despite their many differences have many historical, political, linguistic, religious, ethnic, cultural and artistic features in common, were rarely the conceptual units of analysis. Nevertheless, many books about the regions have been published. A few dealt with a combination of Middle Eastern, Arab and North African and postcolonial cinemas (Armbrust 2000; Arasoughly 1996; Armes 2005, 2006; Chaudhuri 2006; Donmez-Colin 2006, 2007; Harrow 2007; Khatib 2006; Leaman 2001; Malkmus and Armes 1991; Shafik 1998), and some dealt with women in cinema and media of Islamic Middle East (Donmez-Colin 2004; Hillauer 2005; Sakr 2004), with uneven results. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Central Asian countries sought to create new national identities, and the Silk Road was invoked as a metaphor and even a cognitive map for charting cultural and artistic inter-relationships in the countries lying along