Film Ads in Iran#28: Sam Peckinpah

aka Ride the High Country

Cinephilia Translated, Part 2

Last week I wrote about the phenomenon of translating film literature in Iran, a practice that covers anything from film criticism to academic books and papers. I tried to explain how readers in Iran are accustomed to reading the critique of a well-known Iranian writer, next to those of New York Times', Sight & Sound's or Film Comment's. I argued that the tradition has roots in an particularly Iranian pluralism and unlike the government of countries in which the original pieces have been produced, the juxtaposition of the translated and the original stages a dialogue, even if the authors really haven't planned as such.

Here I like to point to paradoxes (or even ironies) of translating film culture in Iran which I always have associated with the culture of opposition.

For an Iranian cinephile this trend basically means reading about a cinema which is not seen, cannot be seen (or at least, cannot easily be seen or accessed), hence the text substitutes the image. One reads about good or great films in which the text describes significant shots, the summary tells you about the story, the interviews tell you how these films are made, but the actual piece of work is largely absent from the picture. Hereby, the reader/cinephile's role begins: she/he has to re-imagine the film and mentally construct it and the film literature serves as the means of such reconstruction. Consequently, first comes the context and sub-text and then (if you're lucky enough) the Text. Mostly, the access to Text remains impossible and the context becomes the Text itself. Thus the people who portray films in written text, i.e. film writers and critics, become as significant as filmmaker. Under these circumstances, the role of a film critic is elevated to the second author of the film, an intermediary who, in a written text, recreates the filmic pleasures for the reader. In Iran, spectator is the reader. The image is read.

Cinephilia Translated, Part 1

Browsing through the pages of Iranian Film Monthly, a publication dedicated to half serious, Cahiers-ish, text and half industry-oriented (Iranian version of Hollywood Reporter, if you like) content, I arrived at a dossier, focusing on the films of the Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Then I figured that at least 13 odd articles (from short reviews to long interviews), from 13 different international writers and film critics have been translated into Farsi/Persian, of course, unauthorized. However, I must add, this has been an inseparable part of the film culture in Iran for the last 50 years.

Arguably, Iran is one of the few places on earth that you can buy the latest issue of a film magazine and in it read a broad range of writers, whether living or deceased, from four corners of the world. Juxtaposition of Andre Sarris, Claude Chabrol (the critic) and Laura Mulvey could be the most intriguing, and it's most likey to see it in an Iranian film journal. The aforementioned Nuri Bilge Ceylan dossier had put together articles by Geoff Andrew, Peter Bradshaw, Manohla Dargis, Wally Hammond, J. Hoberman, Ali Jaafar, Nick James, Liam Lacey, Michael Phillips, A.O. Scott, Jason Wood, Robin Wood and Deborah Young, seemingly, the Anglo-American tendencies surpassing those of Francophile's which was more popular in the pre-revolutionary country. 

Edinburgh Video Interviews

Edinburgh © Ehsan Khoshbakht

Last June I was a guest in Edinburgh, attending the Edinburgh International Film Festival. One morning I borrowed Mark Cousins' flip camera and made some interviews, two of which are now live on Fandor's Keyframe.

1

David Cairns’ and Paul Duane’s ‘J’accuse’: Cairns and Duane attempt to set the record straight regarding the Dreyfus of early French cinema, Bernard Natan. Watch the interview here.

2

Mark Cousins, in Perpetual Motion: Catching up with the road-tripping, time-traveling, soul-searching Mark Cousins as A Story of Children and Film plays Cambridge. The interview, here.

She Thinks She Is Liz Taylor!

مروري بر كارنامۀ او

خيال مي‌كنه اليزابت تيلوره!

احسان خوش‌بخت

او هشت بار ازدواج كرده كه دو بارش با يك مرد بوده است. لباس‌ها و مدل موهايش در هر فيلم تا ماه‌ها روي جلد و صفحات وسطِ مجله‌ها دوام مي‌آورد. با همه نوع آدم مشهوري ديده مي‌شد. رسانه‌ها از شهرت او تنور خودشان را گرم نگه مي‌داشتند و خود او با دامن زدن به بازي‌ها و افسانه‌هاي دور و برش دشواري‌ پيدا كردن نقش‌هاي تازه براي فيزيكي كه از زيبايي بي نقص به پيري و چاقي زودهنگام مبدل شده بود را پشت سرمي‌گذاشت. اما او جداي از اليزابت تيلور بودن كه از 1942 (مهاجرت خانواده‌اش از لندن به آمريكا به خاطر بمباران‌ها) تا اوايل قرن بيست و يكم (آخرين بار به شكلي گسترده بازي يك دقيقه‌اي او در ويدئوكليپي از التون جان ديده شد) ادامه پيدا كرد، بازيگري توانا و يكي از مهم‌ترين ستاره‌هاي تاريخ سينما بود كه نقشش را مي‌توان هم‌چون پلي دانست كه تصوير فريبنده ستاره آرماني زن در سينماي كلاسيك بعد از جنگ را به تصويري پرتضاد و تجديدنظرطلبانه از زنانگي – هرچند در خيلي از مواقع هم چنان اسير كليشه‌هاي روز – پيوند مي‌دهد. هنوز هم در خانه‌هاي ايراني دختر پرفيس و افاده را با جمله‌اي اين چنيني سرزنش مي‌كنند: «خيال مي‌كنه اليزابت تيلوره!» (بعضي‌ها در اين قياسِ حاكي از نكوهش سوفيا لورن را ترجيح مي‌دهند)

Foreign Killers, Native Killers

Bird on a Wire (Tony Palmer, 1974) - Cinematography by Les Young

Notes On 3D: Adieu au langage

سينما از زمان برادران لومير سه‌بعدي بوده است

خداحافظي با زبانْ به صورت سه‌بعدي

احسان خوش‌بخت

مشكل بزرگ نوشتن دربارۀ سينماي سه بعدي اين است كه به جز رويكرد فني/اقتصادي و مختصري اشارات تاريخي، دشوار است يا به طور دقيق‌تر هنوز زود است كه دربارۀ تأثيرات زيبايي‌شناسي آن حرف زد و اگر نخواهيم دربارۀ زيبايي‌شناسي سخن بگوييم، مگر ما تاجر و دانشمنديم كه دربارۀ بخش‌هاي ديگرش اظهار نظر كنيم؟ مثل اين است كه كسي در دل سال 1929 و در شرايطي كه هنوز فيلم‌هاي صامت ساخته مي‌شدند و تلاش‌هاي ناطق معمولاً خام‌دستانه بودند بخواهد جمع‌بندي روشني از تأثير صدا در سينما ارائه دهد. نتيجه چنين تلاشي مي‌تواند بي‌حاصل و مأيوس‌كننده باشد.

آمدن صدا، روايت سينمايي كه در حوالي سال 1926 به كمالي وراي تصور رسيده بود را براي مدتي بردۀ تكنولوژي كرد. مبارزۀ سال‌ها آخر دهۀ 1920 در سينما مبارزۀ بين آينده‌نگري منفعت‌طلبانۀ سرمايه‌داري با گذشته‌دوستي قدرشناسانه و كمال‌طلبانۀ هنر بود. اما از آن جا كه سينما هنر موازنه است بين اين دو گرايش تاريخي توافقي حاصل شد كه نتيجه‌اش ساخته شدن دور تازه‌اي از فيلم‌هاي خلاقانه در مديومِ سينماي ناطق بود؛ فيلم‌هايي كه دوباره قدرت استوديوها و تسلط اقتصادي‌شان بر سينما را تحكيم كردند.

The Essay Film - A Manifesto by Mark Cousins

In the last two years I have made three essay films – What is This Film Called Love?, A Story of Children and Film, and Here be Dragons. In the next year, I will make two more – I am Belfast and Stockholm My Love.

In making these, and watching many more – by Anand Patwardhan and Agnes Varda, for example – and after reading Philip Lopate’s book on the essay, I started to make a mental list of the elements of, and the principles behind, essay films. This list is a kind of manifesto.

1

A fiction film is a bubble. An essay film bursts it.

2

An essay film takes an idea for a walk.

3

Essay films are visual thinking.

4

Essay films reverse film production: the images come first, the script, last.

5

Filming an essay is gathering, like a carpenter gathers wood.

6

A fiction film is a car, an essay film is a bike; it can nip up an alleyway, you can feel the wind in its hair.

7

A road movie has outer movement, an essay film has inner movement.

8

An essay film is the opposite of fly on the wall.

9

An essay film can go anywhere, and should.

10

Two essay films should be made every year. Why? Because, after F for Fake, Orson Welles said this to Henry Jaglom during lunch at Ma Maison: “I could have made an essay film – two of ‘em a year, you see. On different subjects. Various variations of that form.”

11

Commentary is to the essay film, what dance is to the musical.

12

All essay films would be improved by a clip of Dietrich (see Marcel Ophuls).

13

An essay film cannot create the atmosphere of Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard;

A fiction film cannot explain that atmosphere.

14

Even Hollywood makes essay films – look at DW Griffith’s Intolerance.

15

Essay films are what Astruc dreamt of.

16

Digital had made Astruc’s dream come true.

Film Ads in Iran, Part 16: Dassin

August Stairs

In descending order
Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931)
The Perfume of the Lady in Black (Francesco Barilli, 1974)
Capriccio all'Italiana (Mauro Bolognini, Mario Monicelli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Steno, Pino Zac, Franco Rossi, 1968)
Célestine... bonne à tout faire (Jesús Franco, 1974)