The Averted Gaze in Iranian Postrevolutionary Cinema

Abstract

Iran has a long history of cinema. In fact, this year it celebrates its ninety-first year as a major producer of films in the Middle East. The fnst Iranian documentary was filmed in 1900; the first public theater opened in 1904; and the fust feature film was released much later, in 1930. Despite this late start, however, the Iranian feature-film industry caught up and in the 1960s and 1970s, during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, produced a wide variety of films, many of which won awards and recogni-tion in international film festivals. Many now-well-known Iranian directors made their names in this period (Naficy 1979, Issari 1989). Anticinema feelings, however, run deep in Iran. Since its introduction into the country, cinema consistently has been condemned by religious-minded people as a morally offensive and ethically corrupting Western in-fluence (Nafky 1991a). Many clerical leaders, however, have entertained the idea of supporting cinema only if it is not “misused, ” that is, if it is used ethically, to teach Islamic values.1 According to them, the “correct ” use of cinema is the adoption of it as an ideological apparatus to combat the West-ernized Pahlavi culture and to usher in a so-called Islamic culture. It is no surprise, therefore, to witness the emergence of a new and vital cinema twelve years after the establishment of the Islamic government. Over the 1 “We are not opposed to cinema, to radio, or to television.... The cinema is a mod-em invention that ought to be used for the sake of educating the people, but as you know, it was used instead to compt our youth. It is the misuse of cinema that we are opposed to, a misuse caused by the treacherous policies of our rulers. ” Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in his first speech upon returning to Iran in 1979 after fifteen years of exile;

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