5 - Rebels on the Silver Screen: How Movies Limned Action

Summary

When you left, I didn't know who had left. Now that you’ve returned, I know who has returned.

Massoud Kimiai, The Deer (1974)

One cannot stay indifferent. You wanted to stay neutral but got involved anyways.

Khosrow Sinai, Long Live! (1980)

Since Mozaffar al-Dinn Shah Qajar brought the first cinematograph to Iran in 1900 for exclusive elite entertainment, its subsequent early entrance into the public arena rendered cinema, in time, a far-reaching cultural medium, almost unrivalled. Ever since, cinema has lent itself to the unending waves of emerging and original filmmakers who found in this artistic medium a unique opportunity for visual expression and experimentation, representing and imagining. From the first Iranian (silent) film Abi and Rabi (1930; dir. Ovanes Ohanians) and the first talkie The Lor Girl (1933; dir. Ardeshir Irani; produced in India) onwards, the Iranian movie industry has seen growing commercial success, despite ebbs and flows due mainly to its competition with imported films, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s. Also, filmmakers have created world-class movies that have consistently attained for Iranian cinema an international reputation (Dabashi 2001; Naficy 2011b; Sadr 2006). Upon settling in society, predictably, cinema (and later television) was denounced and boycotted by the clerics and their followers in traditional classes and among the uneducated masses, but the magic of the silver screen fashioned massive attraction, so much so that it practically anulled the reactionaries’ contempt. So, the introduction and popularity of moving pictures in Iran equalled a cultural revolution. As Iran modernised institutionally and socially during Pahlavi rule, ‘film began to make real inroads into cultural life’ (Sadr 2006: 15).

Not surprisingly, cinema's entry into public culture gave birth to twins: artistic creativity and state censorship. Ever since the state under Reza Shah imposed the first rules on cinema, filmmaking has continuously been confronted by the intrusive regulation of artistic creativity. Between 1921 and 1939, regulation of the movies, including imported films, took place under the auspices of City Hall and the Political Bureau of the Ministry of Interior. The 1950 Cinema and Educational Institutions Bylaws mandated films to receive a ‘screening permit’ before a public showing. Among its many prohibitions, this bylaw banned films that showed ‘revolution, or instigating a revolt’ and ‘prison break’, as well as nudity, ideological propaganda, and opposition to constitutional monarchy.