Archive for October 2011

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[ecrea] New pub: A Social History of Iranian Cinema

Mon Oct 24 20:29:19 GMT 2011



A Social History of Iranian Cinema Volumes 1&2 by Hamid Naficy**

"Hamid Naficy is already established as the doyen of historians as well as critics of Iranian cinema. This massive, detailed, as well as extremely scholarly critical history of Iranian cinema since its very foundation more than a century ago--based as it is on a good understanding of modern Iranian political and social /history--/is the crowning of all his highly instructive and informative works so far. Each of the volumes can be read separately as well as a part of this colossal critical narrative. To say that it is a must read for virtually all concerned with modern Iranian history, and not just cinema and the arts, is to state the obvious." --Homa Katouzian, author of /The Persians, Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Iran/

"This magisterial four-volume work on Iranian cinema will be the defining work on the topic for a long time to come. Situating film within its socio-political context, the work covers the period leading up to the Constitutional Revolution and continues after the Islamic Revolution, examining questions about modernity, globalization, Islam and feminism along the way. It is a definitive work for our thinking about cinema and society and how issues of creativity and expression in one particular form, film, should be integrated into a wider engagement with social issues. Demand that your library buys this superb work of academic scholarship!" --Annabelle Sreberny, SOAS, University of London

A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 1 <http://bit.ly/pDnEZ4>

*The Artisanal Era, 1897-1941***

/Hamid Naficy/

"Only a skilled historian who is on the inside of his story could convey so vividly the cinema's symbolic significance for twentieth-century Iran and the depth with which it is interwoven with its national culture and politics." --Laura Mulvey, author of /Death 24× a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image/

"A Social History of Iranian Cinema is essential reading not only for the cinephile interested in Iran's unique and rich cinematic history but also for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the cataclysmic events and metamorphoses that have shaped Iran." --Shirin Neshat, director of /Women Without Men///

Iran's first commercial film exhibitor viewed film in Great Britain in 1897; three years later, films were introduced in Iran. An artisanal cinema industry sponsored by the ruling shahs and other elites soon emerged. The presence of women, both on the screen and in moviehouses, proved controversial until 1925, when Reza Shah Pahlavi dissolved the Qajar dynasty. Ruling until 1941, Shah Pahlavi was an aggressive modernizer. The state implemented a Westernization program intended to unite and secularize the 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 one silent feature film was produced in Iran; the few sound feature films shown in the country before 1941 were made by an Iranian expatriate in India.

*Duke University Press*

October 2011 456pp 9780822347750 PB £18.99 now only *£13 *when you quote *CS1011IRAN* <http://bit.ly/pDnEZ4> when you order


A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2 <http://bit.ly/oVrJqh>

*The Industrializing Years, 1941-1979***

/Hamid Naficy/

Under the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah, from 1941 until 1979, Iranian cinema flourished and became industrialized. At its height, the industry produced 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 parallel cinemas emerged: commercial filmfarsi movies exemplified by the entertaining stewpot and tough-guy genres and a smaller but influential cinema of dissent, the new-wave cinema. Ironically, the state funded and censored much of the new-wave cinema, which grew bolder in its criticism as Pahlavi authoritarianism consolidated. Produced by Westernized filmmakers in collaboration with dissident writers, the new-wave cinema did well in international film festivals, beginning the globalization of Iranian cinema.

*Duke University Press*

December 2011 536pp 9780822347743 PB £18.99 now only *£13 *when you quote *CS1011IRAN* <http://bit.ly/oVrJqh> when you order


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