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

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