Exploring Iranian Daily Life by Analysing Iranian Cinema
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Exploring Iranian Daily Life by Analysing Iranian Cinema Habib Allah Moghimi Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney September 2020 A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 1 Statement of Originality This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources has been acknowledged. signature Habib Allah Moghimi 2 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge that, though this is my own work, I have benefitted from copy editorial support from my supervision team and from a professional editor. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my primary supervisor, Prof. Catriona Elder, for her continuous support of my PhD study, for her patience, motivation, positive energy and immense knowledge. Her guidance helped me throughout the research and writing of this thesis. Without her I would have never had the opportunity to continue and complete my education in Australia. I want to sincerely thank my principal supervisor, Dr. Ihab Shalbak, for his priceless guidance over the last two years. He had the initial idea for this research and provided great advice in shaping my theoretical framework. Also, I would like to thank my auxiliary supervisors, Dr. Bronwen Dyson and Dr. Susan Potter, for their insightful comments and encouragement at several stages of my PhD journey. Without their valued support, it would not have been possible to conduct this interdisciplinary research. Finally, this study would not have been possible without support from my family. My sincerest thanks go to my loving partner, Giulia, my caring parents, Amir and Ziba, and my encouraging cousin, Navideh. I dedicate this dissertation to my family and my city, Tehran. 3 Table of Contents Statement of Originality ............................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 3 List of Figures and Tables ........................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 7 Organisation of the Thesis ......................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER TWO: IRANIAN CINEMA AND EVERYDAY LIFE: LITERATURE REVIEW AND BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................. 14 Periodising Iranian Cinema ........................................................................................................ 24 Construction Period: The Message (1989–1997) ......................................................................................... 25 Reform Period: 2nd of Khordad Cinema (1997–2005) ................................................................................ 26 Social Justice Period: The Dark Times of Cinema (2005–2013) ................................................................... 27 Moderation Period: Variation Cinema (2013–now) .................................................................................... 28 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 28 CHAPTER THREE: THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................... 30 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 30 Prefiguring a Framework........................................................................................................... 30 (1) The Importance of the Problematic and Problematisation in the Sociology of Everyday Life ............... 30 Discourse Structure ................................................................................................................... 33 (2) Laclau and Mouffe’s Perception of the Notion of Discourse .................................................................. 33 (3) Articulation and the Signs ....................................................................................................................... 36 The Everyday Subject ................................................................................................................ 38 (4) Laclau and Mouffe’s Perception of the Notion of Subject ..................................................................... 38 (5) Making the People: Popular Subject and Democratic Subject ............................................................... 41 CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY...................................................................................... 46 Methodologies for Exploring Everyday Life ................................................................................ 46 Principles of the Methodology .................................................................................................. 47 Representational Theories and Discourse Analysis ..................................................................................... 47 Reflexivity..................................................................................................................................................... 48 Mapping the Space: Developing a Classification System for Exploring Iranian Film ................................... 50 The Dataset: Selecting the Films .................................................................................................................. 50 Developing a Matrix of the Key Signifiers .................................................................................................... 53 Sociology of Film and Sociology of Cinema: The Culture Industry and Representation Framework (Casseti, 1999) ........................................................................................................................... 59 CHAPTER FIVE: CENSORSHIP AND URBAN LIFE: REPRESENTATION OF THE SOCIAL ............ 64 Censorship and the Terrorist Society ......................................................................................... 65 Type 1: Political Censorship ......................................................................................................................... 68 Type 2: Religious Censorship ....................................................................................................................... 73 Type 3: Gender-based Censorship ............................................................................................................... 74 Type 4: The Quasi-official Censorship .......................................................................................................... 74 Type 5: Censored Artists .............................................................................................................................. 75 4 Type 6: Bureaucratic and Interpretative Censorship ................................................................................... 76 Type 7: Censorship in Screening .................................................................................................................. 78 Type 8: Genre and Censorship ..................................................................................................................... 79 Type 9: Self-censorship ................................................................................................................................ 80 Tehran and Modernity .............................................................................................................. 81 How Do We Read Tehran? ........................................................................................................................... 81 Urban Films: Ambiguity and Uncertainty ..................................................................................................... 85 Tehran: City of Demands, City of Conflicts .................................................................................................. 92 Traumatic Everyday Life in Tehran ............................................................................................................... 99 CHAPTER SIX: CINEMA AS CULTURE INDUSTRY ............................................................... 106 Filmfarsi, Trash, and Wandering .............................................................................................. 107 Filmfarsi 1940–1970s: Iranian Discourses on Wealth/Consumption and Democracy ............................... 109 Filmfarsi: Sex, City, and Fate ...................................................................................................................... 113 Fate, Honour, and Dignity in Filmfarsi ....................................................................................................... 119 Tradition and Dignity in the Post-revolutionary Period ............................................................ 130 Dignity: A Social Concept ........................................................................................................................... 131 Suspension of the Present 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