Gold in the Jungle: The Role of the French in Popularizing the “New Iranian Cinema” of the 1990s

Iran;France;Cinema;Imperialism

Samimi, Nima

University:Havard University

Department:Middle Eastern Studies

关键词: Iran;    France;    Cinema;    Imperialism;   

Others  :  https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/42004053/SAMIMI-DOCUMENT-2018.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

美国|英语

来源: Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard

【 摘 要 】

This study investigates the role of the French in popularizing the “new Iranian cinema” of the 1990s and looks critically at the nature of the post-colonial relationship between Iran and France. Did France play the key role in exposing the world to Iranian cinema? Were their motivations opportunistic, profiting the French at the expense of Iran’s film industry? Was it also crucial to the success of the “New Iranian Cinema”? Established discourses on “postal cinema” (Iranian cinema after the 1979 revolution), globalization, national cinema theory, post-colonialism and modern mediaworks provide us with a nuanced view of the relationship between Iranian filmmakers, French production houses, the Iranian government, international film festivals and Hollywood. The success of the new Iranian cinema was in some ways a reaction to the racism and Islamophobia that was heightened after the Islamic revolution, an alternate means of diplomacy between Iran and its former “Western allies, whereby the smallness and intimacy of Iranian art films revealed the humanity of Iranian people as an alternative to their almost universal “Western portrayal as barbaric Islamic fundamentalists.The investigation concludes that the complex negotiations of progress and post-colonialism resulted in an upward trend for Iranian cinema, ending its 1990s boom cycle only to transform into a diverse, transnational medium – both in spite of French involvement and because of it.