{"title":"From Black Comedies to Social Realism: Rakhshan Banietemad’s Early Feature Films","authors":"F. Zahedi","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter offers an analytical study of Banietemad’s first films, none of which has previously been addressed in detail. Zahedi contextualizes the historical, political, and social factors that led to the birth of a social genre in Iran, and examines the ways in which Banietemad, as an auteur, negotiated the systematic constraints and censorship she faced in her early career with efficient strategies in selecting and staging apparently non-problematic narratives.","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"223 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116174484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Modes of Expression not Subject to the Law of Male Desire”: Considering the Role of Voice-over and Enunciation in the Work of Rakhshan Banietemad","authors":"R. Holman","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Considering the Role of Voice-Over and Enunciation in the Work of Rakhshan Banietemad.” Holman argues that voicing encompasses not only the aesthetic practices associated with the literal, acoustic voice in Banietemad’s films, but also the process of inscribing authorship. Referencing feminist film scholarship of the 1980s concerning voice-over and the positioning of the female subject beyond the gaze of the spectator in experimental women’s cinema, this chapter looks at how Banietemad’s social melodramas and documentaries have played with the notion of voice, disembodiment, and enunciation.","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126128753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hidden Transcripts of Subordinates and the Art of Resistance in Our Times","authors":"Bahareh Abdi","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0014","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter employs James Scott’s theory of hidden transcript as a mode of resistance, and demonstrates how, in her polemic documentary Our Times, Banietemad has subtly managed to give voice and agency to youth in general and, in a more specific sense, to female presidential candidates","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131933055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Under the Skin of Society: Rakhshan Banietemad’s Social History of Post-revolutionary Iran","authors":"M. Wittmann","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Surveying Banietemad’s films, beginning with Nargess, Wittman argues that Banietemad’s urban ballads not only show “the people who are missing,” uncovering suppressed, silenced voices; they also illustrate how ordinary people are organizing themselves into communities, networks, and grassroots move- ments. He further asserts that, in doing so, the films expose the emptiness of the official claims made by the Islamic Republic of Iran. At the same time, they desta- bilize stereotypes regarding Iran emerging outside of the country, especially the image of “fatalistic Muslim masses,” “the passive poor”, and the “disoriented marginal.”","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128882623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Conversation with the Director","authors":"Maryam Ghorbankarimi","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, Banietemad speaks articulately and at length about her life and work, relating memories and anec-dotes concerning her childhood and her individual path to filmmaking. She also offers insightful reflections on the decisions and circumstances behind the making of some of her most prominent works, and emphasizes the endless inspiration she gets from the many different people in her country, and the social and cultural issues they have always faced.","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132329980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Overview of Banietemad’s Career and Films","authors":"Maryam Ghorbankarimi","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction offers an overview of Banietemad’s life and works. It also addresses each chapter individually to highlight the main argument and content of each chapter as well as demonstrating their connection with the overall aims and scope of the book.","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122556788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Blue-veiled: A Semiological Analysis of a Social Love Story","authors":"Asal Bagheri","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explores how, through formal filmic grammar, Banietemad has depicted love and relations between men and women in this film. This chapter also demonstrates how Iranian cinema chastely explores love and expresses its own “Iranian form” regarding relationships between man and woman, through constructing space in the way that traditional Iranian architecture does (external spaces for guests and internal spaces for family and private activities), but also through using stylistic devices reminiscent of classical Persian poetry.","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115244216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tales and the Cinematic Divan of Rakhshan Banietemad","authors":"Michelle Langford","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter considers the film in the context of Banietemad’s other works, analyzing the ways in which its style creates a delicate balance between social realism and poetic cinema. This chapter discusses how the theme of love and its structural treatment within the film evokes classical Persian traditions of love poetry known as ghazal, constituting evidence of the emergence of what she has previously termed the “cinematic ghazal.”","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"49 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126763985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Representing Sexuality on Screen in Walled Societies: A Comparative Analysis of Iranian Film (The May Lady) and Chinese Film (Army Nurse)","authors":"Yu-shan Han","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter offers a comparative study of contemporary Iranian and Chinese cinema since the late 1980s from a trans-Asia perspective. Through a close reading of the two films, Han discusses how they situate their protagonists in their respective societies and analyzes the similarities between the two films’ aesthetic approaches in the representation of the sacrificing mother and single motherhood.","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124842192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Masculinities in Banietemad’s Tales: Reshuffling Gender Dynamics under Socio-economic Pressures","authors":"Nina Khamsy","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474477611.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter shows how Banietemad exposes social crisis in its reordering of gender relations. By examining the vignettes of everyday life which make up Tales, Khamsy discusses how Banietemad’s camera lyrically conveys gender reshuffling, thereby confronting the bigger question of imbalance in studies of gender in Iranian cinema.","PeriodicalId":404586,"journal":{"name":"ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad","volume":"121 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134579277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}