Gow, Christopher Malcolm (2005) Iranian cinema in long shot. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis aims to facilitate a broader understanding of post-revolutionary Iranian
filmmaking, by way of an analysis of the New Iranian Cinema and Iranian cinema in exile and
diaspora, and the various relationships between these two cinemas. Thus far no significant
attempt has been made to consider these two cinemas in relation to each other. This thesis
therefore represents a significant contribution to this line of research. Along the way it addresses
several key concepts of long-standing importance in film studies, such as notions of art cinema,
authorship and national cinema, in particular how such concepts have been used as a means of
studying the New Iranian Cinema. Exilic and diasporic Iranian filmmaking represents a challenge
to traditional understandings of these concepts. The first chapter therefore examines how the
New Iranian Cinema has been received and constructed as an archetypal 'art cinema' in Europe
and North America, in addition to how this cinema invites, at the same time as it resists, such
interpretations. Thereafter follows a consideration of Iranian emigre filmmaking across Europe
and North America, and how it has changed over the past thirty years, gradually shifting from an
exclusively exilic to a pan-diasporic outlook. Chapters three and four are individual case studies
of Iranian emigre filmmakers Amir Naderi and Sohrab Shahid Saless respectively. As two of
Iran's most important and influential pre-revolutionary filmmakers, the works of Naderi and Saless
represent not only interesting divergences from the evolutionary understanding of Iranian emigre
cinema outlined in the second chapter, but also form two of the most compelling links between
the New Iranian Cinema, and it exilic and diasporic counterpart. This thesis concludes by arguing
for a more flexible and open-ended conception of national cinema more generally, as well as
more comprehensive, nuanced and deterritorialised understanding of post-revolutionary Iranian
filmmaking.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Iran -- Civilization, Filmstrips -- Iran, Film criticism -- Iran -- History and criticism, Motion pictures -- Iran -- History and criticism
Official Date:	December 2005
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Film and Television Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Tapper, Richard ; Brunsdon, Charlotte
Sponsors:	British Institute of Persian Studies ; Arts and Humanities Research Board (Great Britain)
Extent:	vi, 232 leaves : illustrations
Language:	eng

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