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This dissertation opens a multimedia archive of contemporary Iranian films, documentaries, newspaper articles, and political philosophies in order to rethink the complicated relationship between cinema and the Reformist Movement in Iran. The existing scholarship has largely reduced interactions between these institutions to modes of mutual support, noting Mohammad Khatami’s backing of the film industry during his tenure as Minister of Islamic Culture and Guidance (1982-1992) and his liberal cultural policies as president (1997-2005). However, the research presented in this dissertation indicates that Iranian cinema and the Reformist Movement crucially informed one another, and the dynamics of their exchange functioned on an ideological level. More than just benefiting from the Reformist Movement, certain films and filmmakers helped to shape and articulate its emerging political discourse. At the same time, the dialogue between Khatami’s Reformist Movement and Iranian cinema have generated a unique set of aesthetic qualities that includes a revival of mystic love, the use of Tehran as a metaphoric site of social and structural reformation, and reconfigurations of perceptions of time. I examine films that were released during Khatami’s tenure as Minister of Islamic Culture and Guidance, his presidential campaign and presidency in order to interrogate the relationship between film and reform and to theorize the visual language that has emerged to enunciate this relationship. I also consider a film and a music video released two years after Khatami’s presidency ended. They did not benefit directly from his cultural liberalism but nevertheless participate in central reformist debates. Their experimentation with form suggests that the reformist aesthetic possesses a momentum that permits it to develop and transform without explicit contact with the political movement that inspired it. I argue, therefore, that the Reformist Movement marked a change on the political landscape at the same time that it signaled a new trend in the country’s cinematic history. I connect innovations in film to current trends in new media and youth culture and propose a new reformist model for the study of cultural productivity in contemporary Iran, one that moves past the reductive category of “post-Revolution.” / text

This dissertation analyzes the change in the representation of women in Iranian cinema since the 1990s and investigates the motives behind it by looking at the overall history of Iranian cinema and those active in its production. Iranian cinema, both before and after the Islamic Revolution, has been closely watched by the ruling powers and one way or another has been utilized to relay messages that comply with the dominant order. But this has not completely shut down all the efforts of the filmmakers striving to convey a more meaningful message. The Iranian cinema industry has been the arena of an elite intellectual group of people; only following the 1979 Revolution and the “legitimization of cinema” by the Islamic order did it become a widely accessible industry to the general public, who tended to ignore or oppose it prior to the Islamic Revolution. This thesis pays close attention to the changing roles of women in film production and representation. Although aspects of women’s lives become stricter after the Revolution, it is in this period—from the late 1980s into the 1990s—that women for the first time took a prominent role both behind and in front of the camera. This dissertation argues that such shifts are due to “factionalism” within the Islamic Republic, shifts internal to the film industry and the emergence of a group of highly educated film production teams, in addition to the variety of ways in which women were able to exercise more agency in the film industry. One trope around which this shift occurs is that of the “veil” as a technique and metaphor for social practice in representation. Employing feminist film theory tools, a number of representative female-centric films from this period are analyzed, focusing on their cultural, political, and cinematic contexts. Examining the films with respect to the representation of women, the research relies on textual analysis as its basic methodology. Along with the textual analysis, interviews conducted with filmmakers and people active in the industry also help to map the films in the socio-political context in which they were produced.

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo a análise estética da Trilogia de Koker, de Abbas Kiarostami, em especial do filme Através das Oliveiras, investigando os efeitos da tematização que o cinema faz de si próprio ao apresentar um filme dentro de outro, intencionalmente quebrando a ficção em prol de uma suposta comunicação mais direta com o espectador, o que gera neste a sensação de diferentes níveis de realidade. Essa discussão passa pelo tema da morte ou diluição da autoria a partir de autores como Derrida, Barthes e Foucault. Lança-se no encalço do Autor moderno, constituído segundo Adorno desde o Dom Quixote, de Cervantes, autor não absoluto, desinformado do destino de seus personagens e que, por isso, inclui no relato romanesco recursos (inclusive a metalinguagem) que passem a evidenciar aspectos de verossimilhança para se fazer crível ao novo leitor. Nessa discussão, emergem questões relacionadas ao fim da narrativa e da arte, a recepção do cinema iraniano, e o embaralhamento dos registros documental e ficcional. Por fim, problematiza as possibilidades de se contar uma história na contemporaneidade. / This work aims to build an aesthetic analysis of Koker Trilogy, by Abbas Kiarostami, specially the film Through the Olive Trees. It investigates the effects of meta-language procedures in cinema, when a film inside another one breaks the linear sequence in order to produce a relational aesthetic communication with the spectators. This opens space for the perception of different levels of reality. This discussion is also related to the topic of the death or dissolution of the authorship, as it is understood in the works of Derrida, Foucault and Barthes. By extension, the ideas of end of narrative are also considered in the analysis. In this sense, it looks after the modern author, created, according to Adorno, since Cervantes Don Quixote: the absolute author, who does not know the destiny of his/her characters and, because of it, includes resources (even meta-linguistic) that put in evidence aspects of verisimilitude to make it believable. In this discussion, some questions related to the end of narrative and of art, the reception of Iranian cinema and the puzzlement of documental and fictitious registers appear. At end, it discusses the possibilities of telling a history in contemporaneity.

In addition to box office success, Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s films have achieved national and international critical acclaims. However, it is not only this rare achievement of critical and commercial success that sets Farhadi apart from other Iranian filmmakers, but also, his new approach to the issues of truth and morality which have been age-long themes in the history of Iranian art, literature, and cinema. Compared to his predecessors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Jafar Panahi, Farhadi’s viewpoint on these themes is distinctly secular. This thesis focuses on the significance of the change Farhadi’s approach has brought on Iranian cinema by analyzing three of his critically acclaimed films, About Elly (2009), A Separation (2011), and The Salesman (2016). By creative use of narrative techniques such as narrative gaps and open endings and filmic techniques such as indirect-subjective point of view and handheld camera, Farhadi’s films highlight the relativity of the concepts of truth and morality through a secular and modernist lens. Such an approach marks a shift in Iranian cinema which, in turn, indicates an ideological shift within the contemporary Iranian society as well.

This thesis examines Iranian-Kurdish filmmaker, Bahman Ghobadi’s authorial strategies and cinematic aesthetics through the theoretical and methodological lens of hybridity. According to Homi Bhabha, hybridity can be understood as a “third space,” in which cultural meanings resist binary either/or logic, and are instead negotiated through a logic that is neither one, nor the other. Thus, Bhabha’s concept of hybridity as a “third space” provides a fruitful framework to analyze Ghobadi’s authorship and cinematic style. By analyzing Ghobadi’s neo-realist treatment of Kurdistan’s cultural and physical landscape and hybrid cinematic aesthetics in his first two features, A Time for Drunken Horses (2000) and Turtles Can Fly (2004), this research calls attention to intercultural processes that generate cultural meaning through indexical and material as opposed to symbolic registers. In addition, this thesis applies Hamid Naficy’s concept of “shifters” to examine how Ghobadi’s hybrid authorial strategies and narrative reflexivity garners international audiences in his two latest features, Half Moon (2006) and No One Knows about Persian Cats (2009). This project also examines how Ghobadi’s use of a digital camera and employment of digital cinematic techniques to capture Iran’s underground rock music culture in No One Knows about Persian Cats, testifies to the authenticity of this cultural space while simultaneously structuring the film as a global vehicle for these Iranian musicians’ performances. Ultimately, Ghobadi’s hybrid authorial strategies and cinematic aesthetics function as a means to enunciate and globally circulate diverse Kurdish and Iranian cultural identities. In doing so, this thesis illuminates hybrid modes of cultural production and hybrid cultural subjectivities that have emerged in the contemporary globalized landscape. / text

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo a análise estética da Trilogia de Koker, de Abbas Kiarostami, em especial do filme Através das Oliveiras, investigando os efeitos da tematização que o cinema faz de si próprio ao apresentar um filme dentro de outro, intencionalmente quebrando a ficção em prol de uma suposta comunicação mais direta com o espectador, o que gera neste a sensação de diferentes níveis de realidade. Essa discussão passa pelo tema da morte ou diluição da autoria a partir de autores como Derrida, Barthes e Foucault. Lança-se no encalço do Autor moderno, constituído segundo Adorno desde o Dom Quixote, de Cervantes, autor não absoluto, desinformado do destino de seus personagens e que, por isso, inclui no relato romanesco recursos (inclusive a metalinguagem) que passem a evidenciar aspectos de verossimilhança para se fazer crível ao novo leitor. Nessa discussão, emergem questões relacionadas ao fim da narrativa e da arte, a recepção do cinema iraniano, e o embaralhamento dos registros documental e ficcional. Por fim, problematiza as possibilidades de se contar uma história na contemporaneidade. / This work aims to build an aesthetic analysis of Koker Trilogy, by Abbas Kiarostami, specially the film Through the Olive Trees. It investigates the effects of meta-language procedures in cinema, when a film inside another one breaks the linear sequence in order to produce a relational aesthetic communication with the spectators. This opens space for the perception of different levels of reality. This discussion is also related to the topic of the death or dissolution of the authorship, as it is understood in the works of Derrida, Foucault and Barthes. By extension, the ideas of end of narrative are also considered in the analysis. In this sense, it looks after the modern author, created, according to Adorno, since Cervantes Don Quixote: the absolute author, who does not know the destiny of his/her characters and, because of it, includes resources (even meta-linguistic) that put in evidence aspects of verisimilitude to make it believable. In this discussion, some questions related to the end of narrative and of art, the reception of Iranian cinema and the puzzlement of documental and fictitious registers appear. At end, it discusses the possibilities of telling a history in contemporaneity.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2015-12-14T16:06:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 carolinacaniatoportes.pdf: 771544 bytes, checksum: bf41443fb93ad0640c90bd3a0c0eaa0d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2015-12-14T20:37:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 carolinacaniatoportes.pdf: 771544 bytes, checksum: bf41443fb93ad0640c90bd3a0c0eaa0d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-14T20:37:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 carolinacaniatoportes.pdf: 771544 bytes, checksum: bf41443fb93ad0640c90bd3a0c0eaa0d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-16 / Nossa pesquisa pretende analisar como se constitui o realismo no filme O Espelho, tendo como norte três conceitos principais: a ambiguidade, o tempo e a atenção. Esses conceitos serão trabalhados a partir da perspectiva de três referenciais teóricos. O primeiro deles, o crítico André Bazin, nos dará base para pensarmos a ambiguidade a partir de seus estudos sobre o neorrealismo italiano. O segundo, Gilles Deleuze, que propõe o nascimento de uma nova imagem caracterizada, principalmente, por sua relação com o tempo. E Jorge Larrosa, que, a partir de seus estudos sobre o conceito de experiência e atenção, nos ajuda a pensar a relação realidade-filme-espectador. A partir dessas perspectivas, tentaremos enxergar as particularidades da construção narrativa de O Espelho na sua relação com o espectador, inserindo o filme em uma discussão mais ampla sobre o realismo no cinema. / This research aims to analyze how the realism emerge in the iranian film The Mirror, through three main concepts: ambiguity, time and attention. These concepts will be think from the perspective of three different authors. The first of them, the critic André Bazin, will give us the basis to think the ambiguity through his studies of Italian Neorealism. The second author is Gilles Deleuze, who proposes the birth of a new image characterized primarily by its relationship with the time. And Jorge Larrosa, who, through his study about the concept of experience and attention, help us to think the relationship between reality-movie-viewer. From these perspectives, we will try to see the narrative particularities of The Mirror in its relationship with the viewer, also entering the film in a broader discussion of the realism in cinema.

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A presente dissertação atém-se, ao fazer uso do método de abordagem comparativista, à experiência da cumplicidade entre os irmãos protagonistas do conto de fadas João e Maria (versão de Jacob e Wilhelm Grimm) e do filme iraniano Filhos do paraíso (direção de Majid Majidí [1998]). Apesar de estarem situados em diferentes contextos histórico-político-culturais, os casais de irmãos apresentados no conto e no longa-metragem superam a situação de extrema pobreza material em que vivem, bem como as adversidades a eles impostas pelos adultos. Para a realização da pesquisa, realizou-se um estudo acerca da poética e do alcance de trabalho dos irmãos Grimm e de Majid Majidí. As narrativas literária e cinematográfica ganham ora análises isoladas ora conjugadas, a fim de se observar, nesta correlação, as especificidades e as similaridades no tocante aos vínculos construídos pelos protagonistas das duas obras. Inúmeras são as adaptações literárias, em língua portuguesa, para \"João e Maria\", as quais atestam a relevância do clássico na perene formação do imaginário da criança, ao mesmo tempo em que abarcam o tema conflituoso da separação e do abandono no seio familiar; as produções de Majidí e demais cineastas iranianos que retrataram o lugar cultural das crianças no Oriente Médio manifestam, em meio à severa censura do regime político, a restrição econômica em consórcio com a inocência e os prematuros compromissos na fase da infância. Dentre os pressupostos teóricos e aportes críticos evocados no curso da dissertação, estão os de Vladimir Propp, Nelly Novaes Coelho e Maria Tatar, na área de literatura, e os de Jacques Aumont, Alessandra Meleiro e Marcel Martin na área do cinema. / The present dissertation aims at comparing the experience of complicity between the protagonists siblings of the fairy tale John and Mary (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm version) and the Iranian film Children of Heaven(directed by Majid Majidí [1998]). In spite of being situated in different historical-political-cultural contexts, both sibling couples , in the story and in the film, are able to overcome the situation of extreme material poverty in which they live, as well as the adversities imposed on them by adults. In order to carry out this research, a study was conducted on the poetic resourges and the scope of work of the brothers Grimm and Majid Majidí. The literary and cinematographic narratives gain either isolated analyses or a conjugated one, in order to observe, in this correlation, the specific details and the similarities regarding the bonds created by the protagonists of the two pieces of work. There are countless literary adaptations in Portuguese language for \"John and Mary,\" which show the relevance of the classic in the perennial formation of the imagination in children, at the same time it tackles the conflicting issue of separation and abandonment of the family; the productions of Majidí and other Iranian filmmakers who portrayed the cultural place of children in the Middle East manifest, the economic restriction together with the innocence and the premature commitments in chidhood at the time of severe censorhip of the political regime. Among the theoretical assumptions and critical contributions evoked in the course of the dissertation are those of Vladimir Propp, Nelly Novaes Coelho and Maria Tatar, in the area of literature, and those of Jacques Aumont, Alessandra Meleiro and Marcel Martin in the film area.