Hamid Naï¬cy, 'Poetics and Politics of Veil, Voice and Vision in Iranian Post-revolutionary Cinema'
In: Veil: Veiling, Representation and Contemporary Art. Edited by David A. Bailey and Gilane Tawadros. Published by Institute of International Visual Arts in Association with Modern Art Oxford, 2003, pp. 136-159.
An extraordinary fact of Iranian post-revolution cinema is that more women feature-ï¬lm directors emerged in a single decade after the revolution than existed in all the country’s preceding eight decades of ï¬lm-making – and this in a patriarchal and traditional society ruled by an Islamist ideology that is highly suspicious of the corruptive influence of cinema on women and of women on cinema. Prior to the revolution, only one woman, Shahla Riahi, had directed a feature ï¬lm (Marjan, 1956). Today, a dozen women – all of whom have emerged since the revolution – are directing feature ï¬ction ï¬lms. [2] And there are many who direct documentaries, television series and serials, short subject ï¬lms and animated ï¬lms. This achievement was partly made possible by the incorporation of a complex system of modesty at all levels of the motion picture industry and in the cinematic texts. A major goal of this system was to disrupt the direct discursive link between the representation of women and the promotion of corruption, amorality and pornography which the pre-revolution cinema was said to have established.
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Self, Modesty and Gender Segregation In many non-Western societies with strong hierarchical and collective relationships, including Iran, the self is not fully individuated or uniï¬ed as it is purported to be in the West, but is thought to be familial and communal, deï¬ning itself foremost as part of a close-knit group. However, even in these societies, the self is not entirely communal or cohesive. Indeed, there exists a contradiction between an outer shell or public self and an inner core or private self, both of which are integral to the overall sense of the self. Psychologically, the core is supposed to be private, stable, intimate and reliable, while the exterior is construed to be unstable and unreliable, the domain of surfaces, corruption and worldly influences. [4] The self’s duality necessitates a boundary zone, which like a veil or a screen can protect the core from contamination from the outside and, acting similar to ‘screen memory’, [5] it can prevent the core from leaking to the outside.
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However, veiling as a social practice is not ï¬xed or unidirectional; instead, it is a dynamic practice in which both men and women are implicated. In addition, there is a dialectical relationship between veiling and unveiling: that which covers is also capable of uncovering. In practice, women have a great deal of latitude in how they present themselves to the gaze of the male onlookers, involving body language, eye contact, type of veil, clothing worn underneath the veil and the manner in which the veil itself is fanned open or closed at strategic moments to lure or to mask, to reveal or to conceal the face, the body, or the clothing underneath. Shahla Haeri aptly notes the dynamic relationship that exists between veiling and vision:
[N]ot only does the veil deny the penetrating male gaze, it enables women to use their own judiciously. Because men and women are forbidden to socialize with each other, or to come into contact, their gazes ï¬nd new dimensions in Muslim Iran. Not easily controllable, or subject to religious curfew, glances become one of the most intricate and locally meaningful means of communication between the genders. [7]
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Inscribing Averted Look and Direct Gaze in Cinema Cinema created a serious ideological crisis for the Islamic Republic, for it threatened to break down or seriously problematise the prevailing Islamic barriers of gender segregation, modesty and veiling during ï¬lm production (on the set), during exhibition (on the screen) and during reception (in cinemas). In all these situations, unrelated women and men have to work together in situations of intimacy and professionalism – producing ï¬lms; appearing on screen together; and watching ï¬lms together as cinema audiences. Cinema posed an additional threat because its stories made the private and intimate lives of its subjects public, therein countering the whole ideology and practice of modesty and veiling.
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In the classical Hollywood cinema style, the spectator is made ‘invisible’ through various strategies of mise-en-scène, shot composition and continuity editing which do not acknowledge the presence of the spectators – thus turning them into voyeurs. [18] However, the spectators are not just subjects of the ï¬lm texts and their relationship to the ï¬lm is not merely textual or psychological but also social. The rules of modesty and veiling, therefore, impact not only upon the poetics of Iranian ï¬lms but also upon the politics of the ï¬lms’ reception by spectators. Spectators are considered to be structurally unrelated to the persons projected on the screen and thus must be treated as if they were present at the time of ï¬lming. This necessitates that women and men within the diegesis observe the rules of modesty and codes of dress, gaze, voice and behaviour in relationship not only to each other but also to the spectators. As unrelated persons, spectators cannot be privy to unveiled women on the screen or to intimate moments between them and their male counterparts, involving exchanges of amorous gazes and erotic contacts (touching, hugging, or kissing). This forces the actors playing the parts of husband and wife in the privacy of their bedroom, for example, to behave as though they were not alone and not related. Thus, in Iranian cinema the spectator is encoded in the ï¬lm’s diegesis by strategies of editing and suture and is inscribed in the proï¬lmic situation by Islamic codes of modesty. While the former is designed to make invisible the machination of ideology, the latter is calculated to make it manifest. This unusual and contradictory situation presents a real dilemma for directors and actors, male and female.
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[2] They are: Tahmineh Ardekani (died in a plane crash in 1995), Faryal Behzad, Rakhshan Banietemad, Marziyeh Borumand, Puran Derakhshandeh, Zohreh Mahasti Badii, Samira Makhmalbaf, Yasmin Maleknasr, Marziyeh Meshkini, Tahmineh Milani, Kobra Saidi and Maryam Shahriar.
[4] Beeman, William. Language, Status, and Power in Iran. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.
[5] Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, translated by James Strachy, London, 1953-73, vol. III, p. 307)
[7] Haeri, Shahla. Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi’i Iran, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1989, p. 229.
[18] Metz, Christian. The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.