"Houshang Golshiri: Iranian writer and activist"
Houshang Golshiri, one of Iran's leading secular writers and a prominent advocate of free speech and human rights in his homeland, died on June 5 in Tehran. He was 63 and lived in Tehran.
The cause was meningitis, said a friend, Abbas Milani, who teaches at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, Calif.
Mr. Golshiri wrote fiction, essays and literary criticism. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, professor of Persian language and literature at the University of Washington, said that beginning in 1982, "when the new Islamic republic of Iran began its campaign of terror" against intellectuals who departed from Islamic orthodoxy, his work could not be published in Iran.
But Prof. Karimi-Hakkak said hat Mr. Golshilri's work had been "tolerated there" since the election of President Mohammad Khatami in 1997, which ushered in a more permissive political climate.
Mr. Golshiri was an outspoken political activist for decades, advocating recognition of intellectual freedoms and opposing censorship.
He was a leader in efforts to revive the Iranian Writers' Association. "For his part in this effort," said Mr. Milani, who is chairman of his college's history and political science department, Mr. Golshiri "had to face not only the overt threats of the Islamic regime but the covert, murderous work of its death squads."
In 1998, several intellectuals were slain by what the current government said were rogue elements in the ministry of intelligence.
The killings led Mr. Golshiri's sympathizers to fear that he, too, would be slain.
"Writers still feel the threat of murder," Mr. Golshiri said in an interview last year.
Mr. Golshiri "was definitely the most significant sophisticated fiction writer of his generation in Iran," Prof. Karimi-Hakkak said. "His works were urbane, complicated and extremely intricate in their narrative technique. Those of us who study Persian literature from an academic vantage point consider him a lasting voice in 20th-century Persian fiction."
Mr. Golshiri was particularly admired for his novel Prince Ehtejab, which came out in Iran in the mid-1960s.
In the book, Mr. Milani said, the author "captured, more poignantly than any other Persian novelist, the pathos and pathologies of Iran's traditional society."
The novel was made into an Iranian movie that won praise in the United States.
Mr. Golshiri was born in southern Iran, the son of a blue-collar worker in the oil industry, and received a bachelor's degree in Iranian literature from the University of Isfahan.
He went on to be, in the l960s, one of the original founders of the writers' association. In 1971, he was briefly imprisoned by the government of Iran's last shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, for having been active in the association, which voiced opposition to the shah, and for writing short stories that the government considered a veiled form of political opposition.
Some of the association's members were arrested during the shah's reign, and as a result it went out of existence for some years in the 1970s.
The association was revived again some months ago, with Mr. Golshiri as one of its leaders.
He leaves his wife, a daughter and a son.
Eric Pace, New York Times, June 2000 |
Golshiri and Film
In the 1960’s Hooshang Golshiri taught high school literature in Isfahan, a major and historical city in Iran. Nemoneh high school, a school the author also attended, was located in a lower middle class neighborhood. Golshiri using an unorthodox method of teaching brought new ideas into the classroom. This was taking place during a time when teachers were synonymous to gods in the classroom, and could only discuss required government textbooks. Discussing modern and progressive literature and poetry, he inspired a number of future writers and poets who emerged as unlikely artists in Iran. Interestingly enough, he also discussed film in his classroom, something unheard of in a high school setting. He held film analysis sessions after requiring students to watch art films like Antonioni’s Blow up (being screened in the city’s movie theatres). Some of us who were not enrolled in his classes sneaked out of our own classrooms to attend these sessions whenever he discussed film. He made an attempt at directing Gholamhossein Saedi’s play, Roofs and Under-roofs (Baamha va Zeer-e Baamha, 1966) with a cast of his high school students, but it was immediately stopped by the secret police because of Golshiri’s subversive status. In the early seventies he agreed to stage an experimental play based on his short story, the Second Infallible (Masoom-e Dovvom). Actors from National Iranian Radio and Televsion Organization Cultural Center collaborated with Golshiri under the direction of Shamsi Fazlollahi. The play was staged privately for selected groups, and never made it to a public stage.
Golshiri, a prolific writer and a literally critic once mentioned that he had read all the books in the library of College of Literature at Isfahan University. Perhaps he made this statement to secure his rightfully earned place in the modern Iranian literature. Those who have read his works on literary criticism can testify to his vast knowledge of Persian and world literature. Perhaps that was enough reason for him not only to continue his own writing, and in a way mind his own business, so to speak, but also to feel an obligation to dispense his knowledge and share his ideas with the younger generation for the good of the Persian literature. His elliptical yet profoundly charged-with -meaning style of storytelling is seemingly lucid. Yet his analytical language is scholarly and elegant. Those of us, who had the privilege of being in his presence at one time or other, could see that behind his modest appearance and incredible sense of humor there was a genius and a creative mind that elicited admiration and envy. May his memories be brightened, as he said about the late Ali Hatami, the prominent Iranian director.
One can divide Hooshang Golshiri’s cinema related works into commentary on prominent Iranian filmmakers’ works, interviews about films made based on his works, screenplays or stories written for film, and films made based on his stories. He wrote on the cinematic language of three major Iranian directors of his time, the late Ali Hatami, Massoud Kimia'ei, and Nasser Taghvaei. The interviews mainly cover his collaboration with Bahman Farmanara on two feature films, Prince Ehtejab and Tall Shadows of Wind. Antique House was originally written for film adaptation prior to the revolution but was published after the film script did not make it through the government censors. Twelve Faces (Davazdah Rokh), his only screenplay, was written in 1988 and was published in 1990. The story takes place during the devastating Iran-Iraq war. The main character, Aghajan, is a sixty something year old man, traveling from Isfahan to Tehran in search of his college friends who years ago acted in a play based on a story in Ferdousi’s Book of Kings, tilted Twelve Faces. Once in Tehran, Aghajan stays with his son and his family and strikes up a friendship with his grandchildren while reading to them from the Book of Kings. His search for his friends is a bittersweet venture of life and death. With the war as its background, the script is a sociopolitical commentary. As usual, the language is witty and elegant, and Golshiri’s technique is genuine and enigmatic. It is reported that Golshiri wrote the screenplay at the onset of his illness to somehow cope with his fear of death.
Clearly Hooshang Golshiri was aware of the impact of film on the audiences, yet his shortened life did not permit him to fully develop his vision for a cinematic expression. The two feature films based on his published works demonstrate his understanding of the potential of film. Golshiri's interest in film language is further evidenced in an outline script he sketched for a short documentary called Stick holders of Finn which was made by the author based on an annual religious ceremony in Mash’had Ardehal, near Kashan province. Golshiri’s spontaneity in coming up with a visual plan to edit the footage after watching the event and tell a story without a voiceover fascinated the crew. Later on Mansour Koushan, also one of the high school students, following his instructions, wrote the final script. The film was shot in 1974 on 16 mm black and white.
(Show excerpt of the film)
This paper focuses on two feature films based on Golshiri’s stories and the aesthetics values in comparison to the original stories. To objectively examine the films’ merit it is important to offer a summary of Golshiri’s views on storytelling in film and literature. In an article (Dramatic Structure, Plot and Narrative in Short Story, Film magazine, No. 108,1994) Golshiri has outlined his ideas on the structure of a story that also apply to film script. He summarizes that: despite new theories of structuralism and post-structuralism the classic division of a story into three different parts is still valid: All stories have a beginning, middle and end, or an exposition, conflict leading to a climax, and a resolution. However modern short stories may only propound the conflict /climax without a clear exposition and resolution. In other words, the modern story may only introduce an imaginary plot and instead of reporting or imitating the reality, present a reality based on the narrator’s point of view and ultimately a new reality shaped by a model sometimes visible (Film Magazine, No 108, 1991). He also commented that a story with the help of a plot demands reasoning and the intelligence on the part of the reader while at the same time engaging him/her in an entertaining fashion. Perhaps more importantly is his belief in storytelling technique, which in his opinion has priority over the content, since, as he argues, it is indeed the creative technique of a writer that makes a story a success or a failure. The reader, through the story form, a form that is chosen by the author, conceives the content, not the other way around (Adineh, No 50, 51 1990). Another important element in Golshiri’s technique is the element of doubt and skepticism in narrating a story (Ayandeghan, 1970).
Golshiri had commented more specifically on the realm of film by stating, “…In adapting a literary work into film from the beginning, the differences between the two media must be considered. These differences are in the requirements and domains of the film and the story.”(Picture World, No. 62, 1998). On the filmmaker’s role, he noted that a film director who assumes audiences as passive is not a real director, and someone who cannot create a form for a work of art, couldn’t be called an artist (Picture, No 63, 1998).
Golshiri’s role in writing the scripts for the two feature films implies his influence on the making of the films according to his principles. The first feature film, Prince Ehtejab (Shazde Ehtejab) was produced and directed by Bahaman Farmanara in 1974 and was financed by Telefilm, a division of National Iranian Radio and television Organization. The second film “The Tall Shadows of Wind (Sayeha-ye Bolande Baad) was also produced and directed by Bahman Farmanara and financed by “ Iranian Cinema Industry Development Company.” in 1978.
Prince Ehtejab was first published in 1968 and became an overnight success in the literary world in Iran. The story is about a dying Ghadjar prince as he remembers the events of his life, during the last night of his life, before his former servant delivers the news of his death. At the end, he may have realized that his cruelty toward his sick wife, and his attempts to get to know her through turning the family maid into a copy of his wife is nothing less than the crimes of his great grandfather, grandfather, or his father. Golshiri has delivered a remarkably complex style of storytelling with impeccable detail, a masterpiece in modern Iranian literature. Adaptation of such a novelette for film seemed highly problematic. Matching Golshiri’s style of writing in bringing the characters into life was also a formidable task. Nonetheless Bahman Farmanara, a graduate of USC film school without a very impressive background in filmmaking at that time, approached Golshiri for the rights of the film adaptation. Golshiri having had offers from other renowned filmmakers decided to work with Farmanara. But before that happened, Farmanara had to go through a test of trust with Golshiri’s literary friends in Isfahan who questioned him on the merit of his offer and his understanding of the book. The film was produced and it won the first prize at the Third Tehran International Film Festival in 1975, and later was shown in other international film festivals around the world. It received mixed reviews from Iranian critics, yet the film with its impressive black and white cinematography serves the film space well. The director’s selection of one of the best ensembles of cast and crew in Iranian film industry, would overrule the doubts about the success of the film.
Golshiri and Farmanara co-wrote the script for the film, and according to Golshiri there is only one scene at the end, which is not in the book, that was added by the director. In the scene Morad, the former servant and the bearer of the death news, will get up from his wheelchair and break the ancestral pictures on the wall with his crutches. As Golshiri had stated in an interview, and I can corroborate his statement since I worked on the project as production assistant, he was very much involved in the shooting of the film. At the beginning of the production, Golshiri was present and consulted Farmanara during the shooting. Later on to minimize his apparent influence on the making of the film, these meetings took place outside of the shooting locations. Both the story and the film suggest the demise of a totalitarian rule. At the time with a monarchy still in place in Iran, the political implications were obvious, and similarities made the film an unlikely success in the box office, when every industry expert predicted a flop.
The story has several narrators including the author, the Prince, his wife Fakhronesa, and their maid Fakhri. Although the film establishes the Prince as the main narrator, the rest of the characters play a role in narrating the story except Fakhronesa, who is the focus of much of the spying and psychological torture. Of course the camera is the narrator in the scenes where the Prince is not present. Therefore the main element in the story is the use of first-person narrator, in which an internal monologue represents the thoughts of the main character; a Freudian technique called “stream of consciousness.” This technique could be used to accomplish several purposes: Reveal characters, advance the plot; convey conflict; provide exposition; foreshadow impending events; and connect scenes and provide the story with continuity (DiMaggio, 1990). At the very beginning of Prince Ehtejab, the author sets the stage for a narrative flowing from the mind of the Prince as he is sitting in the solitude of his room reminiscing about the past:
“Prince Ehtejab had sunk into the same rocking
chair and had rested his warm forehead in his
hands and was coughing. His maid and then
his wife came up once. Fakhri opened the door halfway,
but as soon as she tried to turn the light on, she
heard the sound of Prince’s foot on the ground
and ran downstairs. Farokhnesa came up too, and the
Prince pounded his foot again.”
Hereon Golshiri’s style conforms to mind games as it shifts from one thought to another providing the reader with pieces of information that eventually build up to a whole. The film follows the same structure avoiding explicit scenes, even when violence and gore are present, leaving it to the audience’s imagination and staying on track to tell the main story, rather than unnecessarily side tracking or provoking the audience. Instead, the film successfully builds up the internal suspense of the plot before it brings the demise of the Prince, and consequently his time. The storytelling is subtle, with rather stationary camera work, and skillfully composed scenes, and the director meticulously communicates metaphoric meaning by set design, costumes and stunning lighting. Even when minimal camera movement is used, it serves the content of the scene.
The technical possibilities of cinematic storytelling with its vivid and succinct images, and the flow of time in the immediate present, present, past and distant past lend themselves to the story. As it may be very difficult to switch between times in a story without a premise, in film, a change in the scene such as change of one element of a scene, light, props, costume and make up easily suggest the elapse of time. Golshiri in the book seamlessly cuts from one thought to another, going back and forth between present and past. In two pages Golshiri manages to cover three deaths in the span of decades. The death of the grandfather, the grandmother, and the father (Price Ehtejab, second Persian edition pp 32-34). In the film three shots see the Prince’s age progression, which signifies the same idea. Golshiri also emulates the cinematic language by using the most economical techniques in story telling. For example, to convey the death of the Prince’s father, he only writes, "The father was not holding Prince’s hand.” A page before this sentence, he had written about the grandfather’s death, and the fact that Prince’s father had held Prince’s hand during his grandfather’s funeral. The film clarifies some of the most complex narration within narration, and time within time, as a pictorial representation, as well as the doubts of the third-person narrator. As in all of Golshiri’s works, the third-person narrator is not the absolute knower. Similar to the story, the film follows the doubts of the characters as they recall the events of the past. One of the most gripping scenes is when the Prince is questioning Fakhri, the maid, about his wife Fakhronesa. Here the camera follows the Prince on a half-circle track as he walks behind Fakhri sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, implying a long and tedious interrogation.
(Show excerpts of the film)
In conclusion, Prince Ehtejab successfully avoids cinematic sensationalism, and stays loyal to the message and the technique of the story proving that literature and film can complement each other with their own characteristics and possibilities. The film is the first successful Golshiri experiment with cinema and a testimonial of his awareness of cinema techniques in storytelling.
The Tall Shadows of the Wind a feature film based on Golshiri’s four-page story (The First Infallible) is faithful to the book also. Golshiri’s name is listed on the film’s opening credits as co- scriptwriter. The pre-revolution government of Iran immediately banned public screenings of the film. It was first screened at Cannes film festival Critic’s Week in 1979, and then at the London film Festival. The post-revolution government after a few days of screening banned it again. The film has a linear plot in which the inhabitants of a village install a scarecrow to protect their farms at the beginning of a new season. Strangely enough, the scarecrow (Hassani in the story and the film) soon dominates the lives of the people, as if it was a living thing, in a series of extraordinary events leading up to terrorizing the people, and with deadly consequences. Here the story and the film differ in the ending. In the story, which is written in the form of a letter by the village’s school principal/ teacher to his brother in the city, like most of the Golshiri’s stories, the doom is prevalent, but in the film made at the dawn of the 1979 revolution, the main character, Abdullah, the village’s bus driver, dreams of destroying the multiplied scarecrows with an army of villagers, symbolically suggesting the victory of the people over the authoritative rule. Abdullah represents the masses and the principal/teacher represents the intellectuals. The scarecrow gradually grows into an authoritative being and claims one victim after another, before becoming the subject of fear and finally worship. Abdullah, the bus driver, and the principal’s approach in solving the problem are different; one is bold and courageous and the other paralyzed and undefined. At the end of the film, but not the story, Abdullah (representing the people) symbolically passes the torch to the principal (the intellectual). Political and religious symbols are abundant, a trend in Iranian cinema. These political and religious implications led to the banning of the film by both regimes.
The Tall Shadows of the Wind, a feature film made based on a four-page story challenged Golshiri and Farmanara to write a script with a plot based on the characters not fully developed in the short story. Unfortunately, because of political overtones of the film, the characters are sketchy and plot development for a film in the suspense genre, remains immature. The audience is more likely to infer political and religious meaning from the well lit and composed images, but the plot has lost its strength and the conflict between the main characters, Abdullah, the principal and the Scarecrow fails to convincingly develop into a climax. The rhythm and the pace of the film, although slow to depict the placidity of the village, is erratic, monotonous and lacks the mounting energy of a suspense film, a feature overwhelmingly present in the story.
Using long shots, and avoiding close ups, suggests Golshiri’s principle in storytelling; the narrator is uncertain and doubtful of his facts and findings. In the film, for example, when the principal is witnessing the cleansing of the scarecrow by one of the village women, a very long shot is used, depicting the principal’s point of view, without cutting to a closer shot for a better view. Thus the camera is not the absolute knower.
Here again, as was the case with Prince Ehtejab the film relies on the audience’s imagination by providing only crucial information. There are a number of one and two- minute long shots, where the camera as a passive observer, allows the audience to absorb the calmness before the storm. In one of the key scenes, the first encounter between Abdullah and the scarecrow, Abdullah draws a face for the scarecrow, symbolically instilling life and character into it. Stones thrown at him by an unidentified source disturbs Abdullah’s drinking at the spring. The scarecrow is the only suspicious thing present at a distance. Abdullah picks up one of the stones and begins to walk toward the scarecrow. The camera follows him in a long shot, accompanied by epic music, suggesting pending confrontation.
(Show excerpts of the film)
The director and the crew have diligently spent a great deal of time on set design, color and lighting to imply religious and political meanings. The repeated zooming shot in the dark inside of the fortress, the chair and sword placement on the top of a dark tunnel, the color of the scene changing gradually from saturated and bright to de-saturated and pale at the end, all coincide with the gradual domination of the scarecrow.
Between "Prince Ehtejab” and “Tall Shadows of the Wind,” Golshiri and Farmanara agreed to collaborate on another film. Golshiri wrote Jobbeh Khaneh (Antiques Room), a story for film in 1974, but the script written by Farmanara never made it through the government censors, and the film was canceled. In 1983 Golshiri published the revised story.
There is no doubt that Golshiri’s interest in film and immediacy of the medium in reaching mass audiences would have kept him engaged in Iranian cinema. His sudden passing deprived Iranian literature and cinema from this rare talent. May his soul rest in peace.
Reza Poudeh, Texas Southern University, For presentation at the 39th Annual Middle East Studies Association Conference, Nov. 19-22, Washington, DC. |
