Description
Book SynopsisRelaying Cinema in Midcentury Iran investigates how the cultural translation of cinema has been shaped by the physical translation of its ephemera. Kaveh Askari examines film circulation and its effect on Iranian film culture in the period before foreign studios established official distribution channels and Iran became a notable site of world cinema. This transcultural history draws on cross-archival comparison of films, distributor memos, licensing contracts, advertising schemes, and audio recordings. Askari meticulously tracks the fragile and sometimes forgotten material of film as it circulated through the Middle East into Iran and shows how this material was rerouted, reengineered, and reimagined in the process.
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration and Titles
Introduction
1. An Afterlife for Junk Prints
Film Traffic and Regional Influence
Serials Out of Sync
Ironies of Appropriation
2. Circulation Worries
Sustenance: Engineering and Maintenance
Copyright: The Public Good and Creativity
License: Junk Prints and Affidavits of Destruction
Obsolescence: Dubbing Technologies and Leverage
3. Collage Sound as Industrial Practice
Founding and the Found
Archiving, Assembly, and Recognition
Temp Love, Out of Sync
Relaying the Popular Song
4. The Anxious Exuberance of Tehran Noir
The Crime Thriller as Currency in the Press
Currency Disputes
Aesthetic Standards and Scarce Resources
Modularity and Fluency
Mixed Signals of Kin and Home
5. Eastern Boys and Failed Heroes
Year of The Heroes
Failures of The Heroes
Kimiai’s First Film Cycle
Sponsorship, Nostalgia, and Collecting
Under the Sign of Rio Bravo
Coda
Notes
Index
