Dariush Mehrjui

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Darius Mehrjui (Persian: داریوش مهرجویی , born 8 December 1939 in Tehran) is Iran's long-time leading film director, screenwriter, producer, and film editor.[1]

As an Iranian New Wave cinema icon, Mehrjui is regarded to be one of the intellectual directors of Iranian cinema.[citation needed] Most of his films are inspired by literature and adopted based on Iranian and foreign novels and plays. Pari (1995), a reworking of J.D. Salinger's "Franny and Zooey" by Mehrjui, was legally threatened to not be shown at New York's Walter Reade Theater on the basis that it was unauthorized. [2]

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[edit] Early life and education

During Mehrjui's childhood, he showed interest in painting miniatures, music, and playing santoor and piano. As an adult, he moved to the United States and entered the University of California, Los Angeles' (UCLA) Department of Cinema. Jean Renoir was just one of many who taught Mehrjui. Eventually, he switched his major to philosophy and graduated from UCLA in 1964.[3]

[edit] Film career

Darius Mehrjui made his debut in 1966 with Diamond 33. His second featured film, Gaav, brought him national and international recognition.[4] Gaav, a compelling symbolic drama, is about a simple villager and his nearly mythical attachment to his cow. The story of the film was from renowned Iranian literary figure Gholamhossein Sa’edi. The film's score was composed by musician Hormoz Farhat. [5] In 1971, the film was smuggled out of Iran and submitted to the Venice Film Festival where, without programming or subtitles, it became the largest event of that year’s festival.[6] The film was a turning point in the history of Iranian cinema. The public received it with great enthusiasm, despite the fact that it had ignored all the traditional elements of box office attraction. Several of Iran's prominent actors (Ezatolah Entezami, Ali Nassirian, Jamshid Mashayekhi, and Jafar Vali) played roles in the film.[7]

In 1973 Mehrjui began directing what was to be his most acclaimed film. The Cycle was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture but encountered opposition from the Iranian medical establishment and was banned from release until 1977.[8] It was universally admired abroad.[citation needed] The film won the Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1978.[9] During this same time, Mehrjui found himself unable to work in Iran. He sojourned in California for a while before returning to Iran after the Iranian revolution. Mehrjui then directed The Backyard (1980). In 1981, he traveled to Paris and remained there for several years, during which he made a feature-length semi-documentary for French TV, Voyage au Pays de Rimbaud (1983). Feeling homesick, he returned to Tehran in 1985.

In Hamoon (1990), a portrait of an intellectual whose life is falling apart, Mehrjui sought to depict his generation's post-revolutionary turn from politics to mysticism. Hamoon was voted the best Iranian film ever by readers and contributors to the Iranian journal Film Monthly.[10] His follow-up film, 1997's Leila, is a melodrama about an urban, upper-middle-class couple who learn that the wife is unable to bear children.[11]

[edit] Cinematic style and legacy

Modern Iranian cinema begins with Dariush Mehrjui. Mehrjui introduced realism, symbolism, and the sensibilities of art cinema. His films have some resemblance with those of Rosselini, De Sica and Satyajit Ray, but he also added something distinctively Iranian, in the process starting one of the greatest modern film waves.[12]

The one constant in Mehrjui's work has been his attention to the discontents of contemporary, primarily urban, Iran. His latest film, The Pear Tree (1998), has been hailed as the apotheosis of the director's examination of the Iranian bourgeoisie.[13]

Since his film The Cow in 1969, Mehrjui, along with Nasser Taghvaee and Masoud Kimiai, has been instrumental in paving the way for the Iranian cinematic renaissance, so called the "Iranian New Wave."

[edit] Filmography (as a director)

The Cow
The Cow
  • Almaas 33 (aka Diamond 33), 1966
  • Gaav (aka The Cow), 1969
  • Postchi (aka The Postman), 1971
  • Aghaye Hallou (aka Mr. Naive), 1972
  • Dayereh mina (aka The Cycle), 1975 (released in 1978)
  • Hayate Poshti Madreseye Adl-e-Afagh (aka The School We Went To), 1980 (released in 1986)
  • Voyage au pays De Rimbaud (aka Journey to the Land of Rambo), 1983 (documentary in France)
  • Ejareh-Nesheenha (aka The Tenants), 1986
  • Shirak, 1988
  • Hamoun, 1990
  • Baanoo (aka The Lady), 1991 (released in 1998)
  • Sara, 1993
  • Pari, 1995
  • Leila, 1996
  • Derakhte Golabi (aka The Pear Tree), 1998
  • The Mix, 2000
  • Tales of an Island (segment "Dear Cousin Is Lost"), 2000
  • Bemani (aka To Stay Alive), 2002
  • Mehman-e Maman, 2004
  • Santoori, 2006

[edit] Awards

Mehrjui has received 49 national and international awards including:

  • Golden Seashell, San Sebastián International Film Festival 1993.
  • Silver Hugo, Chicago International Film Festival 1998.
  • Crystal Simorgh, Fajr Film Festival 2004.[14]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ Jonathan Lethem, "The Ecstasy of Influence", Harper's, February 2007, 59–71. p. 67–68.
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ [3]
  5. ^ [4]
  6. ^ [5]
  7. ^ [6]
  8. ^ [7]
  9. ^ [8]
  10. ^ [9]
  11. ^ [10]
  12. ^ [11]
  13. ^ [12]
  14. ^ [13]

[edit] External links

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