Essay: A Time For Many Words – Canon Formation, National Unity and ‘The Travelling Players’

Invariably, any appraisal of Theodoros Angelopoulos’ 1975 film The Travelling Players makes note of its length—230 minutes, to be precise—as well as it’s ostentatious style—it consists of just 80 shots, almost all of which are sequence shots and hardly any are tighter than a medium close-up. Continue reading Essay: A Time For Many Words – Canon Formation, National Unity and ‘The Travelling Players’

On Bodies: ‘The House Is Black’ and the Politics of Corporeal Representation(s)

In his essay “The Queen of Sheba,”1 Iranian critic Hesam Amiri recounts the reactions that The House Is Black (1963) received from reviewers upon its release. The common thread among all of the predominantly negative reviews was that the film was deemed “too feminine” or (contradicting the prior claim) that it was not actually directed by Forough Farrokhzad, but by her partner, the prominent filmmaker and writer Ebrahim Golestan… Continue reading On Bodies: ‘The House Is Black’ and the Politics of Corporeal Representation(s)