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Peripherality and Humor in the Iranian Art Film

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Chris Lippard
Chris Lippard*
Affiliation:
Film and Media Arts Department at the University of Utah
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Abstract

This paper examines a range of post-revolutionary Iranian art films, mostly those watched primarily outside the country via festival screenings, in the context of the relationship between the tropes of peripherality and humor. It argues for the significance and complexity of both terms in the context of this cinema and of the global image of Iran and its peoples. Having examined a kind of humor based on the geographic periphery, specifically derived from relationships between technology, car, and camera, it concludes by reflecting on the advent of new technologies, and social constraints and opportunities in the Iranian art cinema today.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 6: Visualizing Iran: From Antiquity to the Present , November 2017 , pp. 917 - 944
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2017

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