Bahram Beyzaie is one of Iran’s leading playwrights and auteur filmmakers. This book examines several of Beyzaie’s films and plays and their preoccupation with the modalities and transformations of Iranian contemporary, historical and mythical identity from different perspectives. The chapters analyse Beyzaie’s influential plays such as Arash and So Dies Pahlevan Akbar and his filmic magnum opuses such as The Crow, Bashu, the Little Stranger and Killing Mad Dogs from a range of critical perspectives including ecofeminist, sociopolitical, new-historicist, archetypal and psychoanalytical readings. They also explore Beyzaie’s dialogue with filmic genres such as noir, different Iranian languages such as Gilaki, Iranian epics and ritual practices such as ta’ziyeh plays and javanmardi chivalry cults. Together, the chapters show how Beyzaie’s works negotiate narratives of belonging and undermine the dominant exclusionist discourses in Iran, and how they use the resources of Iranian folk and performance traditions to comment on the position of women, children, intellectuals, and minorities in society.
Chapter 1
Bahram Beyzaie: A Critical Introduction (Saeed Talajooy, University of St Andrews, UK)
Chapter 2
The Genealogy of Arash, A Hero: from Naqqali to Beyzaie’s Recitation Plays and from Arash The Mythical Hero to Beyzaie’s Marginalized Arash (Saeed Talajooy)
Chapter 3
A Pahlevan’s Dreams of Belonging: Reconfiguration of The Ideals of Heroism in Bahram Beyzaie’s So Dies Pahlevan Akbar (Saeed Talajooy)
Chapter 4
The Challenges of Centre and Margin: Beyzaie’s Cooperation with The Institute for The Intellectual Development of Children And Young Adults for Uncle Moustache, Journey, And Bashu, The Little Stranger (Amir-Hosein Siadat, Curator of the Art and Experience of Cinema, Tehran, Iran)
Chapter 5
The Language of Nature and Earth: An Ecocritical Reading of Stranger and The Fog, Ballad of Tara, and Bashu, The Little Stranger (Fatemeh-Mehr Khansalar, Independent Scholar, UK)
Chapter 6
Bashu’s Other Names: A Study of Bashu’s Identity in Bashu, The Little Stranger (Naghmeh Samini, Assistant Professor of Dramatic Arts, University of Tehran, Iran, and Affiliate Assistant Professor, University of Washington, USA)
Chapter 7
The Cinematic Translation of Ta?ziyeh in Beyzaie’s Travellers (Farshad Zaehdi, Senior Lecturer, University Carlos III de Madrid, Spain)
Chapter 8
Crime Thriller Elements in Bahram Beyzaie’s Films (Parviz Jahed, University of St Andrews, UK)
Chapter 9
Multilinguality in Iranian Cinema: A Comparative Analysis (Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad, Lecturer of Media and Film, SOAS, University of London, UK)
Chapter 10
Little Strangers: Representations of Displaced Youth in Iranian New Wave Cinema (Nina Khamsy, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland)
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