Reading Response 2

1. I think Bransford meant by his claim spaces and places in Kiarostami's films are both real and imagined for a couple of reasons, one reasons would be the sounds in the film and images are real images and sounds that are realistic, meaning they correspond with each other and some one would be able to see them in the actual real world. An example would be a car, and its horn, that really happens and the sound from the car horn is realistic.
2. The function that comes from repetition of locations that serve both within individual films and between films are a fundamental method that Kiarostami uses to establish places. Bransford means by "visual rhymes" that Kirostami references his own work in his films not works of others. The analogy with poetry is the associative logic that links two shots together.
3.Kirostami stage most of his action outside because it is more realistic. Instead of having to make an indoor place work and make it look like it is being shot outside, he actually just shots the shoots outside. This way too he can focus his shots on the real public life, real people doing real things outdoors. It affects his visual style by leaving what happens indoors to the viewers imagination.
4. Regional fiction is related to Kirostami's conventions by understanding the place of where he is shooting, the location and the people who live in that area. (A little confused because the article goes onto say Kirostami's "view of the place of these villages within broader spatial context is rather bleak." -- the whole concept of regional fiction is the examination of rural spaces through an outsider, I get the audience or viewer can be the outsider, but wouldn't saying it was bleak take away from the exploration of spaces, because if something is bleak, that would make it boring to observe)
5. The logic, I think behind the quote is that he has not taken a stance in his films trying to persuade the audience to feel a certain way politically, rather he shows the real community, how the women are like in everyday life, what is going on with the boys at school, the problems they are facing- like their parents can not help them with their homework, making it harder for them to complete it at home, politically people would want to make a difference to help children get the best education they could get, some how fixing this problem of kids not being able to do their homework at home, since some of their parents can't read.

Reading Response 1

1. The five areas in which art cinema generally distinguishes itself from Hollywood cinema are: art cinema would address issues of cinematic aesthetics and practices; display formal innovations; include social and psychological realism; affirm certain directors as auteur; disturb classic realist narrative codes and conventions, as well as temporal and spatial constructions.
2. Tay, I think suggests that Kiarostami’s reception in the West relates to these five areas by directly addressing cinema practices and aesthetics as well as question the notion of realism, through reflexivity. Kiarostami’s reflexivity is transparent as director in the foreground of some of his films.
3. Ayatollah Khomeini’s attitude toward the cinema he didn’t like the cinema that was brought to Iran from Europe, however he did like that “cinema is a modern invention that ought to be used for the sake of educating the people. It is the misuse of the cinema that we are opposed to.” Basically he liked the cinema as an education tool, not as a vehicle for leisure or enjoyment.
4. Two significant policy changes after the appointment of Mohammed Khatami as the head of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Orientation were: less taxes on Iranian films, the government reduced films from 15% to 5%.; loans were held at a lower interest rate for making and distributing; and censorship eased up making it easier for more Iranian films to be shown.
5. Domestic audiences for Iranian films rose from one million to 7.6 million in 1983, because of the Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran. This festival provided a significant promotion of Iranian film. Instead of the audiences going to see foreign films they went and saw their own films.
6. The significance of cutting the sound track during the school prayer in Homework to spare the audience of hearing the prayer again, in an non devout way.
7. The Locarno Festival was a turning point for Kiarostami’s career.
8. Frodon considers Kiarostami’s Prix Rossellinin and Prix Fellini awards to be paradoxical, one focus on constructed cinema, the other opposes that construction. (I think)
9. Some changes during the “moderate liberalization” of the Rafsanjani presidency after 1989, was the Hezbollah movement. This movement encourage film industry to illustrate social injustices and the ‘privileges and anachronisms of the former regime. They “encouraged Iranian directors to test the limits of state censorship.
10. According to Frodon, the Kiarostami retrospective at the 1995 Locarno Film Festival helped shape the reception of Kiarostami’s work in the West because it made some people who watched the film, spread the word of this director Kiarostami, in a positive light.
11. The excerpt of Homework was interesting. All the kids seemed afraid to tell what they were really thinking to adults. It is not surprising, the children’s comments though considering the way they are being raised, and the society they live in. The one boy however, who had trouble concentrating, and cried with out his buddy in the room; I feel maybe there was something more there going on other than he just could not concentrate. If a little kid is that scared to be in a room with a group of adults, it raises red flags. It was interesting to see the boys in the play yard, all lined up in perfect lines, but when shown on film when they thought no one was looking, they were just being boys by joking around with each other.