I Do Movies Badly: Introduction to Abbas Kiarostami (featuring filmmaker Benny Krown)
New York-based filmmaker Benny Krown joins Jim in conversation to discuss the late Iranian photographer/writer/director Abbas Kiarostami. Yes, they’re two white, American guys talking about an influential filmmaker from the Middle East, but as is often the case with art, some truths are universal. The boys talk about the different philosophical approaches to photography and filmmaking, what “duplicity of images” means, and how a film can be meta without being self-referential before diving into the recommendations: Like Someone in Love (2012), Certified Copy (2010), and Close-Up (1990). Sorry – no Koker Trilogy.
You refer to him as a “non-caucasian”, but the U.S government classifies Iranians as caucasians. The name of the country was even changed from “Persia” to “Iran” in order to emphasize their Aryan heritage. In middle/high school I had a friend who was half-Iranian and was visually indistinguishable from any of the other white kids.
Censorship is a very plausible reason for Iranian directors to work elsewhere, but it’s also common for a director successful on the “foreign film” circuit to move to the bigger English-speaking market.
Kiarostami’s “Ten” doesn’t have a sex-worker as its lead, but it does feature one as a passenger in the protagonist’s car, and they discuss her occupation.