{"id":22454,"date":"2017-01-28T13:05:21","date_gmt":"2017-01-28T21:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qgp.ykq.mybluehost.me\/cinephiled\/?p=22454"},"modified":"2017-01-31T09:56:29","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T17:56:29","slug":"interview-iranian-director-asghar-farhadi-oscar-nominated-salesman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinephiled.com\/interview-iranian-director-asghar-farhadi-oscar-nominated-salesman\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Iranian Director Asghar Farhadi on His Oscar-Nominated \u2018The Salesman\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"salesman-poster\"When they are forced to move out of their flat, Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti), a young couple living in Tehran, are\u00a0forced to move into a new apartment.\u00a0However, once relocated, a sudden violent act, somehow linked to the apartment\u2019s previous tenant, dramatically changes the couple\u2019s life, creating a simmering tension between them,\u00a0even as the acting couple prepares to star in an Iranian production of Arthur Miller\u2019s Death of a Salesman<\/em>. Writer\/Director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Past<\/em>), a master at exposing domestic discord through his multi-layered films,\u00a0explores the psychology of vengeance and a relationship put under strain in his powerful new film, The Salesman (Forushande<\/em>). Time<\/em> magazine named 44 year-old Asghar Farhadi\u00a0one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world in 2012, after his film,\u00a0A Separation<\/em>, won the Oscar and Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, as well as numerous other awards.\u00a0The Salesman<\/em> is his seventh feature. I sat down with Farhadi and his translator in Los Angeles just before the president issued his executive order that\u00a0is preventing him from attending next month’s Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

Danny Miller: Your films are all so original \u2014 sometimes shockingly so. Did you start with the idea of contrasting what this couple is going through with the production of Death of a Salesman<\/em> that they\u2019re performing in, or did that idea come to you later?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"asghar-farhadi-the-salesman\"Asghar Farhadi: <\/strong>For a long time I\u2019ve been wanting to make a film that had something to do with the theater. I started with the basic idea of a couple working on a play and then something happens in their lives that prevents them from appearing on stage.<\/p>\n

How did you end up choosing Death of a Salesman<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I read a bunch of plays when I was trying to come up with what this couple was working on. I read a great number of plays until I got to Death of a Salesman<\/em>. I had read it 20 years earlier, but after rereading it I knew this was what I had to use. There are so many connections between this play and my story. For example, the old man we see at the end of the film with his wife is basically an Iranian Willy Loman. I started to see the play as a kind of a mirror to the story that happens to my main characters. The main thing that my story and the play have in common is the theme of humiliation.<\/p>\n

Is playwright Arthur Miller well known in Iran? Was that an existing translation of Death of a Salesman<\/em> or one you created for the film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arthur Miller is very well known in my country. Every few years there are new translations of Miller\u2019s play available in Iran. I think the last Arthur Miller production I heard about in Iran was a year ago \u2014 there are several production of American plays in Iran every year, they are very relevant to us and important.<\/p>\n

Your two leads, played by Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti, give such extraordinary performances in this film. Hosseini is amazing but I can\u2019t stop thinking about Alidoosti\u2019s quiet and complex portrayal \u2014 so many layers. What\u2019s your style with working with your actors \u2014 do they participate a lot in developing their characters?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I work a great deal with some of my actors, with others less so. I\u2019ve worked with Shahab on several films so we\u2019ve come to know each other\u2019s language. We did have a great deal of rehearsal for this film but it might interest you to know that the main thing I worked with them on was playing the parts of Willy and Linda Loman. It mattered very much to me that they should appear like real theater actors. The person I probably worked with the most was the actor who plays the old man who comes in at the end of the film. This character could have been the Achilles heel of my film \u2014 his acting had to be just right. What\u2019s important for me is that audiences watch my films and feel like they\u2019re seeing life. I always tell my actors to imagine that they are in a documentary!<\/p>\n

Our two countries have had a complex relationship, God knows, including\u00a0now. Another thing that I love about your movies is that it gives more Americans the chance to see Iranian characters who are 100% relatable and living lives so similar to our own. When you\u2019re making your movies, do you consciously think about how they might be perceived in other countries?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I am always aware of this but the reason I make films is never to demonstrate that we are like other people. In my opinion it\u2019s certain politicians and the media that have constructed this erroneous image. And there\u2019s certainly a segment of the Iranian population who may have erroneous impressions about Americans. When you look at these two peoples through the lens of politics, you end up with a very one-dimensional perspective. But it\u2019s very interesting \u2014 in terms of emotionality, I find that Iranians and Americans really resemble each other.<\/p>\n

\"Salesman\"<\/p>\n

As much as I completely related to this film and these characters, do you think there might be things about the story that we don\u2019t get the same way because of differences in our cultures?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that certain audiences may see some things as palpably as Iranian audiences. The sense of shame is something that is present for humans everywhere, but I feel that in my country and in some other countries in the East, it\u2019s stronger. So, for instance, when the woman doesn\u2019t directly explain to her husband what happened in the bathroom, I think it\u2019s something that may be more understandable to an Iranian audience than it is to an American audience.<\/p>\n

Oh, that\u2019s so interesting. I think that many of us may understand that scene but in a totally different way \u2014 using our awareness of how trauma can close people down emotionally, but not as a cultural thing. Another thing that I love about your movies is that there\u2019s never a black and white good versus bad, all the characters are way more complex than that. When you go to screenings around the world, do you get different reactions related to the morality of what\u2019s happening in the story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The feedback I\u2019ve received in America and Iran is very similar. There are also some differences in opinion with both audiences. In American and Iran, some audience members judge the main character for his desire for revenge and in the moment that he slaps the other man. But some people in both countries say that\u2019s the very least he should have done. But I found in Europe, for example, most of the people in the audience were completely against the slap.<\/p>\n

Fascinating<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s partly why I\u2019m saying that Iranians and Americans perhaps resemble each other more in terms of their emotions, I often have very similar reactions to my films in both countries as opposed to other parts of the world.<\/p>\n

I first saw the film just before our recent election and since then I\u2019ve been thinking about it differently, including the whole Willy Loman ethic that\u2019s going on that led to our current situation. Coming from a country where I assume you\u2019ve had similar issues with your government, do you have any advice for those of us now who are in disagreement with where we\u2019re headed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s only one way for the world to become a better place \u2014 and that is for humanity to be placed at the very top and for everything else to be placed below it. Without that, the world will never be a good place. When ideology is at the top of the pyramid and then humanity, the first thing that happens is that it divides the people into two distinct camps: Muslims and non-Muslims, Christians and non-Christians, and so on. Or imagine that politics is at the top and humans are beneath that. That will again start dividing people into camps: Americans, Mexicans, Iranians, Blacks, Whites, Immigrants, etc. I think that all of our struggles should be working to place humanity at the top of the pyramid.<\/p>\n

And a great way to do that is through art. I hope that filmmakers like you continue to help us get out of our polarized stances a little bit and look at human issues that cross all barriers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope that the this period ends up being a positive, beneficial experience for American society as it tries to become acquainted with itself.<\/p>\n