Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema. Terri Ginsberg
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alternative perspective on the national-cultural significance of Middle Eastern films to be considered here is the reemergence of Islam and Islamism, forces linking much of the region in ways that complicate and generally contrast frameworks that emphasize pan-national, pan-Arabist, and pan-African interconnections.
In his original essay, “Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capital” (1986), Jameson raises issues related to the relationship between cultural work—including cinema—and its national conditions of production. He argues that this relationship is allegorical: that is, that a subject and narrative stand in for or analogize figures and events associated historically with their country or region of origin. While Jameson’s critics commonly acknowledge the importance of his essay for encouraging Western film scholars to recognize the political and economic determining factors in much Third World culture, they have argued that his theory runs the danger of affirming prejudicial or otherwise unnuanced interpretations of works from the Third World by allowing readers/audiences to disregard such works’ formal properties and the specific traditions bound up with them. Thus, the danger is that readers/audiences are discouraged from recognizing the many individual and alternative means of responding to national and transnational conditions, such as those described above.
Critics have further suggested that, while Jameson is correct to point out that transnational exchange provides the parameters for First World/Western encounters with the non-West—including, in cinema, the kinds of coproductions discussed above—his argument implies that all Third World culture is primarily concerned with its relationship to the First World/West, either explicitly or unconsciously. This approach tends to position First World readers/spectators as a work’s main critical audience, thus inviting interpretations unfamiliar—and possibly inappropriate—to many local audiences. In fact, Jameson’s critics have argued, not all Third World or non-Western culture is primarily concerned with its relationship to the First World/West—although much evidently is; in any event, such concern is often articulated in terms, both aesthetic and conceptual, that speak more directly to non-Western peoples and that may therefore not be readily interpretable according to Western cultural and intellectual frameworks. Furthermore, while transnational capitalism and the nation-state are codependent functions of the modern world system, it does not necessarily follow that cultural responses and critiques of that system will always take a nation-centered form. For many Third World critics, ignoring these complex variables while interpreting culture for what Jameson calls a text’s “political unconscious” may result in acts of theoretical “violence” that can serve, if inadvertently, to support the (neo)colonial interests that have constrained non-Western cultures and societies for so long. As a critical countermeasure to these tendencies, we have striven to ensure that the historical dictionary’s entries on particular films and filmmakers do not make blanket presumptions about national or political concerns and have been careful to integrate descriptions and interpretations of them that will respect cultural differences while not eliding cross-cultural considerations and implications.
Scholarly analysis of Middle Eastern cinema has been practiced within many academic disciplines, using different approaches, but hails in part from area studies, a broadly interdisciplinary, Western academic field established and partly funded by the U.S. Department of State under the legislative act known as Title VI, first instituted in 1958 and renewed, often with significant emendations and changes of emphasis, every six years thereafter. Area studies’ wide scope, initially bolstered by Cold War imperatives—which, under the auspices of the U.S. Information Agency/Service, were also responsible for many film educational initiatives throughout the Middle East—has also sometimes tended to homogenize that region, thus running the risk of furthering orientalist views about it. One complex facet of this approach may be seen in contemporary debates over the status of women in the Middle East, especially in relation to a frequently misunderstood Islam, all too often treated as coterminous with the region. Framed commonly by social science paradigms of anthropology, ethnography, sociology, archaeology, and psychology, Middle Eastern women have often been positioned as needful of “modern” uplift and humanitarian rescue. Under this system, women and women’s issues are evaluated either according to universal models, such as those pertaining to social and reproductive roles or women’s rights—by which Middle Eastern societies are found deficient—or, conversely, by discourses limited to quite specific localities, which may all but foreclose debate on the subject. Both approaches fail to accommodate sufficiently the views of women in the region, something else we have also tried to redress in this historical dictionary.
A Note on What Is Not Here
This volume covers a broadly defined Middle East, as explained in the preface. Its reach has not been expanded to Central Asia, despite the relationship between Tajik and Persian and the Turkic languages that predominate in most of the other former Soviet republics. These countries maintain strong links to Russia, and their diasporic and exile communities are predominantly resident there. Afghanistan, an entry about which has been included, marks a special case, in that it has been incorporated into American conceptions of the Middle East by post–11 September 2001 discourse. In addition, parts of Afghanistan, especially the area around Herat in the west, have for long periods been part of historic Persia. We include an entry on the country, however, partially because of the involvement of Iranian filmmakers who, in working there, have tried to help reestablish cinema since the fall of the Taliban. At the other geographical extreme, we have drawn an imaginary line under the disputed territory of Western Sahara and do not include an entry on the largely Arab Muslim country of Mauritania—although we do have one on Abderrahmane Sissako because of his importance to the theorization of global neoliberalism, migration, and Islam. For similar reasons, our coverage does not extend to Chad in central Africa, although we include in the second edition of this volume an entry on the largely Arab country of Sudan in East Africa, where the very first stirrings of a revival in the cinema are only just occurring. This is not meant to imply that the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa are entirely distinct culturally or politically—as demonstrated by the pan-African production conditions referred to in the entry on Ousmane Sembene’s Camp de Thiaroye (1987). Finally, because their cinemas are still so little developed, neither Libya, another country embroiled in civil struggle so that possibilities for film production are severely circumscribed, nor the Gulf state of Oman have been given entries. This still leaves a plethora of engaging material in the compelling, interlinked, but distinctive entries on the cinemas of Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, and the diasporic and exilic cinemas associated with them, and on the increasing if uneven production in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
A
ABAZA, RUSHDI (1927–1980)
A muscular Italian Egyptian actor famed during the 1950s and 1960s as both the romantic lead and tough guy, Abaza was born into a wealthy family and was fluent in five languages. Although he had no prior experience in the theater, he was keen to act in cinema; his first small role was in the film The Little Millionairess (Kamal Karim, 1948). In 1950, he attempted to break into the Italian film industry but, meeting with no success, returned to Egypt to play several minor roles. Many saw him as having the potential to reach international fame (comparable to that achieved by Omar Sharif) because he played small roles in The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956) and In the Valley of the Kings (Robert Pirosh, 1954). With slicked-back hair and a trimmed moustache, Abaza’s suave appearance could easily become disheveled and—shirt off—raunchy during the course of a film. In The Road (Hossam Eddin Mostafa, 1966), Abaza’s role as Saber is split according to his relationship with two very different women—as played by Souad Hosni and Shadia.
Under the direction of Ezzedine Zulficar, Rushdi starred in some of his most notable roles, including Road of Hope (1957) and A Woman on the Road (1958). Typical for the industry, these films set the tone for Abaza’s subsequent performances. He was often cast as the sleazy individual with a good heart—and a tendency to drink, gamble, and engage in illicit love affairs. He played the role of a gangster in The Second Man (Zulficar, 1959), starring Samia Gamal and Sabah, and a strong