JERRY AND ME: What do an Iranian woman and Jerry Lewis have in common?

[WI_DEM]

A full-time faculty member in the Film and Video Department at Columbia College Chicago, Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa is a major voice in the study of Iranian cinema, having written extensively on the subject and collaborated with critic Jonathan Rosenbaum on one of the definitive books about Abbas Kiarostami. She is also an accomplished director, and her new essay film, Jerry and Me, is a cinephilic love letter to the larger-than-life comic talent that came to embody the "essence of America" to her in her teenage years. The film offers a bittersweet, deeply personal examination of issues Saeed-Vafa has grappled with throughout her work as an academic, including gender and national/cultural belonging.

Jerry and Me will screen at BAMcinemaFest on Sunday, June 24 at 4pm along with a pristine IB Technicolor 35mm print of The Disorderly Orderly, starring Lewis and directed by Frank Tashlin. Saeed-Vafa will be in attendance for a Q&A. Here she speaks with us about what drew her to the great comedian, the place of Hollywood in Iranian movie-going culture, and some of her favorite Jerry Lewis gags.

Could you describe your experience of seeing a Jerry Lewis film for the first time?

I liked him right away. He became the icon of an American man for me. He was a sweet, warm, caring, gentle, good-looking young man. He was a man, but he had the persona of a child, very easy to identify with. He made me forget about myself and my world. It was pure fun. The world of his films, especially his Technicolor ones, was a fantastic world. It was an image of America and American houses and towns—very colorful and spacious, a very different world for me.
The world of his films was warm and fearless and he was absolutely hilarious.

http://bam150years.blogspot.com/2012/06/q-with-mehrnaz-saeed-vafa-director-of.html

[MADem]

1. Iranians do love the cinema. The theaters were always packed before the revolution.

When the revolution was bubbling up, some asshole fundy Khomeini-ites thought that the influence of western film was so nefarious that they set a cinema in Abedan on fire and blocked the exits, killing hundreds. Then they tried to blame it on the Shah, even though the film being shown was one that the fundies would not have endorsed. After they gained power, they rounded up a couple of handy "likely suspects" who of course, were associated with the old government. They even killed a couple of guys with airtight alibis for the crime, even though they had nothing to do with it. The families of the dead, though, even the ones who didn't particularly care for the old regime, knew that the whole "Blame Shah" thing did not pass the smell test, and years later after a lot of squawking they finally persuaded the new regime to reopen an investigation. Amnesty International and agencies like that were making noise about this as well. The end result was that the refusal of the families to sit down/shut up/go away brought the guy(s) who did the deed to trial and, in typical "revolutionary" fashion, a public execution.

Before Nahn Wun Wun changed everything, that was one of the most horrific acts of terrorism in the modern world. After that, the bombings, fires, and executions of people who operated bars, sold liquor, catered to mixed couples, etc., started to ramp up. People stopped going out as much, there were curfews all over, it was a very oppressive atmosphere.

Anyway, I can relate to this woman's POV. Another actor who was VERY popular in Iran before the Rev was Lucy. I Love Lucy ran on TV in the afternoon every single day, dubbed in Farsi. The dubbing artists were good, too--Lucy sounded like Lucy, Ethel sounded like Ethel, Ricky like Ricky...they didn't do quite as well with Fred, but you can't have everything, I guess!