Bahram Beyzai


Bahrām Beyzāie is a critically and popularly acclaimed filmmaker, playwright, theatre director, screenwriter, film editor, and ostād of Persian letters, arts and Iranian studies.
Bahram Beyzaie is the son of the poet Ne'matallah Beyzai. The celebrated poet Adib Beyzai, known as one of the most profound poets of 20th-century Iran, is Bahram's paternal uncle. Bahram Beyzaie's paternal grandfather, Mirzā Mohammad-Rezā Ārāni, and paternal great-grandfather, the mulla Mohammad-Faqih Ārāni, were also notable poets.
In spite of his somewhat belated start in cinema, Beyzai is often considered a pioneer of a generation of filmmakers whose works are sometimes described as the Iranian New Wave. His Bashu, the Little Stranger was voted "Best Iranian Film of all time" in November 1999 by a Persian movie magazine Picture World poll of 150 Iranian critics and professionals. Still, even before the outset of his cinematic career in 1970, he was a leading playwright, so much so that he is often considered the greatest playwright of the Persian language, and holds a reputation as "the Shakespeare of Persia."
Since 2010, Beyzai has lived and taught at Stanford University, United States.

Early years

Beyzaie was born in Tehran, to a poet, anthologist and biographer father and a housewife mother. Zokā'i Beyzāie made a living through a legal occupation and was able to attend to his literary interests reasonably.
The young Bahram did not seem very interested in his family legacy, being poetry, which was pursued by his father, uncles and cousins. In high school, the Dar'ol-Fonoun, he wrote two historical plays which went on to become his preferred method of writing. He started skipping school from around the age of 17 in order to go to movies which were becoming popular in Iran at a rapid pace. This only fed his hunger to learn more about cinema and Iranian visual arts.
After school, and after a year of waiting before passing the competitive examination for university admission and meanwhile reading the Shahnameh, he began to study Persian literature at the University of Tehran. But it became impossible for him to stay in the university, particularly because his professors would not accept his researching Persian theatre as a graduate work, arguing that "Persia has had no theatre."
in the Faculty of Letters in 1959, only to return to the adjacent Faculty of Fine Arts as a visiting professor about a decade later, where he remained a leading professor for another decade before he was expelled in the Iranian Cultural Revolution.
At the age of 21 he did substantial research on the traditional Persian plays, particularly Ta'zieh, and by 1961 he had already spent a great deal of time studying and researching other ancient Persian and pre-Islamic culture and literature. This in turn led him to studying Eastern theatre and traditional Iranian theatre and arts which would help him formulate a new non-Western identity for Iranian theatre. He also became acquainted with Persian painting.

Playwriting in the 1960s

By late 1961 he had already published numerous articles in various arts and literary journals. In 1962 he made his first short film in 8 mm format. In the next two years he wrote several plays and published "Theatre in Japan".
In the next eight or so years of his life throughout the early to late 1960s, Bayzai dedicated himself to writing in various publications about Eastern art and Persian literature enabled through his extensive study and also wrote a number of essays about Iranian cinema which later became the subject of one of his books. It is during this period that he wrote popular plays which are often regarded as masterpieces; Sindbad's Eighth Voyage, Banquet, Serpent King, The Marionettes, The Story of the Hidden Moon and many more.
In 1968, Beyzai was one of the nine founders of the Iranian Writers' Guild, a highly controversial organization in the face of censorship. In 1969 he was invited to teach at the Theater Department of the College of Fine Arts at University of Tehran. He chaired this department from 1972 to 1979. With his readership many prominent authors and artists started teaching at the department and created the most fruitful period in the history of that department.
and Parviz Sayyad, 1965
His daughter, Niloofar Beyzaie, is a theater director and playwright.
Beyzaie's early study and interest in drama and the theatre is well known, but less well-known is his early work as a dramatist. As a young man Beyzaie had always been fascinated by the traditions of Iranian theatre, and this included the puppet theatre. His "Se Nemayeshname-ye 'Arusaki". Drawing on these varied influences, Beyzaie's play is a little-known master-piece of 20th-century drama.
Beyzaie's groundbreaking A Study on Iranian Theatre, published in mid-1960s is still considered the most important text on the history of Iranian theater. Beyzaie is also the first scholar in Iran to publish books on theatre of Japan and theatre of China.
Some of his plays, such as his masterpiece Death of Yazdgerd, have been translated into numerous languages and have been performed around the world. Death of Yazdgerd has been performed in Iran, France, England, India and USA among other countries, and was made into a highly acclaimed film of the same name by Beyzai in 1981. Death of Yazdgerd and Kalat Claimed have been translated into English by Manuchehr Anvar.

1970s and the outset of a cinematic career

In 1969 he began his film career by directing the short film Amu Sibilou followed by "Safar" in 1970. With these films Beyzai is often supposed to be a pioneer of what is called the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that is supposed to have spontaneously started in the late 1960s, i.e. ignoring earlier efforts by filmmakers such as Farrokh Ghaffari and Ebrahim Golestan, and includes other outstanding directors such as Nasser Taghvai, Forough Farrokhzad, Amir Naderi, Ali Hatami, Sohrab Shahid Sales, Dariush Mehrjui, Abbas Kiarostami, Parviz Kimiavi, Masoud Kimiai and Fereydun Gole among others; and soon following Khosrow Sinai, Masoud Jafari Jozani, Kianoush Ayari, Varuzh Karim-Masihi, Ebrahim Hatamikia and others.
Immediately after, in 1971, he made his first feature film "Ragbar" which is regarded by critics to this day as one of the most successful Iranian films ever made. The successful film addresses the late Parviz Fannizadeh as its central character and protagonist.
Since then he has produced and directed 8 films including Qaribe va Meh , Cherike-ye Tara , Bashu, the Little Stranger, Shāyad Vaghti digar and Mosaferan .

Filmmaking in the 1980s

In 1981, the revolutionary leaders started the Iranian Cultural Revolution, as a result of which Beyzaie among many others was expelled from the university. He continued writing and making films though. His screenplay Ruz-e Vaqe'e was adapted into a film in 1995 and another screenplay was adapted into a film named Fasl-e Panjom in 1996, whilst he also made four of his finest films. He also edited Ebrahim Hatamikia's Borj-e Minu .

1990s: another trip, a film and some plays

He married the actress and make-up artist Mozhdeh Shamsai in 1992. After Mosaferan, he failed to get a permit for the production of a number of screenplays. In 1995 he left Iran for Strasbourg at the invitation of the International Parliament of Writers. Soon however he returned and staged The Lady Aoi in Tehran.

After 2000

In 2001 he made his best-selling film Killing Mad Dogs, after which he managed to stage three plays as well before he left Iran for the United States.
He left Iran in 2010 at the invitation of Stanford University, and has since been the Daryabari Visiting Professor of Iranian Studies, teaching courses in Persian theatre, cinema and mythology. There he has given workshops on the Shahnameh, the history of Iranian performing arts, Iranian as well as Semitic myths, etc. He has also staged several of his plays including his nine-hour Tarabnameh.

Cinematic style

He is known as the most intellectual and conspicuous "author" in Iranian cinema and theater. The main theme of his works is the history and "crisis of identity" which is related to Iranian cultural and mythical symbols and paradigms. He is considered as Iran's most prominent screenwriter in terms of dramatic integrity of his works, many of which have been made into films.

Reception and criticism

Beyzaie has made significant contribution to the development of the cinema of Iran and theatre and is regarded as an influential director and innovator of the Iranian New Wave movement of cinema. He is also considered Iran's most prominent screenwriter in terms of dramatic integrity of his works, many of which have been made into films.
However, despite the value of his films and his substantial knowledge of the arts, like many other Iranian film directors such as Nasser Taghvai, Varuzh Karim-Masihi, Kianoush Ayari and many others, the Government of Iran has almost never supported his career, before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Before the revolution he was handed in the best prize by the Queen Farah Diba in Tehran Film festival in 1972 as a new young director whose talent was lauded with appreciation and applaud for his Film Ragbar. After revolution now even after some 20 years, his films such as Ballad of Tara and Death of Yazdgerd have never received a screening permit in Iran. Both films have been shelved because they are not in accordance with the Islamic code currently in operation in Iranian motion pictures. Even Bashu, the Little Stranger almost saw the same fate in 1986 due to the subject matter of the film, i.e. the story of a little orphaned boy who lost his parents in the Iran-Iraqi war. The film was only legalized after the end of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and was released in 1989.
Critics have often praised Beyzai above all Persian filmmakers as well as playwrights. He was voted the best Persian filmmaker of all time in 2002, and his Bashu, the Little Stranger was voted the finest Persian film of all time. All the same, his formalism has occasionally raised criticism, even from himself. Ebrahim Golestan, who had previously made objections to Beyzai's style, praised him in a letter in 2017.

Works

Filmography (as director)

Beyzaie has over 50 published plays, some of which are as follows. These works have occasionally appeared in French, English, German and other translations too.

Frequent collaborators

Films & PlaysYear of ProductionMojdeh ShamsaieJamshid LayeqManouchehr FaridEnayat BakhshiSusan TaslimiParvaneh MasoumiMajid Mozafari
The Marionettes1967----
Heritage and Banquet1967-----
King Serpent1969-----
Uncle Mustache1970-------
Downpour1971----
The Journey1972------
The Stranger and the Fog1974----
The Crow1977----
Ballad of Tara1979-----
Death of Yazdgerd1979------
Death of Yazdgerd 1981------
Bashu, the Little Stranger1986------
Maybe Some Other Time1988------
Travelers1992---
The Lady Aoi1998------
The Deeds of Bondar the Counselor1998-------
Speaking with the Wind1998------
Killing Mad Dogs2001---
The Thousand-First Night2003------
The Passion of Makan and Rokhshid2005------
The Eloquent Carpet2006------
Afra2007------
When We Are All Asleep2009-----
Jana and Baladoor2012------
Arash2014------
Ardaviraf's Report2015------
Tarabnameh2016------
Crossroads2018------

Awards and honors

The prizes, awards and honors he has won are numerous.
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