BOMB Magazine: Shirin Neshat by Arthur C. Danto

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Iranian crew. BOMB Magazine: Shirin Neshat by Arthur C. Danto 5/17/10 1:58 PM Shirin Neshat, Rapture, 1999, video still. AD When you began to work on Turbulent, were you thinking of it as part of a trilogy—which is what, evidently, the three films constitute—or were you thinking of it as a single statement, which, as it turned out, led to two other films? SN I didn’t think of it as a trilogy at first. It is just that one subject—one project led to the other. The topic of masculine and feminine in relation to the social structure of Iran started with Turbulent. As I finished it, I immediately moved on to making Rapture, which although very different, raised similar issues. Finally Fervor was made, which in my opinion closed the chapter on this series. What inspired me to make Turbulent was a strange experience I had on the streets of Istanbul, seeing a young, blind woman singing to make a little money; her music was extraordinary and the public gathered uncontrollably around her. I fell in love with her music, bought a cassette. Later I had her songs translated and became obsessed with how much her blindness—not having a visible audience—affected her music. AD This is one of the things that struck me about Turbulent. The male singer is on one screen, and he’s singing with a great deal of passion, but with his back to the audience. The camera is backstage, so we see him singing, and we see his audience behind him. The female singer is on another screen and she’s facing an empty auditorium. You only see her from the back; she’s quite mysterious. As a matter of fact, she looks like a death figure from the Inquisition. All through the man’s singing, you just see her from the back. And you don’t know what this is all about. The man’s audience is extremely responsive; they applaud. As I remember it, he turns around, bows to the audience and then faces back, and the woman who is on the other screen begins to sing. Her singing is very different from his; it seems electronic. It’s modified, it’s not ordinary singing. And then bit by bit her face begins to emerge and you see her sing. The camera pans back and forth over the empty auditorium. And on the other screen, the man is staring at her. So he at least is in some way a member of her audience, although you’re not quite clear how that happened. So that was the juxtaposition. SN Turbulent is similar to Rapture in that both films are based on the idea of opposites, visually and conceptually. The male singer represents the society’s ideal man in that he sticks to the rules in his way of dressing and in his performance of a passionate love song written by the 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi. Opposite to him, the female singer is quite rebellious. She is not supposed to be in the theater, and the music she performs breaks all the rules of traditional Islamic music. Her music is free-form, improvised, not tied to language, and unpredictable, almost primal. AD When you say she’s not supposed to… SN An important aspect of Turbulent is that women in Iran are prohibited from singing in public, and there are no recordings by female musicians. The piece took off in various directions and brought about other important questions about the http://bombsite.com/issues/73/articles/2332 male and female contrast in relation to the social structure. The ultimate question 4 of 10 was how each would go about reaching a level of mystical expression inherent in the Sufi music. AD But her song is not a traditional song.
the music she performs breaks all the rules of traditional Islamic music. Her music is free-form, improvised, not tied to language, and unpredictable, almost primal. BOMB Magazine: Shirin Neshat by Arthur C. Danto 5/17/10 1:58 PM AD When you say she’s not supposed to… SN An important aspect of Turbulent is that women in Iran are prohibited from singing in public, and there are no recordings by female musicians. The piece took off in various directions and brought about other important questions about the male and female contrast in relation to the social structure. The ultimate question was how each would go about reaching a level of mystical expression inherent in the Sufi music. AD But her song is not a traditional song. SN No. It is Sussan Deihim’s music; she’s a gifted, contemporary Iranian singer living in New York. Although her music is based on traditional Islamic melodies, it is quite radical, too, in that it does not quite resemble any particular music. AD It was her voice in Turbulence, and her person you were photographing? SN Yes. We spent a lot of time together discussing the choice of music and her presence in the film and how absolutely critical they were to the meanings of the work. AD Very percussive. SN By the end, we wanted the male singer to be stunned, in a state of disbelief, and the female singer to be released—freed. She, of course, had no trouble doing that. AD Well, she had no trouble with the music. But that effect, of being free, and the man being stunned—do you think that registers visually in the film? SN I think it did. We discussed at great length with Shoja, the male singer, how important his expressions were, his compassionate but almost envious gaze. AD Who wishes in a way that he could be freer, as she is. SN Exactly. And that sexual hierarchy is inevitably outside of his control. Perhaps he himself is a type of prisoner. AD Very much like the men in Rapture. SN Rapture followed the same framework. Once again, the women are the unpredictable force, they are the ones who break free. The men, from the beginning to the end, stay within the confinement of the fortress. This all ties back to what I believe is a type of feminism that comes from such a culture; on a daily basis the resistance you sense from the women is far higher than that of the men. Why? Because the women are the ones who are under extreme pressure; they are repressed and therefore they are more likely to resist and ultimately to break free. AD Formally speaking, it doesn’t sound entirely different from feminist discourse in the West. The difference as you represent it in the films is that the men seem condemned to a life of futility, and are unable to break free. Whereas here, the male life is conceived of as the significant life, overcoming obstacles, having careers, etcetera. And in a certain way, an American woman’s freedom is modeled on the idea of what it is to be a free male. Whereas what you convey is women moving into a very unstructured space, for which males are no longer the models. If anything, if the male is to genuinely be free, he’d almost have to model himself on the female. And of course you can’t be terribly explicit about that because nobody knows how that’s going to work out. One of the things I love about Rapture is the uncertainty of it. With these women setting off on that boat, you found, I thought, a marvelous, mythic image. SN Thank you. But I disagree with you that our idea of feminism is similar to that of the West. From my understanding, Western feminism is about reaching a certain level of equality between men and women… AD Yes, that’s just what I do mean. SN But I don’t believe we strive for the same thing. Iranian women, for example, http://bombsite.com/issues/73/articles/2332 feel that men and women have their own distinct roles and places, they are not competitive. 5 of 10 AD And that will continue to be true?
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BOMB Magazine: Shirin Neshat by Arthur C. Danto

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