BOMB Magazine: Shirin Neshat by Arthur C. Danto

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SN Thank you. But I disagree with you that our idea of feminism is similar to that BOMB Magazine: Shirin Neshat of the by West. Arthur From C. my Danto understanding, Western feminism is about reaching a certain 5/17/10 1:58 PM 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, feel that men and women have their own distinct roles and places, they are not competitive. AD And that will continue to be true? SN I think so. I believe their struggle is to reach an equilibrium necessary in a just and healthy society. They want the domestic responsibility—which actually gives them a lot of power. Where they suffer is in their inability to maintain their rights as women, for example in the areas of divorce, child custody, voting, etcetera. AD I don’t want to get too deeply involved in the differences and similarities. I quite agree with you that equality and liberty are 18th-century ideas very central to American consciousness—but feminist theorists have said that the liberation of women also means the liberation of men. It’s in that sense that I meant there’s a similarity, there’s a mutual liberation in that the future and destiny of male and female is quite open. SN It would be a generalization to speak about Islam as a whole, but I know in Iran women are quite powerful, unlike their clichéd image. What I try to convey through my work is that power, which is quite candid. In Rapture, the heart of the story is the women’s journey from the desert to the sea; eventually a few leave on a small boat. This journey, the attempt to break free, for me symbolizes bravery, whether this leaving is for the purpose of committing suicide or reaching freedom, it does not matter. Those women remaining behind symbolize for me the idea of sacrifice. The film questions women’ s nature as opposed to men’s, and shows how often women surprise us with their strength of purpose, particularly in moments of crisis. AD I’ll tell you, that’s been my experience with women. (laughter) I wanted to ask one thing about the titles. You’ve employed an extremely romantic vocabulary: turbulent, rapture, fervor—all psychological terms referring to states of extreme excitement. I thought fervor was a bit ironic. It was the behavior of the audience—that was the fervor, that he, the speaker, had aroused. But rapture, I wasn’t certain of; rapture is usually somewhat erotic in connotation. SN Oh really? AD At least in English. “What rapture, divine. . . .” And turbulent is a state of perturbation, disturb and so forth, agitation of a certain sort. SN The titles are the most difficult part. A mistaken title could lead the project the wrong way, trivialize or reduce the meaning. What I look for in a title is suggestiveness, references that allow the viewers to draw their own interpretations. I thought Turbulent, for example, was about the woman’s state of mind, she was clearly the one not at rest. In Rapture, I saw the meaning as a state of ecstasy. AD That’s right, it’s ecstasy. It’s just that American culture is not a particularly mystical one; ecstasy here means something like erotic rapture. There are analogies between mystical and erotic transport, and certainly the Persian poets were aware of that connotation. They tend, characteristically, in my recollection, to speak of religious ecstasy in terms of erotic metaphors. SN It’s the same with Fervor, because it has its religious connotations but at the same time it could be sexual. Again, I was pointing toward the clash between sexual and carnal desire versus social control. http://bombsite.com/issues/73/articles/2332 6 of 10
BOMB Magazine: Shirin Neshat by Arthur C. Danto 5/17/10 1:58 PM Shirin Neshat, Rapture, 1999, video still. AD Fervor is the one film in which you’re relying on speech rather than music. Music really does overcome linguistic barriers. But in Fervor the man talks at great length, and one tries to infer what he is saying. And he points to a painting that is prominently displayed behind him. SN From the beginning, I thought about having subtitles. In fact, I had an excerpt of the speech translated, and created subtitles. However, many English-speaking friends came to see me while I was editing and almost all of them felt that subtitles made the work too literal, too obvious, and distracted from the clarity of the image. I regret that I did not have a translation on the exhibition wall so those people interested could have referred to it. AD Hmm . . . I’m of two minds on that. I really don’t know what the truth is there. SN The speech becomes very musical here. AD Yes, it does. SN It almost functions like an opera, you don’t really listen to the words, you imagine what has been said through the musical qualities. But I did get some criticism for the lack of subtitles; some people were not satisfied with guessing at what was being said. Let me tell you the meaning of the speech and a little about the speaker, whose character is quite dubious. He comes across as something between a politician, a mullah, and an actor. The event was also designed to resemble a political event, a religious ceremony or a theatrical story. I was inspired by public Friday prayers in Iran, where masses of men and women come together, but sit separately. Usually, a distinguished mullah leads the prayers and delivers a moral speech, each time focusing on a particular topic. So in Fervor this man comes on the stage and offers his moral speech which happens to be the problem of sin, particularly sin that arises from sexual behavior—carnal desire. He uses the story of Joseph (Youssef) and Zuleika from the Koran to exemplify the destiny of those who cannot control their sexuality. In the Koran, Zuleika, the female character, seduces Joseph. The painting in the film’s background illustrates the story. This type of theater is actually a traditional form in Iran, where a speaker stands in front of a painting to tell the story. It usually takes place in coffee houses. AD So the speaker uses the painting as the basis of a narrative. SN Exactly. AD How fascinating. SN I think Fervor, unlike Rapture and Turbulent, was not as easily understood by Westerners. http://bombsite.com/issues/73/articles/2332 AD Enough of that narrative came across. For one thing, you feel that whatever the 7 of 10 message was, the man and the woman felt themselves beyond or above it, that they were really interested in their more fundamental view, namely each other. SN Exactly.
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BOMB Magazine: Shirin Neshat by Arthur C. Danto

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