murky and pessimistic. More than half the country’s
nearly 500 movie theaters were confiscated or
closed down. Contrary to expectations, however,
Iranian cinema in the past two and a half decades
has developed into an international cinema with
claims on artistic novelty. Today, filmmakers such
as Abbas Kiarostami (b. 1945), Muhsin Makhmal-
baf (b. 1957), and his young daughter Samira are
familiar names to Iranian film viewers across the
globe. Perhaps the religious revolution, followed
by unforeseen conditions of strict censorship and
oppression, actually inspired and compelled the
creative work of these filmmakers and many oth-
ers. The topics explored by the filmmakers of the
post-1979 revolution era tackle the subtleties in the
controversies that define the sociocultural life of
Iranians today, such as war, the relations between
the sexes, and the status of women. Furthermore,
the vital and dynamic relationship between this cin-
ema and its audience abroad has produced a range
of new possibilities for artistic expression that was
not evident in the decades before the revolution.
INDIAN CINEMA
The place Muslims occupy in Indian cinema is
something of a conundrum, reflecting their vexed
affiliations within South Asian modernity. If one
focuses on the supposedly Hindi-language cinema
based in Bombay, it is necessary to underscore the
extensive influence of Urdu literature on both film
dialogue and song lyrics. Before the partition of the
country at the point of its independence from Brit-
ish rule in 1947, Lahore was also an important cen-
ter for the production of Hindi-Urdu films. Already
in the 1940s, Muslim producer-directors such as
A. R. Kardar and Mehboob Khan had come into
prominence in these two centers. As Bombay cin-
ema was securing its genres and audiences and con-
solidating a national cinematic idiom, composers
Ghulam Haider and Naushad were instrumental in
laying down the conventions of a musical style that
became the most identifiable trait of the industry.
The 1940s were also marked by a steady
mounting of communal tensions and brutal riots,
eventually leading to the creation of pakistan.
In the course of the mayhem, millions of people
became homeless refugees; the early skirmishes
over Kashmir in the late 1940s compounded the
atmosphere of hatred and suspicion. Some Mus-
lim actors took on Hindu names to ensure their
acceptability. Thus, Mumtaz Jehan came to be
known as Madhubala, while Yusuf Khan became
famous as Dilip Kumar. Nargis, on the other hand,
did not suffer any loss of popularity due to her
openly Islamic identity, went on to play the title
role in the landmark film Mother India (1957),
and became a member of parliament in the
1970s. Other luminaries of the Bombay industry,
including Ghulam Haider and singer Nurjehan,
chose to move to Pakistan. Contemporary popular
discourse, for instance in the anglophone maga-
zine Filmindia, reflected the deep anxieties and
ambivalences of a wounded social matrix, mourn-
ing the loss of creative agents and simultaneously
denouncing them for their “betrayal.”
Muslims who stayed on in India as part of a
minority community faced prejudice and wari-
ness. Even someone as respected as Dilip Kumar
had to contend with aspersions and periodic
witch hunts. The plight of the Muslim citizenry
is thoughtfully documented in M. S. Sathyu’s
film Garam Hawa (1973), which, after initial
difficulties with the censors, went on to win the
highest national awards. At the end of this film,
the young protagonist, Salim, chooses to stay
on in India and finds his community in a leftist
group. The narrative resolution clearly upholds
a secular, class-based political agenda over com-
munal politics founded on religious affiliations.
The author of the original story, Ismat Chugtai,
and the scriptwriter, Kaifi Azmi, were both asso-
ciated with the Progressive Writers’ Association
and were stalwarts of modern Urdu literature.
Azmi was also responsible for many superb song
lyrics; his daughter, Shabana Azmi, became an
important face of the so-called Indian New Wave
of the 1970s (and is currently the most revered
actress of the Indian screen and a social activist ofcinema 147 J