"Covering the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first and addressing documentaries, popular genres, and art films, [this four-volume set] explains Iran's peculiar cinematic production modes, as well as the role of cinema and media in shaping modernity and a modern national identity in Iran."--P. [4] of cover.

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Organization of the Volumes xxi
A Word about Illustrations xxvii
Preface. How It All Began xxix
Introduction. National Cinema, Modernity, and Iranian National Identity 1
1. Artisanal Silent Cinema in the Qajar Period 27
2. Ideological and Spectatorial Formations 71
3. State Formation and Nonfiction Cinema: Syncretic Westernization during the First Pahlavi Period 141
4. A Transitional Cinema: The Feature Film Industry and Sound Cinema 197
5. Modernity's Ambivalent Subjectivity: Dandies and the Dandy Movie Genre 277
Notes 309
Bibliography 343
Index 371