Criticism and education; Acting gaps in Iran

According to Fars News Agency, May 4, coinciding with May 4, has been named as Actor’s Day. Based on this, Saeed Islamzadeh, a journalist, radio announcer and media researcher, has written a note about this.

The text of this note is as follows:

“When your work and life are news, reports, notes, critiques, conversations, and summaries of anything that deals with the written, visual, and audio media, and you happen to work in the culture and art service or the literature and art group, and Make a program, write and talk, and from that work, you will deal with artists, actors, directors, writers, and so on. They come and use the possibility of the media, and the program and pages are filled with so-called, and the confidence that the secretary and the editor and the director of the group and the service and the network and و do not complain about Janet, the more the talker is known.

In the meantime, sometimes there is a space on radio and television where you can collaborate with those who remember, make programs, and so on. That the children of radio and television are more familiar than other media.

So the way they deal with famous artists – I mean actors right here – is different from the way they deal with others. An actor is no longer a celebrity with a reputation, it’s a friend and a collaborator that you have to work with. (You will find the reason for raising this issue at the end.)

Actors are a part of the working society of the country whose type of work is special, and this specialness defines for them a kind of prestige and social status that senior government officials, doctors and wealthy people of the society are far from and of course they strongly want to achieve it. . Because they have a high position only in their own collection, and outside of their work collection, they are treated just like ordinary idiots in society. But the actor, without being dependent on a particular collection and relying solely on his artwork, eventually acquires a special principle that many aspire to. Maybe that’s why rich men and women politicians marry actors. Achieving social status and popularity… but mediated.

The popularity and fame of a hundred, of course, does not happen to everyone, and if it does, the sum of both may happen less. That is why, all over the world, actors are looking for popularity after fame, and they are seeking popularity through public works and even radical political comments and support for a candidate and usually popular social behaviors. Popularity may be gained, but their popularity is wasted by mistakes and blunders that are sometimes very trivial. That’s why popularity is so slippery. But not fame.

Acting these days is a job equal to money and fame. Of course, experts know that this is not the case, but it is common in rumors to become an actor in order to become rich and famous. The dream of many people from human societies…

Load. These days, our acting situation in TV and home drama series has become extremely miserable and vulgar. The reasons are probably many. Part is within the group and part is outside the professional work environment. Whatever the reasons, they have in any case caused a great deal of vulgarity in acting. Poor expression, weakness of body movements, wrong looks, wrong accents in expressing dialogues, artificial gait, excessive exaggeration or artificial disregard, and expression of inappropriate feelings and objections and weaknesses expressed by genuine acting instructors are the result of two major issues. One is the lack of academic or free education based on principles and schools, and the second is the dominance of money over artistry and acting ability.

Really, why have we never had a serious critique of acting? Why hasn’t anyone written about the weakness of a star who gets paid so much and can’t express a dialogue right to the end? Why don’t we have a strong and active flow of critique that analyzes Iranian acting? Does anyone have a minority with the actors? Eventually we read and hear that someone has played or not played the role and is playing or not playing this role, and the peak of our feeling is that what did he see? But we do not know what it did or we do not have the analytical literacy to say.

I think the lack of criticism in acting has been a big damage in the last few decades that we now see in our acting as a whole, and that has spread to the theater as well.

If it was once said that theater is an actor and provides cinema, now we have to see which institution, institute and university should feed theater? University? No… With this educational situation and the scientific power and inefficiency of the educational system that we should not expect the actor to leave the university at all. And surely the meaning of actor is quite clear and a good actor is someone who is educated and trained.

Free acting institutes and schools? Maybe in the period we expected and it was right, and a generation of good actors were the product of the same schools that are now the ones that have preserved their reputation. But at least in the last few years, the situation of schools in terms of scientific potential is deplorable. Of course, in the meantime, we must exclude some activities and personal brilliance and first-class training. I’m talking about a stream. A stream that has one foot in the university and education and the other foot in the professional space.

We now have an atmosphere where actors with little ability have to do great things, and that is impossible.

Everyone in the theater knows that Samandarian was a great actor, but he never played. Like Stanislavsky, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and all the acting teachers who were great actors but never became famous, but all their students have at least a few international play prizes in their pockets. So if we believe that not every good footballer becomes a good coach, not every good actor is a good teacher for acting. What we have seen in the last few years are acting classes for famous actors, and a lot of actors who have become academics and teach acting. Do they have a lesson plan? Do they have a method? Do they teach a particular style? The answer is negative in 90% of cases. But can the remaining ten percent who do principled work be able to compete with their reputation and publicity? We all know acting teachers who are academically literate, have the ability to teach, are teachers themselves, shine when they come on stage, but because they are not famous and are not celebrities, the student does not enroll in their class. If this method becomes popular in the form of acting classes, we can hope for tomorrow.

However, acting in Iran needs two important elements; The first is education and the second is criticism.
Once these two are met to some extent, we can talk about Iranian acting and consider it critical.
“Until that day, I hope that people’s tastes will be at least a few steps away from vulgarity.”

End of message /