New Yorker: Is Farhadi a thief of ideas?
According to the film correspondent of Fars news agency, the New Yorker magazine has today published a detailed report on the recent challenge of Asghar Farhadi, i.e. the similarity between the script of “Hero” and the documentary “Two Wins Two Losses” by Azadeh Masihzadeh. This report is titled “Has Asghar Farhadi, the Oscar-winning director, stolen ideas?” It was published on the website of this magazine and was reflected in the New Yorker magazine under the title “An Audit”.
During the past two years, various materials have been published in the country about Asghar Farhadi and the case of stealing the idea of the movie “Hero”. The matter has even been brought to court. Farhadi’s lawyer has defended his client several times and has always talked about documents that prove that the main idea of the film is Farhadi’s and… in general, various content analyzes have been published in this regard, each of which has traced the issue in a way.
* What is the story of Asghar Farhadi’s robbery?
After the complaint of Azadeh Masihzadeh, a student of Asghar Farhadi’s documentary class, this film director has been going to the court for the past few days, but the final result of the court has not yet been published. The last legal news published about him was the issuance of a “subpoena” which was mentioned by Masihzadeh.
Before this, Masihzadeh had said about this, “After several months of hearing his complaint against Asghar Farhadi, the investigator of the Tehran Culture and Media Prosecutor’s Office “based on art theft and the production of the film Hero based on the documentary “Two Heads Win, Two Heads Lose”, the complaint documents has deemed it sufficient and has issued a summons for proceedings against Farhadi.”
In this report, we want to discuss the issues published in the New Yorker, but before that, we need to open a secret file. A case that no one has ever mentioned and of course there was no plaintiff either. The story of this case, which we will attach to the New Yorker’s report, is the influence or theft of Asghar Farhadi in his Oscar-winning film “A Rare Separation from Simin” from a photography artist who approached this issue (father-son relationship) before him.
* When Farhadi borrows the film “Separation” from the photo collection of a conceptual photographer
When I came across the edges of the film Hero for the first time, I said to myself that the main issue in creating a work of art is the “idea”, and because Asghar Farhadi first came up with the idea of the film Hero (the story of people who find money or an expensive object and thus become famous) and Mrs. Masihzadeh, as a student, proceeded based on the idea of the teacher (Farhadi) and collected data, so the issue of theft is ruled out and the main artist is the owner of the idea, that is, Farhadi himself.
But the more the issue progressed, the more I noticed the repetition of Asghar Farhadi’s approach. In fact, rereading Farhadi’s path and his various experiences (from reading the New Yorker’s report) shows that Farhadi has also gone through such experiences in his other works.
Obviously, the issue of impressionability or art theft or borrowing and such topics need more philosophical explorations, that too in an era where “intertextuality” is the prevailing trend and every work arises from the heart of another work and there is no work in itself or in itself.
But maybe if we distance ourselves a little from this philosophical approach and hermeneutic relativism and look at the issue more objectively and concretely, we will reach clearer results.
* Did Farhadi’s absolutism work?
In the case of the movie “Hero”, Farhadi could have avoided this controversy and crisis by mentioning the name of his student (at least as the person who collected the real data of the film in his documentary). But he did not do this to finish all the films in his own name. The first thing that needs to be mentioned here is that Farhadi has already done the same thing. When the movie Separation won important international awards, he never mentioned the photographer who was influenced by it.
To clarify the matter, let’s return to one of the most important films of Asghar Farhadi in the international arena, namely the film “A Rare Separation from Simin”. This work, which made Asghar Farhadi famous in the world, is obviously influenced by the photography artist, whose name Farhadi has not mentioned anywhere.
The name of the photographer is Phillipe Tolendo, an English photographer. Toledano, who is a conceptual photographer, develops his works based on ideas. In addition to photography, he also has a background in painting and filmmaking.
Photo Collection”A few days with my fatherIt is the same collection from which Farhadi copied the images of the movie Separation. The book of this photo collection was published in 2010. Just take a look at this collection of photos to remember the breakup movie frame by frame.
On the right side is one of the famous frames of Asghar Farhadi’s Separation movie, and on the left side is one of Toledano’s photos from the collection (One day(s) with my father)
Even though these images clearly show that the frames and compositions of Asghar Farhadi’s Separation film are influenced by Toledano’s works, Farhadi does not mention the name of this photographer and his idea anywhere. As in the movie “Hero”, he never mentioned Ms. Masihzadeh’s name even as a colleague or a student who collected part of the film’s data. It seems that Farhadi’s perfectionist spirit has not allowed him to even mention the sources he borrowed from in any of these works.
On the other hand, like Masihzadeh’s documentary film, from which the film “Heroman” is clearly derived, the story of the film “A Rare Separation from Simin” is also influenced by Toledano’s photo collection. That is, it is enough to see the photos of this photographer so that the movie of Farhadi’s breakup will be clearly repeated in your mind.
Not only the story, but elements such as facial expressions (from the father to Nader’s face), reading newspapers, holding hands (referring to when the father takes Simin’s hand to prevent him from leaving) and… there is news of a strange similarity that during It has been hidden for years and no one has revealed it.
The top left is one of Toledano’s photos, and the other two photos are taken from Asghar Farhadi’s film The Separation. Comparing Farhadi’s framing and this photographer’s work clearly indicates an obvious theft
Two pictures of the works of the photographer in question, as if they are scenes from the movie Separation
Now that in the last two years, there has been an endless controversy over the movie Hero, and the New Yorker’s report has references to this type of influence (let’s say theft) of Farhadi, re-reading this issue may clear up many ambiguities.
I just want him to be honest
The opening line of the New Yorker article states: Azadeh Masihzadeh is one of the people who believes that Farhadi used her idea for the narration of “Hero”. Masihzadeh said in an interview with this magazine that: “I just want him to be honest.”
Rachel Oyo, the author of this magazine, has investigated all Farhadi’s films in her research report and has investigated the claims of other people besides Azadeh Masihzadeh about some of Farhadi’s other works.
In this research report, the names of several Iranian cinematographers, such as Mani Haghighi, Abbas Jahangirian, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, etc., can be seen to examine the relationship between the ideas and topics presented in the interactions of these people with Farhadi, with the stories of the films written by Farhadi. And made, it is mentioned.
In his report, after introducing Masihzadeh, the New Worker magazine reporter mentions the story of his presence in a filmmaking workshop of Asghar Farhadi held at Karnameh cultural and artistic institute, and then describes Farhadi’s film history and some of his works for foreign audiences. He probably doesn’t know him in detail.
In this report, quoting Masihzadeh and several other participants in this film workshop, a description of Farhadi’s film class and how to plan a documentary story in Masihzadeh’s opinion, which is similar to Farhadi’s “Hero” story, has been narrated. This subject was followed through a journalist in Shiraz and several times the stages of its construction were carried out by Masihzadeh.
In her report, “Rachel Oyo” discussed with some of Masihzadeh’s classmates, whose narrative can help the audience to verify this claim. Mahreza Shokri, the subject of Masihzadeh’s documentary, who is divorced from her husband and is busy painting in prison due to financial debt, is not far from Avio’s point of view.
The conversation with Mani Haghighi about the years of collaboration with Asghar Farhadi and the story of the production of “Chershanbe Suri” is another part of this report, but the noteworthy point is that Haghighi’s words quoted in this report are related to the movie “Gazeshte”, which according to Haghighi it was said that The original subject of this movie was suggested by him. Giving more details about this meeting, Haghigi says that Farhadi had promised him to act in this film and even in order for Haghigi to find the possibility of acting in this film, he also participated in French language classes.
Mustafa Pourmohammadi, who attended Farhadi’s screenwriting workshop in 1988, is another person mentioned in this report and says that after the screening of “Separation” in Iran, my friends told me during a call that “Separation” It has a similar story to my short film.
Abbas Jahangirian has mentioned about “Dancing in the Dust” that he wrote a story similar to the screenplay of this work and Farhadi read his story and made “Dancing in the Dust”. He said that although Farhadi did not publish my name in all editions, I did not complain to Farhadi.
This research-detailed report occupies about 30 pages of the latest issue of the New Yorker magazine. Here It’s been published.
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