Oil: Pastoralism & Modernity in the Golestan Film Cycle

By 1951 British Pathé, the documentary film company, was rushing out films on Persian oil in numbers. The short films documented British efforts in locating oil in Abadan. In close-up they captured some awe-inspiring modern machinery at work, plunging into the earth on largely road-less, barren lands. In voice-over they convinced audiences that these efforts in oil led to the development of schools and hospitals in Persia, ensuring the education of the nation and better sanitary conditions for its people. By the late 1950s it was common for film audiences to see American businessmen and scientists setting off to Iran on business trips in Hollywood feature films. In Douglas Sirks' 1956 Written on the Wind, for example, Rock Hudson plays an oil geologist for a Texan oil company. In love with the beautiful Lauren Bacall, the wife of his best friend, he escapes to Iran to avoid complications of the heart. Thus, modern Iran was born onto the silver screen because of oil. Ebrahim Golestan's film workshop had its embryonic beginnings in oil as well. Golestan made films for the American-Iranian oil company for many years and was later commissioned to make films by the nationalized oil consortium following Prime Minister Mossadeq's efforts to curtail British and American interests in the country. In a close reading of the Golestan workshop's short film, A Fire (1958-61), and feature, Mudbrick and Mortar (1965), this paper considers contrasting representations of Iranian pastoralism and modernity in a ten year cycle of films produced by the Golestan workshop, considering the national differences in these representations in light of earlier screened views of Iranian pastoralism and modernity in foreign films sponsored by the oil industry.