The following is a paper I wrote for an introductory-level Cinema & Media Studies course at Wellesley College.
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Producer: Ali Reza Zarrin
Cinematographer: Ali Reza Zarrindast
Production Company: Kanoon
Distribution: Celluloid Dreams, 1990
During one of the most meaningful scenes in Abbas Kiarostami’s 1990 film Close-Up, Kiarostami himself tells the subject of his film, a man named Sabzian put on trial for impersonating a famous filmmaker, of two different cameras in the courtroom that will be used to film his trial. One of the cameras, shooting in long shot, “belongs to the court,” and is therefore, as Hamid Naficy puts it, “for outsiders, designed to film external reality,” whereas the other camera, shooting in close-up, “is for us and not for the court,” therefore “for the insiders, intended to record the internal reality- the truth,” (Naficy, 800). Although this is the point in the film that most explicitly demonstrates the idea of juxtaposing internal and external realities as determined by the filmmaker, it is not the only time; indeed, Kiarostami’s entire film employs this distinction in order to emphasize what Naficy identifies as “the Iranian dichotomous orientation involving inside and outside,” (800), a conflict between inner sincerity and outer perception and, sometimes, exploitation.
In this paper, I will examine how Kiarostami utilizes four basic components of cinema- cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing, and sound- to manipulate external and internal reality in his film, particularly in an early scene in which the viewer is introduced to Sabzian. This scene, which begins at about 6 minutes and 59 seconds and ends at about 15 minutes and 34 seconds, establishes a distinction between external and internal reality that will be continuously employed and emphasized throughout the film, feeding into its themes of psychological conflict and the subjectivity of truth.
The scene in question follows a taxi driver, who is transporting two police officers and a
journalist to the Ahankhah home to arrest Sabzian. Early shots depict the driver pulling up to the
home, and chatting with the police officers in his backseat as the journalist goes inside the house.
The officers exit the car to meet Mr. Ahankhah and enter the home together, while the driver
pulls around and parks, leaving the car and waiting around outside. Toward the end of the scene,
the journalist, accompanied by the officers, Mr. Ahankhah, and Sabzian, return, and the driver
takes the arrested man and the officers away; the journalist stays to find a tape recorder, and the
last shots of the scene depict him going from house to house to find one, ending when he is
successful. This scene is crucial to the film as a whole; later in the film it is re-created from an
entirely different perspective. I will be arguing that this first recreation of the scene depicts
external reality. For the purpose of this analysis, I will be breaking the scene down into three
segments that span its chronology.
In the first segment of the scene, Kiarostami uses sound and mise-en-scene to contribute to the film’s realism, both lending it an air of authenticity and casting it as a distinct representation of external reality. The scene’s sound is diegetic, mainly consisting of dialogue and the sounds of the surrounding setting. Overlapping dialogue, such as the conversation between the police officers and the driver starting at minute 7:51, creates a sense of realism, playing into Kiarostami’s obsession with “seemingly spontaneous and mundane event[s]” (Naficy, 799), while also solidifying itself as an external narrative that does not relate to the main story. Important, too, is the presence of external diegetic sound, like conversational dialogue. This external diegetic sound falls into the category of Kiarostami’s “external reality camera,” only giving us the sounds of the external world, apart from Sabzian’s inner truth narrative, sounds that come later when this scene is played out again from the inside.
In the first segment of the scene, Kiarostami uses sound and mise-en-scene to contribute to the film’s realism, both lending it an air of authenticity and casting it as a distinct representation of external reality. The scene’s sound is diegetic, mainly consisting of dialogue and the sounds of the surrounding setting. Overlapping dialogue, such as the conversation between the police officers and the driver starting at minute 7:51, creates a sense of realism, playing into Kiarostami’s obsession with “seemingly spontaneous and mundane event[s]” (Naficy, 799), while also solidifying itself as an external narrative that does not relate to the main story. Important, too, is the presence of external diegetic sound, like conversational dialogue. This external diegetic sound falls into the category of Kiarostami’s “external reality camera,” only giving us the sounds of the external world, apart from Sabzian’s inner truth narrative, sounds that come later when this scene is played out again from the inside.
Equally important in the first segment of this scene are the natural performances of the
actors, which greatly contribute to the sense of realism that Kiarostami strives for in his
recreation of actual events. Kiarostami attempts to make the dialogue and performances featured
in this scene distinct and distant from the deeply-personal, truthful nature of the later, internal
depiction of the same scene. The conversation that takes place within the taxi from minutes 7:51
to 9:26 greatly emphasize this sense of realism and relegation to the external narrative; the
characters offhandedly discuss military service, family life, and connection to the area, but never
what is going on inside the house, which the audience understands is a major component of the
film’s plot.
The characters featured in this early scene are mainly secondary players whose presence is separate from the situation going on inside the house, and therefore have a severed connection to the inner (true) narrative. This is particularly true for the driver, who at no point leaves the scene to go from the external narrative (the outside world) into the internal narrative (the house). The second segment of the scene begins at minute 9:50, when the officers exit the car, leaving the driver alone outside. In this scene, aspects of mise-en-scene, such as setting and motifs, are particularly emphasized in Kiarostami’s attempt to create a juxtaposition between external and internal realities.
During this segment, consisting of about 8 shots, the driver is left to his own accord, killing time by plucking flowers from a pile of leaves and wandering around the outside of the house. At about the 10:44 mark, the driver inadvertently knocks a green spray can off of the pile of leaves, and the camera follows it as it rolls down a hill before finally coming to a stop. Many reviewers, including Nacify, have identified the green can as the main motif of the scene, representative of Sabzian’s plight. Constantly at the whim of those around it, the can (Sabzian), is accidentally knocked down by the taxi driver (who acts only as an external accessory to Sabzian’s fate by bringing the police to the home to arrest him). I would like to add onto this interpretation by layering the theme of internal/external reality onto the motif of the can. If the can does represent Sabzian, it must also represent his internal truth and world-view; if the act of being sent reeling represents Sabzian being at the mercy of those around him, the force that sets him in motion must represent the external world and its role in shaping his fate, either directly or indirectly.
The characters featured in this early scene are mainly secondary players whose presence is separate from the situation going on inside the house, and therefore have a severed connection to the inner (true) narrative. This is particularly true for the driver, who at no point leaves the scene to go from the external narrative (the outside world) into the internal narrative (the house). The second segment of the scene begins at minute 9:50, when the officers exit the car, leaving the driver alone outside. In this scene, aspects of mise-en-scene, such as setting and motifs, are particularly emphasized in Kiarostami’s attempt to create a juxtaposition between external and internal realities.
During this segment, consisting of about 8 shots, the driver is left to his own accord, killing time by plucking flowers from a pile of leaves and wandering around the outside of the house. At about the 10:44 mark, the driver inadvertently knocks a green spray can off of the pile of leaves, and the camera follows it as it rolls down a hill before finally coming to a stop. Many reviewers, including Nacify, have identified the green can as the main motif of the scene, representative of Sabzian’s plight. Constantly at the whim of those around it, the can (Sabzian), is accidentally knocked down by the taxi driver (who acts only as an external accessory to Sabzian’s fate by bringing the police to the home to arrest him). I would like to add onto this interpretation by layering the theme of internal/external reality onto the motif of the can. If the can does represent Sabzian, it must also represent his internal truth and world-view; if the act of being sent reeling represents Sabzian being at the mercy of those around him, the force that sets him in motion must represent the external world and its role in shaping his fate, either directly or indirectly.
Contributing to the establishment of internal/external reality through mise-en-scene as
well is the setting and its important connection to discontinuous editing. Kiarostami undoubtedly
chooses authenticity as his model of recreation of actual events through filmmaking, going so far
as to use the actual locations and the actual people who experienced the events in real life in his
movie. When looking at Close-Up through the model of external/internal reality construction,
one can interpret the two recreated scenes of Sabzian being taken out of the home by police,
which Kiarostami presents through a deliberate rejection of narrative continuity, as either the
external or internal model. The scene I am analyzing, which serves as the audience’s introduction
to Sabzian at the beginning of the film, is thoroughly external, and the setting literally reflects
this by taking place outside the home, while the more personal and internally-oriented events
happen within the home.
Onscreen and off-screen space is crucial to this scene, especially in its relation to the film as a whole. The spectator does not yet know that what she is being shown will play out again at the end of the film from a different perspective, and that in the second depiction, what is on and off-screen will change drastically. Kiarostami uses onscreen and off-screen space to create a sense of division between the first time the scene is shown, when it is shown externally, and the second time the scene is shown, when it is shown internally. At certain points in the scene, such as at around 11 minutes and 54 seconds, off-screen figures emerge into sight, coming from the internal scene that will be reconstructed later. This moment acts as a bridge between the internal reality that Kiarostami will show us at the end of the film and the external reality that he is showing us now.
Onscreen and off-screen space is crucial to this scene, especially in its relation to the film as a whole. The spectator does not yet know that what she is being shown will play out again at the end of the film from a different perspective, and that in the second depiction, what is on and off-screen will change drastically. Kiarostami uses onscreen and off-screen space to create a sense of division between the first time the scene is shown, when it is shown externally, and the second time the scene is shown, when it is shown internally. At certain points in the scene, such as at around 11 minutes and 54 seconds, off-screen figures emerge into sight, coming from the internal scene that will be reconstructed later. This moment acts as a bridge between the internal reality that Kiarostami will show us at the end of the film and the external reality that he is showing us now.
The third segment of the scene relies on cinematography, including on-screen and off-
screen space, as well as camera position, to establish internal and external reality. As Kiarostami
himself establishes during the court scene, the external reality camera shoots in long-shot, while
the internal-reality shoots in close-up. This scene seeks to represent external reality in the
retelling of Sabzian’s arrest, and in doing so, frequently utilizes medium shots and medium long
shots, rather than close ups. In fact, one of two close ups in the entire sequence belongs to the
can, possibly representative of Sabzian, as it rolls down the hill, playing into the notion that
close-ups belong to “us”- insiders, such as Kiarostami and Sabzian. Medium long shots, such as
the shot in which the driver waits in the car as the main players emerge from the house, almost
tease the viewer by presenting the internal reality as being close- but ultimately not close enough
to reveal the truth of the narrative belonging to the internal frame.
In this first reconstruction of Sabzian’s arrest, Kiarostami presents the viewer with the external, “manifest reality” of the outside world. Later in the film the viewer will get to see the internal, “latent truth” of the inside world, taking place within the house. Kiarostami uses cinematic tools from all four major components of film art- cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing, and sound- to visualize the psychology he shares with Sabzian, one that severs the connection between truth and appearance and fits into a greater tradition of popular Iranian belief.
In this first reconstruction of Sabzian’s arrest, Kiarostami presents the viewer with the external, “manifest reality” of the outside world. Later in the film the viewer will get to see the internal, “latent truth” of the inside world, taking place within the house. Kiarostami uses cinematic tools from all four major components of film art- cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing, and sound- to visualize the psychology he shares with Sabzian, one that severs the connection between truth and appearance and fits into a greater tradition of popular Iranian belief.
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Sources Cited
Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. 10th ed., McGraw-Hill Education, 2013.
Kiarostami, Abbas, director. Close-Up. Kanoon/Celluloid Dreams, 1990.
Naficy, Hamid. “Close Up (1989): Questioning Reality, Realism, and Neorealism.” Film Analysis: A Norton Reader, edited by Jeffrey Geiger and R.L. Rutsky, W.W. Norton & Company, 2005, pp. 795–811.
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