Jamshid Arjmand; A Calm and Composed Veteran Film Critic

Jamshid Arjmand, a veteran film critic, passed away on Wednesday, July 23, in a hospital in Tehran. He was part of the circle of friends of Parviz Davayi, Kiumars Vajdani, Parviz Noori, and other well-known film critics of the 1960s. Arjmand belonged to a passionate generation that loved cinema deeply and fell in love with the magic of film from a young age; he adored beautiful actors and was enchanted by the romantic stories of musicals that presented a colorful and different world. As he said, they shared a common feeling, which was 'that love for cinema.' Arjmand began his journalistic career in 1959, at the age of twenty, for the longest-running pre-revolution film magazine, 'Setareh Cinema.' He was a classmate of Parviz Noori in high school, and now Noori had become the editor of Setareh Cinema, marking the beginning of their collaboration. Before starting his work, Arjmand had already fallen in love with cinema and was interested in the magazine Setareh Cinema. In an interview with the author (for the book 'Film Criticism in Iran - Aghah Sazan - 1998), he said: 'Like most young boys of that time, I had a great interest in cinema. Cinema was and is magic that captivates you from the first glance. My first glimpses naturally started from childhood. The first film I remember seeing was Sinbad the Sailor. Then I watched many series of films: Journey to Mars, Lightning, etc. At that time, due to my father's acquaintance with the cinema manager on Istanbul Street, I saw a few very important Russian films: Ivan the Terrible and The Stone Flower. There was a severe difference in atmosphere between Lightning and Ivan the Terrible for me as a child. I went to Ivan the Terrible with enthusiasm, but when I left the cinema, something weighed heavily on my heart. I never got the pleasure I expected from watching that moving image... From that time, a comparative background was created in my mind. Perhaps this was the first seed of criticism forming within me.' As these sentences indicate, the world of childhood and the love of those years of Arjmand - and other critics of that generation, especially Parviz Davayi - for cinema remained with him forever and shaped his perspective and taste. Although Arjmand was an intellectual, cultured, and well-read person, he still preferred the simple and easy world of narrative cinema, such as Western films, over European intellectual films. Although perhaps his most famous writing is about a completely intellectual film (8½ by Federico Fellini), his taste, like that of Parviz Davayi, remained more aligned with narrative films: 'At a specific time, European intellectual cinema had a great impact on me, but now, looking back from this great distance, I see that deep down in my being, I do not have a place for other artistic cinemas that I do for innocent, noble, and pure cinema based on movement.' Arjmand knew French, which allowed him to become acquainted with contemporary French publications such as Cahiers du Cinéma, Cinéma Mondo, and Cinéma Rive. These magazines largely shaped his foundational knowledge of cinema. These readings and translations introduced this group to the 'Auteur Theory,' the traces of which can clearly be seen in the film criticism of the 1960s - known as the golden age of film criticism in Iran. Arjmand said about the criticism atmosphere of the 1960s: 'The atmosphere of the 1960s was naturally based on the atmosphere of the 1920s and 1930s. That is, it was almost on a vacuum. Before the 1960s, serious criticism work did not exist in Iran, so it can be said that what we did and created was based on the existing culture and experience of the West. We utilized more from the experiences, knowledge, and intellectual content of Western culture, and our criteria were like this. We did not have a set of solid internal criteria. In a way, we were pioneers. Of course, Farrokh Ghafari, Togrol Afshar, Sh. Nazarian, Sasan Siamakpour, Turo Al Gilani, and a few others had done some work in the 1930s. In the second half of the 1930s, our group began working at Setareh Cinema and formed in the early 1960s. It can be said that our perspectives had the decisiveness of a one-sided view, and our common feeling was a strong love for cinema, which coincided with the formation of Persian cinema, which was naturally a very raw and primitive cinema, and its necessity required our positioning against it until gradually the domestic cinema was also heralded by individual figures, and we rose to defend and support those figures.' Over the years, Arjmand wrote for various publications such as Setareh Cinema, Roshangar, and Ferdowsi, authored books such as 'About Several Filmmakers,' and published many translations (including works by Solzhenitsyn and Dariush Shayegan). In the years following the revolution, Arjmand was less active, but he continued his relationship with cinema by writing articles and notes for the monthly Film. Arjmand was a calm and dignified person who spoke slowly and deliberately, often citing ancient stories and texts, and his love for cinema was always evident in his sentences. Twenty years ago, I don't know why he suddenly said: 'I think when I die, you will be the first to know!' Twenty years later, he left, and I found out later than others on the other side of the world.