Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi says the story that became “The Salesman” came to him in pieces over a period of years, only emerging as a compelling and suspenseful tale after he added a uniquely American – but also universal – ingredient to the mix.
That his patience and his instincts were right is evident in the reception “The Salesman” has received from audiences and awards ceremonies alike, including last week, an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. Farhadi won an Academy Award in that same category in 2012 for “A Separation.”
“The Salesman” is the story of Emad and Rana, a married couple who are actors in an Iranian production of American playwright Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” The film builds slowly, introducing their lives and those of the cast around them. But after something bad happens to Rana at home one day, the ways in which she and Emad react send events hurtling in an unpredictable and dangerously life-changing direction.
In the beginning, though, all Farhadi had in mind was a married couple and the triggering incident, and that wasn’t working, he says.
“I had the story of this couple and the incident that befell them for many years,” he says by phone from Tehran with a translator helping the Farsi-speaking filmmaker chat with an English-speaking reporter in Southern California. “But I felt that a part of the story was empty, and I did not feel convinced by it.”
He says he considered what their occupation might be, and it occurred to him that they might be actors.
“This might go back to my own history in the theater and my wish to go back to the theater once again,” Farhadi says. “When I realized that they were actors, it was as though a great window opened up for me. Because what’s unique to actors is that they can put themselves in the shoes of another, and they can play another’s part.
“I asked myself, ‘Could they put themselves in the place of that old man who came into their house?’ And then I was also looking for a play that could reinforce this theme.
“I read a great number of plays until I reached Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman,’ and it was though that empty part of the story was suddenly filled in, and I became very excited to make this film,” Farhadi says.
He had read the play more than 20 years earlier as a theater student at university and says “Death of a Salesman” is a much-loved play in Iran, with productions staged there every few years.
“What is interesting to me is (Emad) was playing the part of a salesman onstage and now he was encountering an Iranian version of this salesman,” he says. “And the question was: Would he be able to empathize with him or not?”
“The Salesman,” as with “A Separation” and many of Farhadi’s films, focuses on the small decisions people make that end up having large and often unexpected consequences on their lives and the lives of those around them.
“This is a belief of mine that I have drawn from real life,” he says. “We mistakenly always think that they are the large decisions that determine the path of a life. But the truth is that the very delicate and small details are the things that determine our destiny.”
While his films have been popular at home in Iran and abroad, Farhadi says he doesn’t think of those audiences when he is writing and directing.
“I would answer that by telling you something that might seem very strange,” he says of those for whom he creates. “When I am writing my films, I really have only one audience in mind, one spectator in mind, and that is myself. If something is not credible to me, my feeling is that nobody anywhere in the world would find it credible.
“I always have this experience as though I were sitting in an empty theater by myself, watching the screen and asking myself, ‘What is your reaction to what is going on on that screen?’ When this is your enterprise, people – because people everywhere in the world are so similar, because people resemble each other so greatly – they can understand you.”
As a storyteller, Farhadi says, his first influence was literature, particularly Iranian authors he read as an adolescent. Italian neo-realist filmmakers such as Vittorio De Sica and his masterpiece “Bicycle Thieves” were an important early inspiration, as was Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu and his film “Tokyo Story.”
But it is Charlie Chaplin who stands above all others, Farhadi says.
“All of Chaplin’s body of work has always awed me,” he says. “In my opinion the greatest filmmaker in the history of the world cinema is Chaplin. People everywhere in the world, no matter from what cultural background, understand Chaplin films.”
Farhadi won best screenplay for “The Salesman” at the Cannes Film Festival last year, and his leading actor, Shahab Hosseini, who plays Emad, won best actor there. Hosseini and actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who plays Rana, have appeared in three or more of Farhadi’s films, a connection that allows them to work together almost intuitively, he says.
“I’m completely aware of their capabilities and aware of which portions of their ability I can use,” Farhadi says. “And they too have grown aware of what kind of acting I’m looking for, so we are on the same track.”
With his rising prominence in the West have come opportunities to work beyond the borders of his homeland. His most recent film, “The Past,” was filmed in France. His next project is set in Spain. And if the right opportunity comes along he would love the chance to work in the United States.
That might be a challenge now after President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning travel to the U.S. by nationals of Iran and six other Muslim-majority countries a few days after Farhadi’s nomination.
At the time of the interview, he was looking forward to returning to Hollywood for the Oscars. After the travel ban was announced, Farhadi issued a statement saying he would not attend even if he were to receive an exemption from the new rule.
“Hard-liners, despite their nationalities, political arguments and wars, regard and understand the world in very much the same way,” he wrote. “I believe that the similarities among the human beings on this earth and its various lands, and among its cultures and its faiths, far outweigh their differences.”
Even so, ”the “unjust conditions forced upon some of my compatriots and the citizens of the other six countries trying to legally enter the United States” meant he would stay home, he said.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7787 or plarsen@scng.com
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