Cinema Etemad, Abolfazl Najib wrote in Etemad newspaper:
Appreciation of Morteza Aghili, the actor of the pre-revolutionary cinema, perhaps provided the best opportunity to analyze his role both as an actor and as a writer and director.
Perhaps for many who know Iranian cinema in the past and present with its elites, Morteza Aghili’s presence and appreciation for him was a surprise. I think this surprise is caused by the mentality that the post-revolution generations have towards commercial cinema in general and velvet hat cinema in particular. Although in the memory of the general cinema audience even after the revolution, who got to know his movie character through videos and CDs and later through satellite channels, Aghili is as popular in the minds of ordinary cinema audiences after the revolution as he is in the eyes of the audience before the revolution. It also looks popular and lovely. Maybe writing about his acting in pre-revolutionary cinema is more or less considered a kind of taboo for these reasons.
For this reason, less serious material has been written about such actors, even in most of the books written about the history of Iranian cinema and even the thematic reviews of pre-revolutionary cinema, what has been written about commercial cinema agents and especially supporting acting roles is often seen in brief and It was reluctant and even out of necessity.
In the division of pre-revolutionary cinema, we are often faced with the interpretation of popular cinema, which means cinema whose audience is mostly the ordinary and lower classes of society, who do not expect more than entertainment from the cinema. Popular actors can also be added to this division. Actors who are able to satisfy the audience’s taste in direct relation with this type of movies are complete in relation to its coordinates and in a sense of the same gender.
In that cinema, without a doubt, Morteza Aghili should be classified and evaluated in the jirga of popular actors. Of course, in this attitude, Aghili’s career should be separated from some of his different works and analyzed in its own place. But there is no doubt that Aghili has a different and even irreplaceable position among the popular actors before the revolution.
Aghili was able to become popular with all kinds of tricks and preparations, including constantly changing his accent, the way he walks and even runs, behavioral habits such as long laughs, stuttering, and the appearance of all kinds of stress caused by fear, shyness, sadness, excitement caused by happiness and excitement. Counting booty and lust, the rhythm of talking and relying on words that were constantly changing and changing and… in a way, constantly with themselves. Its stereotype is being demarcated and defamiliarized. What made him popular among popular actors in this repeated cycle was directly related to his intelligence and cleverness in escaping from the repeated cycle of popular actors. This feature was undoubtedly the product and outcome of his academic and field and instinctive understanding of examples and social rewards of such people.
The fact is, just as popular cinema cannot be denied, popular actors cannot be denied either. Whether we like it or not, they are a kind of social phenomena and a product of their time, and as a result, they can be explored and investigated. Ignoring them is actually ignoring the majority of the society that is directly related to these phenomena. Why they are accepted by the society, before they are the product of naivety, is rooted in cultural foundations and collective psychology, and their acceptance is also rooted in the simultaneous understanding of the audience’s role and taste.
We remember Morteza Aghili in most of the commercial films and the body of cinema before the revolution with supporting roles of the main character. Whether it is in the type of cinema known as Jahili or Velvet Hat or what can be interpreted as social cinema even at the level of the nozzle or the body of that cinema. Here, I factor some of his different films, including Distance and Under the Skin of the Night.
In all those conventional films, Morteza Aghili seems to be a character who came out of nowhere, who often plays the role of a disciple under the cover and umbrella of the main character’s support, who does not hesitate to make any effort to reach his goal. It ends well, and in some cases, with sacrifice to the other side of death, tragic results were set for him. Even though playing such roles today is interpreted as easy and reluctant for many who judge his games from an expert point of view, but in the memory of my generation in those years, the judgment about his roles was very superficial and hasty. It was enough that his roles do not require knowledge and acting techniques.
Maybe for the simple reason that basically in that cinema
Not only the acting category, that type of cinema was neither judged nor recognized.
And more importantly, the likes of Morteza Aghili, due to establishing themselves in commercial cinema, deprived serious audiences and critics of the opportunity to reflect on various genres such as under the skin of the night.
In my opinion, as much as Jalal Peshwaian can be introduced as the most different bad guy in the history of Iranian cinema, Morteza Aghili can be recognized as the best actor of supporting roles in commercial and ignorant cinema, and in a sense, in the role of an ignorant disciple and of course popular.
Basically, where such a role entered Iranian cinema is not very important, what seems important is the defamiliarization and de-stereotyping of such a role in the second round of Jahili films. The latter refers to examples such as Lat Javanmard and the works of Majid Mohseni.
If this cinema can be interpreted as a genre with a little indulgence, Aghili can be classified as one of the second generation actors of supporting roles in such a way that despite his becoming a cliché and repetition both in character and in what type of games, every time even with a little Behavioral differences and change of habits somehow made themselves different from other samples. As much as he could show off even in the form of a bragging and weak disciple in the center of events, he was equally able to influence the main character of the film and his disciple in the role of a savior. Without exaggeration, Aghili was irreplaceable in such roles, although he was basically not seen by the special audience of the cinema.
Although he was often under the shadow of Nasser Malek Matiei and his popularity and charisma in Jahili and Velvet Hat films, but at the same time, it must be accepted that an important part of the appeal of these entertaining and commercial films, which are at the same time lovable to the street and bazaar people, must be owed to his presence and He evaluated his supporting roles. Simple and basic roles that sometimes came close to vulgarity and even vulgarity, but the important thing was that he could not only attract his audience but also turn him into a kind of charismatic type.
It should not be overlooked that some tried to replace him in a way by modeling his performances in the velvet hat movies, but with a few examples, it turned out that what he offers from the type of an ignorant chick is much more in proportion to what is supposed to be captured. It is far away. In the meantime, of course, we should not ignore some of his serious and brilliant games, including Under the Skin of the Night.
Undoubtedly, Under the Skin of the Night was the most different role of Aghili in the cinema before the revolution. The film is narrated in the social genre with a seemingly superficial and simple tool and even with traces of commercial cinema, but it is so bitter and deep. Although Aghili’s performance in this film was inspired by the same stereotypical character, at the same time, it was the same sexual principle that the film Herd with his presence and acting could become one of the lasting social films, or in a better way, street films before the revolution.
And to be honest, I struggled with myself to write about Morteza Aghili and especially this part of his film career. Although Aghili has often talked about it on the coin of his presence in the theater in his conversation with Fereydoun Jirani, it was a bit difficult to deal with the most external part of his presence in the cinema before the revolution and after years of abandonment and silence about him. This difficulty greatly eased his recognition in Hafez ceremony.