Trust cinema Saeed Artman wrote in Etemad newspaper: All forms of multiple governance systems in different countries need powerful media organizations in order to align public opinion with domestic policy systems and justify their series of macro decisions in the international arena, the most common state media organ in most countries, television and so on. Among them are printed and digital publications, websites and official pages in social networks. The custom is that in the mentioned media, the news of the respective government is reported directly and without any non-news additions. In some cases, however, governments need to leave an idea in the minds of the audience indirectly and hidden in layers more subtle than the dry news atmosphere, which will stimulate and affect the receiver’s subconscious mind.
In this situation, a high-profile art product like cinema is a suitable and available option, and in the history of world cinema, many works with different quality ratings have been produced and distributed in the service of governing bodies. The most familiar government-mandatory works for the general cinema audience are the films that were produced and distributed during the years of World War II.
From the autocratic Soviet Union to free America and inflamed Europe, which was the center of war trumpets, parts of the cinematographic products of these lands served to excite nationalist sentiments and advertise warlike achievements. The most different and lasting works of government-state cinema of this period were produced in Nazi Germany under the management and support of Joseph Goebbels, and the progressive and deconstructive film “Triumph of the Will” directed by Leni Riefenstahl became one of the trend-setting films in the history of world cinema. But after the end of the war, the director of this film, in an expected behavior, was severely boycotted, and despite his long life, he never got the opportunity to create art again, and he paid the price of standing in the worst place of history and in the worst time and next to the worst person of those years. He paid like this.
Threats, greed and heart beliefs are the three main factors in the transformation of cinematographers by politicians. The sovereign cinema, which showed its power during the Second World War and showed off its high level of effectiveness, has continued to this day around the world and is limited. It is not specific to geography. In Iran, every year several works are produced and released to serve the goals of the established government. Due to the inflammatory social conditions in the domestic arena and the complicated situation in the foreign policy scene in the last few decades, which has caused the target of the government’s propaganda storm by television and media aligned and serving the government, the Iranian citizen cannot be influenced by superficial advertisements. Iranian cinema is extremely weak in its structure and content in terms of its sovereignty, and usually this category of works also fails on the screen. The genre of war, revolutionary and religious cinema is often financed and sponsored by government institutions in different periods. From the late sixties to the late eighties, many war films were produced in Iranian cinema, many of which became lasting works of Iranian cinema.
At that time, filmmakers were serving their heart beliefs and what was produced was a manifestation of the inner thoughts and opinions of the filmmaker. In the cinema of developed countries such as European countries, East Asian countries and Hollywood cinema, the tool of enticement is more effective to encourage filmmakers to produce custom works, and during the Cold War, the Soviet ruling apparatus forced filmmakers to cooperate by threatening and placing them in financial difficulties. He did it with the government. In the current era in Iranian cinema, usually three groups of filmmakers sometimes accompany the government. The first group are young filmmakers who do not have the experience of making feature films, and because of their passion for cinema, after finishing their academic studies and making several short films without strictness in choosing the work, they wholeheartedly accept the first offer of directing, and among the works produced are independent names and Officially produced by these amateur directors, sometimes watchable films have been produced, but often these young people have added many weak and lackluster works to the repertoire of Iranian cinema. The government is doing a risky job by entrusting sometimes expensive works to people with no resume and unknown with public funds. The second category are the directors who, due to a series of wrong choices and frequent misfortunes, their brilliant career has ended and after directing several weak and very little popular films, they are not offered a job by the producers, or at some point, their filmmaking activities are under threat due to a court order. This group of bankrupt cinematographers accept to cooperate with these kinds of projects out of necessity to avoid unemployment and financial problems.
The third group of people are aligned with the viewpoints of the government, a small but powerful group that is entrusted with the production of the so-called big production projects approved by the government, and regardless of the result of the work, due to the closeness of the views of the employer and the producer, the cooperation process is usually continuous and without problems. If the country was in a more ideal situation, maybe there would be no need to finance weak films, but the government was not approved by the relevant institutions under the government, and cinematographers praised the services of the government in their artistic works.