Break Down Cinema

Samira Makhmalbaf's drama film Panj é asr ( At Five in the Afternoon , Makhmalbaf, 2003) about a woman dreaming of becoming President in post-Taliban Afghanistan gets its title from Federico Garcia Lorca's poem 'A las cinco de la tarde' ('At Five in the Afternoon', Lorca, 1935), which the poet (Razi Mohebi) gives protagonist Nogreh (Agheleh Rezaie) to help her practice feeling confident with public speaking. Lorca's poem describes with haunting detail the scene of a bullfighter's gruesome death by a bull attack, painting a vivid picture of this death from the sound of flutes to the wounds' sun-like burning appearance. Each stanza constantly repeats the time the tragedy occurred as though it has traumatised the narrator. In an interview about Panj é asr , Makhmalbaf describes how she included the poem because she read it as a child, thinking it was about the bull's death and thought it beautiful because it conveyed this death as so significant th...

Introduction: The Phantom Stage Some time ago, I learned about Soundstage 28, the oldest Universal Studios sound stage where numerous Universal films were shot over eighty-nine years before it was demolished in 2014 (theStudioTour.com, 2014) as part of Universal's plans to build several new theme park attractions (Erik, 2014). I found it rather depressing to hear about the elimination of this site that was so major to film history for decidedly capitalistic reasons. It motivated me to seek out the silent film adaptation of  The Phantom of the Opera  (Julian, 1925). In a sense, I thought of it as my way of helping keep the memory of this article of film history alive. Featuring it prominently on-screen, this film is arguably the poster child film for Soundstage 28, so much so that it is often colloquially referred to as "The Phantom Stage." Since its demolition, the image and memory of Soundstage 28 survive to a certain extent in this film and other images that documen...