Joseph Gets a Makeover
Dec 1st, 2009 by pedestrian
What would compel a man to go from this:
to this:
Youzarsif [Yousef = Joseph] was a HIGHLY popular TV series that aired on IRIB1 last year chronicling the life of Joseph. Not only was the show itself popular, but it made a mega star out of the lead actor, Mostafa Zamani, pictured above who was chosen among 3000 applicants for the job. According to the Koran, Joseph, a prophet, was spectacularly beautiful. According to Iranians, that translates into him having piercing green eyes.
IRIB has for two decades now had a fascination with bringing the life of prophets and imams to our TV screens. I will have a piece about the various superhero/prophet series to come out in recent years in another post later in the week.
These are among the most expensive productions ever brought to the screen in Iran. They feature hundreds of actors and are filmed in gigantic studios (when most shows are only filmed inside one house or on the street). However, while in the past talents such as Mirbagheri and Beyzaie [who wrote one of the most memorable films] were involved in such productions, these days, it is pro-government supporters/thugs like Farajollah Salahshour.
In fact Farajollah Salahshour was sued by the Artists’ House [a union of artists] just two weeks ago. In response he said: “the Artists’ House invites filmmakers from Hollywood and hosts them in Iran, holds big parties and gatherings for them, for those who are working against our country and against Islam, but then they sue me for speaking of my beliefs? They are suing me for saying what I believe in. For speaking the truth and saying that a part of our cinema has been overtaken by a dangerous, corrupted mafia which has no regard for the Islamic Revolution or Islam.”
Here are some photos of the series, taken from Salahshour’s weblog.
Salahshour on set
Anyways, back to the photo. Why did Sir Joseph undergo such a dramatic change in appearance?
Because yesterday, the actors, producers and writers of the series went to see Ayatollah Khamenei. During the meeting, the leader said [via PressTV]: “most of the movie-making companies in Hollywood are under the political influence of an interconnected system which is behind American politics and even at times goes far beyond governments.”
The Leader called on Iranian directors to make use of the thoughts and ideologies of the Islamic Republic in spreading the message of the Islamic Revolution.
Here are more photos of the gathering.
The leader with (from left) Farajollah Salahshour (director), Jamal Shourjeh (producer), Mostafa Zamani (actor)
Other actors involved with the film
Zarghami, head of IRIB is seen sitting next to the leader
Farajollah Hosseinpor works his magic with the leader
Here are two more BEFORE photos of Mostafa Zamani
And here he is playing Joseph in the series.
Although its not my kind of guy, these change of looks seem to be no improvement.
I’m not sure I understand exactly what it is that you are suggesting here. That this guy looks bad without his make-up?
supp, I’m not suggesting anything other than the fact that he looks really different. I couldn’t even recognize him at first when I saw the photos of the meeting. I personally don’t find him attractive in either costume. I’ve seen other actors meet the leader and they usually grow a beard and cut their hair and change wardrobes but I’d never seen such a dramatic transformation.
You are crazy!
Just great!!!!!
Why crazy?
Glad you liked it.
crazy? – This combination of these [very] different photos [even of the same person] with the information of the background, why the 180-degree-difference – one has to invent, come up with this idea to combine all that !
Reality is satire – o.k. – but who is able to prove that – more or less only with two photos !!!!
(( I told you once the story, how the German satire-magazine “Titanic” bribed the Soccer-FIFA-representatives responsible for the location of the Soccer-World-Cup-final with a cuckoo-clock [Peacemaker !!] from the German “Black Forest” and a German “Black Forest” ham [Pensive Persian !!] to decide on Germany as the location ; and the World Cup Final did then take place in Germany ! ))
Continue, Go on, Continue with your undermining photos/pictures/work
Take care
German
I can change my appearance like this, too. It takes about 2-3 weeks. With facial hair and my head hair grown out, I appear about 10-20 years older, and I look like a different person. It’s an amazing transformation, most notable after grooming.
The beard especially. I end up resembling soldiers at the front, in photos from the early days of the Imposed war.
I have to say, in the first photo, the actor looks like a cream puff. In the second, he appears “all-Iranian” (we use a term “all-American” here in the US to denote persons encompassing social and physical ideals, in a popularized national sense.)
Pirouz, I get your point (and maybe supp’s) that a man can really change his appearance quite strikingly if only he grows a beard and cuts his hair.
As a girl, I can’t do something like that, it’s a foreign concept to me (the eyebrows don’t make that dramatic a difference).
I agree that he looks like a cream puff in the first photo. You gotta walk up to a newspaper stand in Tehran. the tabloids have photos of him in that setting ALL OVER.
I know the “all-American” expression. But I think he embodies that “all-IRI” appearance in the second. He looks just like the men in our schools books and on TV.
Personally, I think he looks better with reesh… Either way, Zamani is damn handsome!
lol. no matter how you feel about his looks, he’s not that good an actor.
But this was his first attempt.
Presumably this is Joseph as in the Bible?
“most of the movie-making companies in Hollywood are under the political influence of an interconnected system which is behind American politics and even at times goes far beyond governments.”
In other words, Hollywood is Jewish. Why would the Iranian government think that Iranians could interpret a Jewish legend for the screen better than the Jews of Hollywood?
(It is certainly true that many of the founders of Hollywood were Jewish. This is one reason why Hollywood was so dynamic and creative in the 20C. How Jewish Hollywood is today, I don’t know.)
Don, never mind I think they did a poor job. But why would the Iranians (government or not) think that they could interpret Joseph?
Because Johseph is mentioned continuously in the Koran. Some of our most famous poets/writers have also written pieces about him. He is quite prominent in our culture/religion. So why would they feel that they could NOT interpret Joseph?
To add to Ped’s comments above: Don, I don’t think the statement “most of the movie-making companies in Hollywood are under the political influence of an interconnected system which is behind American politics and even at times goes far beyond governments” labels Hollywood as Jewish, but perhaps as Zionist. It’s important to distinguish between the two: there are more Christian Zionists (like Jerry Falwell) than Jewish Zionists in the U.S. (not to mention secular non-Jewish Zionists like Karl Rove). Even Ahmadinejad, however anti-Semitic he may be, recognizes the difference between Judaism and Zionism.
Aside from the fact that the story of Joseph features prominently in the Qur’an (with some differences from the version in the Torah; in my opinion, the Torah paints a one-dimensional, sexist portrait of Zuleikha as an evil seductress, whereas her character in the Qur’an is more nuanced and is eventually redeemed), who’s to say that Iranian Jews (of which there are ~25,000 currently living in Iran) didn’t play a role in the production of the series?
I have to admit, he looks cuter in his no-beard days. Some men can carry off the bearded look very well; others, well, they look disheveled with even a 2-day beard.
And that’s a really creative interpretation of the Egyptian costumes. Walking around with long sleeves like that in 110 deg F during the summer, without air conditioning in Joseph’s time . . .
lola …. loooooooooooooooooool about the costume comment