Once Upon a Time, Cinema (1991) as representation of the experience of corporeal spectatorship and the dissolving of the boundary between spectator and cinematic spectacle

Once Upon a Time, Cinema (“Nasser al-Din Shah Actor Cinema”) narrates a fictional story of the arrival of cinema in Iran based on real and fictive cinematic characters. The film is focused on the character of Akkasbashi (meaning Cinematographer) who is the first person to bring an early motion picture camera to Iran and the court of the then kings and who is also in love with Atieh (meaning future). From this entry into history, the film also reviews the history of cinema in Iran culminating in a montage of segments from a number of Iranian films. The film presents a fictional magical story, and incorporates themes dealing with the problems of filmmaking, auditing, and cinema restrictions as well as the role of the ruling power elite in this process. Throughout the narrative, scenes from previously made documentary and feature films are shown to the Shah and the courtiers, and from this perspective, the film acquires a self-reflective quality. In Once Upon a Time, Cinema, the boundaries between the supposed real space of the story world and the cinematic space within the narrative are constantly blurred; sometimes the characters of a film enter the real space and eliminate the perspective distance and safe place of watching, and sometimes the spectator enters the space and frames of a film interacting with the film characters in their world. This is reminiscent of physical experiments from the different stages of cinema history that incorporated the direct implementation of all senses other than just sight. We know the declarations by Sergei Eisenstein, Rudolf Arnheim, and Charlie Chaplin, who opposed the introduction of sound and who were in defense of a pure visual art cinema. In addition, attempts to directly engage the audience's sense of smell and to use fragrance during the screening of a film go back to the period before 1906. However, the two dominant senses that film directly reaches out to are the sight and sound which for some critics and researchers incorporate all of our senses when watching a film. From this perspective, the film can be considered as a creative exploration of the cinematic viewing experience. As the curtain is opened and the boundary between the cinematic observer and the scene is broken, Once Upon a Time, Cinema shows a pattern of observation based on tactile contact and physical communication. This is the same point that has been considered in film studies in recent years by theorists who seek to provide alternative models for the perceptual experience of encountering cinematic images. The present study, which has been carried out by descriptive-analytical method and using library sources, raises the argument that the film Once Upon a Time, Cinema has tried to pay homage to the history of Iranian cinema and by using creative cinematic techniques question the traditional view of cinema and emphasize the physical aspects and haptic perception of watching films in addition to other restrictions and fixed expectations that the filmmaker feels inappropriate.