While Iranian director Asghar Farhadi will not be attending the Academy Awards this year because of his protest of Donald Trump’s immigration ban, his film “The Salesman“ stands a good chance of taking the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. He recently sat down with notable TV director Victoria Hochberg (“Melrose Place“) to discuss his new film for a DGA podcast. The conversation is wide ranging, covering the film from inception to finished production and Farhadi, with the help of a translator, is an intriguing guide through the process.
The film follows a young couple as they rent an apartment from a fellow performer who is in a production of “Death of a Salesman.” While I have not personally seen “The Salesman,” Farhadi’s discussion of his theatrical influences, the intertextuality between his film and Arthur Miller’s play, and his directorial style has pushed the film to the top of my viewing list. What I found most interesting was the fact that having “Death of AnSalesman” as the main play within the film was a choice made after the script was written. Farhadi goes into detail about his selection, noting that he read a litany of playwrights before finding narrative similarities between the play and the film and then retroactively created connections between the stories. The reason Farhadi specifically chose “Death of a Salesman” was because, as he explains, Miller did not paint his characters as black and white, something Farhadi admits to striving for in all of his films.
It’s an interesting conversation that goes into both the writing and directing of the film as Farhadi even discusses how he created the apartment as its own character and the visual symbolism that he tried to convey throughout the film. Take a listen and if you’re interested in interviews with directors, I suggest subscribing to the podcast. They always find interesting directors to pair together.