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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Genius Zia Mohajerjasbi and Malik Hassan Sayeed

Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 3:15 PM

One more word about Zia, this year's recipient of the Genius Award for film:

It's really useful to compare Zia's growing body of work to that of Malik Hassan Sayeed, the cinematographer for Hype William's only feature, Belly, and two of Spike Lee's best films, Girl 6 and Clockers—he also did second unit work on Gattaca and Eyes Wide Shut. Zia and Malik do not fear the beautiful. And certain people do fear and try to stay away from it. I recall, for example, the veteran director Robert Benton explaining to me that for his film The Human Stain, he only allowed his cinematographer, Jean-Yves Escoffier (who died soon after completing the movie), to have three beauty shots for the entire work. Such a restriction would be fatal for Zia and Malik—who, sadly, has not had that much work this decade. If there's no beauty in the film, then the very essence or meaning of their art is missing.

Zia the beautiful:

Malik the beautiful:

Comments (7) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

you love copy pasting old shit over and over again, don't you?

Posted by lord chuckles muckduck on November 11, 2009 at 3:22 PM

when did i do that in this post?

Posted by Charles Mudede on November 11, 2009 at 3:36 PM

blog commenters are so weirdly mean to you charles :[

Posted by hugshugs on November 11, 2009 at 3:37 PM

I think that picture is from the roof of a building I used to live in. whatever.

Posted by I'm 85 Years Old on November 11, 2009 at 5:07 PM

Holy Crap Your Obnoxious. Really Truly Obnoxious. Of course, in this instance, your position makes perfect sense as your movie Police Beat would've looked like a bad student film had the cinematography not been so stellar.

Posted by Siskel on November 11, 2009 at 5:17 PM

Strange to see those in The Stranger, known to be gay and lesbian friendly, drooling over Zia, a practicing Baha'i, when they believe homosexuality is an aberration against nature: "To the question of alteration of homosexual bents, much study must be given, and doubtless in the future clear principles of prevention and treatment will emerge."
http://bahai-library.com/file.php?file=u…

This is the same religious group descended from Iranian Islam that plans on establishing a New World Order theocracy composed of its religious institutions as the means to unite humanity in a one world government with a single language and a single currency.

http://endrtimes.blogspot.com/2009/11/ba…

Posted by DavidS on November 13, 2009 at 6:57 PM

DavidS, I would suggest that your post is misleading in that it implies that Baha'is are aligned with many of the right wing political groups who seek to dictate the moral values of other people. For a Baha'i, the emphasis is on living up to the Baha'i moral code that one chooses as a Baha'i. It is definitely not about forcing a non Baha'i to live up to that moral code (or as Christ taught--let he who is without sin cast the first stone). If you knew much about the Baha'i Faith you would also know that it has a prohibition on involvement in partisan politics (Baha'is vote, but not as a Republican, Democrat, or whatever). Also, Baha'is are no stranger to oppression. They have been subject to it in Persia (now Iran) since the Faith began in Persia in the mid 1800s. Tens of thousands of Baha'is (at first known as Bab'is) have been killed by 'Islamic' leaders in Iran since the origin of the Faith. The progressive religious and social beliefs of the Baha'is, such as the equality of women and men, are not popular with the Islamic clergy. One early Bab'i leader, a women called Tahirih, shortly before she was killed for her beliefs, reportedly told her jailers "You may kill me as soon as you like, but you will not stop the emancipation of women".

Posted by PMG on November 17, 2009 at 7:07 AM