Part 1: Interview — ‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’s’ Cyrus Nowrasteh
by Christian TotoDirector Cyrus Nowrasteh has news for people who think the public execution scene at the heart of “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is too long, too graphic or too uncompromising in its horror. The real thing is worse. Much worse.
Nowrasteh’s “Stoning,” which debuts in select cities June 26, tells the true story of an Iranian woman accused of adultery by her narcissistic husband and subsequently stoned, per Sharia law, for her crime. The film, based on the book by journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, reveals its critical sequence via the title. But audiences will still recoil at the monstrous behavior on display.
“I want people never to forget what a stoning is,” Nowrasteh says. “I’ve seen it on tape, and it’s much worse.”
Nowrasteh, who wrote the ABC miniseries “The Path to 9/11,” read Sahebjam‘s book back in 1994 but figured no one would green light a film based on the harrowing true story. The story stuck with him all the same, and years later he and his wife, screenwriter Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, decided to try to make such a movie themselves. Wresting the legal rights to the book took time, but they had very little competition, he says. Only two Italian directors flirted with the notion of making the book into a movie, as did, briefly, director Costa-Gavras (“Missing”).
Standout Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdasloo (“The House of Sand and Fog”) signed on after reading the Nowrastehs‘ script, and some of the director’s past connections helped flesh out the funding. Nowrasteh promised the book’s author to use Iranian actors and have them speak Farsi in the film which came in under $4 million. He also had no intentions of sugar coating the main story. The biggest change from the book came with the supporting characters, who display a complex range of emotions regarding the stoning – even those who take part in the atrocity.
“If you read the book you would see just how far I went in the writing the script,“ he says, adding even the selfish husband who accuses his wife of adultery is given flashes of humanity. “In the book there was no shading.“
Tomorrow: Nowrasteh shares how a “user friendly” version of the stoning scene fared with test audiences and his frustration that “The Path to 9/11″ remains unavailable on DVD.
Christian Toto is a contributing reporter for The Washington Times, MovieMaker Magazine and boxoffice.com. He blogs about film at whatwouldtotowatch.com and at The Denver Examiner.
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19 Comments
As is said, a real stoning is much worse. I have seen one on tape as well. The victims covered in sheets and placed about waist high in the ground. Then, rabid men, and I do mean mob rabid, start hurling stones. The cheers that go up as blood appears on the white sheets covering the victims is particularly disturbing. It demonstrates that humanity has a long long way to go to indeed be human.
Violence is something only a sadist would enjoy seeing. But this isn't about "enjoying." This is about letting people see the true horrors of what the jihadists and fundamentalits Muslims call civilization. Watered-down depictions are helpful, but they don't convey the true gut-wrenching barbarity that goes on in certain segments of the world population. Just as the scenes from 9-11 were immediately sanitized so that we saw only collapsing buildings and crashing airplanes, the current depictions of what is going on in the Middle East can raise righteous indignation, but not the resolve necessary to do something about it. It's time someone did a true depiction of the gay holocaust going on in Iraq and parts of Iran as well. We are not dealing with people who are, by any western definition, sane. And yet we attempt to conduct our diplomacy as if these were people with merely eccentric ways of doing things. So long as this continues, it's too easy to concentrate on the alleged horrors of rare enhanced interrogation techniques by Americans while merely tut-tutting at true and massive horror as an acceptable part of government policy and religious fervor in other nations.
it does at least seem that 'someone' has a vested interest in continuing the status quo- this regieme, illegitimate for nigh on 30 years is brittle and ready to break- unless the world stands idly by while the brutal repression takes place and the voices of freedom are crushed…
Then they can go back to business as usual.
[...] Part 1: Interview — ‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’s’ Cyrus Nowrasteh by Christian Toto [...]
Evil continues to flourish when the righteous (and self-righteous) refuse to act.
Edmund Burke once said:
"All that is needed for evil to flourish is for good men to stand by and do nothing"
He is also the father of modern conservatism. See a thread there?
"The Path to 9/11". Now there's a movie I'd like to see again . . .
As if I needed another reason to see this film, which I didn't, but I'm glad I read your post. Thanks for writing it.
One of my favorites:
'There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape'
- Oriana Fallaci, 'The Rage and The Pride'
I'm now listening to the interview with Cyrus and Betsy on Hugh Hewitt's Show. Excellent on all levels. This is an important film that needs to be supported when it arrives in theaters on Friday.
Encourage people to display green ribbons as symbolic solidarity with the resistance to tyranny in Iran. Invite Iranian-Americans to July 4 celebrations and Tea Party protests here. Wear green to the movie. Help make it a hit so that more theaters pick it up. It may be grim, but this is reality – not what passes for it on TV shows. Spread the word about this movie. The timing of the release couldn't be better.
http://www.SurgeUSA.org
1000 Bravos.
i'm going to see this on saturday and i would say i'm looking forward to seeing it, except that i know how gut-wrenching it will be to watch.
You think this is bad? Wait until the current Iraqi regime delivers to us that big stone from the sky. It's coming soon to a theater near you. Does anyone really believe that once they have it, they won't use it?
We'd like to flatter ourselves that the spectacle of stoning is a hold-over from a more primitive era, but it may be a grim look into the future.
Civilization doesn't just happen. We enjoy the benfits of prosperity and rule of law because of centuries of struggle by generations of what the Left in their arrogance deride as "dead (mostly) white males." Thanks to several generations of ennervated Western European societies which Obama wishes us to emulate, the civilized bits on the global map are now shrinking.
Movies like "Soraya M" will hopefully wake more of the American people to the reality that we must be prepared to fight to maintain the rights and priveleges which are taken for granted
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There is evil, no doubt. But, good exists as well. The real conflict begins when good decides that passivity at its own peril is no longer acceptable.
[...] spoke to “Stoning” director Cyrus Nowrasteh over at Big Hollywood and reviewed the film for [...]
[...] Which brings up another flaw in the film. Much like the plight of women in the Middle East in general post 9/11, Soraya will no doubt be ignored by feminist groups, which is all the more ironic: with exception of Caviezel’s character, the men depicted here are universally manipulative and scheming. (Though it could have worse, I suppose: as Nowrasteh says, “If you read the book you would see just how far I went in the writing the script,“ he says, adding even the selfish husband who accuses his wife of adultery is given flashes of humanity. “In the book there was no shading.”) [...]
I saw the film today and it was excellent. Of course the stoning was ugly and violent. But it wasn't overly so. I have no desire to see a real stoning, but I am sure he is right that the real thing is a hundred times more horrible.
Excellent film. Difficult to watch, but excellently done.
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