Mohamad Ali Fardin

[Rasputin]

Fardin was a former wrestling champion, winning the silver medal at the 1952 world freestyle wrestling championships in Tokyo.

Known by millions around the world as the "King of Hearts."

Best film & best actor prizes for his legendary film "Soltaneh Ghalbha" at First Iranian National Film Festival in 1969.

After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, he was able to act in only one film, The Damned, before being banished from the movies.

The most popular actor in Iranian cinema, his films became illegal after the revolution but they continue to circulate on video.

At his funeral, a crowd of over 20,000 mourners gathered to pay respects in central Tehran.

[Rasputin]

To many in my generation Mohammad Ali Fardin was a legend.Yet to most Iranian intellectuals he remained an over-rated actor who represented a commercial cinema that was an embarrassment to our national identity.

Fardin's death in Tehran no doubt is the end of an era in Iranian social history, an era which was marked with social innocence on the one hand and coming of age on the other. Before Fardin, one could argue, our country simply did not have a commercial cinema. Hollywood and India's Bolywood filled hours of Iranian national past time. Iranians had to see foreign melodramas without any sense of identification. Our people would go to movies for the experience of watching what "Farangies" would bring them. Iranian dubbers would make American actors "socially compatible" with Iranian movie goers. Yet the essential experience of an audience seeing a bit of himself or herself on the screen was none existent.

Fardin changed all that. He portrayed an image that most of his viewers could simply identify themselves with. Fardin portrayed the man on the street; he was an ordinary working class man who would stand up to the powerful elite. He would fall in love with an upper class girl and yet would not be a lackey of her father.

True, many of these images must be regarded as false representations. All industrialists were greedy and all workers were honest. Poverty was highly respected while wealth would bring corruption. These were simplifications if not falsifications of certain social values. Yet Fardin's contribution to the development of Iranian cinema was altogether a positive experience. With limited tools at his disposal and no real national cinematic history to support him, Fardin's movies reflected the innocence of coming of age and the flowering of a new kind of popular culture.

At a time when only foreign pictures would bring in box office success, Fardin's films gave a serious challenge to foreign imports. While many Iranians would line up to see James Bond movies and still others would flock in to see Antonioni's "Blow up", Fardin with his "Ganjeh qaaroon" would offer the under-class an Iranian alternative.

He was instrumental in bringing the cinema to many distant towns that would have never even contemplate the opportunity to see a moving picture. In those years (and unfortunately even today) many people in small Iranian towns, with the help of local mollas, would hinder the coming of such Western -- and thus "corrupt" -- influences. One could argue that today's general acceptance of movies in our culture is greatly indebted to Fardin's popularity and his years of performance on the big screen.

Fardin's cinema had other important social ramifications. He was the first Iranian male actor to be seen singing and dancing in public on such a large scale. Sure we did have our folksy theater groups and other forums in which male actors would sing and dance. But Fardin's acting broke all social taboos that were part of our social and sexual psyche.

For the first time Iranian women as well as men would have a lovable hero that could be shared nationally. Fardin was the first contemporary Iranian man who would brake through such social taboos in our culture. Iranian men for the first time would witness one of their kinds dance on the big screen while women audiences would have the opportunity to fantasize about an Iranian man while sitting next to their own husbands!

Forough Farrokhzad was the first and perhaps the only Iranian poet who recognized Fardin's popularity, social acceptance and taboo breaking abilities and referred to "Fardin's Cinema" in one of her poems.

These were just a few quick observations in reaction to hearing the news of Fardin's death. One day I hope Iranians of all walks of life would recognize his contribution to their culture and give him his proper place in Iranian popular history.

[angel]

He was best of the best a true legend its ashame he is no longer with us he was a real hero. thx red wine again.

[Cop]

khoda rahmatesh kone .. karesh harf nadasht

[Rasputin]

Mohammad Ali Fardin (1930 - April 6, 2000) was an Iranian actor.

Fardin was known as the "King of Hearts" for his role in the Iranian film of that name. He was a former wrestler who came to fame in the 1960's. For the average Iranians, he represented a hero and served as an alternative to the foreign movie stars. He usually played the poor tough guy with the heart of gold who married the girl at the end.

His other films include Gedayaneh Tehran, Ganjeh Gharoon, and Parvaz dar asemanha. After the Iranian Revolution, he starred in only one more film, and his earlier films were eventually banned. Subsequently, he opened a bakery in Tehran. More than 20,000 mourners attended his funeral in Tehran.

[Rasputin]

يكي از هنرمنداني كه با وجود اينكه مدتها از توليد آخرين فيلمش مي گذرد همچنان در دل مردم جاي دارد شادروان محمد علي فردين است. كسي كه شهرتش ازسينما آغاز نشد بلكه مدال نقره المپيك(كشتي) نخستين بار او را بر سكوي شهرت برد.

فردين در سال 38 نخستين فيلم خود را با عنوان دوقلوها (چشمه آب حيات) بازي كرد.او در فيلمهاي گنج قارون و سلطان قلبها شهرت و محبوبيت بسياري بدست آورد.قدرت فردين در بازيگري قابل توصيف نيست.نقش او در فيلمهاش هميشه ارتباط مستقيم با مردم دارد.او در فيلمهايش نامهاي عاميانه دارد و خانه وغذايش بسيار ساده است وغالبا فقير است.درونمايه طنز در شخصيت او، او را هر چه بيشتر در ميان مردم محبوب كرد

او در فيلمهاي زيادي با ظهوري همبازي بود.فردين علاوه بر بازيگري در زمينه كارگرداني(عشق وانتقام،گرگهاي گرسنه،سلطان قلبها،قرار بزرگ و...)،نويسندگي (عشق وانتقام،سلطان قلبها و...) ،مشاور فيلمنامه وتدوينگر نيز فعاليت نمود.فردين در سال 1361 آخرين فيلمش با عنوان برزخي ها را بازي كرد وازآن به بعد اجازه بازيگري را از او گرفتند، با اين وجود او حاضر به ترك كشور نشد.فردين در دوره اوج موجب به وجود آمدن يك سبك به نام سبك فرديني شد كه طرفداران بسياري داشت

سرانجام فردين در فروردين ماه سال 1379 چشم از جهان فروبست و در ميان سيل هنرمندان وهنردوستان وبا يك تشييع جنازه بي سابقه در قطعه هنرمندان بهشت زهراي تهران به خاك سپرده شد.اما بي شك فردين در دل ملت ايران تا سالها زنده خواهد ماند.روحش شاد ويادش گرامي باد

[moh3en]

aks bezar lotfan

[Rasputin]

[ame="http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=rgrYsABOfmw"]YouTube - Mohammad Ali Fardin[/ame]

[Rasputin]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94gWeLkp9JQ[/ame]

[Rasputin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpdl84wMOnI