As yet no attempt has been made to write the history of Armenian film in America. The definition of terms has not yet been made for a proper discussion of what is meant by Armenian film. Thus, the question must be approached on various levels, some very tangential to the concept of Armenian film making. If by Armenian films we limit our discussion to Armenian language films, we are left with only half a dozen films and a few directors. The field of view is somewhat enlarged if we consider films and documentaries made by or about Armenians. But we are still in a relatively restrained domain. It is only when we consider films made by directors of Armenian origin and then add producers, actors, editors, that we can begin to speak of "Armenians in American film" as a vast subject covering hundreds of films and scores of actors. In this brief overview emphasis will be placed on (1) Armenian language films and (2) Armenian directors.

          The earliest document on film about the Armenians of the type "made in America" is a valuable sequence of some 15 minutes turned in the Republic of Armenia in 1919 by the U.S. Signal Corps for the commission sent there by President Woodrow Wilson under the direction of General James Harbord. The task of Harbord was to study the feasibility of assuming an American mandate over Armenia. Despite the Harbord commission's favorable report, the U.S. Senate rejected President Wilson's request for a mandate. The film preserved in the U.S. Archives in Washington, captures the Republic in its second year and offers moving shots of Armenia's leader of the time. J. Michael Hagopian, about whom we shall speak later, has used some of this footage in historical documentaries about the Armenian question and the history of Armenians in the U.S. He also made a film narrated by Professor Richard Hovannisian, Mandate for Armenian (1988, 30"), based on the footage of 1919

          Shortly after this early documentary, a commercial film was released in 1919 on the Genocide with the title Ravished Armenia. The film was based on a book entitled Auction of Souls, the story of Aurora Mardiganian, who plays herself in it. This first feature film on Armenia, was directed by Oscar Apfel in New York. It was based on the book Ravished Armenia by H. L. Gates, the story of Aurora Mardiganian published in 1918 in New York. It was produced by William N. Selig after a scenario by Nora Waln and Frederick Chapin with Mardiganian playing herself and Irving Cummings playing Antranig. A few feet of film are reportedly preserved in archives in Armenia. The Armenian and Syrian Relief organization sponsored the film and helped publicized it; posters and newspaper advertisements are preserved. However, to the best of my knowledge no example of the film has survived.

          Another silent film of the period, probably made in New York in 1922 or 1923, was entitled Harem Master. The film is supposed to have described the life of Antranik, but it was felt the more lurid title would help distribution. Setrag Vartian, whose films are discussed below, had a minor role in this movie. He believed it was made by a certain Baghdassarian.

          There were also probably more than one amateur documentary made in America during this early period. The Film Archive of the Armenian Studies Program, California State University, Fresno, has three such films, a total of 30 minutes, from the period 1929-1931 shot at picnics on the east coast. One of them is a Huntchak Party picnic and in it are various important political and religious Armenian figures of the time. All of the above films are silent productions.

          The first Armenian language filmmaker in the United States was Setrag Vartian (1904-1984). His two features films and one documentary were all made in Armenian in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Vartian began his career on the Armenian stage in America, touring the country as a singer-actor with the very famous Armenian musical "Arshin Mal Alan" in the late 1920s and 30s. He formed a production company in New York-New Jersey and in 1937 virtually single-handedly produced, directed, and starred in this first full length film in the Armenian language turned in America. To this day Arshin Mal Alan with its turn of the century decor, its vitality and its frank fare continues to excite audiences. The comedy of manners originally written in Azeri, was translated by Malalian and had great success in Soviet Armenia. The plot involves an upper class westernized gentleman's quest for a bride by way of a disguise as an itinerant cloth merchant able to enter otherwise restricted women's quarters. Despite a few technical imperfections, the film still has the spontaneity and freshness of the stage production.

          Vartian was to move to California before producing two other films in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The first was a full length production of the opera Anoush (1945) by Armen Tigranian with Zarouhi Elmassian in the lead role and Vartian as Saro. His final film was a dramatic documentary: The Life and Songs of Gomidas Vardapet (1946). In recent years he went to Erevan with the intention of producing a joint film of Hovhannes Toumanian's Kikor, based on an elaborate working script, but the project was abandoned. A quarter of a century was to pass before a new wave of Armenian language films was to be a made in the United States.

          During this entire period from the late 1920s to the late 1950s one name dominated the imagination of Armenians everywhere in the world who were even slightly interested in cinema: Rouben Mamoulian (1898-1991). Born in Tiflis to an upper class family devoted to the arts, Mamoulian was attracted to the stage from his earliest teens. Though he finally studied law in Moscow he simultaneously worked in the theater there with such masters as the Armenian Vakhtangov and the legendary Stanislavsky. In 1922 he became instantly famous in London through a production in the St. James Theatre and in the next year, after refusing an offer at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, went to Rochester, New York, where George Eastman had formed the new American Opera Theatre. For the next three years he staged and directed operas by Verdi, Bizet, Wagner, Debussy, and Gilbert and Sullivan. He then moved onto Broadway where he became one of the most sought-after directors of the American stage. In 1929 he was invited by Paramount to visit their Astoria studios in New York for the shooting of a film. In that same year he made his first film, Applause, still one of the great classics of early talking films. His direction of Helen Morgan and the characteristic Mamoulian instinct for movement and rhythm made it clear to everyone that Mamoulian was not only at home with the transition from the theater to celluloid, but that he was a great creator and innovator.

          During the next 14 years, he directed, and at times also produced, 14 films, most of which are among the eternal classics of Hollywood. His ingenuity and daring, his intelligence and cosmopolitan sophistication were to bring a dimension to American cinema which it needed badly. His last two films were made after the second World War, Summer Holiday (1947) and Silk Stockings (1957). In films as diverse as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Queen Christina (1933), The Mark of Zorro (1940), Becky Sharp (1935), and Song of Songs (1933), he directed the greatest actors of the time: Fredric March, Greta Garbo, Helen Morgan, Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, Randolph Scott, Irene Dunne, Anthony Quinn, John Carradine, Henry Fonda, Fred Astaire, Mickey Rooney, Walter Huston, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck and many, many more.

          Simultaneously, Mamoulian was working on the Broadway stage mounting some of the greatest American musicals: Porgy and Bess (1935), Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel (1945). After his film career was over, Rouben Mamoulian worked on a variety of theatrical (Hamlet, 1966) and literary projects. His work in American cinema and theater has long been regarded as "classical" and already a score of Rouben Mamoulian Festivals have been held around the world, including two at the Cinematheque française.

          Many consider Mamoulian's film Becky Sharp (1935) to be the first to use the newly invented tri-color Technicolor in a dramatic fashion. Color is not utilized just to beautify the image, but it is employed symbolically. Mamoulian has written on the symbolic use of color and has spoken at length about his use of it in this film. In the great ballroom scene, for instance, original light colors which turn to greens and blues, dramatically change to a dominant, overwhelming red as the threat of Napoleon's cannons approach the festive gathering. Becky Sharp is based on one of the classics of English literature, Vanity Fair by William Thackeray. It is one of those rare movies which is successfully able to portray the essence of a great novel. In Miriam Hopkins, Mamoulian displayed the genius he always seem to have when it came to showing off great actresses at their best on the screen. Beside the innovative use of color, the film has the usual Mamoulian trademark of rhythm and elegance.

          William Saroyan (1908-1981) always admired Mamoulian and was his good friend while working as a screen writerfor Hollywood in 1936 and again in 1942. He was especially fond of Miriam Hopkins with whom he suggested to me he had had amorous relations. Saroyan made a single film under strange circumstances in 1942 at the MGM studios. In December of 1941 Saroyan was called to Hollywood from Broadway by Louis Mayer to write a film scenario that would provide the American public with patriotic courage to continue the World War which the country had just entered. He wrote The Human Comedy , later to be published as his first novel. Saroyan wanted to direct the film, afraid that the same thing would happen to it as had happened to his plays when directed by so-called professionals who were unable to perceive his deeper meanings. When Louis Mayer asked if he had ever made a film, Saroyan replied, "No, but give me three days and I will bring you a professional film." To appease Saroyan, Mayer accepted, and three days later Saroyan arrived with The Good Job, a short film based on his story "A Number of Poor". It was released officially by MGM in 1942. Saroyan was, however, not allowed to direct The Human Comedy which appeared with Mickey Rooney as the lead. It was an instant success. Saroyan was furious and left MGM, trying without success to buy back the scenario from Mayer for $80,00; he had been paid $60,000. In anger he converted the scenario into his first novel which was published just as the film appeared. He also wrote a bitter play against Louis Mayer, Get Away Old Man, which appeared on Broadway in 1943.

          In 1947 James Cagney and his brother produced a feature length film of Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize winning play, The Time of Your Life. Beside these three films, there have been some 15 TV productions of various Saroyan plays and stories, six of which were supervised by Saroyan himself in 1953 for Allister Cooke's Omnibus Show. Two films have been made about Saroyan, both by Fresno photographer Paul Kalinian: William Saroyan, the Writer and the Man (1986, 29") and the more ambitiousWilliam Saroyan (1990), which skillfully used archival footage of the Fresno author.

          It is only well after the second great war that Armenians, except for Mamoulian, engaged in film direction. In the 1960s two Armenians appear on the Hollywood and New York scene as important directors -- Aram Avakian (1926-1987) and Richard Sarafian (1927- ). Avakian began with documentaries such as Jazz on a Summer Day (1958), then moved to features: Lad, a Dog (1962), End of the Road (1970), Cops and Robbers (1973), his most controversial and funny film describing how two New York policemen engage in crime and get away with it, and 11 Harrow House (1974). Avakian continued to make films and was a much sought after editor; he was also adjunct professor of cinema at the College of Arts in Purchase, New York.

          Richard Sarafian most famous film is probably Vanishing Point (1971) which captures one of the most elaborate chases of all time; more importantly it is the modern allegorical journey of the "stranger" or "outsider." His other films include: Terror at Black Falls (1962), Andy (1965), the TV series with Bill Cosby, I Spy (1965-1968), Run Wild, Run (1969), A Touch of Fear (1970), Man in the Wilderness (1972), Lolly Madonna XXX (1973), The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973), The Next Man (1976), Sunburn (1979), Gangster Wars (1981), Eye of the Tiger (1986), and Street Justice (1987). His son Deran Sarafian has recently made a number of action films, very successful at the box office, though critical flops.

          In 1964 the first post-war Armenian language film was made in Hollywood with Marzpetouni as director. A Debt of Blood starred Lillit Marzpetouni and Sarky Mouradian and was made in order to raise money through a commercial adventure to produce and direct a film on the Armenian genocide, especially the events at Karahissar with the title "Their Forgotten Cry." The untimely death of Marzpetouni has left this scenario unachieved.

          At nearly the same moment J. Michael Hagopian (1913- ) through his Atlantis Film Corporation began to make the first of a series of documentaries in English on Armenian life. Historical Armenian (1967), Where Are My People?, and Soviet Boy were among the first ventures. But it was the film of 1976 made for the 60th anniversary of the Genocide which really left an impression on Armenian and non-Armenian audiences around the world. The film was released in a short version The Forgotten Genocide (28 minutes) and long version The Armenian Case (45 minutes), both narrated by Michael Connors (Ohanian), known as Mannix to millions of Americans. These films have been shown on network television throughout the U.S. Hagopian has just completed an important documentary, Strangers in a Promised Land (1984), which traces the history of the archetypal Armenian-American community of Fresno, California, the home of William Saroyan and others, from 1881 to 1981. The film is narrated by California Governor George Deukmejian and has been very enthusiastically acclaimed. Its underlining theme is to show in very positive terms the achievements of the Armenians despite genocide, persecution, and American discrimination. Hagopian is also founder of the Armenian Film Foundation which sponsored this film and is conducting a broad campaign (along with other groups) of recording on video tape the testimony of survivors of the genocide. The Film Foundation also held Armenian film festivals at least three times.

          In 1970 Sarky Mouradian began a series of very popular Armenian language films of questionable cinematographic value. These films have been widely distributed and universally criticized by film buffs, but the non-cinema going Armenian public seems to gain a good deal of satisfaction from them. They are Tears of Happiness and Sons of Sassoun (1976-7) and Promise of Love (1978). Mouradian's latest film is The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1982) produced by John Kurkjian, who had bought the property some tens years ago. The English language film though much publicized is an artistic failure even though Armenians (I know of no non-Armenian commercial showing) throng to the regional viewings. What is unfortunate about the film is not just its poor conception but the fact that an important, a vital, Armenian property has been destroyed. When will anyone try to make the film again? Perhaps Henri Verneuil is right when he says that Werfel's book is not good for the making of a film. Perhaps we needed a Mamoulian to save us, since he was able to take a much more difficult book - Vanity Fair - and make it into the brilliant Becky Sharp. Ironically, it is said that Mamoulian offered to be of help without charge, in the making of Forty Day of Musa Dagh about which he knew a great deal since he was to direct it when MGM originally fought the rights for $35,000 in 1935, but was politely told his services were not needed.

          In the same category of film must fall Hrayr Toukhanian's film Assignment Berlin (1982) which tells the story in English of the assassination of Talaat Pasha and the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian. Toukhanian had made "corporation documentaries" before this film, but was obviously not up to quality work. Once again the tragedy is that this film is unsuitable, despite the use of professional and well known actors, for non-Armenian audiences. It has had the same Armenian success as Forty Days because it appeals to the violent and revengeful side of the popular imagination. Once again a good property with much potential has been destroyed. Who will make the story into a film again in the near future?

          The list of directors is far from exhaustive. Perhaps one should mention the films of Bob Kelljan who died tragically in 1982: Count Yorga and The Return of Count Yorga. Kelljan was most know for his television work.

          It is to a new generation that our attention must turn if we expect first rate films to be produced or directed by Armenians in America. And there is a new generation, one that has grown up in the industry, often taking degrees in cinematography, a discipline offered in many American universities. Among the producers, certainly Howard Kazanjian with the successful Return of the Jedi and Bob Papazian with The Day After TV spectacular, are most famous. Both films were very popular on the large and small screen in France.

          Among the promising new directors are several who are still in their twenties. Bill Ohannessian, whose editing helped make Hagopian's Strangers in a Promised Land a better-than-average film, has also experimented with new techniques. His Shaved Legs (1981) was shown at the first Armenian Film Festival in Los Angeles in 1982. Nigol Bezjian, originally from Aleppo, but whose professional training in film has been at universities in New York and Los Angeles made the first film on Armenian political violence. The Hour of the Gray Horse (1984) won a prize in the 1984 from the Armenian Film Foundation. The story is about a young militant who assassinates a Turkish diplomat. During the awards banquet in Los Angeles, Rouben Mamoulian distributed the prize in person. When Bezjian received his award, he told Mamoulian and the audience a touching story about his leaving Aleppo years ago. One day he made the dramatic announcement that he wanted to go to America to study film. His father, surprised and a bit annoyed, said, "Inch, Mamoulian me bidi ellas?" "What, are you going to become a Mamoulian?"

          Bezjian's earlier films, A Rock, a Rope and a Tree (1980), Cycle Carmen (1981), and Billy's Night (1986) are short ones which treat dramatically the subject of love.Bezjian's latest and longest film, and by far the most ambitious, Chickpeas (1992) deals with the life of Armenian immigrants who have moved from one diaspora (Lebanon) to another (Los Angeles). The film features Arsine Khanjian, the fetiche actress of Canadian Armenian filmaker Atom Egoyan. Despite its low budget production, Bezjian's Chickpeas has been acclaimed in the film festival circuit and in 1994 began a successful commercial run in American movie houses in large metropolitan areas.

          Bezjian is the pivotal force among the new wave of young Armenian-American filmmakers, most of whom are in the Los Angeles area. He has also helped in the production of short films by Sylvette Artinian and Ara Madzounian. His wife, Roxane Bezjian (Los Angeles 1961-), has just completed the highly acclaimed, hour-long documentary, Charles Garry, Street Fighter in the Courtroom (1992, 58") which pays tribute to San Francisco trial lawyer Charles Garry (Garabedian), who was an advocate of civil liberties and defended those who no one else would. The film, which has won a number of awards, treats the Armenian Genocide as adetermining factor in Garry's defense of victimized groups.

          At the end of the 1980s, younger directors made rather good films on the Genocide. Certainly one of the best if not the best film to treat the Armenian Genocide and its consequences thus far is by a young documentary filmmaker, Theodore Bogosian from Boston, who established a strong reputation in public televsion before producing and directing An Armenian Voyage (1989). Bogosian uses as the central character in the film a Genocide survivor, Miriam Davis, who he accompanies on a moving visit to her birthplace in Turkey and the places where she saw her father, mother, and brother die. Back to Ararat (1988, 100") by the Swedish filmmaker PeÅ Holmquist is also a moving documentary with an American cast and a Swedish-American production company.

          Several other young Armenian directors are working out of Los Angeles. Tina Bastajian (Los Angeles 1963-) has made two very short experimental films, Oyster Bar (1984, 6") with dialogue in French and English and Yellow Aria (1986, 13") in English and Italian. For several years she has been working on a very experimental thirty minute film on memory, displacement, survival, and women in a family entitled Jagadakeer-Destiny. Ara Madzounian (1953- ) has produced and directed a number of films: The Dull Blade (1985), the experimental video This Time (1986), The Pink Elephant (1987), which was shot by Nigol Bezjian, and in cooperation with Tcheque television a documentary on Armenia entitled Land of Open Graves (1990). Currently he is working on a short educational film on Armenians and AIDS. One can also mention Melvie Arslanian, who directed the forty-five minute experimental film, Stiletto, in the 1980s, and Deran Sarafian, son of Richard Sarafian, who has made a number of horror films of the classical exploitational type -- Alien Predators (1986, 92"), Death Warrant (1990, 89"), To Die For (1989, 94") -- , and most recently Terminal Velocity (1994, 105"), a spy film turned in Moscow with Nastassja Kinski.

          The stage actress Nora Armani, originally from Cairo, is also an important element in the Armenian film scene of Los Angeles. She is the first American actress to appear in a feature Armenian film -- Ara Ernjakian's Deadline in Seven Days (1992, 98"), and has become the official distributor of ArmenFilm in the United States through her company Meronk Films. With her husband actor Gerald Papazian, she produced and directed Sojourn to Ararat, a dramatic presentation of Armenian literature over the centuries, which was made into a film Last Station (1994, 95") by ArmenFilm Studios and directed by Haroutiun Katchatrian.

          Little known in Armenian circles is the Los Angeles documentary filmmaker (documentalist) Gary Conklin (Fresno 1932-) whose interest is in artists, writers, and intellectuals. His major films are Paul Bowles in Morocco (1970, 57") on the American writer (Picnic in Sahara) and composer, Rufino Tamayo: The Sources of his Art (28") with narration by Octavio Paz and John Huston, and music by Carlos Chávez; Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture (72") co-produced with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; L.A. Suggested by the Art of Edward Ruscha (28"); Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No (99"), a feature-length film on the writer-critic's campaign for U.S. Senator from California; Notes from "Under the Volcano" (59") on the making of John Huston's film Under the Volcano; and most recently A Question of Class: English Literary Life 1918-1945 (1992,100" ). Conklin is now editing his recent film on life in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s.

          Other documentalists who have gained a reputation in Hollywood include Alex Keshishian whose Truth or Dare or In Bed with Madonna (1991, 118") received much recognition. His newest film, With Honors (1994) with Joe Pesci was a major popular success. Some years earlier Emmy Award winning filmmaker Ara Chekmajian made a fine film biography Forever James Dean (1988, 69"). Less successful was Dr. Caligari (1989, 80") by Stephan Sayadian, which was a clumsy and very "arty" updated parody on the great film classic. Other filmmakers in the more popular science fiction and horror films include Peter Manoogian, Samson Aslanian, and Adolfo Aristarian.

          Outside of California there is of course the Canadian Atom Egoyan (Cairo 1960-), who is consider the chef de fil of English language Canadian filmmaking. The young cineast has already been the subject of a retrospective at the Festival of La Rochelle (1992), the Centres Pompidou (1993), and the Jeux de Paumes (1993). Media, especially television, in the Marshall McLuhan sense, has played a major part in nearly all of his films: Next of Kin (1984, 72"), Family Viewing (1986, 86"), Speaking Parts (1989, 92"), the commercially successful The Adjuster (1991, 102"), which won first prize at the Moscow Film festival in that same year. Arsiné Khanjian remains the feature actress in his films, which usually involve the family unit often Armenian. Egoyan's Oratzooytz, Calendar (1993, 75") was filmed in Armenia with ArmenFilm Studios and features Egoyan, Khandjian, and Ashot Adamian. Along with Next of Kin it is his most "Armenian" film. Egoyan's latest film, Exotica (1994), won a prise at the Cannes Film Festival (1994) and was an official entry in the Toronto and New York film festivals. It is perhaps the most successful and widely distributed of his movies. Atom Egoyan has also made a number of major television films including: In This Corner (1985, 60"), Looking for Nothing (1988, 30"), Gross Misconduct (1992, 120").

          In a separate category is Eric Bogosian of New York, a brilliant satirical actor, whose film Talk Radio (Universal, 1989, 110") co-directed with Oliver Stone, was a tour de force of acting and a bitter commentary on bigotry in the United States. An early video production, Eric Bogosian-Funhouse (1988, 80") was a live filming in Los Angeles of one of his performances. His one-man off-Broadway stage routine turned into film -- Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll (1991, 100") is equally gripping in its intensity. Cher Sarkissian (1946-) is also one of those actresses whose personality has had a strong effect on directors. She won the best actress award at Cannes for Peter Bogdanovitch's Mask (1985), and had appeared with Meryl Streep in Micke Nichols Silkwood (1984, 128"). She started her important filmmaking in Robert Altman's Come Back from the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982, 110").

          There are many other young Armenian filmmakers in the United States. In 1992, the Armenian General Benevolent Union sponsored the first Annual Celebration of Young Armenian Film Makers in New York. Among the eight directors present, Nigol Bezjian, represented by his Chickpeas, was the oldest at 36. Other included Dikran Yazedian of Montreal with The Golfer and The Tortoise and the Hare, Nayiri Isahakian of Los Angeles with her The Beer Boys, Raffi Ekmedjian of Los Angeles, A Nauseous Nocturne and Head Shot, Mike Tutunjian, Temperate Habits based on James Thurber's famous short story The Catbird Seat, Zareh Tjeknavorian of New York with the experimental Adam and Eve, Albert Khodagholian of Los Angeles, The Deep Cry, and Sylvette Artinian's Waiting for Mary.

          This review of Armenians in American filmmaking ignores the dozens of younger and older Armenian actors, technicians and documentalists whose names are so easily identifiable in film credits. Several new organizations have also been formed to promote Armenian film on the east and the west coast. A central archive for films and documentation is now essential if the history of Armenians in film is to be recorded properly. The future of Armenians in the American film industry seems very promising.

[1] The material in this essay was taken from two earlier articles: Dickran Kouymjian, "Le Cinéma arménien aux Etats-Unis," Armenia, Paris, June (1984), pp. 44-48, and D. Kouymjian, "Les Arméniens et le cinéma américan," Le Cinéma Arménien, Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1993, pp. 104-122.

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