A Sociological Analysis of the Interaction of hero and Everyday life in Masud Kimiai's Cinema

This article is an attempt to analyze the interaction of heroic morals and the logic of everyday life through the perspective of sociology of cinema. In other words, the author is aimed to study the interaction of heroic morals and the logic of everyday life as represented and narrated by cinema. The case under study is the movies of Masud Kimiai. Theoretically, a combination of Jean Duvignaud thesis on social dynamism and artistic imagination, Luckach thesis on problematic hero in modern society, and Loventhal theory about the transformation of hero in American society is adopted. By using this theoretical approach, it is argued that there is a dialectical interrelationship between social space and cinematic representation and narration of social realities. Structural narrative analysis and structural semiology are used to analyze the films. Kimiai has made about 30 films during forty years before and after Islamic revolution. Using theoretical – purposeful sampling, four cases of Kimiai’ films were chosen: Ghaisar, Ghavaznha, Eteraz and Mohakeme dar Khiaban. The findings show that Kimiai’ films represent and narrate the transformation of hero and his assimilation in everyday life in Iranian society. As the process of modernization has extended in recent decades in Iran, the logic of instrumental rationality has dominated on social interaction and cultural realms. As a result of this process, the heroic morals, based on ultimate rationality and transcendental beliefs, have been excluded, and the logic of modern everyday life, which is based on exchange and instrumental rationality, has dominated on social spaces. Kimiai’s films represent an anomic society in which the values, identities and lifestyles are full of contradictory elements. These contradictions have penetrated the mental life and the most intimate spheres of individuals. These films are concerned with the disruption and deconstruction of a homogenous life world and the rise of anomy, contradiction and chaos in objective and subjective life of individuals. Kimiai’s reading of social dynamism is closer to Emile Durkheim concept of anomy than to Jean Duvignaud’s theory about eternal transformation of human being and society. Kimiai, just like Luckach, believes in the problematic and alienation of hero in modern society. This is, in his view, the main reason of hero resistance to modern everyday life. Iranian society, as represented and narrated by Kimiai’s cinema, is not a homogenous one which supports his members mental and objective lives thoroughly, but a society that is an articulation of contradictory and non-homogenous values, norms, morals and traits. However, what is obvious about modern everyday life in Iran is that it has been dominated by reified, instrumental and non-transcendental logic which has weakened, and sometimes removed, heroic morals. Kimiai’s cinema can help us to reflect on different aspects of our society and to understand the logic of cultural and social change in Iran. This reflection and understanding, which is artistically articulated, is inevitably a critical and hermeneutic one that shows the inconsistencies, conflicts, anomies and anomalies in our society.