mohammadjavad goharbakhsh

Cinema as one of the most important artistic, media and cultural tools has been investigated and discussed from different angles, especially in the field of sociology and the mutual influence between cinema and society has always been emphasized. Sociology can be considered the systematic study of human societies, which pays special attention to modern industrial systems. The study of the sociology of art in its simplest definition examines the relationship between art and society. Cinema, as an art-industry favored by the masses, has always been one of the most significant platforms for representing issues in society. With the development of information and communication technology in recent years, as well as the increasing activity of artists in social and political issues in society, the issue of representing the image of artists in the media has become more considerable. Using the reflection approach in the sociology of art and the method of content analysis, the aim of this study was to investigate how cinema artists are represented in Iranian cinema. To reach a purposeful analysis, five central concepts, applicable to cinematic works, were selected and developed as the indicators of artists' representation which include gender, geographical location of artistic activity, economic class, artists' relation with other artists and artists' relation with the audience and people. “Pig” and “Red Carpet” were selected as two of the most recent works in the field of representation of cinema artists. The results show that "Red Carpet" satirically criticizes meritocracy in Iranian cinema, the presence of Iranian filmmakers in foreign festivals, and the relation between them and people. “Pig” criticizes the intellectual atmosphere between artists, the fake relation between them and the influence of cyberspace on the relation between middle class people and cinema artists with a postmodern look and satirical language, and also shakes the foundations of the ideal image of artists.

Adaptation is a kind of interpretability of art or a way to be influenced by it in which the artist recreates a new work of art by interpreting another work or following it; in this case traces of the previous works can be seen. Comparative studies of adaptation is a branch of comparative literature that deals with the relations between the two media. Adaptation has a special place in cinema and most of the prominent works in the history of cinema have been adaptations of literary works. The importance of plot and storyline was evident from the first films made and shown by the Lumiere brothers. This research studies the adaptation in cinema using Gerard Genette's theory of hypertext and tries to scrutinize the issue of communication and interaction between two popular media, namely literature and cinema, by examining a recent example of contemporary Iranian cinema and literature. Yadollah Samadi's "Father of the Other" is an adaptation of a novel of the same name written by Parinoush Sanei in the field of fiction with a psychological and educational approach. This study, while drawing upon the theoretical framework of Gerard Genette's views, deals with quantitative and pragmatic changes in the intertextual interaction between the book and the film. The study and categorization of various applied (in terms of motivations, values and visual representation) and quantitative changes (addition of events and characters decreasing or increasing the narrative) shows that the film has facilitated the comprehension of the main work and has been able to establish itself as an independent work by interacting with the original text through eliminating the flaws . In other words, the series of events that were not justified in the chain of cause and effect or were not in line with the plot's progress were logically removed in the film. The most considerable transformation of the film is related to the value and motivational transformations, which is through the change of the mother's outlook and worldview towards her personal and family life and the removal of those moral characteristics of the father's character that are  not in harmony with the film's atmosphere. In conclusion, it can be said that the film is a faithful adaptation of the novel, with the difference that it has proved more sucessful than the book in terms of characterization.

The relation between film and philosophy is one of the relations that has always been considered by film theorists and philosophers. In other words, the film's ability in displaying philosophical concepts and philosophical thinking through films is one of the most significant case studies in this field. Martin Heidegger can be considered as the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. His interest in art and its usage to indicate concepts such as Existence, makes Heidegger a distinguished figure among his contemporaries. But his thoughts about death and non-being versus existence are very interesting and worthy of attention. Heidegger considers death to be one of the most important abilities of Dasein and believes that it is only with death that Dasein can think of itself as a whole. Abbas Kiarostami is one of the directors who has received diverse readings on his movies and each of them has demonstrated the richness of his works more than before. Death is one of the concepts that apears in Kiarostami's most important works. It can be clearly seen in movies such as Koker Trilogy and Taste of Cherry. Kiarostami's different outlook and point of view, unique use of stylistic and thematic elements, the way of narrating the story and the way in which characters confront death have led this concept to go beyond its apparent meaning in his movies.This research by examining the most important and fundamental elements of understanding the concept of death in Heidegger's philosophy, namely Dasein, anxiety or fear-consciousness, fall and authenticity, death and the meaning of life in Abbas Kiarostami's cinema, indicates that all the elements related to death in Heidegger's philosophy can be traced in Kiarostami’s exemplary movies, Taste of Cherry and The Wind Will Carry Us; and a reading of Kiarostami's works through Heidegger's philosophy can be offered. In other words, the concept of death in Kiarostami's works is completely applicable to the concepts of Heidegger's philosophy. Taste of Cherry depicts the movement towards death and the diret encounter with it through the character; on the other hand, in The Wind will Carry Us, all the elements related to death in Heidegger’s philosophy appear gradually through the progress of the plot.

There is a close connection between cinema and religion for the capability of cinema to picture the metaphysic and extraordinary images since the beginning of cinema. The miracle has been pictured as a main element of heaven religions to prove prophets’ sermons and a way to have faith in God through the capability of cinema. The current study tries to clarify how these contents are pictured in cinema via defining miracle due to Christianity view and finding three common elements for recognizing the moment of miracle, that is the essence for law of nature, the essence for violating law of nature and element of miracle. Accordingly, the moment of miracle show has been surveyed via neoformalism analysis of ‘Ordet’ and ‘Green path’ movies as a sample of study. It is finally concluded that the elements which make it possible to recognize the moment of miracle are formic and method-oriented elements in way that at the moment of miracle, it would be altered in its structure.

The Ravayat-e fath series is one of the most valuable documentary series about the eight-year period of the Iran-Iraq war and has somehow become the visual history of the Holy Defense. Avini called his method in this series, illuminating(Sabke Eshraghi).Theoretical and philosophical foundations as well as Avini's worldview have made this series stand out among its peers. Construction of space is one of the most significant elements through which Avini points his thoughts and ideology in the context of the film. This research analyzes the three devices of editing, voice over and interview to demonstrate the way in which the most noticable features of space-creation in the narration of Ravayat-e fath have been fulfilled and finally by considering the characteristics of this series, puts the spotlight on the ambiguities of the illuminationist style. The findings show that despite the importance of each of the three devices in constructing space, editing is avini's most considerable tool for this purpose. In addition, the paper critically examines Avini's use of concepts such as reality, autonomous reason, subjectivity and montage and highlights some ambiguities.

"Transcendental Style in Cinema, Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer" by Paul Schrader, the famous American critic, writer, and director, is one of the few books that explores the relationship between cinema, religion, and related elements beyond various fields such as Semiotics. This book was translated in 2003 by Mohammad Gozarabadi in Iran. The second edition of the book that was published in 2018 included the introduction of slow cinema and Schrader's revision of some of the concepts of this style. The importance of this book could be seen in the method of studying and confronting religion and its elements. Using profound philosophical concepts and Christian background, Schrader establishes stylistic stages in which the most important movies could be read and analyzed through them. This style aims to discover the state in which the transcendental and spiritual manner is expressed in cinema. Therefore, firstly the book and the author are introduced and then by considering both editions, all the concepts in the book are discussed and finally the book is criticized from different aspects. The results will demonstrate that the main criticisms on this book can be seen in the levels of method and content.

The objective of this study was to scrutinize the semiotics of the image of women in Kiarostami's cinema. The statistical population was Kiarostami's films focusing on women's semiotics. Purposive sampling method was adopted and the films "Report" and "Ten" were the samples of the research. The research design was descriptive-analytical. The data was obtained through library resources and watching films. The films were analyzed from semiotics point of view. The implemented semiotics was based on the two major traditions of Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Pierce. The study of Kiarostami's feature films indicated that he was cognizant on women and their concerns during his career and devoted much of his late filmmaking career to represent women and their problems. Notably in his recent works, he spotlighted women in his films. The results of the semiotic study of "Report" and "Ten" showed that Kiarostami tried not only to reflect the problems of women, but also to depict the society's attitude and expectations toward them, and emphasized that such traditional and stereotypical view, despite the passage of years, still existed in the society.