Dramatic Functions of Depth of Field in Iranian Cinema 2001-2011

Since the early days of cinema, depth of field has been used by film directors unconsciously. In 1940s, this phenomenon transformed into a cinematic style. Many great directors turned it into a dramatic vehicle and started to base their personal style according to depth of field’s characteristics. This phenomenon has had many uses in Iranian Cinema but very few studies can be found analyzing Iranian film makers’ ncounter with it. These articles are usually affected by cultural studies and have the same pproach to content and meaning. This is the reason why we have few researches about visual aspects and cinematic structures of the movies of Iranian cinema. This research is trying to investigate dramatic functions of depth of field through a descriptive-analytical approach. To achieve this, six Iranian films from 2001 to 2011 have been chosen as the statistical domain of the research: Bright Nights (Farzad Mo’tamen, 2001), I’m Taraneh, Fifteen Years Old (Rasoul Sadr Ameli, 2002), Gavkhooni (The River’s End) (Afkhami, 2003), Green Fire (Mohammad Reza Aslani, 2007), Day and night (Omid Bonakdar & Keyvan Ali Mohammadi, 2008) and A Cube of Sugar (Reza Mir Karimi, 2011). Different aspects of these films have been analyzed, so that the filmmaker’s approach toward depth of field becomes clear. It has to be mentioned that these films have been made by different generations of Iranian film makers. Pre-revolutionary (Aslani), the first generation of revolution (Sadr Ameli and Afkhami), the second generation of revolution (Mir Karimi and Mo’tamen) and the new generation (Tavakoli, Bonakdar and Ali Mohammadi). Also, these films have been well-received in internal and external festivals by film industry professional and critics. In the first part of this article a short introduction of development process of depth of field usage has been given and an attempt has been made to demonstrate the manner of usage of depth in cinematic image. Then, different levels of cinematic image will be introduced and the methods of using it will be analyzed. These levels consist of: background; mid-ground; foreground. To elaborate how Iranian directors function in different levels of cinematic image, some scenes of the chosen films will be analyzed. For example, some films put all levels of image into dramatic usage and create a dialectical relation between layers. In contrast, some other films set distance between layers and each layer is occupied in ordering its own visual structure. In the next part, more original views on depth of field and those Iranian directors who have succeed in enriching signified meanings of their films by using depth of field, will be discussed. In the next section, thematic tendencies and their picturing for enriching visual texture will be talked about. In the end of this study, a particular process will be investigated that will result in flat image. The aim of this research is to project Iranian directors of 2000s’ encounter with depth of field to reveal development of visual illustration of Iranian films in usage of different levels of image.