Structural Analysis of the Cultural Model of Narrative in Hollywood and Iranian Movies from the aspect of legalism

This research has been carried out to examine general structure of courtroom movies which include criminal proceedings. The research method is narrative analysis in the aforementioned movies. To this end, reflection and structuralism theories have been used as foundations that can explain the narrative. The model adopted for structural analysis of the narrative is the Victor Turner’s model, which divides the narrative into four sections: Rule violation, Crisis, Solution thinking, and Reintegration. Twelve movies from Hollywood and twelve movies from the Iranian cinema have been adapted to this model. The research findings suggest that Hollywood cinema present s a coherent structure and a law-based courtroom narrative. In this sense, these narratives emphasizing the stage of Solution Thinking have portrayed the court as the competent institution for resolving the crisis. In contrast, Iran’s cinema has been incapable of providing a coherent and law- based courtroom narrative. Iran’s cinema has emphasized the power of Crisis stage that like the pre- revolutionary cinema gave little attention to the courtroom and criminal justice process, or like post-revolutionary cinema has portrayed the court as an incompetent institution to administer justice. Therefore, it seems that the basic reason for the non-rule of law in the Iranian movies suffers from the absence of developing court genre is the idea that courts do not function as they should as far as court scripts are concerned and their inability to adapt Hollywood movies appropriately.