Similarity Editing and Some of its Effective Examples in the Iranian Cinema

The goal of the present research is understanding the implicit concepts and discovering the delicacies of the movie editing which has been less dealt with. Therefore, by transferring one of the mostly-used rhetorical concepts (simile) to cinema studies, we have tried to clarify the quality of the performance of editing in Iranian movies. The approach of this applied research is descriptive-analytical and library and audio-visual (movies) resources were implemented. Purposive sampling was applied and the theoretical framework is based on Eisenstein’s formalistic theory. In this research, first, with describing simile and its differences with metaphor and pun, detailed pattern of using it for analysis in cinema has been presented and after that, samples of similarity editing in the Iranian cinema have been expressed objectively and practically, with considering the historical and thematic line. The research findings showed that the way shots are combined through similarity has considerably raised the aesthetic quality of the movies. Various themes like the attempt for survival, the weak class of society being plaything, animal greed of the human, exploiting view towards female, empty and false relationship among humans and … have been created in the movies using this trick. The higher application of rough cut, in comparison to techniques like dissolve and fade, and selecting the objects of similarity which have been a part of the context and body of the story have shaped a realistic and simpler expression of the form. Considering the historical trend with samples from the 1950s to 1990s, too, well revealed that with the passage of time, more complexity and delicacy has occurred in applying the similarity editing