A Comparative Study of Directing in the Wartime Documentary “Narration of Conquest” by Seyyed Morteza Avini and “The Battle of San Pietro” by John Houston

“Narrative of Conquest” is a documentary by Jihad of Construction TV group about the military-political events of the war imposed by Saddam’s Baath regime against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The director, editor, author of the text, and main speaker of this documentary series is Seyyed Morteza Avini. “The Battle of San Pietro” is a documentary made by a film production group based in the US Army during World War II. The director, the author of the text’s speech, and the main speaker of this documentary is John Houston, a senior officer of the US Army. One of the distinctive features of these two documentaries is that they were both made during the war and aimed to promote and encourage fighters to be at the front. Another common feature is representing a successful military operation leading to conquest. In this research, I will discuss directing and the director’s view on how to report on the battlefield. From this point of view, I will compare two documentaries made of two successful military operations. While comparing, investigating, and analyzing the director’s perspective on the war and the combatants in the process, this research shows two significant differences between Seyyed Morteza Avini’s and John Houston’s filmmaking points of view on wartime documentaries. On the one hand, this war is entirely different from all the wars that have occurred in the world in recent centuries. The war in Iran is a war of faith, and it cannot be compared with any other war, let alone the wars of the beginning of Islam. Another fundamental difference is in the goal of filmmaking.