فصلنامه مطالعات فرهنگی و ارتباطات
پیاپی 25 (زمستان 1390)

Iranian popular films, as a type of national culture, are consumed vastly in Iran. Although they are neglected in common cultural studies is Iran, according to recent cultural theories, they are some cultural texts including the ideological cods that they have an important role in the construction of collective social perception. Therefore, a question that can be addressed is what the narrative and ideological structures of Iranian popular films are? In the process of interpretation of the narrative and ideological structures of Iranian popular films I use a qualitative-syntactic method. This method includes Roland Barthes’s structural analysis and John Fiske’s critical semiology. The results show that in Iranian popular Films: 1)The narrative structure is linear and in three parts, 2) crisis and social problems that based on the conflict between traditional and modern attitudes in Iran are the most important contents, 3) most of them have represented urban middle class problems, 4) narration is happen in modern urban spaces, 5) reformist modern woman is the most represented character and 6) critic of pathological aspects of traditional and modern attitudes are the best ideological material.

The aim of this article is to recognize the existing “religious experience” discourses in Iran and to explain the way they are represented in the Iranian cinema after the Islamic Revolution. Using a documentary method, the concept of “religious experience” is studied from the point of view of each discourse. Then the way these discourses are represented in Iranian cinema is demonstrated using the theory of representation and the method of discourse analysis.In relation to “religious experience”, three discourses of “intellectualism”, “religious intellectualism” and “Islamic tradition” are recognized and in order to illuminate the theoretical arguments, three movies are selected and analyzed, each representing the religious experience in the above mentioned discourses considering the discursive elements and semi discursive fields. The movies include “Booye Kafoor, Atre Yas”, “Marmoolak”, and “Tavvallode Yek Parvaneh”, for discourses of intellectualism, religious intellectualism and Islamic tradition respectively.

In a sense, broader than reducing it to a genre, meta-cinema or the self-representation and self-reference of cinema, can be regarded as a dispute over the status of cinema in society. Meta-cinema is also about the relationship between cinema and society or, generally, the nature of cinema in the experience of modernity in Iran; this is because, more than anything else, cinema is the most important cultural product of modernity. Therefore, I deemed it possible to provide an analysis of the status of cinema in the Iranian cinematic society, and consequently, of modernity, by taking advantage of the meta-cinema of the Iranian post-Revolution cinema. In this article the meta-cinema of the Iranian cinema after the 1979 revolution is studied. This article aims to investigate the experience of modernity in Iran by analyzing self-references of the Iranian post-Revolution cinema. A study of some prominent meta-films of the Iranian post-Revolution cinema indicates that the following three are the forms which meta-cinema discloses about the nature of cinema and, as a result, about modernity: cinema as a threat to the order of affairs, cinema as the real alongside the everyday life, and cinema as a form which we are unable to create.

This research is going to recognize the factors of the life style in cinema movies of three decades of Iranian cinema relying on cinema as media and the importance of two concept: “tradition” and “modernism” in evolutions of Iranian society. The life style may be defined as method of life or in more careful way, as models and methods of life. Life style is a model for interaction in common life which distinguishes people from each other. By studying the life style we can comprehend concealed norms that are observable in minds, beliefs and people’s behaviors and achieve some interpretation due to existing and forming direction and models realistically. One of the new narrations that may be presented of evolutions process of Iran is the evolutions process of modern and traditional life styles. To describe Modern and Traditional life styles, we study the as artistic cinema which spread different images of life style. In the sake of this, we fallow descriptive and explanatory targets like the exact description of the factors of life styles and movies properties, recognition of indicated life styles in them and recognition of the common behavior models in Iranian movies of 3 decades 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s of Iranian Cinema using contents analysis method.

This research evaluates the flourish of "Defa-e-Moqaddas" (war between Iran and Iraq) in Iranian movies from 1981 to 2006 in the art sociology of art. In other words, the purpose of this article is not to review the nature of"Defa-e-Moqaddas", but is about how the cinema has represented the "eight-year war between Iran and Iraq". The theoretical framework of this research is based on two complementary reflections and shaping approaches that according to them, art is the reflection of social situations and also it is used to shape public opinion. Qualitative content analysis method is applied in this study to achieve a deeper understanding the structure and functioning "Defa-e-Moqaddas" films. Despite the differences of classifications, in which, films are categorized in war group and war critic group, results show that the most films of this genre propagandize war and also they are very violent due to the special sensitivity of this genre. Although qualitative and quantitative changes have been occurred in cinema products during three past decades, the feedbacks of "Defa-e-Moqaddas" events have been less studied and most of the films have tried to shape public opinion, however they have been unsuccessful in the long-term.

This research attempts to reflect on everyday life in contemporary Iran through cinema. The main question is that how everyday life is, and in its different aspects such as identities, values, lifestyles and individual experiences, narrated in Iranian cinema after and before revolution. To theorize the question, we use Giddens, Chaney, Jenkins, Federestone and Simmel theories to conceptualize the interaction of thw logic of everyday life and heroic morals. This case study is about Kimiai’s cinema (Gavaznha and Eteraz). The findings show that Iranian society in recent decades has witnessed the contest between heroic morals, based on ultimate rationality, and the logic of everyday life, based on instrumental rationality. Kimiai’s cinema narrates the transformation of heroic morals and the logic of everyday life.

This research is based on inter personal communication, following analysis of individual, symbolic violence; dialog in inter personal communication in Hollywood cinema. The purpose of this project is finding internal meaning of movies according to inter personal communication by emphasizing on social interactions and psychological subjects. In this research we use analysis context method; statistical population is American movies from 2000 to 2009. Movies are classified and sampled according to genre and are selected with regard to under study subject, drama genre and drama subset and comedic genre and comedic subset.Our questionnaire included nineteen factors for individualism variables, and seventeen factors frequency. According the obtained results from the understudy movies, individualism and symbolic violence (main characters) were observed. Also, dialogue was observed as main foundation in conversations, discussions and arguments among persons.

This article aims at offering a theoretical tool to be used for explaination of the production field of Iranian cinema. In order to do that we will use Bourdieu's theoretical approach on symbolic capital and concepts such as field, power and struggle. The advantage of Boudieu's approach, reflected in his 1984 book, rests in his explanation of how social space is constructed with a reference to the position-taking of the social actors for gaining various types of capital. Based on this approach, gaining capital becomes the major element of struggle in every field. Gaining capital causes all struggles to become the permanent characteritis of all fields. In our opinion, the Iranian cinema and power struggle in its production field takes place in such context hence can only be explained through Bourdieu's analytical tools, fields approach. In order to suggest a research into this field and substantiate our claim, we will use genetic structuralism of bourdieu as our methodology. Based on this approach the article takes on a study of historical trends in Iranian cinema and studies formal laws, office regulations, bylaws, annual statistics, and interviews. This will help to use interview technique in order to gather information needed to explain how struggles in the production field took on the direction of gaining various types of capital by major player. This structural method will also indicate the genetic formation of the field of Iranian cinema in the 1990s and will provide a theoretical framework that can be used to explain the production field of Iranian cinema.