Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Parviz Ejlali
• Hamed Goharipoor

Abstract

Parviz Ejlali
Hamed Goharipour
Date of Receive: 2014/10/2
Date of Accept: 2015/5/5

Abstract
This paper aims to recognize, classify, and explain main images of the city as one can find in Iranian films during its history (1930 - 2011). When film narrative happens in a city, the camera shows the city as it looks like at the moment of photography; though the filmmaker, as an artist, is able to depict a city from his or her own perspective by selecting a specific camera angle, or distance from the subject, movement of camera, color, rhythm, speed, editing and other elements of composing a film. Therefore, any cinematic" City – Image" like any other artistic image is not a simple picture of the real city, but a city which is understood and represented by the artist. Furthermore, as we have learnt from sociology of art, this picture is not only  an individual artifact  or an abstract  conception of the city, but it reflects, in some way or another, parts of the soul and meaning of the artist’ time and society. So, one can regard it as a part of the sociological knowledge of the city.
 Methodologically, we followed Lucien Goldman. In this method at first step we tried to extract the common structure of the films consisting of a specific image by the help of semiotic analysis. In the second step we tried to bridge between the images and the worldview of different social groups and classes of the Iranian society.
 Our inquiry into Iranian films, with a history of about one century, revealed that in each- the before and after the revolution- periods, four and only four cities-images have been produced .So that one can find eight images of the city in so called" urban films" or films in which some urban problems like housing, migration, urban-rural dichotomy, informal settlement, class differences etc. were narrated.
Interestingly, in all of these eight images, depiction of the city as a dangerous, seductive, terrifying, deadly, sad and hallucinatory location, has been dominant. In fact, portraying the city as a beautiful and lovely place, encompassing, hopeful residents with dignity are an absolute exception or non-existent. The article claims that these unconscious negative viewpoints towards the city may be related to the vast relocation of the population, rapid urbanization, waves of migrations, and lack of social capital among relocated urbanites in large cities .In brief, it seems that residents of the cities have not reached to a good understanding with the cities yet.

Keywords

• generic structuralism
• subject of representation
• object of representation
• city-image
• paradigmatic /syntagmatic analysis