The Evolution of Generational Relation Representation in Iranian War Cinema (with an Emphasis on War Protagonist Objectification)

Generational relation has been always a theme to narrate different stories; Some war films in the seventies, eighties and nineties have symbolically addressed the relationship between the protagonist of war generation and the next generation and the challenges arising from changing circumstances. cinema choosing and representing social realities and constructing the realities in its own ways, on the other – one may ask why war filmmakers pay attention to generational relation? How is this phenomenon represented and what are its characteristics? War genre inevitably requires a protagonist to address its audiences’ needs. Many war films are based on a protagonist and his adventures and are in fact protagonist-centered stories. Thus, to review the evolution of generational relation representation in Iranian war cinema it is necessary to study the objectification of the protagonist, which reflects the characteristics of the war generation. To discuss about the subject a combined semiotics was used. In conclusion, we first present the differences within generational objects as well as different objects in each films and then, propose interpretative models based on the gathered data and applying Weber’s ideal type. Thus, the evolution of generational relation representation in Iranian war cinema proceeds from “cultural productivity; generational crisis and identity crisis” and “ambiguity in collective interpretation; Transcultural symbolism” in seventies and eighties to “generational dialectic; creation of an inter-