Advancing from epic to screenplaywith emphasis on the tale of Rostam and Esfandyar

Story is the common ground between literature and many arts.  Arts such as theatre, cinema, painting, and music, yet in order for the story to be translated into screenplay it must have certain features which the most principal one is the pictorial quality of the literary tale in question since the image and the picture emanated from the poet’s or the author’s description is the most animated element which leads the spectator to understand time and place orientation.  Hence employing descriptive analytic method attempt is made in this article to concentrate on the elements of “image” and “story” which are the most significant structural factors in the formation of the screenplay.  This research also deals with the competence and capabilities of the Shahnameh stories to be turned into screenplay forms.  For this reason the discussion is begun by defining terms such as picture whether epic or cinematic, story, and screenplay. Then the screenplay’s narrative structure which is more based on the pictorial and narrative elements such as scene, character, plot, theme, and dialogue is classified and described, finally by bringing examples from the Rostam and Esfandyar tale and correspondence of its structure with the structure of the screenplay together with giving examples of illustration in the tale the research comes to its end.  The result of the search shows that Shahnameh Ferdowsi in particular the tale of Rostam and Esfandyar due to Ferdowsi’s accounts composed according to epic features is capable to go hand in hand with cinema.  Hence in order to change into a cinematic screenplay Shahnameh could be investigated in terms of image, scenery and characterization.