نشریه هنرهای زیبا - هنرهای نمایشی و موسیقی
پیاپی 84 (زمستان 1403)

The cinema of Asghar Farhadi has garnered significant attention from researchers and critics over the past 20 years. Farhadi's reputation has increased due to winning prestigious international awards in the last two decades. His works have been analyzed through various disciplines in humanities such as psychology, ethics, philosophy, sociology, and women's studies. Additionally, his films are notable for their examination through different film criticism methods, including screenplay theories, narratology, and mise en scène analysis. This article focuses on the role of thresholds in Farhadi's films, in A Separation, The Past, and The Salesman. Key story events, tense moments, critical decisions, and characters' confrontations with ethical crises often occur in spaces like hallways, staircases, entryways, and doorways. Bakhtin introduced the concept of thresholds in his critique of Dostoevsky's works, explaining it within different types of narrative chronotopes. Bakhtin believed that Dostoevsky frequently depicted individuals at the threshold of irreversible decisions, at critical moments of crisis, and at pivotal life changes, placing characters in a threshold through appropriate chronotopes. Julia Kristeva's social-psychoanalytic criticism has expanded Bakhtin's threshold. She invokes the term "threshold" (Fr. le seuil) to indicate "the common point" at which her major concepts converge. Kristeva's work confronts the unsettling processes of meaning and the subject as a more general socio-historical crisis, which may be witnessed in art. Based on the theories of Bakhtin and Kristeva and the analysis of the three mentioned films, various aspects of thresholds in their theories can be identified, including narrative thresholds, bodily thresholds, the kitchen as a substitute for the drawing room (the hall, the dining room), thresholds in mise-en-scène, the dynamic of subject absence/presence, the threshold of the semiotic/symbolic, and the open-ended dialogue. The social-psychoanalytic analysis of these films revealed that thresholds are an effective narrative device for character development and engaging the audience. While generally being classified as social dramas, Farhadi's films portray deep personal crises. This apparent contradiction can be understood through Bakhtin's concept of thresholds and its expansion in Kristeva's social/psychoanalytic approach. Bakhtin viewed human social nature as inherently interactive, and Kristeva considered the threshold between individual/society and the space between the personal/public as the site for the formation of speaking subjects. Therefore, significant personal events with the emergence or disappearance of the subject inevitably occur at the threshold of confrontations. From this perspective, personal crises are inherently social, and examining social issues in contemporary society is possible through analyzing personal issues and problems. Following the collapse of symbolic systems, Kristeva sees art and psychoanalysis as the only means of social analysis in the modern era, as these two fields document the overflow of the semiotics. The main characters in the three films analyzed belong to the middle class, a social group in Iran characterized by the decline of religious/traditional values. Thus, their personal/moral crises, according to Kristeva, are contextualized within a larger historical/social crisis. As emphasized in Kristeva's "Fantasy and Cinema," and highlighted in the analysis of these films, personal stories of suffering in cinema have the power to authentically represent social realities.

Dam-e Namari (The Invisible Trap, 1979) directed by Fariborz Saleh is a lesser-known film that was produced in the last year of the second Pahlavi government at the behest of the SAVAK, the intelligence organization of the time. Following the Islamic Revolution and the subsequent sociopolitical transformations in society, the film was buried in the Iranian film archive. With the recent unearthing of the film, the history of Iranian cinema has uncovered one of the earliest cinematic productions made by a security agency, which can be considered a pioneering example of surveillance cinema in Iran. Dam-e Namari narrates the story of identification and surveillance of Ahmad Mogharebi, a Major General of the Imperial Iranian Army who was a highly influential spy for the Soviet Union's security organization, known as the KGB. Throughout the narrative, SAVAK agents attempt to uncover the mysterious identity of Mogharebi and secretly monitor his covert actions using surveillance tactics. To this end, SAVAK expands its surveillance network across the entire neighborhood where the Mogharebi resides, employing a hierarchical observation strategy. It establishes a hidden watchtower in every house with a strategic view, aiming to control and track all movements within the entire region. Turning Mogharebi's neighborhood into a disciplined area could be seen as a geographical metaphor, suggesting that SAVAK aimed to expand this approach from a segmented city to a broader surveillance society. This serves as an allegory for a political will focused on total control and occupation of space, which, from Michel Foucault's perspective, finds its highest expression in the design of the Panopticon model. Panopticon is an architectural idea introduced by the 18th-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. This modern prison was designed so that inmates were always under the gaze of a central authority. The spatial arrangements and lighting setups in the Panopticon are organized in such a way that, while the central observer remains hidden in the darkness, the prisoners' cells are continuously visible in the light. As a result, the prisoners in their cells are constantly monitored by an anonymous power. Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, interprets the mechanism of power in this model as a generalizable framework capable of explaining power relations in the everyday lives of individuals in modern societies. From his view, modern powers utilize the hierarchized surveillance present in Bentham's design to control individuals and maintain social order. Aligned with the prevailing ideology, the film aims to promote the government's Panopticism slogan by depicting the disciplinary order of the Pahlavi regime through the individualization and visibility of subjects via disciplinary and surveillance mechanisms. In this film, SAVAK attempts to represent itself as a virtual Panopticon, secretly capable of extending its invisible trap to render all citizens visible and therefore implicitly suggesting to the audience that they too might be under surveillance. Set on the brink of the Islamic Revolution, the film provides a powerful depiction of SAVAK's surveillance mechanisms and offers a utopian representation of a perfectly governed society under the pervasive gaze of the ruling power.

Studying the interaction between story and narrative discourse as a theoretical model in the field of narratology, from the beginning of the 20th century until now, has become one of the accepted and efficient methods in the analysis of story narratives. This pattern, which is formed by dividing each narrative story into two thematic and expressive substructures, places each narrative components in one of these two spectrums and then studies the relations and interactions between them. In this article, an attempt has been made to analyze Abbas Kiarostami’ cinema, especially the film Certified Copy through the interaction between the story and narrative discourse. The importance of the analysis of Abbas Kiarostami's cinematic works is that these works do not always follow conventional storytelling traditions and patterns, and by using measures such as: minimal plots, excessive use of spoken description in characterizing and convergence of the role of the narrator and the character; makes itself possess different narrative characteristics. Answering the question that how these features distinguish Kiarostami's films from the major works of Iranian and world cinema, will be the main motive of this article. In spite of all the numerous and diverse researches that Kiarostami’s cinema has attracted due to its national and international prestige, these studies mostly investigate the semantic and poetic aspects, but the analysis of his films from the perspective of narrative mechanisms has been neglected to a large extent. In this research, firstly, the distinct narrative characteristics of Kiarostami's cinema, in general are described. Then, more specifically, the film Certified Copy from four interactive aspects, namely: plot and theme; character and characterization; temporal occasions between story and discourse, the voice of narrator and point of view are analyzed. The results obtained from these analyses indicate that Kiarostami's cinema always tends towards a kind of integration of the story in the narrative discourse, in such a way that in most of his works it is not possible to distinguish a clear border between story and narrative discourse. This point is manifested in the most obvious way in the case of the movie Certified Copy, to the point that the thematic goal of the film, that is, the inability to distinguish between the original and the copy; or between reality and fantasy, comes into existence through this fusion of story and narrative discourse. The more specific consequences of such a tendency in Kiarostami's films, on the one hand, lead to the formation of a kind of “Author Cinema”, This author cinema is strongly related to the filmmaker's humanism and worldview; also, his stylistic and aesthetic interests, and on the other hand, he emphasizes the active role of the audience in terms of participation in recreating the narrative of films. In general, it can be said that Kiarostami's cinema is more faithful to the narrative discourse in the film than it is to the story. In other words, the life of the story depends on the life of the narrative discourse and not the other way around.

Adopting a qualitative-explanatory approach and drawing upon available library resources, this study aims to delve into the tragedy of Karbala, with a focus on the concept of Dianoia/Thought as proposed by Aristotle. In Islamic perspectives, death is not viewed as the ultimate end, especially when it is seen as a martyr's sacrifice for truth in the face of oppression. One could propose that the divine Siavash transforms into Hussein, and the mourning associated with Siavash evolves into Ta’ziyeh. However, neither the historical-human persona of Hussein resembles the mythical or Aristotelian hero, nor does the underlying ideology of this event mirror Aristotle's concept of Dianoia, which is predominantly myth-based. On the contrary, Ta’ziyeh is deeply rooted in the religious and national myths of Iran through which the perpetual conflict between good and evil transcends the common time and space. Imam Hussain's (AS) actions during his uprising against the tyrants of his era align with the quest for human salvation as taught in the Quran as well as the Prophet's and the infallible Imams’ traditions. Initially, the commemoration of this uprising involved recitations of eulogies in gatherings, evolving over time into what is now recognized as mourning or lamentation ceremonies. These ceremonies serve as a representation, reenactment, and portrayal of the tragedies within the Quranic narrative of the Prophet's family. In Christian discourse, there are also performances about the suffering and pain of Jesus (AS). However, determining the exact origin and nature of what we now know as mourning, especially in Shia discourse, is a difficult task. Some consider its origin to be solely the Karbala uprising, some see it as influenced by ancient rituals, and others view it as similar to Christian rituals or even modern drama.  Nonetheless, the religious underpinnings derived from Quranic teachings significantly shape the religious essence of mourning. In conclusion, mourning exhibits fundamentally distinct foundations and principles compared to Aristotelian drama. Key findings include the similarities in origin and lineage between Ta’ziyeh and tragedy: 1) both Ta’ziyeh and tragedy are similar in origin and ancestry, but have completely distinct goals. 2) In Ta’ziyeh, "Thought" is based on the eternal conflict between absolute good and evil, while in tragedy, "Thought" is devoted to the conflict between individuals. 3) In Ta’ziyeh, the hero is aware of his inevitable fate, while in tragedy, the hero has no escape from death. 4) In Ta’ziyeh, the hero has no tragic flaw and is free from error, while in tragedy, the hero is flawed. 5) However, in Ta’ziyeh, the wretched is not flawed but sinful. 6) Both Ta’ziyeh and tragedy try to arouse fear and mercy, called catharsis, but each in its own specific way: In Ta’ziyeh, catharsis resulting from the audience's emotional empathy with the Imam-khans and their aversion to the Mukhalif-khans. In tragedy, catharsis resulting from the human fear and compassion for the action that is performed before their eyes. However, the similarities and differences between Ta’ziyeh and tragedy are not only related to Dianoia/Thought, but also include the components of ethos, lexis, and opsis, which need to be examined and analyzed separately.

Representation is a process through which artistic and philosophical movements throughout history have expressed realities or imaginings, either directly and naturalistically or indirectly and abstractly. The concept of beauty within this process varies according to each movement's definitions and understandings of human nature and existence. This study examines the evolution of avant-garde movements following the invention of photography, the birth of cinema and animation, and the World Wars, which served as pivotal moments in the transformation and redefinition of representation in art and beauty during the Pop Art era. This era marks a significant departure from classical aesthetics spearheaded by avant-garde movements, where popular culture emerged as a vital source of inspiration and artistic creation. The research delves into the origins of Pop Art movement, which emerged as a response to growing division between subjective perspectives of avant-garde artists and the general public. This divide created a need to explore the structure of experience and its role in shaping popular culture. Central to this exploration are the theories of John Dewey, a leading figure in the philosophy of pragmatism, who emphasized the importance of aesthetic experience and popular culture as influential forces in the artistic process of this era. Dewey’s theories provide a framework for understanding how art can engage with everyday experiences and contribute to the cultural landscape. The study further investigates the evolution of aesthetics in experimental animations produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), recognized as one of the most influential institutions in the development and growth of experimental animation. The analysis is conducted across three distinct strands: abstract animations heavily influenced by Modernist art, particularly by avant-garde painters who were pioneers in experimental animation; transitional animations that serve as a bridge between Modernist aesthetics and Pop Art, blending elements of high art and popular culture; and animations that achieve a unified aesthetic by integrating the formal and thematic elements of Pop Art with Dewey's concepts of everyday aesthetic experience. This research explores the reasons and mechanisms behind the shifts in aesthetic criteria and their impact on the experimental animations of the NFB. By analyzing and comparing the formal and thematic characteristics of selected works from each strand, the study identifies specific criteria that illustrate how Dewey's aesthetic theory of everyday life has transformed NFB's works from abstract creations into works deeply embedded in popular culture, yet still influenced by the formal elements of Modern and abstract art. The study employs a descriptive-analytical approach, reviewing the development of Pop Art, the capabilities of experimental animation as a pioneering branch of visual arts, and the supportive environment provided by the NFB. This environment has enabled the integration of diverse cultural influences through the work of artists with unique techniques and styles. The analysis concludes by determining the extent to which Pop Art has influenced these animations, demonstrating that contemporary art and beauty emphasize a direct connection between art and everyday life, highlighting human experience and popular culture as the primary sources of artistic expression.

In this article, the method of using the Kereshmeh gusheh as the most important and widely used rhythmic cycle in Iranian classical music in the pishdaramads made by Gholamhossein Darvish, who is known as the inventor or one of the inventors of the pishdaramad genre in Iranian music, has been investigated. For this purpose, the methods of creating variety and creating rhythmic differences in Kereshmeh in various interpretations of the radifs have been studied and compared with the methods used by Darvish-Khan in making pishdaramad of Kereshmeh. Through the investigation of audio and written sources of Darvish Khan's works, it was found that there are seven pishdaramads from him, of which the rhythmic pattern of Kereshmeh is used in five of the pishdaramads. In four pieces out of these five preludes, the rhythmic pattern of Kereshmeh forms the main rhythmic structure and they are presented with various changes from the beginning to the end. In this article, these four pishdarmads have been examined, which are described in order as follows: 1. Mahur 2. Shushtari 3. Abuata 4. Abuata (second). The result of this study and comparison shows that Kereshmeh is one of the important constructive and generative factors in the rhythmic structure of the first preludes made in Iranian classical music. The known methods are divided into seven parts: 1. increasing the number of tones or rests;  2. reducing the number of tones or rests 3. increasing the duration of tones or rests; 4. reducing the duration of tones or rests; 5. Dividing the duration of tones or rests; 6. combining the duration of tones or rests; and  7. substitution of tones and rests. These methods are generally formed by increasing or decreasing the number of tones or rests, increasing or decreasing the duration of tones and rests, as well as replacing rests and tones in successive repetitions of the presentation of the rhythmic cycle of Kereshmeh. The main difference in the way these methods are used in Darvish Khan's  pishdaramads is not using two methods of increasing the duration of tones and decreasing the duration of tones due to metrical considerations. Also, in these advances, to maintain the stability of the meter and prevent many changes in their metric structure, the use of methods of increasing and decreasing the number of notes has been reduced, and the methods of combining the duration of notes and dividing the duration  of tones and replacing the tone and rests have been used more. Using the methods of increasing or decreasing the number of tones in this writing have been done only by removing or adding the part of the fa’alaton or mafa’elon in the rhythmic structure of Kereshmeh. Recognizing and using the mentioned methods that show some of the ways of composition in Iranian classical music can be a tool for making today's advances; also, the study of how to use other rhythmic cycle such as Masnavi in other genres of percussive pieces such as reng will complement this research.