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Cinematic Courtrooms: Law and Courts in Iranâs Post-Revolution Cinema
in Middle East Law and GovernanceSearch for other papers by Bahare Ghanoon in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
This article focuses on how courts are represented in Iranâs contemporary cinema. Exploring Iranian movies made since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and more precisely movies of the past 25 years, reveals a concrete transition in the representation of courts and law: moving from an idealistic to a more critical view, and eventually to a realistic perspective. This shift can be understood as a response and an adjustment to the political and social changes in contemporary Iran. The âidealisticâ representation of courts portrayed them as a sacred place with a judge presiding over all parties and incidents, tackling dilemmas in the most righteous way and serving infallible justice. This portrayal is found most frequently in movies of the 1990s. The next decade saw the emergence of a critical perspective that included themes such as freedom of speech, womenâs rights, or modern Iranian family structures; when it came to the law and the role of courts, movies attacked the legal system. This âoppositional representationâ would, for example, portray the judge as ignorant of certain facts, depicting the parties as desperate and helpless against the court, as well as other factors that prevent justice from being served or, even worse, cause the defendant to fall victim to the legal system. Almost simultaneously, in contrast, ârealisticâ cinematic courtrooms are depicted in another set of movies, in which justice is achieved only to some extent. In this representation, the bench is neither sacred, nor is the judge omniscient, with parties capable of keeping the whole truth from him and of manipulating the courtâs decision. Each of these representations requires a different set of narrative structures. This article shows how these narratives have emerged in Iranian cinema. It uses Vladimir Proppâs model for analysing narratives, according to which each narrative is fractionalized into âcharactersâ and âfunctions.â Using Proppâs model, this article identifies three major cinematic narratives involving courts, namely the âidealistic narrative,â the âoppositional narrative,â and the ârealistic narrative.â The article also investigates the impact of social developments in the audiencesâ perception of the law as they move away from unreal understandings of justice towards more nuanced and critical ones.
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| Insgesamt | Letzte 365 Tage | In den letzten 30 Tagen | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aufrufe von Kurzbeschreibungen | 380 | 180 | 11 |
| Gesamttextansichten | 56 | 10 | 0 |
| PDF-Downloads | 146 | 27 | 0 |
Cinematic Courtrooms: Law and Courts in Iranâs Post-Revolution Cinema
in Middle East Law and GovernanceSearch for other papers by Bahare Ghanoon in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
This article focuses on how courts are represented in Iranâs contemporary cinema. Exploring Iranian movies made since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and more precisely movies of the past 25 years, reveals a concrete transition in the representation of courts and law: moving from an idealistic to a more critical view, and eventually to a realistic perspective. This shift can be understood as a response and an adjustment to the political and social changes in contemporary Iran. The âidealisticâ representation of courts portrayed them as a sacred place with a judge presiding over all parties and incidents, tackling dilemmas in the most righteous way and serving infallible justice. This portrayal is found most frequently in movies of the 1990s. The next decade saw the emergence of a critical perspective that included themes such as freedom of speech, womenâs rights, or modern Iranian family structures; when it came to the law and the role of courts, movies attacked the legal system. This âoppositional representationâ would, for example, portray the judge as ignorant of certain facts, depicting the parties as desperate and helpless against the court, as well as other factors that prevent justice from being served or, even worse, cause the defendant to fall victim to the legal system. Almost simultaneously, in contrast, ârealisticâ cinematic courtrooms are depicted in another set of movies, in which justice is achieved only to some extent. In this representation, the bench is neither sacred, nor is the judge omniscient, with parties capable of keeping the whole truth from him and of manipulating the courtâs decision. Each of these representations requires a different set of narrative structures. This article shows how these narratives have emerged in Iranian cinema. It uses Vladimir Proppâs model for analysing narratives, according to which each narrative is fractionalized into âcharactersâ and âfunctions.â Using Proppâs model, this article identifies three major cinematic narratives involving courts, namely the âidealistic narrative,â the âoppositional narrative,â and the ârealistic narrative.â The article also investigates the impact of social developments in the audiencesâ perception of the law as they move away from unreal understandings of justice towards more nuanced and critical ones.
| Insgesamt | Letzte 365 Tage | In den letzten 30 Tagen | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aufrufe von Kurzbeschreibungen | 380 | 180 | 11 |
| Gesamttextansichten | 56 | 10 | 0 |
| PDF-Downloads | 146 | 27 | 0 |
