Film as Philosohpy: "cinematic ethics" in Asghar Farhadi's cinema

This study focuses on the problematic of what Asghar Farhadi's films think on ethics. Farhadi's films, mainly based on domestic materials of Iranian culture, ask the audience questions on universal ethical issues of "what is right or wrong", "what is good or evil", conscience and justice without an intention of moralizing. Farhadi's films leave the audience, too, in dilemma while keeping an equal distance to all the characters and narrating the relation among them along with hidden parts. They lead the audience to the point of not being able to decide who is guilty and who is not and thinking that all the characters are right in their points of view. In this research, I have analyzed Fireworks Wednesday (Chaharshanbeh Surı̇), About Elly (Darbareye Elly), A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin), The Past (Le Passé) and The Salesman (Forushande) and I argue that these films philosophize in their own style. For this purpose, I have initially looked at the historical background of the relationship between cinema and philosophy. The concept of "filmosophy" by Daniel Frampton, who regards films as philosophy per se, contributes to the theoretical framework for the argument of this study that films philosophize in a real sense. The films analyzed in this thesis let the audience have an ethical experience by philosophizing in their own style. Robert Sinnerbrink defines this ethical experience as "cinematic ethics. In the film analyses which have been carried out drawing on "Rashomon effect", I have manifested that the films focused for this study exemplify the philosophy of "cinematic ethics".