The Western Revisited in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver
One need only peruse his impressive filmography to realize that Martin Scorsese's corpus spans several decades and extends across as many genres. As a veteran filmmaker (and self professed cinephile) Scorsese must understand that the Western is the oldest Hollywood genre which, like all genres, is defined according to specific motifs, iconography, conventions and themes (Mast, 468). In fact, by deliberately invoking the codes and conventions of the Western to underpin Taxi Driver (1976), he demonstrates his virtuosic mastery of the genre. To be sure, Scorsese's film not only resuscitates this particular kind of narrative, but it goes so far as to mimic one of the most celebrated Westerns of all time, John Ford's The Searchers (1956).
As Robert Warshow contends, "the popular genre film makes connections both with its filmic past and within the temperaments of its contemporary viewers" (Mast, 430). Though they were made some twenty years apart, each film is the product of similar sociohistorical circumstances. The postWar ethos of American cynicism following Korea and World War II underlies The Searchers; while Taxi Driver manifests the seething resentment in the wake of Vietnam. It is not surprising, then, that each film features as its central protagonist a returning war veteran who seeks respite from an overwhelming sense of anomie and patent loneliness. This is not to suggest that Taxi Driver is merely a modern day remake of The Searchers, although the narrative and basic thematic structure of Scorsese's film does appear to be virtually identical to Ford's classic. It is just that the generic similarities that exist between the two films are much more interesting t...
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... Travis is even allowed expression is Scorsese's attempt to absolve the guilty conscience of the returning war veteran, even though he is unable to alleviate his feeling of loneliness.
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
(Thomas Wolfe, God's Lonely Man )
I'm God's lonely man.
(Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver)
Works Cited:
Allen, Robert C., ed. Channels of Discourse, Reassembled. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
Boyd, Peter. "Prisoners of the Night." Film Heritage. winter 1976: 2430.
Kolker, Robert Phillip. A Cinema of Loneliness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Mast, Gerald, Marshall Cohen, and Leo Braudy, eds. Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford University Press: New York, 1992.
By adapting the standard Hollywood ‘road’ movie narrative (east to west), incorporating modern music as non-diegetic sound and utilizing shocking scenes – both socially and in terms of ignoring every written and unwritten filming law - Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider stands as a testament to the changes going on in the US during the late 1960s and creates a certain distance to the previous way of seeing America.
In the classical Western and Noir films, narrative is driven by the action of a male protagonist towards a clearly defined, relatable goal. Any lack of motivation or action on the part of the protagonist problematizes the classical association between masculinity and action. Due to inherent genre expectations, this crisis of action is equivalent to a crisis of masculinity. Because these genres are structured around male action, the crises of action and masculinity impose a crisis of genre. In the absence of traditional narrative elements and character tropes, these films can only identify as members of their genres through saturation with otherwise empty genre symbols. The equivalency between the crises of genre and masculinity frames this symbol saturation as a sort of compensatory masculine posturing.
The Classical Hollywood style, according to David Bordwell remains “bound by rules that set stringent limits on individual innovation; that telling a story is the basic formal concern.” Every element of the film works in the service of the narrative, which should be ideally comprehensible and unambiguous to the audience. The typical Hollywood film revolves around a protagonist, whose struggle to achieve a specific goal or resolve a conflict becomes the foundation for the story. André Bazin, in his “On the politique des auteurs,” argues that this particular system of filmmaking, despite all its limitations and constrictions, represented a productive force creating commercial art. From the Hollywood film derived transnational and transcultural works of art that evoked spectatorial identification with its characters and emotional investment into its narrative. The Philadelphia Story, directed by George Cukor in 1940, is one of the many works of mass-produced art evolving out of the studio system. The film revolves around Tracy Lord who, on the eve of her second wedding, must confront the return of her ex-husband, two newspaper reporters entering into her home, and her own hubris. The opening sequence of The Philadelphia Story represents a microcosm of the dynamic between the two protagonists Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven, played by Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Through the use of costume and music, the opening sequence operates as a means to aesthetically reveal narrative themes and character traits, while simultaneously setting up the disturbance that must be resolved.
Any generic film hero is a model of their community and culture. They help to clearly define and outline the community’s values and cultural conflicts by embodying prime characteristics in their persona. The western hero, like Ethan in The Searchers, is always a figure for civilization amongst the savagery of the wild west. By portraying the roles of a civilization, the hero ...
An Analysis of How Narrative and Genre Features Create Meaning and Generate Response in the Opening of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas
Early on in life, Franz Marc (1880-1916), a devoted artist, discovered that his most esteemed subjects were animals, and he strove to great lengths to hone his skills for accurately rendering them on canvas. Then, in the early 20th century, an overly-materialist Germany was overcome with a back-to-nature movement that fascinated Marc and ultimately inspired many of his later pieces. Although his initial aim was to replicate the physical likenesses of animals as accurately as possible, Marc quickly became disinterested in his anatomically-correct depictions, and instead began to emphasize his perceived essence of each animal; he felt
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” University of Florida professor of film studies, Robert Ray, defines two types of heroes pervading American films, the outlaw hero and the official hero. Often the two types are merged in a reconciliatory pattern, he argues. In fact, this
Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981.
In the article “The Thematic Paradigm” exerted from his book, A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, Robert Ray provides a description of the two types of heroes depicted in American film: the outlaw hero and the official hero. Although the outlaw hero is more risky and lonely, he cherishes liberty and sovereignty. The official hero on the other hand, generally poses the role of an average ordinary person, claiming an image of a “civilized person.” While the outlaw hero creates an image of a rough-cut person likely to commit a crime, the official hero has a legend perception. In this essay, I will reflect on Ray’s work, along with demonstrating where I observe ideologies and themes.
The noir style is showcased in Sunset Boulevard with its use of visually dark and uncomfortable settings and camera work, as well as its use of the traditional film noir characters. In addition, the overall tone and themes expressed in it tightly correspond to what many film noirs addressed. What made this film unique was its harsh criticism of the film industry itself, which some of Wilder’s peers saw as biting the hand that fed him. There is frequent commentary on the superficial state of Hollywood and its indifference to suffering, which is still a topic avoided by many in the film business today. However, Sunset Blvd. set a precedent for future film noirs, and is an inspiration for those who do not quite believe what they are being shown by Hollywood.
Jacobs, Lewis. “Refinements in Technique.” The Rise of the American Film. New York: Teachers College Press, 1974. 433-452. Print.
Connelly, Marie. "The films of Martin Scorsese: A critical study." Diss. Case Western Reserve University, 1991. Web. 07 Apr 2014.
In this essay the following will be discussed; the change from the age of classical Hollywood film making to the new Hollywood era, the influence of European film making in American films from Martin Scorsese and how the film Taxi Driver shows the innovative and fresh techniques of this ‘New Hollywood Cinema’.
Plagiarism is a very serious topic to be dealt with, due to the fact that it can damage one’s future very severely. It is done often by students in high school and other institutes such as universities and colleges. People plagiarize intentionally and sometimes even unintentionally. The people who plagiarize intentionally are people who don’t really care about their future and career. The people who plagiarize unintentionally are people who do not cite their work properly and completely. Most people that plagiarize do not get a good mark and most likely have to face consequences such as failure, suspension or the chance of being expelled. In conclusion it is believed that one should not put his/her future at risk and try to expand their mind through the process of critical thinking independently, so they do not have to make the mistake of plagiarizing.
Plagiarism is a serious offense and a growing trend in our society today. Some may associate plagiarism with the idea of taking someone else’s writing and making it their own. In fact plagiarism involves anything that is copied or taken and said to be of your own work. Dictionary.com defines plagiarism as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work, as by not crediting the author”. In fact this definition covers all types of cheating and misrepresentation of ones own work. There are many numbers and statistics that can be found on the amount of individuals that have admitted to cheating. Perhaps the most astounding number is one that was reported by Moeck in 2002 aloft of 40% of higher education students commit academic dishonesty. This number I’m sure has grown since this report and will continue to grow with the development of the Internet. There are a number of ideas and strategies that can be employed in order to stop this ever-growing phenomenon. As teachers and adults, we are responsible for stopping this trend and educating students about the consequences and dangers of plagiarism. I believe there are a variety of reasons individuals plagiarize. First, students are insecure with their own ability; they don’t believe they can do the work therefore they take others. Second, students believe they can get away with the act because they know others who have plagiarized, and there were not any consequences. Lastly, students are uneducated on what plagiarism is and do not know the consequences of their actions if they commit an act. These ideas will be the focus of the position taken on plagiarism in today’s academic society.