Reading responses due Wed. 9/26 by 8pm
This week's readings, from the course reader:
Perez, “Toward a Rhetoric of Film: Identification and the Spectator” (7pp)
Fuchs, “’I Got Some Bad Ideas in My Head’” (15pp)
Johnson, review of Douglas Gordon’s “Through a Looking Glass” (1p)
Post your responses in the comments field by 8pm Wednesday night, Sept. 12. Don't forget to suggest a scene for viewing in class.
1) Sum up one key idea of Perez's and Fuchs's essays (not Johnson's).
2) Describe Perez's and Fuchs's method of analysis. (See below for details)
3) Every reading provides a critical tool we’ll try out on the film under discussion. So, suggest one scene from TAXI DRIVER for us to look at in class. What "research question" would you like to ask about that scene? Explain how and why ONE (1) of these readings might be helpful or interesting to use when analyzing the scene. Be very specific.
See the bottom of the first posted reading questions for "tips" on figuring out the answer to question 2, on method.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Rhetoric of Film and the Thematic Complexity of Taxi Driver
In his essay “Toward a Rhetoric of film: Identification and the Spectator,” Gilbert Perez credits “cognitivists” in general and Murray Smith in particular for fleshing out the idea of viewer identification with the distinctions of alignment and allegiance. Smith and Perez make a compelling argument that alignment and allegiance with a film character are two distinct characteristics that are often conflated into identification.
We can be aligned with a character, such as Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver,” without giving him our allegiance. We certainly travel through “Taxi Driver” with a controlled identification with Bickle. As the Perez article notes, we are embarrassed with and for the character when he clumsily takes Betsy to a porno movie on their second date. His obvious descent onto craziness, however, does not allow the normal among us to align ourselves with his developing mission. Two elements that are usually combined in a Hollywood film are distinguished in “Taxi Driver,” as well as – to a somewhat lesser degree – in John Ford’s “The Searchers.” John Wayne as Ethan in “The Searchers,” definitely begins the movies as our guy and maintains our sympathies and allegiance for much of the film. Ethan’s obsession eventually pushes the viewer out of that allegiance, although I would argue that he never really loses our sympathies.
Perez is interested in exposing and exploring a language of film. The topic of his article is identification as rhetoric. Films speak to the filmgoer in many memorable and meaningful ways, and Perez explains how the language of a “rhetoric of images,” will cue the viewer to forward the developing fabula in a particular direction. For example, a scene of lovers in nature evokes in modern man a feeling of goodness and rightness. When Perez describes himself as a Cuban/American he is identified as a “type” in a similar manner. Viewers are cued both subtly and unsubtly by images in a film to think, believe, and feel in particular ways. To Perez, learning and understanding the hidden language of film – or the rhetoric of images – opens up an entirely new way of seeing and understanding cinema and culture.
In Cynthia Fuchs’ article “I Got Some Bad Ideas in my Head,” she runs through the disorder of the film in an effort to pin down its significance. The point that stands out for me in her essay is that “the structural and thematic complexity,” is what makes “Taxi Driver” such a meaningful and appealing film.
Those themes include, but are not limited to, the societal transformation of the 1960’s, racism, sexuality, a corrupt political system, urban decay, violence and guns, women’s liberation, Vietnam, and societies “combined sense of dread and desire.” Travis Bickle disturbs us, especially because Americans of the 1970’s and now are engaged on one level or another with related or like obsessions. The structural and thematic complexity of “Taxi Driver,” assures that these almost unconscious obsessions resonate with us through the bizarre experience of riding along with Travis Bickle in 1970’s New York City.
Fuchs runs through the film in shot by shot detail to highlight her argument for thematic complexity and meaning. For example, she discusses the numerous shots of windows, doors, television and movie screens underscore Bickle’s (and our) perspective as a spectator. Pauline Kael argued that this layered exploration of “spectatorship” is a key theme of the film, with Bickle watching, being watched, while the viewer watches the watchers watching and being watched. Whether Fuchs sees a theme and then looks for the example to justify that conclusion is not as important as her procedure for breaking down a film and finding evidence based on specific scenes. Her method is to tie the substance of a film to a particular theme or theory.
Fuchs’ points about thematic complexity bring to mind an earlier revelation about “The Searchers.” A film often echoes more profoundly in its era and down the decades when the themes, motives, and answers remain partially hidden beneath the surface. “The Searcher’s” is made more complex and interesting by its refusal to specify its themes or answer every question. The complex and shifting nature of our alignment and/or allegiance with Ethan and Travis has a similar effect. The viewer is left moved and shaken by forces above and below the surface, and answers both revealed and hidden from view. The language of cinema may be universal, but it also hides from us in many layers and on multiple fronts.
I would suggest that we review the scene where Scorsese’s cuckold-character rides in Bickle’s cab, and discusses his plans to murder his cheating wife. We could assess the scene relative to both the "rhetoric of image" and the alignment/allegiance issue. What is the point of this scene? To whom – if anyone – do we relate? How does it make us feel? Would we share the cuckold’s perspective? Do viewers align or separate from these two characters in the cab at this point? Why is this scene so bizarrely uncomfortable? Most importantly, where is the filmmaker – both directly and indirectly – trying to take the viewer with this scene?
Christina Freiberg
Blog #3
To begin, we are revisited by Gilberto Perez, a professor of cinema and society at Sarah Lawrence. Once again, he offers his critique on how rhetoric influences cinema and ultimately, the audience. In his article, “Toward a Rhetoric of Film: Identification and the Spectator,” he explains how rhetoric, otherwise the art of persuasion, effects the ideology of the spectator. Since ideology is defined as certain cultural beliefs that an individual has, in accords to society, Perez describes that in cinema, whether a setting or a character, the audience finds an appeal. The audience searches for an identification: an appeal with our interest or countering them. Perez goes on to say that when this identification does occur, we tend to find certain qualities or characteristics in the characters that we find within ourselves.
For example, he discusses rhetoric in relation to Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” Throughout the entire movie, upon first viewing, people sympathize with Norman Bates, a man who is controlled by sick mother. When people find out he is a split personality, then the audience is left shaking their heads, not because he is a murder but has become his mother. In fact, the mother persona has become Norman Bates. It leaves the audience in complete distrust by the destruction of this man. Like Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver,” they seem to be two All-American men but, instead, are just isolated and lonely men who are in the periphery of the social norm.
In Cynthia Fuchs’ analysis of Taxi Driver, she highlights key scene from the movie illustrate the destruction and corruption of Travis Bickle from beginning to end. A professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania (and associate professor at George Mason University), her research centers on gender (most notably feminism and the LGBT community) and the media. By using the quote, “I got some bad ideas in my head,” she describes the motives of Travis by his response to his surrounding environment. Fuchs discusses key scenes from the movie.
Starting at the beginning, it is clear that Travis is in isolation, watching New York City from either the safety or alienation of his taxi cab. An insomniac, he develops what could be a warped view of the world, a walking contradiction that Betsy, played by Cybil Shepherd, would say later in the movie. One scene in particular is when she discusses is Travis and Betsy’s relationship. Betsy, wearing white, appears “like an angel,” as if she is a savior to his loneliness. He is drawn to her because of how she moves alone in the world, how her nonverbal cues gives off the impression she is ignorant to the surrounding environment. After describing the scene, Fuchs discusses the flawed desire within her. When Betsy refuses him, he becomes outraged, triggering an explosion that no one, not even the viewer can escape from. It is as if dreams were shattered, and everyone has reached the point of no return.
As a “research question,” the movie raise the question: How does political and societal ideology makes Travis to become alienated, or “a walking contradiction.” When the film was released in 1976, it showed a side of New York City that no one expected: the gritty, dark underworld of Times Square (filled with sex shops, prostitutes, and porno films), gangs, pimps, etc..., basically a complete departure from the glamorization of New York. Martin Scorsese, the director and a native to New York City, said that he agreed to do the film because he saw something in Travis that he saw in himself. The appeal of the outsider and the loner is one of the main themes of the film because a pariah is always surrounded by their thoughts and constantly re-evaluates its position within society.
With this said, first research question would be how the film depicts loneliness and alienation through the voiceover. Travis is always addressing the audience, so this starts the movie’s persuasion and identification toward the audience. The Perez article could be useful in how the movie could align or alienate the viewer through the character, Travis Bickle. It seems he has no one else to turn to, relying on the audience to empathize with him. Also, the voice over raises the question: why are we with this guy? How come the camera is always situated from his point of view? The way we cannot leave the gritty world, in relation to camera placement, gives off the impression of alienation and loneliness. Also, when Travis does interact with the Senator and Betsy, that we are in the day time (minus the cab ride scene about cleaning up the street), explores the comment, “a walking contradiction.”
Personal Question:
When Travis goes on his date with Betsy, she is all white while he wears a white undershirt covered by a red velvet sport coat. Could Scorsese be foreshadowing the future sequence of events through the color scheme?
The one idea from Perez's arcticle that stuck out to me the most was the identification with the characters. "Our identification with a character depends on how the character is identified - identified as and identified with." He gives examples from the film "Day of Wrath" with a witch that has the images of leaves appear right before she is about to be burned. This connects nature with being evil. Later in the film, another character is connected with nature, giving the impression that that character is also evil. A viewer is going to be aligned with certain characters, whether they appear good or not. An example of this is in the film "The Fugitive" because even though Dr. Kimble is supposed to be the guy that killed his wife, the viewer identifies with him because he is never portrayed as the bad guy. Perez also talks about "Taxi Driver" and the scene that Travis takes Betsy to a porno movie. Even though I was embarassed and wanted to yell at him not to take her in there, I identified with Travis and his complete lack of knowledge of what is socially acceptable.
Fuchs' arcticle goes through "Taxi Driver" and points out meanings behind all the important scenes. The part that stuck out to me was when she talked about the guy that made Travis stop and watch the window, where he was going to kill his wife. When viewing this scene I could tell that Travis wouldnt mind at all if the guy went in and killed his wife, because he had the same views as Travis. Even though he was going to commit at terrible crime, it is justified because she is cheating on him. I really liked out the film just goes to another scene and doesnt actually let the viewer know if the guy killed his wife. Judging from this, I get the sense that the guy went through with is plans, and it didnt bother Travis at all because those are the exact type of people that he wants gotten rid of. I can tell from reading through this arcticle that Fuchs loves "Taxi Driver".
The scene I would like to view again is when he takes Betsy on their date. It goes with what Perez was talking about with identifying with characters. Even though I was embarassed and shocked that he would bring someone to a prono movie, I understand that he doesnt really know what is socially acceptable, and in the end get upset with Betsy for not giving him a chance. I would like to view it again because it was hard for me to tell why I was identifying with Travis when I was so uncomfortable being there, just like Betsy.
Reading Questions #3 Joshua McClain
Gilberto Perez writes in “Towards a Rhetoric of Film: Identification and the Spectator”, “rhetoric is the art of persuasion, and persuasion rests on identification: a speaker persuades and audience by identifying his cause with their interests.” Perez dissected the relation between the viewer and the characters displayed on the screen. There is a constant give and take between the viewer and characters when it regards the two relating towards one another. A factor that comes into play with making a film work, is that the audience is engaged or interested in our main focus; be it a topical discussion, a person, place, or thing. Perez was looking at the amount of identification there needs to be between the viewer and the character of the film for it to be believable. He distinguished between Identity and Identifying with a character, saying “an identification is not an identity but a commonality, something shared in common or believed to be so shared”. One character may be a completely different personality and have a completely different life ideology from that of the viewer, but if the film allows a connection of identifying with that viewer then the character can be cared about and followed throughout the rest of the film. We all come from different walks of life and no two people are alike, this is a good thing, but a good film can find a general plane of understanding and can connect with an audience and can then become a great success. Perez stated wonderfully “Our identification with the character always takes place in a context…of story, setting, genre, the context the work establishes and the context we bring to the work. People walk into a film with two things: one is a willing suspension of disbelief, and two is our personal ideology, the two functions hand in hand and allow for a large number of people to all connect to a single film. Perez’s focus was mostly on the willingness of the viewer to connect with, align with, and identify with the characters presented in films.
Cynthia Fuchs’ “I got some bad ideas in my head” went through a detailed view of the film Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese. One word or concept that she continued to come back to and write was the words “view”, “gaze”, and “vision” and many forms of those words. Her focus was on the viewpoint of the film. Where was the camera looking? Who was doing that looking? Fuchs took great care in going through each scene and looking for who was doing the looking. Sometimes it would be Travis, or Betsy, the Cab, a fair, or the camera’s personal view of Travis’s inner self. An intriguing addition to her essay was when she called the scene’s of Travis with the guns, and moments of self-reflection as an aligning of the audience to “his [Travis] paradoxically dissociated and yet self-enclosing vision”. The film took us on a journey with Travis and showed us how more and more we the audience could not relate to him but we still felt a connection to him and wanted his life to come around to a somewhat normal functioning human being. Fuchs correlations between the pornography, whores and pimps, to the government, politicians and campaigners were right on the point that I believe Scorsese wanted to bring across on the screen. Her method of analysis would be to pay close attention to who the viewer is and how this sight that we have directly moves the film along in a clear and progressive way.
The section of the film I would like to look at is when Travis is in the phone booth, right after he has just finished the worst first date scene ever. The camera is watching Travis, or so we think, and when he talks about the flowers he sent her, the camera tracks right to an empty long hallway with the bustling city out the door. I really can never get my head around this camera movement. Taking the advice of Fuchs I think we should examine who is looking, or who is driving the story in this scene. In the beginning of the scene we think that Travis is in charge, but then the camera moves and we lose Travis’s sense of control. Who is in control in that shot? Who is looking? What circumstances that we know about in Travis’s life could lead us to an answer? This line of dialogue I offer up as a beginning point for my thought process:
“All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention. I believe that someone should become a person like other people.”
Both of these essays spoke about our own ways of identification with the situations and characters on the screen, as a way to tell ourselves how to feel about nature, or love, or anger. If we see a couple walking together in a beautiful forest setting, we associate it with love, which in turn means we associate nature with love and the people in it the same way. The second essay talked about how we don't really associate with the mindset and anger of Travis Bickle, but we more or less 'identify' with his feelings of alienation and aloneness. We don't go through the means that he does to rectify it, which would greatly disturb anyone, and since we can distance ourselves from what happens then we feel better just identifying with the emotions that are safe, like pity.
In the second essay, the author used different reviewers opinions of Taxi Driver as a way to express what he was trying to cover in his writing. Both sides of the arguments for Travis Bickle are laid out, as well as Scorsese's methods for shooting, and the pro's and cons of it all. The article eventually rests on the more positive reviews, particularly Roger Ebert's analysis, which is to say that we connect with the aloneness Travis feels, but not Travis himself.
One scene that really stood out to me as identifying with the audience more than with Travis is the scene when he is on a pay phone talking to Betsy after his embarassing movie date. As he is being slowly but surely pushed away on the phone, the camera pans over to the hallway and sits, almost as if the audience has turned its head to look from the sadness Travis is feeling. Its like, we all know what it is to be rejected and its cruel to make us sit through the entire shot on Travis as he is going through it; a shot that is generous to Travis and the people watching.
A key idea in Gilberto Perez's article is the manipulation of identification within a film's structure. Perez's argument is based in history, the psychology of identity, film history, and religion. It is an interestingly holistic approach which examines the idea that social rhetoric can be manipulated by the moving image in a great many ways, involving the viewer even in situations that would usually seem very far from their own concepts of self-identity.
In particular, Perez notes in relation to Taxi Driver how we are forced to build an allegiance to Travis Bickle even as his instability distances himself from us. It is, as Perez implies, a function of the rhetoric of the visual image that lends us Travis' perspective, the rhetoric of the images of filth and darkness, of the often unbidden violence and ridicule towards Travis at the beginning that sets us up for later "uncomfortable...identification with [him]."
Fuch's article essential approaches the film in the same way, by exploring the film in it's historical/social context and then analyzing sequences of identification and distancing which turn the film. Fuch's also places language or the lack of it's use into this context.
Both articles continue our focus on spectatorship and it's function in a film who's character's strange point of view is shared often as if he were in the audience with us. It can never be denied that what Travis sees is horrific on the whole, but if anything this only draws us into a closer relationship to Travis. Fuchs quotes the movie, where Betsy observes that Travis is a "walking contradiction."
Ken Johnson's review of Douglas Gordon's installation based on the film chooses to simply address it from a standpoint of technical evaluation. His response is based on execution, and disregards much of the ideas central to Travis's attempt to define himself, to create an identity in order to escape his isolation.
I think that this review as the ones cited by Fuchs illustrate a main part of the structure of Taxi Driver. The world that Travis inhabits is certainly not a world that these reviewers are conscious of. Which is part of the process of identification necessary.
In particular, putting this film into a context laid out by the film's rhetoric, both visual and directly through the voice over, I am drawn to the sequence where Travis has coffee with Betsy until he loses here at the theater. I'm drawn here because in the context of the time (with the Sexual revolution and Vietnam and inner city crime being high on the social radar), I find that this identification of Travis and Betsy with each other to be the most subtle of narrative clues as long as we stay within the literary and political context of it's release.
Both characters seem to be self-absorbed contradictory people. Their observations of each other are not without merit or believable attraction. Betsy is an incomplete symbol of a liberated woman, just as much as Travis is an incomplete symbol of returning to society. Betsy is a working woman, who isn't dominated by Tom in the office. She is attracted by Travis's straightforwardness. In the end though she cannot complete her fascination with Travis's character, as she's not quite liberated enough to watch pornography with him, no matter how clinical the presentation. Her identity is as incomplete as his, and her attempt to explore it is as impotent and yet bizarrely rewarding as his in the end. I think her outburst at the end of the date is interesting coming out only 3 years after Erica Jong's Fear of Flying coined the term "zippless fuck." In the end, Taxi Driver brings together, both in review and as a film, the incredible upheaval of identity in as a nation of people questioning our national and social identities en masse.
By means of his bifurcation of the terms “alignment” and “allegiance,” Gilberto Perez, in his paper “Toward a Rhetoric of Film: Identification and the Spectator,” synthesizes Murray Smith’s notion of what Perez explains as a “calculated split” between the viewer’s “alignment” and their “allegiance” with a film’s character. “…[I]n the former,” Perez states, “we [the viewer] share the character’s path, his or her point of view in the physical sense; in the latter we share the character’s values, his or her point of view in the moral sense.” Consequently, Perez surmises that: “But usually these two different modes are joined: alignment serves rhetorically to promote allegiance; point of view in the physical sense becomes aligned, allied, with point of view in the moral sense; sharing the character’s path helps persuade us to share the character’s values. What the usual rhetoric joins, the rhetoric of [Martin Scorsese’s films] “Taxi Driver” and “Kings of Comedy” unsettlingly divide” (62).
Similarly in “’I Got Some Bad Ideas in My Head,’” Cynthia Fuchs works with the idea of viewer identification to extract what she feels makes “Taxi Driver” so “truly horrific…” “[M]uch as any horror film reflects its cultural moment…The film,” she argues, “within and without all these contexts, speak directly to a combined sense of dread and [sexual] desire (69). Utilizing more of a cultural theory of film rhetoric regarding the viewing experience than Perez, Fuchs is equally interested in analyzing the visual truculence of Scorsese’s overtures and their manifestation in the film’s main character Travis Bickle. In a word each essay is as much concerned with the charm of a Travis Bickle for viewers, as it is with the repugnance of his character that we find so aberrant. When reexamining “Taxi Driver” tomorrow, I feel that two sequences ought to be broke down for the purposes of understanding what is so “truly horrific,” to quote Fuchs, about aligning and adhering ourselves to Travis Bickle, and more importantly, in identifying with his situation.
I would first like to touch upon two initial observations made by Fuchs in her essay, and their significance to another point in the film where I feel this “calculated split” that Perez refers to takes place for both the viewer and Travis. Fuchs opens her essay with the following insights: “Travis Bickle’s cab first appears in “Taxi Driver” under the opening credits, rolling as if through hell. Emerging from the steam and darkness, the vehicle floats across the screen slowly” (67). Subsequently, this sequence fades into the narrative as Travis enters the office of the taxi company to apply for a job. His is inside the station, yet the scene begins with him still engulfed by the steam rising from the streets in the previous sequence. In one way, Fuchs is correct; Travis lives in a “hell” so to speak and clearly has the ability to move in and out of this precarious milieu. And yet, this break from realism—Travis is both simultaneously walking through steam produced from street sewers and inside the cab station—helps explain his true position in the film as well as his and our “calculated split” from “alignment” and “allegiance” with this hell that Fuchs believes exists.
Both Fuchs and Perez share similar observations with regard to the moment in “Taxi Driver” when Travis and Betsy attend a pornographic film on their ill-fated first date. Fuchs submits that: “Everything is too ‘real’ for him; his life is a pornographic movie, authentic as advertised. His devastation at his loss of control over his ‘reality’ (as if he ever had control) is exemplified in a just famous shot in which he calls her from a pay phone…” (71). Akin to Fuchs, Perez argues that: “we feel acute embarrassment for him. This may not be exactly what he feels, but surely we wouldn’t be feeling it if we weren’t putting ourselves in his place” (62). One could argue that either Fuchs or Perez is missing out on the viewer’s grasp of what it truly means for Travis to live in this world.
At second glance, one wonders why we would feel “acute embarrassment” for Travis when Betsy has already admitted to both us and Travis that she is aware of her surroundings. She reminds Travis, not asking him, “this is a dirty movie” after the two of them approach the ticket booth. Betsy’s affect here is one curiosity, not repulsion, as she makes her observation with a sheepish grin on her face. Even before reaching the ticket booth the two of them are visibly on 42nd street, a signifier of iniquity for anyone living in New York for an extended period of time such as Betsy. Why, then, does she enter? Moreover, why does she run out within the first few minutes of the film, and why are we, as viewers, embarrassed for Travis: what transgression has he committed?
Upon entering the porno film, Travis assures Betsy that many couples come to see it, and when Betsy storms out of the movie there is a couple sitting in front of them clearly enjoying the show. The central point here is: Travis is not living a “pornographic life,” on the contrary the world that he lives in, this “hell” that Fuchs claims he drives though daily, is what is truly pornographic, what is “truly horrific.” Travis, however, is clearly inured to this hell and thus we can identify with his confusion when Betsy runs away from it--she entered the movie willingly and not under false pretenses, yet comes to the realization that she can not or does not have the desire to remain in this “hell” which Travis both loves and hates, but did not construct. The confusion Travis exhibits when Betsy leaves is authentic, and we should not be embarrassed by it if we recognize and understand the world Travis must live in—where else can he go?
One might even argue that we are more inclined to be in allegiance with Travis and his choices, since it is Travis who doesn’t merely venture out from the safety of the indoors—a central motif of the film--for experimental purposes, but rather because he is willing to confront this “hell” on its “horrific” terms. In his opinion, there is no other way and his last failure at normalcy (artificiality?) with Betsy represents a dramatic shift in the film regarding morality, the direction of his own life, and our interpretation of his subsequent actions.
In Gilberto Perez’s article, “Toward a Rhetoric of Film: Identification and the Spectator,” Perez explores the ideas and differences between identity and identification, alignment and allegiance, and how all impact the views of the spectator. The article describes how we can relate to Roberto DeNiro’s character, Travis throughout the film Taxi Driver. He brings up the notion that we may feel sympathy or empathy for his character, but we wouldn’t typically be able to feel what he is feeling, which makes his character very interesting. “Toward a Rhetoric of Film” brings forth notions of characters’ psychology and the viewers’ physical and psychological processes, so I would guess that this writer came from a psychological background in order to successfully write about Travis’s experiences. The author describes the viewers’ psychological process in which “the same film seen in different contexts may provoke different identifications” (61). This article also brings up the idea behind relating characters to objects, moods, nature, etc. So, in the film, when Travis shaves his head and buys several guns, we assume that he will be doing something bad with them. Perez’s article goes into full detail of how the characters and our experiences impact the film’s outcome.
On the other hand, Cynthia Fuchs’s article, “I Got some Bad Ideas in my Head,” brakes down the film Taxi Driver and describes how different shots and actions can relate to something else in the film. For example, Fuchs illustrates how DeNiro’s character is always watching something or someone from inside his cab, in which in the shot his character is looking through the glass at the dirty stuff outside the cab. Fuchs explains that the cab becomes his sanctuary and protects him from the outside world. The author depicts the many different themes that go along with Taxi Driver, from sexuality to politics to violence. It seems that this movie covers almost every issue. Perhaps that is why it has been so popular to pick apart. I do believe, however, that Fuchs is looking at Taxi Driver from a filmmakers’ experience. She thoroughly describes scenes and shows the possible themes that go behind each movement. This was a very interesting article that successfully organized the film.
A scene that I wanted to look at was when Jodie Foster’s character enters the backseat of DeNiro’s cab. Now, the articles briefly went over why it was shot the way it was, but what I don’t understand was why he was so interested in tracking down her character and why was he apprehensive in taking the crumbled up $20 bill.
In his article "Toward a Rhetoric of Film: Identification and the Spectator," Gilberto Perez examines the idea of identification and identity. With that he explains the distinction between alignment and allegiance in reference to each viewer's connection with a character through several films. He states, "alignment and allegiance are two different modes of identification with a character" (Perez 62). This confirms the idea that a viewer may always be with the character externally, but not always internally. Perez uses an example from Taxi Driver, in which he describes the film's clear division of alignment and allegiance. He discusses the scene when Travis takes Betsy to a porn theater. As viewers, we are aligned with Travis, following him everywhere and seeing what he sees. However, we are most likely not in allegiance with him. We feel for him, but have no desire to be in his position. Nonetheless, we are still forced to follow him, which makes our identification and allegiance with Travis somewhat unsettling. This is a perfect example of the distinction between alignment and allegiance.
In the article, "I got some Bad Ideas in My Head," Cynthia Fuchs closely analyzes Travis Bickle's psyche through the films progression of scenes. By examining his character from every angle, she makes a great deal of valid claims about Travis' vague range of thoughts and emotions. With this she is able to track his transition from point A to point B and allow the viewer a glimpse of not only his actions, but the possible intentions behind them.
One scene I felt is open for questions is one of the final moments after Iris has been rescued, and Travis is left to his own thoughts. When we're in his apartment, we see newspaper clippings on the wall that are calling him a "hero". In addition to this Iris' father has written him a "thank you" note. On the outside everything seems right for Travis, which relates back to Perez's idea of alignment. As viewers we realize that Travis is an identified character after having been with him throughout the film. However, we may or may not be in allegiance with him. On one hand we have every reason to be in allegiance with him, seeing as he rescued a young girl from drugs and prostitution, most likely saving her life. On the other hand as Fuchs points out, "viewers are left to wrestle with the fact that his targeting of criminals was quite accidental" (Fuchs 68). Though Travis committed a good deed, we are left to decide whether it was for the right reason. Was it for pure justice, or the result of the culmination of events and emotions? For this reason it is difficult to understand his true intentions.
Perez’s essay “Toward a Rhetoric of Film: Identification and the Spectator” he argues the ways in which it is possible for the audience to identify with a character. He writes about the link between different rhetoric’s of identification; using a scene from Day of Wrath as an example. According to Perez, the audience’s identification with a character will “take place in a context” and certain characteristics can be identified with differently in different contexts. He concludes by saying that although certain characters are portrayed in a way to be identified with, it is also an individual’s personal reaction to characters which can influence their identification. The way in which Perez puts his point across is to look into the design of film and how it is made, making references to certain sequences of films, noting how aspects are important when reviewing the film.
In “I Got Some Bad Ideas in My Head” Fuchs spends a lot of time focusing on the camera and perspective. Describing points in Taxi Driver in which we as an audience are shown Travis’s perspective and times when his perspective changes. It would appear that she believes perspective to be an important and central aspect of Taxi Driver. She writes that “Taxi Driver examines the strained relation between ‘realism’ and ‘reality’.” To me this is largely in reference to perspective as the perspectives provided throughout the film are showing audiences Travis’s reality. Fuchs links identification with perspective, as although by giving Travis’s perspective, which would normally aid identification with a character, audiences find it difficult to identify with him at times, such as during the shoot out. Fuchs’s method of analysis is to look in detail at specific scenes in terms of camera work and focus on the relevance they have to how the audience views the film.
The scene which I consider to be fitting is when Travis takes Betsy on the date. It ties in with what both Perez and Fuchs talk about in regards to identifying with the character. Fuchs mentions that at points within the film we cannot completely identify and I consider this to be one of these sequences. We feel emotion toward Travis but are not able to identify because we know what he does is wrong.
Gilberto Perez’s paper entitled “Identification and the Spectator” mainly focuses on the cinematic concepts behind how and why we relate to characters and themes the way we do. Perez calls this area of analysis “Identification.” He explains that if a film depicts two young lovers walking and conversing through a beautifully sunlit forest with animals and flowers abound that we will associate the surrounding beauty of the forest with the beauty that is their love for each other. However take a different forest with slightly different lovers and you might have an adulterous couple fleeing into the dark, scary woods filled with dangers lurking about. The persuasion of the location says something about the morals or stance we should have on the couple’s love. Identification operates as rhetoric for how we regard and associate things through a well-constructed means of persuasion produced by these certain combinations. Another thing I found interesting was when Perez writes about alignment and allegiance with regard to modes of identification with a character. Alignment explains how the audience is positioned to the character, do we share his/her path, his or her point of view physically. Allegiance refers to the audience’s relation to a character’s values and morality choices throughout the story. Taxi Driver plays with this split between alignment and allegiance by pinning the audience to a character that doesn’t necessarily have the same morals as them but demands they still associate with this immoral character throughout the story.
Cynthia Fuchs’s paper about Taxi Driver (1976) entitled “I got some bad ideas in my head”, also a line from the script, is a well-rounded, practically complete, analysis of the film. She begins by discussing the complexity behind the main character saying, “the movie combines fragments of rage and intelligence, violence and vulnerability, filtered through the debilitated, difficult psyche of Travis Bickle.” Fuch uses Identification almost as much Perez, when she connects the dots for us about the surrounding elements within the film such as Travis’s taxi as a metaphor for his hostility and loneliness. This is especially exemplified when Betsy gets into a cab after their ruined date and Travis yells “But I got a cab…” At this point the taxi has become as much a trap as a means of escape from his sleeplessness and fear.
I always wondered about the ending to the film. Did Travis really live through the end of the shooting or did he die? Earlier in the film Travis writes a letter to his parents lying about having a steady relationship with Betsy. This kind of delusion felt similar to the way the film resolved towards the end of the movie. In the end, the papers praise him for saving the girl, the parents thank him and he even gets to see Betsy one last time, all plot strings which were previously left sour, get tied off so perfectly. Betsy even appears out of nowhere in a dreamily sort of fashion. Its not to say that the ending understood as it was wasn’t cleverly playing with audience alignment and allegiance, falsely glorying a man that had near-psychotic intentions but I just felt the last sequence felt too perfect, heavenly in both senses. Artistic either way the reality of the last scene, at least for me, remains under question.
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