5 Most Valuable Minutes- Taxi Driver

(9:58-14:58)

The 5 minutes of footage that I choose from the movie Taxi Driver was from 9:58-14:58 in part 8 of the movie. In this part of the film, Travis goes to the pimps and kills them in hopes to let Iris free from their games they play. I choose this part of the film because it really emphasizes the anti-hero. Also, we partly see how his character finally comes to action with all the preparation he has been going through. Before we believed that he was going to kill Palentine, but in the end he does it for Iris. 

In these 5 minutes, we see Travis' actions coming to life, whereas before he was just developing his preparation and we the audience became for anxious to how things were going to turn out. Through out the film, we see Travis becoming more and more aware of his surroundings and what is going on with others. This extract relates to the rest of the director's body of work by how we perceive Travis at first. In the beginning we see him as a desperate guy looking for connections with society, but as time goes on we see how he turns to violence because of how society turned on him. But in the end, we see that he was an anti-hero. Not knowingly doing good, but creating good anyways. We see that he kills the pimps in order for Iris to get freedom, but we never expected him to be in newspapers being called a "hero". 

This extract relates to the narrative and plot structure because through out the film, Travis constantly is thinking about killing Palentine and building up his skills in order to do so. In the end, he does end up killing people, but not Palentine. This extract shows the climax and falling action. This extract also helps support the fact that this film has a classical narrative structure. This means that the discrete story teller moves the story forward towards its climax and resolution around the central climax. This is true because without Travis' actions and motivations, the story wouldn't have gone to the places it went to. He doesn't get the revenger he wished for, but he gets revenge for Iris in order for her to be free and go back to her family that she ran away from. This extract relates to the narrative, because it sort of resembles an old country movie with all the shoot downs. Back in the old west movies, the cowboy movies use to always have shoot downs in the end in order for the "survival of the fittest" to be truly known. That is seen in this extract, because of the way the scene is portrayed and how in the end, Travis ends up winning. There isn't much dialogue in this scene, but there is plenty of action which helps indicate Travis' intentions from the beginning. 

In this 5 minute extract, it shows the director's intent by the camera work which was inspired by Hitchcock's The Wrong Man and Jack Hazan's A Bigger Splash. Throughout this scene, especially during the shooting scenes, the camera work is up close in the action. It helps make the audience feel apart of the action and apart of Travis' life. The camera work is constantly on the action and rarely abandons it. Through out the scene, the cutting is fast, especially during the shooting scenes. This helps raise the action and intensity in the scene. The camera work is always so up close in the action because just like Travis's curiosity and desperation to be apart of something, the director makes us instantly apart of Travis' journey. 

Lastly, the extract reveals the genre and historical connections. This movie is historically connected to old western films because of the constant references. The constant reference to guns and gun play shows a connection to modern day/old western films. I also think that his movie may have some connections to the Vietnam war because in the beginning of the movie, we find out that Travis' is a Vietnam vet in the beginning. This would also help us connect to his vast memory of guns and little projects he makes. The reference to these historical connections helps move the story because it helps show who Travis' character is and why he does what he does. 

The American Anti-Hero

What historical factors influenced the rise of the American Anti-Hero in cinema and how does this hero contradict the Classic Hollywood Ideology.


What is an Anti-Hero? Well, the article "The Rise of the American Anti-Hero: The Character that Changed the Way We Watch Movies" states that, an Anti-Hero in today's films and books will perform acts generally deemed 'heroic', but will do so with methods, or intentions that may not be heroic" (1). WWII was a big influence that changed the role of the traditional hero, and between 1945 and 1980 was the rise of the American Anti-Hero. There are four main reasons that influenced the dramatic change of the hero to the American Anti-Hero. One of the reasons was because America was looking for new types of heros in the stories. The second reason was because American's wanted their heros to rebel against "the status quo". The third reason was that American's wanted a true representation within a hero. The article states that Americans wanted a hero that was, "faulty and vulnerable, like American's real life heros" (1). Lastly, Americans wanted their heros to have a true American spirit, wether it was good or bad or ugly. 


A reason why the American Anti-Hero took off was due to the cynicism during and following World War II. Americans started, ".. relating to the hip non-hero who was not involved with in world problems but devoting his time to overcoming his personal problems" (2). The films Duel in the Sun and The Best Years of Our Lives represented that life was not beautiful after the war and there wasn't always happy endings. Garfield was the true creator and promoter of the anti-hero. He made his characters visceral and palpable individuals. He didn't care if he lost his audience in a scene or not. He thought that being true to the character was most powerful. He made his characters much more relatable to the human race which is what Americans wanted in a hero. "The anti-hero was daring the audience to relate to doing wrong or being wrong even for the wrong reasons" (2). Being able to see how someone can do wrong reflects on our own failures. This then lets us learn a lesson. 


During the Cold War in the 1950's, the characters started to embrace the duality in the nature of man. This allows a person to be both good and evil. An example of this was the movie A Place in the Sun. In this film we see that the protagonist is never obviously seen for what they are and we the audience have plenty to think about and weigh in one's head after the film. 


The Anti-hero contradicts the Classic Hollywood Ideology because the anti-hero is more realistic and has flaws whereas the normal hero is pure perfection from what we see. But as time has moved on, films have developed the anti-hero making it more relatable to society. An anti-hero creates a sense of realism through their character. We see that the classic hero does good on purpose/consciously whereas the anti-hero makes good, but sometimes without the knowledge of it. 

Blog Response- Article- Intensified Continuity

According to David Bordell, explain how and why continuity has intensified in Hollywood cinema. Also consider whether anything has been lost with this change.

Please include a minimum of 3 quotes from the article in your response.

According to David Bordell, the author of Visual Style in Contemporary American Film, continuity in Hollywood cinema has intensified. He believed that continuity had intensified because of the 4 stylistic tactics. The stylistic tactics included; rapid editing, extreme's of lens length, close framing in dialogue scenes, and a free-ranging camera. 

Touching on each stylistic tactic, the first one was the use of rapid editing. Rapid editing had increased over the years, starting in 1930 & 1960 at an ASL (average shot length) being between 300-700 shots; whereas in the 1980's it boosted up to about 1500 shots or more. The rate of the ASL would increase more and more with music videos and action movies. As time went on, the cuts were getting faster and faster. Bordell thought that, "... editing rates will soon hit a wall; it's hard to imagine a feature-length narrative movie averaging less than 1.5 seconds per shot" (2). He also touches on the fact that no film is a long action sequence as well. There must be a median. As time gradually moved on, he expressed his relates his findings to Kuleshov and Pudovkin. He says that they pointed out that, "... classical cutting contains built in redundancies: shot/reverse shots reiterate the information about character position given in the establishing shot, and so do eyelines and body orientation"(2). Here he is saying that over time Kuleshov and Pudovking both thought that many filmmakers started to drift away from realism, realizing that it became dull because of repetition. The shorter shots and when establishing shots are brief, the eyelines and angles in a film become more unclear. 

The next stylistic tactic has to do with the extreme of lens lengths. Between the 1910's and 1940's the average focal length was about 50mm (2 inches). The longer lenses ranging from 100mm to 500mm were merely used for close ups (soft-focus close ups). The shorter lenses (25-50mm) were used mainly to create a good focus in several different planes in one shot (great depth of field). Bordell talks about how, "... filmmakers used wide-angle lenses to provide expansive establishing shots, medium shots with strong foregrounds/background interplay, and grotesque close ups"(2). Here he is stating that the wide-angle lenses allowed for a wider variety of shots. Wide angles were able to distort reality by bulging edges creating a sense of exaggerating distances in a frame. Another type of lens that was used was the long lens. The long-lens allowed filmmakers to be far away from an object while still providing an advantage to shooting exterior scenes. The longer lenses helped save time with multiple camera shootings. The longer lenses allowed cameras to stay out of range of one another when shooting an interior scene. The longer lenses also helped with rack-focusing and the "wipe-by" cut.

The third technique of stylistic tactics is close framings in dialogue scenes. "Singles allowed the director to vary the scene's pace in editing and to pick the best bits of each actor's performance" (3). Medium shots and close ups were used to highlight the actors and their performance. A standard tactic used in order to get away from having to reemphasize lines or facial expressions in shots, differentiation in shot scales was considered. But over time, this became less common. Therefore, creating the over-the-shoulder medium shot for dialogue scenes. This created a narrower scale for filmmakers to work with; medium two shot to extreme close-up singles. When widescreens were introduced into the film industry, filmmakers felt obligated to use long-shots and medium shots. But then Panavision's sharper came into play allowing less distorting lenses, which allowed directors to present closer widescreen framings. 

Lastly, the fourth technique of stylistic tactics is a free-ranging camera. "Today's camera movements are ostentatious extensions of the camera mobility generalized during the 1930's" (4). The prolonged following shot was where the camera would track a character moving along a lengthy path. This technique was developed in the 1920's. New technology along the years made this technique more ubiquitous. Same goes for the crane shot, which marked a film's dramatic high point. But today's films it is a casual embellishment. Crane shots can help "enliven montage sequences and expository moments"(4). Also, the "push-ins" build continuous tension along side giving a moment of realization. A way to introduce all the people who are present in a scene is the circling shot. The circling shot would have the camera spiralling around them and may be long takes or brief shots. The free-ranging camera came into play around the 1970's where it was popularized in horror films. The free-ranging camera would give the audience a hovering, slightly shaky camera. This would give the audience a feel for the monster's point of view. 

Cinematographer Phil Meheux stated that,"It's a shame that most films rely so much on tight close-ups all the time, filling the screen with an actor's head like you might for television, when there is so much more than you can show. The style is really just a result of what producers want for video release" (5). The change and usage of different shots can help hold the viewers attention by the constantly changing of the visual display. It makes the audience focus more on the film rather then feel bored because of the lack of differentiation in shot range. 

"Arrival of a Train" & "Damsel in Distress"

In the short film, "Arrival of a Train" it's a long continuous take of a train. The long take is showing a train arriving at a train station and people getting on and off of the train. There is no editing in this short film because it's one continuous take. In this short film, the camera angle is along the railroad, but still showing the people waiting on the side for the train. The narrative is told in a simple matter. We first see a group of people waiting on the side for a train. Then the train appears from the background. People start to inch closer to the train as it approaches the station. The train keeps moving through the frame of the film until it makes a complete stop. When the train stops, people board and get off the train. The short film "Arrival of a Train" relates to Realism because we see a sequence shot of the train in the film.

In the short film, "Damsel in Distress", its a series of cuts between people and events. The camera work and editing is totally different compared to "Arrival of a Train". In "Damsel in Distress" has a various amount of different camera angles/movement. We see that in this film, there is a difference it time portrayed in the films. In this film, the editing between shots is quick as tension starts to rise. Also, in this film, the filmmakers give us different camera angles in order to help tell the story. It's not one static shot. In this film, it goes back and forth between the girl tied down on the railroad track, to the train approaching her, and to the dog chasing to get someone to help her. Being able to cut back and forth between the two help portrays what is going on in the story. For the most part, most of the shots are CUs/MS. The short film "Damsel in Distress" relates to Classicism because this film demonstrates classical  cutting and cutting to continuity. Cutting to continuity is a type of editing that tried to show the fluidity of an event without showing the whole event and condenses the actions. Classical cutting is when cuts are made for dramatic intensity and emotional emphasis. This is portrayed through the evil mad tieing down the girl to the railroad track and then us seeing the tension between the train coming and her needing help to escape.

Advanced Editing Notes- 3. Soviet Montage and 4. Realism

3. Soviet Montage and Formalism

a. What was Pudovkin's concept of constructive editing and how did it manifest itself on film?

Pudovkin's concept of constructive editing was one of his first important theoretical treaties. This theory stated that he believed every shot should make a point. He believed that through the juxtapostitions, new meanings were created. The shots didn't create the meanings. Pudovkin thought that Griffths close ups (CU's) created no meaning. He thought that the close ups were interruptive. On the other hand, Pudovkin thought that long shots were too closely related to reality whereas CU's put together created a unified meaning. It manifested itself on films because many other filmmakers were using cu's symbols, and textures in order to convey expressively the idea underlying the complex jumble of real life.

b. What was the Kuleshov effect and give me an example of how is it used in today's film's?

Lev Kuleshov was Pudoovkin's mentor and also heavily influenced Soviet film makers and the theories of Pavlov. The Kuleshov effect is similar to Pudockin's theoretical treaties. The Kuleshov effect shows that the emotion is produced not by the actor’s performance, but by the juxtapositions. Th Kuleshov effect is for the audience to create the emotional meaning. But this doesn't happen until the appropriate objects are put together by the filmmakers. Kuleshov experimented with this by involving unprofessional actors, who he proved were merely raw material. Kuleshov believed that ideas in cinema are created by linking together fragmentary details to produce a unified action (details can be unrelated in life). 

c. What was Eisensteinian Montage and how does it work in the "Odessa Step" sequence?

Eisenstein believed life was about constant change and this dialectical of contrasting opposites, because all phenomena are in a state of becoming. Eisenstein produced sharply contrasting images (collision montage). These kind of montages can be seen in the "Odessa Step". Eisenstein believed art of film was in the edit. He thought that each shot must be incomplete, contributory rather than self-contained, but not too linked. Editing for him was a mystical process. In the "Odessa Step", we see two different things going on. We see people smiling and waving at one another, but then the next moment we see people running and being killed. Eisenstein definitely shows his idea that life is constantly changing and the dialectical of contrasting opposites and putting them together. Critics of Eisenstein argued that his films lacked a sense of realism. Many critics thought that the problem with his films was that the meaning in the film too obvious for the audience. 

4. Andre Bazin and Realism

a. What were Andre Bazin's frustrations with Classical and Formalistic film making?

Bazin was not a film-maker but an editor of a French film journal "Cahiers Du Cinema". Bazin believed that editing could destroy the effectiveness of a scene. Distortions in using formalist techniques, especially thematic editing, can violate the complexities of reality. He thought that Formalists were manipulative. In comparison, Bazin believed that classical cutting was also seen as potentially corrupting. The technique encourages us to follow the shot sequence without us being conscious of its arbitrariness. 

“Without thinking, we accept his analysis because it conforms to the laws of attention, but we are deprived of a privilege” The privilege of making up your own meaning.

b. What do Realist filmmakers strive for in their work?

Realism in film is accomplished by using long shots, wide screen, lengthy takes, deep focus, panning, craning, tilting, or tracking rather than cutting to individual shots. Realist filmmakers strive for reality and what actually exists in our world. Realist filmmakers were challenged to create a heightened sense of reality. The director must reveal the poetic implications of ordinary people, events and places. Cinema is neither an objective recording nor a symbolic abstraction.

c. What techniques to realists use in their filmmaking?

Technical Innovations in the late 20’s sound, 30’s, 40’s color and deep focus photography, and 50’s wide screen, pushed the medium closer to a realistic ideal. Realists created sound made acting styles more subtle, no intrusive titles, no exaggeration, a few lines of dialogue could eliminate tedious exposition. This would create more realism in films. The deep focus was used in order to create one set up with depth, allowing no sacrifice of detail.