Schrader on Film Noir, and Taxi Driver

This week in class, we are covering the period of film noir in Hollywood. I am consciously using the term “period,” instead of genre, since the use of “genre” implies the existence of specific conventions, like those that make Westerns so easy to identify. As Paul Schrader mentions in his 1972 book, noir is defined by more subtle cues like tone and mood. Additionally, true noir is a specific produce of post-war Hollywood, (though other writers, including Schrader himself, would try and reproduce the noir era in modern films - I’ll go into this a little later).

I was surprised to learn that creation of “film noir” as a specific category of film is partly a historical accident. French movie critics, deprived of American movies during WWII, were suddenly introduced to post-war Hollywood’s darker image. For Americans, the shift in style was less apparent. French film theorists however, noticed a clear departure from the optimistic styles epitomized by Frank Capra’s films.

In class, we screened Out of the Past, a 1947 film by Jacques Tourneur that contains many of the stylistic elements common to the noir. Lighting is limited, and much of the action in the film occurs within shadows. The Femme Fatal is quite prominent, and fulfills her role in Jeff Bailey eventual downfall. We get much of story told through flashbacks, introduced by a voice-over that gets us into the protagonist’s head. The film’s flashbacks serve to emphasize the sense of nostalgia that encompasses all noir. Since the protagonists rarely have a good future on the horizon, the character’s focus must be on the past. Even when crossing and double-crossing others, Bailey is only extending his life day to day, surviving the latest betrayal. When refusing Kathie’s final offer to escape, Bailey is conscious of what Schrader called the “fear of the future.” He cannot delude himself into thinking that escape is possible.

The introduction to Schrader’s article gives an interesting tidbit about the author - he would go on to write the screenplay for Taxi Driver in 1976. While not strictly a film noir according to Schrader’s own criteria, Taxi Driver does present a modern look at the style. Michael Kanbergs writes about this in the Blogcritics Magazine (http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/03/18/030449.php). Kanbergs calls the film “a final apotheosis in the evolution of film noir.” Travis Bickle (De Niro) is a Vietnam vet who finally goes over the edge in a psychotic effort to clean out the filth of New York. The film’s protagonist is a return to the heroes of noir’s third phase (mentioned in Schrader’s 1972 article), heroes who “started to go bananas” under the weight of despair. Taxi Driver includes many of the conventions of the noir period. We hear the internal monologues of Travis, and experience much of the film in dark, obscure lighting. But as Kanbergs explains the conventions of the noir are taken to extremes that take the film beyond the genre. The lighting “obfuscates to the point of surrealism.” The voice-over gives us some knowledge of Travis, but eventually devolves into the ramblings of a man who has lost most of his capacity to reason. At the end of the movie, we see Travis carry out a violent and suicidal attack on the “filth” of the city. We accept the fatalism, and expect that Travis’ actions will ultimately be pointless - in keeping with the film noir. Schrader breaks from these conventions however; the insanity of protagonists actually results in some good (Jodi Foster is actually rescued from prostitution.)