Critique Of The Film Noir Era In Crime Film

Critique 2
Since the development of television and film, society has utilized the art form, specifically the plots of crime films, as a mechanism that draws on widespread attitudes toward crime, victims, law, and punishment prevalent at the time of the films making. The capacity to understand film history allows one to see more effectively underlying assumptions regarding the nature of crime in America as well as international society as a whole. The Silent Film Era (1897-1927) often reflected empathy for the ordinary man and the predominant condemnation of the crooked and wealthy. Essential to understanding the Silent Film Era is the awareness that this era in film ran parallel to the Progressive Era (1890-1920), a time of intense social reform.
Further, the Film Noir era in crime film represents the first time during which, Hollywood loosened its stance on at one time unmentionable subject matter such as prostitution and drug abuse. The Transition and Development ear (1955-1967) released upon audience’s courtroom dramas and exhilarating heist films. Commencing with the revitalization of the gangster genre, the Renewal period (1967-1980) also allowed detective and prison movies reemerged, complemented by an entirely new genre, the cop film, which materialized from remains of noir’s private investigators. During the 1970’s an unusual kind of crime film in which the antihero is deranged in some sense surfaced, replacing 1970’s the traditional screen hero with a pathological outcast, embittered and impulsively violent. Developments since 1980 into the modern film era include a new crop of politically charged prison and courtroom drams that indirectly attacked the U.S. international agenda or domestic policies, films addressing urban and racial dilemmas, as well as the development and solidification of the serial killer film, in large part to post modernism’s rejection of linear storytelling, expectations about genre conventions, and straightforward distinctions between
Congruent with patterns in film in the 1970’s Taxi Driver effectively allows the audience to see underlying assumptions about history, as well as learn from criminological lessons. For example, crime pictures of the Vietnam era and beyond, redefined the problem of crime as systematic in origin and often as insurmountable, meaning that criminal acts taken in the film were caused by posttraumatic stress disorder due to the main characters time spent in Vietnam and could not have been avoided or foreseen. The film goes on to portray the association between anti-social behavior and the new concept of the anti-hero, emerging for the first time during the 1970’s era. Throughout the majority of the film, Bickle finds himself alone with his thoughts. He spends his time stewing over the decline of his city. A repetitive pattern one may observe throughout the film is Bickle’s use of television to escape from his seclusion, however each scene in which he attempts such escape from reality, he is instead clearly bothered, angry, and perhaps jealous of the relationships he observes but cannot maintain. At one moment in the film he allows the television set to fall over and smash as he is watching a scene of a man being dumped by a women. Loud music ensues with the smashing of the television set, further indicating that Bickle’s psyche is quickly deteriorating and he is close to his breaking point. A final aspect