Taxi Driver, Bazin's Realism, and Mulvey's Male Gaze

Introduction: Two Lenses on Taxi Driver

The claim that Taxi Driver refutes Bazin's photographic/realist notion of cinema and affirms Mulvey's idea of the "male gaze" is valid when one considers the film in light of the "lens" of director Scorsese and his journey for the hero Travis Bickle. On the surface, it is a film about the "real" streets of New York City and the "real life" of an individual teetering on the brink of insanity while he drives strangers in his cab through the streets of Manhattan. But below the surface is a film that is pure fantasy — one that projects the male gaze onto the viewer and obliges the audience to witness the world through the eyes of the male protagonist and to interpret the world from his isolated point of view.

At the same time, Bazin's notion of cinema cannot be wholly discounted, because what makes Taxi Driver so convincing — in spite of its affirmation of the "male gaze" — is precisely that it sets about depicting, in realistic fashion and in the genre of cinéma vérité, the real life of an individual like Travis Bickle. Yet, while Scorsese aims to transcend genre and produce a film with a spiritual and cleansing message, its underlying nature is that which Mulvey identifies as scopophilia — the deriving of pleasure through viewing fantasy on screen. This paper discusses the film from both sides of this question and shows how it is supported by both perspectives, yet leans more heavily toward the concept expressed by Mulvey.

Bazin's Photographic Realism and Its Limits

Mulvey's idea of the "male gaze" is that it "projects its fantasy" onto the object in question — specifically the female form — but in the case of Taxi Driver it is the entire world around Travis Bickle. New York is seen through the "male gaze" in the film: a gaze that is passive-aggressive, hostile, isolated, alienated, longing, and ticking like a time bomb. Bazin's photographic/realist notion of cinema is refuted in Taxi Driver which, although it appears to document the "mean streets" of New York City, is actually projecting the male fantasy of taking violent and heroic action in order to "cleanse" the world and "save" the girl — who is ultimately the object of the male gaze in the film.

Bazin asserts that film and photography possess "an objective character" that enables the filmmaker or photographer to realistically capture the real world.¹ The problem is that there is a "lens" behind the camera lens — and that is the perspective of the filmmaker or photographer. In Taxi Driver, that "lens" is the eye of director Martin Scorsese, and the world he is shooting is not New York City but a projection of the images he himself imagines, as shaped by the script. What the viewer sees is taken for reality because there is a sense of "realism" to the way images are captured by the camera, but that "realism" masks another underlying reality.

Mulvey's Male Gaze and Scopophilia

The underlying reality is the "male gaze," which projects itself in every direction as Scorsese allows the camera to linger on passing figures — pimps, hookers, pedestrians, cops, politicians, organizers. Everyone falls under the "male gaze" and is interpreted through this "lens" as a result. Bickle, who fantasizes about his role in the world (a veteran of Vietnam, he feels alienated by a public he believes should be more grateful), practices his encounters — "Are you talkin' to me?" — in the mirror, thus coming directly under his own gaze and projecting the machismo fantasy onto himself. What passes for reality in the film's climactic scene, when Travis explodes with violent rage against the pimp and his entourage, is merely more fantasy being played out for the viewer under the guise of realism.

Mulvey uses psychoanalytic theory to discuss the appeal of the erotic in narrative cinema and how the images projected on screen play upon "pre-existing patterns of fascination" within the audience.² Her point is that such images have a political use, which has been appropriated by studios and which a feminist audience can readily identify as a "phallocentric order."³ From the feminist perspective, psychoanalytic theory offers substantial insight into the social constructs used to engineer films for mass audiences already saturated by a form of social engineering from various socio-political platforms.

Conclusion: Fantasy Beneath the Surface of Realism

Scorsese's Taxi Driver does affirm Mulvey's idea of the male gaze while on the surface also affirming Bazin's notion of photographic realism. Yet underneath the surface, the film is clearly driven by a male gaze — the main character spends much of his time in a cab, acting as a voyeur, watching the city through the window, and the audience must do the same. Ultimately the film is both realistic and fantastic: it depicts certain realities without falsehood, such as the despair, isolation, and violence of Bickle, but it also supports the notion that there is a "male gaze" behind the wheel of the film and that the purifying and cleansing process is one the man wants to achieve. And, of course, he needs affirmations — the smile from the angelic Betsy — in order to truly arrive at a place of peace.