Martin Scorsese : an auteur of the absurd

Abstract

By applying the philosophical dichotomy of Camus’s (1942) notion of the absurd to form the basis of our study, the essay constructs an analysis of the representation of repressed man’s search for meaning in a meaningless life in Scorsese’s films. By delving deeper within Scorsese’s film language, the essay focuses on the auteur’s inversion of film theoretical frameworks, namely the spatial-temporal ontological framework of realism in order to present a disoriented environment and character, and further analyse Scorsese’s aural and visual choices in the mise-en-scène to connote absurdity. The study isolates the opening sequences of both Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980) and with references to Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) and Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) for the former and Renoir’s La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) (1939) and Parker’s Midnight Express (1978) for the latter, constructs a deeper analysis of Scorsese’s vision of the repressed man entrapped in a meaningless life. Consequently, through Derrida’s (1993) notion of spectrality, the essay progresses to study the recurring motif of intermingled visible/invisible water in both Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980), in order to construct the argument that the ever-present repression of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) and Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980) is one of a sexual nature, one which equates both characters as repressed homosexuals and the distance that these repressive characters are willing to take in order to transmute sex into violence.