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[TennesseBuck]

Nights of Cabiria and Taxi Driver both have plots. Not traditional plots, but they do have plots.

Taxi Driver is technically guided by the character arc of Travis Bickle, not by an ABC guideline. So, though, it follows that arc for what seems like a conventional route of a plot, it seems to flow from Travis's consciousness. Besides, Scorsese's first film to have a plot was actually Cape Fear followed by The Departed.

Most films by Anger or Stan Brakhage definitely do not have plots or any sort of conventional narrative in the least. That is what I prefer overall, or a character-driven arc told as subjectively as possible.

 

[ResidentAlien]

Taxi Driver is technically guided by the character arc of Travis Bickle, not by an ABC guideline. So, though, it follows that arc for what seems like a conventional route of a plot, it seems to flow from Travis's consciousness. Besides, Scorsese's first film to have a plot was actually Cape Fear followed by The Departed.

Most films by Anger or Stan Brakhage definitely do not have plots or any sort of conventional narrative in the least. That is what I prefer overall, or a character-driven arc told as subjectively as possible.

You're confusing yourself. Character arc and plot are not mutually exclusive.


Taxi Driver has just as much a plot as Mean Streets before it. The plot of Taxi Driver is essentially that a man has a psychotic obsession over two women and plots to impress them.

 

[TennesseBuck]

You're confusing yourself. Character arc and plot are not mutually exclusive.


Taxi Driver has just as much a plot as Mean Streets before it. The plot of Taxi Driver is essentially that a man has a psychotic obsession over two women and plots to impress them.

As I said, Taxi Driver seems to flow from Travis's consciousness and not from a plot per se that dictates his actions. There are films where the main purpose is to get inside the head of the lead protagonist, seeing the world through their eyes, much like most of Scorsese's films. But I don't think it can relegated only to the man's obsession with those two women - he is God's lonely man with no exit strategy from his own psychosis. He tries to impress Cybill's character and fails. He is more aligned with a child prostitute, Iris, and wants to help her...not necessarily impress her (this is what Reagan's assassin got all wrong).

 

[ResidentAlien]

As I said, Taxi Driver seems to flow from Travis's consciousness and not from a plot per se that dictates his actions. There are films where the main purpose is to get inside the head of the lead protagonist, seeing the world through their eyes, much like most of Scorsese's films. But I don't think it can relegated only to the man's obsession with those two women - he is God's lonely man with no exit strategy from his own psychosis. He tries to impress Cybill's character and fails. He is more aligned with a child prostitute, Iris, and wants to help her...not necessarily impress her (this is what Reagan's assassin got all wrong).

plot |plät|
noun
1 a plan made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful : [with infinitive ] there's a plot to overthrow the government.
2 the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.



Taxi Driver is the very definition of plot. A narrative is a narrative, whether it revolves around an internal or external conflict. Taxi Driver has a plot. Nights of Cabiria has a plot.

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Hell even The Holy Mountain has a plot, and many people thought that film was just a bunch of L.S.D. nonsense. Though Taxi Driver is a heavy character driven film it definately has a plot. Harvey Keitel's "pimp" characters death punctuates it.