Daniel Roth

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1,5, University of Trier, course: The Films of Martin Scorsese, language: English, abstract: Introduction Starting point for my term paper was the question of how to approach such a complex work of art, since I had no previous experience or theoretical knowledge in the analysis of films. It quickly dawned on me that a literal analysis of the film s plot and its characters under particular consideration of the author s intention, that I was used to in the field of literary studies, would be dysfunctional, since there were too many creative sources involved in the genesis of a film. To further complicate matters, I became in my search for appropriate secondary literature quickly acquainted with some post-modern scholars such as Robin Wood, who sees Paul Schrader as a "neo-fascist," "whose films amount to a systematic repudiation of all minority groups and any possible social alternative, in order to re-assert a quasi-mystical sense of male supremacy, heterosexual superiority, and a total spurious "transcendence." ...] the film's interest is inseparable from its sense of confusion, its failure to define a coherent attitude towards its protagonist." (Wood) Since I was convinced that there was more to Taxi Driver than its "sense of confusion" and, that a coherent, clear analysis was possible, though coming to a definite conclusion might not be possible due to its character s ambivalence, I intended my term paper to be a step out of this academic mingling of terms by the use of an integral approach. I use the word integral in a Wilberian sense, which is "to include as many perspectives, styles, and methodologies as possible within a coherent view of a] topic." ("integral thought" -Wikipedia) Part one of my paper is generally a brief summary of the main underlying motives that I identified in the secondary literature on Taxi Driver. These motiv

When the stock market crashed in 1929, Benjamin Roth was a young lawyer in Youngstown, Ohio. After he began to grasp the magnitude of what had happened to American economic life, he decided to set down his impressions in his diary. This collection of those entries reveals another side of the Great Depression,one lived through by ordinary, middle-class Americans, who on a daily basis grappled with a swiftly changing economy coupled with anxiety about the unknown future. Roth's depiction of life in time of widespread foreclosures, a schizophrenic stock market, political unrest and mass unemployment seem to speak directly to readers today.