Following World War II, film began to shift away from narratives that were action centered and towards what Timothy Corrigan (quoting Gilles Deleuze) describes as “a cinema of seeing replac[ing] action,” a “cinema of the seer and no longer the agent” (qtd. In Corrigan 39). In Corrigan’s words, “agents without agency” (39). This transformation was first seen in Italian neorealist films, such as Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves. This transition became a core part of the transformation of America cinema of the late 1960s and 1970s – American New Wave cinema. Hollywood’s classical studio system collapsed, and New Hollywood filmmakers began to embrace characters who reacted and drifted through environments that shaped them, rather than were shaped by them. These films reflect a crisis of agency, meaning, and national identity. The American New Wave seer inherits the post-war paralysis. Julian Reid, in his article “A People of Seers: The Political Aesthetics of Postwar Cinema Revisited,” identifies this post war paralysis as a defining political and aesthetic condition: “perceptions and actions cease to be linked together … These are pure seers . . . given over to something intolerable, which is simply their everydayness itself” (223). The late 1960s to the mid-1970s marked a time of cultural upheaval in America. In this cultural upheaval, “the seer” becomes a central figure in which American cinema — and by extension, the audience — interrogates its own myths and challenges the  “American Dream.”

            American New Wave cinema uses this ‘seer figure’ as a tool to expose the collapsing of the ‘American Dream’ and myths have dominated the world of cinema: Middle class prosperity, countercultural coherence, frontier freedom, urban opportunities, communal stability, and individual heroism and justice. The audience is forced into the position of the seer and is forced to watch the uncomfortable vision that confronts the reality of their own world. The collapsing of these myths is demonstrated in every movie in this playlist; The Graduate, Alice’s Restaurant, Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy, The Last Picture Show, and Taxi Driver, the protagonists, and the audience, do not simply observe America; they watch it fall. An arc emerges among these movies that traverse the evolution of the “American seer:” from The Graduate’s Benjamin’s passive alienation and place as a transitional seer, to Alice’s Restaurant withArlo’s drifting countercultural wandering – a sharp contrast to the earlier depictions of action driven counterculture rebellion – to the cross country open road disillusionment of Wyatt and Billy in Easy Rider, to Midnight Cowboy’s Joe and Ratso’s urban entrapment, to the small town static and broken community of Sonny, Duane, and Jacy of The Last Picture Show, and finally, to Travis’s descent into pathological delusional spectatorship in Taxi Driver.

            The American seer has become increasingly fragmented, disillusioned, and even dangerous. The viewer is now implicated in the same position. We, the audience, are forced to observe and interpret these films through the lens of immobilized and, often, uncomfortable vision.

Bert Cardullo elaborates and defines on the New American cinema in the late 60s and the 70s: “American film at this particular moment in its own history … tempted us into thinking of it as a chief supplier of the most useful and unmediated truths about society and the age” (89). The shift is not driven by stylistic means, but rather, it reflects the reality of American social certainties unwinding and an ever-growing paranoia among the public that systems — economic, political, cultural – were no longer trustworthy and coherent. In The Graduate, watching is the primary mode for narrative: Benjamin is framed behind glass, in mirrors, and other claustrophobic inducing compositions that trap him in the middle-class emptiness that dominates his parent’s world. Alice’s Restaurant widens this seer position, it becomes a national portrait of countercultural drifting, where observation has now replaced rebellion. Easy Rider expands the seer in a cross-country depiction of the American landscape – exposing the myth of freedom, the free frontier becomes a depiction of the hostile small-town America filled with violence and hatred. Midnight Cowboy, spectatorship reflects the trappings of urban America as Joe and Rico watch the corruption and failing of the American Dream. The Last Picture Show internalizes the seer in a small, near dead town that the characters watch as it dies, never changing or affecting anything around them. Taxi Driver completes the arc: Travis’s observation becomes increasingly dangerous and delusional until it leads him into an outbreak of violence, showing what happens when a seer becomes overwhelmed and erupts, not out of their own agency, but rather due to the inability to observe silently anymore.

            Corrigan says that the seer emerges when description takes over action, which in turn produces characters that “observe without agency” in worlds that are built from “numbling redundancies and inimical accidentals” (39). This is the condition of the American new Wave. But these films extend that idea and show how the audience are forced into the same position as the characters and become seers themselves. The long takes, drifting camerawork, observational framing, and episodic narratives trap the viewer in the same alienated, detached vision of the characters. We, the viewers, are made to feel the same boredom, uncertainty towards the future and life in general, aimless drifting, and paralysis that come to define the character’s lives. It reflects our modern reality, and we are no longer able to escape from the world in real life or in film. Reid argues that postwar spectatorships are shaped by the political need to protect ourselves from the harsh realities of our world. He writes that we must “organize our perceptions … [so] we [can] tolerate what would otherwise seem intolerable” so that “our identities go undisturbed,” even through the “oppression and deprivation” we may experience in our everyday life (224). Reid insists that aesthetic practices – like cinema – can rupture these illusions and force viewers to “unmake our own illusions and “recover contact with the real” even if doing so “makes us sick with the reality of our own existence” (224). This doubling of the gaze, of the audience and the characters, becomes key to the cinematic experience that dominates the American New Wave era.

Each film dismantles a different cultural fantasy through observation and vision – not action. America’s promises are no longer persuasive; they are dissolving right before our eyes and the character’s eyes. These films construct a portrait of a country in transition – where acting is no longer the driving force, and spectatorships becomes the sole means of existence. The American New Wave seer, and the viewer who is forced to watch alongside them, witness a country that is unable to unify the ideals of the “American Dream” with its realities.

The Graduate (1967) Director: Mike Nichols

Available for free on Tubi

Overview: A recent college graduate, Benjamin Braddock, struggles with feeling lost, alienated and succumbing to ennui. Mrs. Robinson, a friend of his parents, and him soon begin an affair. Benjamin’s parents urge him to date Elaine, Mrs. Robinson’s daughter. He passively pursues her before eventually realizing that he is falling in love with her. Mrs. Robinson, furious with this, now becomes the antagonist of the film. She tries to separate Benjamin and Elaine. The movie ends with Benjamin crashing Elaine’s wedding to another man and running away with her on a bus – heading to an uncertain future.

Reason for Inclusion: Benjamin observes the world of his parents and all of the adult hypocrisy that comes along with it. He observes the trappings of the affluent suburban life of his parents, but he does not yet know how to act against it. Rather, he just observes it and lives his own life passively. This can be seen in the scene of him in the pool, where he quite literally just drifts in the water as the adults speak over him. He is a spectator of his own life. Even the visual shots trap him by placing him behind glass and trapped in frames. The audience themselves, become voyeurs to the emptiness of American success.

The Graduate brings the cinema of “seeing” to upper-middle class America. Benjamin is the transitional seer. He is a bridge between two eras of seers: the earlier ones, like those seen in post-war neorealism films or French New Wave Cinema, who accept their inability to act in any meaningful way and stick to observing, and the later American protagonists who bounce between rebellion and disillusionment, where even if they are “acting”, it still feels hollow and passive.

At the start of the film, Benjamin already feels uncertain and alienated. He can see the emptiness of his parents’ life already. He then transitions toward action through his attempts to pursue Elaine and have an affair with Mrs. Robinson. This moves him from just viewing to now, participating, but these attempts are confused and not meaningful. This is action, but it is still driven by the same alienation that drove him to being passive in the beginning. He is still drifting through life watching himself act, but without any clear direction.

          The ending shows a full transition: he breaks up Elaine’s wedding, and they leave on a bus headed towards an unknown future. This is his act of rebellion, but it still seems structurally hollow. The scene starts with both laughing, but then falling silent as they stare forward with a haunting gaze. Benjamin is no longer completely passive, but he isn’t completely active either. He is unaware of his future. Time eventually resumes, and he must go back to observing and interpreting. The final shot returns to him in a seer-like state showing that his previous action of rebellion has now collapsed back into a passive observation. They have acted somewhat, but the world around them isn’t really changed and now, they, themselves, seem unaware of what they just did – almost in shock.

                The Graduate represents the collapse of post-war middle-class optimism.

Alice’s Restaurant (1969) Director: Arthur Penn

It is available for free on Roku.

Overview: Based on a folk song by Arlo Guthrie (who also plays the main character), this movie follows Arlo wandering through counterculture America in episodic tangents. Arlo, a musician, attempts to avoid getting drafted into the Vietnam war by attending college. When he gets in trouble with the law and his peers, he drops out and heads back home. He visits his sickly father in the hospital. After that, we see him performing his music at various venues and meeting a variety of characters. He eventually returns home to his friends, Ray and Alice, who live a very bohemian lifestyle – similar to Arlo. Arlo ends up back in New York. Alice, after being upset with Ray, has an affair and heads to New York to visit Arlo. Ray comes to get them both to bring them back home for Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving dinner, Arlo and a friend offer to take the garbage to the city dump, but after finding out that it’s closed, they drive around. They eventually discover another pile of garbage that had been discarded and decide to add their trash to that pile. Arlo and his friend get arrested. The judge orders them to pay a fine and pick up the garbage. Arlo gets called up for a physical examination for the Vietnam War draft. He purposefully acts insane hoping to get marked as unfit to serve in the armed forces. This backfires and he gets praised – demonstrating how absurd the whole draft and war is. However, when his criminal record for littering comes up, he is sent to sit with the other convicts. He questions why littering is such a problem when they want him to go overseas to kill others. He is declared unfit for service due to these questions, and they send his personal records to Washington, D.C.

After returning home, Arlo finds his friend Shelly has relapsed and is high. He proceeds to watch Ray beat Shelly up. Shelly rides of on his motorcycle. He dies in an accident. The day after the funeral, Arlo’s father dies too. Ray and Alice get married. Arlo leaves driving off in his microbus to an undisclosed location and an unknown future.

Reason for Inclusion: The whole movie is episodic and lacks a cohesive, plot driven narrative. It starts with a story of Arlo going off to college, then takes on numerous mini stories all in the span of an hour and fifteen minutes. Penn uses long takes and drift cuts. Arlo is a pedestrian seer, drifting through systems that he has no effect on. He is just observing the world around him. Viewers are forced to share in his drifting, detached gaze, as we watch Penn’s use of wide and observational cinematography and lack of any major dramatical tension.

The seer in this case is a drifter. Arlo wanders through the American landscape watching a generation who is in turn watching its dreams and ideals dissolve, and he describes it along the way. This movie is a reframing of the American’s counterculture rebellion as pointless, directionless observation. Arlo reacts to the social absurdities that he sees around him and describes this with an observant folk narration.

Alice’s Restaurant demonstrates the collapse of countercultural coherence.

Easy Rider (1969) Director: Dennis Hopper

It is available for free on Roku.

Overview: Wyatt and Billy decide to travel cross-country in search of freedom and truth. On their journey, they experience the worst that America has to offer – bigotry and hatred. Every landscape they come across becomes a scene of hostility and alienation. After a terrifying drug-related experience in New Orleans, they are left feeling disillusioned, wondering if they will ever find what they are after.

Reason for Inclusion: The open road is a metaphor for observation with no true destination. They are wandering around, lost with no clear direction. While traveling from town to town, they view the worst America has to offer. Scenes are filled with hatred and violence, yet they never truly intervene in any meaningful way. The scene at the Louisiana Café exemplifies this best: Billy and Wyatt just sit, powerlessly, and watch the hatred directed towards them from the locals. The viewer is implicated in the cycle of witnessing the cultural decay of America. The characters discover that their original idea of freedom and truth were just illusions not based in reality. The two characters witness America, but they don’t shape it in any way. They see the landscapes and the social breakdown. They fail to intervene in any scenes of violence. The trip is a string of encounters with them and the towns they find themselves in. The film features numerous jump cuts and observational long takes.

                                Easy Rider collapses the American myth of frontier freedom.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) Director: John Schlesinger

Available for free on Tubi, Roku, and Pluto. 

Overview: Joe Buck, a naïve man from Texas, moves to New York City hoping to strike it rich through his attempts to be a gigolo. He is not as successful as he had hoped, and he soon strikes up a friendship with an ill con man named Rico (Ratso). Together, they face the harsh realities of the city and struggle to get by. They are stuck wandering the city penniless looking at the other broke, lonely people. Their goals of finally achieving the American Dream come up short and they are both left just trying to survive. Realizing their failed dreams and Rico’s declining health, they drift directionless once again, trying to escape. They get on a bus headed to Florida, unsure of what they will do next. Rico dies on the trip, and Joe is left alone with nowhere to go.

Reason for Inclusion: Joe Buck and Rico (Ratso) Rizzo are the embodiment of the seer’s urban form. They are trapped in a city that doesn’t even really know or care that they exist. Joe Buck originally goes to New York believing in the agency of the American Dream, only to fail and become a passive observer of the city’s own moral decay. Schlesinger, through fragmented flashbacks and drifting camera shots, forces the audience into the same vulnerable gaze as the main characters. The characters, and the audience, are forced and trapped into watching a dream dissolve.

           The main characters are forced to watch the social realities of life without any way to stop or control them. The movie features several lingering, observational shots of the city and its inhabitants. The characters in the film drift aimlessly and observe without agency. There are numerous shots of them wandering down the street observing their surroundings.  There is no escape from what they see. Even towards the end, when Rico is dying from his illness, Joe can’t do anything. He can only look on helplessly as the camera captures numerous lingering close-up shots of his face.  The film isn’t about them escaping, it’s about the failure to do so.

                                Midnight Cowboy represents the collapse of Urban opportunity.

The Last Picture Show (1971) Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Available for free on Roku.

Overview: The Last Picture Show is a coming-of-age story that follows high school seniors, Sonny, Duane, and Jacy. They live in the Texan town of Anarene in 1951 – a small, boring, dying town. They navigate the world around them, their adolescence, several relationships, and a world and town that is changing rapidly. The film follows their struggles as they struggle to escape and find their future outside of their dying hometown. The movie has a sad, melancholic vibe throughout.

Reason for Inclusion: The seer is internalized in this dying Texas town with characters who can do nothing but watch their own extinction. Sonny, Duane, and Jacy – and nearly every other character – all fail to make any consequential choices. Events happen to them, but they don’t do anything to bring them about. Events do not happen because of them. Jacy’s rebellious acts aren’t active, they’re reactive. Sonny drifts into an affair with Ruth, then drifts out of it. The only figure of agency in the story – Sam – dies, leaving the town to drift and perish even further than it already has. The characters aren’t active, they’re reactive. The world seems to loop for the characters, instead of progressing.

            The camera lingers on shots of emptiness throughout the story, exemplifying the lack of direction of the story and the characters. The camera acts as an observer. We, the audience, are forced to watch the decay of the town, unable to stop it; watch relationships fail with no resolution and watch as time passes without building towards anything at all. And finally, we must watch as the town movie theater closes – the last place in town that had any communal meaning. The closing of the movie theater symbolically represents cinema itself and by extension, the storytelling of classic Hollywood. When it closes, it mirrors the closing and end of classic Hollywood in real life. There is nothing left but watching. The old narrative system has collapsed. The final shot of Sonny and Ruth holding hands doesn’t give us any answers. It fails to resolve anything, rather the camera just watches.

                The Last Picture Show (1971) shows the collapse of a small-town community and classical cinema era.

Taxi Driver (1976) Director: Martin Scorsese

Available for free on Pluto.

Overview: The main character of the film, Travis Bickle (played by Robert De Niro), a disturbed man and former U.S marine, takes a job as a taxi driver in New York City. He haunts the streets from night to night seeing all the filth of the city. As he does this, he develops an increasingly distorted perception of reality. He starts to dream of cleaning up and saving the sleazy city, and the world. He plots to assassinate a presidential candidate, he tries to rescue Iris, an underage prostitute. Travis is pushed towards violent fantasies of vigilantism. His mental state deteriorates further and further. His once passive observation turns into a mission of delusion, which leads to a bloody attempt to ‘save’ Iris. He is praised as a hero for this. The ending of the film is ambiguous; we don’t know if Travis is still trapped in his delusional, alienated gaze or whether he has been redeemed.

Reason for Inclusion: Travis is entirely passive in the first half of the film. He watches Betsy from afar, the world around him from his taxi, pimps, dealers, and the city “turning into filth.”  The film’s structure is centered around description, not driven by goals. Like Travis’s nighttime cab routes, the random passengers telling their life stories, and the long scenes of Travis watching television or staring blankly.

            Travis’s gaze becomes his prison. He can’t escape what he observes and what he sees shapes his sense of self. His vision has become a trap. His gaze isn’t empowering; it is corrosive.

           The audience becomes a seer. We are forced to sit with his boredom and paranoia. We are implicated in it, and we are powerless to stop it. Scorsese’s use of framing (with the use of mirrors, windshields, rain-stricken windows, and rear view reflections) helps put the viewer inside of Travis’s watching. Travis’s seeing isn’t neutral, it’s ideological and dangerous.

           Travis spends majority of the film in an accumulation of watching, not acting. We can see this through his diary voiceovers, staring at the static screen of a television, the slow movement of his taxi throughout the city. The actions he performs only occur after he has been immersed in passive perception for most of the movie. Yet, his action still represents the seer concept well because it isn’t driven by agency, it is driven by the eruption of him being overloaded by observations of the moral decay surrounding him.

Taxi Driver shows the collapse of self and of society. The city offers no community or meaning. It’s alienating and hostile. The movie represents a dangerous conclusion to the seer’s evolution. Taxi Driver finishes the arc of the American New Wave seer – when vision collapses into delusion.

My bio: I’ve always been interested in the era of American New Wave cinema, particularly in how these films reflected the real life social issues and cultural shifts. This playlist explores the arc of  “the seer”  in American New Wave cinema, examining how these films depict the collapse of American ideals, and in turn, position the viewers as observers of that collapse.

Works Cited

Alice’s Restaurant movie poster. 1969. Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/16818198593713667/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2025.

Cardullo, Bert. “Through the Looking Glass: The American Art Cinema in an Age of Social Change.” The Midwest Quarterly (Pittsburg), vol. 52, no. 1, 2010, p. 86 –102.

Corrigan, Timothy. Describing Cinema. Oxford University Press, 2024. eBook. 

Easy Rider. 1969. Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/7388786884592763/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2025.

“In 2015, Shia LaBeouf watched all his films nonstop for 72 hours …  while the world watched him watch himself.”  Reddit, uploaded by u/itsjoey28, 12 Nov. 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1m9zyz4/in_2015_shia_labeouf_watched_all_his_films/.

Midnight Cowboy. 1969. Pinterest, uploaded by Cinéfilo irredutível, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/226094843786289327/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2025.

Reid, Julian. “A People of Seers: The Political Aesthetics of Postwar Cinema Revisited.” Cultural Politics (Biggleswade, England), vol. 7, no. 2, 2011, pp. 219–38.

Taxi Driver movie poster. 1976. Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/11259067812307775/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2025.

The Graduate movie poster. 1967. Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/33706697207063450/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2025.

The Last Picture Show. 1971. Pinterest,  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/119134352621219776/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2025.