3311_Sean_Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver (1976)
Director: Martin Scorsese This famous film directed by Martin Scorsese is about a mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as nighttime taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process. As i know the film directly caused a guy on the assassination of President Reagan, to show his love to Jodie Foster. Undoubtedly, this is a successful affect to the film, although by the extreme method. Maybe the loneliness inside this guy was struck a chord with Travis( as Robert De Niro) , desperate to fill in his emptiness. Does a film has such strong power to do that? Lets go deeper of this film to find out.


1.Travis
The film was set in 1976, for the United State never be a time of trouble. Soldiers just came back from Vietnam, the whole nation abandoned them, they are sensitive, desperate and they lost hope.

As Travis, back from Vietnam with his tired body and fragile nerves, sleepless in New York's night. Being a taxi driver seems to be the best job for him. At the darkest time in this sin city, Travis treat it honesty, but New York just killed his passion with those dirty life: teen prostitute, murder.....from that time, he knows he can never be a part of new york, he dont belongs to this world, but he can't go anywhere. Travis has lost, the only place he can find himself is this girl Betsy, a secretary at a president candidate campaign office. But Betsy is just a girl that never understand Travis's world. Lack of social skills, Betsy easily broke Travis's heart, and he was decided to assassinate the president competitor.

Between that, i remember there is a scene, Travis was with some drivers at a coffeehouse, one of them called "Wiz", Travis wanted to ask him something:

          Wiz, wait.
 Can I talk to you for a second?
 Bye, Killer.
 You can have all you want.
 Don't be hittin' on me! Don't be hittin'!
 You better take your ass out, boy!
 - Yeah? - I know you and I ain't talked much.
 But I figured you've been around a lot so you could--
 Shoot, that's why they call me the "Wizard."
 I got-- It's just that I got--
 - I got-- - Things got you down?
 - Yeah. - It happens to the best of us.
 Yeah, it got me real down.
 I just want to go out and really, really do something.
 Taxi life, you mean?
 Yeah, well--
 No, it's--
 I don't know.
 I just wanna go out...
 and really--
 I really wanna--
 I got some bad ideas in my head. I just--
 Look at it this way.
 A man takes a job, you know?
 And that job-- I mean, like that--
 That becomes what he is.
 You know, like--
 You do a thing and that's what you are.

This scene shows not only the Travis's wicked mind(with tears) but also lead us to understand how
the young people feels in that time. People has no direction in their lives ,  thats
also one of the main reasons that why people became prostitutes, murders....




2.Melting drinks

The melting drinks also shows Travis thought his life is melting, by new york's
corrupted life, but he staring the drinks, like he was asking himself: do i hav to be
like this?

3.Some camera angles and the music

In the film, there are a lots shots like:camera follows parts of the taxi and then from inside
the taxi, camera turns to outside views....these scene maybe have no meaning, but really give
audience about the loneliness about Travis and the city, the noise street seems to be dead
silence. When these scene showing, these was always a slow jazz music following, it really reaching
people's heart, makes you feel lonely, cold.

But when the film reaches the final part, when everyone were lay on the floor, the music turns way
louder, it became a whole different feeling, which is always happens when a hero dies, strong, loud and
tragic.


4.Guns and violence

Martin Scorsese always with violent elements.Travis needs to vent，hes not ok with the
the society, he want to do something that makes him feel like he is alive. So he choose
to be what he was, a soldier. He wants to use guns and violence to break this world, at least
to prove he is different.As I mention above, Travis has been to Vietnam war, he is lack of
education, the only thing he expert of is killing, thats why he choose use guns to "stand up and
fight".