Analysis of the Movie Taxi Driver

Analysis of the Movie Taxi Driver
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The taxi driver is a thriller movie that premiered in 1976, directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The war in Vietnam was over at this time and countries were busy nursing the wounds and coming to terms with the aftermath of the war where approximately 58,000 Americans and around 1.1 million Vietnamese lost their lives. The film is produced to showcase the life after the Vietnam war for a veteran, all alone in New York, a city that is morally deceased and unwelcoming. The veteran, Travis, works as a Taxi driver and he finds himself in a depressed state due to certain circumstances consequently leading him to insanity. At that moment, he hatches a plan and plots to kill a presidential candidate and a pimp that is exploiting a 12-year-old.
In 1976, New York was synonymous with the fear and terror the lawlessness brought to visitors. The writers portray this society in the movie during a time when the city was at the lowest its ever been. The city was bankrupt and the streets were filled with all kinds of characters, you had the prostitutes, homeless people, ‘animals’ and the rains were the only way they could get off the streets. At the time the movie was filmed, the murder rates in New York had nearly tripled and the numbers read 1,645 compared to 634 recorded 10 years earlier CITATION ÓHÉ16 \l 1033 (Ó'HÉANNA) New York was thus notorious for violence and chaos that it came to be referred to as the ‘fear city’. The writer portrays the violent image of New York city perfectly, for instance, the conversation between Travis and his passenger where he swears, he is going to kill his wife because she had an affair with a black man.
The lead character in the movie is Travis Bickle, a veteran, that served in the Vietnam war. Back in his home country, he lives in New York but in utter loneliness, suffering from insomnia and severe depression. He has a fulltime job as a taxi driver and his grueling shift means that he works late hours and interacts with dangerous people as most of his customers are thieves, drug dealers, and pimps. He is disgusted by the surroundings and the people as he often fantasizes about getting rid of the ‘filths’ off the streets. Another character is Betsy, a woman that Travis is infatuated to the extent that he spies and watches her from his cab. She works at a campaign office for a local presidential candidate and he uses this opportunity to fake interest in supporting the running candidate with the goal of asking Betsy out on a date. Their first date was at a coffee shop and with all his rugged and strange look, Betsy finds him charming and is excited about another date. The next date, however, goes horribly wrong as he takes her to a porno theatre that he visits regularly. Disgusted by this, Betsy makes it clear she never wants to see him again.
This rejection compounds his paranoia and he buys a gun that he stashes on him. He starts working out aggressively portraying himself as a savage before the mirror and later gets a mohawk hairstyle. Charles Palantine, a United States senator, is the running presidential candidate and Betsy’s boss. Travis attends one of Charles’ speeches with the intention of assassinating him however he does not succeed as he alerts the Secret Service and forces him to flee. He is involved in another altercation with Matthew AKA “Sport”, a pimp that handles a 12-year-old prostitute named Iris. He feels the need to protect Iris and get her away from the life of prostitution leading him to confront Sport and the exchange ends with Travis shooting Sport in the stomach and leaves him on the streets for dead. He then charges towards a brothel where Iris is and shoots the bouncer. The commotion alerts Iris’ client, a Mafioso, who shoots Travis on the arm only for him and the bouncer to get killed by Travis. The cops find Travis passed out on Iris’ couch and upon his arrest, he gets hails as the hero that saved Iris by the media.
The production team for the movie utilizes certain cinematography techniques to portray emotions from every angle possible. Aerial shots are popular with movie making and they have been made easier in today's movie production due to drones. Taxi driver contains scenes that are taken from aerial angles for instance, during the last act of the film, Travis gazes at the ceiling after saving Iris and an overhead shot shows the carnage left behind as NYPD inspects the crime scene. Lighting in a film making is more than just a source of illumination rather it focuses a viewer’s attention to a particular section on the frame and emphasizes the mood of the set, character s and objects. The color red is attention-grabbing thus bringing a feeling of danger and fear factor which was heavily used in the Taxi driver. For instance, in the scene at the brothel, the deep red is difficult for the viewer to miss and it emphasizes the immoral behavior that is present in the scene. The city’s image is also heavily manipulated by lighting, f...