Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese - Movie Review Example

Running Head: FILM EXAM 3 Film Exam3 Name Institution Date Question 2: Taxi driver, by Martin Scorsese Introduction Taxi driver, by Martin Scorsese is a story of a mentally disturbed Travis Bickle, a Vietnam War veteran who works as a night time taxi driver in a town whose perceived corruption and evil prompts his urge to lash out violently as he attempts to save a young girl who is practicing prostitution. Travis is a loner with strong believes on what is right or wrong for the mankind. His only consideration for New York humanity is Betsy, a lady working with presidential nomination campaign of Senator Charles Palatine. Travis becomes preoccupied with this lady. After an experience with Betsy, he comes to realize that he has to do his best to make the world a better place for him according to his believes of the right and wrong for the mankind. One of his priorities is to save Iris, a twelve years old prostitute who he believes needs a savoir out of the prostitution and also under the shadow of her lover Matthew. The main point in this movie is for the writer to show alienation in the modern society. The psychological unrest that is being experienced by Travis is due to his low socioeconomic status which he also hides from his family by telling them that he works as a government employee whereas he is a nighttime taxi driver. Being a war veteran, he suffers psychological madness and feels that the society has alienated him. He therefore intends to seek social connections which consequently fail until eventually he is involved in violence. His aim is to be part of the social interaction that he sees around but he is unable to participate in. The writer uses various characters to put across his failed attempts in connecting with the society. At first, he asks Betsy out for a date in a porno movie. The lady says that he is contradicting himself and leaves the theatre alone. The other attempt is where he sucks to a political candidate but eventually he alarms him. He then tries to have a discussion with a secret service agent. Lastly, he tries to be friend a child prostitute but he frightens her leaving him lonely. He then asks himself “who are you talking to?” in a mirror (Pezzotta, 1997). The writer has also used dialogue to show the effect and extent of social alienation on Travis. Iris, a twelve year old prostitute whom the world refers to as easy tells Travis that "I dunno who's weirder, you or me". Most of the dialogues that the write shoots dialogue scene where Travis is involved. However, most of the statements said by these people he is conversing with are intimidating to Travis. Some of them are an indication that he is to blame for the alienation he is experiencing in the society. He is unable to maintain the friendship with Betsy after taking her to a porn movie. The only thing that Travis could enjoy is watching porn or animal movies. This does not work for Betsy and leaves him in the theater as she goes home alone. Dialogue is also seen in the conversation between Travis and the personnel in charge of the cab company office. Since Travis is insomniac, he tells the personnel “I can’s sleep nights” the personnel, “There’s porno theatres for that”. Travis tells him that “I tried that”. It was normal for Travis to attend porn theatres, and that was a characteristic of the world he lived in. That is why the only place he could take Betsy out was at the porn theatre. This is the world that5 he was trying to connect with the social world but it failed. The reason as to why his attempt with Betsy failed is because he did not take Betsy to the other people’s world, but to his own alienated one. This is why most of his efforts to reconnect with the social world failed. The writer also uses camera movements to show the loneliness that Travis is experiencing in his life. Much of the things Travis sees are from the taxi. The landscape is indicated from a voyeuristic perspective glanced through the taxi windows and often disrupted by the reflections of the street lights. Many of these mixtures have been used in various scenes of the film for example in the first scene that opens with a taxi emerging slowly from a cloud of manhole smoke. The writer also uses his camera in indicating the loneliness of Travis where he is standing leaning on his taxi just starring and he seems to be in deep thought. The film is edited in such a way that it signifies the experience that is felt by Travis, the main character. The film opens with an impressionistically with acclaim on top of a night view of in the streets of Manhattan. This film was shot in a place in New York. The place is characterized by open sewers and manhole covers and steam vapors can be seen rising in cloudy explosions. Frowning are neon lights flashed and reflected on the face of a taxi driver in New York. Walking through rainy taxi wind cover, one can see rainy glossy sheets, a figurative underworld visions made up of hustlers and neglected people. From this one can foresee the future of the movie. The writer has used a production design that is also reflective of what is happening in the movie. The climactic shoot-outs were intensely graphic. To achieve the “R” rating, he used desaturated colors making the blood that is appearing in bright colours to be less prominent. To avoid the question of the presence of a twelve-year old girl during the shoot outs, he explains that the whole process was done stepwise to avoid traumatizing her. Use of Travis as a war veteran was to relate the psychological state of Travis with the effects of the war. War experiences were painful and this could justify the psychological status of Travis. This is why Travis could not sleep, and could drive the taxi anywhere in town to feed the feeling of hatred he had. Question 3 Film reflections and political, social mores of society It is accurate to say that most films represent the political and social mores in the society at the time that they are created. The most important reason for film production is art and business. However to achieve this, the mind of the film write must be under influence of some external happenings. These are happenings that are associated with the society. A film producer tries to relate his film with the happenings in the society so that people can be able to figure out his message. For example, a movie produced in a society characterized by political unrest, there will be a reflection of this situation in the movie. A film that is produced in a society that observes certain values or where people exist in a certain manner, this will also be reflected in the movie. Films are also used as social tools since they express human feelings at the time of their production as well as the societal ideas (Manchel, 1999). Films have also been used to foretell or tell narrate about pats political experiences. This is because most of the film stories opt to tell and on how such stories were told. Most of the narratives carry utopia traces of folk tales such as hope, justice and emancipation as the core issues of the political debates. Through revealing to people about the previous happening in the world, cinema films have offered more ideas on how the world could be improved through the ideological manipulations of the responses from the audiences which have always been close. It may be absurd to produce a movie with western ideas for sale in the non-western countries. For people to appreciate the pieces of art, they must be giving them insights into their society or a reflection of a society closer to theirs. Some social and political aspects that exist in the society cannot be altered in film production. For example, social aspects such as gender roles and social class differences cannot be assumed in movie production. People cannot appreciate movies whose ideas are on contrary to what the society holds. The subject matter in the films that we have watched is in one way influenced by the society in which they were created. For example, in the movie Taxi Driver, the film write reflects the situation of a war veteran who is unable to reconnect with the society and live a lonely life. This is true reflection of the society and the situation in which most of the war veterans were in. Since most of them spent time fighting during the Second World War and were left in desperate situations they were unable to return to their homes. Travis lies to his parents that he is working as a government employer whereas he is a nigh time taxi driver. He is unable to reconnect with the society due to his vague ideas. This is due to the fact that the society is far much ahead of him. The influence of society can be seen in this film where the writer uses characters as they are reflected in the society and makes a story out of them. This was almost the real situations of the war veterans in New York. The other example is in the film, The Godfather, where assassination takes place in the church in the midst of a baptism ceremony of the nephew of Michael, who acts as the godfather during the ceremony. The main idea in this movie is of religion which is seen in the scene “The baptism”, a normal occasion that takes place in the religious society mainly the Christian. However, murder is committed in the church organized by the godfather to the newborn child. The movie is based on a gangster family. The whole idea is a reflection of the social mores starting with the baptism, and the evils that may happen in a gangster family where one person kills the heads of five families so that he can become the head of all the families (Browne, 2000). In the movie, Casablanca, by Michael Curtiz, was written at the hit of Nazi takeover of Europe during the coming of the Second World War. The movie is a story of two men fighting for the same woman and finds themselves caught in a love triangle. The aspect of political and romantic espionage is brought out during the wartime where there were experiences of conflict between the democracy and totalitarianism.teh story is happening behind the rich and smoky environment filled with anti-Nazi propaganda. The themes of the film are presented as love, dignity and honor, self sacrifice and romance. This film is also based on the happenings in the society where there is a lot of political struggle but in the midst, people are also fighting for their normal life desires as experienced by all members of the society (Augé, & Conley, 2009). Generally, films and the filmmakers influence the culture and society but they can also be produced by it. These emerging debates reveal that a multifaceted relationship exists between the society and film. For example, the Hollywood films, for example, are used to glorify sex and the violence that are attacking the various moral values of all the societies and leading most of their youths astray. In addition to the production, based on the movie, films have been either influential or the progressive forces within the society, acting as a larger reflection of such society. Conclusion Martin Scorsese, in his film Taxi Driver, he has used various aspects of film wok to pass his main point in the movie. The main point here is of the loneliness that faces the war veterans as they try to reconnect with the society without any success. His main character, Travis Bickle works as a night time taxi driver, leads a lonely life and has attempted to reconnect with the society without any success. The writer has used various aspects such as dialogue, characters, camera movement, and production design to bring out his point in the movie. Film work can be seen as a reflection of the situation in the society on issue such as political and social mores. This is because most film writers’ minds are influenced by the happenings in the society. Their movies may therefore be considered a reflection of what is happening in the society at the time of their creation. Films may also influence the society behavior since members of the society may tend to behave according to how they see things happening in the movie. References Browne, N., (2000). Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Trilogy .CUP, Cambridge. Manchel, F. (1999). Film study: an analytical bibliography. New York: Farleigh Dickinson University Press. Augé, M. & Conley, T. (2009). Casablanca: movies and memory. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Pezzotta, A. (1997). Martin Scorsese: Taxi driver. California: University of California press. Read More