part two taxi driver :)

Taxi Driver

The first shot in taxi driver beautifully portrays the thriller genre with the extreme low close up on the car, giving it an eerie presence like the killer shark in jaws. Also the smoke screen with the non-ambient lighting gives a sense of isolation and distance from society. Also because of the background of Travis the main character and his involvement in the Vietnam War the smoke could represent the barrier he is facing attempting to engage with modern life.

The extreme close ups on Travis’s face cutting to the out of focus shots of blurred traffic from within the car also connotes his feelings of distantness after the Vietnam war and the car windscreen shows his internment and his solitary personality. The constant flashes of red and blue shows the environment around him is corrupt and governed crime.

The taxi is used effortlessly to help show Travis’s confinement, as if the cab is a barrier protecting him from the harsh nature on the outside world, this is similar to the use of a car in Essex Boys to represent confinement. New York in 1976 was filled with guns, crime, sex and the birth of the WTC. It is easy to see Travis’s frustration gradually build. The film is set out so the viewer engages with the ex-war veteran; this was beautifully done by adding narration addressing issues of the current time. Narration is commonly used in thrillers because it can produce a feeling of loneliness and isolation which is overwhelmingly effective in Taxi Driver. The sense of isolation and lack of communication throughout re-enforces the fact that Travis’s is struggling to cope with modern life,  this technique of isolation has been used by many directors like Carol Reed in a third man with the winding dark streets and also by Quentin Tarantino in pulp fiction where there is little communication with the outside world.

 

At 4:53 there is a panning shot which looms over the contents of Travis’s flat to reveal bare walls and the bare necessities needed for living. The use of dim non-ambient lighting also creates a feeling of claustrophobia within the room which is a common convention in thrillers.

This reinforced the idea of Travis's loneliness. Also another factor that is key in a thriller film in my opinion is 'main character narration'. This is a key convention which allows the audience to relate and even feel as if they are the main character within the film. This technique is used whilst Travis is writing home to his family telling them lies of a wonderful city life filled with joy and money, this engages the audience with his insecurity and feelings incompetence towards his family. Other examples when this technique is used is in Essex Boys which enables the audience to relate/engage with main character Billie. This is also used in the psychological thriller American Psycho, which entwined with the non-dietetic soundtrack helps the viewer enter the mechanics of Patrick Bateman which was purposefully done to help illustrate the complex workings of a murderer. Throughout    the film the ever darkening Mise en scene helps portray New York as a labyrinth  in which Travis is submerged.

Throughout the film there never seems to be a familiar location, which also gives the feeling of a dream like city. Director Martin Scorsese may `have done this because it resembles the maze like nature of noir thriller 'A Third Man' set in Vienna. In 'A Third Man' the use of foreign languages and no subtitles helps the audience feel asif they are in Holly Martins shoes, which helps viewers engage and truly understand the film.