Taxi Driver

To me this was the best movie we saw up to this point. The way this movie was made truly gave you the real life society of the 70’s in the New York area. The environment of this movie really gave me the feeling of vigilantes across the city. Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) played such a great role of being this character that was out of the loop of a regular society.

In the beginning of the movie, when he applies for the taxi service job, he had very little educational experience with absolutely no work experience. The only experience he had was something with the military. You can tell that Travis was little crazy by the way he talked and the way he presented himself in the movie. Also just on a side note, they never showed Travis actually going to bed or getting any sleep even though he did have sleep apnea.

He was definitely a key observer because he said that he didn’t care where he went in the city, as long as he was driving, he just explored the city. With this being made, he also noticed how shitty the streets and city really got especially during the night. As he said to himself through the writing in his diary that when night did come, all the creatures and filth would come out and fill the streets. He mentioned on cleaning up cum spots in the back of his cab and also cleaning out the blood from people getting into fights. The conversation he had with Senator Palatine about how bad the streets are along with the smell was something that really pissed off Travis. Later on during the movie, Travis Bickle knew that he had to take the law in his own hands.

Specifically that shot that Francine was talking about with Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) making that phone call to Betsy wanting her back then pamming the camera to the hallway with the two doorways open was confusing to me why this shot was taken in the first place. The only honest idea on what I came up with is that Travis already lost the fight in the conversation trying to get her back for another sit down or date. He kept persisting on doing anything to get her to say yes. The pamming to the door to me meant that the damage has already been done and there is no way of fixing it. In other words, Travis just needed to move on and out the door and forget about the date that he had. It was fun while it happened type of thing. This is what this scene felt to me. He was in a lose- lose situation and already lost her before he even called.

There is more I can talk about in this movie but overall to me this was an amazing film shot in the 70’s and again the last scene with the blood bath and shoot out was definitely Martin Scorsese scene. This scene was definitely something that made the movie for me. The reason why is because from when Travis got all three of his guns, they always showed you playing with them. At the end scene in the apartment, they had every shot of Travis using every single gun he bought. Even the scene in the where he shot the robber from robbing the store. Every single gun he bought was used and had a meaning to it. I appreciated the slow camera shots after the whole gun fight ended. This shot seemed like it showed everyone in New York had their attention on what happened. To me this gun fight scene was genius. Just for the fact that he used every gun he had and kept his word to help Iris (Jodi Foster). Excellent movie and just well rounded from beginning to end. Definitely a movie you need to watch from beginning to end!