Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver

The famous line “You talkin’ to me?” was spoken by Robert DeNiro in the 1976 film Taxi Driver. Robert DeNiro’s character, Travis Bickle, experiences life in the big city as a taxi driver. As the movie progress he encounters people and situations that affect Travis both physically and mentally. Martin Scorsese directed the film making it a great success in the 1970’s. In order to make the film successful he utilized a series of film elements. Scorsese made use of camera components, repetition of music, gender stereotypes, character development and old-fashioned references. Through the use of these film components, Scorsese accomplished a renowned film that continues to be spoken about in the twenty first century.

Taxi driver captures the audience’s attention with Scorsese’s distinct use of camera components and repetition of music. Throughout the film I noticed that panning the camera was a Scorsese favorite. From beginning to end, the audience notices the use of a slow to a medium paced camera panning depending on the scenario of the scene. For example, at the beginning of the film, the camera swiftly pans across the setting of the taxi driver warehouse. This is to show the entirety of the scene and emphasize the amount of taxi’s that come in and out of the warehouse. The camera does not pan slowly because the director is not trying to focus the audiences attention on detail but more on the big picture. As the movie progresses and Betsy turns Travis’ heart down after taking her to a dirty movie, the camera displays a scene of a variety of flowers that was returned back to Travis from Betsy. Scorsese used panning to relate the flowers to Travis’ narration of why the flowers are in his apartment. This use of camera panning was util...

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...s we see him going to throughout the film. Another question I asked myself was why he felt the need to buy a gun. As the movie progressed I understood that it was to intentionally kill the presidential candidate but he in fact killed Iris’s pimps instead. Scorsese used many film components in order to make his film well-known across the nation. Through the character development of Travis, the audience became more connected to his character. The repetition of the jazz rendition connects the events of the film together and gender stereotypes added unique quality to the film. Through camera elements and a dated timeline, the audience is able to watch the film through a different perspective. Scorsese used these film components to create a film that captures the audience’s interest and connects the audience to the characters and events that make this film renowned.