Taxi Driver Movie Analysis Essay Example
Taxi Driver
1976
Martin Scorsese
Every individual in society has a set of values that influences others’ way of thinking. The movie Taxi Driver challenges those values and zooms in on a culturally specific part -the druggies, gangs and prostitutes. The ideological theory can be applied to Taxi Driver to show violence as the ultimate means of “cleaning up” the filth and bad parts of society.
Robert Deniro stars as the protagonist (Travis Bickle) in Taxi Driver. The entire movie is from his viewpoint, displaying everything that goes on in Manhattan once it gets dark out. The twenty six-year-old suffers from chronic insomnia, which is why he wants to drive a taxi. He writes in a journal all of his thoughts and disgust for what is going on around him. Bickle has a fascination with Betsy, a campaign volunteer for presidential nominee Charles Palentine. Bickle courageously asks her out for a date and she accepts, only to walk away after watching part of a dirty porn. Discouraged, Bickle goes back to his routine life until he sees a child prostitute, Iris, (Jodie Foster) and tries to help her out by visiting her. By this time he has bought many guns and gotten in peak physical condition. Bickle tries to assassinate Palentine, in which he fails. He turns to his second target, “Sport,” the pimp in charge of Iris. Bickle shoots him and a few of the bouncers, saving Iris from her life of prostitution. He is hailed as a hero by the media and later wakes up from a coma brought on by a gunshot wound. Betsy admires him one night in the taxi. He gives her the cold shoulder by saying he isn’t a hero. It ends with him driving away.
The ideological theory shows how movies relate to society. Taxi Driver is set in a time period right after the Vietnam War, and it brings some of those societal attitudes into the movie. People did not seem to care about one another, just as many did not care or respect the Vietnam veterans coming home after the war ended. When a store owner
1976
Martin Scorsese
Every individual in society has a set of values that influences others’ way of thinking. The movie Taxi Driver challenges those values and zooms in on a culturally specific part -the druggies, gangs and prostitutes. The ideological theory can be applied to Taxi Driver to show violence as the ultimate means of “cleaning up” the filth and bad parts of society.
Robert Deniro stars as the protagonist (Travis Bickle) in Taxi Driver. The entire movie is from his viewpoint, displaying everything that goes on in Manhattan once it gets dark out. The twenty six-year-old suffers from chronic insomnia, which is why he wants to drive a taxi. He writes in a journal all of his thoughts and disgust for what is going on around him. Bickle has a fascination with Betsy, a campaign volunteer for presidential nominee Charles Palentine. Bickle courageously asks her out for a date and she accepts, only to walk away after watching part of a dirty porn. Discouraged, Bickle goes back to his routine life until he sees a child prostitute, Iris, (Jodie Foster) and tries to help her out by visiting her. By this time he has bought many guns and gotten in peak physical condition. Bickle tries to assassinate Palentine, in which he fails. He turns to his second target, “Sport,” the pimp in charge of Iris. Bickle shoots him and a few of the bouncers, saving Iris from her life of prostitution. He is hailed as a hero by the media and later wakes up from a coma brought on by a gunshot wound. Betsy admires him one night in the taxi. He gives her the cold shoulder by saying he isn’t a hero. It ends with him driving away.
The ideological theory shows how movies relate to society. Taxi Driver is set in a time period right after the Vietnam War, and it brings some of those societal attitudes into the movie. People did not seem to care about one another, just as many did not care or respect the Vietnam veterans coming home after the war ended. When a store owner