Martin Scorse's Taxi Driver

Of crucial importance is the different attitudes between Nguyen and Quang has towards the Vietnam War. Nguyen represents the traditional view that the Vietnam War was a failure on the part of the Americans, a mistake and pointless war that ruined the lives of many. What is surprising is Quang’s view. With an immediate and loud retort to Nguyen’s negative feelings towards the Vietnam war, Seol’s portrayal of Quang immediately grabs the audience’s attention. Quang is grateful for the Vietnam war, and “thankful for the American soldiers that gave up their lives so [he] could live.” Actor Seol aptly captures the spirit and sentiments of an actual Vietnamese refugee, and in doing so provides a refreshing and different perspective about the Vietnam War. Faced with these differing perspectives, the audience must come to realize that America is not a monolith, but instead composed of people from many different backgrounds with varying experiences, attitudes, thoughts, and

1. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH QUESTION Throughout the years, the Vietnam War has lived up its name as “one of the most obscure episodes and, at the same time, one of the most serious conflicts not only of the Cold war period but also of the whole modern history” (Hodboďová, 2008). It was apparently the most long-lasting conflict in American history and most disfavored war that broke out after World War II and ended in 1975. The peculiarity of this war lies not only in its prolonged duration but also in an overriding number of war casualties, or in other words, the death and destruction to the country’s people. Averagely in the struggle, more than one million Vietnamese soldiers and over 58,000 Americans were killed, not to mention the massacre

The Vietnam War greatly changed America forever. It was the longest war fought in America’s history, lasting from 1955 to 1973.The war had two major effects on American people. First, the Vietnam War tarnished America’s self image by becoming the first time in history the United States failed to accomplish its stated war aims, to preserve a separate, independent, noncommunist government. It was the first war ever broadcast on television. The public was able to see what happened on the battlefield. Second, one of the chief effects of the war was the division it caused among the people. Not since the Civil War had America been so divided. This war would have lasting affects on the United States. To better understand the horrors of the war, I will narrate the story from the perspective of my grandfather with a few personal opinions injected in between my grandfather 's thoughts.

The Vietnam War lasted from 1954 to 1975 and quickly became known as the ‘first televised war’ or the ‘living room war’ because it was the first major conflict to be highly televised. During the Vietnam War the media heavily covered the conflict in a negative portrayal on print and television which in turn persuaded the public against the war, leading to mounting pressure on the government from the anti-war movement and general public disdain and caused them to eventually withdraw. This happened as the media was originally empathetic /sympathetic with the war effort but became overwhelming negative after the events of the Tet Offensive. This massive change in support influenced the public’s opinion to be persuaded against the war in a society that did not often question official policy. Eventually a massive anti-war movement and general public contempt caused overwhelming pressure to withdraw.

This paper will be discussing the two movies The Green Berets (1968) and Apocalypse Now (1978), and argue how The Green Berets is a propagandist pro-war film depicting the unrealities of the Vietnam War while Apocalypse Now is an ambiguous anti-war film that shows the social and political absurdities of the Vietnam War.

Reading through the letters written by soldiers in Vietnam is a heartbreaking experience. It not only helps one gain incredible insight regarding the sociology of the war, but also puts it on a personal level. Many of the letters featured in this book were by men who died soon after, especially those in the chapter of last letters. It is important to note, however, that there seems to be two very distinct experiences in the war: one by those in the field, in the jungle, or in the villages, and one by those who remained on base. Without meaning to render their time insignificant, the latter experienced a less traumatic time in the war, with their access to Western luxuries like television and movies. They

The Vietnam War had a prodigious impact on America’s society and culture, as a result of being the first war in America to be televised. The war also caused a crucial influence on the presidential election of 1968.

The Vietnam War is often referred to as “The Living Room War,” because it is considered the first war to have been fully covered by both television and print media. This newfound close relationship between government affairs and the media was a fairly new one. News correspondents were given new platforms in which to reach their audience faster and more efficiently than ever before. Americans were more informed on the events of this war than they

Meanwhile, one of the most difficult issues with Vietnam was that the American public was against the war because it was not a just war; so, upon their return home soldiers were treated not with a hero’s welcome but with hate-filled shouts of “baby killer” (Newman 6). As a result, it was hard for a soldier to find peace with the acts of war he/she had committed, whether morally right or wrong, when the public viewed the war as totally meaningless. General Westmoreland makes the same observation, “I recognized that it was not the job of the military to defend American commitment and policy. Yet it was difficult to differentiate between pursuit of a military task and such related matters as public and congressional support and the morale of the fighting man, who must be convinced that he is risking death for a worthy cause. The military thus was caught in between” (Summers 29). Vietnam was also the first time television crews were allowed access to all aspects of war leading to the loss of innocence with a nation itself.

As more and more troops were being sent to Vietnam, and the casualties began to rise, people began to question the government’s involvement. “Even military troops came to mistrust their government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s claims that the war was being won”.(Vietnam War) The Vietnam war was the first war to be broadcast on television. This meant that for the first time the American people were able to see the war instead of just hearing about it on the radio. They were able to see firsthand the soldier’s faces, see the reality of where they were fighting and to see the

From the movie Taxi Driver, it is shown that Travis passionately hates criminals. He refers to them as “scum” and wants to get rid of them, to cleanse New York City of their “filth”. Throughout the movie you see Travis hinting that the government and law enforcement are not doing anything to clean up the criminal activity that are occurring on the streets. This is seen directly when Travis has a conversation with Charles Palantine, a presidential candidate, about what bothers him the most about the United States. Charles Palantine’s question to Travis is vague that it could be about any problem that was occurring in the United States. Yet, the only thing that bothered Travis was how “filthy” the city was. Travis focus on the city shows how

Especially in a scene where Bickle saves a man¡¯s life from a robbery where he gets away with murder as the clerk would beat up the dead man¡¯s body. Though it might have seem gruesome at the time, Scorsese doesn¡¯t pull back where he doesn¡¯t give any clear answer of Bickle, in the terms of becoming normal. This is by far some top-notch directing from one of NYC¡¯s greatest visionaries.

Although the film was voted as being one of the best films for the decade, Scorsese was having trouble deciding whether or not it was going to be successful or not. He wondered if it would ever be released: “We felt like we were making it for ourselves.” Scorsese and De Niro had been reading the autobiography of Jake LaMotta, the middleweight champion whose duals with Sugar Ray Robinson were a legend in the 1940s and '50s.( Ebert Roger). They asked Paul Schrader, who wrote “Taxi Driver,” to do a screenplay. At one point Sorceress had a big drug issues which caused De Niro to push even harder for this film. With the effort of visiting Scorsese in the hospital, De Niro finally got the idea to go through causing this movement to be both a re birth

After nearly fifteen years of troops committed to the conflict beginning in 1959 and withdrawal in 1975, a number of films were made about Vietnam (Goldfield, 2014). The Green Berets, the sole movie produced during the conflict, featured an image presented by John Wayne consistent with the heroic battles in Europe during World War II. Filmmakers emerged in greater numbers in the late 1970s and 1980s after considering that rather than focusing on the perception of losing the war, there were more important stories to tell about the conflict. Some of the notorious films about the Vietnam War are Born on the Fourth of July, Platoon, Apocalypse Now, We Were Soldiers, Rambo, Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, and Hamburger Hill. Vast differences between how and why the films were made and the background and inspiration for the directors who made the film were apparent. Within each director lay a unique interpretation of the conflict based on personal experience (Toplin, 1991). There were some films that attempted to counter the feeling that the U.S. had lost the war and explored a hypothetical favorable American outcome in unifying North and South Vietnam under democracy (Siskel, 1985). Movies like Full Metal Jacket explored new concepts such as how the press’ presence in Vietnam influenced public support for the war. Many of these films were popular because of their violent imagery. Scenes depicting

New York City that is depicted in Taxi Driver seems to be too real to be true. It is a place where violence runs rampant, drugs are cheap, and sex is easy. This world may be all too familiar to many that live in major metropolitan areas. But, in the film there is something interesting, and vibrant about the streets that Travis Bickle drives alone, despite the amount of danger and turmoil that overshadows everything in the nights of the city. In the film “Taxi Driver” director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader find and express a trial that many people face, the search for belonging and acceptance.