Taxi Driver (1976) follows Travis Bickle’s life in New York after being honorably discharged. The film is a psychological thriller that deals with Travis Bickle’s mental instability and desire to do something meaningful with his life. The narrative centers around Travis’ loneliness and disconnect from society. The inciting incident occurs when Travis notices Betsy for the first time. Travis becomes obsessed with Betsy, who works in a presidential campaign office for Charles Palantine. His pursuit for Betsy comes to a halt when he takes her out to a pornographic film, and Betsy understandably feels very uncomfortable. Betsy starts to ignore Travis’ calls after this mishap, leading him to march into the campaign office and have a public falling out with her. The falling out finishes off act one and spirals Travis into planning an assassination on Palantine. Before Travis attempts the assassination, he meets and underage prostitute, Iris, who is the twist/midpoint. Travis sees innocence in Iris, and tries to lead her away from her pimp, Sport. Travis’ assassination attempt on Palantine is foiled when he is caught reaching for his firearm. This act two crisis pushes him in a new direction, to go after Sport instead. Travis’ shout-out at Sport’s brothel is the climax of the film. The dénouement follows, with Travis being heralded as a hero in newspapers and Iris’ parents thanking Travis for saving Iris. Later, Betsy gets in Travis’ taxi, he drops her off and rides off looking
The movie Napoleon Dynamite directed by Jared Hess and released June 11, 2004 is a comedy about an awkward teen that has trouble fitting in. Napoleon (Jon Heder) the main character, lives with his grandma until she gets into an accident and his life is immediately made worse when his uncle Rico (Jon Gries) who is stuck in his high school football “superstar” days knocks on their door and is there to keep an eye on Napoleon while his grandma is getting hospitalized. Napoleon has a red afro, wears moon boots, and is constantly practicing his atrocious ninja moves. Napoleon has a best friend in high school names Pedro (Efren Ramirez) who decides to run for class president, and it is up to Napoleon to step out of his comfort zone to help Pedro win, and get his information out around school. Napoleon Dynamite was excellent because it met the criteria of humor, acting, and the profound message.
The 1946 film The Killers is a renowned film noir based off of Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same title, focusing on the detailed backstory and investigation for the motive of the murder of Pete Lund/Ole Anderson, commonly known and referred to as “The Swede.” A film noir is a term made originally to describe American mystery and thriller movies produced in the time period from 1944-1954, primarily marked by moods of menace, pessimism, and fatalism. Although the film does not focus on the war itself at all, it still puts forth interesting new ways in how gender relations can be stereotypical as well as divergent proceeding the Second World War.
Paul Haggis directed an Oscar winning film in 2004 called “Crash”, this movie basically talks about racism and the impact it has on the lives of people in Los Angeles. This movie got a good response from the viewers, as it concentrated on some real harsh realities of racism and asked some hard questions which are generally avoided in movies. This movie clearly promotes the a very delicate issue, and hence requires some detailed assessment. I personally feel the movie was good and it portrayed some very common events of racism, I think “Crash” shows realities, but in a not-so-realistic way.
“You wanna f**k with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!” (Palma, Bregman, & & Stone Scarface)
Unfortunately for Bickle, he is never able to get close enough to get to the candidate. After his plan completely fails, Bickle then begins to form an interest in saving a young 12-year-old prostitute by the name of Iris, played by Jodie Foster. In order to save her, Travis goes to the hotel that Iris works at and shoots her ‘pimp’ and murders him along with the hotel manager and the client of Iris. After seeing this film, Hinckley Jr. starts to form an obsession for Jodie Foster. He also began to believe that he saw himself in Travis Bickle. Hinckley Jr. was so infatuated with Taxi Driver that he saw the movie a total of fifteen times. He felt that in order to win Jodie Foster over, and to get her to even know he existed, was to assassinate the president of the United States. This would be the start of something that would lead to the attempted assassination of former President Ronald Reagan.
The film Baby Driver overtly displays the practicing of sinful behavior that never ends up paying off for any character. Although the majority of the movie takes place in this sinful environment, certain individuals still exhibit morality and ethical actions in some prominent scenes. In the same way that all humans are incapable of not sinning, this vague concept of sin plagues the lives of every character in the movie. As the movie proves though, just because someone sins does not necessarily mean he or she is a bad person. Although this movie takes place in the complete absence of God, it is important to note that God plays the most important role in our real lives when it comes to sin. While Baby Driver shows how some really
The movie, Crash, demonstrates the lives of various individuals from divergent socio-economic classes, who have life changing experiences in between their conflicting prejudices and stereotypes. The theme of multiculturalism has also made its influence on the major characters of the movie: a white American district attorney and his wife who is constantly scared of "the other"; two African American thieves who steal their car, a racist police officer who offends an African American TV producer and harasses his wife, a non-racist police officer, a Latino lock maker, a Persian family and another African American detective in the search of his brother.
In Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle repeatedly expresses two ideas that are central to the film. First, Travis has an undying wish to purify the world. He wants to rid his city of all the evil and scum that currently inhabits the city's cold and damp streets. Second, is the method by which Travis tries to obtain his goals. Travis Bickle tries to clean up his city by methods similar to those of religious figures. He even takes on a role as a savior figure. Travis Bickle's quest to save the world via religious ideas fails, and instead results is a bloodbath.
Film noirs describe pessimistic films associated with black and white visual styles, crime fiction, and dark themes. Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 film noir directed by Billy Wilder. Sunset Boulevard presents many themes that are common with the genre film noir, but also introduces some differences from the typical movie in that genre.
The windshield of the taxi is the lens through which Travis sees the city, and the taxi itself is a vehicle of depression and seclusion. As the opening credits part, Travis drives his taxi through the city in the rain. The lights of the city are obscured through the rain on the windshield until the wipers uncover the scene. For the second time, the rain obscures the scene through the windshield, however this time the wipers don't make everything clear once more. This hazy perspective proposes that Travis' perspective of the city and the world is skewed. Travis never sees the world as it really may be. Since his viewpoint is twisted by dysfunctional behavior, the taxi, as it were, shields him from the outside
Taxi Driver, a 1976 thriller directed by Martin Scorsese grants onlookers a grimy view into the lonely, slowly deteriorating life of the disturbed New York City cabbie Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro), a Vietnam War veteran. Viewers are guided through Bickle’s take on N.Y.C. through the masterful use of aesthetically pleasing camera techniques such as the “rule of thirds” that bring focus onto the characters onscreen without causing the eye discomfort. Sound choices further immerse the audience in the buildup to and execution of up-close, violent, and mental action that ensues later in Travis’ story. However, Travis’ focused story is not simply delivered through some indescribable “magic of film.” To fully appreciate how Taxi Driver is put together
District 9 (Peter Jackson, 2009), a science fiction film produced by Peter Jackson, is a rare gem unlike the many sci-fi movies which have been released in our time. The story is established via a mix of standard third person camera and documentary footage and takes place in the present - a twist from your regular science fiction film which normally takes place in the future. The film, about a colony of alien refugees forced by humans to live in a South African slum, is an example of social satire by presenting a critique of the injustice with which we treat those who are different from us. The metaphors of science fiction are being used to portray the nature of racism; with the way that racist ideology and discourse deals with those different
Vietnam veteran Travis Bicklea finds that his life has been turned upside down after returning America from the battle-field. He suffers from the insomnia and sense of isolation, which leads him to take a job as taxi-driver at night; many of his customers represent the people from the lowest class of society: prostitutes, adulterous husbands and wenchers. Since Travis has promised the cab company that he will drive anywhere, at anytime, his likelihood of seeing the best of human nature is fairly slim. So, he tries to create an extra-occupational life for himself. He befriends Betsy, a beautiful girl working at a Senator's campaign office. Unluckily, with on possession of the slightest amount of social skills, Travis takes her
An analysis of how cinematography, editing and mise en scene creates meaning and response in the Blood Bath scene of Taxi Driver (d. Scorsese 1976) Taxi Driver was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader, in the film the director explores the journey of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) and his slow descent into madness and eventually to murder. In the final scene of the film Travis goes to a brothel to murder the people inside and save the young prostitute, Iris (Jodie Foster). Meaning and response is provoked by lighting, shots, editing and costume and I will discuss how this relates to the context of the time. The scene opens with Travis parking the taxi, the colours in the scene are muted and desaturated creating a dismal atmosphere.
The movie chosen for this research is “Rush Hour 2”, which compactly contains set of various stereotypes of Asians, African-Americans, and Latinos in American film as well as provides examples of portraying sexuality in movies. It’s a comedy action film; it’s also a classical buddy story with unorthodox for that time buddies: African-American and Asian characters. The movie was directed by Brett Ratner, produced and distributed by New Line Cinema, story written by Ross LaManna and Jeff Nathanson. Soundtrack is written by a famous Argentinian composer Lalo Schifrin. The movie was released in 2001 as a part two of a sequel, continuation of a successful story about two detectives, one from Hong Kong and another LA, solving international crimes together. The movie was shot in Santa Clarita California, starring Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, John Lone, Alan King, Roselyn Sanchez, Harris Yulin and Zhang Ziyi. "Rush Hour 2" is rated PG-13 for action violence, language and some sexual material (IMDB). The movie’s budget was $90 million and the box office was around $347.3 million, which is considered to be a huge success for a movie, where both main characters are non-white, which was not the case back in 2001. The movie was nominated twenty one times and won ten awards, including MTV Asia Awards for a favorite movie.