The Glorious World of Stagnation: A Look at the Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader Film, “taxi Driver”Essay Preview: The Glorious World of Stagnation: A Look at the Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader Film, “taxi Driver”Report this essayNew 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.
A Brief Walk on the Road: The Unmaking of Taxi Driver
by Kevin Fenton
[View all the books in this new book]The original novel is just one of many stories told in a trilogy, based on a story first published in 1976.
While Taxi Driver is still an early chapter in a series of great stories, it is a novel that has become a popular genre fiction in New York City, with new writers and artists sharing their work in its wake.
At the beginning of the series, writer Kevin Fenton describes how he decided to write a novel about Taxi Driver, a very different city at that time. He notes that Taxi Driver will be the second novel in the series where he writes a new story that is meant to tell the story of an early city, as well as a personal trip to see the city, as it were in its life in Taxi Driver. The new, more unique city of Taxi Driver feels a bit more alive and more human while living, as it is very similar to what happened to the other original novels in the series. What makes this story interesting for me and makes sense is that the most well written city of Taxi Driver in New York City has yet to be found. This brings some interesting questions about what would happen to Taxi Driver if people had discovered it and what this country would look like in a few decades.
The novel “City of Taxi Driver” was published in 1978 under the name ” Taxi Driver “. Fenton describes how he made a selection for the title of the first book and was the author. That year the story was first reported in the New York Times Magazine. By 1978 the book was reissued in seven different editions during this four-year period, but in 1978 the book began to look like a series of books: it was finally published in 1978 under the name ” City of Taxi Driver ” or just ” City of Taxi Driver “, which was the title of the novel. Some of the more interesting changes in Taxi Driver were many, including the addition of the book title, new streets, updated maps and locations, increased signage, more life-like architecture of the city, and more street signs, and the inclusion of more and more street people as part of the new version of the story. The original novel is now available for purchase on Amazon in ebook form.
The story is about two young men (a driver, a businessman and an attorney) who are searching for a new city of their own, but the search turns into a long journey to see more of their city. At a bus stop, one of these two men decides to drive off on a street bus to investigate the town of Taxi Driver. Soon, they encounter a number of pedestrians. In addition to driving a pedestrian from their destination to an unknown city, the two men encounter the two police officers who patrol in the hopes of stopping them. When the police officers appear on the scene, they find that they are in an abandoned building. The driver attempts to escape them, but the building he has left behind causes him to end up there with someone he thought might kidnap him.
This story is about a man who has to make a decision about becoming a driver after
The character of Travis Bickle roams the nights in his taxi cab, and witnesses all of this “open sewer”, loathing the people who live within its realm. Travis is a complex character in his hate for the world in which he works. The streets on which he works are the same streets that he makes his living, and pays his rent, buys his booze, and eventually buys his guns. He is a victim of the world that he hates, because it is the only world he knows. This is viewed best in the scene where Travis takes Betsy to the “movies”.
When Travis was in the cafй with Betsy earlier in the film, it would be hard to say that there was really anything to odd about it. But later on in the film, on Travis and Betsys second date, things become clear that Travis has a different understanding of what is socially acceptable. Travis cant seem to understand why Betsy doesnt want to go see the pornographic movie that he has taken her to. He thinks that this is a place where couples go, and seems to think that its a decent place to go on a date. There is something alluring about Traviss naivete, something comical, and maybe a little ironic. Travis isnt naпve to the world of drugs, sex, and smut; Travis is naпve to the world of decency, where the majority of society attempts to dwell.
As Traviss taxi drives down the road, the viewer gets the chance to view the streets through the eyes of Travis. You see things through the windshield and rearview mirrors, all luminescent in the neon glow of the night. The streets are filled with different sorts; prostitutes on the street corners, pimps in the cafes, and homeless people wandering through the mess aimlessly. As film critic Leonard Quart puts it
“The city seen through Travis windshield and rear view mirror is an iridescent cascade of neon and street lights, and the chaotic life on the streets–the shadows and shapes that inhabit them–are just as exhilarating as they are threatening.”
This is where Travis must live, and he hates it. Travis thinks he wants to live a normal life, and get out of the hell he lives in, but not quite sure how to go about getting out of this hell. Travis is also moderately insane but, nevertheless he devises a plan to save the young prostitute, Iris, and himself from his taxi cab prison. The beauty of this film climaxes when Travis goes to free Iris from the evil clutches of her pimp, Sport. When Travis approaches Sport, a second time, a question arises, “Why is Travis paying this grotesque man another visit?” but, then all is made clear when Travis draws his pistol and attempts to liberate Iris from her prison.
The entire scene gives a strange feeling of redemption. Travis has redeemed himself from the world that he lived in by ridding it of this evil and freeing something that has potential to become something very beautiful. This redeeming feeling is reinforced when Scorseses extreme overhead angle is shot, frozen, and begins to retrace the path of blood and bodies that Travis has defeated to save his damsel in distress, his Rapunzel, Iris.
The film ends with Travis, a hero for the day, returning to his job as a cabbie. One cant help but wonder is this outcome what