Taxi Driver (1976) - Film 1

New Wave techniques in Taxi Driver

• Introduction with non-diegetic jazz music, which was popular in New York at the time, reflecting the society at the time.
• Travis has a mental handicap.
• Set after the Vietnam War, Travis is an honourably discharged (May 1973) U.S. Marine who is lonely and depressed, suffering from insomnia.
• Camera tracking shots.
• Natural lighting.
• Jump cut shows Travis walking from one side of a street to the other instantly, showing the transition in time.
• Voice-over from Travis' diary allows the audience to know exactly what is happening within the narrative.
• Point-of-view shots, showing what Travis is seeing, putting the audience in his position. "Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets".
• Handheld camera following people candidly walking down the street, non-actors.
• Diegetic sound of car horns and city noise.
• Clothing establishes the era.
• Out of focus shots in the city.
• Travis hates the city. "Clean up this city here, because this city here is like an open sewer you know. It's full of filth and scum".
• Client in the back of the taxi uses the word "nigger", reflecting the race issues of the time.
• Colour connotations e.g. red showing the danger of the city.
• The camera is seen in the window reflection.
• Travis seems fixated with guns when the salesman is showing him a selection, reflecting the mental handicap he has from the war, and the increasing violent crime and murder rate in America with guns in the mid/late 1970's.
• Repetition of part of the scene in Travis' bedroom, common of the New Wave.
• Panning camera shots.
• Iris makes a reference to women's lib (women's liberation and equal rights). The women's liberation movement was a type of feminism that began in the late 1960's and persisted throughout the 1970's.
• Shots are re-created compositionally in separate scenes.
• Long takes give a sense of realism.
• Travis is determined to assassinate Senator Palantine. He cuts his hair into a mohawk. This is a visual device that shows he is consciously removing himself from "normality". Mohawks were much less frequently seen at the time the movie was made.
• The modern mohawk haircut originated among soldiers in World War II, who would shave their heads in the style of old Native American warriors before going into battle. Travis is a Marine veteran who may have been exposed to soldiers with this type of haircut when he served in the war.