3570 Rock 《taxi driver》 movie analysis

Scene overview
I will analyze the movie《taxi driver》。
The Travis served in Vietnam as a Marine until 1973, and two years later, he is a taxi driver in New York City. Travis is not part of the normal world. He can’t sleep, pops pills and spends his mornings in porn theatres. After Betsy rejects him, Travis becomes hysterical, violent, and obsessive, and from here descends into madness.
Travis changes from a wounded man into a hardened one, however Iris prevents him from turning into a monster killer.
MISE-EN-SENCE
(01:42:50-01:43:19)

Shot type:
This is a close up shot. Audiences can feel the character’s loneliness.
Music：
There is a tight music form the beginning. This type music makes the audiences feeling strain.
Character movement
The hand has the power to insult and offend, but no power to do any physical harm. Charlie T and Sport mock Travis when they pretend to shoot him, which puts him off. At the end, Travis pretends to shoot himself, believing this gesture will actually work.
Audiences can feel that the character has already prepared for dying

We can hear he says: peng –peng---peng
The character thinks he will die because he killed the other people.
This sound makes the audiences feeling strained and gave the audiences thought something will be happened.

Travis’s haircut, a popular haircut for American soldiers during D-Day in World War 2
And he always wears the green frock. These denote the character has deteriorated into a cesspool. He is alone. It makes the audiences think that he is evil and dangerous.
Camera angle:
This scenario uses the low angel to describe Travis. It makes the Travis have power and tell the audiences: not anybody can do it.
Lights:
In this scenario, the light is dark, which creates a horrific environment. However, the color is not exactly dark but brown, which is created by the mixture of red and black.
Therefore the color also implies the bloody ambience.
MISE-EN-SENCE

Shot analysis
01:14:19-01:14:39

Shot type

This second using the long short.
Character movement
Travis pulls down the television by his foot.
We can feel he is very anguished from second picture, in which he lowers his head.
Travis is aware of other people’s happiness through the screen of television. This shows that Travis feels trapped and cannot be part of this happiness, where relationships between people are possible.
Editing:

In this scenario, the director always converted the cameras angle that is change medium angle to high angle and the director want to create a bloody environment. The scene shot at this angel seems to be what is seen by ghost under the roof.
Deconstructed Meaning:
This doubtful scenario makes the audiences wonder whether Travis dies.
The angle only appears once in this movie, in order to display the disordered situation clearly.
Summarize
Acting Robert De Niro magnificently portrays his character right down to the core, so shockingly real personality of Travis Bickle .The fast cuts in the editing, as when he practices with the guns, make us enter in his mental catastrophe. At certain times we agree to him as a sophisticated idealist, while other times we portray him as a psycho. The movie switches dynamically between these styles, which deliberately leaves us infinite ways of thinking about the Travis. As Travis changes his hair styles, it shows the instability of his personality and the two opposite characters of Travis Bickle.a charming man and a psychopath. The dizziness of the colors and the fact that the background is often out of focus in the whole movie reminds us that there is no way to see the society in a sharper way. Conclusion Taxi Driver is a "rude awakening"? tale, a film which awakens in us a recognition of our own inner fears, desires, and our dark side。
Bibliography

http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/24766.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_Driver
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13258702/Taxi-Driver-Film-Analysis