How Traffic Light Colors explain "Taxi Driver"
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- Опубліковано 17 гру 2023
- The colors of traffic lights-red, yellow, and green-can be used to explain the themes and emotions in "Taxi Driver."
In this video we see how these colors reflect Travis's psychological journey and the film's intense atmosphere.
The scene with Scorsese in the backseat is much more enthralling (and terrifying) to me than the far-more famous "you talkin' to me?!?" scene.
It's not just the statements made by the character Marty plays, but the way he delivers them, his speech patterns, that absolutely leave me breathless.
I always wondered why it didn't get more recognition... probably because of how brutal the scene's implications are.
The cinema data scene only makes sense if you consider that Travis is suffering from a cluster b type personality disorder. When viewed through that lens his baffling decisions begin to make sense. Ask yourself what is the more unusual behaviour: taking a girl to a porno theatre on a first date, trying to assassinate a political candidate, or shooting up a room full of strangers? His life has become a confused swirl of false stories that he convinces himself are real. He is suffering from a grandiosity and an over inflated sense of his abilities that don't match his daily reality. The problem is, as evidenced by his letters to his family, he simply isn't that intelligent, and so resorts to overblown and dangerous stabs at self assertion that endanger, surprise, annoy and confound those around him. The fact that some of these actions seems to have an ethical compulsion is in fact secondary to his primary aim of manifesting his significance. The sort answer is, although Travis presents as somewhat typical, he is in fact, dangerously deluded.
It's interesting you mention that Travis sees people as either black or white, this type of binary (a person is either good or bad) thinking is often attributed to people with narcissistic personality disorder.
I think the porn movie scene is extremely accurate. Psychopats can act and seem very normal and charming, but they will completely off in a certain way when reading another person. I think this was supposed to show that he was not well in the head. Almost, but there was something very much off. People and their minds are very complicated and contradictary!
🎯💯 Plus, back in those days there was a period where those films did become popular with a more mainstream audience and couples actually did go watch them.
I remember Scorsese talking/laughing about that in an interview... he said him and his buddy (might've been Schrader, actually) were looking around the screening room and seeing all these couples going "this is WEIRD - where are all the lone guys in trench coats?" 😂
The fact Travis still doesn't realize you'd never take a woman there on a first date is obviously saying something about the delusion of his character.
I wouldn’t go as far as calling Travis a psychopath (though he probably is), but my take on the porn movie theater scene has more to do with loneliness than anything else, and that makes absolutely perfect sense with the story.
In my humble opinion Travis yes, enters the theater with his date, but he can’t escape his fate: isolation. He’s ‘condemned’ to be alone, no matter how smart he is with girls, nor what he learnt about socializing earlier on in life. He’s just too far deep into his madness, he can’t be saved. And that’s what makes this scene so poignant; it’s not that he doesn’t know how to deal with people, he’s condemned by his own madness to be alone for as long as he’ll live.
Hey, excellent analysis by the way! I’ll watch it a few more times.
I've watched Taxi Driver countless times now and I always loved the Cinematography, there is just something special about it, and this gave me a whole new perspective on the story and why it was shot the way it was shot, with certain framing and camera moves, lighting, all to serve the narrative of the story and how Travis Bickle becomes unhinged throughout the movie, in which they all used the technical side of Filmmaking to enhance/enrich the story and Filmmaking as a medium.
One thing about the mirrors I noticed in Taxi Driver is the one time he sees himself fully is in the scenes where he has boiled over while the other scenes where he only sees a fragment is when he sees something that makes him angry, the start where he is passing through the streets full of people he doesn't like, the cameo scene in the cab, and Iris.
Im a portrait photographer and i learn so much watching films like this. Not just composition, use of color palettes etc but storytelling i can take with me to a single frame
It's a very nerve-wracking like a timer clicking down to zero
Since I noticed the disturbed rear view the last time I always thought he still is a ticking time bomb and his dreams are crashed as well although his doings had a happy end in the view of society.
Yes, he realized he got lucky.
@@wolfcrow this maybe but as you said he is back to step 1. Nothing changed for him. I never thought much about the adult cinema date. But you are right it is out of place. Anyway great take on this one, thanks !
You’re welcome!
just watched the film for the first time and loved it, great video, really wondered why iris had 2 pairs of glasses lol
u have a great voice by the way very pleasing to watch) thanks for the review!
Thank you too!
Good job! 🔥🔥🔥
Thanks 🔥
Great vid! What's the song at 8:52
Really good points, I have to say that some of them may be your personal interpretation and not the autor intent, even if it make sense. But that is something beautiful about art!
I've always thought of Travis taking Betsy to watch a porn film on their first date as a self-destructive move. Travis hates New York as a city and still wants to work as a taxi-driver where he'll be driving among the "scum" as he puts it. He quite clearly has self-destructive tendencies although I'm sure he isn't aware of that which makes him compelling
I had interpreted the mirror as that the moment wasn't real.
That was the popular interpretation. The filmmakers did confirm everything is real. The film works with both interpretations.
I'll watch it again noting the dollys and the colors.
@@wolfcrow
My main thoughts about it not being real is after Travis shoots the guys, everything pauses, then he does finger pew pew to himself three times, we then see three police just outside the area. I imterpreted this as his being shot by the cops. He sure didn't look like a hero all covered in blood as the newspaper clippings in the next scene show.
My thought is Travis's happy ending was his last thoughts.
But, again, I will watch again with the camera moves and colors you mention.@@wolfcrow
I think in those days the porno films were foreign and a bit more arty. I think he thought he was taking her to something like that, like a foreign film. I don't think it was the same cinema as he went to.
Is Scorsese's character Betsy's ex husband? And she's the women he was saying he was going to kill? He's sitting outside of her work stalking her like Travis. Is the another movie going on in thos movie at the same time. One in which Scorsese is stalking and planning on killing his ex Betsy? Perhaps Travis see's Scorsese shoot her at the end.
One could say in the freudian sense that he had to sabotage his chance of happiness, because of the death drive. And that last gaze at the end, might be the lacanian gaze, the film looking back at us.
Travis takes Betsy to the porn theatre largely bc he's grown accustomed to that part of the city. New York Times Square in the 70s was essentially the city of Sodom. There are several "couples" in the theatre with them. What Travis doesn't understand is that these couples are likely prostitutes. Earlier in the film, Travis asks a woman working the theatre's concession stand for a date and she laughs at him. Travis, at times, isn't able to understand the greater social context that surrounds him. He makes a similar error with Betsy and only in hindsight does he realize how inappropriate it was for her. I tend not to think that Travis taking her to the theater was done with malice but more to do with how aloof and socially inept Travis can be. Coupled with the confusion of Travis navigating this city of sin.
About why Travis takes Betsy to see a porn movie, yes, that's a question I asked myself too. I believe that although, as you say, Travis has an idea of certain social rules due to the environment in which he lives, what he has no idea and is completely naive, is about dating, relationships, even friendship with women, maybe going there he thinks that is a good move to show sexual interest towards Betsy.
I think the porno scene is when the pure girl finally gets to see the real gritty and gross world that Travis is a part of. He tries to present as if he is this classy and soft person like she seems to be and like the other guy at the office but with a bit of his intensity. However, he takes her to a place that he actually goes to in his routine. It’s a taste of his reality. The movie on screen doesn’t look like a normal porn film because it’s the abstract idea of porn that they are seeing. Pork lays it all out, it’s in your face, intense, there are gross sounds and sights, if you aren’t in the mood it can be disgusting and that is like Travis’s environment and inner self. He knows his world is gross and gritty so he tried to hide it to get the girl but it made him feel fake. He wants to clean up the gross streets but he doesn’t want to admit he belongs there. He thinks he can pull a classy girl like that and her reaction to his world reveals to him more of himself.
I think it can be seems
I agree about the date scene.
I think Travis takes Betsy to the porn theatre, because he want to self sabotage himself, by "testing" her in a way. Will she accept him as he is, kind of way, although he very well knows that is inappropriate.
"Mentally Unstable" really applies to DiNero these days; his TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is quite untenable; lost lots of any respect for him.