Analysis Of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver

Martin Scorsese is known to be a famous filmmaker and almost as famous for being a New Yorker. Many of his films are based in New York which are most of the time films that are gritty and about the darker side of urban life where he focuses his vision to the city’s neighborhoods, especially Lower Manhattan and Little Italy. Scorsese has a talent of showing precise and sometimes personal representation of the people and the streets of these neighborhoods. Most of his films have this bond to the city presenting accurate maps of specific parts of the city.

In this essay, I’m going to discuss how the films of Martin Scorsese associate with urban space and the different ways he chooses to portray New York as utopian and dystopian. He introduces
In Taxi Driver, the opening sequence shows steam coming from the canal system of the city’s underground and then a brief meeting with the main character, Travis Bickle played by Robert De Niro. He is shown through an extreme close up, in his cab, and we see the city’s blurry lights appear through the wet windshield because of the rain. This sequence creates a very disturbing environment with the cab and street being clouded by the smoke, which is followed by some loud sinister music that actually makes the ambience very edgy. But when the scenes are inside the cab, the music changes almost unexpectedly which indicates that the environment outside the streets of New York City is rough and violent rather than inside the cab where it’s much calmer. The city’s vision comes out unfocused and blurry, which could maybe imply that Travis sees a city that has no limits or social etiquette or the civilization in the city is faded and mysterious. These scenes are presented in slow motion that give us a quick glance of the busy street of New York and the people walking around. The slow motion shots can also imply that New York doesn’t function in the way other cities do and that society is in a state of decay. The mood changes when he’s in indoors and the space around him feels claustrophobic.

Similar to the city’s atmosphere, Travis Bickle’s apartment isn’t a pleasant setting to be in. Everything is in one room, his bedroom, kitchen and living room and it all feels very claustrophobic. The sound inside is also noticeable, constantly hearing city noises, neighbours who are arguing and fighting, cars passing by and it’s just really messy. Travis can’t even find tranquility with the city disrupting his own place. His thoughts and issues confine him inside the same way as it does