A Look at Taxi Driver

So I watched Scorsese's Taxi Driver last night and I think it is now on my list of favourite films.

There are two reasons I like it so much:

1. Travis Bickle is likely to be the most complicated protagonist I've seen in a film.
2. The cinematography actually contributes a lot of foreshadowing and metaphors to the plot of the film.

I think I've seen the film around 3-4 times now and yet I still notice new things each time. It also doesn't seem to be in any kind of genre - it's simply the inner dialogue of a lonely (and eventually disturbed) man who is actually presented in a way much easier to empathise with than any of the "normal" characters until his complete mental "snap".

Bickle is a 26 year old Vietnam Veteran. Next to nothing is mentioned of his career as a soldier (merely the fact that he was one) but throughout the film it is gradually revealed that the experience quite possibly had a profoundly damaging effect on his mind.

Not only this, but he admits himself that he feels immensely isolated from society. He mentions that he has felt alone his whole life (whether his "whole life" includes before his war experiences or not is ambiguous) and frequently refers to normal society as "them", the people who apparently don't care about him or have any interest in his existence.


One of the strangest aspects of Travis' character is that he is more moral at core (and also seemingly more intelligent) than many of the people he socialises with and observes, despite the fact that he also engages in sleazy practices that would befit someone of lesser morals.

By night he spends all his time driving people around in the roughest city districts (and he rapidly develops a disgust, even a hatred, for his fares) and yet by day he sits in run-down theatres watching pornography. Yet he doesn't seem to watch it because he enjoys it at all, but because his life is so directionless and other cab drivers suggested he do it.

Before entering one theatre he makes a polite attempt to engage with the girl behind the till, but is brushed off. He loathes the films but has a morbid fascination with them, like a moth drawn to a flame.

There is a definite parallel between his observation of the dirty pictures and the people he drives around and how he despises both. This is highlighted once he becomes particularly disturbed and is shown sitting in a cinema, this time pointing his fingers at the "actors" on the screen as if to shoot them.

Furthermore, he repeatedly makes statements such as "Some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum from the streets.", foreshadowing his violent killing spree at the end of the film (which doesn't impact the "scum" much at all) but also showing again this hatred of what he sees in humanity all around him.

A very interesting aspect of Bickle is also his apparent racist views that he doesn't even realise he has - in fact, his actions suggest that he is fairly tolerant of other people. At one point he narrates that he picks up any passengers, regardless of who they are or their race. He also says that many other cab drivers don't pick up black people, but he is not like them.

Except, he doesn't say "black people", he uses a racially offensive term without even realising. Later in the film, the camera takes several very disorientating and apparently out of place angles when he looks at "stereotypical" racial minorities - even at one point another cab driver who he frequently socialises with. The camera follows their movement for an excessive time, as though Travis is staring or confused.

Many of these stereotypes are figures of the sleaze he sees (pimps, etc.) but all of them are racially different to Travis. Does seeing someone that looks different to him just particularly highlight his feelings of isolation, or does he also have deep rooted racist tendencies that he doesn't even know about? It's never fully explained.

I mentioned the cinematography, and there are several shots in the film that really stand out. There is obviously the above "staring effect", which is used several times to transport us into Bickle's confusion.

My personal favourite is from the scene in which Travis is making a pitiful attempt to reconcile with a girl he likes (Betsy, who he eventually decides "is just like them...cold and unfeeling") via payphone. It's almost painful listening to him being rejected yet again...and then suddenly, half-way through the call, the camera moves sideways to focus on a long, empty hallway.

Travis continues speaking off-screen, and the shot just stares down that hallway, as though his whole life is now stretching in one direction only. At the end of the hall is a single door to the street, back to the sleaze he wants to escape from and the violent conclusion of the film.

Other particularly noticable techniques are used during Travis' demented ramblings towards the end of the film. While obsessively growling the entrance to his enraged rant ("Listen you f**kers, you screwheads..") he turns towards a mirror slowly and then suddenly a frame skips, as though there was a mistake in the filming and we see him perform the exact same movement again and repeat the line.

It creates a very disturbing effect, sort of like a cog in Bickle's mind slipped mid-way through the sentence.

Other shots are more standard, but still very powerful. The use of mirrors as Bickle prepares to go on his violent spree are prominent - he points the guns directly at the camera (and from the mirror, also himself) and smirks in a fashion that is truly creepy.

All in all, while I've avoided plot details quite a bit here, I think it's a film that's worth seeing if you haven't. It's very disturbing in places and very open to interpretation, much more than some recent films.

Even the existence of the ending is ambiguous, what recent film can make that claim of its plot?

My favourite game of all time: System Shock 2

Sometimes, when I look at modern games, I actually sort of feel like we're taking backwards steps even for all the fancy graphics and gameplay mechanisms we now have.

These feelings usually come to me after booting up an ancient copy of System Shock 2 (from 1999 - almost 12 years ago!).

No matter what "modern" game I've been playing, Shock 2 always feels like a breath of fresh air. I've finished it at least 10 times and yet every playthrough it still feels like it could have been a new release.

The graphics are a little outdated now (though they have been given a large overhaul by the game's community, which remains very much alive to this day) but the game as a whole is fantastic.

The game was pretty much the first to use "audio logs" to tell a story, a concept many games have recreated - but never with the same competency. The story itself is really great and the progression through audio is at times genuinely horrifying.

Eric Brosius. the sound engineer who worked on the game, is a very, very skilled musician. The Shock 2 soundtrack is a mix of "conventionally" creepy tunes in certain levels, but also uneasy cyberpunk techno beats in others.

If you'd asked me to feel scared by a techno track, I would have laughed before Shock 2. Then you play it, and the frenzied, frantic nature of some of the tunes mingled with the feeling that something ex-human is always lurking round the corner, poised to rip you to pieces, creates a really powerful atmosphere.

Yes, atmosphere. Something else Shock 2 nailed better than any game I've played since.

Take the "Hybrid", the first (and most common) enemy you encounter in the game. Hybrids are humans recently infected by the alien parasites who have overwhelmed the spaceship on which the game is set.

They are typically musclebound crewmembers stripped to the waist aside from a bloodstained vest or jacket. Most of their hair is missing, they have an unnatural yellow tinge to their eyes, somewhat contorted facial features and a large worm burrowed into one side of their head and looped round into their chest.

Gross and disturbing? Yes. Their dialogue is their most horrifying feature however.

You'll be wandering along a dark, corpse-strewn corridor and then suddenly a faint moaning whisper will drift to your ears.

"We are...we are, we are...we are..."

Then you notice the figure standing aimlessly inside an office, twitching slightly and clutching a lead pipe. He reaches for his head and sways.

"What happened to...me?" He turns and sees you and his voice morphs into a pained bellow as his body moves without his will.

"They seeeeeeeeeeeeee you! Run! RUUUUUUUNNN!" And you do.

"I'm...sorry..." The Hybrid moans pitifully as he chases you, pipe raised. "Kill...me!" And then you shoot him, and with a gasping cry he crumples mercifully to the ground.

What game since has managed to make me feel revulsion, horror and yet sadness for an enemy? Even Bioshock (the "spiritual successor" to the Shock franchise) and it's Splicers don't come close.

I could continue on about how the character development paths are very open ended, how the combat is simple enough to be intuitive and yet far superior to Bioshock's clunky Plasmid obsession, how the game rewards exploration and has intelligent puzzles, how the mini-games for hacking and repairing are not frustrating...I could, but that would make this post far too long.

The gameplay feels right, the story is engaging, the atmosphere is very very creepy and the whole package together is really neat.

I will close simply by saying that if you're a gamer sick and tired of shallow and cloned modern games, you truly cannot go wrong with Shock 2.

Google it, look up any compatability fixes (mail me or comment if you need some help), love it!