Taxi Driver�Elephant�

Leigh Lacy, Liam Fisher, Rebecca Eelbeck

Taxi Driver (1976) Travis Bickle an ex Vietnam War Veteran played by (Robert De Niro) works as a night-time taxi driver in New York city only to find himself fighting to save a young girl being used for prostitution and to help fix the error of her ways. 18 Certificate Genre: Drama, Thriller Stars: Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle. Jodie Foster as Iris. Cybill Sheperd as Betsy. Writer: Paul Schrader Director: Martin Scorsese Sound tracks: ”Late For The Sky” By Jackson Browne ”Hold Me Close“ By Keith Addis�

Born: New York City, 1943. His father was of Italian and Irish descent, and his mother was of English, German, French, and Dutch ancestry. His first movie role was in The Wedding Party aged 20. He starred in Taxi Driver at the age of 33 and he is Currently 68. His wife Diahnne Abbott also appears in Taxi Driver. Praised for his commitment to roles – he actually worked as a Taxi Driver for a few weeks – to get himself ready for the role. Famous films: The Godfather – Young Vito Corleone, Racing Bull, Good fella’s, Frankenstein, Meet the parents and much more. 2 Oscars, 1 Golden Globe and others.              

Robert Di Niro

Style of the film is first person with the voice over of Robert De Niro through out. This makes the film emotional and makes you feel like your in his shoes. The pace of the film is slow and dramatic to hold suspense throughout so the viewer doesn’t expect the outcome The colours used are dark and dingy which kind of lets the viewer know this is no romantic comedy. The music is dreary and very slow but just added to the suspense. The character (Travis) is made to feel lonely and in a mental state and the film portrays this with the voice over and the subtle sound track.  

Thoughts

Mood Board

Elephant (2003) Elephant is based on the Columbine High School Massacre of 1999. It shows the daily lives of many of the students in the school so we can relate to them more as individuals and see how their own lives have each been affected by the shootings. Therefore we understand something about each of the main students, which creates a personal relationship with them. Director: Gus Van Sant – directed other films such as Psycho 1998, Last Days (Kurt Cobain documentary) – many other music documentaries featuring red hot chilli peppers & David Bowie Stars: Actual students; they each play their own character with their actual name. Writer: Gus Van Sant – although the character were made to improvise to make it more realistic and natural. Genre: Drama; Crime; Documentary

The Columbine Shootings Who was injured?: 12 students and 1 teacher were killed. 21 other students directly injured by them. 3 injured whilst trying to escape.

Who were the shooters? 2 senior students in the high school: Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold. After the shootings they committed suicide. Why?: Many people blame over- exposure to violent video games for the reasons behind why they did it, some people blame manic

depression and insecurity. Eric Harris kept a blog which published his views on society, later documenting his hatred and expressing how he needed to act upon his emotions.

 

Thoughts Slow pace film – Add emotion and serenity to the picture: got a feeling of being there with the characters. Long panoramic shots of certain scenarios such as the canteen scene. Got a sense of being back in school- feeling the everyday feeling of a student. Students: Got to know them all as individuals; Gus Van Sant said that each student was actually a real student, i.e. the student who loves photography actually went round taking photos of people in parks in his free time and went around school with a camera. He wanted to add personality to each student so we felt a personal connection with them, and felt their emotions when the shootings happened.

The relaxing tone of the film almost depicts an oxymoron to the whole event. There are no jerky scenes and scenes which make you shocked: even the scene in the library where he first shows the gun & shoots the ‘geek’, there is no harshness to the picture, which almost adds to the shock of the occurrence. The tone of colours to the picture also depicts a normal sunny day, which is trying to show how out of the blue the shootings were.