"Taxi Driver"
never expected that the taste of murder would be the same as honeysuckle. ——Billy. Wilder's "Double Insurance" My pain is that my life was originally ordinary, but now I know some things that I shouldn't know. ——Brian. Germany. Parma's "Snake Eyes"
was originally the title of a book, which was a long interview with punk rock bands in the 70s. The book deals with drugs, sex, moral decay, and the exhausting pleasure of being on the road. And all of this in "Taxi Driver" turned into the blurred lights of New York night in Travis’ eyes (as in the last shot of this film), the city’s night scene was refracted by the windshield, mirrors, The eyes of the characters in the film and the eyes of the audience themselves are drawn layer by layer. Just like the final ending of the protagonist, the killing is indeed a benevolence, but this hero is like Sisyphus. The final ending of New York and Travis has become nothingness. , A piece of nothingness that looks like a feasting but barren land.
So, in this film, is New York the New York in reality? It's just New York in Travis's heart. Dream and truth, reality and heart, how big is the gap between them? When the mind cannot bear the pressure of reality, how will the body react? What action will be taken? For what reason? Where is the reference? Is it a beautiful female assistant to the presidential candidate? Where is the moral bottom line? Everyone knows that if a work appears in the public eye with images of sex and violence, no matter what, in the end people can only use it to discuss one thing, which is that very frustrating thing. , That thing called morality.
Regarding this film, all the problems finally condensed into one problem: when the city that never sleeps in New York is full of prostitutes, gamblers, thieves and scammers, when all the moral bottom lines are collapsed, the only normal person, insomnia Or, a veteran of the Vietnam War and a taxi driver Mr. Travis facing this ugly world, why is there only a solution to violence with violence?
For the same question, Sartre’s autistic maniacs and the college students in Dostoyevsky’s works gave the same answers as Travis, but the difference is the ending: the first two supermen were both caught after being anti-social. The fiction and reality overlapped by society. But Travis, like Wang Shuo, who is now hyping up his mental breakdown of drug and prostitution, became a media hero because he used violence to control violence and evil to control evil, and finally got back into the car and continued to live. The American-style black humorous ending has caught up with the cultural phenomenon of the 21st century in China. Under the logic of "destroy is to build", night New York, underground New York, another New York that people are unwilling to mention in the American dream is being staged in China at this moment. And under what circumstances did the confusion between evil and justice occur?
If we repeat the old saying: the measure of artistic work is beauty rather than moral strength, then all right! In Travis's eyes, what is beautiful? What is ugly? In this film, it is still moral. Travis' insomnia can be regarded as a sequelae of the life and death problems under the Vietnam War artillery fire. When he started to sit in the car and wander all night, New York was no longer the New York on the physical level. It meant Travis' inner world: the turbulent, lonely world of fear. Travis began to look for the beautiful side, trying to balance his weightlessness.
But for individuals, the irreversible mistakes are about life and death, just as with love, no one can bear the adultery of their spouse. Then, all the problems become the same problem here, "Taxi Driver "All the nipples at this time merged into the most niche point of the film: the Vietnam War destroyed the soul of the hero, and also destroyed the soul of New York. When a person's soul is damaged, can his body and reason return to normal? When the soul of a city or a country is destroyed, its appearance can be repaired, but what about its inside? Travis gave an answer that fits his identity and his experience.
First, it is to delegate the responsibility of Midea to the female aides of the presidential candidate. the reason is simple. As Travis said: Although there are many people around you, I can see your loneliness. This is also the situation of Travis. Perhaps only a lonely person can know a lonely person. I don’t think that this kind of lonely and oppressed feeling is love. Travis is like the old hapless guy in "Little Hero Toto": Travis at night needs to find someone like himself in order to repair his broken heart. A lonely person, but a person who lives in the daytime, a person who is called a "normal person" by a normal person. Therefore, the beauty appeared at this moment: the female assistant is lonely in Travis's eyes, but she is a young and beautiful woman who lives in the daytime and has a decent job. So Travis asked her to drink coffee, and the relationship between him and Mei was formed.
But this relationship is destroyed because of morality. Travis asked the female secretary to watch pornography disguised as sex education films, and the female secretary said that she felt sick. This disgusting is an aesthetic denial, and this denial is 100% due to the female secretary's own morality. She used her own morality to deny Travis's standard of beauty. Destroyed the record Travis gave her from that date, and the beauty created by the small discussion about music triggered by the record. But what she denies is Travis's morality that she thinks she is the same as herself? Travis may also be a victim, maybe he is just as he said, can take her to see any movie. But in his New York, the movie will only be shown late at night in the cinema. It's New York that is morally corrupt, it's all people. In the end, the person most in need of salvation was abandoned by the savior. It is true that the daytime does not understand the darkness of the night, no wonder Travis screamed sadly.
What is denied by beauty will not necessarily turn into ugliness, but absolutely will turn into evil. Such as Quasimodo, such as Travis. They are like the flowers of evil in Baudelaire. After society becomes unbalanced, people, as social people, also lose the mirror they can refer to. When the mirror I found broke, I would go to the opposite side of the mirror. Attract beauty through evil.
But the great thing about Travis is that he inherited the kind of "good tramp" character from Chaplin, even though he shaved his punk crest, tied a dagger on his boots, and had a dagger on his waist. Gun, that is, even if he is crazy, he will still learn about Judy. When the prostitute played by Foster was only fourteen years old, he exclaimed, "This world is really crazy"! So the ego is no longer confined to searching for the id, shooting and killing the presidential candidate, to find bright attention. But to transcend oneself, "the king is not in power, I will be the regent on behalf of the king." When the world tolerates its own madness, sober people will be called lunatics, but lunatics can be roughly divided into two types: one is pretending Normal, in line with society, at best, go home and complain, and live a life humble. One is to become Nietzsche, shouting "I am the sun" and become the more dangerous terrorist in this dangerous space. But Travis surpassed the realm of a lunatic. When he failed to assassinate the sun, he chose to slaughter the night. He wanted to protect the only little beauty surrounded by evil, so he scolded the ancestors who drink the Buddha. At the end of the film , But became a saint like Buddha. If let. If René is called "Saint René" by Sartre, then Travis has enough qualifications to be called "hero".
The last fifteen minutes of the film is indeed beautiful and terrifying, but if we do not analyze the director’s skills from the perspective of "authorism", we will find the most interesting point: in the movie, the most beautiful scenes are either When human nature is at its best (such as "The Sound of Music") or when human nature is at its worst (such as this film and "The World of Senses"), why is the scene of blood flowing from the body called beauty? How big is the space of human nature? This is probably Martin too. Scorsese and other directors like him, are you a joke about this crazy world.
It's a pity that the problem has not been solved in the movie. What about the place called reality? If people are evil, there are not only laws, but there are always more evil people. In the end, everyone had finished playing with an atomic bomb. No wonder Travis compares his hand to a gun on his forehead in the end, as if saying, please kill me before that day comes.
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