Retired from the Vietnam War and came to New York alone, Travis Bickel, who had nothing to do and suffered from insomnia, drove a taxi on the streets of New York every night. The lights are blurred and mottled, but the streets are full of things that are darker than night: sex trafficking, drug trafficking, violence and other criminal acts continue to breed virus like a degenerate scene. He felt nauseous, restless, cynical, and yearned for a punishment. He tried to save Alice, a young prostitute who had misplaced, but the other party thought he didn't need to save him. He was infatuated with Bessie, a white-collar beauty who was in the presidential campaign headquarters, but found that the two "are in different worlds." A series of frustrations made him more lonely and paranoid. He turned himself into a revenge angel of God, and pointed his gun at the presidential candidate-hypocritical politician and dirty pimp, hoping to wash away the sins of the world with blood...
= Lonely paranoia =
"Loneliness will accompany me throughout my life. Bars, cars, and sidewalks will be inseparable. I have nowhere to escape. I am the lonely man of God."-Travis Bickel
The image of a taxi appears interspersed in the film, which is a metaphor for the "iron coffin", implying the protagonist's psychological state of being isolated from the world. He stayed away from everything, only observing the world through the windshield and rearview mirror. In front of you are the sinful and perilous streets of New York, and behind him are weird passengers doing weird things. He sits on the sidelines and does not take the initiative to intervene and communicate. The first few shots set the tone for the film: in the dim light, a yellow taxi came slowly, wrapped in smoke from the ground, and the fog had not dissipated for a long time. A close-up of the protagonist’s eyes, through the window of the car, the neon gleaming on the street after the rain, forming a heavy “tail” under the effect of a similar slow door exposure. The pedestrians on the street are superimposed with the red and blue ghost fire-like fog. A group of shots signifies that this movie is only about one person and one perspective, and loneliness will run through the audience. In his eyes, the world is full of weirdness and nightmares like hell.
He lacks channels for emotional venting, so he can only communicate with me by writing in a diary, talking to himself in the mirror, and practicing all kinds of gun-drawing movements. When chatting with friends (not friends, at most colleagues), he always passively listens in, rarely expresses opinions, and often distracts. People often stay on the edge of the picture frame. Even if it appears in the center, its yellow-green jacket often overlaps with the dark background, making it difficult to attract attention. "I shouldn't live an autistic life. I believe that people should integrate into society." But poor communication skills are always an obstacle. He bluntly accosted the woman in the cinema, but was bluntly rejected by the other party. When I was dating Bessie, I often didn't have the right text, talked awkwardly, and didn't understand the elite culture he admired. The spiritual world is extremely barren. What is even more terrifying is that she is completely ignorant of human relationships and detached from society, and even took her as an Office Lady to watch pornographic movies... After being rejected, she still didn't know what was wrong. When there was nowhere to solve the extreme thoughts, he also took the initiative to talk to the "witch", but he still didn't know what to say, and just muttered to himself, "I want to stand up and do something... I have some bad thoughts in my head. ." The response is naturally beyond marginal.
The simple morality made him unable to settle down with the crimes of the city. The double frustration of Vietnam war and love, insomnia, drug dependence, boring life that can only be passed on through pornographic movies and soap operas, coupled with the failure of communication, accelerated his loneliness. quality.
As he himself said: "Loneliness is everywhere." When he is in a public place, the flow of people around him is often blurred in the shallow depth of field caused by the telephoto lens, which emphasizes his isolation. There is another in-depth scene: he walks alone on a dilapidated street, and then the camera dissolves, but the scene is not changed, he still walks on the same street. In the language of the lens, “dissolve” usually means the passage of time, but here time flows but the scene remains unchanged, and the audience experiences a fragment of consciousness like the protagonist. No one knows how long he wandered alone. And shortly after the opening, the camera wandered around his home, and finally stayed on Travis, who was writing a diary alone under the iron fence, messy, disorderly, and closed. This is his home life. It was the same moving camera. He and Bessie called to save the failed relationship. The camera moved away from him, as if he couldn’t bear to see it, and turned to a long corridor, empty and empty like his heart, but at the end. Noisy and lively streets. This scene externalized his state of mind and symbolized his isolation from the world.
"Travis Bickel lives in a world where fantasy and reality are indistinguishable, and eventually his spirit collapses" -Martin Scorsese (director)
He is often vigilant about things around him. In the film, he uses the relative motion of the camera and frequent front and back shots to show his opposition to the people around him. Full of hostility. Another example is the scene of chatting with a driver friend in a restaurant. He listened to the speech and suddenly looked out of the frame. The camera floated to a pair of black gang members sitting opposite, and used slow motion to magnify Travis’ subjective feelings. Then the camera floated back to him.
He is constantly looking for imaginary enemies, from black robbers, presidential candidates, to pimps. The scene where Alice dances with Pimp Spotter is probably from his fantasy. This is one of the very few passages in which Travis is not on the scene. A shot of Travis sitting in the car and looking up suggests that this is The product of the illusion in his mind. The intimacy of the two continued. Suddenly gunfire entered forcibly, breaking the illusion. The camera had cut to Travis who was practicing shooting at the shooting range. In his eyes, pimps control prostitutes in several ways: money, drugs, sex, and love. And the sense of belonging of love and family is exactly what he can't reach. He finally killed Spot, except for "walking for the sky", which was more or less jealous.
= Since 1969 =
"Travis Bickel participated in the war in Southeast Asia, he was born to death, this is very important to his character background in the film" -Martin Scorsese (director)
Among the 3.1 million soldiers who participated in the war, nearly one-third suffered from varying degrees of ptsd (post-traumatic stress disorder). Although they returned to the city, they felt lost in the jungle. Some people become pessimistic, lonely and autistic; some are sensitive, suspicious, fierce and manic; some even hide a lot of guns and ammunition and live in the mountains. This war claimed the lives of 50,000 Americans, but 300,000 people died of alcohol, drugs, homicide, and drug abuse after the war, and 100,000 people died of suicide. "Whenever the stars and moon are dark, the dirty streetscape of the slums seems to hide the enemy waiting for an opportunity to swallow his enemies." Travis Bickel is a collection of these symptoms. Insomnia, suspected of having stomach cancer, and his attempted suicide after raiding the brothel also corroborated this. There are many evidences in the film showing that he was possessed by the demon of the Vietnam War. The classic "Moxican" hairstyle was taken from a certain Vietnam War Special Forces, which meant that he had a mission to carry out necessary killings. The yellow-green military jacket with the "King Kong Company" armband is always worn with you. The Vietnamese flag hung on the door of the home like a trophy. At the campaign headquarters, the standard combat alert style that was conditioned to provoke in anger. Even the long scar that showed on the back when practicing push-ups seemed to tell us about an unbearable past.
Undoubtedly, he is a racist, full of hostility towards blacks, and even draws guns at blacks who appear on TV. This tendency mainly comes from his working experience.
In the 1970s, racial antagonism was particularly obvious in the taxi industry. Some white drivers discriminated against black passengers and refused to board. At the same time, violent crimes are increasing in African-American neighborhoods such as Harlem, Bronx, and Brooklyn. This leads to more serious rejections. Based on this, African-Americans drove an unlicensed "Gypsy Taxi" and drove the car to other areas. This violated the interests of white private car drivers, and racial confrontation continued to escalate. In the movie, Travis' car was once attacked by a group of black youths. When I went to a convenience store, I came across a black young man who robbed him at gunpoint. At night, gangsters with the black people who swagger across the city glared at each other, full of provocation. The only black colleague called him the "killer" and made a gesture of shooting with his fingers...
"We can no longer provide spirits, since 1969."-"Hotel California"
The "Hippie" movement, the most famous counter-cultural movement that was born in the 1960s and advertised "love and peace", went through the "Human Gathering" and "Summer of Love" to the Woodstock Music in 1969. Festival reached its peak. However, he was beaten into the cold palace by the "Manson Family" incident that happened in the same year. The people no longer appreciate or sympathize with them, but are indifferent and hostile. Travis, who is morally obsessed with cleanliness, commented on the Hippie Commune as "it looks unclean, I can't get along with such people." He sneered at the women's liberation movement that accompanied it. In the 1970s, the US economy experienced a stagflation crisis, and experienced the failure of the Vietnam War, the Watergate Incident, and the people had an unprecedented crisis of trust in the government and the mainstream culture it advocated. In this film, even Palantine, who is a politician with a clear left-wing stance, chants "We are the people" chanting civil rights and people's livelihood, and denounces the quagmire of the Vietnam War. But on the other side, Travis, a Vietnam veteran in military uniform, was finally driven away by the police.
In this way, the general public has nothing to rely on between the "left and right", the belief is barren, the mainstream culture is untrustworthy, the subculture is untrustworthy, the spirit is exhausted, boring, and suffocated, eager to find a sense of existence and seek channels for venting. Travis is one of the most extreme representatives.
= Vengeance Angels and Anti-Heroes =
"This man can't stand it anymore. He wants to stand up against scum, mad dogs, perverts and trash. This man... you are dead!"-Travis Bickel
He was constantly alienated by loneliness and the environment, giving birth to plots of salvation and daydreams. The first highlight of the film appeared when Travis first saw Bessie, "She was wearing a white dress and fell into the world like an angel, alone, they could not defile her." In Travis's view, Bess Akane was as lonely as herself, and she was surrounded by people who tried to hurt her. He projected his own state of mind on the opponent, and imagined that he was in a dangerous situation to satisfy his desire for salvation. This is the same as his attempt to persuade the prostitute Alice to go home. It is a way to prove his existence. However, he failed. After that failed date, he became more paranoid, cursing Bessie "will go to hell like everyone else." Gradually hate the relationship between men and women. Gestures to shoot at the scenes of male and female love on the screen; kick over the TV that shows love soap operas. As a result, completely cut off from the worldly life.
"My life is facing a turning point again, every day is the same, the chain that cannot be broken away, suddenly changed."
He is eager to act, a violent act of violent rushing wind, like God raining, to cleanse the dregs of the world. He doesn't believe in gradual political change, because politicians and criminals are fighting together. Palantine, the politician whom he loved before because of Bessie, has now become a target that needs to be eradicated. He planned assassinations, bought guns, practiced shooting, exercised, controlled drugs, and scorched his arms on the stove — whipping himself like a Puritan.
Why is Travis so obsessed with killing to complete rebirth? This is inseparable from the deep-rooted culture of violence in the United States. Button said that Americans are warlike by nature. The cowboy spirit is highly respected and symbolizes the worship of freedom, violence and personal heroism. In the film, the cultural symbols of such American heroes abound. Travis wears jeans and cowboy boots. He is called a cowboy by Spotter and the brothel janitor. Gun culture is an important branch of cowboy culture, showing an American value of resistance to power and individual freedom. The destructive power and mechanical beauty of various guns are frequently displayed in the film. The gun, as a symbol of violence and a phallic figure, was constantly played with by him. It also symbolizes Travis' fascination with violence. And violence is related to his sexual depression.
We can see the pan-violent tendency of this city and even the whole country. The broadcast of "On 122th Street, the driver of Bell's car dealer was killed by a madman and cut off half his ears" became the aftermath of everyone. Talking about information; a huge light box of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" hangs in front of the cinema-violence has become an important element of mass entertainment. The mediocre violence in life can be seen everywhere. In the daytime, through the front windshield, we saw two middle-aged white men fighting; at night, prostitutes chased and molested their bad boy; hysterical men screamed " I'm going to kill her, I'm going to kill her"; the Hispanic convenience store owner used his cue to beat the body of the black robber who was shot by Travis to vent his anger. In addition to physical violence, there is also verbal violence. Starred by Scorsese himself, the husband with a green hat by the "nigger" blatantly made racist and extreme hatred of women. "You know how much the point 44 Magnum pistol can kill a woman's face." Power! Do you know how much damage it has on women's genitals!" His appearance sent a violent signal to Travis, so Travis went to buy a 44 Magnum and used a gun Sweeping across the streets of New York through the window, I finally stopped at a pair of women...
The object of his anger is indiscriminate and random. Choosing to assassinate the presidential candidate—a hypocritical politician who is in harmony with evil is because it has a sensational effect. At the same time, it seeks a meaningful and valuable motive for destruction and self-destruction, and "sanctifies" the impulse of killing in order to find a sense of existence . Even if you are not recognized by others, you will get a sense of being hated by others.
You are a prophet and a drug dealer, half-truth and full of contradictions"
He is obsessed with and hated women; he watches pornographic movies and despises prostitutes; he thinks that the city is like a gutter stinking, longing for order and cleanliness, but living extremely irregularly, and through the most disruptive way-violence , To maintain human order-morality and discipline; he is always alert to the dangers of the surrounding environment, but yearns for a glorious suicide by Mishima Yukio.
He dramatized himself, lighting up the flames before acting, polishing his boots, sharpening the knife, burning flowers, writing a suicide note, mailing the travel expenses for Alice home, and shaved a mohican hairstyle, full of the beauty of sacred rituals.
However, he failed again. The assassination ended in a farce like a farce, and he ran away in a hurry before he even drew his gun. He quickly pointed the finger at Pimp Spotter, who was almost the incarnation of evil. Ironically, in his eyes, the president and the pimp can replace each other.
He knocked down Spot with a 38 Smith & Wesson pistol, and rushed into the dim and narrow den, like a dirty New York street. At 44, Magnum’s gunshot finally sounded, and a huge wave of air shook the corridor, blasting off the palm of the brothel janitor, stumps splashing, and blood bursting. The smell of gunpowder and blood was in the air. The gunshot sounded again, and Travis had blood flowing out of his neck, and Spot shot with his last breath. Travis turned around and completely eliminated him. The client in the room heard the sound, pulled the trigger at Travis's arm, and shot the 38 pistol to the ground. Travis magically slid the dot 25 Colt pistol hidden in his sleeve into his hand and fired several shots to kill the client. The door opened, and only the disheveled Alice was left in the room. She panicked and screamed: "Stop!" The janitor attacked from behind. They fell into the house, and Travis quickly pulled out what was tied to his boots. The dagger pierced his other palm. He picked up the pistol and blasted the opponent's head, blood splashing on the wall behind him, blooming like fireworks. Travis attempted to commit suicide, only to find that the bullet had been exhausted. At this time, when the police arrived, Travis used a bloody hand at his temple, marking out the motion of firing a gun.
A god-like bird's-eye view appeared, or he was in a dying state. The camera slowly exited the house and came to the corridor. We saw the corpse, the blood-stained wall and the pistol. After exiting to the street, the camera slowly pulled up, police, reporters, and onlookers swarmed, and the audience was in full swing.
Very black, the media refused to explore the nature of his loneliness and crazy sickness, wishingly, for him, he turned into a golden body of an American hero who rescued the girl in Longtan alone. The media also refused to acknowledge the government’s failure to transform society and divert the public’s attention by creating heroes. At the same time, it caters to and even promotes the public's worship of violence.
Alice’s father sent a warm letter of thanks, and Travis seemed to have taken the initiative when chatting with his colleagues. What's more interesting is that Bessie actually took the initiative to take his car, as if he was okay but he wanted to say nothing. At this time, in the small car, the status of the two parties seemed to have changed. Surprisingly, Travis behaved nonchalantly, and graciously waived her fare, "so long", driving away in the car.
Still wandering the streets of New York at night, just like the beginning of the movie. Suddenly, he seemed to find something suspicious, and he held the mirror with his hand, and the streets under the radiant light were dark...He is the lonely man of God and the angel of revenge. He hates the world as he hates himself, and never Stop.
(This article was first published in the Zhiying public account and Zhihu column)
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