. Martin Sixes made the movie "Taxi Driver" when he was 33 years old. This noir film was called "City Knight", which made me see the middle-aged man. The director's bloody attack on the screen.
Before discussing this film with his classmates, he insisted that it was a film full of self-destruction. Of course, this feeling did not rule out the reason why he was in an emotional downturn at that time. But I think the film is still looking for a faith to live on.
A retired soldier with insomnia every night, trying to pass a lot of empty time by driving night taxis, with fast food and tertiary movies for company during the day. Of course, when he drove a car and rented a car and walked on the wet and chaotic streets of New York, his anguish and emptiness did not diminish. The director can see from the two large close-ups that were locked in Travis' eyes at the beginning. His eyes looked at the night train carelessly, but he looked carefully at New York in the shadow of the moonlight outside the car window. The director spends a lot of shots in the portrayal of midnight New York, prostitutes and gangsters, alcohol and drugs, shady deals and stinky streets, hordes of young people who do not go home, molesting women, vandals who vandalize public property. The same director deepened the distortion of the world under the night through the smoke and rainy weather that drifted out of nowhere. At the same time, the above shots are all expressed through Travis' subjective lens. Yes, Travis thinks this is a world full of absurdity and emptiness, and that's what makes him sleepless.
Immediately afterwards, Travis met Beth, who was promoting the candidacy. I think the director wanted to use love to express Travis as a self-savior, because this is not a romance film. In the episode of love, the director immediately changed the style of photography. Travis wore a bright red jacket, neat hairstyle and bright eyes. At the same time, the lovely Beth was blond and blue-eyed, and also appeared in a red dress. Everything happens during the day. They chatted and ate, and Travis spoke straight, but he got to the point. He found that Beth didn't know what politics she believed in. The colleagues who worked with her every day were just having fun. Although Travis himself didn't know what he believed in, he was precious. The point is that he is fighting against his surroundings, he is struggling to find it. Their conversation seemed to go on happily, but the relationship ended when Travis took her to a tertiary movie. A pro-political, dignified lady makes it clear that they are not from the same world, but this is Travis, a real young man, a confused but fearless prodigal son, and they part ways. Perhaps the split in love was the trigger for Travis to self-destruct.
After that, Travis began to buy guns, train his body, and make his own equipment. The only thing that seems to be inconsistent with all this is that he is separating and helping a girl who has fallen into the entanglement of pimps, but the girl herself does not realize her destiny. Controlling the rhetoric of others, she used "he was nice to me and didn't hit me" as the bottom line of her life. Politicians still appear in the crowd, the imprisonment of the girl's body and Travis, who was abandoned by Beth, began to fight! The director did not use quick cuts to perform this preemption, but placed the camera at a relatively far distance from the scene to express all this calmly and objectively, without fear and evil, but as a cry of freedom and destiny. Defiance, bloodshed and gunfights, waking up sleeping people and hypocritical lies. Travis walks up to the ticket guy in perfect gear, panorama showing their relationship, the camera freezes, then Travis shoots him, walks up the stairs to rest for a while, then goes upstairs and kills the grumpy The hotel manager, then walked into the girl's room and killed the client. At the same time, Travis was injured and bleeding profusely. In the girl's screams, when the police raised guns to control the situation, Travis attempted suicide. , but he ran out of bullets, and he shot his temple with a smile on his bleeding hand. The lens is calm and objective, but shocking and moving. But God brings unexpected luck to brave people. After media reports, Travis has become a hero touted by brave people. After all the glory, he is still a taxi driver at night. But it is clearly peaceful and rounded. Because Beth got into his car after that, he only used "goodbye" as a rejection for the enthusiasm and ambiguity that Beth realized. The movie ends.
Perhaps Travis's emptiness and determination have not stopped, but he has added a belief that life is not extinguished and the struggle is endless. Like when he went to assassinate a congressman or shoot a pimp, never with the idea of "win" or "life-saving". He will definitely face his surroundings thoroughly, which is his attitude and belief in life.
If Martin Sixes is a realist director, I don't agree with this film. On the contrary, I think it is a formalist film. Because every shot is carefully choreographed by the director. For example, in one shot, in a speech for the election of a member of the parliament, the composition of the picture is that the high-sounding candidate is standing behind two burly men, the camera is shot upward, and the surrounding environment is happening outdoors, as if it is not his ideas that bring politics to power but Protected by layers of interests and power, Yang photographed the deformed face and voice that made people feel ridiculous: atrocities under the scorching sun. At the same time, the picture is followed by the gloomy New York society. The noise and riots seem like the world during the day is like a beautiful dream. The reality is the night, and those politicians only live on the stage and the reception during the day. At this moment, our protagonist is staring at the The tired but serious eyes drove the dilapidated taxi, telling us that fortunately there are such a group of people who live in these two worlds with you. The evil is not non-existent, and the good is not eternal. But all this needs to be confronted, not evaded or deceived, maybe this is what the director wants to say.
I have always believed that film noir is not depressing, decadent. On the contrary, it will make you return to your original thinking about the power of life, which other types of movies cannot achieve. I have always believed that life exists in the entire material and spiritual world in an infinite loop pattern. Maybe what we see is not the end of life, but an inflection point of life. The next one is heaven, hell, or the human world of ordinary beings, and we will only know after walking past. As my friend said, the fearless self-destructor with the utter determination of life is actually self-destructing in the great expectation of life. I agree.
Also learn that one day I will smile and shoot a shot in the temple. Not out of fear.
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