Explicit, Implicit and Ideological meanings in "Taxi Driver"

An analysis consists of a series of interpretations and thoughts which lead us to understand the essence of a fact or idea. By analyzing things in life, we could extract different meanings which made up our values and beliefs.

Throughout his movie Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese uses different types of cinematic elements in order to transmit to the viewer a social theme. There are some explicit and implicit meanings involved in this movie, as there is ideological meaning.

During the scene in the taxi with Travis, (a lonely and depressed man who returned from war), and Palantine, we notice how their interaction demonstrates some of Scorsese’s ideals expressed throughout these two characters. The shot reverse shot allows us to analyze this conversation and its meaning. When Palantine asked Travis about his opinion of society and how government can improve people, Travis criticizes Manhattan Streets using raw words: “A good government should clean streets from all scum, he should flush them in the toilet”. Right after this opinion was expressed, the shot reverse shot permits us to see Palantine’s reaction, which was one of agreement with Travis, so we can see how these opinions carries with them an explicit meaning of the scene. We can clearly see the anger or bad feelings Travis has towards the bad side of society, and it is understandable this character feels that way after returning from war. We can see it was exposed in a very clearly and detailed manner allowing us to extract in an easy way the essence of it and to understand that this movie presents us the “bad side of society”, full of suffering, injustice, prostitution, drugs, and life in the streets.

At the same time, it involves an ideological meaning, as this scene is portraying Scorsese’s personal beliefs and moral values expressed trough these two characters.

On the other hand, at the end of the movie, when Travis was appearing in all newspapers we could extract another ideological meaning: “The heroes are the ones who fight for a good cause”. Although Travis killed many men, it was for a good reason, so he was in the right path. It allows us to understand Scorsese’s thoughts, as he is showing us the victory of good people and the death of bad people at the end of the story. At the same time, cinematic elements contribute to make this meaning clear. The music track was one of victory as the camera was focusing a close up on each article, so it adequately expresses its message. It also has implicit meaning, permitting us to perceive that his goal was achieved. Hence, once again he feels as an individual with human feelings, as he was transformed in a hero to that “Scum Society”.

Scorsese's versus Kubrick's Style

We have just appreciated how cinematic elements are used in different ways between a variety of directors, each with his own style. Throughout Mean Streets we could discover how Martin Scorsese’s style is very different and at the same time, similar to Stanley Kubrick's Style.

We could see how these two directors construct their movies in a way in which we are the ones who “determine the end”. In other words, their movies offer freedom of interpretation hence a similarity between them.

On the other hand, they use cinematographic elements in different ways. Scorsese shots a single scene from multiple angles, each taking place in extremely short periods of time, allowing us to analyze the scene from different points of view. His shots are very different from each other and his camera angle positions are so different and rare, sometimes we could not recognize which shot he is using. In contrast, Kubrick is very strict when taking his shots. In spite the fact that he uses different camera angles, all of them seem to be very similar.

It is clear the fact that Kubrick uses a close frame composition throughout his movies. In this kind of frame, the most of our attention is concentrate on design elements, as costumes, setting, background and all these kind of things involved in mise-en-scene. A good example of it could be Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. We could see how design elements are the forces that controlled the characters and their meaning. In Full Metal Jacket, most of the characters were ideas, instead of individuals. They were a mass of soldiers without individuality and design elements, as were their uniforms, expressed the meaning itself. It is the same in Eyes Wide Shut. The characters in this movie barely had conversations, but design elements were the essential key in this film in order to get its message. It includes the scary masks, the nude bodies and sensual body postures.

Scorsese is very different in this way. His open frame composition allows his characters to move freely as individuals, so most of our attention runs towards the characters, and as an effect of it, they are the ones that carries the message of the film. We could see this throughout his movie Mean Streets. Design elements were very simple and normal, while characters deep feelings and thoughts made them “the key to get into the essence of the film”.