This week’s movie is Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976). Read my lecture as well as the essay on film noir by Paul Schrader, author of Taxi Driver’s screenplay, and Sikov’s Chapter Ten, on genre. Essays due as usual at turnitin on Monday.

1.Do Schrader’s categories help with your understanding of Taxi Driver? If Taxi Driver is a film noir, what kind is it (according to Schrader’s division among noir films)? (About one page.)

CHOOSE EITHER 2 OR 3:

2.Compare Travis’s coffee with Betsy to his breakfast with Iris. Zero in on details of dialogue and cinematography including shot/reverse shot and over-the-shoulder shots (in which you see part of the shoulder of the person whose point of view the shot is from). Don’t neglect the acting, either. (About one page.)

3.Same question as 2, but compare Palantine’s cab ride, Scorsese’s (.44 Magnum’s) cab “ride” and Betsy’s cab ride at the end. Notice when and how Travis looks in the rear view mirror as well as details of shot/reverse shot, point of view, and dialogue. (About one page.)