Taxi Driver (1976) follows Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a Vietnam veteran working as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City. He grows increasingly detached from society and decides to take matters into his own hands to save a young girl, Iris (Jodie Foster), from her life of prostitution. De Niro prepared extensively for the role, even working as a taxi driver for a few weeks. The film uses voice over and a dreary soundtrack to portray Travis' lonely and unstable mental state. Elephant (2003) depicts the daily lives of various high school students before a school shooting based on the Columbine massacre. By getting to know each character as an individual, the film aims

1. Taxi Driver
Elephant
Leigh Lacy, Liam Fisher, Rebecca Eelbeck

2. Taxi Driver (1976)
Travis Bickle an ex Vietnam War Veteran played by (Robert De Niro) works as a
night-time taxi driver in New York city only to find himself fighting to save a
young girl being used for prostitution and to help fix the error of her ways.
18 Certificate
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Stars: Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle.
Jodie Foster as Iris.
Cybill Sheperd as Betsy.
Writer: Paul Schrader
Director: Martin Scorsese
Sound tracks: ”Late For The Sky” By Jackson Browne
”Hold Me Close“ By Keith Addis

3. Robert Di Niro
Born: New York City, 1943.
His father was of Italian and Irish descent, and his mother
was of English, German, French, and Dutch ancestry.
His first movie role was in The Wedding Party aged 20.
He starred in Taxi Driver at the age of 33 and he is
Currently 68.
His wife Diahnne Abbott also appears in Taxi Driver.
Praised for his commitment to roles – he actually worked as a Taxi Driver for a few
weeks – to get himself ready for the role.
Famous films: The Godfather – Young Vito Corleone, Racing Bull, Good fella’s,
Frankenstein, Meet the parents and much more.
2 Oscars, 1 Golden Globe and others.

4. Thoughts
Style of the film is first person with the voice over of Robert De Niro through
out. This makes the film emotional and makes you feel like your in his shoes.
The pace of the film is slow and dramatic to hold suspense throughout so the
viewer doesn’t expect the outcome
The colours used are dark and dingy which kind of lets the viewer know this is
no romantic comedy.
The music is dreary and very slow but just added to the suspense.
The character (Travis) is made to feel lonely and in a mental state and the film
portrays this with the voice over and the subtle sound track.

5. Mood Board

6. Elephant (2003)
Elephant is based on the Columbine High School Massacre of 1999.
It shows the daily lives of many of the students in the school so we can relate to them
more as individuals and see how their own lives have each been affected by the
shootings.
Therefore we understand something about each of the main students, which creates a
personal relationship with them.
Director: Gus Van Sant – directed other films such as Psycho 1998, Last Days (Kurt
Cobain documentary) – many other music documentaries featuring red hot chilli
peppers & David Bowie
Stars: Actual students; they each play their own character with their actual name.
Writer: Gus Van Sant – although the character were made to improvise to make it more
realistic and natural.
Genre: Drama; Crime; Documentary

7. The Columbine Shootings
Who was injured?: 12 students and 1 teacher were killed. 21 other students directly
injured by them. 3 injured whilst trying to escape.
Who were the shooters? 2 senior students in the high school: Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold.
After the shootings they committed suicide.
Why?: Many people blame over- exposure to violent video games for the reasons behind
why they did it, some people blame manic
depression and insecurity. Eric Harris kept a blog
which published his views on society, later
documenting his hatred and expressing how he
needed to act upon his emotions.

8. Thoughts
Slow pace film – Add emotion and serenity to the picture: got a feeling of being there
with the characters. Long panoramic shots of certain scenarios such as the canteen
scene. Got a sense of being back in school- feeling the everyday feeling of a student.
Students: Got to know them all as individuals; Gus Van Sant said that each student was
actually a real student, i.e. the student who loves photography actually went round
taking photos of people in parks in his free time and went around school with a camera.
He wanted to add personality to each student so we felt a personal connection with
them, and felt their emotions when the shootings happened.
The relaxing tone of the film almost depicts an oxymoron to the whole event. There are
no jerky scenes and scenes which make you shocked: even the scene in the library where
he first shows the gun & shoots the ‘geek’, there is no harshness to the picture, which
almost adds to the shock of the occurrence. The tone of colours to the picture also
depicts a normal sunny day, which is trying to show how out of the blue the shootings
were.