1. Rumbi Mukundu 12B
Taxi Driver
Textual analysis
The extract begins with black slugs with names of the production company and the star Robert
DeNiro. There’s no sound with these black slugs but after the last one, the black slug fades into
the next scene of a cloud of smoke, and through it appears a low angle shot mid-shot of a
yellow taxi slowly driving across the frame, and as this happens, the camera tilts upwards.
Along with the fading effect into the next scene, non-diagetic sound track begins to play, of an
intriguing repetitive piece of music.The taxi drives out of frame, and leaves the dispersing cloud
of smoke behind it, and the movie title ‘TAXI DRIVER’ written in capitals. This connotes that the
taxi has a great significance to the movie plot, and it evokes curiosity in the audience to want to
know what it is about the taxi that’s so plot worthy.
A shot of the thick cloud of smoke stays on screen for a while whilst the soundtrack plays and
opening credits continue to flash on and off-screen. A sudden cut to an extreme close-up of a
pair of shifting eyes comes synchronously with the change in sound of music. The no-diagetic
track turns to a smooth saxaphone based jazz track, but it still sounds like it’s the same song,
just a different section. The extreme close-up of the eyes show a range of different flashing
lights reflecting on his face, then a fade into the next P.O.V shot looking out through the car
window shows us what the driver can see. We see that it’s raining, and he’s driving through a
city that’s alive, like on a friday night with bright lights and lots of people, and there are many
fades into tableux shots of people on a night out and many random city lights - whilst all this is
happening, opening credits continue to flash on and off-screen. It’s now implied to the audience
that he’s the ‘taxi driver’.