The genre of Taxi Driver is mainly thriller with a sub-genre of Crime.
Firstly, the genre is reflected by camera techniques such as a medium long shot of a taxi driving through smoke. This creates suspense and the smoke also connotes action and violence as well as creating a sense of suspicion. In addition, the extreme close up of De Niro's eyes reinforces this suspicion and introduces tension as the audiences ponders on who this man may be.
The genre is shown through editing mainly through the expansion of time as well as fading cuts. These both add tension to the sequence of shots and suspense as well as allowing time for the audience to take in what is being shown on screen such as the taxi and the people walking in a city.
Sound plays a major role in this title sequence to establish the genre as it is a major tension builder with the raised volume of the music being played in a major key. Since there is no dialogue, music is all the more important and particularly adds suspense when the taxi slowly drives through the smoke.
As for mise-en-scene the typography adds to the thriller genre as the font is in bold yellow lettering. Colour plays a major role during the sequence with yellow and red being the main colours which connote action and city life which is where the film is set.
I like the comments about the expansion of time, it's a concept that we should probably try to include somewhere along the line.
ReplyDeletep.s. I cropped the video down to the right size, for future reference find the width text in the embed code and change it from 640 down to 480.
Yes the slow motion could easily fit into horror as well as thriller and we could definately do something with expanding time.
ReplyDeleteAlso thanks for cropping the video, I tried doing it but I did not know how.
An iconic film - it would be interesting to compare with some contemporary thrillers
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