Crime and Movies must have watched both movies.

Shyenna Vega

Professor Artist

Crime and the Moives

October 8, 2020

Martin Scorsese's movie, the "Taxi Driver," is a highly elevated and famous masterpiece

as he presents the exciting look of the 70's New York trough Travis cab's windshield. The

substantial contracts, blurred lights, streets, and moving frames create a powerful image and

present the movie's look (Rothman, 2016). The Taxi Driver is represented through Travis Bickle,

the main character, a taxi driver who was once a war veteran in the Vietnam War. Travis takes

all taxiing at all times in the New York city without discrimination ("Taxi Driver (1976) –

IMDb," 2020). On the other hand, "Joker" presents the Gotham City with a mentally troubled

comedian Arthur Fleck who is mistreated and disregarded by society. He then embarks into

bloody crime and a downward spiral of revolution, making him meet the Joker's alter-ego. These

two movies have themes of crime presented in various scenes.

Crime is evident when Arthur Bremer in the Taxi Driver movies shoots George Wallace in May

1972 as Wallace was campaigning for the nomination of the Democratic presidential. The

Southern segregationist candidate remained paralyzed from the attempted assassination. This

event was a familiar and shocking one for the nation that had seen various killings motivated by

politics. After the trial of Bremer that August, a second crime scene emerges where he had first

attempted to assassinate President Nixon and also had George McGovern on the kill list ("Taxi

Driver (1976) – IMDb," 2020).

Furthermore, the crime of bribery in this movie when Harvey Keitel "Sport" bribes Travis

not to say anything about how he handled his Iris, a prostitute who had escaped him. In another

case, the taxi driver guns down a thief in a run-down grocery store. After being advised by the

sympathetic club owner to flee, Travis goes ahead and hits the stickup man with a steel pole to

death. Finally, after failing an assassination attempt on Senator Palantine, Travis goes to Sport's

apartment, where they argue and end up shooting him in the belly. Travis storms into the brothel

and blows the bodyguard's handoff. At the same time, Sport follows Travis and grazes him on

the neck with a bullet who unloads one of his guns and kills him. After the screaming bouncer

follows the taxi driver, Travis reshoots him as Iris' mafioso customer sends a bullet into Travis's

arm, who, in return, shoots her on the face. The bouncer still follows Travis, who then stabs him

and kills him by a shot to the brain ("Taxi Driver (1976) – IMDb," 2020).

Turning to the "Joker" crime is evident when Arthur Fleck, who works as a "clown-for-

hire" for Ha-Ha's, smashes a sign on the face of a teen who had snatched his sign as he

performed and then kicked him while lying on the ground. Arthur is beaten off after he meets

three thugs harassing a woman who ends up mocking his laughter. In return, Arthur retreats by

fighting back but unfortunately, they team up, kicking him down to the floor. Arthur changes the

case when he pulls out his gun and shoots two of them to death as he defends himself and later

follows the second one to the stairs and murders him. On another scene, as Randall tries to use

Arthur to cover his case, Arthur brutally stabs Randall on the face and smashes his face against

the wall. Arthur also steals a protester's mask, which he uses to hide from the police who wanted

to arrest him ("Joker (2019) – IMDb," 2020).

Travis is an ex-marine and a Vietnam War veteran who lives in New York City as a taxi

driver. Due to his insomnia, he spends most of his time as a taxi driver at night and going to the

seedy cinemas to watch porn movies during the day. Although Travis is a loner, he stands firm

on what is wrong and what is right. Travis thinks of New York as a deteriorated city and believes

he has to do whatever he can to make the world around him a better place ("Taxi Driver (1976) –

IMDb," 2020). As he struggles with making people laugh, Arthur Fleck is a mentally ill street

clown of the Gotham City. Arthur wears his "smudgy makeup" daily to scrape out an existence.

Isolated by the world, Arthur slowly descends into madness as he transforms into a mastermind

of crime as the Joker ("Joker (2019) – IMDb," 2020).

References

Joker (2019) - IMDb. IMDb. (2020). Retrieved 6 October 2020, from

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7286456/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ql_stry_3#synopsis.

Rothman, L. (2016). The Real Crime That Inspired 'Taxi Driver'. Time. Retrieved 6 October

2020, from https://time.com/4202693/taxi-driver-arthur-bremer-history/.

Taxi Driver (1976) - IMDb. IMDb. (2020). Retrieved 6 October 2020, from

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/plotsummary?ref_=ttpl_ql_2.