Editing Analysis

"You talkin' to me?" In Matrin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" there is a scene in which the main character Travis Bickle is showing off in front of a mirror yielding his weapons. Throughout the scene Travis Bickle is starting to realize all the horrors in society and begins to alter his personality. To convey this emotional transition the cuts become more obvious. The camera remains on the 180 degree line the entire time and it shows Travis from multiple angles pulling out his gun and him talking into the mirror, and the continuity remains the same as Travis (Robert De Niro) never moves from the same general area and eyeline always matches so that you can tell he is looking at the same part. When Travis begins his inner monologue they use a jump cut to illustrate this change or new life Travis begins to live. It gives the entire a scene a frantic feeling. The shots are all organized in allowing the viewer to see this new Travis Bickle character as he has never been, very uncomfortable and distraught. The cuts are to help convey the characters feelings and gives off this experimental feeling the the scenes are put together. The camera angles go with the letter he is writing, in the the part that repeats itself twice jumpcut is used to show that Travis had made a mistake in his letter which you see later on in the film.