Fight Club Taxi Driver Analysis

In comparing both movies there where similarities in characterization and cinematography but, there was also quite a few differences. In both movie the protagonist has issues with mental illness. Travis from Taxi Driver had PTSD and the unnamed protagonist from Fight Club had Schizophrenia. The female leads Iris (Taxi driver) and Marla (Fight Club) had issues with drug abuse and self-respect issues. Both movies displayed a theme of violence and crime there was prostitution, drug use, and murder in Taxi Driver. While in Fight Club they had physical violence, black mail, terrorism, and breaking and entering. Travis (Taxi driver) was on a self-made mission to clean up the streets of New York from the “scum” of the streets. The narrator

(Fight Club) had a different mission to make big corporations pay for keeping the public enslaved with their products and keeping little business down. Big differences are the location the movies where shot at. Travis driver was shot on location on the New York streets. Fight club was filmed on a soundstage or set. Another difference was the music that where in the movies. Taxi Driver the score was more instrumental with calm soothing jazz that helps you feel the loneliness of the character. While in other hand the score of Fight Club was faster paced intense, and adrenaline pumping. Another difference where the opening scenes. Taxi Driver was more natural and very smooth following. Whereas Fight Club used CGI. The lighting on Fight club was dark whenever they were in the environment of Tyler Durden.

When the narrator was first introduces in his apartment or work space the lighting is dull but in the Taxi Driver the lighting was natural. The manner the director used mise en scene for Fight Club was representative of both the narrator personality and Tylers personality. For example the Mise en scene in Flight Club the narrators apartment is very face and sterile living in a place that is furnished by a IKEA and a his white-collar job. When the narrator is with Tyler the scenery is usually dirty and disorganized. When the narrator was himself he wss very dull and everything around him I very melancholy while Tyler is more flamboyant The Mise en scene in Taxi Driver showed how the streets of New York where very active by a lot of illegal activity. Taxi Driver has slow and deliberate shots that’s make feel the sadness and claustrophobic. Fight Club has fast pace editing and camera angles with hidden message spliced in the movie. In Taxi Driver the editing flowed more natural on a day to day basis while, the editing of Fight Club was more abrupt and there were more cuts and splicing. Although both movie displayed many similarities they also had very different styles representative of the decade both directors accomplished

displaying their own styles of cinematography.