Sayak Basu
5. Truman Show
Truman Show is at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to Taxi Driver in terms of mood, however, there is a thematic similarity between them under the surface. While Travis Bickle searches for coherence and the meaning of existence, Truman seems to become more and more aware that life all around him is not life but a simulation. His life is false and is a show for spectators. While Bickle loses his sanity trying to adjust to life, Truman is finally enlightened and sees the world for what it truly is.
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4. Network
Written by the great Paddy Chayefsky, Sidney Lumet’s 1976 magnum opus Network dealt a severe blow to how distanced and disenchanted newsreaders seem while reading out and sharing the daily news with the viewers, however sad or disturbing it may be. When veteran news anchor Howard Beale comes to know of the declining ratings of the TV channel where he presents the news, the next day he announces on live TV that he would commit suicide on the following Tuesday’s broadcast of the show. This sends a frenzy across all channels and viewers across the country and follows a series of events which show the depravity and animal nature of survival in the world of media. Network is a scathing attack on media, and much like Taxi Driver, on most of the ills of the 1970s. It is a must for any aspiring screenwriter as the brilliant writing of Chayefsky is one of the finest among all screenwriters of all time.
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3. Taxi
Iran’s most renowned film figure at the moment, Jafar Panahi has been banned by the Iranian government from making pictures for twenty years. He had made his two previous films This is Not a Film (2011) and closed Curtain (20130 in extreme secrecy. Taxi is shot entirely inside a taxi across the streets of Tehran. Panahi himself drives the vehicle around while passengers come in and leave, each having a story of her/his own. Panahi reveals the day to day lives of Iranians, their desires, their aspirations, their sorrows, joys and among everything, their will to live. Just like Travis Bickle discovers the underbelly of New York riding around in his taxi, Panahi here takes the viewers in a taxi ride across the heart of the common folks of Tehran.
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2. Apocalypse Now
Though Francis Ford Coppola’s name is synonymous with The Godfather series, he has also left the mark of his unique genius in other movies like The Conversation and definitely, Apocalypse Now. Travis’ crisis in Taxi Driver is his inability to relate to his city after spending a long time in Vietnam, fighting for the US army. In Apocalypse now, the lead character played by Martin Sheen is a soldier in the heart of the same war. He has been assigned to locate and kill a dangerous ex-US army official called Kurtz who has set up a cult somewhere in the middle of the Vietnamese swamps. In the heart of destruction and battle and the disregard for human life, Captain Wallard, the lead character keeps searching for his goal. The entire movie is an intense cinematic experience which any film lover must go through.
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1. 8 ½
Federico Fellini has mostly in his movies dealt with the world of showbiz and its many faces. 8 ½ is in this regard probably his greatest achievement. It is a movie about a filmmaker who is going through a creative block. There are many people around him who seem to apparently admire him and his work, but he is failing to relate to anyone of them. The film catches him at a point where he is going through a deep philosophical and moral crisis while shooting for a science fiction film. Semi-autobiographical and hard-hitting, 8 ½ is one man’s struggle in the world of glamour and affluence of the Italian movie business.
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