Film Still of Taxi Driver (1976)
Photo credit: Park Circus
Director： Martin Scorsese
United States/ 1976/ Colour/ DCP/ in English with Chinese subtitle
Travis Bickle is a Vietnam War veteran who became a taxi driver after his disorderly readjustment to life in America. Living a mundane and routine life, his heart fills with unspeakable angst as he drives along the glitzy streets of New York. Taxi Driver not only captures the essence of a city, suspending in time the good and bad sides of 70s New York; it also looks incisively at the interpersonal detachment, loneliness, and self-salvation in contemporary urban life. The screenwriter Paul Schrader described Travis Bickle as being trapped in an “iron coffin”: desperate to leave as he sees New York sink into the depths of depravity, Travis still manages to validate his own life with his actions. This screening will present a 4K restoration of the film, with brilliant images and impactful sound at the highest quality; so don’t miss out!
The artist in residency Leung Lee Chi will use Taxi Driver as a starting point to describe the relationship between the personal and the city as well as the wrestling of forces between social environments. She will also talk about her new writing project A Prisoner of Myself, initiated during her residency and discuss how a miniscule individual feels and reacts when helpless and bound.
*The event will be held under Free Seating. The artist’s talk will be conducted in Cantonese, with simultaneous interpretation from Cantonese to English available.
