The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: Taxi Driver
written by Paul Schrader
Taxi Driver is a dark drama about a man who
goes over the edge -- and in so doing, becomes an unlikely hero.
Structural Analysis
- Hook (1-3 min.)
- An insomniac, Travis, talks himself into a job driving cab. He is
a haunting figure of a man -- and this is a character hook.
- Complication (8 min.)
- Travis passes a woman on the street, who walks into the political
campaign headquarters where she works. He sees her as an angel in the
sordid mess all around him.
- Call to Action (18 min.)
- Travis gets up nerve to barge into the campaign headquarters, meet
the woman (Betsy) and talk himself into a date.
- Act One Plot Point (33-6 min.)
- He makes the mistake of taking Betsy to a porno movie. She leaves
in a huff and refuses to go out with him again.
- Midpoint Plot Point (53-6 min.)
- Travis rises out of funk and depression after losing Betsy to prepare
for war. He buys weapons, builds contraptions that hide them on his body,
and works himself into great physical shape. He clearly is preparing for
something.
- Act Two Plot Point (95-7 min.)
- But his attempt to assassinate the senator for whom Betsy works fails
when he is spotted. Instead he goes on a rampage against the pimp of an
underage prostitute he has befriended, killing him and ending up in a
shootout at the rooming house the young prostitute works out of, getting
severely wounded himself.
- Climax and Resolution (105-7 min.)
- Travis becomes a hero in the press and to the young prostitute's
parents, who reunite with her and get her back in school. When Betsy
climbs into his cab, making overtures that she might want to see him again,
he drives off before she can pay her fare.
Notes
This is an intense study of a troubled man, and there are very few moments
when Travis is not in the focus of a scene. The antagonist here is the
dreariness and decay of the urban center, the "scum" his taxi drives
through each night. Has Travis made some peace with the world and himself
after this strange journey to becoming a hero? The film leaves the answer
ambiguous.
MODULE 4:
SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting
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