Taxi Driver review

Taxi Driver (1976)

Starring: Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Cybil Shepard.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Written by :Paul Schrader

Taxi Driver brought three of the most precious gems of cinema into prominence, namely Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese and the then 13 year old Jodie Foster who would go on to become one of the finest ever actresses.

This 1976 Martin Scorsese psychological thriller takes the viewer into a very different world, away from the candyfloss romances, away from the opulent surroundings, from the big dialogue mouthing mobsters or high school cheerleaders. It takes them into the mind of a frustrated and an unstable person who is becoming dangerously psychotic due to the filth that he sees around him.

Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) is the unlikely protagonist of the film who also serves as the film’s narrator. A discharged  Vietnam Vet with seemingly no professional or social skills, the 26 year old (the age he gives his employer) finds it almost impossible to adapt back into the society. He takes a job to drive a taxi in New York at night for 12 hour shifts both as a means to combat his insomnia and to give some direction to his empty and lonely life (Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man.) . His only activities other than driving the taxi are maintaining a diary (which is the narration of the film), watching pornographic films in seedy theatres and writing letters to his parents in which he blatantly lies about working with the secret service and being on important missions all the time.

He gets infatuated with a campaign volunteer Betsy (Cybil Shepard) and asks her out. He later takes her on a date and being socially inept, takes her to one of his frequented seedy theatres. She leaves offended and breaks off all contact with him. His attempts to reconcile with her end in his humiliation at her office which make him further shun himself from society.

Meanwhile, instead of calming him down, driving the taxi at late nights makes his mental condition worse as, owing to the odd hours , he sees the worst elements of the society at work. Most of his fares during that time too are from the underbelly of the society (Each night when I return the cab to the garage, I have to clean the cum off the back seat. Some nights, I clean off the blood). His mental instability makes him want to lash out at the decadence that he sees around him. He buys guns and starts intense physical training for someday that he perceives that he might have to fight the evil that he hates so much. One night, a twelve year old prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) gets into his cab and pleads him to help her get away, only to have her pimp Sport (Harvey Keitel) pull her out and throw a crumpled note on the backseat. Travis tracks Iris down by posing as her client only to discover to his dismay that she is very content with her life as a prostitute and has no intent of returning to her family. She says that she was stoned on the day when she tried to escape her pimp/lover. 

This breaks down any remaining sanity in Travis and saving Iris from this wretched life becomes his sole obsession. He loses all sanity, even trying to make a ridiculous attempt on the life of the presidential candidate (from which he barely escapes) for whom his former love interest Betsy is campaigning. Finally, he decides in the end to save Iris at any cost, paving way for a devastating climax.

Even after more than three decades of being made, this film remains the most harrowing portrayal of an unstable mind. Martin Scorsese pours his brilliance into the script in which the dialogues are the farthest thing from eloquent or flowery yet hard hitting. The film is painfully real and not for a moment is the viewer given any false hopes that things are going to get better and something good will surely come out in the end. The viewer knows the end cannot be any better and sadly goes with this unlikely protagonist on his march to the abyss. This film is rated highly by any director today worth his salt and remains an inspiration for any film student today who wants to make it big. One of them used to be Anurag Kashyap.

Robert DeNiro’s portrayal of Travis Bickle is superlatively brilliant. Much has been written about it and all I can add is that it’s a privilege to watch him live this role. He makes you feel disgusted, afraid, sympathetic and sorry for Travis all at the same time, because the viewer realizes that he too unknowingly wants to lash out at the evil all around him. Being a method actor, DeNiro drove a taxi in New York for a month for long hours in order to become Travis Bickle, instead of merely playing the role. The result is for all of us to see. Jodie Foster’s portrayal of the twelve year old drug addict hooker Iris is disturbingly awesome. The scene of her first meeting with Travis where she tells him that he’s got only fifteen minutes to do his thing is definitely not for someone raised on goody goody cinema.The rest of the supporting cast is effective as well.

The fact that Robert de Niro, Jodie Foster and Martin Scorsese did not win the Oscar for their performance or Taxi Driver didn’t win the best picture again proves that awards don’t go to the best films most of the times. 

Rarely does a film come which takes the viewers out of their comfort zone and make them see cinema for what it is, a fulfilling art and science instead of merely being a medium of entertainment. But when it does, you should not miss it. This timeless classic is applicable today as much as it was in the 70s, simply for the fact as its caption states that in every street in every city in the world, there is a nobody waiting to be a somebody.

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Gangs of Wasseypur 2 review

On a very occasions are the sequels much better than the first installment. This is one.

When Sardar Khan meets his gory end at the end of the first film, viewers are left wondering as to how the second part can hold the promise shown by the first, when the main tour de force now out of the story. All these doubts are swept away a few minutes into the second part as Faizal Khan steps effortlessly into Sardar Khan’s place. 

The film starts with Sardar Khan’s funeral, and two of his assailants being bumped off by his elder son Danish. A further ten minutes into the film, Danish himself is gunned down . This is a rude awakening for the other son Faizal (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) from his marijuana induced stupor, who begins by killing his friend ,a local politician  who had been a co planner  of Sardar’s murder and the co assailant of Danish.  He swiftly follows by gunning down the remaining killers of his father and brother and Wasseypur now has a new crime lord. He makes a conditional arrangement with MLA Ramadhir Singh, the man who has defacto been the cause of deaths of his own father and brother so that  the local administration does not come in the way of his illegal activities. With the help of this truce, Faizal makes the gang into a crime syndicate, ruling the town with an iron hand having gone from Kattas to Kalashnikovs and having a cut in everything from scrap sales to government contracts. He seems to be unstoppable, his only weakness being his lust for easy money in copious amounts which plays the major role in his eventual end.

Enter Definite (Zeeshan Qadri), Sardar Khan’s son by other marriage who will prove to be Faizal’s nemesis. Having grown up under Ramadhir’s influence, his attitude is both of contempt and awe for Faizal. He gets into Faizal’s gang and quickly rises through it, but he is also in touch with Ramadhir to do his bidding in weakening the Khan household and having their empire to himself. He does everything to please Faizal, including carrying out a deadly attack on Shamshad Alam (Rajkumar Yadav), a local businessman and collaborator with Faizal who had double crossed Faizal and got him arrested. Ramadhir gets  another mole to infiltrate Faizal’s gang, who initially makes him great profit as far as bagging govt contracts, causing him to ignore Definite and Definite in turn gets embittered and starts dismantling Faizal’s network, with the help of Ramadhir and JP,  while being a part of it. In the end, it is revealed that JP and Definite have an agenda of their own as Ramadhir is as big a nuisance for his son JP as Faizal.

Much has been written about Nawazuddin Siddiquis great  performance but the surprise package of this film is as in the first, Tigmanshu Dhulia as Ramadhir Singh and Zeeshan Qadri (also the writer) as Definite. Rest  of the cast is brilliant as well with Richa Sharma effortlessly playing the role of the sixty year old Nagma . Pankaj Tripathi as Sultan Qureshi,  Piyush Mishra as Farhan, Aditya Kumar  as Perpendicular and Satya Pal JP are great as well in their short time on the screen. Devoid of stars, it gives us pleasures of pure acting performances.

The film provides many comic reliefs in between the gore that is spilled like the abuse laced conversation between the assailants who are going to carry out a hit on Sultan to the funny moments between Faizal and his wife Mohsina (Huma Qureshi). On the other end are chilling sequences like local shopkeepers pooling in resources to give a ransom for the murder of the Faizal’s school going brother Perpendicular, who has been looting their shops or that of Sultan, who coolly shoots his own sister, Danish’s  widow when he goes for an all out attack on Faizal’s remaining family.

The sequel scores over the first part because unlike the first, it does not have to build up the background of the story and can get on with it straightaway. Earthy expletive laced dialogues seem more realistic than the eloquent urdu laced utterances of conventional Bollywood fare.  Simple but effective dialogues like Ramadhir Singh explaining how people will continue to remain c***** as long as there are films are memorable and that itself is the USP of the film, realism and showing us an India which we conveniently choose to ignore from our bubble wrapped surroundings. The film does have its weak links like over characterization (over 300 speaking parts in both the films) and being a little lengthy and detailed. 

And last but not the least, Sneha Khanwalkar’s minimalist unconventional music which combines tradition and imperfection to give a never before effect, the tracks “Chi Cha Ledar” and “Kala Re” being most notable.

This one (along with the first) definitely carries on the tradition set by The Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino, Scarface and The Departed, again reaffirming the fact that talent in filmmaking is with the independent productions and not Bollywood.

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Weeding to save the crops is communal

Assam keeps burning and, as usual ,the country sleeps. The current riots (more than 100 killed and more than 400000 displaced; official figures) are not the first and they certainly are not going to be the last. The Indian media does not care because it is not worth their effort and resources to cover the happenings in a state which is not even in the consciousness of most of their viewers. The jantaa is not worried because the north eastern states are not in their idea of India. As for the political parties, all the seven states in north east account for just about 20 seats in the Lok Sabha so it is not worthwhile for them to think about the welfare of these areas, and leave them to the mercy of Bangladeshis, Separatists and Missionaries.

East Bengal’s attraction for goes back more than a century. Even during the proposed partition of Bengal in 1905, the Muslim League had demanded Bange-Islam, on the targets of which was to flood sparsely populated Assam with Bengali Muslims. During the second world war, Md Sadaudaula the then premier of Assam , gave a big influx to this infiltration.Mujib ur Rehman, the former Muslim league gangster who became the first prime minister of Bangladesh and who is the "secular" doyen according to the secular intelligentsia ,had always coveted the mineral rich wealth of Assam (“Eastern Pakistan must include Assam to be financially and economically strong.”). He had  remarked that very slowly, but surely the Bengali Muslims through the demographic growth would overwhelm Assam one day. On the other hand, Gopinath Bordoloi, the first CM of Assam in independent India,who being  Gandhian was oblivious to all these dangers as the bloodbath just a few years ago and the resulting partition had failed to open the eyes of his likes and hence he saw the influx as something of coexistence.

Mujib ur Rehman is not alive today but he would have been delighted that the Bangladeshi population  is being given more than just help for capturing Assam by the power hungry politicians of India's grand old party.It is no secret that Congress Party has encouraged and abetted illegal immigration of Bangladeshis to build their vote bank in Assam. Dev Kant Barua (one who said India is Indira and Indira is India) had famously remarked that the party would be in power as long as the Alis (Bangladeshi migrants) and Coolies (tea garden labourers) are there. For over three decades now, Bangladeshi immigrants have been helped to cross the border, given citizenship, ration cards and localities to stay permanently in Assam. They have just one job to do, that is to vote for Congress. Rest all is taken care of. The census was not even carried out in Assam  as the extent of Bangladeshi infiltration is to be kept secret. But it is no secret now that over one third of Assam population today are Bangladeshi Muslims.

We have reached a phase now where the entire north eastern part of the country being ingested by Bangladesh is a very frightening reality and not just a nightmare. And it is the secular govt of independent India who is to be blamed for this, which has steadfastly allowed and encouraged the infiltration of Bangladeshis to India to such an extent that today 2-4 percent of India's population is of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants.

Separatist organizations like ULFA have heavily targetted the non Assamese population but they do not lay a finger on Bangladeshis in return for a safe haven in Bangladesh.There are already MLAs of Bangladeshi origin in Assam Assembly who make it sure that their brethren are in comfort in India. More than one fifth of the 294 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal have a high concentration of voters who happen to be illegal immigrants from  Bangladesh  in addition to the fate of 40 Assembly seats in Assam depending on the votes cast by illegal Bangladeshi  infiltrators. The day is not far when there will be Bangladeshi MLAs in other states of the country as well. Or a Bangladeshi Chief Minister of Assam. Or a Bangladeshi Mayor of  Navi Mumbai.It will prove our secular credentials.

These immigrants have not only become the defacto citizens of India, but have proved to be more than a thorn in the flesh. They are heavily into criminal activities across all states in India which includes robbery, theft, illegal trafficking of narcotic drugs and liquor, smuggling of pornographic films and vulgar literature. In many rural areas of WB and Assam, it is them who have the ownership of most of the land which is mostly captured by driving away the original inhabitants from them. India's north eastern border is very porous, add to that the various smuggling, prostitution, narcotics, rings that operate between the two countries. Illegal immigrants always manage to get in,either by collaborating inhabitants of the border villages or by bribing the paramilitary forces in many instances. The paramilitary forces themselves come under attack from the immigrants with many cases of loss of lives which is promptly ignored by the secular media. In many villages, the Bangladeshis cross over from the border, sell their wares in India and by night return again.

  

Even in Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura the Bangladeshis have married the local women in large numbers and as a result, a new people have been brought into existence, who retain the name of their mother’s clan inspite of being sired by Bangladeshi fathers. Using their wives ST status, the Bangladeshi husbands are able to purchase vast tracts of land which are normally reserved for the “janjaati”. The havoc caused by all this is seen in Nagaland where the majority of the labour force is now Bangladeshis, who also occupy most of the shops in the main markets of Kohima (In fact more than three fourths of the local businesses are now no longer in local hands). More than three fourths of the markets remain closed during Muslim festivals/observances. There have been many protests on this but they are quelled down when the Bangladeshis threaten to discontinue the safe haven given to Naga separatists.

In April 1992 Hiteshwar Saikia, then Chief Minister of Assam, said on the floor of the State Assembly that there were about 3 million illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in the State. The Muslim United Front leaders declared that he must withdraw his statement within 48 hours- or they would bring his government DOWN.  Saikia withdrew his statement

During his tenure, the then governor of Assam, Lt Gen (retd) SK Sinha had submitted a detailed 42 page report to the President in Nov 1998, the salient points of which are given below:-

“ Large scale illegal migration from East Pakistan/ Bangladesh over several decades has been altering the demographic complexion of this State. It poses a grave threat both to the identity of the Assamese people and to our national security. Successive governments at the center and in the State have not adequately met this challenge- -. I felt it is my bounden duty to the Nation and the State I have sworn to serve, to place before you this report on the dangers arising from the continuing silent demographic invasion.”

" The unabated influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh---,  threatens to reduce the Assamese to a minority in their own State, as happened in Tripura and Sikkim.The long-cherished design of Greater East Pakistan/  Bangladesh,making inroads ito the strategic land-link of Assam with the rest of the country, can lead to severing the entire land mass of the North-East- - -- from the rest of the country. This will have disastrous economic and strategic consequences.”

"  This silent and invidious demographic invasion of Assam may result in the loss of geostrategically vital districts of Lower Assam. The influx of  these illegal migrants is turning these districts into a Muslim majority region. IT WILL THEN ONLY BE A MATTER OF TIME WHEN A DEMAND FOR THEIR MERGER WITH BANGLADESH MAY BE MADE. THE RAPID GROWTH OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM MAY PROVIDE THE DRIVING FORCE FOR THIS DEMAND. IN THIS CONTEXT IT IS PERTINENT THAT BANGLADESH HAS LONG DISCARDED SECULARISM AND HAS CHOSEN TO BECOME AN ISLAMIC STATE. LOSS OF LOWER ASSAM WILL SEVERE THE ENTIRE LAND MASS OF THE NORTH-EAST FROM THE REST OF INDIA- - -. “

 15 recommendations were made by him, including effective border fencing, ID cards, updating the national register of citizens and repealing the Illegal Migrants (Determination of Tribunals Act), which applied to Assam and was causing massive migration. He also recommended that the migrants which were not recognized as Bangladeshis by the then Sheikh Hasina Wajed govt should be declared as stateless citizens and their voting rights should be revoked.

 The result? Twenty Congress MLAs in Assam wrote to the President demanding Lt Gen Sinha’s ouster from the post of Assam’s Governor. The Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi issued press statements stating that the governor’s actions were “constitutional impropriety”.

(Late) Lt General Jameel Mehmood, GOC Eastern Command in the 90s had warned both the chief ministers of WB and Assam (Jyoti Basu and Tarun Gogoi, respectively) that “if action was not taken against the Bangladeshi infiltrators, we would have to redraw the boundaries of India in the Northeast.”He had also written to the Army HQ that a Kashmir like situation cannot be ruled out in near future.

The result? Zero, as expected.

Nagaland Chief Minister has time and again reported various incidents of Bangladesh migrants being given combat training in the jungles of Assam and Nagaland from Naga separatists. This has been ignored as well.

Inspite of the Supreme Court cancelling the IMDT Act in 2005, the govt brought it again through the back door by amending the Foreigners Act. The Guwahati High court has already declared, via a judgement on 23/07/2008, the Bangladeshi migrants being kingmakers, with 11 out of 27 districts in Assam having a migrant majority. The ironically named All India United Democratic Front is the second largest party in the Assam State Assembly today. It is run by and voted to power by the migrant factions and its influence is growing everyday, with them garnering the support of minorities all over the country.

A third islamic nation is all set to be carved out from the easternmost part of India when the time is ripe. And we don't give a rat's a or a flying f about it.

Sometimes one wonders, what is it that will spring us into action? Live  gang rapes and murders in every neighbourhood everyday? A direct action day type scenario in some city every month? Or a nuclear attack on a major metropolitan city by either of our beloved neighbours?

What kind of a depraved people are we who produce such leadership who think of nothing in allowing immigration at the cost of the rights and safety of the local population for the sake of a few hundred thousand votes?

What kind of society have we become that produces and elects such leaders whose vision does not extend beyond the next election, whose only objective is to make as much  money as possible when in power and to siphon resources from whatever is in their immediate reach, whose only talent lies in winning elections, whose only capability lies in blocking roads and taking out processions, whose only constructive work is creating lobbies and votebanks, who have no desire to build a strong nation or an efficient and a meritocratic society.

The sad part is that the entire society in the country today operates by selfishness and short sighted petty gains. Leaders, civil servants and the police are merely the ghastly mirrors in which the society sees its ugly face every now and then and vehemently denies that the horrid face which stares back is theirs. The only reason that the voters cast their vote is for freebies like reservations and sops which their propped up leaders promise them when they come to power.

Hence minority appeasement and caste politics are more important than development and national security. Populist measures are more important than justice. Political correctness is more important than truth. Self denial is more important than desire to progress.

Fate has already been more than generous to us. Entire people have been wiped out for much lesser follies. But ours dont seem to end and its just a matter of time when the patience of fate runs out as well.

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What you see is what I want

You are reading a very interesting book. When you reach the hundredth page, you find out that someone has torn out the next twenty pages. You discover further that five pages have been torn out after every fifty pages. How would you feel?

This is what censorship feels like to a film viewer.

It makes him feel that he is watching a defaced version of a work of art, that what he is watching is a patchwork instead of a flow, that he is being forced to watch only what someone thinks is good for him to watch.

Censorship is when the state authority decides that what their citizens must watch and what they must not watch. It affirms the fact that though you are old enough to earn your living, to buy and sell property, to pour some pegs of daaru down your throat, to sire or bear children or vote for the next government of your country, you arent old enough to choose what you should watch for your entertainment. So let the moral guardians nominated by the Mai Baap Sarkaar decide that, after all they know what is the best for you.

We might be told that we are the citizens of the largest democracy in the world, but censorship makes us feel that we dwell in a Communist regime or a Shariah ruled state.

The Censor Board of India is run by the Cinematography Act, 1952 which has not been amended. It probably assumes that something like cinema does not undergo change so it is alright if the law dating back to the time of India's first parliamentary election is continued for all time to come by bunch of so called imminent senior citizens who can be anyone from a businessman with a few connections to a washed out faded star of the 1950s who still views the world in Eastmancolor.

It is these scissory ladies and gentlemen who sit and brood over all the new films that come, cutting and snipping anything that they deem objectionable. Objectionable content is everything other than a script which has a joint family of two hundred who break into a song and dance very ten minutes.

The latest amusing curse to hit the movies is the government's obsession with smoking ills. So you see blurred squares over the villians or hero's mouth where the cigarette should have been. According to them, we will not know that they are smoking on screen. Really smart.

The films are further butchered when they are shown on television because the channel heads , following the rules of the I&B ministry ,make the Censor Board personnel look like liberals.

  

So off goes all the swearwords, everything from the a word , the b word, the f word and the c word (both in english and hindi hehe). As a result any of our favourite gangster films, cop films or war films sound like a semi-mute film when shown on television. Still, they show The Departed or Reservoir Dogs on TV, which without cuss words are as incoherent as baby talk.

Off  goes the excessive violence and blood. So you are not shown any scenes where the person gets shot in the head or chest or is decapitated. You are to know that the character is dead and his death is not shown cause you can faint from the blood.  Some concerned individuals had even suggested that violence from cartoons like Tom and Jerry should also be edited out. If only one could put their likes in straightjacket and throw them in a padded room. Visual media certainly are not meant for them.

Off go all those much hyped beach and bedroom scenes. Cut them out, even if it mars the continuity of the film and reduces it from two hours to 45 mins.

Why show these films on television at all then? Why butcher a good movie for your own self righteousness and make a fool out of the viewer? He can watch it on DVD instead. The movie channels should only stick to Disney classics or the Bollywood family drama. Because according to the rule makers a family of two hundred celebrating a wedding every fortnight is more realistic than a person smoking or a steamy scene.

Or on the other hand ban the offending film altogether if the makers do not agree to chop it to the censor board's taste. This is what happened to films like Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2012). And they will not be the last.

We have come a long way from the days when the makers of Gone with the Wind (1937) were fined for using the word "damn" in Clark Gable's last line of the film. But seems that Indian Censor Board still has the mentality seen in the days of witch hunting and inquisitions.

Do these people even realize that a child today is exposed to more filth than an adult was twenty years ago? One cannot "censor" the swearwords hurled at him, the pornography that he views on the net or the grotesque ideas planted in his/her head by peer pressure. Censoring visual content in cinema and television is only a cosmetic measure. The wiseguys who say that TV increases crime have to open their eyes to the fact that the worst crimes of the most deprived nature from gruesome murders to rapes and pedophilia and juvenile crimes happen very commonly in places where people have no access to any visual media.

Censorship is worse than piracy because it defaces the film. Piracy copies the film illegally but does not mutilate it atleast. Cutting out dialogues and entire scenes just because a bunch of people deems it offensive is insult to the viewers and to the the medium of cinema itself. When the films are already categorized as U, PG and A, what is the use of further cutting it when you have to show it in a cinema hall or later on TV? Why cannot we have rating based films classification as they have it in USA like G, PG, 12,15 and 18?  
 

Censorship has no place in a free democratic society. Because when you say democracy, you have no place for big brother. And we need to define our definition of vulgarity and what is the real corrupting influence on people. 

It is not a naked woman / gory death / expletive laced politically incorrect dialogue onscreen that is harmful for the social well being.

The real harmful things are the various "family" teleserials which are making zombies out of their largely women audiences through their archaic portrayal of society and glorification of gaudy characters.

The real harmful things are the superflous romantic films which have screwed their target audience so much that a lot of problems of todays students involve around relationships and break ups.

The real harmful things are the films made with criminal and underworld money which glorify terrorism and anarchy  and promote cheapness in the name of art.

The real harmful things are the horrendous ads ranging from the misleading information to the racist fairness creams to the overall plan of making everyone follow a hedonistic consumerism based lifestyle.

The real harmful things are the so called news channels that sell only sensationalism and surrogate pornography and paid news instead of showing real news.

Why doesn't anyone think about censoring these?

 

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