MARTIN SCORSESE’S CHARACTER DRIVEN FILMS: THE STUDY OF MAIN PROTAGONISTS IN TAXI DRIVER (1976) AND RAGING BULL (1980)

Martin Scorsese is a crucial figure in American cinema, and one of the few filmmakers who has possessed the gift to skillfully adapt genres and themes throughout the decades by making them thoroughly contemporary. Since his first appearance on the American film scene, this director’s corpus of films has been remarkable as he has successfully merged the commercial and the exploitative. This paper explores how the themes of violence, ethnicity, masculinity, and Catholicism have influenced Scorsese as a filmmaker, as well as the construction of his lead protagonists in Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980). Scorsese’s characters are conflicted, constantly seeking redemption, and are central to the plots of his film, which makes these aforementioned films essentially character-driven.Keywords: Scorsese, violence, Catholicism, masculinity, redemption