Taxi Driver (1954): Film Noir UK
Sun 13 Nov
|Arnolfini, Bristol
Time & Location
13 Nov 2022, 14:00
Arnolfini, Bristol, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA, UK
About the Event
Director: Chetan Anand
Starring: Dev Anand, Kalpana Kartik, Sheila Ramani
133mins / IN / PG / Hindi (with English subtitles)
Dev Anand stars as taxi driver Mangal (known as Hero) in this unique entry in the classic Hindi film noir canon.
Mangal’s cab is our opportunity to tour post-Independence Mumbai, with the film’s extensive location footage earning the city a starring credit in the opening titles. Recalling and reworking international traditions of cinematic realism, Taxi Driver offers an unusually gritty glimpse of lives at the margins of Indian society. It’s also one of several films noirs to present Dev Anand with two distinct heroines: Kalpana Karthik as Mala, the innocent newcomer seeking stardom in the big city, and Sheila Ramani as the vampish Anglo-Indian cabaret performer Sylvie.
Like other Hindi films noirs, crime genre elements sit alongside comedy, romance, melodrama, and popular musical numbers that earned S. D. Burman the…