Taxi Driver: Classic or dud

They just showed that 'A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies' thing on TCM again. Totally absorbing stuff, especially considering half the films are obscure b-pictures no one's ever heard of.

Well, it means (or at least was supposed to convey) that Travis has not changed at all and that he is going to do something violent again.

OK, this is what I thought until I paid a lot of attention to it last night - if you notice, after he does the double take he's suddenly out of Betsy's uptown quiet neighborhood and back on the same street he was driving in at the point that I would think the "dream" segment would start if it was as such. Either there was a time lapse between the first look and the double take or he's "waking up". So now it's annoying me. I mean I'd certainly explain why Travis didn't freaking DIE from the gushing wound in his neck during the shootout.

Note: I don't necessarily agree with the people who think it was a dream.

And I'm curious as to how the ending of Goodfellas is dreamlike. I don't understand that claim - it's pretty straightforward, and kind of pathetic (his monologue), but not dreamlike...

Is there a diff is I guess the important question.

Taxi Driver is his best film. At least my favorite. I still find new things in it and I've seen it at least twenty times.

It's like people who say they don't care for the architect Rem Koolhaas. I mean, shit, Delirious New York and Taxi Driver are two of my favorite homages to the city.

Cybil Sheperd never looked better. They can never touch her. Notice that Marty is on the steps when she walks by in that one sequence. Later, Marty appears in the cab. Remember that part?

Why the fuck is the storekeeper who Travis saved from the armed robber wearing a Tulane ringer t-shirt?

Would a cabbie like the Wizard know anything about Bertrand Russell?

Look at the 70's fonts and graphics on the trucks on the street.

The seedy streets never looked better on film.

The part at the end, the "double-take" sound loop is beautiful.

So many things about that film. Ex-Tennis Star is absolutely correct in his comment above.

This just got a new DVD release (and it topped ILE top movie of the 70s poll). Let's talk some more about the film..

These are the good parts: the first scene with the dispatcher, most solo activity in the apartment or cab with narration, any scene with harvey keitel, the scene with the senator in the cab, botched hold-up, the bickle/secret service agent conversation, some scenes with jodie foster--others are too proto-Dakota Fanning for me to enjoy.

The rest of the film is mediocre. I think the Cybill Shepherd plot is boring, as are the conversations with the other cabbies. The two worst parts of the film are Scorsese's pussy-magnum speech in the cab--what is the point of the scene except to give Scorsese some freaky film time? there's no character or story development; bickle doesn't even speak-- and the awful, bombastic survey of the showdown aftermath at the end of the film (with overblown music), which almost ruins the movie for me.

i don't think the film is crap. it just bugs me to read (as I did in recent reviews for the DVD) that it's "arguably the greatest film of all time" etc. and i don't see how someone could want to watch it 20 times. the script shows its age the most, i think.

it's "arguably the greatest film of all time" etc. and i don't see how someone could want to watch it 20 times

not that I think it's the greatest film of anything, but what would re-watchability have to do with anything?

I don't want to watch Raging Bull over and over, either, because it's a painful movie to watch... but it's supposed to be. If you don't recall reflexively, you weren't paying attention.

recoil, not recall

this is way subjective, but some movies have more replay potential if there's elements of density (zodiac!) or humor or mastery or eroticism etc, and Taxi Driver doesn't seem like one of those films to me. of course, i can see how someone else wouldn't want to watch Ninja Scroll 15 times.

oh. wait. i didn't mean to suggest a connection between "greatest film of all time" and how many times you'd want to watch something. two separate thoughts.

Great music. I like Peter Boyle in it. A lot. So much so that I watched Raymond once. The other cabbie/Scorsese scenes are, y'know, a quotidien beats kinda thing.

Just saw Harsh Times, which is a Taxi Driver remake with a buddy film thrown in.

my favorite moment of the film comes right after de niro shoots keitel. he walks down the block then just sits on a stoop.

the point of the scorsese scene is that it gives bickle the idea to go buy a gun.

i like taxi driver more than any of the other "easy riders raging bulls" type uber-macho classics. de niro did a great job deepening the character of travis bickle (as written, he's a pretty two-dimensional character - ); what's really horrifying in the movie isn't the violence, it's how boyish and gleeful he gets about it. the charmer chatting up cybill, the awkward newbie asking advice from peter boyle, the yokel pelting the secret service guy with questions - all inseparable from the lunatic pointing a gun at his reflection.

i also think scorsese did a terrific job giving us a strong sense of everything that's going on outside bickle's self-contained little world. the scene with cybill and albert brooks talking in the campaign office seems superfluous at first, but it's there because it reminds you that THIS is everything travis can't have: an utterly casual and unremarkable conversation with a friend. bickle almost never has a real conversation with anyone; he's either playing the goofball rube or trying to save some woman he's idealized from afar. the talk he has with iris is heartbreaking because it's the only genuine connection he manages to establish in the whole movie - he even jokes around with her; "i AM a narc" - and of course he instantly destroys it by "saving" her.

the movie builds beautifully; there's so many individual scenes that stand out to me. the scene with bickle watching "american bandstand" has always particularly moved me for some reason.

there are ugly currents running through the movie, of course. bickle's racism (indicated in an ongoing series of long, silent shots which indicate he's staring at a black fellow cabbie) is obvious, but never explored. schrader's script contains huge dollops of misogyny, but scorsese was smart enough to make iris the movie's most sympathetic character.

the score, of course, is unforgettable; herrmann at his best.

bickle's racism (indicated in an ongoing series of long, silent shots which indicate he's staring at a black fellow cabbie) is obvious, but never explored

I think it's explored plenty, as in his silence and stillness when it's reflected back at him in the Passenger Scorsese scene. (ie, totally disagree w/ poortheatre)

JD absolutely OTM.

JD OTM, poortheatere NOTM, and most everything that needs saying's already been said. A damn near perfect film. Scorsese's best, DiNiro's best, Herrman's best. Not to slight the cinematography & editing. Opening w/ cab rolling out of the fog on rain-slick streets, muted trumpets boiling in behind = one of the finest and most mysteriously terrifying shots I've ever seen. I love this movie so much, I want to eat it. As though it were a cat or a small dog.

or oatmeal with whiskey

I've seen Taxi Driver at least 20 times. And it keeps getting funnier every time I see it.

I like the remake better (The King of Comedy)

King of Comedy is tops.

the scene with cybill and albert brooks talking in the campaign office seems superfluous at first, but it's there because it reminds you that THIS is everything travis can't have: an utterly casual and unremarkable conversation with a friend.

nice!

Do you think it bothers Jodie Foster that she hasn't changed a bit - face, voice, mannerisms - in 30 years?

I think she sleeps okay.

At least she's not a botox monster.

the recent DVD documentary is amazing with this. paul schrader comes across as a very smart fellow. you almost need to watch the doc to counter-balance all the negativity slung around about the players/ makers in EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS.

"Falling down" is a lot wittier and heartfelt

!

So ridiculously better than Raging Bull and Goodfellas combined.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IumwPicacM

Saw this for the 29th or 37th time last night, introduced by Liam Lacey, a daily critic in Toronto. Something I never knew: the whole adrenelin-shot-to-the-heart bit from Pulp Fiction originated with Steven Prince, Easy Andy in Taxi Driver and subject of Scorsese's All-American Boy.

Scorsese & Schrader on restoration for BluRay -- Marty on RWF's influence:

It’s way over my head, in that sense. The Fassbinder stuff, I just don’t get.... But the thing about Merchant of Four Seasons was that it had a kind of brutal honesty about the way the camera looked at the characters — at the actors — and not necessarily the melodramatic scenes. And it just made me realize that you could do anything, really. Just anything, as long as you feel honest about it. It’s an honest image. It’s like a police photo — a crime scene photo.

http://www.movieline.com/2011/03/it-was-all-unsaid-martin-scorsese-and-paul-schrader-talk-35-years-of-taxi-driver.php

http://checkingonmysausages.blogspot.com/2011/01/writing-while-watching-taxi-driver.html

I think it's getting a theatrical rerelease too. I see this in the theater any time I can. My favorite part is when DeNiro tells Foster "you're the one that's square, man, you're the square!"

Travis Bickle: I should get one of those signs that says "One of these days I'm gonna get organezized".
Betsy: You mean organized?
Travis Bickle: Organezized. Organezized. It's a joke. O-R-G-A-N-E-Z-I-Z-E-D...
Betsy: Oh, you mean organezized. Like those little signs they have in offices that says, "Thimk"?

And then there's the punchline where Travis actually gets the sign and has it up in his apartment.

The scene with Sport & Iris alone in their room--this is taking place in Travis's imagination, right? The obvious giveaway is the record player playing the theme song. The dialog is not what you'd expect a guy like Sport to say to his 12 year old girlfriend, either. It's really the only scene in the whole film that is not from Travis's perspective, and I don't see it in Schrader's script.

hi

definitely not a fantasy, imo -- it parallels the earlier scenes with betsy and albert brooks, which also aren't from travis's perspective.

the sport-iris scene is also one of the very best scenes in the movie, it's like a mini-movie in itself.

I don't have any proof beyond an opinion, but I've never even considered the possibility that the Sport/Iris scene isn't for real. Based on what we see of Sport elsewhere, his slimy sweet-talk to Iris seems perfectly in character. I'm guessing you're contrasting his behaviour with the way he roughs her up when she tries to get away earlier, but seeing as he's trying to make sure she doesn't attempt something similar again, I don't see that as being inconsistent. (When Cybill Shepherd and Albert Brooks talk for the first time--Brooks trying to light the match and all that--I wouldn't quite say that's from Travis's perspective. He's parked in his cab outside, true, but we're right inside the office, hearing and seeing them in a way that he can't.)

Don't most of the Betsy scenes happen just as Travis is walking in or about to walk in and, hence, would be watching from the window? (Interesting theory anyway.)

I think the second and third time that's true, when he asks her out and again when he and Brooks scuffle, but the first time, I see that scene as being outside of his perspective.

But yes, it's an interesting theory. I've always partially subscribed to the theory that the final scene, where he picks up Betsy, might be a fantasy of Travis's.

For the record, I was wrong about the script--it is in there. And yes my point about Travis's perspective was that in the Sport/Iris scene he's completely removed from the action, but the Betsy/Albert Brooks scenes he's nearby. There's definitely some interesting parallels there between those scenes.

Another thing that struck me after not seeing the film for many years is that for all its technical brilliance, some of the sound editing is not very good. The scene outside of the porno theater when Betsy leaves the date has at least two lines of dialogue from Cybill Shepard that are essentially inaudible. And when Albert Brooks is telling the story about the canary and smashes his fist into his hand, it sounds like the Three Stooges. A couple of other minor things. But I think it's all made up for in the shootout scene, which has amazing sound--how often in a film do you hear bullets echo throughout a hallway the way they do here? It really sounds like a true shootout, not some video game.

JD is otm upthread about the "American Bandstand" part. That may be the best scene in the whole thing. It's unbelievably heartbreaking.

For what it's worth, Tarantino, in his book, disputes that Travis was ever actually a vet--thinks it's another of his fantasies, and that he bought his jacket at a surplus store.

After his chapter on Taxi Driver, the next chapter is "What if De Palma had directed Taxi Driver?" (It's well known that he was the first person the script was offered to.) Not nearly as interesting as the title promises.

I revere De Palma well above Scorsese and Friedkin, but I'm glad he didn't get either Taxi Driver or Cruising.

There was one studio request that Scorsese acceded to (willingly--sounds like he was uncomfortable with the script as written too) that Tarantino believes De Palma wouldn't have: in Schrader's original script, every single person Travis kills is African American, including Sport.

https://snakkle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/taxi-GC.jpg

I think, as related by Tarantino, De Palma's reasoning was that Scorsese let Travis off the hook somewhat by softening his racism.

i’ve always been a fan of this movie, lately i’ve decided my favorite part is his self help monologue

June twenty-ninth. I gotta get in shape. Too much sitting has ruined my body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long. From now on there will be 50 pushups each morning, 50 pullups. There will be no more pills, no more bad food, no more destroyers of my body. From now on will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight

“every muscle must be tight” always cracks me up

My take is that Travis isn’t really let off the hook, as his racism is there and clearly simmering, but it’s just part of his larger nebulous anger, aimed at whoever crosses his path in the wrong way at the wrong time.

His exercise routine sounds like regurgitated Jordan Peterson advice.

Scorsese made the right call; the racism is there and plain as day for those who have working eyes, but it's not the text, and ergo won't be easily either affirmed or rejected, depending on the audience member's own personal biases

The other factor, of course, is that making Sport white allowed him to cast Keitel. The racism is definitely there and can't be missed, but it seems to have been much harsher in Schrader's original script.

Does anyone else feel that the narration doesn't feel credible coming from the character we see on the screen? I think Robert Kolker saw that as part of an intentional fragmentation of Bickle's self; to me, it always felt like the narration came from a conception (Schrader's) that was a lot closer to Bresson's country priest than what Scorsese and DeNiro were creating.

I had the impression that Bickle had maybe read a bunch of pulp adventure novels while he was in Vietnam, and was regurgitating them. The kind of adventure novels where the author details all of the weapons, as per this series from the early 1980s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivalist_(novel_series)

The kind of novels where the US government is evil and the hero is a massive racist who fetishises the idea of Native Americans as proud warrior savages.

Taxi Driver is one of those really good films I have seen once and have no desire to see again. I went into it dimly aware that it was some kind of classic cop/gangster film from the 1970s, and I remember having much the same reaction as the chap above who is often referred to as the Duke of Saxony. e.g. it wasn't what I expected from a Martin Scorsese film starring Robert De Niro.

I was expecting something like the lines Harry Enfield's Badfellas but with a taxi. But it's genuinely grim and uncomfortable. Bickle is a really unusual character. He has the same kind of victim complex as the people who idolised Rambo in the 1980s. I'm thinking specifically of Michael Ryan. I was confused by the ending as well. Like a lot of people. It might work if his lawyer had been able to persuade the jury that Bickle had acted in self-defence, but that would have been a heck of a stretch.

On the other hand I can imagine why Bickle turned out the way he did. At the same time the film could easily have been a vigilante fantasy in which our hero snaps and dispenses justice after being wronged for ninety minutes, but it doesn't do that. I remember reading somewhere that taxi drivers were still killed in large numbers in New York right up until the 1990s. e.g. this story here:
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/24/nyregion/gypsy-cabs-a-hard-chancy-life-on-the-side-streets-of-new-york.html

"Thirteen years after his hopeful arrival, Mr. Amara's life ended at the wheel of his cab, about five blocks from his home. He died last month face-down, a single .22-caliber bullet in his chest, on the hard streets from which he had tried to wrest a living.

He became another grim statistic as assaults and slayings of gypsy- and livery-cab drivers have become common in New York City. There have been 26 livery- and gypsy-cab drivers slain so far this year, compared with 30 in 1991, 32 in 1990 and 28 in 1989, according to the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission."

And presumably dozens more were shot in the arms and not killed. The thought of Friends coexisting with taxi drivers being killed by the dozen feels wrong somehow.

I think the narration is a Travis fantasy of how he’s disciplined and is a truth teller and is brave and also shows his somewhat dangerous idealization of women, pedastaling them up to a height they can’t possibly fulfill when he interacts with them. It’s childlike fantasy.

The victim complex is interesting since he is charming and good looking enough to a point where he can get a date with Betsy by simply working up some bravado and intriguing her, but the details and nuances of how to get beyond that elude him, and he’s totally lost. And when Betsy correctly flees, it’s due to his own lack of understanding, his own sabotaging the situation. What makes it sad is that he’s been set adrift in life at some point, unprepared to handle adult relationships and anything other than menial gigs. It’s maybe no mistake that the person he connects with most easily is Iris; he’s stuck in adolescence.

The irony of the ending is that Travis just happened to target some truly despicable characters who could easily be written off by society, and this ending was only possible bc he failed at killing a political candidate. It had a bit to do with who they were and what they did, but if he’d walked into that campaign office at the same point in his downfall he might’ve shot up that place instead of a pimp hostel.

What continues to be amazing to me about this film is that it’s genuinely beautiful, the music and gauzy colors at night and methodical pace really cast a spell.

I’d say the first time I saw the film I appreciated it but when I saw a 20th anniversary screening in NYC (good audience to see it with) it really hit home. And its continued to do that moreso over time, as I mentioned upthread the most recent blu-ray looks amazing and I understand that character a lot more.

What continues to be amazing to me about this film is that it’s genuinely beautiful, the music and gauzy colors at night and methodical pace really cast a spell.

― omar little, Wednesday, December 28, 2022

yes!

Great posts.

The genius of the film is how it’s pitched for maximum dissonance, gorgeous visuals and score, charismatic actors and dialogue, telling a story which is fucked up and psychotic as if it were a beautiful tragedy.

The beauty of the movie is something that is almost astonishing to behold after years of it having been misunderstood and represented in media incorrectly. I think the emptiness of something like Joker which aspires to that supposed scuzzy Taxi Driver-via-King of Comedy Scorsese vibe is that Joker is an ugly film making empty gestures by depicting this washed out dirty setting and Scorsese makes a beautiful poetic kind of film out of it. Joker had a “dorm room poster of Travis holding a .357 magnum in Taxi Driver/I saw the movie once” understanding of its inspirational material.

I was most struck by its visual beauty when I saw what was obviously a restored print some time in the '90s or maybe early '00s. I'd been seeing deteriorating rep-theatre prints for a couple of decades before that.

(I did like the way Joker played off against Taxi Driver and King of Comedy, though.)

I mean there are worse ways that film could have turned out, it wasn’t anything I found really worthwhile but better that than Jared Leto’s joker interpretation being made into a solo vehicle.