Taxi Driver: Classic or dud

yeah i like that scene--they are talking past one another completely

But isn't that the exact scene that follows the "44 magnum" scene? Whatever "break" may have happened between the audience and Travis in the silhouette scene is probably made up for by his total vulnerability in the Wiz dialogue. Also, Scorcese also gives us other opportunities later on to re-bond with him, especially in that American Bandstand bit.

Part of this movie's power is that the audience's identification with the hero is always ambiguous. We always partly "root" for him, even when he's about to kill a presidential candidate in cold blood.

I really can't post my response to that last bit, surveillance being what it is these days.

heh

i think i remember reading around the time peter boyle died that his giving advice scene to travis was mostly improvised

Look, if you're really interested, if you give us your name and address, Morbius, we'll send you all the information on how to apply--how's that?

K-R-I-N-K-L-E

That bit was my intro to this movie. My Dad called me into the rec room to watch that scene since Fair Lawn wasn't far from where we lived. I think the next scene he blows away the robber? Anyway, I was hooked. Perhaps I'll relate this fond memory on my Father's Day card.

schrader has a way of writing dialogue that is almost revelatory in its awkward detail. but despite that sense of surface authenticity i feel like he often just doesn't _get_ the milieu he's writing about.

what milieu does he not get in taxi driver? the cabstand? the campaign office? 70s new york in toto? i guess i dont know enough to challenge the authenticity of it, but schrader at his best (=taxi driver) is so *psychologically* authentic that the rest doesnt matter to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcENNk-JLNU

amazing

somehow i am picturing burt lancaster as travis bickle

alas YT doesn't have Joe Flaherty's as Gregory Peck

You know, I had absolutely no idea that Arthur Bremer had been released from prison a couple of years ago; I was checking to see if he was even still alive, which is how I found out. I have to believe there's been no end to people trying to contact him about a documentary.

Every time I want out, they pull me back in.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/schrader.jpg

(Screening + Q&A.)

sweet

Taxi Driv

It's been quite a while since I last saw this, but as I look back at it what strikes me today is that its brilliance was in taking an excellent basic stucture, with a strong plot and characters, and then adding a dash of cartoonish overstatement to every single aspect of it, so that one could feel like it was both middlebrow and dramatic as, let's say Ghandi, while at the same time getting plenty of lowbrow thrills and yucks, like for example Dumb and Dumber.

ghandi meets dumb & dumber... yeah that sounds apt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeTAux3_VwI

gentlemen, I present you with... turds

u present your posts? bazinga!!!!

ghandi meets dumb & dumber... yeah that sounds apt

― turds (Hungry4Ass), Monday, April 15, 2013 2:22 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

dying

cartoonish, overstated, middlebrow, 'yucks and thrills' -- this is a good list of words that do not apply to taxi driver

http://nice-cool-pics.com/data/media/22/new_york_taxi__2004__queen_latifah__jimmy_fallon.jpg

i agree with aimless here: all those words apply to taxi driver, it is complete, shameless pulp, that doesn't miss an opportunity to luxuriate in its gritty subject matter, sometimes for "yucks and thrills". it's interesting though, because the film manages to both be suprarealistic -- almost frank miller territory -- and at the same time effectively thematize post-vietnam urban alienation. it's not a restrained movie by any means but it still manages to feel honest, not exploitative. that's why it's so great.

i don't like any other films by scorcese though.

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Business/images-6/dc-cab.jpg

Schrader was excellent last night. Very generous with his time--spoke and answered questions for around an hour after the film. I thought he might get a little impatient with Taxi Driver questions ("Where would Travis be today?")--that was the film that was showing, but he was really there to promote his new one--but no, he answered them all at length. Went into a long digression on how upside down everything is today: "We don't know what a movie is anymore." (Meaning that the nature of the industry has changed drastically, not that the audience is stupid. His upcoming film cost him, the screenwriter, and another backer $90,000 + some Kickstarter money. Yes, $90,000.) Got my DVD of Affliction and reprint Taxi Driver poster signed. I wanted to post a photo, but my friend didn't have her camera.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512CW9H4H9L.jpg

"Jodie Foster is Delightful"

opened 40 years ago

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/taxi-driver-40th-anniversary-five-films-influenced-scorseses

This is number 2 on my list of "great films" that I feel a little meh about, after Citizen Kane.

lol sorry I'm fronting I don't have a list

but probably the Big Sleep would be #3 and Chinatown #4, if I did.

really, fascinating

apple pie and *cheese* WTF. vom.

secretly down with #3 & #4, hysterically furious at #1 & #2

i'm going to stop reviving these for my own good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihHw3de86xs

The maxim never look at comments on YouTube goes 100-fold for this movie's clips.

Haven't watched the film in a few years, but thought I'd give Geoffrey Macnab's The Making of Taxi Driver a try. Not great by any means--primarily looking for interesting anecdotes, anyway, not analysis. Three I didn't know:

Foster's character is based on Garth Avery, who was hired as a consultant. She has a cameo, too--when Travis almost runs over Iris, Avery is the friend who pulls Iris away.

Keitel based his big monologue with Iris on...Barry White!

The make-up artist, Dick Smith (who did makeup for Hoffman in Little Big Man, Brando in The Godfather, and Blair/Von Sydow in The Exorcist), was distantly related to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Another one: Scorsese's role (44 Magnum and all that) was supposed to have been played by George Memmoli, Joey Clams in Mean Streets. Memmoli didn't show up the day his scene was supposed to have been shot.

"You know who lives there? A nook lives there."

"mook"

(I should only post from a desktop...)

Love the story that De Niro got the inspiration for the "You talkin' to me?" line from Bruce Springsteen, who used to say it as part of his between-song schtick.

I saw an episode of The Twilight Zone from 1960 the other day that features a shifty guy saying, "you talkin' to me?" twice, into a mirror no less, so I'd say that's a possible unconscious inspiration. The ep is called "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room"... A+ title

I figured Sometime Sweet Susan--Travis's inspired movie-date idea--would be famous enough because of Taxi Driver that getting hold of it via Amazon or YouTube would be easy. Not so.

Fun fact: This, the Lyric Theatre, is where Travis Bickle took Betsy to see the porno. Not much has changed pic.twitter.com/XqAYBC9UZn

— Matt Prigge (@mattprigge) November 7, 2019

rewatched it last night in the most recent (i think??) blu-ray release (40th anniversary restoration). looks great, the colors are just beautiful, and that coupled the graininess of the film and the absolute griminess of the atmosphere and Travis' disgusted/dreamy narration just really make this one of the most tactile viewing experiences of any movie. i feel like saying more about it but i tend to think of it as such a complete and immersive experience that it's difficult to pin down certain things thematically and separate them out from the whole.

ok i will say that Travis seems inconsistent but in ways that make complete sense to me, it being the journey of someone who is losing his mind. And everything that happens to him sets him down on his path. Also the film spends a lot of time making sure that while he's a character to have some sympathy for, we see that Travis is never wronged or misunderstood. The other characters react to him in ways that are entirely appropriate, bc he's a creepy fuckin guy. obv of course Scorsese/Schrader/De Niro really nailed him, he's such a great character.

Watched last night for the first time in many years, showed it to my 18-year-old son. Movie still packs a wallop. It actually felt more timely now than any of the previous times I've seen it, Travis feels like such an 8chan incel precursor/prototype. And all of the things that are supposed to be shocking and uncomfortable (the vicious racism, child prostitution, gun fetishism) only feel more unsettling now. (Also it sure is beautiful for an ugly movie.)

At the end, my somewhat blown-away son asked, "What was the moral of that?" I was hard-pressed to come up with a good answer.

Don't drive a taxi!

Yeah. Don't drive a taxi at night. Make some friends. Porn films aren't good for 1st dates. Also I guess, if you're going to go on a shooting spree, pimps are better targets than presidential candidates.