It’s common knowledge among most people who know me well that Taxi Driver is my all time #1 favorite movie (with Blue Velvet at a close 2nd place). And no matter how many new or old movies I discover in my lifetime I don’t ever see it being bumped from the #1 spot. Outside of my reference to it in my Claire Dolan review I realized that I have yet to actually write about it. I think part of the reason I haven’t written about Taxi Driver is because over the years it’s becoming more and more known for that one famous line ("You Talkin' To Me?") instead of its overall brilliance and I didn't wanna waste my time writing about a great movie that a lot of people don't fully appreciate. It’s also become one of those classic movies that people are supposed to like just because it stars Deniro and was directed by Scorsese in his prime. This kinda stuff automatically makes people defiant and not like it as much. But there's so much more to Taxi Driver than "You Talkin' To Me?" Writing about this movie is both; cliché (how many reviews, essays and blog entries have been done on this movie to date?) AND intimidating (although there are tons of pointless writings & reviews on Taxi Driver, many great things have been written about it by people far more qualified than me). Seriously, what’s left to write about or analyze when it comes to Taxi Driver? We should all know its influence and impact on cinema. Who hasn’t borrowed or downright stolen from it? The subway scene in Kids where the man is playing the accordion could easily be traced right back to the random scene from Taxi Driver where the greasy guy is playing drums on the corner. That momentary focus on something so random clearly had an impact on Harmony Korine (and I realize Larry Clarke directed Kids, but that scene is totally a Harmony Korine moment). The cinematography and claustrophobic apartment setting (which was influenced by Bresson's early work) clearly had an influence on Jim Jarmusch's early work like Stranger Than Paradise and Permanent Vacation. There's even a scene in Bobcat Goldthwait's recent film 'God Bless America' that recreates the scene from Taxi Driver when Travis goes to purchase guns from the shady salesman. And let’s not forget its pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the careers of Abel Ferrera and Quentin Tarantino (yeah, I said it. what?). Taxi Driver kinda started that film genre of vigilantism in the big apple. Death Wish, Ms. 45 (Abel Ferrara), Defiance and many more all came from Taxi Driver. And there are numerous other films & filmmakers that this movie clearly had an impact on like Lodge Kerrigan (Keane & Claire Dolan), Aki Kaurismaki (Shadows In Paradise) and even Nicolas Winding Refn (Fear X & Drive). The Travis Bickle character alone inspired a generation of crazy shaved head white guys from Ed Norton in American History X to Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers (which was written by Tarantino). Taxi Driver even started the on-going beef between Paul Schrader and Vincent Gallo (Paul Schrader felt Buffalo 66 stole from Taxi Driver and he denounced the film which obviously didn’t sit well with Prince Vince). Had there been no Taxi Driver there wouldn’t have been shows like HBO's Taxicab Confessions. I mean let’s be honest, so many of Travis' encounters in his taxi could easily be episodes of that show (people having sex in the back seat, an unstable man spying on his cheating wife with plans to kill her, a child prostitute trying to get away from her pimp, etc)...
Taxi Driver is the story of a former marine-turned cabbie ("Travis Bickle" - played by Robert Deniro in his prime) and his slip in to insanity due to the gritty & grimey environment around him. After a series of events that either don’t go his way (a date with the woman of his dreams that goes horribly wrong) or just push his buttons (observing the way people live amongst each other in NYC) he's finally pushed over the edge when he crosses path with a teenage prostitute ("Iris" - played by a young Jodie Foster) and sets out a plan to "save" her (*TRAVIS SAVES*) from her pimp ("Sport" - played by Harvey Keitel) and for whatever reason kill presidential candidate Senator Charles Palentine as well. He doesn’t succeed in killing Charles Palentine but by the end of the film he does in fact save Iris in a bloody shootout. A common misconception about Travis Bickle is that he isn’t already a little "off" at the start of the movie and the events we see in the movie cause him to go crazy. Not exactly. From the opening shot (after the credits) when we see Travis at the cab station trying to get a job we know he isn’t all there. Even his grin isn’t normal. In the first 15 minutes of the film we get that he's a loner, has limited social skills (but he manages to get by), he zones out, isn’t the smartest guy in the world and he goes to porn theaters in the middle of the day as if he's catching a regular matinee. No normal person functions like that. All New York City does to Travis is heighten his depression and violent side to the point where he acts on it. Actually, New York City is kinda like a character itself that fuels the fire inside of Travis and pushes him over the edge. What’s great is that Scorsese & Schrader didn’t use Travis' military background as the source for his instability. Him being a marine is only mentioned once at the beginning and later on when we see him wearing a marines t-shirt, but that’s it. Unlike future films like Full Metal Jacket or Rambo, there's no tortured ex-soldier pushed too far or having a flashback about 'Nam or basic training and going off the deep end. Another misconception about Travis Bickle is that he represents the "everyman" (this is something I hear all the time). Ehh, not really. I mean...shit, I hope not. I’m sure right now as you read this there's some angry guy on the verge of insanity that you and I walk past every day (probably somewhere in New York City) sitting alone in his apartment stewing and waiting for the perfect moment to snap, but average people don’t do that and that's not what/who Taxi Driver represents. Who Taxi Driver represents is "Mr. Nobody". Although Taxi Driver is my favorite movie and I think it’s one of the closest things to perfection, I personally don’t really relate to Travis outside of his growing hatred for New York City (now THAT we DO see eye-to-eye on). I don’t love Taxi Driver because I think Travis is "cool" (like I imagine so many people do). I don’t sit alone in my apartment zoning out in front of a television with violent thoughts in my head, I don’t build homemade weapons in my spare time, I don’t have plans to assassinate a presidential candidate and I don’t have a strange unexplained aggression towards black people. So I genuinely hope this doesn’t represent the average "everyman". But at the same time he does represent that person in the service industry we don’t think twice about or just associate with the job they do (or car they drive in Travis's case) and not as an actual person.
Travis Bickle is one of the most iconic antiheroes of cinema. People know they shouldn't root for him but for whatever reason they do.These two scenes below kinda capture a lot of Travis Bickle's qualities. Watch his unexplained aggression towards someone black at the very beginning of the first video and at 1:39 in the second video (Originally the role of sport was supposed to be black but was eventually played by Harvey Keitel to not give the film a distracting racist subtext). Watch how he just zones out at 2:12 in the second video, or his urge to want to do something bad in the first video.
For those of you who haven't had the chance to see the special features on Robert Bresson's Pickpocket as well as the making of documentary on the Taxi Driver DVD, Paul Schrader gives some insight in to how it inspired him to write Taxi Driver, specifically the small apartment and living conditions of the main character. Isolation and loneliness are two huge factors in Taxi Driver and Travis' apartment is the center of that loneliness. There's even a line in the film - "Loneliness has followed me my whole life". To this day I cringe when I hear people say "You Talkin' To Me?" because it’s almost like they got nothing else from the movie or that scene in particular. Do people realize how amazing that scene is and how it shows the dark side of loneliness? We're watching someone essentially crack up right before our eyes in this small tiny apartment. Outside of the Bresson influence, Travis' relationship with his apartment falls right in line with other similar films like Repulsion, The Tenant and even The Shining where we see people crack up from loneliness and isolation...
Taxi Driver takes place during an interesting and overlooked time in New York City (1975/76) when it was on the verge of hip-hop culture, punk rock, the no-wave scene, Reaganomics, the crack epidemic, etc. I guess that's why the film was preserved in the national film registry almost twenty years ago. Its that strange period in New York City's history where many big things were on the verge of happening. Shortly after the events of Taxi Driver take place all these things blew up in New York City (and eventually the world). And the AIDS epidemic and wall street yuppies were just around the corner as well. Although I would probably commit suicide and take a few people with me if there was EVER a sequel to Taxi Driver, it would be interesting to see NYC through the eyes of Travis Bickle (picking up a young kid with a green Mohawk, a group of breakdancers or even Andy Warhol). I guess we'll have to use our imagination on that one.
