#41 TAXI DRIVER

"Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm god's lonely man."-Travis Bickle

"All the animals come out at night. Whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies. Sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets."- Travis Bickle

"He's a prophet and a pusher, partly truth, partly fiction; a walking contradiction."-Betsy to Travis (A line from a Kris Kristofferson song.)



In "Taxi Driver", Martin Scorcese and Robert Deniro have teamed up to tell the story of a lonely outsider named Travis Bickle, living in a world of violence. The atypical plot focuses on the gradual descent of this man into madness through the immersion into the violence that he abhors. Its a brilliant exploration of a lonely outsider, lost, stagnant, aimless. He's like an empty vessel that gradually gets filled by the violence and darkness that, even though he detests, he gravitates towards. Travis Bickle comes from violence as a Vietnam veteran, and possibly from before that. I imagine that he experienced terrible things in Vietnam and there are things inside himself, dark places, that instead of looking at, he projects outwards. Some of the areas of the city are already so dark and violent to begin with that it gradually pushes him into a violent madness. His mind is the darkness of the city and the city is the darkness of his mind, and especially in the sinister dwellings of New York City that is a very combustible thing.

The combination of Scorcese's vision with the camera, Paul Schrader's phenomenal screenplay, a killer performance by Robert Deniro, and a great score by Bernard Herrman make all of this so potent and alive.

The movie opens with an awesome shot of an eerie cloud of steam that fills the screen. In a closeup a cab drives through the cloud in slow motion. In the background are slow basey horns that feel very film noir. It feels like the cab is either descending from or into the underworld. Travis, throughout the movie, more than once will pass through this same cloud of steam and it will always foreshadow an entry into the dark places of the city. In this one symbolic opening sequence Scorcese reveals a lot of the mood and meaning of the film. It's not quite as potent as the opening sequence in "Apocalypse Now" but it is still quite hypnotic and has a special place in my heart as a great artistic cinematic moment.

The movie begins with Travis Bickle getting a job driving a taxi on the night shift, 6pm-6am sometimes seven days a week. He can't sleep and he needs some kind of structure, something to occupy his time and his mind. Most of the movie is told in voiceover similar to the style of a classic film noir, and this movie is a film noir but not your typical one. Some examples of a typical film noir would be the bad guys are after the protagonist, or the protagonist is protecting a woman and a shitstorm may come down on him as a result, or the character is trapped with seemingly no way out. In "Taxi Driver" its more like there is something incredibly unsettling about this man, and it feels like something bad could happen, and it continues to feel more and more like that as the film progresses until he crosses the line and pops. So much of that feeling of darkness, of uncertainty, of feeling trapped that is usually found in the dark cities of the film noir universe are found in the landscape of Travis's psyche.

You see again and again that he is an outsider, someone who doesn't quite know how to fit in, and when he tries to it often goes wrong and he gets rejected. In the first scene of the movie he's trying to make a joke with the Taxi Garage Manager and it falls flat and he gets rejected.

Manager- "How's your driving record?"
Travis- "It's clean. Very clean. Clean as my conscience." (smiles creepily)
Manager- "You gonna break my chops? I get enough trouble with these guys breaking my chops all the time. If you're gonna break my chops you can take it on the arches."

He's awkward. Deep down he feels like the world is out to get him so there's a defensiveness there, and he never learned how to properly socialize, being an outsider. So when he tries to connect it often comes out strange or creepy.

As will be seen repeatedly when Travis is feeling scorned, pissed, or just overall very activated, the camera comes in close and hovers over him. You can feel a mixture of intense emotions. It's Scorsese's way of making sure that we not only understand what's going on through the acting, dialogue, and story, but by putting that camera there you feel more of this character's experience and when he uses the same technique at other times you recognize it and have an even better idea what's going on with this character. You experience more of Travis Bickle.

Not long after this he is at a porno theatre and he's trying to make conversation with the teller by asking her name, and once again it doesn't work and she calls the manager. Later, when talking to a pimp, played very well by Harvey Keitel, the pimp makes fun of him, plays around with him, and calls him square. Travis's biggest rejection in the film comes after he has succeeded in asking out Betsy, a campaign worker for a presidential candidate named Palantine, that he falls for.

His whole experience with Betsy sums up a lot about this character. When he first sees her he feels like she is a perfect angel, and its as if they are meant to be together. When he talks to her over coffee he says strange things to her. Nice things but strange things, and you feel a little uncomfortable and embarassed for him. He, in the scene over coffee, reminded me of Norman Bates from "Psycho" when he's talking to Marion Crane over dinner. During this time he is lighter, happier. The score has a pleasant jazziness. He sees couples together rather than pimps and hookers. His viewpoint of the city is reflective of his mood and what's inside of him. He has someone. He's not alone. As he's walking to a date with Betsy he's shown in slow motion, all dressed up, in the middle of a crowd of people. He's not an outsider. He has someone. He also adopts the political candidate that Betsy is working for as someone who is great. Things begin to crumble as he unwittingly takes Betsy on a date to a porno movie. She leaves the theater after only a few minutes. He feels like he's doing the right thing. This is the world he lives in. In his world couples go to pornos and its ok. She won't return his phone calls and then Betsy the angel becomes Betsy the devil.

"I realize now how much she's just like the others, cold and distant, many people like that. Women for sure. They're like a union."

The presidential candidate Palantine that Betsy works for goes from being Palantine the great to Palantine the terrible. Travis's mind is made up of exaggerated extremes. He organizes his experience in such a way that he can justify the resulting violence. With Betsy he doesn't have to feel his loneliness and rejection so much if he creates a devil out of this onetime angel. With Palantine he has a justification now for the violence that's been aching to come out of him. As the movie progresses Travis's feeling of isolation and rejection is coupled with his immersion into the seedy parts of the city and he experiences more and more of the violence. He seeks out the violence because he has violence within him and the violence that he unconsciously seeks out creates even more violence within. It's a vicious cycle. These dark parts of the city are so vivid and alive. This is reality. You see the hookers and the pimps, and yelling and screaming. You hear a black man screaming at the top of his lungs "I'm gonna kill that bitch. I'm gonna kill that bitch." You see all the red light districts and you experience it in his cab as well. Scorsese in a cameo plays a man who is telling Travis graphically that he's going to kill his wife and how he's going to do it. So it all builds to a crescendo. Deep down he really just wants to kill someone. It's bubbling inside of him. When he realizes what he must do and begins his mission of assassinating Palantine he meets with a man who sells illegal unlicensed guns. He loads up on four of them and aims one out the window at innocent bystanders. In his apartment later he points the gun at people on tv. There's a great moment in a scene where he's sitting in a porno theatre and pointing the gun at the screen. He then periodically, with his hand against his forehead, covers his eyes with a finger and then removes it. He detests the porno yet he wants to watch. He's a walking contradiction.

Scorsese really lets the camera be a key element in describing this character. When he's driving his cab the camera is never just steady. It pans up to street lamps, pans down to just show the road. It sometimes continually just focuses on the passing streetlights. It feels unsteady and endless, like he's caught in a terrible loop. There are two separate scenes in the same diner that use a number of devices to show Travis's experience. In the first scene he's sitting in the diner with some of his fellow cabbies and he notices some black pimps in the back of the diner. The camera, like I mentioned before, gets right in close and kind of hovers over him. Soon after he puts some antacid in a glass of water and it's sizzling- the camera gets closer and closer to his face, coming from slightly underneath him. He looks like he's about to lose it. This is happening right after another cabbie (doughboy) is asking him if he wants a piece (gun). The camera gets close in on his face and then down closer and closer to the sizzling glass. Without a word we know what Travis is feeling. He's about to blow. Later, in another scene at the same diner, he is leaving with another cabbie (wizard) and the black cabbie sitting at the table points a finger like a gun at him and says "bye killer" as he smirks. Once again the camera is close in on Travis. When they get outside he sees a young black kid with a funky hat walking down the street and Bickle is framed in the red glow of the diner. The camera moves a little slower and stays on Travis as he follows the kid with his bad-ass gaze.

So often in the movie you see the reflection of Travis's eyes looking in his rearview mirror. It's a great way to viscerally show the reaction to some of the darkness he encounters. You feel a mixture of his fear and rage, and you can see a violence in those eyes. He's looking at dark, scary, violent things but in the mirror you can see these things in him, especially in the scene where he first meets Iris, the 12 year old prostitute he eventually tries to save, played by Jody Foster in an oscar nominated performance. Iris gets in the backseat of the cab and tells him to quickly get them away from there. Her pimp then comes in after her and pulls her out of the cab. The whole time there's a closeup of Travis's eyes in the rearview mirror. They are shrouded in darkness and you can see the mixture of fear, rage, and violence in them. You feel his reaction to the situation and, with such complexity, see the violence that he's reacting to in his own eyes. I also love the use of the rearview mirror repeatedly because the mirror gives us a clearer image of Travis's shadow and the fact that so much of what Travis is seeing and experiencing in the cab is distorted because the rearview mirror inherently reveals things slightly differently than they actually are.

I'll also mention some other moments in the film that I love. I love the shot when Travis is leaving the room in the tenament where he's been spending time with Iris for the first time. He looks down a hallway and the far end of it is completely dark. The tenament manager comes out of the darkness towards him to collect his money and then turns around and disappears back into the darkness like a troll returning to its cave. There is a great shot earlier in the film of Travis's cab going through a fire hydrant spray and then in slow motion the windshield wipers swiping the water away. It looks and feels just like the cab is in a car wash. It's perfect because he's ending his shift, wiping away the filth. In one of the great moments in the film Travis is finally talking to Betsy after she has repeatedly not answered his phone calls. He's in a phone booth inside a building and as the conversation continues and its clear he's getting rejected the camera moves to the right away from Travis until it's just looking down an empty hallway. It really reveals the loneliness of Travis in that moment and shows that this moment is too painful for us to watch. We shouldn't be watching him. Another great moment is when Travis is watching his tv which is resting on an egg crate. He's slowly tipping the tv back and forth with his foot. It feels like at any moment the tv is going to crash to the ground and it finally does and he puts his hands over his face. He's had it. This is Travis's world. It's not the world where people sit around on a comfy sofa, watch tv and things are predictable. It's a world in which things don't feel comfortable, safe, or predictable, where a television which often serves as a surrogate mother is unstable.

So i've come this far and haven't specifically mentioned Robert Deniro's performance. Wow. One of the greats. Travis Bickle has become an iconic character in our pop culture. I don't know if anyone else could've pulled off what he pulled off. I think part of it is that Deniro knew the streets. He spent a lot of time on the streets of Little Italy and other places in New York city and understood the effect of the city and a lot of the people that live there. Also, like Scorsese, Deniro grew up as a shy outsider. Both of them collaberating together understand what it's like to be an outsider. Both embraced cinema as a place of belonging. Deniro gives such a complex, nuanced performance in this movie. In the scene where he's asking Betsy out he reveals a man who is trying to have a swagger, who's trying to appear confident and suave, but you can see the fear and uncertainty underneath. This is why Deniro is so good in this movie. It's almost like he's not even acting, but truly embodying this character. His character shifts throughout the film. He's more quite and hesitant early on, then becomes more and more agitated until he becomes a killer in the end. Once he has his mohawk he is a different person. You can really see it when he's talking to the secret service man a little before the assassination attempt. He has this fucked up smile and he talks a little faster and with more confidence. He's a man who knows who he is and what he's going to do, and he's so much different than Travis in the beginning but its still Deniro. Deniro has this way throughout most of the movie of portraying a strange, awkward loner who is deeply affected by his inner and outer environment. It's not easy to do all of this and be riveting. I mean he's in almost every scene of the movie. The entire movie is about this man. This man is the movie and because Deniro is such an incredible actor and reveals so much authenticity in his performance you're riveted.

The final third of the movie is really its own entity. It's more typical in story and structure than the rest. It's a man on a mission.
"Listen you fuckers. You screwheads. Here's a man who would not take it any more. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is someone who stood up." Travis is clear. He knows what his purpose is and he's prepared to die. I think he wants to. He loads up on guns, and becomes a killing machine. He's seen putting his fists over an open flame, he's got an extensive workout regiment of situps, pullups, etc., and he creates a sling device so that he can keep a gun underneath his sleeve and at a seconds notice sling it right into his hand. This is when you get the famous "Taxi Driver" moment of Travis talking to a mirror.

"You talking to me? You talking to me? You talking to me? Well then who the hell else are you talking to? Me? You talking to me? Well i'm the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?"

He fails in his assassination attempt of Palantine. He never gets close enough. Maybe because he stands out like a sore thumb with the mohawk and army jacket, and because he appeared so strange and suspicious when he foolishly talked to the secret service agent earlier. He quickly redirects his rage. He's going to be the savior of Iris, the 12 year old prostitute who he befriends and wants to help. He will vanquish her oppressors who will be representitive of all of the scum.

In the final act the color of the movie changes. The saturation is different, somewhere between color and black and white. This was intentional so that the gore at the end didn't feel so graphic, but it really works because it should be this way. This is his release, his act of violence, and the color palette on the screen should be darker. It adds to the overall mood. He shoots Iris's pimp in the gut, proceeds into the tenament, shoots the tenament managers hand, blowing off most of his fingers , Keitel comes in after him and shoots him in the neck, and this time Travis shoots him in the chest. He shoots Keitel again just to be sure and shoots the manager in the chest. After the head pimp sneaks up on him and shoots him in the arm Travis uses his sling gun and shoots him about seven times. All of this is very real. Nothing is held back. This is Travis's operatic release. This is representative of all the violence eating away at him throughout the movie. There has to be an explosion and it has to be volcanic. To me the most intense part of this scene is when the manager continues to chase after and crawl after Travis, agonized and pissed. "You crazy son of a bitch. I'll kill you. I'll kill you. He catches up to Travis and wrestles with him and he's slapping him with his one hand because his other is just about blown away. That is just such an intense violent image. Travis then stabs him in his good hand and shoots him. Fucking christ. A total bloodbath. As the police are coming in there's a continual looping dreamlike harp playing in the score and a periodic dramatic horn section. The camera is directly overhead looking down. It really adds to the impact of what just happened and it just looks really cool. This is the violence that the whole film was leading up to and it seems fitting that the camera should be high up looking down almost like a divine witness. It starts in the final room and slowly makes it's way down the stairs to the front door, witnessing every detail of this act. The camera travels outside the tenament and there are large crowds gathering and the dramatic horn section plays periodically along with the dreamlike looping harp. Everything seems so real and with the harp and the overhead shot it also feels a little dreamlike which I think represents the state of mind that Travis is in. As if he's saying to himself "Holy fuck. Did that just happen? Did I really do that?"

Ironically Travis is made a hero for this violence. He vanquished the villains even though they represented a justification more than anything else. The important thing to Travis was the violence itself but he gets rewarded and Iris ends up home with her parents. In the film's final moment Travis is driving his cab again, seemingly chill now that he's had his release, but there's another closeup of his eyes in the rearview mirror shrouded in black. The violence and darkness is still in there. It's just a matter of time until it comes out again. The last shot is of him doing kind of a double take into the rearview mirror and it's hard to tell but either he saw something that bothered him which also supports the idea that he's going to blow again at some point or it almost looked like he saw himself in the rearview. If that's the case it would be really interesting because in an earlier scene he's having breakfast with Iris and at some point in the conversation she says "You should look at your own eyeballs once in a while." Sooner or later he has to.