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Taxi Driver



cast :

Robert De Niro
Jodie Foster
Harvey Keitel
Cybill Shepherd
Peter Boyle

crew :

Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Written by: Paul Schrader
Produced by: Julia Phillips, Michael Phillips
DOP: Michael Chapman
Editor: Tom Rolf, Melvin Shaprio
Music Score by: Bernard Herrmann

release date :

1976

One of the most iconic openings of 1970’s cinema is of a taxicab emerging through a dense cloud of New York City smog. In a ghost-like fashion, it exits the screen leaving behind the words ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976). It may only last a few seconds, but the image is as powerful as the opening attack in ‘Jaws’ (1975) and the Star Destroyer’s overhead arrival in ‘Star Wars’ (1977). Accompanied by Bernard Herrmann’s swelling score, it is an opening which allows us a glimpse into the world of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) – a disturbed Vietnam veteran unable to adjust back into a society that does not want him.


Since the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam in 1975 there have been many cinematic attempts of portraying the conflict and the US marine. Films such as ‘The Deer Hunter’ (1978), ‘Apocalypse Now’ (1979) and ‘Platoon’ (1986) have all successfully recaptured the grim reality and madness of the American War and the emotional effect it had on its many veterans. Ranked as some of American cinema’s finest achievements, these films brought home the harsh reality of the suffering troops whilst at the same time criticized America’s involvement in Southeast Asia.


Many of these films were directed with the anti-establishment attitude of the 1960s where the US government was under increasing public hostility due to the war and assignations of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. In turn this led the way for America’s younger generation to be heard and represented in movie theatres by directors such as Arthur Penn, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. Many of the conventional aspects of filmmaking from the 40s and 50s where being made redundant in favour of an edgier, more independent vision to become known as ‘The New Hollywood Era’; Penn’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (1967) raised the bar in terms of screen violence whilst ‘Easy Rider’, directed by Dennis Hopper (1969), introduced avant-garde and the French New Wave experience to mainstream American cinemagoers. A new golden era of US cinema was well and truly underway.


Perhaps the most famous graduate of the NYU film school, Martin Scorsese first hit the big time with ‘Mean Streets’ (1973). Focusing on the life and crimes of Italian American blue-collar guys, it portrayed the everyday experiences of Brooklyn, New York and the struggle of its troubled individuals within society. Comfortable with representing the environment he grew up in, Scorsese next turned his attention to Paul Schrader’s screenplay entitled ‘Taxi Driver’, where the psychological effects of the Vietnam War were brought to big screen in the most shocking of ways.


Set in post-Vietnam Era New York City, ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976) stars Robert De Niro as the lonely, sleep-deprived Travis Bickle. After riding the streets on buses and the subway, he decides to take control of his own destinations and becomes a night-time taxi driver. From here on in – and more importantly through Travis’ eyes, we are taken to hell and back on a cab journey no one would want to pay for.


There have been two very specific portrayals of the Vietnam veteran on screen: Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo in ‘Rambo: First Blood’ (1982) and Tom Cruise’s Ron Kovic in ‘Born on the 4th of July’ (1989). Whilst Ron Kovic was a humble, yet angry wheelchair bound activist campaigning against the war and the American government, John Rambo was more of a testosterone-fuelled caricature of American force and aggression. Both however would not exist without De Niro’s Travis Bickle with his blend of composed frustration accompanied by acts of extreme violence. This suggests that a veteran’s portrayal on screen tended to be a mixture of frustrated aggression emerging from a concealment of psychological decay and rejection from society. In Taxi Driver, this is what happens to Travis Bickle.


With its restricted narration, ‘Taxi Driver’ is the examination of a slow descend into the unknown. Travis is clearly a man on the edge whose only way of expressing himself is through acts of extreme violence brought on by rejection and hatred of everyone around him. On his first night riding his cab, Bickle’s voice-over longs for ‘a real rain to come and wash all this scum off the streets.’ It almost seems strange that a man who lacks the appropriate social skills should want a job chauffeuring people around. Then again, Travis is just one of the many troubled individuals roaming the city’s streets. The hookers, the pimps and the junkies who all swamp the sidewalks are – to Travis, the type of people who belong in hell. Yet at the same time you get the sense that Travis is also fascinated by these nocturnal creatures, and how they – unlike him, all seem to have meaning in their lives. Travis’ luck it seems begins to change when he introduces himself to Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) – a pretty blonde who works in the presidential campaign office. After admiring her from his cab, Travis plucks up the courage and asks her out. Even though we know enough to suggest that Travis is a disturbed individual, we now feel relieved as well as pleased that he is trying to live life again. We are surprised at first to discover that Travis is quite assertive in her company all be it awkwardly, leading her to proclaim… ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you.’ Buoyed up with his newfound confidence, Travis asks Betsy for a second date – a trip the movies; intrigued, she accepts. It is from this moment on that his descend into hell begins. After Travis is eventually rebuffed by Betsy for taking her to a porn film, his alienation grows more intense. ‘I realise now, how much she is just like the others, cold and distant’ Travis states afterwards. His next step is after being rejected by society; he must now destroy it. This leads him to an unsuccessful assassination attempt of the presidential candidate Betsy was campaigning for, which in turn leads him to Jodie Foster’s child prostitute Iris, and his quest to rescue her from her smooth-talking pimp Sport, played by Harvey Keitel. To Travis who has now lost all sense of reality, this is what he has been searching for – a meaning in his life after ‘Nam’.


As Travis’ psychological state deteriorates his physical appearance and image improves dramatically. Early on in the film we see Travis on many occasions in his apartment surrounded by junk food, pills and alcohol. From these images it is clear that Travis is rotting from the inside out – suffocating his soul. It is not until his quest of assassinating the presidential candidate that Travis realises that ‘…too much abuse has gone on long enough.’ He begins to work out in his apartment. Push-ups, pull-ups help tone every muscle on his scar-inflicted body. He is once again preparing for a mission – preparing to go to war. The importance of this mission is exaggerated further by Travis’ Mohawk haircut – presumably acquired by secret service agents on ‘special assignments’ serving in Vietnam. With his physical transformation complete, Travis is now back fighting in another version of Southeast Asia. Instead, this time taxi cabs double up as armoured vehicles roaming concrete jungles as they hunt the communists disguised as politicians and pimps.


Although Travis’ appearance is now worryingly on show, what Scorsese and De Niro still manage to do is humanise our protagonist. Despite Travis’ crude language and constant racial and sexual prejudices’, we still feel a sense of sorrow for him, and we still want him to succeed. Even with his own invention of a propelling gun attached to his forearm – an extended mechanical weapon to what is already a killing machine; we continue to see Travis as a man when standing in front of his mirror – not a monster. In keeping with this, the end of the film leads us to believe that Travis has become a media hero for rescuing Iris from her pimp. First, we see newspaper clippings hailing Travis’ bravery and courage, whilst a letter told in voice-over from Iris’ parents’ thanks him for returning their daughter. This confirms Travis’ presumable recuperation from his killing spree. Presumable in the sense that many argue Travis does in fact shoot himself after the bloodbath, and what we see from this short sequence is his last and final thoughts – his dying fantasy. This is still open to debate, but what is certain is that ‘Taxi Driver’ doesn’t provide a resolution to the problems it portrays. There is no indication on Travis’ behalf to suggest that he has or will ever fully recovered psychologically from both his recent ordeal and Vietnam. The film never implies Travis will eventually get better or become a better person; instead, what we see is a society and government’s failure to answer the sickness it breeds.


A distinct landmark in American cinema, ‘Taxi Driver’ is both disturbing and up close in its depiction of 1970s New York. An era in which the nightmares of Vietnam are only a cab ride away. A modern classic.


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Country: USA
Budget:
Length: 113mins


Filmography:
‘Born on the 4th of July’, 1989, Oliver Stone, Ixtlan
‘Rambo: First Blood’, 1982, Ted Kotcheff, Anabasis N.V.
‘Mean Streets’, 1973, Martin Scorsese, Taplin - Perry - Scorsese Productions
‘Bonnie and Clyde’, 1967, Arthur Penn, Tatira-Hiller Productions
‘Easy Rider’, 1969, Dennis Hopper, Columbia Pictures Corporation
‘Apocalypse Now’, 1979, Francis Ford Coppola, Zoetrope Studios
'The Deer Hunter’, 1978, Michael Cimino, EMI Films
‘Star Wars’, 1977, George Lucas, Lucasfilm
‘Jaws’, 1975, Steven Spielberg, Zanuck/Brown Productions


Pub/2008


More like this:
Last Exit to Brooklyn, 1989, directed by Uli Edel
Lost In Translation, 2004, directed by Sofia Coppola
Irreversible, 2002, directed by Gaspar Noe