TAXI DRIVER
US, 1976, 114 minutes, Colour.
Robert De Niro, Cybil Shepherd, Jodie Foster, Peter Boyle, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Martin Scorsese.
Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Taxi Driver is one of the more important films of 1976. It is a grim picture indeed and one that would have limited popularity. It would have far more impact in America than it would elsewhere. On the technical side, one can note that the film was directed by an up-and-coming younger director, Martin Scorsese (who played the jealous husband cab passenger in the film). His previous film, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, has also been discussed in these volumes. Prior to that he made Mean Streets, which is akin to this film. Mean Streets has been released in Sydney but not in Melbourne.
The actor in Taxi Driver is Robert De Niro, who also featured in Mean Streets. In the meantime De Niro appeared in the Marlon Brando role in The Godfather Part 2, and won the Oscar for his performance. He is supported in this film by Cybil Shepherd of The Last Picture Show and Daisy Miller, and by Jodie Foster, a 13-year-old who played an opposite kind of role in Echoes of Summer and appears in the gangster musical, filmed solely with children, Bugsy Malone. The striking musical score for the film (which, indeed, contributes so much to the atmosphere) was by Bernard Herrmann who completed the score a day before he died in December 1975. Herrmann wrote the score for Citizen Kane and for many Hitchcock films. The credits for Taxi Driver are most impressive.
But the theme is also impressive. It takes up the problem of the lonely and isolated American male. The Taxi Driver himself, who cruises in amongst the ugly features of the impersonal city, while distanced from it as an observer through his windscreen, is a good symbol of the problem. The driver lives alone, in a dingy apartment, finds it hard to relate, tends to degrade what is good while striving to rescue from evil. He also shows symptoms of neurosis. These culminate in the striving for self-assertion by the American weapon, the gun, and its consequent violence. Observers have commented on how accurate the film is in the presentation of the lonely American male and in its insights into his character and needs.
1. The films acclaim and awards? The work of Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader? The combination of their different backgrounds for a parable of contemporary America? The film as capturing and communicating the atmosphere of the United States in the '70s?
2. The New York setting - the overtones of Midnight Cowboy, Andy Warhol and his observation of "low life" in the city? The impact of the credits sequence - the steam from the streets, the gliding of the taxi, 42nd Street, the range of people seen, the abstract patterns of the neon lights and their reflections? The contrast with the ordinariness in daylight of streets, politicians' offices, campaign headquarters, skyscrapers? A recognisable and unrecognisable New York? A symbolic New York?
3. The importance of the score - the jazz theme, the pounding themes? The use of sounds, silence - especially the taxi gliding without its motor's noise and silence or musical substitutes?
4. The importance of movement with the photography, the many tracking sequences and the style of tracking, the gliding of the car, Sport and Iris' dancing, overhead shots and tracking? A sense of continued movement? Slow motion work? The audience moving through this world of New York, with Travis and observing him?
5. The colour photography, the subjective camera and Travis' point of view? Travis being observed? The kaleidoscope of colour especially at the end? The patterns of colours and the use of mirrors e.g. Betsy in the back of the taxi? The use of films and television? The collage of the colours and lights of the city?
6. The use of the taxi driver as a symbol: American, the American male, macho attitudes? The car and its mythology of the extension of the person? Travis' renting the taxi, it being a vehicle for people that he carried - as a symbol of the people he carried within himself? The mythology of gunmanship? The lonely and isolated and alienated American male? The ideal of womanhood and her need to be loved, rescued? The taxi driver as the detached observer of life in the city: the focus on Travis' eyes, the subjective shots, the use of the windscreen, mirrors? Travis moving through this world? The impersonal aspect of the taxi driver – the complaining husband and his talking to the back of Travis' head? Palantine and his comments about learning about Americans from taxi drivers? The credits and the presentation of the taxi and its cruising the streets?
7. The introduction to Travis as a character - his head and eye movement? His observation? Sanity, suggestions of paranoia and obsession? Madness? The significance of his diary and seeing him compose it, hearing his rendition of what he was writing? What did it reveal about himself and his day, attitudes towards life, health and pains, his obsessions, his reflections on the ugliness of New York? The family background and his sending the card for his parents' anniversary? The information about him when he applied for the taxi licence, a device for introducing him? His education, background of work, Marine service in Vietnam? The effect on him? His capacity for work, accepting any passengers. the long hours because of insomnia? What type of American male did he represent - alone and isolated in the city? His apartment? His recreation in going to the pornographic films, his buying the sweets, watching television? The fact that a taxi driver need not relate to others even though he be courteous and serve them?
8. The introduction to Betsy? The WASP woman ideal? Her being shown at work. her devotion to Palantine and his cause, her interest in American politics? Her dress. manner of speaking. poise? Her relationship with Tom and working with him? The comic touches with the presentation of Tom and his spying on Betsy and Travis? Her talk with Travis after seeing him watch her and Tom's getting rid him? Her fascination with him? Her quoting Kris Kristofferson and seeing him as part prophet, part pusher - a sign of contradiction? What motivated her going out with him, her listening to his psychological analysis of their relationship? Travis' comment on the outing and what they ate in his diary? The continued outings, taking her to the film and his having no criteria as to decide what should be seen? His reassuring her, her walking out and the rupture between them? The continued phone calls - and his speaking to her and the camera's moving to the empty corridor? The break between the two and her not being present in the office? His glimpsing her at the rallies? How well could she be understood in the light of the cause of Palantine? What he represented in American politics? His values and the rule of the people? His interested talking to Travis in the taxi and the attitude of his aide? His speeches? A victim for an assassination attempt? A winner?
9. The contrast with Iris and Betsy? Similarities of appearance? The ideal woman the woman to be redeemed and rescued? The first short sequence of her being taken out of the taxi and the money dropped on the seat (and Travis' holding on to this bill)? His bumping into her in the street with his taxi, his following her along the street with her friend? His picking her up, their discussion, the encounter with Matthew and his suspecting Travis to belong to the police? The crudity of Matthew's description of her proficiency as a prostitute? Her going upstairs and leading him on in the prostitute's manner? The symbolism of her room especially with the lighted candles? Her sexual behaviour, her age? What did she bring out of Travis in his. understanding of her, his comment on her age and what she should be doing? Her understanding that he was trying to rescue her? Her going to the cafe with him? The sharing of their values, what they had in common. reflecting on life and their weirdness? Her presence during the shooting and the reaction? The fact that he did rescue her and her parents were grateful?
10. The presentation of the taxi drivers, their talk. preoccupation with sex, passing the time between jobs? Wizard and his experience, his earnestness in trying to answer Travis' questions but his incoherence and his platitudes? The reappearance of all the taxi drivers at the end indicating things were back to normal?
11. The build up by Robert De Niro of the character of Travis? How skilfully did he communicate his actions and what was going on in his mind? The diary, the many scenes alone, the pains in his head. his fear of madness and the need for breaking out? His tirades against the scum and the filth and his fostering these by watching them? His explanation to Palantine of the need to cleanse the city? His going into training and the physical rigours? His explanation of himself to Betsy, his self-perfection themes? His obsession with cleanliness? (And the symbolic use of water, rain and the need for the washing clean of the city?) How much was revealed by the characters that he picks up in the taxi especially the obsessive husband who made him look at his wife and her black lover silhouetted in the window? The suggestions of Magnums killing people? The taxi driver asking whether he had a gun and the build-up to his being armed?
12. When did Travis get the idea of using violence, his sense of mission to cleanse the city by self-assertive violence and its recognition? The long sequence of the conman? The advice about? the Indian warrior style?
13. What drove him then to the rally, his previous watching of Palantine, his smiling moving up after applauding the speech? Betsy's presence, Palantine's words? The failure of his attempt and its repercussions for Matthew and the others?
14. The character of Matthew and his work as a pimp and audience lack of sympathy? The importance of Travis' use of the gun in the supermarket and his shooting the robber dead? (And the audience being prepared for his violence by the shooting but also by the senseless bashing of the victim by the shop-owner?) The confrontation with Matthew and the shooting of him, Matthew's shooting of Travis? The emphasis on blood? The importance of the use of colour and the bleaching of the sequences so that the impact of blood was not so shocking and realistic? The effect of the stylising? The shooting of the janitor, Iris, client? The use of all weapons, guns and knife? Iris and her presence? The overhead shot of the slaughter with the police arriving? The attention to violent detail in the shooting of the finger etc., the ear? The long recapitulation of the violence in the room and on the stairs? The audience response to such prolonged looking at the blood and violence? Travis having achieved such violence and its bursting out of him, being shot and almost dying? His being in the position of a death with his finger mimicking the gun? The audience being led to believe that he was dead?
15. The impact of his being raised to life - the device of Iris' father reading the letter, the tracking around the room with the information from the news cuttings about his recovery, his heroism? The irony that his madness was interpreted as cleansing heroism?
16. The strange normality after all these events and shocking violence with his talking to Wizard and the other drivers, his conversation with Betsy and her return to him, his letting her off.. his driving off into the blurred kaleidoscope of New York lights and colours?
17. Themes of violence - the intense build-up of the violence which is within people and needs a catalyst for its relief and release? The peace at coming to terms with violence? The type of temperaments that are prone to violence? His strict religious seeming attack on filth? And yet Travis' inability to distinguish good films from the pornographic? The importance of the obsessive personality? How did this symbolise American violence and its expression? A comment on the permissive society and vice? The importance of the influence of the Vietnam war? Do people have to explode in order to be healed?
18. How much religious background was there to this fable and symbol of modern America? The "Christ figure" tones of Travis in his wanting to redeem people and cleanse? His dying in order to redeem? His being raised to a new kind of life? Betsy as the ideal woman, Iris as the sinner to be redeemed?
