Thoughts on Taxi Driver (1976)

Next on the train of movie write-ups... one of many controversial films by Martin Scorsese. "Taxi Driver."

(First watched July 26th, 2023.)

A friend of mine utterly hated this film. Having finally seen it for myself, I honestly kind of wonder if he and I watched the same movie.

Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro) is, for sure, a deeply screwed-up human being. Betsy (Cybil Shepherd) aptly refers to him as a walking contradiction. My dad once summarized Bickle as "a human hand grenade with the pin pulled." (Hell of a descriptor there, Dad!) But I would not ever think that the movie lionizes Bickle or portrays him as someone to be admired or emulated. I watched this movie and saw it as a grim, but effective, certainly nightmarish, warning about what isolation and loneliness can do to someone.

Either way though, however you look at the movie, Bickle is a piece of work. He is lonely and isolated, desires connecting with someone, and condemns vice and moral decay... but he cannot connect meaningfully with anyone (indeed, he seems almost incapable of it), and obsesses over guns and porn. Even when he attempts to confide in someone (like the veteran cabbie Wizard, played by Peter Boyle) Travis still cannot articulate himself properly, and his slide into obsession and violence continues.

Bickle's feelings of isolation and disgust with the nightlife of New York, initially lead him to obsess over Betsy, and the senator she's campaigning on behalf of. When he manages to alienate Betsy, he starts to stalk the senator, building up to attempt at assassination. (There's already much irony in the fact that Travis' action there fails, and he winds up hailed as a hero for his climactic rampage against the pimp Sport and fellows. I find it just as ironic that Travis, for all of his internal rage at others' moral weakness, and his own attempts at posturing - see the iconic "You talkin' to me?" scene - still cuts and runs when the senator's bodyguards spot him as a threat and chase him.) It is only by sheer dumb, cruel, chance that Travis ends the movie being seen as a hero... and even that is something that is ambiguous to my view.

On paper, the movie is very simple. You have a story about a disturbed man who wants to be a hero, and risks his life to rescue a girl from a pimp. But in practice, if you just look at it as that, you're missing out. Because really, the entire movie cannot be taken at face value. Travis Bickle is an unreliable narrator. The movie's atmosphere - particularly at night, and when Travis is behind the wheel of his cab - is like a fever dream; a hellscape of neon lights and smog. The music for the film (Bernard Herrmann's final score) is haunting and sticks in your mind. This is New York as a living nightmare; the big, and above all, rotten apple. The closest scenes to normal are in the campaign office, between Betsy and Tom (Albert Brooks), which only further emphasizes Travis' isolation from normal people, and how "outside" of regular human interaction and companionship he is.

In many ways, this is a movie that defies easy categorization. It's been labeled neo-noir, a vigilante film, and a psychological thriller. It's certainly not an easy watch (the final shootout is a masterpiece of brutal gun violence, and the grisly aftermath, as the camera pans over the weapons and bodies left in Travis' wake, are just chilling to watch), and is certainly not for everyone, but I am definitely glad to have watched this.

Will be looking forward to seeing more of Scorsese's body of work in the future.

Comments

[FourShadow]

Interesting... very interesting...

I'll admit I never really had interest in this one, just didn't sound like a fun time in the slightest, but for a movie that's a character study, it sounds like it's pretty solid, I would hope

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

5759725
Thanks for that, Four.

I'll be honest with you, I'm pretty sure that this would NOT be a movie for you. It is, for sure, not at all a fun movie, but as a character piece and a mood, it is a very effective story. Even if that mood is very much about disconcerting the audience, and - I would argue - asking them to draw their own conclusions about it.

[Jade Dawn]

Admittedly when I watched it for the first and so far only time, it was during a college film course during the pandemic, so I was kind of in a state of not being overly invested in it through really no fault of the movie itself. Probably will try getting back around to it one day to give it a fairer shake.

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

5759775
Now admittedly, I don't want to twist your arm about this, but if you ever do get back to the movie again, I do hope you're able to give it another chance. I readily acknowledge that yeah, it's by no means an easy or pleasant watch, but I really do feel like there's something important in there.

I recently rewatched Scorsese speaking to GQ about his various movies and I was particularly struck by his thoughts regarding Taxi Driver. This one segment in particular--

"We kept thinking in terms of the character and his loneliness and his acting out. Not condoning the acting out, but he does act out. And yet an empathy with him, which is really tricky. [...] Ultimately, what stayed with us, was the psychological and emotional state of that character. As we know now, tragically, it's a norm. Every other person is like Travis Bickle now."

That really hit home for me, if I'm being honest.