I have a very good friend of mine named
Josh. He's a raging cinephile, like myself, and although he is a TON more 'forgiving' of mainstream movies than I can ever hope to be, I still tend to respect his opinion on movie and film above several of my other movie-lovin' comrades.
Last week we saw MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER in a soul-crushing 4-hour marathon at our local movie theater. They are two of my favorite movies of all time, and it had been a while since I saw both of them, particularly on a big screen.
Anyhow, Josh wrote an absolutely fantastic essay on TAXI DRIVER. He posted it
here on his website, but I am gonna reprint it here because the bastard thinks it's cool to print more than 20 words in BRIGHT PINK TEXT on a black background. My eyeballs are still screaming from reading it myself.
Here's Josh's take on a movie that is so good that you need to be watching it RIGHT NOW.
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Talking movies at one point with my father, he was discussing Apocalypse Now. "It's a great movie to watch at midnight," he said, "because afterward, all you feel like doing is going to bed. Most of the life is gone out of you at that point."
I agreed with him at that time, but it's been a while since I was as forcefully reminded of that quote as when I watched Taxi Driver at the midnight show the other night.
It had been a long time since I saw Taxi Driver - it's quite possible, I think, that I had not even seen it since the first time I saw it, back in high school. I remembered the basics of the story - what film fan doesn't know the basics, even if they haven't seen it? But somehow, I had forgotten the power of the storytelling, the pure brilliance and visceral power of the film.
It's remarkable how much Scorsese grew between Mean Streets and this. I liked Mean Streets a lot, but it's a meandering film, more of a "slice of hometown life" than a true film. It's enjoyable, and it has a raw power to it, but it doesn't even compare to the control over the medium that Scorsese shows here - a control that he uses to devastating effect.
Re-watching this, it occurred to me that, in some ways, Travis Bickle is a predecessor to John Doe from Se7en. Both are men obsessed with what they perceive to be a filthy, horrible world filled with sin, and both men choose to fight that evil. To be fair, Doe is far more methodical and intelligent than Bickle, who is simplistic, but it's still a thought. (At one point, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro apparently discussed doing a follow-up to Taxi Driver, showing where Travis Bickle would be today. It's rare that a sequel would be so captivating and fascinating, but god, would I love to see that film.)
The Se7en comparison works on a lot of levels, in fact. Like Fincher's serial killer film, Taxi Driver creates a world that disgusts and horrifies, and does nothing so much as make me want to get away from it, as soon as humanly possible. Mean Streets showed that Scorsese was a master at giving you a sense of time and place, but Taxi Driver let him immerse you in a world that resembled nothing so much as a modern-day Bosch painting.
That, in the end, is what makes Taxi Driver so effective - its subjectivity. I had forgotten just how plunged into Travis's mind you are in the film. Between the fact that he is in almost every single scene, his monologues that grow and grow as the film progresses, and the way we view so much of the world from behind his cab windshield, we find ourselves more and more immersed into the deranged, violent mind of Bickle. Ironically, the film tells us little about it. It implies that he was in Vietnam, and we get the sense that he might have seen or done some horrible things over there, but we don't really know. When we meet him, he's a blank slate, making it all the easier for us to step into his shoes...and find the dark heart and soul there waiting for us.
It's a testament to the film's quality that by the time it reaches its violent climax, we actually understand why Travis is doing this - and it makes leaving the film all the more uncomfortable. How could we have empathized with this violent psychopath? And yet, Scorsese and Schrader pull off that feat handily.
They, of course, couldn't do it without De Niro. Watching this, it's a reminder of how incredible he once was, and it almost erases my ill will towards him after drek like Meet the Fockers. De Niro's performance is haunting and unsettling; he plays Bickle like a live wire, seething inwardly, taking in all the world has to offer, judging it, and finding the world wanting. That famous scene where he's talking to the mirror should feel iconic; instead, it feels queasy. We're watching Bickle portray himself as a hero, but we know who he is, and we know that whatever's to come, it's not going to be heroic.
Of course, the film is packed with incredible performances. Albert Brooks adds some much needed comic relief to the film's first half, but fades into the background as his protector figure is supplanted by Keitel's pimp. (One of the many fascinating things about the film is the shift in Bickle's attention from one duo to another: at the film's beginning, it's Shepherd, protected by Brooks; by the end, it's Foster, protected by Keitel. Only the latter allows him to feel like the hero, someone who will accept him for what he is; after all, she's a prostitute, and she has to? But in his deranged mind, she wants him for who he is.) Peter Boyle makes the most of a supporting role, creating an interesting character with minimal screen time. Shepherd has rarely been better, but it's Foster who really makes an impression and haunts the film; wise beyond her years, hardened by the streets, she leaves us with the same impression she leaves Travis: a child whose innocence has been taken, and who needs help.
[Spoilers follow.]
All of these paths, of course, lead inexorably to the film's ending. Is it real? Is it a dream? Does Travis actually do what he sets out to, but die in the process? It's hard to say. To be sure, the violent showdown is what shocks the viewer; even years later, the film is remembered as being far more violent than it is, and that's due in no small part to the intensity of the violence on display. But is it real? Or is Travis dreaming? And does he survive?
There's no doubt that the ending doesn't feel real. A hero? Re-hired by the taxi company with no questions? These seem at odds with the dangerous man we've lived with. And yet, for the hellish world we've seen depicted for the last hour and a half, Bickle is a hero - and that says far more about our world than anything Bickle does. If these are our heroes, Scorsese asks, what does that say about us, that such violent, dangerous men are people to idolize, to invite to dinner, to honor?
It's that awkward reunion with Shepherd, though, that sticks. After the trip to the porno theater, after the violence, after the stalking, she returns? Maybe. Maybe she's convinced by his hero act. Maybe she gives him a second chance.
But for a moment, after she leaves, there's that jarring burst of music, that strange shot of the mirror, and we know that the world has misjudged. This is no hero. This is a monster...and we're looking at him in the mirror.
End film.
Is it any wonder that we all left so quietly and uncomfortable? For an hour and a half, we're plunged into the mind of madness, subjected to painful attempts to reach out, watch as brutal violence is doled out and acclaimed, and made to question the nature of our own world.
It's a hard watch, by any standards, and the fact that it's held up so well over the years is almost disturbing. We should have grown away from this cynicism; the Times Square of Taxi Driver is gone, we would hope.
But inwardly, we're just not sure.
***
