Taxi Driver (1976)

Starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, Joe Spinell, and Martin Scorsese
Grade: Classic

A viewing of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is required if you consider yourself a movie fan. It’s as simple as that.

Summary

In New York City, Vietnam veteran and insomniac loner Travis Bickle (De Niro) shows up to a taxicab place looking for a job and is willing to work nights since he can’t sleep anyway. The Personnel Officer (Spinell) asks if he’s willing to take notably bad areas like the South Bronx and Harlem and he is more than willing. After somewhat bonding over the fact that both men served in the Marines, the Personnel Officer gives him some forms to fill out and tells him to check back tomorrow. Soon after, he gets the job and starts working late nights into the early hours of the morning. Writing down his thoughts in his diary, he talks about all the freaks that comes out at night like the hookers, pimps, dope fiends, etc. He longs for something to wash all this “scum” off the streets. Through narration (via writing his diary), he talks about how he doesn’t care who’s in his taxi. Following a scene where we see an older man take a hooker for a ride in Travis’s taxi, Travis mentions how he has to clean the cum off the backseat following his shift every night. Some nights, he has to clean out the blood. One day after his shift, he goes into a pornographic theater and tries to hit on the female worker there. After she threatens to get the manager, he stops, buys some snacks, and watches the movie with all the other freaks. The days go on and on for Travis, but there is one ray of sunshine in his life, a woman he notices at the Palantine Campaign Headquarters named Betsy (Shepherd). At Palantine Campaign Headquarters, Betsy works there with Tom (Brooks). As Betsy and Tom have playful workplace conversation about Senator Charles Palantine’s (Harris) campaign and what to emphasize, Betsy notices Travis staring at them from outside and lets Tom know. Tom goes outside to approach Travis, so Travis drives away without saying a word.

At night, Travis meets with the other taxi drivers at a diner they frequent. He sits with Wizard (Boyle), Charlie T., and Doughboy. He shows up just as Wizard is finishing up his story about fucking one of his customers. Travis sits with them but is pretty dejected from the conversation and seems drained of energy. They discuss some driver getting cut up really bad on 122nd Street, so Doughboy asks Travis if he has a gun or needs one for protection. Travis doesn’t want one, but Wizard agrees with Doughboy on it being a good idea. On the way out, Doughboy shows Travis a piece of Errol Flynn’s bathtub that he got from his estate and offers to give it to him to sell and he’ll just take half of what he makes. Again, Travis declines. The next day, Betsy and Tom talk and joke around at work, and Travis watches outside. Finally, he gets the courage to walk inside to talk to Besty. He approaches the two and says he wants to volunteer. Tom tries to get him signed up but Travis declines and says he wants to talk with her instead. Immediately, Travis starts to shoot his shot. Betsy tries to bat it away by asking what Travis thinks about Palantine. Travis admits he knows nothing about the man but assumes he will be a great President some day. After saying he can’t work nights there because he works as a taxi driver, Besty finally asks what he wants. Travis asks to take her out to lunch. After talking about how he sees that she’s a lonely person and he wants to be a friend, she loosens up and says she can take a break around 4PM. Travis agrees to come back later to pick her up around then. Later, they go to a coffee shop and Travis orders an apple pie with “a slice of melted yellow cheese”.

That sounds fucking disgusting.

The two discuss Travis wanting to get more organized (or “organezized”), Betsy’s job, and her co-workers. Travis asks her if she likes Tom and she says “He’s okay”, though he has some problems. Travis isn’t a fan of him and tells her how when he came into their office he could sense she had no connection with Tom but felt it was the exact opposite between himself and her. She agrees with this notion. After Travis blurts out that he doesn’t like Tom, though he backtracks and says he’s “silly” and that he doesn’t respect her, Betsy admits she has never met anyone like Travis. He offers to take her to a movie sometime and she accepts. Then, she tells him he reminds her of the song “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” by Kris Kristofferson because of a line about him being a “walking contradiction”. Sometime later, Travis buys the record and continues on with work. One night, he gets Palantine himself as one of his customers, along with his two advisors. After realizing who he is, Travis tells him how much he supports him and tells everyone to vote for him. They have a pleasant conversation, prompting Palantine to ask Travis if there’s one thing that really bothers him. Though he doesn’t follow political issues, Travis admits the filth of the city gets to him and wants the President to clean up the place. Eventually, he drops Palantine off and they depart after a handshake. Later, a young prostitute (Foster) tries to get in the backseat of his cab when he’s parked. She looks like she’s trying to escape but Travis is confused. Immediately after, her pimp (Keitel) pulls her out of the car and throws money at Travis to forget what happened. Startled and disgusted, Travis drives off into the night. Once his shift ends, he grabs the crinkled-up money and stuffs it in his coat.

Later, he picks up Betsy for their movie date and gifts her the Kris Kristofferson record. He admits he doesn’t really follow music like that and hasn’t actually listened to the song because his record player broke, though he suggests they listen to it on her record player.

Smooth criminal this guy.

Anyway, he takes her to the movie. Unfortunately, he takes her to a particularly grpahic pornographic film. For some odd reason, she is disgusted and exits the movie theater to Travis’s confusion. He tries to apologize and wants to take her somewhere else, but she refuses, gets in a taxi, and leaves. Travis calls her relentlessley and tries to see her but she refuses. Eventually, she stops answering the calls and refuses the flowers he sends her, which only end up back at his lonely apartment. Taking the high road, he storms into the Palantine Campaign Headquarters and yells at her in front of everyone, forcing Tom to kick him out and send a nearby cop after him.

The descent has begun.

One night, Travis drives an angry man (Scorsese) to a destination but he stays in the car. The man points out a silhouette of woman in a window. After Travis sees the woman, the man tells Travis that it’s his wife but she’s with another man. He plans on killing her with a .44 magnum pistol. Later that night, Travis meets with the other taxi drivers at the diner again. After Travis pays Charlie T. the $5 he owes him and puts the crinkled up money he got from the pimp back in his own pocket, Wizard excuses himself to go back to work. Travis goes to talk with Wizard outside in private before he leaves. Though it’s hard for him to get the words out, he talks about how life has been taking a toll on him. Trying not to fall apart in front of Wizard, Travis admits to him, “I got some bad ideas in my head”. Wizard tries to explain that when you get a job, you become the job and how it’s apart of life. He suggests he get drunk or get laid or something because “we’re all fucked. More or less, you know?”. It’s not entirely helpful, but Wizard thinks he’s going to be alright, ending with the parting message of telling him not to worry so much.

However, the cesspool that is New York City starts to dig even deeper into the mental state of Travis and he starts to unravel. With his mind racing and the filth of the state seemingly getting worse by the day, he decides to completely change the direction of his life as a response.

My Thoughts:

As we are very aware, Martin Scorsese has been responsible for some of the most engrossing films of all time. Whether you’re a fan of his approach to storytelling or not, very few filmmakers have been able to captivate mainstream audiences with such twisted and morally corrupted characters at the center of a narrative, while maintaining a darkly entertaining cinematic flare quite like Scorsese. The stories he tells and the characters he helps bring to life will make you think, they will make you feel, and just like how it is in real life, Scorsese always reminds his audiences that not everything is as black-and-white as it seems. Circumstances drive people in staunchly different directions throughout their lifetimes, and some people are just wired differently from the beginning. Their lives may differ in the paths they take because of the environment they live in, who they come across, and the situations they find themselves in because of both. How they respond defines who they become to the public. It will never be known if a person is internally the same as they are externally. These themes of finding out one’s true motivations, their development as a person over time because of the area in which they live, and who they are to themselves and to the public are just some of the important topics covered so engagingly by the iconic Taxi Driver. Powered by a radical screenplay by Paul Schrader that has influenced screenwriters to this very day, a striking and brooding score by Bernard Herrmann, a completely unpredictable Robert De Niro in one of his finest performances of all time (in a career full of them), and an unflinching and unforgiving deep dive into the New York City landscape of the 1970s, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver will always be in the discussion for one of the greatest films ever made.

The legacy of the film is traced directly to the star of the picture in Robert De Niro in arguably his greatest role, which is surprising because he’s not playing a gangster this time around. In a pure, masterclass performance in showcasing the unraveling of the human psyche, Taxi Driver follows the story of a former Marine who is driven to the brink of madness because of the cesspool of the society in which he resides, giving us one of the most captivating character arcs of all time. As each day rolls into the next, Travis Bickle starts to become more and more unpredictable regarding his behavior, motivations, and direction. Eventually, it leads us to one of the defining images of the film, with an almost fully broken Travis sporting a freshly-cut mohawk, sunglasses, and a green military jacket as he prepares to make the best or worst decision of his life.

Travis Bickle is one of the most memorable characters in the history of cinema. Fluctuating between hero, antihero, villain, and anti-villain throughout the runtime (and depending on who you talk to), the quiet, lonely, sleep-deprived veteran snatches up a job as a taxicab driver since he’s up at all times of the night anyway. He’s not necessarily excited about the job, but he just wants to do something with his time and make a little money. It’s not like he has much going on anyway. He doesn’t have a family (he keeps them at a distance and lies to them with his letters about working a secretive government job and dating Betsy), friends, or even any hobbies to pass the time. At most, he checks in and out of porn theaters on 42nd Street, but this seems to be more about trying to do anything to keep himself occupied rather than pleasure. Truthfully, he just wants pleasant human interaction, despite his antisocial tendencies. However, he can’t connect with anyone, whether it be with co-workers or when he tries to pursue someone like Cybill Shepherd’s Besty. Travis always seems to be a bit uncomfortable and tries to analyze any situation he finds himself in without flipping out or revealing too much about his innermost thoughts. You can see the wheels turning when in certain conversations as he never knows whether he’s saying too much, too little, or if he’s making sense at all. It’s a daily struggle. At the same time, there’s a deep rage brewing in the depths of Travis’s inner self. It’s something the audience can sense from the beginning. It’s felt by De Niro’s containment in the earlier parts of his performance and responses in social situations. It’s understated and calm but yet conflicted at every turn. You can see how much he’s holding back because of De Niro’s expressionistic acting.

There’s something about his quiet demeanor, awkwardness, and military background that already makes him a little unsettling to people. It’s not that he’s crazy off the bat, but there are some unresolved feelings of some sort noticeable behind his eyes. For a prime example earlier on, look at his expression on his first date with Betsy when his joke falls flat with her. It’s as if his hidden rage almost boils to the surface, so he immediately changes the subject to avoid completely snapping over something so small. This is very much a man on the verge of a breakdown of epic proportions. Something was already off about him, but as his life gets worse, his feelings are only internalized and heightened as a result.

Soon after he gets his job as a taxi driver, Travis’s thoughts on the darker, grimier areas of New York are evident. Riding through the worst parts of the city during the night shift will only shine a negative light on your situation, and this is very true for the troubled Travis. Dealing with insomnia, getting the bright streetlights of the city shined in your face, running into unruly customers and citizens on every shift, and observing the worst type of people out at night from afar (whether they are customers or not), he becomes less and less tolerant of what goes on around him and it triggers a violent and paranoid reaction. He sees the underground areas of the state as a countrywide problem that needs to be fixed by someone. When he uses his gun for the first time in the convenience store when some guy tries to rob the place, Travis doesn’t even flinch because he’s had enough and has been ready for the moment for quite some time. What does the store owner tell Travis? He says, “That’s the 5th motherfucker this year!”. On top of that, once he thanks Travis, the guy beat the hell out of the dead body, furthering the violent landscape in which the film is trying to showcase. Isn’t it obvious what the problem is? A radical change is needed desperately, and Travis doesn’t see anyone doing anything about it, which is why the intertwining story with Senator Charles Palantine becomes more and more important as the story moves on. Some in his situation may become desensitized to the everyday debauchery he faces, but Travis can’t seem to overcome it. It just gets worse and worse.

The strangers he encounters becomes life events he can’t forget like the stranger who had Travis drive up to the house where his cheating wife is staying at, promising to kill the man she is cheating on him with. It’s one of the most important scenes in this volatile masterpiece because we see the already unstable Travis become creeped out to the max by this man who promises to murder another while sitting in the backseat of Travis’s taxi as if he’s some regular, run-of-the-mill customer. Martin Scorsese plays the role himself in a one-off appearance, but it’s a completely unforgettable and unsettling example of what the nightlife brings Travis on every shift.

It’s enough to break anyone.

Again, Travis never gets desensitized to the stuff he sees. It’s possible that along with a potential suffering from PTSD coming out Vietnam, combined with the chaos he sees in New York, he is never given enough time to recover to shake things off. It only bothers him more, and it starts to dig at him with each passing day because it never stops, he never sleeps, and he never finds anything satisfying enough to alleviate his troubles and pessimistic outlook on life. He took a leap of faith with Besty, but he failed, only worsening his situation. Every night, Travis faces a constant barrage of drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, potential killers, and all-around bad people and he’s disgusted. Is this really what society has turned into? Why do people do the things they do? Why are they like this? Why can’t they strive for something better? This is something Travis thinks about all the time, so when he sees a 12-year-old prostitute in Iris, he’s deeply affected by seeing her being stuck in this horrible situation and not realizing the detrimental effects it could have on her. He’s not the greatest person and he knows it, but he can’t let this young girl throw her life away for some sleazeball pimp like Sport, played annoyingly well by Harvey Keitel (“You can do anything you want with her“). The scene with Keitel’s Sport and Jodie Foster’s Iris is enough to make your skin crawl and root on Travis to do something about it, despite the fact that this madman is considering assassinating a presidential candidate at the same time. This back-and-forth of right and wrong, good and evil, and that ever-important gray area is what makes Taxi Driver so captivating. We’re dealing with some very bad people, but there’s still this sliver of hope because of Iris.

Can you believe it? One underage prostitute is enough for us to want one bad person to murder an even worse person for the sake of humanity. Herein lies the legacy of Taxi Driver. It’s truly remarkable what Martin Scorsese pulled off with this one.

On the inside, there is a lot of good in Travis, which is what makes him such a complicated protagonist. The intentions are always there. He wants a normal life, he seeks companionship in some way, and he’s deeply troubled by the unsavory characters he crosses paths with, and rightfully so. How he fights back is the problem, as he becomes the embodiment of fighting fire with fire. Better yet, he fights fire with acid.

Once he sees Iris in her situation, he pays for a meeting with her but refuses to have sex with her. He just wants to talk to her and try to understand the young girl and hopefully help her in some way. When he offers to help her at the restaurant and offers her words of advice to better her situation and why what she’s doing is wrong, he’s planning an assassination attempt at the same time. Betsy is right. Travis is in fact a “walking contradiction”. After failing with Betsy because of his inability to read a situation (again, he was never the most normal person to begin with), things start to fall apart. When he tells Wizard he has some bad ideas in his head, you can feel his earnestness. He wants help, but he doesn’t know who to turn to. This was his last-ditch effort to ask for help, but it does nothing for him because Wizard just thinks he’s an awkward guy that’s having trouble getting used to his routine. Really, it’s an indictment on mainstream society. Not only is it bringing to light the deterioration of one’s mental health and how it can happen to anyone, but it’s also showcasing how someone can snap and cause serious damage to civilization as a result. Despite us seeing Travis’s descent as a bad thing, he almost sees it as a good thing and something he deems necessary. He writes in his journal referring to himself when saying, “Here is someone who stood up against…”. In his eyes, he’s fighting evil, not becoming it. When Travis puts his forearm over the stovetop fire to build his pain tolerance, he grinds his teeth with a smile, making sense of his journal line when he writes, “Here is a man who would not take it anymore”.

When someone starts to develop this internal fire, it could either be great for the person or bad for everyone else. In the case of Travis Bickle, someone who thinks that what they are doing is right, everyone is at risk. Of course, this thought is perfectly expressed when we get the intercut between Charles Palantine’s speech and how “Nothing that is right and good has ever been easy”, with Travis about to reach the point of no return.

Everyone has experienced a personal rut that drags them down whether they would like to admit it or not. How you become a better person is how you respond to this adversity and get stronger. On the other hand, Taxi Driver is all about how one dealing with instability responds to the anarchy around him by responding with chaos. It’s well known that Travis doesn’t talk much to his co-workers and we see it firsthand, but he’s on the verge of a breakdown and seeks help with his experienced peer in Wizard. Again, he does his best in saying things will be fine, but we know it’s not enough. Teary-eyed, Travis smiles and agrees with Wizard but admitting there is a problem publicly to his co-worker begins his change. Only he can improve himself, so he does everything he can as an outlet to his inner thoughts and feelings. The fire burns within him and he channels his depression and hatred into transforming himself into someone completely different. Gone is the sorrow-filled wanderer. Now, he wants to fight back at the injustices of society. He wants to be ready for anything. He doesn’t walk into the situation trying to become a full-on vigilante of the night, but he will not take shit from anyone anymore and practices his reactions, his workouts, and the handling of his weapons to be fully ready and willing for something to go down at any time. His anger and paranoia towards the city he lives in consumes him. He refuses to let New York win, giving us this iconic “You talking to me?” scene that will live longer than the film itself.

To show us he means business, there’s a relatively quiet scene where he meets with an underground arms dealer. Going through each gun and the details regarding each one, Travis finally cuts him off and buys all of them. He doesn’t spend his money, so he has no problem buying all of them because he now has a goal in mind: Make a difference in this world. In his eyes, it has to be done. This is where the fun begins.

The jazzy score is magnificent. Though it gets repetitive and sticks to some core musical songs, it perfectly encompasses the themes of the story, the deterioration of our protagonist, and the darker areas in which the film explores both literally and figuratively. Travis makes it known that one day becomes indistinguishable from the next, and the score Bernard Herrmann comes up with defines this thought process. It complements the twists and turns of the story arc gloriously, despite not actually changing much at all. Even though the mood changes at times and certain sequences are different from others, the definable theme Herrmann uses is able to still fit in with it in an unprecedented, chameleon-like manner. Also, special praise goes to Jodie Foster. At the time, she was 14 playing a troubled, 12-and-a-half-year-old prostitute unaware of the dangerous environment in which she resides and did so strikingly well. She was already a seasoned actor at that point, but to do this well at that age, with so many acting heavyweights involved just shows you the talent Foster had so early in her career. Additionally, Foster not being scarred by this production is just as impressive because this type of raw imagery for someone this young might have been more of an issue for someone not as mature or as professional as her.

As early as 1976, Martin Scorsese created a groundbreaking, career-defining film that is all it’s cracked up to be. With a great supporting cast, a fearless screenplay by Paul Schrader, and Robert De Niro giving us one of the best movie characters ever in Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver remains one of the greatest and most influential features of all time. The third act is one for the ages and the climax is every bit of memorable as it is brutal. When our bloodied protagonist points the “finger gun” to his head and we get that overhead shot of the room and crime scene accompanied by the booming score, you stare in silence because you realize you just watched something special. The only thing I would say, and it doesn’t necessarily bring down the grade or anything, but I would’ve ended the film immediately after this. The epilogue gave us more questions than it should have and felt a little off in general. For many, it still confuses the overall message of the movie (like what was up with the last second moving of the mirror?). Even if this may have been the intention to show us Travis still has this brooding energy within him, it did lessen the overall shock value of the all-time climax that precedes it. Even so, Taxi Driver is still one of the best ever.