I just saw this one for the first time this weekend. Where has it been all my life?!?!
TAXI DRIVER
The plot: Suffering from relentless insomnia, Vietnam vet Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) becomes a cabbie, encountering a cross-section of later-20th century American-politicos, pimps, and everything in between. What he sees in his backseat sends his already volatile psyche hurtling toward the breaking point...
Martin Scorsese's just as important and astute a philosopher as Aristotle or Nietzsche; his dissertations just happen to masquerade as pulpy genre pictures. Mean Streets appears to be a story of small-time criminals, but it's really about the evils of institutionalized guilt; Goodfellas sells itself as the ultimate Mafia flick, but actually serves as a cautionary tale of seductive excess in the modern world; Taxi Driver borrows liberally from the conventions of the boilerplate thriller, but at its mournful center the picture is a heartbreaking exploration of how loneliness damages, and complete loneliness damages completely. We see what happens when a man is denied of attention and purpose, needs as pressing as air and water; we watch with growing horror as he goes to appalling lengths to justify his own existence. This is Scorsese's best work, and perhaps the seminal cinematic event of the 1970's.
Even if it had no other cultural relevance (it does), this one would be a time capsule essential simply because it's the best documentation of the Scorsese Style. Paul Schrader's script is great, but it's the director's iconic techniques that bring it to life. Take the scene preceding perhaps the film's most infamous moment, Travis and Betsy's (Cybill Sheperd) moribund date at a porno flick. The screenplay says this: "Travis, dressed to the teeth, walks brightly down the sidewalk." As written, this split-second moment serves as mere transitional filler, bridging the previous Big Scene (a presidential candidate rides in Travis's cab) with the next Big Scene (aforementioned date night from hell). As directed, it's a doozy; he's decked out in bright red, hair combed, posture straight, clearly conscious of his appearance for the first time. He walks towards us in slowly motion, feeling like James Dean but looking like a feeble impersonator, believing he stands above these people when he's really just another pair of feet trudging down Broadway. Scorsese has turned a single sentence in a galvanizing sequence of impeccable composition and thrilling vision. No one who sees Taxi Driver forgets this moment. There are a thousand other instances where smart screenwriting and transcendent direction blend with astonishing results; the scene where Travis buys a gun, and Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker use a series of slow, deliberate cuts to build up almost unbearable suspense during the simplest of scenes; Travis's first encounter with a tween prostitute (holy shit, Jodie Foster!), which takes place in front of what look like votive candles, transforming a two-person exchange into an indelible mockery of human morality; and, of course, the "you talkin' to me?" sequence, where Scorsese employs a startling jump-cut rhythm that turns the most austere of scenes (Travis stands in front of a mirror with a gun, repeats the same line over and over) into a moment that's so iconic, even those who've never heard of the picture can imitate it. Perhaps Scorsese's smartest decision of all was to film his beloved New York as the run-down, ruthless inferno Travis sees ; the streetlights are harsh, the traffic is blaring, profanities leap over graffiti-choked walls and great clouds of smoke and soot sift up into the starless sky. Deglamorizing the world's most idealized city is no small potatoes, and Schrader's script wouldn't work without it; because we see this universe through Travis's eyes, we come to understand his aberrant worldview, even if it doesn't become our own.
I could (and probably should), spill some cyber-ink over DeNiro's work here, but any attempt to describe the circus-freak gutsiness with which he combines subdued creepiness and warped compassionate will fall flat. Foster's performance also evades simple summary; suffice to say it's one of the most confident and fearless youth performances since Judy Garland donned those ruby slippers. What I can talk about, and will talk about (ad nauseum, bitches), is Bernard Herrman's score. Herrman, probably the greatest Hollywood composer not named John Williams, employed full orchestras to create haunting themes that punctuate some of our most frightening movie memories. That Cape Fear horn dirge, one of the few pieces of movie music that's scary even when freed from the specifics of its film? He penned it. The theme to Twisted Nerve, such a perfect work of whimsical eeriness that Quentin Tarantino optioned it for a crucial moment in his Kill Bill saga? Bernie wrote that one, too. Ever heard of a show called The Twilight Zone? Yeah, he's responsible for the theme song. Oh, and he wrote the music for this obscure little movie called Psycho. Still, his score for Taxi Driver (his last), happens to be my favorite. We get two main themes here, polar opposites cleverly employed in counterpoint. First, there's an old-fashioned studio movie piece-a full orchestra backed by a wailing saxophone solo. The music conjures images of lipstick on trenchoats, swanky broads clopping down neon-splashed streets-it invokes the pulpy power of the movies, which makes sense seeing as Travis begins to consider himself a one-man justice squad when handed a gun. This track represents Travis's impression of himself. Soon, another theme reveals itself-this one features stabbing low brass instruments that repeat a jarringly dissonant two-note progression over and over while snare drums burst in at random, growing in volume, quickening in tempo. Travis Bickle, this music tells us, may think he has everything under control, but he's really a runaway freight train, and as he goes off the rails big-time during the films violent finale, this theme takes precedent over the first one. With work like this, Herrman should be a household name.
No spoilers, but let me talk about the ending for a moment. The final fifteen minutes blend reality with hallucination, plunge headfirst into a confrontation of grisly bloodletting that shocks and shakes even today, and then leaves us with one of the most sudden and surreal upbeat endings in the history of not just cinema but art itself. Okay NOW IMMA SPOIL SHIT SO READ THIS AFTER YOU WATCH KTHNXBI. As much hell as people raise about it, I truly do think this ending is perfect. Travis denied his opportunity to run away with Iris earlier because it did not afford him purpose; he needed to save her to redeem himself. That's why his all-out attack on Sport and Co. is so necessary; he doesn't want her to be rescued so much as he wants desperately to be the rescuer. The sudden happy ending is necessary, too. It may be Travis's dying dream or an actual chain of real life events, and it speaks volumes that Scorsese gives us enough evidence to support either claim. Either way, its a happy ending for Travis; if he dies after saving Iris, he's provided purpose for himself; better yet, if the media coverage after the shootout is real, society has assigned him one. It's in this home stretch that Taxi Driver really gets its point across; before the need to be loved, to be fed, to be clothed, to be safe, to be free, is the need for a reason to be at all.
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