Taxi Driver

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

Just saw this flick and must say it was quite an absorbing and intriuging character study of a mentally disturbed man. Robert DeNiro gives a searing performance as Travis Bickle, an exmarine suffering from insomnia that takes a night shift job driving a Taxi to pass the time. Set in New York, he becomes disgusted with the filth, crime, and sleaze he sees at night while driving and gets in his mind to do something about it. He is a loner with a short attention span and has trouble socializing and spends his time off the job hanging out in porno theatres. He becomes enamered with a young woman working for a political candidate played by a young Cybil Sheperd and asks her out. Revealing how he he is mentally off, he takes her to a porno movie for the date in which she becomes digusted and refuses to see him again. After this he drops further into mental dispair and gets the idea to clean up the scum on the streets, he ends up buying several guns and knife from a seedy street dealer and begins practicing with them in his apartment. This is when the famous scene happens where DeNiro pulls the gun while looking in the mirror and says "Are you talking to me?" which as been mimicked in other films and shows numerous times. He then becomes obsessed with saving a child prostitute played by Jodie Foster leading up to an ultra violent ending. This movie has a very sleazy and creepy feel to it but there's no denying that DeNiro gives a terrific acting performance playing this confused character. What I can't figure out is if the epilogue of the film is actually real or is it something Bickle has imagined or wishes/fantasizes will happen after the violent incident with the pimps? Anyways, if your a fan of DeNiro's or absorbing movies you need to check it out.

[Guest Tosh]

I'm surprised you just seen this. They don't make movies like this in Hollywood anymore, it's brutally real, it has balls, it never pussyfooted around the hardcore desperate sleaze that can be the real world, films now are to pretty, candycoated if you will, there's nothing pretty on the streets when you get around heroin addicts, crackheads, and prostitutes.

I always was a bit confused by the ending myself, but it's been years since I've seen it.

[Guest teako170]

"You talkin' to me?"

Funny. I just spoke with an actress last month who was in this film. Just a brief part - nothing major. She said it was a thrill to work with Marty and Robert.

I incorporated the "you talkin' to me" bit into a unproduced Daredevil script of mine. Readers loved it. I've seen this bit (or variation of) in such films as "Forrest Gump" and "Miss Congeniality." Its a true Hollywood moment, forever frozen in time.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

I don't know why I never got around to seeing this film till now since it came out so long ago in 1976, but it was a nice surprise! I agree that the studio's don't seem to have the guts to make pictures like this nowadays which is a shame. You know Teako, I had seen the Ya talkin to me bit parodied in alot of films but never knew where it came from, but now realize how famous that scene was and the impact it made. I really envy that actress you met too, must have been great working with two legends like that!

[Guest vengeanceofhumanlanterns]

One scene that always gets a chuckle out of me is the Peter Boyle character trying to philosofize eith da Deniro character. Deniro asks Boyle a heavy question and Boyle gives him a bullshit answer and Deniro calls him on it. Funny @#%$. Good movie.

[Guest jirpy100]

I often cite Taxi Driver and Hana-Bi as my favourite all-time films. The film won a prize at Cannes, for new director I believe.

And I wouldn't call it a Hollywood film either! It was a fairly low-budget film (US$ 6 mil.)*, made with studio money, but certainly not a mainstream project in any way. It certainly captured the 70's vibe, and also seemed liked an anti-Vietnam film. Travis being the project of the 60's, never having found his place in society after soldiering. Although he was probably out of sorts even back then. His haircut for instance is one worn by a WW2 airborne unit and is a major anti-establishment statement, and part of his transformation, along with his G.I. Joe training and the arsenal he builds up.

It is simply one of the best character studies committed to celluloid.

*The budget was only US$ 1.3 million. It grossed over $21 million.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

Interesting thoughts jirpy, thanks for the info. I was wondering what your take on the ending was. Do you think it was real or Bickle just imagining before he dies that he actually survives and is hailed as a hero for rescuing the Jodie Foster character from the pimps and gains the respect of Cybil Shepard and his co-workers?

[Guest jirpy100]

While it has never been clarified by Scorcese or screenwriter Paul Schrader, the ending itself seems to be real, while the real fantasy may be the very end, when his love shows up on the backseat of his cab.

If you view it this way, you will accept that the film is making a statement against the sensational state of the media. We are used to it today, but I think a lot of older people were still getting used to the modern-style tabloids and exploitive nature of the media. So, the media is glorifying a vigilante. This is very irresponsible of them, and the only reason they chose the "good" guy's side, is because it seems rigteous to the lowest common denominator, who still believes in an eye for an eye.

A major film critic gave this film a very low rating because he thought it was rather a nihilistic film. But that is because he believed in the lie the media was espousing. It is easy to believe the ending and think the film's message is that simple... what comes around goes around, and we think nothing wrong of it, that the bad guys deserved their pain suffered. -But ultimately we know better, and shouldn't forget what is truly right and wrong, whatever our instrincts tell us.

We could also see the whole ending - including love re-appearing in his cab - as part of the same reality, that she too was swayed by the media, and never realised what a maladjusted individual he really is; while we the viewer knows he is absolutely out of his mind.

Good movies allow for multiple interpretations. This is one of them. The subtext is not in your face, but the media's (public's want for sensation) motive is clear, to me at least. They will glorify and justify anything, as long as it sells.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

Your interpretation of the film is about the best I've heard. I'm guessing the film critic you said that gave a low rating of the film is Leonard Maltin, I own his Movie and Video Guide book and he only gives it two stars out of four. He states: "This gory, cold blooded story of sick man's lurid desent into violence is ugly and unredeeming". Its probably the case of him judging the film as pro-vigilante and not as making a statement on the sensationalism of the media. I still think it was a very intruiging film with superb acting by DeNiro. Thanks for your thoughts.

[Guest jirpy100]

I was re-reading my post and realised that there remains one deeper possibility. Let's assume the mainstream media was NOT yet all that exploitive and sensational during the film's production. And the whole ending can then be seen as his sick fantasy; he is imagining that he will be hailed as a hero for the vengeance he acts out. And the idea that the media would hail such an act as heroic and making it seem like a good example, that might turn out to be prophetic because mainstream media is that way today, while this idea might have seemed highly implausible back in 1976... so, we can then assume the worst has happened and we now just as sick, without realising it.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

I guess the only way we'll ever know for sure is if Scorsese clarifies the ending. If he's remained tight lipped about it all these years I guess he wants to keep an air of mystery about the ending and keep people speculating. :\