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| Images Courtesy of Columbia Pictures |
A cinematic journey into an urban purgatory, Scorsese's
masterpiece Taxi Driver is not only one of the most influential American
films in history, but also continues to be one of the most artistically
important movies ever created. Using the concepts of mental illness and post-Vietnam
paranoia, Taxi Driver unequivocally presents a salient exploration of
the lone gunmen mythology that continues to remain disturbingly relevant 40
years later.
Travis Bickle is a veteran who suffers from depression
and insomnia. He takes a job as a cab driver, working endless night shifts on
the haunted streets of New York, traversing even the most dangerous
neighborhoods. Travis becomes enamored with a political operative working on a
presidential campaign; however, the relationship rapidly erodes due to Travis's
odd predilections. In the wake of his emotional distress, Travis begins to plot
the assassination of the presidential hopeful, while simultaneously trying to
liberate a child prostitute from the clutches of the street, hurtling him
towards one of the most brutally iconic climaxes in history.
Winning the coveted Palm d'Or at Cannes, the film's
brooding script was penned by the legendary Paul Schrader. Using Travis's
disjointed voice overs to narrate his descent into madness, Taxi Driver has a
devilish quality, ruthlessly critiquing societal mores with a blistering
cacophony of senseless monologues, whose uncomfortable notions slowly evolve,
matching Travis's mental undoing with verbal harmony. All of the characters
that exist in Travis's orbit are shadows, petty dispensers of street curb wisdom,
tainted Madonnas, and suits full of empty promises. Each interaction, including
an unforgettable cameo by Scorsese himself, is a dangerous escalation, slowly
moving Travis closer to his murderous finality.
Michael Chapman's cinematography captures the cigarette-stained
locales of a fallen New York with diabolic neon reds and lonely blues and
greens. This is a film that wears the heart's blood of the Big Apple on its
soiled Army jacket sleeve, eloquently capturing the symbiosis of a festering
inner city with the privileged echelons that trample upon it. The bulk of the
shots are from the interior of the taxi, mimicking Travis's longing to be part
of a world he holds in contempt because he does not understand it. The infamous
tracking shot (which took several months to complete) uses an overhead point of
view to present the aftermath of the finale as an out of body experience,
further enhancing the often-debated conclusion.
Using a vicious conflagration of primal instinct and last-ditch
endearment, De Niro creates a living urban legend in the performance of a
lifetime as Travis. Within minutes, you know how the story will most likely
end, but De Niro's formidable incarnation of the troubled outsider garners a
tenuous empathetic relationship with the viewer. You care, but are always
questioning why and this the definition of acting. The famous "You talkin'
to me?" line is so powerful because of the way De Niro wields it,
challenging the viewer to accept Travis's deadly plea for attention, a flawless
interpretation of the character's wounded soul. Jodie Foster's Iris is a
poisoned breath of fresh air, portraying an all too real child casualty of the
unforgiving metropolis. Her role was so controversial that she was required to
undergo a psychological evaluation prior to accepting the part to ensure she
was mentally capable. Both De Niro and Foster would go on to be nominated for
Academy Awards.
Peter Boyle gives a broken fortune cookie turn as Wizard,
the cabbie veteran whose counsel for Travis is ill advised and perfectly
simulates the false concern of bandwagon camaraderie. Harvey Keitel spent time
with an actual pimp in preparation for his portrayal of Matthew, and his
handful of scenes are masterfully woven into the story to ironically give
Travis's ire a legitimate target. Bernard Herrmann's saxophone laced score is
the fallen Angel on Travis's shoulder, taking what would conventionally be a jazz
infused New York love note and subverting it to display a false grandeur, fully
encompassing Scorsese's vision of a tarnished and counterfeit American dream.
Herrmann's work was also nominated for an Oscar.
Scorsese’s direction is the epitome of control. The
entirety of Taxi Driver could easily be construed as a fever dream, but
even the most expansive parts of Travis's litany of hate remain grounded in the
nocturnal underbelly of New York, with each street representing an infected
vein feeding into a rotting heart. Scorsese's ability to take a deceptively
simple premise and produce an atmospheric chamber piece in which the prison is
a city without limits is a one of kind experience. There have been many films
about vengeful outcasts, but none have managed to capture the unrelenting darkness
of the mind quite like Taxi Driver, a feat made possible by Scorsese's mastery
of the malign.
Available now for digital rental, Taxi Driver is
an essential American film that uses the mental disarray of a lone wolf as an
expose' on a fractured, post war America. From the way veterans were casually
discarded to the political distrust that gripped the nation, Taxi Driver
depicts a plausible Hell on Earth in which the devil is not only very real, but
nihilistic and motivated, a concept that continues to remain frighteningly
realistic to this day.
--Kyle Jonathan