OK film review time and this is another classic, which is Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro as the alienated Vietnam veteran who drives a taxi cab at night, so here's alot more on the plot...
The film starts with the film's central character, Travis Bickle (De Niro) taking a job as a taxi driver so he work long hours to help deal with his insomnia. Travis spends his nights alone, and usually frequents Porno movie theatres to try and help him sleep (as you do!). Whilst driving the streets he spots a beautiful young woman, Betsy (Cybil Shepherd) who does voluntary work for the Presidential candidate Senator Charles Pallantine (Leonard Harris). Travis soon goes to the office where Betsy works and asks her out, and Betsy is initially and accepts, and they go out for lunch. However on their second date, Travis unwittingly decides to take Besty to see a dirty movie at the Porno theatres, as those are the only films that he knows of, which sickens Besty who walks out of the movie and goes home alone. A few days after Travis repeatedly tries to contact Besty to no avail, he confronts her at the office, where berates her and says "you're in a hell! And you're gonna die in the hell like the rest of them!", before being lead out by Betsy's co-worker, Tom (Albert Brooks).
Now feeling more and more frustrated by his lack of direction and by the corruption and decadence he sees daily on the streets of New York with all the pimps, junkies, whores and low-lifes, Travis decides to make changes in life, through strict daily exercise. Travis also buys several guns from a travelling salesman, Andy (Steve Prince) with intent on defending himself from the scum on the streets. Travis also encounters a couple of indicents that have an effect on him, the first being where he shoots a robber at a local convenience store, who the store owner takes responsibility for. The second is a young girl who Travis has a fare one night, who wants to get out of the streets, but it turns she is a prostitute, and her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel) comes along and pulls her out of the cab. Later one night, Travis nearly runs her car into her and stops just in time, he stares after her and drives off. The next day, Travis goes to the girl (Jodie Foster) looking for "action", and he speaks to Sport, the pimp, who mocks Travis for his unusual quiet manner, and winds him up for looking like a cop, but tells him the girl is only 12 years old, but she will do all sorts for you "but no rough stuff". Travis takes the girl to a room, but Travis isn't interested in sex, he wants to try and save her from Sport and from her sleazy life, the girl, who reveals her name to be Iris, is initially resistant to Travis's offer but she appreciates what he is trying to do for her, so they agree to meet again the next day for breakfast. Next day when they meet for breakfast, Travis becomes more insistent that he save Iris from her sleazy life, calling Sport a killer and that he is a real low-life. Travis then leaves her some money in an envelope for her to travel back home to her parents, and a note that says by the time she reads it he will be dead.
At this point Travis's paranoia and contempt for the city's lowlife inhabitants reaches its limits, as he then shaves his head into a mowhawk hairdo, and attends a rally for Charles Pallantine, intent on assassinating him, but before he can get the chance, secret agents spot him, and he quickly flees from the scene. Travis then turns his attention to go after Sport, in his mission to try and rescue Iris from her sleazy employer and the life that she has been thrown into. And this is where the film culminates in a very bloody climax.
Taxi Driver is without a doubt one of the best modern films in American cinema, and even 36 years on, its impact is still as relevant now as it was then. Travis Bickle is almost seen to be like the lone gunman figure, almost like a Charles Wittman, who suddenly snapped and went on a killing spree, except on a lower level. But Travis at the same time also sees just how sick and depraved the city has become, and he reasserts that to Pallantine in the scene where he drives the Senator in his cab and says that the city is like "an open sewer". And Travis in a strange way is almost like a moral avenger, as he clearly is a moralistic guy, as he wants to uphold the American dream, a better way of life, and has nothing but contempt for the elements that surround him. But at the same time Travis is as Besty also says "a walking contradiction", on one hand he wants to see Iris to leave her sleazy street life and go back home, but one the other he spends his nights watching Porno films in movie theatres. You also get that Travis is clearly a racist character as well, as he even gives his fellow cabbie, Charlie T, a look of contempt, as well as the pimps he sees on the streets, but again it doesn't make any difference to him who he takes as a fare in his taxi. Overall Travis is a rather complex character and while his morals appear clear, there is a great deal of conflicting emotions going on in his head as well.
On the performance side of things, Robert De Niro, undoubtedly gives one of his best performances here as the lonely insomniacal Travis Bickle, and he has so many memorable scenes and moments, as well as his infamous dialogue that he gives to himself in the mirror "you talking to me???? you talking to me??". The scene itself was naturally an improvisation that De Niro developed as part of his character, and it remains a scene that sticks in your mind.
The other performances are also similarly great, Cybil Shepherd is really good as the cool headed Betsy, who you get is a girl who wants to be wooed, and while she is amused by her work colleague Tom, she is more intruiged by Travis, until he blows his chances by taking her to the naughty film. Peter Boyle is also great as the veteran cabbie, Wizard, who tries to impart advice to Travis in their scene where Travis is clearly frustrated by his lack of direction in life, and Travis shakes off his advice by saying "That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard!", and Wizard says "Well its not Bertrand Russell, but what do you want? I'm a cabbie!". Albert Brooks is also very good in his role as Tom, Betsy's co-worker, whom he has a good rapport with Besty, although Tom is basically in his own way trying to get into Betsy's knickers, by trying to impress her with his witt. Harvey Keitel is very good as Sport, the sleazy pimp and his scene with Travis is really good, as he banters with him and says "catch ya later, copper!". And while its a small part, Steve Prince as the travelling salesman, Andy, is also really good, and he has one of my favourite lines from the film, when Travis puts one of his guns in his jeans and checks it out in the mirror, and Andy says "ain't that a little honey???". And finally Jodie Foster, who at the time was already an experienced child actress, puts in an excellent performance as Iris, the precocious young girl who ends up leading a sordid lifestyle.
Direction wise, Martin Scorsese does pretty much a flawless job, and his use of the smoke filled streets, and the neon lights on the streets are used really well. He also does a great job with the bloody climax scene, where at the end when the cops break into the room we see an impressive 360 degree camera pan around the room, which was achieved by cutting a a circular shape out of the roof of the set, so the cameras could move. He too also puts in a very memorable and creepy performance as one of the Travis's fares, who tells him of his plan to kill his wife, and apparently Scorsese did the part to fill in for an actor that was unavailable, which was just as well, as its great scene in the film. The effects work on the film in the bloody climax are also worthy of note and really well created by the at the time Hollywood special effects make-up artist guru, Dick Smith. Apparently the violence of the scene with Travis going on his bloody crusade was considered by the MPAA at the time (the Motion Picture Association of America) to be so violent that they insisted that the colour in the scene be diluted, which is why the colour in the print looks so pale.
The film is generally very impressive and for me there are very few flaws in the film, although if there is one then for me its the reasoning behind Travis's motives to try and assassinate Pallantine. Its like he seems to want to kill off Pallantine on a whim, and you don't really get why all of sudden he would want to do it, as there appears to be no real reason or motive behind it. Perhaps maybe Travis had become so disillusioned by that point that he felt that not even Pallantine could do anything to clean up the scum off the streets, or that he was just another politician with empty promises (maybe the latter!).
Anyway I can't finish the post without mentioning the film's music score, which was by the late great Bernard Herrman, who at the time was in ill health, but agreed to write the score of the film based on the script that he read. Herrmann himself actually passed away the day after he had completed the score, on 24 December 1975. The score itself stands as one of the most memorable, moody, atmospheric and terrific scores that the great master composer ever committed to cinema, and its instantly recognisible as soon as you hear it.
Soooo that's it for my Taxi Driver analysis, its a great classic and remains one of the best films of the 1970s and one of the best films of the last 40 years.
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