Taxi Driver (1976)

Everyone who's seen Taxi Driver remembers the scene where Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle recites "Are you talking to me?" in a mirror. It's a showy actor's moment, so it's little wonder that it's the moment most people can most readily recall. However, the film itself follows Bickle through quieter moments, and those (for me) are even more horrific and frightening. In Travis Bickle, director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader found an almost perfect vehicle in which to place our post-Vietnam War era fears.

At the beginning of the film, Travis takes a job driving a cab at night because he can't get to sleep. A former Marine, he received an honorable discharge, but you suspect he is still haunted by what he saw and did during the war. He certainly doesn't seem to have reintegrated himself into "normal" society since his return. DeNiro's voice-over ticks off the list of people he despises: "All the animals come out at night--whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets." It seems as though no one is good enough for Travis Bickle’s world.

Don't start thinking that Travis is some kind of morally pure crusader, though. He, too, is guilty of contributing to the corruption of the streets. He frequents a porn theater, for example, and even tries to pick up the concession stand worker. Of course, he probably tries to convince himself that he's just making conversation with her, but people who are stable don't tend to engage in that kind of behavior. He's so emotionally stunted, though, that he cannot understand why she rejects his advances.

After he sees a beautiful young woman in white (Cybill Shephard as Betsy) crossing the street, he seems to think he has found the perfect match for himself. He starts hanging around her job to ask her out. She works in the New York City campaign headquarters for a presidential candidate, and her co-workers, particularly Albert Brooks' Tom, begin to suspect that Travis is not what he appears to be. Eventually, she agrees to go to a movie with Travis, and he takes her to see a porno, telling her that lots of couples go there. Betsy, after trying to reason with Travis, walks out of the theater and gets into a cab. So much for romance for Travis. He immediately begins to think that she's just as cold and distant as everyone else in the city when he is truly the one with the problem--a classic case of projection.

At about this same time, he first encounters Iris, a young prostitute named Iris, played by Jodie Foster. Foster was 14 when Taxi Driver was made, but she displays a maturity that suggests that she has far more worldly knowledge than she will admit. As soon as he meets Iris in person, Travis decides to take her on as his next project. He's going to save her from a life of prostitution and from her pimp, who is played by Harvey Keitel in outrageous hippie drag. He takes her to breakfast and tries to convince her to go back home, but she can only dismiss him as another "square." No one, it seems, wants to be saved by Travis.

Foster is not the only bright spot in the film. Shephard is also well cast, using her somewhat brittle personality to good effect here. I've already mentioned Brooks and Keitel, but the film has small, pivotal roles for up-and-coming actors like Peter Boyle as one of the other taxi drivers. I also enjoyed the cameo by Scorsese as a passenger obsessed with the woman who is cheating on him. It's DeNiro, though, who is really the draw here. His is a quiet performance in many ways, yet DeNiro gives a chance to gain some insight into Travis' mind. The voice-over narration, especially when he tries to write his thoughts down, are very illuminating. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to do a psychoanalytical interpretation of them. I suspect that they have.

It's after Travis buys a gun from a "traveling salesman" that the movie takes its darkest turn. That's also when he first gets the chance to practice in the mirror, his big scene. Actually, there are several moments in front of the mirror, including his practice with the gun he has customized to spring out from his jacket sleeve. He's decided, apparently as revenge for Betsy's treatment, to kill Senator Palatine, the presidential candidate. Or perhaps he's resentful of the fact that Palatine, who has ridden in his cab, seems to have dismissed him. However, he fails in his attempt to assassinate the senator, but he shoots a would-be robber at a grocery store and then later goes after Iris' pimp. He's even proclaimed a hero by the media for helping to "clean up the streets."

This is not, however, as bloody or violent a film as you might have been led to believe. Frankly, I'm not sure that the sight of blood has all that much impact these days, but the sparing use of it in Taxi Driver is effective. It's all the more shocking when someone is actually shot. However, I think the most terrifying aspect of this film is that someone like Travis Bickle can seem so "ordinary" to so many people. He just walks among the citizens of New York City, completely undetected as the potential menace that he is. Even when he shaves his hair into a mohawk, he doesn't attract a great deal of attention. Perhaps Schrader and Scorsese are warning us as a society, or perhaps they are trying to suggest that we will never be truly aware of the dangers under the surface or veneer of civilization.

Either way, Taxi Driver is quite a shocker today when you reflect on how many people like Travis Bickle have attempted or succeeded at acts of terrible violence. The decades since its release have seen dozens of instances where seemingly ordinary people have become frightening harbingers of doom and destruction. No, I won't give examples because they have already had too much publicity as it is. Were these filmmakers gifted with some form of remarkable foresight in 1976? I don't know, but this film is still powerful stuff, and it serves as a reminder that we should never take for granted that the person next to us (or in front of us driving the cab) is just like we are.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert DeNiro), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jodie Foster), and Best Original Score