Last night, as is usually the case when I go to the movies, I walked alone on the streets and subway platforms of New York. Dodging cabs and buses, stepping through the clouds of steam that seeped from holes in the city's concrete skin, and illuminated by fluorescent lights and neon street signs I made my way to Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Square. There I saw Taxi Driver and Martin Scorsese's vision of New York in 1976, when the cabs and steam and neon were as much indicators of the city's structural and moral decline as the pimps and whores who walked its filthy streets.
While I appreciate many qualities of Scorsese's breakout movie, I frankly do not understand the tremendous admiration that Taxi Driver has garnered. So, please indulge me as I try to unpack the elements of this movie that mystify me and the phenomenon that this movie has become.
If anything, the movie succeeds convincingly in portraying New York as a decrepit and morally vacuous environment. Scorsese's pervasive focus on neon signs and bared flesh effectively expresses the artificial and carnal qualities of the city; an extended montage of flashing lights and a ticking cab meter further associates these with money. It certainly helps that Travis Bickle, the movie's mentally unstable protagonist, works the night shift; the movie would not pack nearly the same unnerving punch during the day.
Strangely enough, Bickle seems calmer during his long nights spent at the wheel of his cab than in his scattered attempts at living a normal life during daylight hours. When meeting with Betsy, his straight-as-a-ruler love interest, he is alternately sincere and uncomfortably aggressive, and his ill-advised idea of taking her out to a movie at a dirty picture house reflects the height of his disconnect from social norms of romance and personal conduct. The rest of his days are spent stewing in his austere apartment, writing in a diary or trying his new arsenal of handguns on for size. De Niro is at his best here, a restless soul adrift at sea with no moral compass for guidance.
This daytime Bickle and the total alienation he embodies is perhaps the biggest reason why I struggle to like this movie. Now I certainly don't have to sympathize with a protagonist to enjoy his story, but De Niro's inhabits him in such a disturbing manner as to make the viewer as disoriented as he is. His tentative steps toward violence--grabbing Betsy's arm outside the theater, buying a cannon of a handgun, and creepy attempts to assassinate a wholly unremarkable politician--seem scattered and illogical, yet are executed with a singular drive that is truly frightening. For the most part, Bickle's struggle to find an outlet for his malaise defies logic, and consequently makes his a difficult mind to enter and understand as a viewer.
The fact that Travis is at his most unstable during the day--while New York's depravity peaks at night--is equally strange to me, as I would expect his behavior to reflect his environment, particularly in the context of Scorsese's expressive visual style. Perhaps we as viewers cannot fully understand them both at the same time, or are not meant to. However, the two worlds do intersect when Travis reaches out to Iris, an underaged prostitute who is at once an innocent and a tragic victim of the city's vice. The meeting of the two worlds during the day incites a second at night, when Bickle's instability spills over into brutal violence. I suppose that this climactic merger of night and day, of emotional instability and environmental brutality, is likely the motivation behind the Scorsese's previous separation of the two.
The much-debated conclusion of the movie also presents many problems for me. I fail to understand why Bickle, having murdered three (albeit nefarious) people, is hailed as a hero by the community and becomes the object of Betsy's almost lustful attraction. Throughout the movie Bickle is utterly unheroic, a loner with antisocial and illogical behaviors. Why, then, does his sudden act of terrible violence meet with such approval from the community? Even further, why has this shootout scene attained such an iconic status in recent movie history?
Aside from the gratuitous bloodshed, Bickle's vaguely honorable intentions, and De Niro's crazed performance, I can see little reason. Two of the three men killed barely appear onscreen before the climactic scene, and the presence of the third is merely a product of chance. A simplified explanation could suggest that these three men--a pimp, a dirty hotel manager, and a mafioso--represent the worst of New York, but in my mind their minimal appearances in the film do not allow them enough time to fully embody those vices. While the hotel manager is indeed creepy, the mafioso is only recognizable as such by his clothing and rumors appearing in the newspapers, and the pimp, while his occupation is less than honorable, demonstrates a measure of (or at least the potential for) genuine affection for Iris in an intimate earlier scene.
I hope to have the opportunity to discuss Taxi Driver with a true fan in the near future, in hopes that I may be enlightened about the qualities of the movie that have made it so loved in Scorsese's oeuvre (did I just say oeuvre?). Please share your thoughts in the comments, I hope this will lead to some interesting discussion. Thanks for reading.
If anything, the movie succeeds convincingly in portraying New York as a decrepit and morally vacuous environment. Scorsese's pervasive focus on neon signs and bared flesh effectively expresses the artificial and carnal qualities of the city; an extended montage of flashing lights and a ticking cab meter further associates these with money. It certainly helps that Travis Bickle, the movie's mentally unstable protagonist, works the night shift; the movie would not pack nearly the same unnerving punch during the day.
Strangely enough, Bickle seems calmer during his long nights spent at the wheel of his cab than in his scattered attempts at living a normal life during daylight hours. When meeting with Betsy, his straight-as-a-ruler love interest, he is alternately sincere and uncomfortably aggressive, and his ill-advised idea of taking her out to a movie at a dirty picture house reflects the height of his disconnect from social norms of romance and personal conduct. The rest of his days are spent stewing in his austere apartment, writing in a diary or trying his new arsenal of handguns on for size. De Niro is at his best here, a restless soul adrift at sea with no moral compass for guidance.
This daytime Bickle and the total alienation he embodies is perhaps the biggest reason why I struggle to like this movie. Now I certainly don't have to sympathize with a protagonist to enjoy his story, but De Niro's inhabits him in such a disturbing manner as to make the viewer as disoriented as he is. His tentative steps toward violence--grabbing Betsy's arm outside the theater, buying a cannon of a handgun, and creepy attempts to assassinate a wholly unremarkable politician--seem scattered and illogical, yet are executed with a singular drive that is truly frightening. For the most part, Bickle's struggle to find an outlet for his malaise defies logic, and consequently makes his a difficult mind to enter and understand as a viewer.
The fact that Travis is at his most unstable during the day--while New York's depravity peaks at night--is equally strange to me, as I would expect his behavior to reflect his environment, particularly in the context of Scorsese's expressive visual style. Perhaps we as viewers cannot fully understand them both at the same time, or are not meant to. However, the two worlds do intersect when Travis reaches out to Iris, an underaged prostitute who is at once an innocent and a tragic victim of the city's vice. The meeting of the two worlds during the day incites a second at night, when Bickle's instability spills over into brutal violence. I suppose that this climactic merger of night and day, of emotional instability and environmental brutality, is likely the motivation behind the Scorsese's previous separation of the two.
The much-debated conclusion of the movie also presents many problems for me. I fail to understand why Bickle, having murdered three (albeit nefarious) people, is hailed as a hero by the community and becomes the object of Betsy's almost lustful attraction. Throughout the movie Bickle is utterly unheroic, a loner with antisocial and illogical behaviors. Why, then, does his sudden act of terrible violence meet with such approval from the community? Even further, why has this shootout scene attained such an iconic status in recent movie history?
Aside from the gratuitous bloodshed, Bickle's vaguely honorable intentions, and De Niro's crazed performance, I can see little reason. Two of the three men killed barely appear onscreen before the climactic scene, and the presence of the third is merely a product of chance. A simplified explanation could suggest that these three men--a pimp, a dirty hotel manager, and a mafioso--represent the worst of New York, but in my mind their minimal appearances in the film do not allow them enough time to fully embody those vices. While the hotel manager is indeed creepy, the mafioso is only recognizable as such by his clothing and rumors appearing in the newspapers, and the pimp, while his occupation is less than honorable, demonstrates a measure of (or at least the potential for) genuine affection for Iris in an intimate earlier scene.
I hope to have the opportunity to discuss Taxi Driver with a true fan in the near future, in hopes that I may be enlightened about the qualities of the movie that have made it so loved in Scorsese's oeuvre (did I just say oeuvre?). Please share your thoughts in the comments, I hope this will lead to some interesting discussion. Thanks for reading.
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