TAXI DRIVER : a review by gerald clough
Bickel's monologue (from Paul Shrader's masterpiece of a screenplay):
All the animals come out at night.... someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets.... I believe that someone should become a person-- like other people."
Alienation... I must have watched Taxi Driver 15-20 times by now and every time I watch I find something new... Taxi Driver is the classic case of a story being told by a narrator who may not be totally reliable-- in this case Bickel provides us a fair amount of running monologue throughout the film. Bickel was honorably discharged from the Marines in May, 1973-- probably the lowpoint of American involvement in Vietnam. Bickel is in New York City now; it seems that Bickel has drifted around a bit before walking into the cab company where he meets a fellow Marine who gives him the job.
We follow Bickel around NYC as he drives anywhere and puts up with customary cabbie hassles times 10. It's very interesting watching and listening to Travis Bickel psychologically projecting and rationalizing throughout this masterpiece. It's fascinating to watch Bickel involve himself and relate to two very different women-- 12 year old street prostitute Jody Foster and fairly high level political operative Cybil Sheperd. It's good cinema to watch Bickel lash out at the men who are close to the two women in Bickel's life.
Bressonian Shots of backs, body parts intercut with ELSs and ECSs; moments after Bickel intially fails to help out teen hooker Iris, he is attacked by a mob of black youths who pelt his taxi with eggs, bottles and rocks.
The 20 dollar bill; the semiotics of the suit when he meets Ms. Sheperd. Everything is right with the date-- until they get to the porno theater. More body parts. "We're just different.... Taxi...."
"You're in a hell... you're gonna die there, just like the rest of them....I realize now how much she is just like the others-- cold and distant how many people are like that-- especially women, they have their union."
Scorsese plays a lunatic -- who's maybe crazier than Bickel-- who uses Travis's cab then disappears back into the NYC night. It's a scene that Tarantino may have been thinking of when he directed Keitel hosing off Travolta and Sam jackson in Pulp Fiction. It's sort of twisted fun watching Scorsese play his twisted character and directing deniro onscreen at the same time-- telling him what to do and how to do it during the three minute scene.
"I got some bad ideas in my head..." Bickel says to Wizard (Peter Boyle) outside of a cafeteria, seconds after a near confrontation with some street hoods.
Every citizen of NYC-- either in the cab or outside on the street is a brick in the wall of alienation that Bickel builds then eventually shatters.
"Then, suddenly, there is change...I gotta get in shape now; too much sitting has ruined my body... too much abuse has gone for too long... no more pills no more bad food no more destroyers of my body... every muscle must be tight...."
It's like a twisted Rocky Balboa motivational training routine.
HANDS-- an entire essay could be devoted-- probably already has been devoted to the use of the human hands in this film. It's all about the hands... toward the end of the 2d act, Bickel is involved in a shootout in a small neighborhood grocery store. The camerawork is amazing here... the camera drifts in as Bickel walks inside (in the foreground is the owner's hands taking notes on a pad resting against the register) and then it rests for awhile-- neither the audience nor Bickel sees the crook walk inside. Instead, the demand for the money is heard. The camera dollies back toward the owner and the holdup man as Bickel walks into the shot, ready to take action. Everyone's hands do something here too. The first time Cybil Sheperd and Al Brooks are shown, they are discussing things one does with their hands. Jodi Foster trying to unzip Bickel's pants. Bickel really screws up one guy's hands toward the end. It seems to be a comment on "the humans as nothing but savage apes" theory; we are nothing but vicious animals-- like the rest of Nature's kingdom. The difference between us the rest of the savage animals? We have hands. Our hands give us the ability to be so much more savage. In the film's first scene we find Bickel walking into the cab company; he's wearing the military attire we presume he wore in Vietnam-- the patch on his sleeve planly visible to us? The King Kong Unit... a big face of an ape fills the patch's space.
Iris's Apartment: Stained glass, candles... the place where Bickel finds redemption and social acceptance. So much has been written on Scorsese the Catholic that I will only highlight it here. Obviously, Foster's apartment where she turn tricks is a holy place here.
Taxi Driver is a character's journey through hell-- some of it his making, some of it Vietnam, some NYC and some of it was inside Bickel. It's Bickel's purging of his insanity that makes the film pretty interesting.