With my mixed reactions to Martin Scorsese and to Robert De Niro, I went into Taxi Driver with a bit of suspicion. Then, when the film started and I realized it’s something of a film noir piece (evident by the dreary night scenes and saxophone), I rolled my eyes with annoyance as film noir is one of my least favorite genres. But as the film rolled, I found myself realizing, scene by scene, that I was NOT hating it. And by the end of the film I wascaught off guard with my surprise: I really liked this film!
Taxi Driver follows 26 year old Travis Bickle, played by De Niro, as he distracts himself with his taxi-driving job. Initially straight-edge, quirky, and a bit of a loner, we find Bickle’s naiveté endearing until he accidentally takes his date Betsy to a porno. For this she dumps him and we begin to turn against him a bit, realizing that he’s a bit mentally ill and (by modern day standards) something of an incel. It’s at this point that he descends into depression and obtains black market guns with the plan of assassinating presidential candidate Charles Palantine (the candidate Betsy volunteered for). During this time, he encounters Iris, a—get this—12 YEAR OLD prostitute (played by a young Jodi Foster) and develops a harmless friendship with her. The film’s climax has Bickle trying, and failing, to murder Palantine. Licking his wounds, he enters a shootout with Iris’s pimp and predators and the epilogue depicts Bickle as a hero for saving Iris.
Weird, I know. And yet in this film is a stark realization about how thin the line between insane destructiveness and valiant heroic potential can be in a person. I thought it was fascinating how Bickle began as a man who has the trust of the audience and then loses it (at one point, exemplified brilliantly when the camera literally gives up on filming him and moves away; covered in a great CineFix list). We realize that he’s a sick man but can’t stop watching out of curiosity and dread. When he saves Iris, only we know the twisted irony that this local hero might have been a national villain.
Some folks refer to Taxi Driver as an anti-hero tale but I think anti-villain is just as appropriate. Then again, it doesn’t really matter how you define it, it’s a story that obliterates character norms and the patterns of good and evil in a character. I found this delightful. Throw in a score I eventually learned to love (Bernard Herrmann's last), some great performances, and classic lines (“Are you talkin to me? Are YOU talkin to me?”) and you had a surprise last minute entry on this year’s list!
Anyway, this will weirdly do it for non-themed films for 2018! We have just four more weeks to the year’s end and to celebrate, I will be watching Christmas themed films. Catch me next week for that!