Taxi Driver and the Cap'n go back a ways: arguably Martin Scorsese's "best known" film*, Taxi Driver was one of the first movies I had a VHS copy of (okay, literally a "copy," as in from one I rented), and sat comfortably on the tape next to Shaft. At the time, I enjoyed watching Robert DeNiro's slow descent into insanity, his isolation feeding a misplaced sense of rage, until his explosion of violence takes out a few low level pimps (notably Harvey Keitel) and he becomes an even more misunderstood hero for "rescuing" Jodie Foster's teenage prostitute. I didn't really understand Taxi Driver's place in the film noir tradition, or the influence of post-Vietnam rage and disillusionment, but I appreciated the gritty, forthright story, the embittered voice-over of Travis Bickle, and the ambiguous ending.The violence also appealed to me in high school, although Taxi Driver is more about attitude than actual outbursts. I've seen the film so many times now that I can't actually remember how I felt about the lack of violence for most of the film (unlike Shaft, which I distinctly recall being underwhelmed by), but I can only imagine the bloodbath that closes the story made up for the mis-communication between characters for the bulk of Taxi Driver's 113 minute running time.
It was only later, when I came back to Taxi Driver after years of simply taking the film on a surface level, that I had the opportunity to rediscover the film in context. Considered by many to be the first major "Neo-Noir**," a spin-off of the Film Noir period of the 1940s and 50s, Taxi Driver both borrows from and expands upon themes of the movement (crime stories based around a down-on-their-luck antihero, a femme fatale, and a profound sense of angst, suspicion, and impending doom).
In an essay for my Film Noir final, Taxi Driver was a central piece when dealing with a shift in "noir" protagonists from "morally ambiguous" to a "psychotic and suicidal impulse," a shift that occurred in late noir and reaches its apex (arguably for the last time) in Scorsese's film:
Where Taxi Driver becomes the “watershed” noir for the psychotic action and suicidal impulse lies within Travis’s inability to do anything but destroy (himself or others). Bickle is, to put it simply, a weapon without a direction to point in. His disgust with New York is exacerbated by driving all over the city at night and dealing with the very worst it has to offer. In his spare time he stews, going to porno theaters without release or stewing at home, a veritable sty of fast food and garbage.
Travis Bickle does not have a femme fatale to draw him in, so he creates two: Betsy, a campaign volunteer for Senator Charles Palantine, and Iris, a child-prostitute. His “Madonna/Whore” complex becomes the catalyst for a purpose, although in both cases it is wholly destructive. Travis alienates both women, but directs his anger at the men they represent.
Without any interest for his own well-being, Bickle pushes forward to realize his goal of being a psychopathic killer. His rage at Betsy redirected at Palantine, Travis comes to believe that his act will have major repercussions, fixing a world he has no use for (and evidently no cure for). When he fails, instead of trying to adjust his mindset, the suicidal Bickle storms into the brother where Iris stays, killing Sport, her pimp, his boss, and the john with Iris in an outburst of blood and severed limbs.
Bickle, who sustains injuries in the shoulder and the neck, fully intends to kill himself as Iris screams beside him. Her salvation was not part of his plan, if he truly had one, and a lack of ammunition is his salvation, though he clearly has no use for life. The police, storming into the aftermath of Travis’s rampage, find him “shooting” himself in the head with his finger. Bickle, the suicidal psychopath, has finally lost it.
If there is any question that the epilogue to the film, which finds Travis back in good health and lauded as a “hero”, sullies this climax, consider the final moments of Taxi Driver. Bickle, who appears back to “normal”, drops Betsy off in his taxi and drives away. He catches something in the reflection behind him, and the “normal” façade drops. Adjusting the mirror, Travis sees only himself. His rehabilitation was not complete; the cycle will begin again, and next time it may not end happily.
A curious side effect of the psychotic action hero occurs less in neo-noir and more to this day in action films like The Punisher or Death Wish. The lone hero, which traces itself back to pre-noir detective films and has its own watershed moment with Dirty Harry, is a spin-off of this psychotic action and suicidal impulse. It continues to appear in neo-noir or noir pastiches like Sin City, but the current crop of post-classical directors seem to be more fascinated with revisionist takes on pre-1950s noir conventions.
I include this because of an ongoing argument about whether its ideal to enjoy a film on its own merits or if there is a greater benefit to understand a film beyond what is simply presented onscreen. I contend that there is a healthy middle ground, one that doesn't require a film school degree to "appreciate" classic films, but one that does provide audiences with a new lens with which to revisit old favorites.
Is it absolutely necessary to know everything in the italicized paragraphs above to enjoy Taxi Driver? Certainly. I would be the first person to concede that one needn't know what a "pastiche" is to "get" the film. On the other hand, there's something about seeing Taxi Driver's place in film history that does enrich the experience, that opens new questions about the film, about specific camera angles, editing choices, or snippets of dialogue. While I'm not forcing anyone to consider these new ways to experience a film, my own history with Taxi Driver is an example of growing with film, of seeing an essentially unchanging piece of art in another way, and of the knowledge that the relationship between audience and film is constantly evolving. For me, that's what being a film fan is all about.
* What else falls in there: Goodfellas? The Departed? The Last Temptation of Christ? Casino?
** Not to be mistaken with a sort-of arbitrary association of "Post-Noir" that covers films like Touch of Evil, Blast of Silence, Point Blank, and Ace in the Hole.
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