G
Guestx
Guest
So @INTERL0PER and @europe1 did a somewhat less-than-gentle job of shaming me the other day for having not yet seen Taxi Driver. What can I say? It's just another one of those classic films that have been on the list for a long time, but that I haven't yet pulled the trigger on.
Until now, that is.
Here's what struck me, almost immediately: Travis Bickle is a character that could be defined in a variety of ways, depending on the viewer. A few words come to mind: Obviously there's VIGILANTE. Here's a guy who takes the law into his own hands. Then you have something like UNHINGED. Some might say he's mentally disturbed. But I'll add another word: SUPERHERO. This last idea came to me very early on in the film, and the question needs to be asked, what really sets someone like him apart from Bruce Wayne, other than the fancy gadgets and costume? Not much, when you really think about it. Both are motivated by a pathological desire to "clean up the streets."
It's interesting to watch Travis slowly come to this conclusion. In the beginning of the movie, he clearly has some issues (such as his insomnia and its ramifications), but he's still a ways away from the Travis we find at the end of the film. Consider, for instance, the scene in which he's asked if he carries a gun, and he says no, and has no interest in doing so. And yet, by the end of the film, he's embraced the virtue of being fully armed.
He's really a tragic character. He's an outsider, disconnected from mainstream culture, which is why he doesn't understand the problem with taking a girl on a date to a porno. But that doesn't make him a bad person. He always has the best of intentions at heart, as is clearly demonstrated with the main thrust of the film: His relationship to Iris.
Speaking of which, can we take a break real quick and discuss Jodie Foster? Holy shit, man. Apparently she was only 12 years old when she made this movie. And she looked like this?
There's something not right about that. That's the kind of girl who's going to get a lot of dudes into legal trouble.
But accusations of adolescent floozy-ness aside, she gives an amazing performance and completely dominates every scene she's in. Fuck. I've always loved her as an adult actor--Contact is one of my favorite movies of all time--and now I see that she's just been killing it from the beginning.
But back to Travis, it's interesting to watch his transition from a guy with solid mid-Western American values to a man who taken just about as much shit a he's gonna take from society. At one point he kills his TV, a good analogy to people today talking about the vapidness of the Internet. And there are also a lot of parallels to the film Network and its famous "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" diatribe against modern culture.
Really, I think movies like Taxi Driver and Network are representations of the zeitgeist of the 70s. Crime was rampant, unemployment was high, Vietnam was still on everyone's mind, and the Reagan-era hope that was to later come had not yet arrived.
But I'm finding another connection to a piece of art beyond the movie Network, and that's what seems to me to be an obvious connection to JD Salinger's novel Catcher in the Rye.
I read Catcher many years ago, in my early 20s, and it made an impact on me. The book's main character Holden Caulfield is a 16-year-old malcontent who sees phony people and perversion everywhere. It's really not too unlike Bickle.
And having done some research, I've found another Catcher-Taxi Driver connection. Namely, John Hinckley Jr.
He developed an obsession with Jodie Foster after seeing Taxi Driver and tried to kill the President to impress her. I think I'll let Wiki handle it from here:
After the assassination attempt on Reagan, police searched Hinckley's hotel room and among a half dozen books was found . . . you guessed it, Catcher in the Rye.
It seems to me that Taxi Driver is another piece of art in the tradition of Catcher--an anthem of the disaffected. It's not a message that I'm entirely unsympathetic to. I actually kind of get it. And Travis Bickle, masterfully played by a young DeNiro, is an understandable and sympathetic personification of this idea.
All in all, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I didn't find it without flaws. It starts a bit slow and perhaps could've picked up some momentum a little earlier. But it's definitely a visionary piece of cinema and representative of the kind of movie that we rarely get to see--a courageous singular vision from a director who's willing to step outside of the Hollwood blueprint to really SAY SOMETHING.
8.5/10
Until now, that is.
Here's what struck me, almost immediately: Travis Bickle is a character that could be defined in a variety of ways, depending on the viewer. A few words come to mind: Obviously there's VIGILANTE. Here's a guy who takes the law into his own hands. Then you have something like UNHINGED. Some might say he's mentally disturbed. But I'll add another word: SUPERHERO. This last idea came to me very early on in the film, and the question needs to be asked, what really sets someone like him apart from Bruce Wayne, other than the fancy gadgets and costume? Not much, when you really think about it. Both are motivated by a pathological desire to "clean up the streets."
It's interesting to watch Travis slowly come to this conclusion. In the beginning of the movie, he clearly has some issues (such as his insomnia and its ramifications), but he's still a ways away from the Travis we find at the end of the film. Consider, for instance, the scene in which he's asked if he carries a gun, and he says no, and has no interest in doing so. And yet, by the end of the film, he's embraced the virtue of being fully armed.
He's really a tragic character. He's an outsider, disconnected from mainstream culture, which is why he doesn't understand the problem with taking a girl on a date to a porno. But that doesn't make him a bad person. He always has the best of intentions at heart, as is clearly demonstrated with the main thrust of the film: His relationship to Iris.
Speaking of which, can we take a break real quick and discuss Jodie Foster? Holy shit, man. Apparently she was only 12 years old when she made this movie. And she looked like this?
There's something not right about that. That's the kind of girl who's going to get a lot of dudes into legal trouble.
But accusations of adolescent floozy-ness aside, she gives an amazing performance and completely dominates every scene she's in. Fuck. I've always loved her as an adult actor--Contact is one of my favorite movies of all time--and now I see that she's just been killing it from the beginning.
But back to Travis, it's interesting to watch his transition from a guy with solid mid-Western American values to a man who taken just about as much shit a he's gonna take from society. At one point he kills his TV, a good analogy to people today talking about the vapidness of the Internet. And there are also a lot of parallels to the film Network and its famous "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" diatribe against modern culture.
Really, I think movies like Taxi Driver and Network are representations of the zeitgeist of the 70s. Crime was rampant, unemployment was high, Vietnam was still on everyone's mind, and the Reagan-era hope that was to later come had not yet arrived.
But I'm finding another connection to a piece of art beyond the movie Network, and that's what seems to me to be an obvious connection to JD Salinger's novel Catcher in the Rye.
I read Catcher many years ago, in my early 20s, and it made an impact on me. The book's main character Holden Caulfield is a 16-year-old malcontent who sees phony people and perversion everywhere. It's really not too unlike Bickle.
And having done some research, I've found another Catcher-Taxi Driver connection. Namely, John Hinckley Jr.
He developed an obsession with Jodie Foster after seeing Taxi Driver and tried to kill the President to impress her. I think I'll let Wiki handle it from here:
After the assassination attempt on Reagan, police searched Hinckley's hotel room and among a half dozen books was found . . . you guessed it, Catcher in the Rye.
It seems to me that Taxi Driver is another piece of art in the tradition of Catcher--an anthem of the disaffected. It's not a message that I'm entirely unsympathetic to. I actually kind of get it. And Travis Bickle, masterfully played by a young DeNiro, is an understandable and sympathetic personification of this idea.
All in all, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I didn't find it without flaws. It starts a bit slow and perhaps could've picked up some momentum a little earlier. But it's definitely a visionary piece of cinema and representative of the kind of movie that we rarely get to see--a courageous singular vision from a director who's willing to step outside of the Hollwood blueprint to really SAY SOMETHING.
8.5/10
Last edited by a moderator:
