Taxi Driver

Watched snatches of Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver yesterday, one of my all time favourite movies. I once recommended the movie to a cousin and she hated it, and since then, never takes any of my recommendations.

Some thoughts on the movie (hoping this would change her mind and she would again take my recommendations seriously).

Martin Scorsese’s brand of cinema, is according to me, very close to legendary filmmaker Francois Truffaut’s belief that art is a reflection of life than anything else. (Truffaut going on to say that he was more interested in the reflection of life than life itself). In this kind of cinema, all barriers between cinema and reality are sought to be broken – cinema must mirror reality as much as possible. This is usually best done in an outdoor surrounding, since cinematic realism is at its best when the environments the characters inhabit are seen to be influencing and shaping their actions. Scorsese’s 1973 movie Mean Streets and Truffaut’s 1960 classic The 400 Blows, as most of the French New Wave cinema, focus on outdoor surroundings rather than studio settings, for the cinematic effect to be as real as possible.

In Taxi Driver, this is more than evident – the filth, grime and the noise of the streets of New York has an significant effect on Travis Bickle’s (Robert De Niro) mind. When asked by Charles Palantine(the candidate running for President) what he most detests about New York, he is quick to say that the filth ‘really pisses him off.’ Another theme central to Taxi Driver is the theme of urban alienation, which is about the cold and distant attitude that is slowly absorbing urban society. This attitude is partly due to the rising individualism in urban life, whose downside is the increasing loneliness faced by individuals, as Travis (Robert De Niro) faces. It is an interesting fact that Travis has no close friends, apart from a few acquaintances he meets sometimes at the cafe.

The movie had the famous punchline – On every street in every city, there’s a nobody who dreams of being a somebody. This is closely related to class, and Taxi Driver portrays a certain snobbishness arising out of a deeply class stratified society. Travis’ effort to transgress those class boundaries by asking out Betsy(Cybill Shepherd) ends in failure. It confronts him with the brutal truth of rigid class reality and Travis concludes – ‘She was like all the rest, cold and distant.’

Travis slowly starts becoming paranoid and obsessed with becoming a man of some importance. The anonymity of being a taxi driver has become claustrophobic. As the plot progresses, he eventually ends up busting a crime and prostitution ring and elevating himself to a small time hero. In the last scene of the film, Betsy hires his cab for a short distance and clearly aware of Travis’ feat, her perception of Travis is now completely different. Yet Travis is now a content man, and he does not ask out Betsy – which is as much an acceptance of the irreconciliation of class hierarchies as it is about self-respect.

Taxi Driver owes most of its success to the genius of two men – Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro – an enduring partnership that has produced eight films to date. Robert De Niro’s brand of method acting became famous with this picture – he drove a taxi cab all around New York to prepare for the role just after winning an Oscar for The Godfather Part 2. It also launched Scorsese into the big league, earning him an Oscar nomination.

Taxi Driver is a seering indictment on the decadence of urban life, and its relevance remains undiminished.