I feel pretty bad for waiting so long to get to this one. The whole time I was waiting in anticipation for Watchmen, I kept hearing Zack Snyder talk about how the look of his comic adaptation was heavily influenced by Taxi Driver, though I never did get around to seeing it. Alas, the multiplexes are stinking to high heaven right now (The Switch, Lottery Ticket and Vampires Suck all in one weekend), so it’s as good a time as any to get this off my backlog.
Right from the outset, the Watchmen similarities are apparent. Though there isn’t a single frame of this movie that looks anything like a Dave Gibbons creation, the movie does share John Higgins’ color palette. The movie is drenched in dark colors and varying shades of brown, masterfully displaying a gritty and grimy vision of New York. The cinematography toward that end is astounding, giving us a chance to see every background detail without ever losing track of the characters. Speaking of which, the writing here is pretty damn good. The dialogue is very witty and superb at character development, but there are a few character beats that go nowhere plot-wise. However, I’d chalk up the film’s “go-nowhere” segments to the editing. Sub-par editing is very common in movies of the era, though it certainly isn’t as bad here as in some other ’70s movies I’ve seen.
Anyway, the powerhouse of this movie is really Travis Bickle, the iconic anti-hero played by a young Robert De Niro. He’s a fascinating character to watch, principally because of De Niro’s legendary performance here. From the very opening frames, Bickle reeks of the impression that he may not be a trustworthy guy. So much so that when he says that he’s an honorably discharged ex-Marine, I really wasn’t sure if that was true.
Bickle starts out as a kind of impartial observer for two halves of society: The upper class (represented by the bland, superficial and dishonest realm of politics) and the lower class (the aforementioned gritty and grimy New York sidewalks). He does a great job in this role because while he’s technically in the latter category, he doesn’t really seem to understand or empathize with either side. Bickle hatefully condemns the people he sees on the sidewalk every night (in narrated journal entries that Rorschach himself could easily have written), but he gives them taxi rides without any prejudice at all. As to politics, he’s only remotely interested because of a girl volunteering for presidential candidate Charles Palantine. Though Bickle puts on an eager facade, he’s surprisingly honest in his ignorance of political matters.
Consider the particular scene in which Palantine takes a ride in Bickle’s taxi. Bickle recognizes the guy, so he strikes up an enthusiastic but completely empty conversation. Palantine replies with a transparent lie about how much he’s learned about America from taxi drivers. When pressed to talk about an issue Bickle cares about, he waffles about how the city’s going down the crapper. Palantine responds with another talking point, they trade niceties and go their separate ways with Palantine immediately forgetting the taxi driver’s existence. In brief: The upper and lower classes talk to each other in their own languages of bullshit, pretend to understand and respect each other though they really don’t, and interaction between them is totally inconsequential.
Bickle has quite a few moments like this. He has several interactions with well-to-do people who may as well be speaking Aramaic for all that they understand him and for how much he understands them. Moreover, Bickle shows equal ineptitude at talking with or understanding the poor and unsavory. It’s also worth noting that Bickle’s relationships with the upper and lower classes are made manifest through actual relationships. He first tries to court Betsy, the Palantine supporter played by Cybill Shepherd, with disastrous results. Later on, he tries to take under his wing the child prostitute played by a very young Jodie Foster. Even though Bickle clearly has more in common with her than he did with Betsy, it’s obvious that his message of seeking a better life is falling on ears made deaf by a resigned fate.
It’s fascinating to watch how Bickle’s alienation slowly leads him to go postal. When Bickle finally does start down that path, he shows a surprising amount of guts, brains and insanity, as can be seen in the construction of his clever sliding holster and the famous “You talkin’ to me?” segment.
It’s also interesting to note how this transformation is reflected in the score. At first, the score adds a small bit of flavor to what’s happening onscreen, though it could also be taken as some nice and easy listening on its own. But when Bickle starts turning dangerous, the score devolves into musical stings that are independently worthless but add a very sinister undertone to what’s happening in the movie. Finally, the climax comes and goes with barely any musical accompaniment, making the onscreen action that much more bleak.
During the climax, Travis Bickle delivers his wrath unto the rich and the poor alike. The degree to which he’s successful depends on your interpretation. There are many who think that Bickle dies at the end and I’m among them, as the nature and severity of his wounds would surely be fatal. Moreover, his last gesture makes it plain that he had every intention of blowing his brains out at the end and I’ve no reason to think he wouldn’t do so at the first opportunity. There’s also the matter of the ending: Not only is Iris back home with a second chance to transcend her gutter status, but Bickle is also able to speak with Betsy as comfortably as he’s able to speak with his drinking buddies. I can’t begin to imagine how Bickle could get there from his bloodied, murderous and snooker-loopy state in the apartment. It’s also telling that the ending is the only time that we see Bickle smile out of genuine happiness.
Maybe he’s in heaven (yeah, right) or maybe he’s dreaming in his last few moments alive, but I’ve no doubt that the ending shows us the perfect world of Travis Bickle. Of course, this would mean that in reality, his assassination attempt yielded no great importance, Iris’ fate is unknown and NYC is short one pimp with several others indubitably ready to take his place. The rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer and though some madman tried to change that, he died accomplishing little, if anything. I find this much more in keeping with the movie’s overall tone.
The movie’s pacing is pretty wonky, but this is partly due to character moments that wonderfully add to the film. Taxi Driver is not an uplifting movie, but film lovers definitely owe it a look. The production design is phenomenal, the acting is uniformly astounding and the writing is very good. If nothing else, Robert De Niro in his prime should be reason enough to seek this movie out.