Taxi Driver (1976)

Taxi Driver
Director: Martin Scorsese
USA 1976
113 min
Starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle and Cybill Shepherd, among others.

What happens when a crazy person with a sleeping disorder and a contempt for humanity roams the hooker filled city streets night after night in a yellow cab?

"Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man... June 8th. My life has taken another turn again. The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next. A long continuous chain. Then suddenly, there is a change."

I'm too tired to update my blog professionally, but I can at least write a few words. It was years since I saw Taxi Driver the last time, and today I saw it in a movie theater at school. Being a film student rocks! There's nothing to be ashamed about when drooling over a young, well-trained Robert De Niro when he works out. That's film experience, alright.

I hardly remembered the film, so it was a welcome re-watch. It wasn't until the end that I realized why I thought of it as a confusing film - everything seems explicable, right? A lonely man with insomnia, disgusted by the shallow, filthy people of the city at night - it's not too far fetched that he will go on a killing spree, right? Especially when he is constantly sound tracked by a lonely brass instrument, mocking him for his loneliness.

Well, the things that confused me at first were the little details - and then the whole damned thing. For example: the ridiculously young Jodie Foster wears a couple of weird green sunglasses in the breakfast scene, and when she is about to leave in the end she instead puts on a pair of blue, round ones. Did she carry several types of sunglasses?

I'm not nitpicking here, I see those strange details as a premonition of what is to come. Is it credible that Travis is illustrated as a hero in the press after having committed murder? Is it credible that a girl/ex hooker's parents writes a thank you letter to a murderer, even if he in a twisted way changed their life for the better? Is it credible that a woman's hair blows in the wind in the backseat of a taxi cab?

I guess my interpretation of the film is clear. And that's perhaps not the most interesting part of the film anyway - the interesting part is how the hell they managed to make Harvey Keitel into such a sleezy pimp. Why the long, red finger nail? Yuck. Still, Martin Scorsese's cameo might have been the funniest part of the film. So pathetic and scary at the same time. And a little cute.

Now I'm off to read the discussion threads on IMDb and see what other film nerds make of this psycho gem.

Oh, I almost forgot: You talkin' to me?

De Niro and Scorsese on set.

Men sure knew how to wear beards in the 1970's.