LogFAQs > #983168826

9. Taxi Driver (1976)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Score: 128

Mythiot: 1
Lightning: 5
Seanchan: 5
Seginus: 7
jcgamer: 8
Suprak: 12
Johnbobb: 12
Poke: 20
Inviso: 29
Karo: 29

Lightning
You talkin to me?

Martin Scorseses masterwork of mood and ambiguous morality. This is a film that I had absorbed the plot of from popular culture and its many copycats but now that Ive actually seen it frankly itll be hard to get a lot of this imagery out of my head. From the jazzy main theme to the cinematography and the way nighttime New York is shot the whole film just oozes atmosphere. Robert De Niros performance too is unforgettable.

It is very interesting to look at this films morality and the morality of its central character in the context of Scorseses later work. Travis Bickle at the start is deeply discriminatory and reactionary, and clearly portrayed as a pretty pathetic guy. He lives a sad, slovenly life and even when he manages to charm a beautiful woman enough to go on a date with him he manages an extreme fumble (the cinema scene was cringe inducing). He espouses some pretty extreme views and looks at violence as a way to get what he wants. In some ways hea a prototypical incel and the film knows it. Yet, paradoxically rather than receive a reckoning he, depending on your reading, he ultimately commits a heroic act and gets a happy enough ending. This brings to mind a lot of the discourse around Wolf of Wall Street which got criticism for not strongly condemning the actions of its characters enough.

What helps the film is that it never really loses sight of who Travis is. Moments before his supposedly heroic stand hea trying to assassinate a presidential candidate just because its the only way he thinks he can be anybody. In this the film is pretty clearly saying hea still ultimately a pathetic figure who happens to do a good thing. Had he not been spotted instead be would have murdered somebody for no reason. Instead he gets to be called a hero and live a normal life. That perfect ambiguity of the film itself is summed up when Betsy talks about Traviss contradictions. Here the film is celebrating him and condemning him at once.

Lastly, I have to say, I thought the mohawk look would be a much bigger part of the film than it was. Instead it only appears for the last twenty minutes and is gone before the end of the film. Just another thing that is so iconic its presence becomes outsized compared to its actual role. That does not fit the film as the whole though, which is just terrific.

5/5

Seanchan
Taxi Driver is the story of a right wing incel in the 70s in NYC. Ive seen this movie before and I dont think I really realized that on that initial viewing. But in 2024, its damn hard to not view this film through the modern perspective. Travis has a lonely, hateful view of the world. He becomes obsessed with a girl, gets rejected because he takes to a porno, and falls deeper down into depression. Gets obsessed with guns and trying to be a savior. In the end, he kills some pimps and gets hailed as a hero, and all I could think was, thank god for him he was white.
I enjoyed this overall, despite the depressive subject matter. I guess youd call it a slow paced movie but it never really felt that way to me.
BTW, did you know that the passenger in the cab talking about using a .44 Magnum on his wife was actually the director, Mr. Martin Scorsese?

Seginus
I feel like this movie shouldnt work for me in theory (the content seems wholly unappealing) but the style and tone are on point, and it hits so many resonant notes as a character study that Travis Bickle has understandably become something of a modern archetype. Between Schraders script, Scorseses direction, and De Niros performance theres a complete realization of this person that radiates off the screen. Ive seen it a few times now and the guy always manages to skeeve me out in a way that seems relatively realistic.

On some level this movie is about the alienating effect of transactional-liminal spaces, and I mean that in the most pretentious way possible. But seriously - the taxi, the brothel, that one empty hallway with payphone, the way the camera underlines money changing hands - transaction is a clear thematic focus, liminal space is a primary setting. Travis is, among other things, a product of a dehumanizing environment.

Its important that a plot doesnt really coalesce until the second half, and that we get to know the character in a more episodic, slice-of-life fashion before any real sense of direction falls into his lap. By the time he goes full vigilante mode its clear that hes just fulfilling pent-up bloodlust and the moral crusade is largely incidental, convenient padding for his veneer of normalcy. Self-delusion even, as he recoils at himself in the rear-view mirror - and perhaps so do we, insofar as we see our own monsters in Travis Bickle.

jcgamer
Great movie thats become more relevant in the years since its release. Theres an ever-growing list of films about isolation and mental illness that are partially indebted to Taxi Driver, including one of my favorite horror movies, Saint Maud.

9/10

Johnbobb
Why I included it:
It's fucking Taxi Driver, I mean come on. It's a movie so effective in its portrayal of an unstable gunman that it inspired a real life presidential assassination. To this day Travis Bickle is still misunderstood and propped up by audiences as some sort of vigilante antihero. I considered putting Mean Streets on this list, the first acclaimed collab between Scorsese and DeNiro, but ultimately it's Taxi Driver that really cemented the two together as an iconic combo.

What I thought:
It's fucking Taxi Driver. It's incredible. I mean DeNiro came out of The Godfather Part II thinking "how can I top that?" Now, as much as I love this movie, Travis Bickle is no Vito Corleone, but what he is is something unforgettably disturbing. He's the everyman, the guy who we can see is clearly not stable enough to be trusted but not outwardly dangerous enough to do anything about, until the moment he is. To this day, I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending, with Travis getting off not just free, but celebrated as a hero, and I'd hold that question of whether Travis was the hero or the villain is likely one of the best tests of media literacy out there. And goddamn does that soundtrack never get old.

Favorite 1/2 star Letterboxd review:
doomer jazz

Inviso
This one just wasnt for me, I dont think. I mean, I can appreciate De Niros acting in the role of Travis Bickle, but everything about this movie was unpleasant and gross, through and through. New York in the 70s, based on the movies weve been watching, is a horrible, HORRIBLE place, and its filled with repulsive people. And then you have Travis, who starts the movie out as this misanthropic pick-up artist wannabe, and he only goes downhill from there. Every scene where Travis tries to carry on a conversation with literally any other person outside of his little circle of taxi driver buddies is extraordinarily cringe-worthy and uncomfortable to sit through. And then by sheer luck, he manages to make himself a hero by killing a pimp and the john who hed gotten to pay for pre-teen sex. Yeah, its that kind of movie. The whole thing just made me feel dirty watching it, and Im sorryI want to watch movies to be entertained, not made to feel dirty.