Taxi Driver – 1976
This was a strange little movie. First of all, if you like Robert De Niro then you will love him in this film. Many critics have called this his best performance ever, which is saying a lot for the prolific actor. He plays the character of Travis Bickle, a Vietnam vet who is socially inept. He is passionately disgusted by the ills of a society he feels has rejected him, and yet decides to become a murderous vigilante, perpetuating the problems he supposedly hates.
That contradiction has been debated by film scholars and critics. He abhors pimps, junkies, pushers, and whores, while at the same time going to pornographic theatres on a regular basis, and making plans to murder a senator. And though his motives for that could also be debated, he altruistically goes on a suicide mission to save a 12 year-old hooker named Iris, played by a very young Jody Foster, planning to go out in a blaze of glory. He murders several men in cold blood before getting wounded, himself.
Though he expects to die, he ends up living and being praised as a hero. The media and the young girl’s family treat him as a savior. Personally, I couldn’t see it that way. Sure, he put an end to the child’s sexual servitude, but what gave him the right to play God? There were other ways for him to be the hero and punish the men who were exploiting her, legal ways. In my eyes, he was just as criminal as the men he executed. He did the wrong thing, but for strangely righteous reasons. Fortunately, I think the filmmakers thought the same way, and the end of the movie, where Travis is deified, is meant to be ironic.
As I mentioned, Travis’s motives for wanting to assassinate the Senator are a little ambiguous. The character that De Niro created is obviously mentally unstable. He sees a beautiful woman while driving his taxi, and falls in love with her. But he is so socially awkward, he creates one uncomfortable scene after another. He is positively creepy at times. The object of his desire is Betsy, played by Cybill Shepherd. He forces his way into her life and she is intrigued by his boldness. She agrees to go out with him a few times, but is disgusted when he takes her to an adult movie theatre on their second date. Betsy works for Senator Charles Palantine, played by Leonard Harris.
So after Betsy rejects Travis, he undergoes a frightening transformation. De Niro was incredible and very convincing in portraying this change. He changes his appearance, buys 4 guns, and plans to murder Senator Palantine. But why? Is he doing it to punish Betsy for rejecting him? Or does he want to simply get her attention? Or perhaps he thinks that her job is what is turning her against him, and eliminating the Senator will change that. It was not explained to my satisfaction.
Foster, was already known as an established child actor. She was obviously talented and comfortable in front of the camera. I’m not surprised she has had a very successful career. Shepherd was also good and she looked fantastic. One of Betsy’s co-workers who I recognized was Albert Brooks, playing the part of Tom. He was interested in Betsy and was appropriately protective of her when the creepy taxi driver started to lose control of himself in his anger at her.
And I have to mention the last 2 members of the cast who caught my attention, simply because they were names that I recognized. Peter Boyle played a fellow taxi driver called Wizard. There is a touching scene in which Travis goes to him looking for advice but is unable to express his feelings sufficiently to ask an answerable question. Wizard grows too uncomfortable and leaves him with no answer.
Then, finally, there is Harvey Keitel. I have always thought of Keitel as an exceptional actor. Here, he plays the sleazy lowlife, Sport, the pimp who is selling the 12 year-old Iris. When Travis shoots him in the stomach, I had mixed feelings. I hated him for becoming a cold-blooded killer, something he clearly loathed in others, and cheered him for disposing of the child molester. I also noticed that Sport had a long painted nail on his pinky finger, presumably for scooping and snorting cocaine.
I found it interesting to learn, through my research, that director Martin Scorsese, who had an interesting little cameo as a crazed passenger in Travis’s cab, was quoted as saying that the character of Travis Bickle was not cured of his mental deficiencies because of his cathartic experience. After all was said and done, he was still a mentally and emotionally unstable man who would eventually return to his violent tendencies, and it is hard to like such an anti-hero.