Taxi Driver

I went to Taxi Driver because I didn’t care to see the other films in the Loew’s 70s weekend and I love seeing movies on that 50 foot screen. In celebration of the theater’s 80th anniversary this year, the weekend-a-month film series followed the decade theme. Seeing All Along the Water Front (50s) and To Kill A Mocking Bird (60s) were truly memorable cinematic experiences. I had never seen Taxi Driver on the big screen. Martin Scorsese is a great director, but he is sometimes hit or miss. Of course, when he hits, like Goodfellas or the under-rated Shutter Island, he hits big and his misses, like Bringing Out the Dead are still worthwhile (okay, Boxcar Bertha and After Hours may be exceptions to that rule). I kind of always thought Taxi Driver was more in the miss category, I found it an over-rated film. More Death Wish than Virgin Spring. My opinion is different after the Loew’s viewing. The film is intense and disturbing, a character study of alienation and a snapshot of that transitory period between the two very different social upheavals of the 60s and the 80s (Reagonimcs changed America as much as the Civil Rights Movement, but not for the better). Scorsese is well-known as a dedicated cineaphile and his love of Noir holds no bounds. I saw Taxi Driver years ago. I’ve seen thousands of films since, especially Noir films. The blend of Italian Realism with Noir in Taxi Driver startled me. No one was making films like this when Taxi Driver was made and now that style is how all (okay, almost all, a lot) films are made. Loew’s always throws in some extras: A discussion and Q&A with a film scholar followed and this little exhibit of autographed publicity stills. I was too shaken from the film to stay for the Q&A. Needless to say, I avoided the cab line at the Journal Square station. No, I’m not looking at you, swear. Actually, this one moment stuck with me. The shoot-out at the end, the vengeance, when Travis Bickle shoots the pimp and johns as the child-hooker watches in horror. He looks around at the results of his violence—bodies a bloody mess in this dingy urban setting. He puts the barrel of the gun under his chin and pulls the trigger. Click, click. No Bullets. The audience sympathizes, even identifies with Deniro at this point of the film. You want to kill yourself and the anguish you feel comes from the fact you are now unable to commit suicide. What a disturbing feeling, but that’s what the 70s were often like. I felt that way all the time in High School. I recently re-watched The Departed, and during the (or least one of the) shoot-em up finales of that flick, one of the shooters uses the same gun under the chin gesture but this time the pistol fires – was this an inside comment by the director of the change in eras? I guess that’s why I love the movies—in a way, movies also watch you, they also watch us. I have seen it before, more than once, but in reality, I saw Tax Driver for the first time last week. Or perhaps it was the first time now. Was it because I’ve become a better appreciator of films or was it the big, glorious screen (and enthusiastic, appreciative audience) of the Loew’s? Both are true, so maybe both are to blame.