Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Martin Scorsese
Produced by	Julia Phillips Michael Phillips
Written by	Paul Schrader
Narrated by	Robert De Niro
Starring	Robert De Niro Jodie Foster Albert Brooks Harvey Keitel Leonard Harris Peter Boyle Cybill Shepherd
Music by	Bernard Herrmann
Cinematography	Michael Chapman
Editing by	Marcia Lucas (supervising) Tom Rolf Melvin Shapiro
Studio	Bill/Phillips Italo/Judeo Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	February 8, 1976 (1976-02-08)
Running time	113 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.3 million
Box office	$28,262,574[1]

Taxi Driver is a 1976 American psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. The American Film Institute ranked Taxi Driver as the 52nd greatest American film on their AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) list. The film was considered "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant by the US Library of Congress and was selected to be preserved in the National Film Registry in 1994.

Plot

Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), an honorably discharged Marine, is a lonely and depressed man in Manhattan. He becomes a taxi driver in order to cope with chronic insomnia, driving passengers every night around the boroughs of New York City. He also spends time in seedy porn theaters and keeps a diary. Eventually he develops a romantic attachment to Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign volunteer for Senator Charles Palantine (Leonard Harris), who is running for President. After watching her through her office window, interacting with fellow worker Tom (Albert Brooks), Travis enters to volunteer as a pretext to talk to her and takes her out for coffee. On a later date he takes her to see a sex film, which offends her, so she goes home alone. His attempts at reconciliation by sending flowers are rebuffed so he berates her at the campaign office, before being kicked out by Tom.

Travis confides in fellow taxi driver Wizard (Peter Boyle) about his thoughts, which are beginning to turn violent, but Wizard assures he will be fine. Disgusted by the street crime and prostitution that he witnesses through the city, Travis finds a focus for his frustration and begins a program of intense physical training. He buys guns from dealer Easy Andy (Steven Prince) and constructs a sleeve gun to attach on his arm with which he practices drawing his weapons. One night, Travis enters a convenience store moments before a man attempts to rob it and shoots the robber. The shop owner (Victor Argo) takes responsibility and Travis leaves. On another night, 12-year-old child prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) enters Travis's cab, attempting to escape her pimp Matthew "Sport" (Harvey Keitel). Sport drags Iris from the cab and throws Travis a crumpled twenty-dollar bill, which continually reminds him of her. Travis arranges to meet Iris and persuades her to quit prostitution. They meet again the next day for breakfast and Travis becomes obsessed with helping her return to her parents' home, sending her money to do so and a letter in which he states he will soon be dead.

After shaving his head into a mohawk, Travis attends a public rally where he attempts to assassinate Senator Palantine, but Secret Service agents notice him and he flees. He returns to his apartment and then drives to the East Village, where he confronts Sport. Travis shoots him, then walks into Iris’ brothel and shoots off the bouncer's fingers. After Sport shoots Travis in the neck, slightly wounding him, Travis shoots him dead. Another thug appears and shoots Travis in the arm, but Travis reveals his sleeve gun and kills the thug. The bouncer continues to harass Travis, causing Travis to shoot him in the head and kills him. As a horrified Iris cries Travis attempts suicide but, out of ammunition, resigns himself to a sofa until police arrive. When they do, he places his index finger against his temple gesturing the act of shooting himself. Recuperating, Travis receives a letter from Iris's parents who thank him for saving her and the media hail him as a hero. Travis then returns to his job and encounters Betsy as a fare. She discusses his newly found fame, but he denies being a hero and drops her off for free. He glances anxiously at an object in his rear view mirror as he drives away.

Cast

• Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle
• Jodie Foster as Iris "Easy" Steensma
• Albert Brooks as Tom
• Harvey Keitel as Matthew "Sport" Higgins
• Leonard Harris as Senator Charles Palantine
• Peter Boyle as "Wizard"
• Cybill Shepherd as Betsy
• Harry Northup as Doughboy
• Martin Scorsese as Passenger Watching Silhouette
• Victor Argo as Melio
• Steven Prince as "Easy Andy"
• Joe Spinell as Personnel Officer

Production

According to Scorsese it was Brian De Palma who introduced him to Schrader. In Scorsese on Scorsese, edited by David M. Thompson and Ian Christie, the director talks about how much of the film arose from his feeling that movies are like dreams, or like taking dope and that he tried to induce the feeling of being almost awake. He calls Travis an “avenging angel” floating through the streets of New York City, which was meant to represent all cities. Scorsese calls attention to improvisation in the film, such as in the scene between De Niro and Cybill Shepherd in the coffee-shop. The director also cites Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man and Jack Hazan’s A Bigger Splash as inspiration for his camerawork in the movie.^[2]

In Scorsese on Scorsese the director mentions the religious symbolism in the story comparing Bickle to a saint who wants to clean up both life and his mind. Bickle attempts suicide at the end of the movie as a way to mimic the Samurai’s “death with honour” principle.^[2]

When Travis meets Betsy to join him for coffee and pie, she reminds him of a line in Kris Kristofferson's song "The Pilgrim, Chapter 33": "He's a prophet and a pusher, partly truth, partly fiction—a walking contradiction." On their date, Bickle takes her to see Language of Love, a Swedish sex education film.^[3]

Shot during a New York summer heat wave and garbage strike, Taxi Driver came into conflict with the MPAA for its violence (Scorsese desaturated the color in the final shoot-out and got an R). To achieve the atmospheric scenes in Bickle's cab, the sound men would get in the trunk and Scorsese and his cinematographer, Michael Chapman, would fit themselves on the back seat floor and use available light to shoot.

In writing the script, Paul Schrader was inspired by the diaries of Arthur Bremer (who shot presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972) and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. The writer also used himself as an inspiration, prior to writing the screenplay Schrader was in a lonely and alienated position, much like Bickle. Following a divorce and a break-up with a live-in girlfriend, he spent a few weeks living in his car. He wrote the script in under a month while staying in his former girlfriend's apartment while she was away.

Schrader decided to make Bickle a Vietnam vet because the national trauma of the war seemed to blend perfectly with Bickle’s paranoid psychosis making his experiences after the war more intense and threatening. Thus, Bickle chooses to drive his taxi anywhere in the city as a way to feed his hate.^[4]

While preparing for his role as Bickle, De Niro was filming Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 in Italy. According to Boyle, he would "finish shooting on a Friday in Rome...get on a plane...[and] fly to New York." De Niro obtained a cab driver's license, and when on break would pick up a cab and drive around New York for a couple of weeks, before returning to Rome to resume filming 1900. De Niro apparently lost 35 pounds and listened repeatedly to a taped reading of the diaries of Arthur Bremer. When he had time off from shooting 1900, De Niro visited an army base in Northern Italy and tape recorded soldiers from the Midwestern United States, whose accents he thought might be appropriate for Travis's character.

When Bickle determines to assassinate Senator Palantine, he cuts his hair into a Mohawk. This detail was suggested by actor Victor Magnotta, a friend of Scorsese's who had a small role as a Secret Service agent and who had served in Vietnam. Scorsese later noted, "Magnotta had talked about certain types of soldiers going into the jungle. They cut their hair in a certain way; looked like a Mohawk... and you knew that was a special situation, a commando kind of situation, and people gave them wide berths ... we thought it was a good idea."

Jodie Foster was not the first choice to play Iris. Scorsese considered Melanie Griffith, Linda Blair, Bo Derek, and Carrie Fisher for the role. A newcomer, Mariel Hemingway, auditioned for the role, but turned it down due to pressure from her family. After the other actresses turned down the role, Foster - an experienced child actor - was chosen.

In the original draft Schrader had written the role of Sport as a black man. There were also additions of other negative black roles. Scorsese believed that this would give the film an overly racist subtext so they were changed to white roles, although the film implies that Travis himself is a racist. Cab drivers in the film refer to Harlem as Mau Mau land, and Travis exchanges hostile eye contact with several black characters. Schrader set the film in Los Angeles; it was moved to New York City because taxis were much more prevalent there than in L.A. during the 1970s.

Music

Taxi Driver
Soundtrack album by Bernard Herrmann
Released	1998
Genre	Soundtracks
Label	Arista

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[5]

The music by Bernard Herrmann was his final score before his death on December 24, 1975, and the film is dedicated to his memory. Robert Barnett of MusicWeb International has said that it contrasts deep, sleazy noises representing the "scum" that Travis sees all over the city with the saxophone, a musical counterpart of Travis, creating a mellifluously disenchanted troubadour. Barnett also observes that the opposing noises in the soundtrack — gritty little harp figures — are as hard as shards of steel as well as a jazz drum-kit placing the drama in the city – indicative of loneliness while surrounded by people. Deep brass and woodwind are also evident. Barnett heard in the drumbeat a wild-eyed martial air charting the pressure on Bickle, who is increasingly oppressed by the corruption around him, and that the harp, drum and saxophone play extremely significant roles in all this music.^[6]

The soundtrack for the film, re-released in 1998 on CD, includes an expanded version of the score as well as the re-recorded tracks from the original 1976 LP. It also features album notes by director Martin Scorsese, as well as full documentation for the tracks linking them in great detail to individual takes.

Track 12, "Diary of a Taxi Driver", features Herrmann's music with Robert De Niro's voiceover taken direct from the soundtrack.

Also featured in the film is Jackson Browne's "Late for the Sky", appearing in a scene where couples are dancing on the program American Bandstand to the song as Travis watches on his small TV.

Track listing

Some of the tracks feature relatively long titles, representative of the fact that similar reprises are heard in many scenes.

1. Main Title
2. Thank God for the Rain
3. Cleaning the Cab
4. I Still Can't Sleep/They Cannot Touch Her (Betsy's Theme)
5. Phone Call/I Realise how much She is Like the Others/A Strange Customer/Watching Palantine on TV/You're Gonna Die in Hell/Betsy's Theme/Hitting the Girl
6. The .44 Magnum is a Monster
7. Getting into Shape/Listen you Screwheads/Gun Play/Dear Father & Mother/The Card/Soap Opera
8. Sport and Iris
9. The $20 Bill/Target Practice
10. Assassination Attempt/After the Carnage
11. A Reluctant Hero/Betsy/End Credits
12. Diary of a Taxi Driver
13. God's Lonely Man
14. Theme from Taxi Driver
15. I Work the Whole City
16. Betsy in a White Dress
17. The Days do not End
18. Theme from Taxi Driver (reprise)

Controversies

The climactic shoot-out was considered intensely graphic at the time it was initially released.^[7] To attain an "R" rating, Scorsese had the colors desaturated, making the brightly colored blood less prominent.^[8] In later interviews, Scorsese commented that he was actually pleased by the color change and he considered it an improvement over the originally filmed scene, which has been lost. In the special edition DVD, Michael Chapman, the film's cinematographer, regrets the decision and the fact that no print with the unmuted colors exists any more, as the originals had long since deteriorated.

Some critics expressed concern over 13-year-old Jodie Foster's presence during the climactic shoot-out. However, Foster stated that she was present during the setup and staging of the special effects used during the scene; the entire process was explained and demonstrated for her, step by step. Rather than being upset or traumatized, Foster said, she was fascinated and entertained by the behind-the-scenes preparation that went into the scene. In addition, before being given the part, Foster was subjected to psychological testing to ensure that she would not be emotionally scarred by her role, in accordance with California Labor Board requirements.^[9]

Copies of the movie distributed for TV broadcast had an unexplained disclaimer added during the closing credits:^[10][11]

TO OUR TELEVISION AUDIENCE: In the aftermath of violence, the distinction between hero and villain is sometimes a matter of interpretation or misinterpretation of facts. TAXI DRIVER suggests that tragic errors can be made. The Filmmakers.

John Hinckley, Jr.

Taxi Driver formed part of the delusional fantasy of John Hinckley, Jr.^[12][13] which triggered his attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, an act for which he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.^[14][15] Hinckley stated that his actions were an attempt to impress actress Jodie Foster, on whom Hinckley was fixated, by mimicking Travis's mohawked appearance at the Palantine rally. His attorney concluded his defense by playing the movie for the jury.

Interpretations of the ending

Roger Ebert has written of the film's ending:

"There has been much discussion about the ending, in which we see newspaper clippings about Travis's 'heroism' of saving Iris, and then Betsy gets into his cab and seems to give him admiration instead of her earlier disgust. Is this a fantasy scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts? Can the sequence be accepted as literally true? ... I am not sure there can be an answer to these questions. The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. We end not on carnage but on redemption, which is the goal of so many of Scorsese's characters."^[16]

James Berardinelli, in his review of the film, argues against the dream or fantasy interpretation, stating:

"Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader append the perfect conclusion to Taxi Driver. Steeped in irony, the five-minute epilogue underscores the vagaries of fate. The media builds Bickle into a hero, when, had he been a little quicker drawing his gun against Senator Palantine, he would have been reviled as an assassin. As the film closes, the misanthrope has been embraced as the model citizen—someone who takes on pimps, drug dealers, and mobsters to save one little girl."^[17]

On the Laserdisc audio commentary, Scorsese acknowledged several critics' interpretation on the film's ending being Bickle's dying dream. He admits that the last scene of Bickle glancing at an unseen object implies that he might fall into rage and recklessness in the future, and he is like "a ticking time bomb."^[18] Writer Paul Schrader confirms this in his commentary on the 30th anniversary DVD, stating that Travis "is not cured by the movie's end," and that, "he's not going to be a hero next time."^[19]

Reaction

Critical and box office reception

Filmed on a budget of $1.3 million, Taxi Driver was a financial success earning $28,262,574 in the United States,^[20] making it the 17th highest grossing film of 1976.

Roger Ebert instantly praised it as one of the greatest films he’d ever seen, claiming:

"Taxi Driver" is a hell, from the opening shot of a cab emerging from stygian clouds of steam to the climactic killing scene in which the camera finally looks straight down. Scorsese wanted to look away from Travis's rejection; we almost want to look away from his life. But he's there, all right, and he's suffering.^[21]

It was also nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (De Niro), and received the Palme d'Or, at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.^[22] It has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.^[23] The film was chosen by Time as one of the 100 best films of all time.^[24]

As of 2012, Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 98% based on reviews from 60 critics.^[25]

The July/August 2009 issue of Film Comment polled several critics on the best films to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Taxi Driver placed first above films such as Il Gattopardo, Viridiana, Blowup, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, La Dolce Vita and Pulp Fiction.^[26]

In the American Film Institute's top 50 movie villains of all time, Bickle was named the 30th greatest film villain. Empire also ranked him 18th in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll.^[27]

Accolades

Award wins

• BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jodie Foster)
• BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer (Jodie Foster)
• BAFTA Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music (Bernard Herrmann)
• Cannes Film Festival – Palme d'Or
• New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor (Robert De Niro)

Award nominations

• Academy Award for Best Picture
• Academy Award for Best Actor (Robert De Niro)
• Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Jodie Foster)
• Academy Award for Original Music Score (Bernard Herrmann)
• BAFTA Award for Best Film
• BAFTA Award for Direction (Martin Scorsese)
• BAFTA Award for Best Editing (Marcia Lucas, Tom Rolf, Melvin Shapiro)
• Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama (Robert De Niro)
• Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture (Paul Schrader)
• DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Martin Scorsese)
• WGA Award for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen (Paul Schrader)
• Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture (Bernard Herrmann)

Legacy

Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, Light Sleeper, and The Walker make up a series referred to variously as the "Man in a Room" or "Night Worker" movies. Screenwriter Paul Schrader (who directed the other three films) has stated that he considers the central characters of the four films to be one character, who has changed as he has aged.^[28][29] The film also influenced the Charles Winkler film You Talkin' to Me?^[30]

Home video releases

The first collector's edition (DVD), released was in 1999 packaged as a single disc edition release. It contained special features such as behind-the-scenes and several trailers including one, for Taxi Driver.

In 2006, a 30th anniversary 2-disc collector's edition was released. The first disc contains the movie itself, two commentaries (one by writer Paul Schrader and the other by Professor Robert Kolker), and trailers. This edition also retains some of the special features from the earlier release on the second disc, as well as some newly-produced documentary material.

A Blu-ray of the film was released on April 5, 2011, in time to commemorate the film's 35th anniversary. It includes the special features from the previous 2-disc collector's edition, plus an audio commentary released in 1991 by director Martin Scorsese for The Criterion Collection, previously released on Laserdisc.

As part of the Blu-ray production, Sony gave the film a full 4K digital restoration, which included scanning and cleaning the original negative (removing emulsion dirt and scratches). Colors were matched to director-approved prints under guidance from Scorsese and director of photography Michael Chapman. An all new lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack was also made from the original stereo recordings by Scorsese's personal sound team.^[31][32] The restored print premiered in February 2011 at the Berlin Film Festival, and to promote the Blu-ray, Sony also had the print screened at AMC Theaters nationwide on March 19 and 22.

Sequel

In late January 2005 a sequel was announced by Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese.^[33] At a 25th anniversary screening of Raging Bull, De Niro talked about the story of an older Travis Bickle being in development. Also in 2000, De Niro mentioned interest in bringing back the character in conversation with Actors Studio host James Lipton.^[34]

At the Berlinale 2010, De Niro, Scorsese, and Lars von Trier announced plans to work on a remake of Taxi Driver. The film will be produced in a similar manner to von Trier's The Five Obstructions.^[35]

In December 2011, Martin Scorsese was interviewed about combining his passion for 3D as a new medium with the legacy of older films, and said that if he could go back in time he would "shoot Taxi Driver in 3D." More specifically, he envisioned "Bob De Niro in the mirror as Travis Bickle. Imagine how intimidating: ‘You talking to me? You talking to me?’ Amazing possibilities." ^[36]

See also

• Assassinations in fiction
• "You talkin' to me?"

Notes

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Taxi Driver

• Taxi Driver at the Internet Movie Database
• Taxi Driver at the TCM Movie Database
• Taxi Driver at AllRovi
• Taxi Driver at Rotten Tomatoes