If you’re any kind of movie fan, and you must at least slightly be if you’re reading this, you’ve no doubt got a lengthy list of movies somewhere in the back of your mind that you’ve promised yourself you’ll get to some time before you check out. And somewhere in all that are a few classic titles you’ve long heard about, knowing they’re important, having shaped cinema itself, but you just haven’t found the time yet to get to.
Surely, Martin Scorsese‘s 1976 drama Taxi Driver is mixed in there – hopefully near the top – just waiting for you to give it a look, patient that the many distractions that’ve kept you busy ’til now will let you free for just a couple of hours. If that’s the case and you’re still not ready to make this the next movie on your list (it’s streaming on Netflix right now), here are 5 reasons why it’s time you finally watch Taxi Driver.
Old New York
Plenty of movies from the 1970s were shot in New York City, some of the greatest directors in history making The Big Apple home to dozens of stories set in the city that never sleeps. However, Scorsese’s film feels and looks different, produced well before the city’s well-publicized clean up, right in the middle of the famous garbage strike, the director capturing a now jarring sense of authenticity to the streets and lives of those trying to survive in it. It’s stylized of course and viewed through the eyes of a man slipping into the void but it’s also endlessly fascinating to explore as the film’s main character, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) journeys us through the grimy avenues and seedy streets. Even while the story grips, it’s impossible not to take notice of the world beyond Bickle, to a time now seemingly so far away, where there was no technology like today, where the busiest corners stood crowded in pornography and homelessness, crime and despair. Scorsese is careful to make sure this is what Bickle sees and how it shapes his view of the world, but we can’t help but remember that much of this was true, the city itself untouched for many on location shots. Oh how the world has changed.
The Moments Between
Scorsese is a master storyteller, you know that already, his legacy more than well secured, so much so that with so many acclaimed films to his credit, it’s possible to forget why. With Taxi Driver, filming a screenplay by Paul Schrader, Scorsese has one of the most profoundly affecting characters ever seen on the big screen to play with but does what many wouldn’t, letting him be almost secondary to the influences around him. And the cool part is, the audience doesn’t really catch on, at least directly. Throughout the movie, the camera pulls away from Travis either to emphasis what he’s feeling or give witness to the decay he sees occurring all around him (notice a sensational moment during a phone call to a girl in a hallway where Scorsese just leaves the scene). From the way a hand sweeps over a desk to chaotic scenes of nightlife on the sidewalks, we are soon embedded in the nightmare as well, coming to believe in Bickle’s philosophy nearly as much as he does.
The Gun Dealer
Yes, everyone knows the most famous piece of dialogue from Taxi Driver, the brief moment when Bickle stands in front of a mirror and postures with his new pistols. It’s so iconic, it’s been parodied nearly to death, though it has not lost its power when seen in context. However, the scene a bit before, as Travis secretly meets a lowlife gun dealer (Steven Prince) to buy a gun is an equally chilling moment. Bickle stands in a dank hotel room, two suitcases open on the bed stacked with weapons. He listens to the jumpy salesman as he lists the specifications of each piece, Bickle holding each, testing their weight and grip. He only speaks at the end of the scene at one point pointing a snub-nosed .38 out a window at the world, the implications obvious but potent nevertheless. It’s a crucial turning point because we see Travis sink to the shallows he so detests, angry at the man selling the illegal guns for offering drugs as well, the bitter irony of becoming what he hates to rid the world of it.
The Not-Narration
Narration, in the wrong hands, is a lazy way to tell a story, especially in a medium that is, by its very nature, visual. Taxi Driver does have narration but it’s far from conventional and it takes a bit to realize so, eventually learning that we’re actually hearing Bickle’s thoughts spoken as he writes in his journal. De Niro delivers it in character as if he’s writing it live, editing his words as he goes, and for the careful viewer/listener, the molasses-like mental deterioration becomes all the more impactful the more we become drawn into his descent. Scorsese doesn’t overdo it, pacing the narration carefully to segue shifts in Bickle’s de-evolution. It soon becomes as important in defining who Travis is as any actual word he speaks. You hang on what he says and writes.
The Music of Madness
When you think of composer Bernard Herrmann, your mind probably leaps to the films of Alfred Hitchcock, his unique take to scoring a movie practically a signature on cinema itself. His work for Taxi Driver is no less iconic, though perhaps less thematic, the music not so much designed to define characters and action but to become part of it. There are no strings (aside from a harp), the horns, saxophones, and percussion like themselves thoughts given voice in Bickle’s head. Notice how it has no real rhythm, so noticeable recurring themes yet still feels so fluid in the movement of the film that you don’t even realize when it is or isn’t there. That’s best represented in the build up to and during the controversially violent finale. That’s the mark of a master in the scoring business, and no one did better than Herrmann. The film is dedicated to him, having died shortly after completing the score.