Hailed as a landmark film of the 1970's, the story of 'Taxi Driver' piggy-backs on Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), an isolate-distorted-illusive- paranoiac-delusional-misanthropist-vietnam-veteran. Travis perceptibly smitten with insomnia, spends sleepless nights as a cabbie. The ugly face of New York City precipitated with scum, filth, and decadence sets off Travis to go on a reckless rampage, as he ends up rescuing Iris Steensma (Jodie Foster), a twelve year old prostitute from the willful custody of 'Sport' Matthew (Harvey Keitel), who runs a brothel. And Media catapults Travis an over-night-Hero!
Martin Scorsese has admirably skewed the movie through the eyes of Travis. Be it the loneliness, filthy streets of New York, non-chaste women et al… Scorsese has etched all these attributes and shades at will and with utmost perfection. Most of the scenes were shot with a pinch of dark, suggesting the estranged mind of Travis, and they were absorbing and at times very disturbing. The climax, shot for well over 5 minutes, unleashes a bloodbath, with most of the central characters involved. A massacre!!! Had it not been for the creative camera angles of Michael Chapman, bloody-scene could have doomed... Laconic dialogues penned by Paul Schrader are worth a praise, it had the stimulus to inject pain, and rarely pleasure. I really enjoyed some of the one- liners…
On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody.
Shit... I'm waiting for the sun to shine.
Thank God for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk.
You're only as healthy as you feel.
Bernard Herrmann (remember the nerve-jangling music of ‘Psycho’), music was really instrumental in making the movie 'Taxi Driver' a classic… The subtle Jazz, occasional sforzando of drums took the movie to dizzy heights of haunt, suspense and hallucination.
(Just a day after composing the music for ' Taxi Driver' Bernard Herrmann passed away...)
Having said all this, I must admit I did not enjoy watching 'Taxi Driver' as much as I did enjoy watching 'The Godfather’, ‘Psycho’ or 'Raging Bull '. With all due respect to Martin Scorsese, I did not feel the pounding heart, lump to my throat, an occupied-cum-disturbed mind, intense emotion et al… Scorsese is masterful in generating such inexplicable feelings out of watching a movie…
Perhaps, the Italian Version of the movie (which I actually saw today) has played the spoilsport…Lost in translation :-(
I'll pick the English version and hopefully I should be made to eat my own words and may be I'll eat a humble pie … :-)
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