| Overall Grade: |
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| Story: |
A |
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A |
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A |
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A |
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You get a job. You become the job.
by Leo - The Lion (movies profile)
Sep 19, 2007
11
of
17 people found this review helpful
On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody. This film is the story of Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro). It starts out with him looking for a job as a cab driver at nights, which he figures will suite him well since he's having trouble sleeping and need to fill the hours. He gets the job and starts driving taxi during the dark hours in the "city that never sleeps" (a.k.a. New York), often driving around customers until the early morning. He is disgusted by the low-lives - prostitutes, drug dealers, murderers - who come out at night and is confident that "someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets". One day his attention is drawn by a beautiful woman (Cybill Shepherd), by the name of Betsy, which in his eyes appears as an innocent angel in the midst of the chaotic city, and after following her around for some time he finally gathers the courage to ask her out for lunch, an offer which she accepts. Travis is really fond of her, and insists that she should go with him to see a movie. He takes her to a porn theatre, not a very wise decision as she is repelled by the material shown in there and leaves him very abruptly outside the theatre.
You notice at an early stage that Travis is a troubled person, he seems to have something inside him that is demanding all his concentration, which makes him a silent and quite shy person. Vietnam's impact on his mental state is, in my opinion, kinda overrated, to me its more of the final disturbance that makes him go insane. The way I see it, the majority of his mental problems lie in his loneliness. He is such an utterly lonely person, and he is clearly desperately searching for someone to reach out to. The disgust he feels for the low-lives on the streets is a defensive reaction of denial, as he is afraid that someday he might himself become like them. But when he lays his eyes on Betsy he is convinced that he has finally found someone to reach out to, and when he is finally about to open himself to someone he is rejected (Betsy later avoids him after the incident in the porn theatre).
Following the failure with Betsy, Travis takes his first real step into madness and is convinced that he has to do something. Here another strong argument for Vietnam playing such a big part in his mental state, as I don't think anyone would believe that he would have done what he is about to do if he would have established a successful relationship with Betsy. He purchases some guns and prepares himself to assassinate a senator by the name of Palantine, for whom Betsy is a campaign worker. (This is where the famous "You talkin' to me?"-scene in front of the mirror appears). The reason for him deciding to do this, in my opinion, is that he wants some sort of revenge on Betsy for not even trying to communicate with him - and I must admit, even though he took her to a porn theatre, she treats him very harsh, even though he apologizes over and over again (although this of course doesn't justify murdering someone). Before the attempt on the senator's life, there is a scene where Travis is writing a letter to his parents, in which he is writing of himself as an agent for the government of some sort, merely as an excuse for not telling any details about his life. This is yet another scene where Travis' refusal of realizing who he his and dealing with it is brought up. The assassination attempt, however, as Travis is detected by a Secret Service-agent as he is about to pull out his gun (at least I think so, my memory is a little fuzzy). He manages to get away without getting caught.
Shortly after this incident Travis meets a young prostitute, by the name of Iris (Jodie Foster, in her breakthrough-role) who he remembers from one night where she tried to escape from a man, presumably her pimp, in his cab. He wants to talk to her, but she directs him to her pimp and tells him he has to pay for the time. The pimp (Harvey Keitel), called Sport, takes his money and Iris leads Travis to a shady hotel where they go into a room. Iris, thinking Travis is looking for sex, tries to get him his clothes off, but Travis refuses and insists he only wants to talk to her. He tries to make her understand what kind of miserable way in life she is heading down. This is an action where Travis is obviously trying to save another person from becoming what he himself has began to realize he has become, and actually a quite admirable effort in self-recognition for such a mentally ill man. Iris becomes confused when Travis tries to communicate with her and establish a friendship, but she agrees to go out on with breakfast with him the next morning.
During this breakfast Travis tries to make Iris realize what he is warning her off, but she still doesn't quite rely on any man finding anything else than sexual aspects of her interesting. Travis now decides he has to take action, and in a rage kills both Sport, the hotelowner and some other "customers" there. Travis himself is shot down, obviously on the verge of death. Here is where the ending comes, and this can be interpreted in many ways. I myself think that the ending(where Travis survives and you can see grateful letters from Iris' parents and articles from newspapers where he is portrayed as a hero), is merely a dream that Travis his having right before he dies. This ending would fulfill his dream in many ways, of finally being appreciated and understood - and it would be very satisfcatory too.
This is a completely brilliant movie in every aspect. First off you have Robert De Niro's incredible performance as Travis Bickle, which is nothing but stunning, and one of the best performances I've ever seen on film. Then there is Scorese's masterful directing, the haunting and brilliant score by Bernard Hermann, who is a personal favorite of mine (he also made the music to several of Alfred Hitchock's movies, like "Psycho", "North by Northwest" and "Vertigo", and this is undoubtedly one of the best scores in film history, switching between calm jazzy music to extremely dark and very upsetting music. The script by Paul Schrader is also brilliant, for that matter. Also another great thing about this movie is that we can all in some way communicate with Travis, we have all been lonely or misunderstood at some point in our life, which makes us feel for him. But perhaps the very best thing about this film is that it actually creates its own little universe that feels completely true. We do believe that the paths Travis chooses to take are just a few of many, many others, and we can see the consequences of what would have happened if he took another path.
[Into a mirror.]
Travis Bickle: You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who do you think you're talking to? Oh yeah? Huh? Ok.
If you like this movie, I also recommend: Fight Club, Reservoir Dogs, Leon - The Professional and Gangs of New York. |
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