Speaker 1: Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all you
Speaker 1: can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in
Speaker 1: just two visits. See any standard two D movie anytime
Speaker 1: with no blackoutdates or restrictions. Sign up now on the
Speaker 1: Regal app or at the link in our description and
Speaker 1: use code film spot twenty six to receive fifteen percent off.
Speaker 1: Wednesdays are when we like to drop something from the
Speaker 1: Film Spotting Archive, that massive collection that's available at all
Speaker 1: times to Film Spotting family members. But on Wednesdays we
Speaker 1: share something with all of you. Now, on Friday Show,
Speaker 1: we're going to take another look at Best Picture nominee
Speaker 1: one battle after another. That's coming ahead, But right now,
Speaker 1: for this week's Archive Show, we have a film released
Speaker 1: fifty years ago this weekend that went on to be
Speaker 1: nominated for four Oscars a year later, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how about that?
Speaker 3: Best Picture, Best Actor for de Niro, Best Supporting Actress
Speaker 3: for Jodie Foster, and score Bernard Hermann. Josh it lost
Speaker 3: all four? How about that? Did we forget to mention
Speaker 3: Martin Scorsese's nomination? No, we did not, Because Martin Scorsese
Speaker 3: did not get nominated. We have actually reviewed Taxi Driver
Speaker 3: twice on the show. We did discuss it as part
Speaker 3: of our seven from seventy six Best Year Ever series.
Speaker 3: That's what you're gonna hear first. But I was talking
Speaker 3: to Sam and I said, you know, why not as
Speaker 3: a little treat, let's really dip into the archive. Let's
Speaker 3: make it a two fer. Originally, twenty eleven, Dana Stevens
Speaker 3: guest hosted with me and we talked about this show
Speaker 3: as part of a thirty fifth anniversary conversation. We did
Speaker 3: that along with our top five Robert de Niro scenes.
Speaker 3: So me and you and me and Dana talking about
Speaker 3: the film Taxi Driver.
Speaker 4: How about that?
Speaker 1: Lots of Taxi Driver talk. You had to go to
Speaker 1: the archive, the basement of the archives, yes, to get
Speaker 1: that other one, and yeah, double dip.
Speaker 4: Here for you.
Speaker 3: There you go from March twenty twenty one, here is
Speaker 3: that seven from seventy six conversation, and then way back
Speaker 3: to twenty eleven, myself and Danas Stevens.
Speaker 5: You just want to go out and again, you know,
Speaker 5: like really really really.
Speaker 2: Do something.
Speaker 6: Taxi life.
Speaker 2: You mean, well, knot's.
Speaker 5: Oh, I just want to go out I really, I
Speaker 5: really want to got some bad ideas in my head.
Speaker 6: I just.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 1: Taxi Driver released in February of nineteen seventy six. It
Speaker 1: won the Palm d'Or at the can Film Festival that May,
Speaker 1: and went on to become the seventeenth highest grossing film
Speaker 1: of the year, Nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture.
Speaker 1: Scorsese himself, however, not nominated for Best Director. That didn't
Speaker 1: happen until Raging Bull. The screenwriter of Taxi Driver, Paul Schrader,
Speaker 1: also not nominated. However, Robert de Niro and Jodi Foster.
Speaker 1: They both got acting nods, along with the posthumous nomination
Speaker 1: for composer Bernard Herman, who died shortly after completing the score. Now, Adam,
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to try to compete with your
Speaker 1: brilliant recent silence of the Lambs set up when you
Speaker 1: played Hannibal Lecter. Instead, I'm just going to steal a
Speaker 1: question that our producer Sam posed about Taxi Driver in
Speaker 1: this week's Film Spotting newsletter. And if you want to
Speaker 1: get that weekly email from Sam, just sign up at
Speaker 1: filmspotting dot net slash newsletter. In it es listeners would
Speaker 1: Travis Bickle have participated in the January sixth Capitol riot. Now,
Speaker 1: I'll admit this wasn't on my mind as I contemplated
Speaker 1: revisiting Taxi Driver.
Speaker 4: But it should have been.
Speaker 1: In my book Movies Are Prayers, I included Taxi Driver
Speaker 1: along with another best year ever title that we've considered,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine's Fight Club, in the chapter on movies
Speaker 1: as prayers of anger.
Speaker 4: Anger.
Speaker 1: I'd say, a particularly male white American anger was definitely
Speaker 1: on display by those who attack.
Speaker 4: The Capitol Building.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's probably one of the defining qualities of
Speaker 1: Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle. So I'm really curious to
Speaker 1: hear what you think of Sam's question, Adam, do you
Speaker 1: also see some similarities between what happened earlier this year
Speaker 1: in DC and what we see in Taxi Driver? And
Speaker 1: are there maybe some important distinctions we should also consider?
Speaker 3: Well, I do think Taxi Driver poses a bit of
Speaker 3: a challenge if you try to suggest that it's too
Speaker 3: timely or speaks to our current situation, Because one, this
Speaker 3: is a movie that is so distinctly a nineteen seventies
Speaker 3: movie made in nineteen seventies New York, and there is
Speaker 3: specific content within the film that covers that sort of
Speaker 3: social and political malaise that we all id identify with
Speaker 3: America in the nineteen seventies. Palatine's message when he's giving
Speaker 3: his rallies definitely is touching on that, even stylistically, Josh
Speaker 3: the end of the film, and I didn't have a
Speaker 3: chance to fully verify all this. I'm going off of
Speaker 3: my notes from the last time we talked about this
Speaker 3: movie here on the show. It was myself and Slate's
Speaker 3: Dana Stevens on the movie's thirty fifth anniversary, so ten
Speaker 3: years ago April twenty eleven, we talked about it. But
Speaker 3: the reason why you get that really jarring shift in
Speaker 3: the way the film actually looks at the end when
Speaker 3: all the violence and bloodshed is happening, I believe has
Speaker 3: something to do with them having to desaturate it and
Speaker 3: make it somehow less gory to appease.
Speaker 2: The MPAA or something.
Speaker 3: So you've got that aspect which probably wouldn't happen today
Speaker 3: if Taxi Driver was being released. And the film is
Speaker 3: also so completely told from Travis's point of view that
Speaker 3: whether or not Travis is representative of some larger disillusionment
Speaker 3: and anger is really almost impossible to gauge. I mean,
Speaker 3: even these rallies that Palatine's ad, it's not like there's
Speaker 3: a ton of people in the crowd. The other cabbys
Speaker 3: that he interacts with, they don't seem to really be
Speaker 3: of a similar political mindset or bent at all. He
Speaker 3: is unique and Taxi Driver is unique. But I'm going
Speaker 3: to give you here a contradiction that I think is
Speaker 3: fitting for a movie that is full of them. I did,
Speaker 3: on this viewing, find it more timely than ever, and
Speaker 3: yet somehow I didn't connect with it. I didn't connect
Speaker 3: with the material the same way I did ten years ago.
Speaker 3: And maybe that's because I saw it on the big screen.
Speaker 3: Then it was re released for that anniversary, and when
Speaker 3: the Blu ray came out, so I actually got to
Speaker 3: see it, and it felt like the first time because
Speaker 3: it had been so long since I had previously seen
Speaker 3: the film. Certainly I had my full attention on the
Speaker 3: film in the theater versus the distractions and the burnout
Speaker 3: that come with watching things at home these days. But
Speaker 3: maybe Josh, it gets back to your quot. Maybe the
Speaker 3: disconnect for me this time which let me be clear
Speaker 3: still saying it's a great film, But maybe the reason
Speaker 3: it didn't quite resonate with me as much this time
Speaker 3: is related to that timeliness. Not that I'm any more
Speaker 3: or less sympathetic towards Travis Bickle here ten years later,
Speaker 3: I don't know where you even start with the sympathy
Speaker 3: question with Travis Bickell, But with Dana in twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: I made the point that Travis doesn't hate Palatine, even
Speaker 3: though obviously he plans to assassinate him. There's this larger
Speaker 3: kind of sense of alienation on his part that he
Speaker 3: is tapping into. And maybe that's what frustrates him so much,
Speaker 3: is that there's the sense of futility and he needs
Speaker 3: a target, he needs someone to take it out on.
Speaker 3: And I said then that today we're so divided culturally
Speaker 3: and politically, the bickles out there can easily find a
Speaker 3: target to take down. I actually invoked Jared Lee Loughner
Speaker 3: back in that review in Arizona twenty eleven, ended up
Speaker 3: killing six people, I think, and shot US Representative Gabby Diffords.
Speaker 3: And that seems almost quaint now, doesn't it? Me invoking
Speaker 3: that figure ten years later, our cultural and political divide
Speaker 3: is obviously that chasm has just grown. We've got the
Speaker 3: racial unrest that has been heightened over the past year
Speaker 3: or two. And then you've got those insurrectionists you mentioned
Speaker 3: storming the capitol. I mean, on some level, yes, aren't
Speaker 3: they all Travis Bickle? And then you factor in two
Speaker 3: how much of Travis's rage is driven not only by
Speaker 3: racial animus but also anger towards women, which that's very
Speaker 3: clear as well. But Sam also not only gave you
Speaker 3: great fodder for your setup, he made a great comment
Speaker 3: to me and our slack, which was, you know, Travis
Speaker 3: Bickle in nineteen seventy six was really dangerous, but at
Speaker 3: least he was isolated. You know, I mentioned his community
Speaker 3: if you will. It was just those other cabbies and
Speaker 3: he has nothing in common with them, and they don't
Speaker 3: really seem to want to hang out with him much either.
Speaker 3: But now, as Sam pointed out, everything he's engaging in,
Speaker 3: whether it's the porn, the journal writing, the stalking, that's
Speaker 3: all just moved online, in Sam's words, over the last
Speaker 3: half century, right, So he's no longer a dangerous loaner. Again,
Speaker 3: these are Sam's words. I want to get them right,
Speaker 3: because they're very eloquent. Now instead of being a dangerous loaner,
Speaker 3: he can join a community of dangerous loaners. And again,
Speaker 3: it's not really for me about whether I'm more or
Speaker 3: less sympathetic to this gun toting in cell, but maybe
Speaker 3: I am a little fatigued the way the damage done
Speaker 3: by damaged people like Travis has warned me out to
Speaker 3: the point where I'm a little less enamored with the
Speaker 3: filmmaking and the boldness of the vision. And I'll just
Speaker 3: say too, you know, we talk about some of this
Speaker 3: high minded stuff and that disillusionment and alienation. The reality
Speaker 3: is that Schrader has scripted something pretty elemental here, which
Speaker 3: is maybe why it's ultimately so profound and revealing still
Speaker 3: so many years later. Our friend Brett Merriman out in
Speaker 3: La quoted Paul Schrader's comments from an interview in his
Speaker 3: Letterbox Review, where Strader said the script is simple. The
Speaker 3: girl he wants he can't have, and the girl he
Speaker 3: can have he doesn't want. So he tries to kill
Speaker 3: the father of the first girl and fails, but succeeds
Speaker 3: in killing the father of the second girl. That's about it,
Speaker 3: Paul Schrader says, but it is right. Palatine is a
Speaker 3: revenge target because of Betsy's rejection, and Sport is a
Speaker 3: revenge target because of Iris's illicit and unnatural acceptance which
Speaker 3: he can't deal with. So I don't know if I
Speaker 3: got around to answering your question or not. There are
Speaker 3: certainly things about it that make it distinct and make
Speaker 3: it feel uniquely of its time, and make Travis Bickel
Speaker 3: feel uniquely of his time, and then there's so much
Speaker 3: about it that feels so relevant today.
Speaker 1: Sadly, I understand the weariness you might have experienced with
Speaker 1: this because the realities that it showcases have ballooned and
Speaker 1: have become more in our face. And to be honest,
Speaker 1: here's a distinction. Someone like Travis, if he had popped
Speaker 1: up in the last four years, would have been in
Speaker 1: bold and by those holding the highest office in the land.
Speaker 4: And so that's a distinction as well.
Speaker 1: It's almost like Palatine, you know, would in his stump speeches,
Speaker 1: would be encouraging Travis.
Speaker 4: That's a distinction, right.
Speaker 3: That's definitely, And Josh real quick to your point. Palatine
Speaker 3: does interact with him earlier in the film before maybe
Speaker 3: Travis has has gotten full on into the headspace he
Speaker 3: ends up in, but interestingly he embraces him until he
Speaker 3: starts to sound really crazy.
Speaker 1: But he's still kind of like he still kind of
Speaker 1: walks that line where he lets Travis hear what he
Speaker 1: wants to hear. That's right, And in recent years it's
Speaker 1: not even kind of like trying to split those hairs.
Speaker 1: It's just been I know this is what you want
Speaker 1: to hear. I'm going to feed it to you and
Speaker 1: foment these things. So that's a distinction to Sam's point,
Speaker 1: which is very good about Travis going online. I would
Speaker 1: add that imagine Travis Bickle not watching Soul Train or
Speaker 1: whatever it was on his television all day or soap operas,
Speaker 1: but watching Fox News or Newsmax or listening to Rush
Speaker 1: Limbaugh odd day every day and feeding that into his
Speaker 1: psyche as well. So, yeah, you anyone concerned about what's
Speaker 1: been happening over the past couple of years watches Taxi
Speaker 1: Driver now and it feels a lot closer, it feels
Speaker 1: less like an isolated incident. Travis is not unique. This
Speaker 1: is what we've sadly discovered and what these online communities
Speaker 1: have have showed us is that Travis Bickle is not unique.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of Travis Bickle's out there, some
Speaker 1: who will go as far as he went in terms
Speaker 1: of actual violence. And you know that we have also
Speaker 1: learned in reports a lot of different people were part
Speaker 1: of that attack on the Capitol. So it's it's simplistic
Speaker 1: to just lay Travispickel on top of all of them.
Speaker 1: But I think there are a lot of similarities. You've
Speaker 1: touched on some of them. The anger, the racial motivation,
Speaker 1: the idea of looking for a target, and politicians make
Speaker 1: easy targets. You know, That's that is why he can
Speaker 1: shift his animosity toward Palant who previously he was going
Speaker 1: to support, because he wanted to get close to Betsy, right,
Speaker 1: And that's another thing in common on the day at
Speaker 1: the Capitol. Blue lives matter until they didn't, you know,
Speaker 1: because the ideology wasn't what was driving a lot of
Speaker 1: those folks. It wasn't any sort of principle. It was
Speaker 1: the anger that was driving them, and the fact that,
Speaker 1: like Travis, they believe they were acting on the side
Speaker 1: of justice. You know, he sees himself as this angel
Speaker 1: of justice throughout the movie and interestingly the way the
Speaker 1: film ends, which I do want to get back to
Speaker 1: and spend a little time on that he's again emboldened
Speaker 1: in that the media portrays him in the reports that
Speaker 1: we could talk about whether that's in his head or not,
Speaker 1: but what we're presented with is the media portrays him
Speaker 1: as this savior. So so yeah, definitely resonates in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways that are that are tiring. I think
Speaker 1: the thing that stood out to me this time was
Speaker 1: how much of the dent in the active cultural consciousness
Speaker 1: that Taxi Driver has made. I would used to think
Speaker 1: like it was the violence, it was Scorsese's filmmaking, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to, and some of the other craftsmanship. I
Speaker 1: think it's all d Niro's performance. I think if you
Speaker 1: had anyone other than de Niro in this part, Taxi
Speaker 1: Driver would have been, you know, maybe a nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: gritty curiosity that would have a lot of admirers. For
Speaker 1: the craftsmanship that's on display, I don't think it would
Speaker 1: have rocked the film world. De Niro is just astounding here.
Speaker 1: The defining characteristic for me watching this again that he
Speaker 1: brings to Travis Bickle is that the guy is assaultive.
Speaker 1: He is assaultive in every instance. Even when he's talking
Speaker 1: to the manager applying for the job to drive a taxi.
Speaker 1: His grin, his grin is just it's like two degrees
Speaker 1: too smiley, right, Or when he's at that rally, he
Speaker 1: goes right up to the security agent in the sunglass.
Speaker 1: He's way too way too familiar with him, stares right
Speaker 1: through the guy's sunglasses, like to make eye contact when
Speaker 1: he's watching TV. The way he slowly pushes it over
Speaker 1: till it falls. There's an assault of nature. This and
Speaker 1: one thing I caught at him on a revisit. This
Speaker 1: is all set up by an early throwaway gesture, no
Speaker 1: idea if DeNiro, you know, improvis this or whatever. But
Speaker 1: he's done interviewing at the taxi garage, he's walking out.
Speaker 1: Another taxi is pulling in past him, and he gives
Speaker 1: it as he walks past a little punch. He just
Speaker 1: punches the taxi. And that is how the guy lives.
Speaker 1: He's always imagining that everything he encounters needs to be punched.
Speaker 1: But why because it's done something to him? And who
Speaker 1: knows what he thinks about that taxi. Maybe it pulled
Speaker 1: too close to him, but it deserved a punch. When
Speaker 1: he is sitting in the coffee shop with other cab
Speaker 1: drivers and one of them just asks him, how's it hanging,
Speaker 1: his instinct is to look at the guy like he
Speaker 1: insulted his mother, and he gives it a few pauses
Speaker 1: and then says, what's that he's looking? He's always looking
Speaker 1: for something to punch. And then and then the you know,
Speaker 1: the the level beneath that de Niro gives.
Speaker 4: This is, of course the loneliness.
Speaker 1: The phrase he says, being God's lonely man.
Speaker 4: You know, that's we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: I'm the only one here seeing I'm sure, But I
Speaker 1: want to talk about that in the context of this
Speaker 1: idea of loneliness, because I think the brilliance of nearest
Speaker 1: performance is that. And maybe this is your sympathy question too,
Speaker 1: that you were wondering about. I always felt that loneliness
Speaker 1: underneath the burden. He felt as God's lonely man, the
Speaker 1: only guy on earth, he feels who sees what's happening
Speaker 1: and is going to do something about it.
Speaker 6: Listen you, you screw heads. Here is a man who
Speaker 6: would not take it anymore, who would not let listen
Speaker 6: you you screw heads. Here's a man who would not
Speaker 6: take it anymore, a man who stood up against the scum,
Speaker 6: the dogs the film. Here is someone who stood up.
Speaker 6: Here is.
Speaker 4: Deadly.
Speaker 3: I think the loneliness is so crucial because it's there,
Speaker 3: underscoring every aspect of Travis's life, but also almost every
Speaker 3: aspect of the film. If you think about Iris Jodie
Speaker 3: Foster's character, the young prostitute, and what she needs from
Speaker 3: the Harvey ki tell Pimp character, what Sybil Shepherd's character
Speaker 3: is doing having any involvement whatsoever with someone who's clearly
Speaker 3: a little disturbed like Travis's, but it's because she does
Speaker 3: need some kind of connection herself. Even it's there, I
Speaker 3: think in every aspect of this film, and in terms
Speaker 3: of what stood out to me this time. And I
Speaker 3: looked at my notes from twenty eleven obviously after I
Speaker 3: saw the film, and two of the big things I
Speaker 3: focused on were still really prominent and wonderful this time,
Speaker 3: and I'll save them as we get a little bit
Speaker 3: more into the craft. But it's the score, the Bernard
Speaker 3: Hermann score, his final score, and the cinematography, some of
Speaker 3: the stylistic choices, but specifically Michael Chapman's work. But the
Speaker 3: other big thing was, yeah, believe it or not, Robert
Speaker 3: de Niro's performance, because I think all the previous times
Speaker 3: I watched this movie, I sort of just took it
Speaker 3: for granted, And even in that review in twenty eleven, Josh,
Speaker 3: I took it for granted, didn't really spend any time
Speaker 3: on it, because in fairness, we were doing our top
Speaker 3: five Robert de Niro scenes on that show, so I
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, well, we'll just save it, and I
Speaker 3: did put a taxi driver's scene in that top five.
Speaker 3: But de Niro's performance for me this time was the
Speaker 3: magic and the scene I picked back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: My number three de Niro scene was actually the one
Speaker 3: where he goes to volunteer and he kind of asks
Speaker 3: out Sybil shit for the first time. It just does
Speaker 3: catch you so off guard because he seems there to
Speaker 3: actually be trying to make a meaningful connection and seem
Speaker 3: somewhat normal in the way he's going about it, and
Speaker 3: he actually has the nerve to ask her out. And
Speaker 3: de Niro's got to do some heavy lifting there, because
Speaker 3: we know a lot about that character that Betsy doesn't know.
Speaker 3: And in order for us to believe that he's going
Speaker 3: to get her to actually even just go around the
Speaker 3: corner and have coffee with him, it's got to be
Speaker 3: something in his performance. And I think there's an earnestness
Speaker 3: and there's a conviction that she can't deny. Hi.
Speaker 7: I like to volunteer, Greg, I'll take you right over here,
Speaker 7: so I run volunteer.
Speaker 4: If you don't learn, why do you feel that you
Speaker 4: have to volunteer to me?
Speaker 7: Because I think that you are the most beautiful woman
Speaker 7: I've ever seen.
Speaker 5: Thanks.
Speaker 4: What do you think of Palentine?
Speaker 1: Well, Charles Palentine, the man you're volunteering to help at present, I'm.
Speaker 7: Sure he'll make a good present. I don't know exactly
Speaker 7: what his policies are, but I'm sure makes a good one.
Speaker 3: You said that he's assaultive, and that's accurate. But it's
Speaker 3: this assaultive style that's mixed with an earnestness and an
Speaker 3: earnestness that then crosses over into complete uneasiness and awkwardness.
Speaker 3: And you're right, it's that off putting smile. The scene
Speaker 3: with the manager he was applying to this time was
Speaker 3: one that stood out to me as well, and the
Speaker 3: moment I loved in particular is when everything's going pretty
Speaker 3: well up until this point and he makes a joke.
Speaker 2: He tries to crack a joke. He tries to do
Speaker 2: what normal people do. Josh.
Speaker 3: He makes a joke and he says, my driving record's clean,
Speaker 3: like my conscience. And now the guy turns on him,
Speaker 3: what are you doing? You bust in my balls? And
Speaker 3: that smile, that completely obnoxious smile that is too big,
Speaker 3: then turns immediately to consternation, and he knows that he's
Speaker 3: now being punished. And like I said, he just tried
Speaker 3: to do what he thinks normal people do, try to
Speaker 3: make a little connection, try to engage in some small talk,
Speaker 3: and he's instantly rebuked by it.
Speaker 2: And I think that he's so unhinged.
Speaker 3: But there's a sincerity to it that De Niro conveys
Speaker 3: that makes Bickle fascinating. It's not only the smile, it's
Speaker 3: the little fidgets. It's the physicality, like the punch of
Speaker 3: the taxi cab you mentioned. And then the scene where
Speaker 3: if you do feel for Travis at all, the scene
Speaker 3: where I think it is most blatant, at least it
Speaker 3: was for me on this rewatch, I wonder if there
Speaker 3: was a scene for you. But it's when he takes
Speaker 3: Betsy to the porno theater and she gets so mad
Speaker 3: at him, and he's apologizing, and if you think about
Speaker 3: what he even says, even when they're walking in and
Speaker 3: she questions it, he says, no couples, I see couples
Speaker 3: here all the time. Again, it's like this is normal behavior.
Speaker 3: He thinks it's normal behavior. And everything he's doing with
Speaker 3: her is an approximation, as best as he can do,
Speaker 3: of what he thinks a man should do with a
Speaker 3: woman on a date. And yes, he's dangerous, and you
Speaker 3: see that forming, but he's so confused and so lost,
Speaker 3: and he wants to please her so much that you
Speaker 3: really do see the hurt. He's not hurt because he
Speaker 3: can't believe she doesn't like his choice. He's hurt because
Speaker 3: he had no idea she wouldn't like his choice. And
Speaker 3: there's a moment I'd never really paid attention to before
Speaker 3: with them. I think she lobs this at him as
Speaker 3: she's going away. Remember earlier she says that he reminds
Speaker 3: her a little bit of Chris Christofferson.
Speaker 2: So what does he do.
Speaker 3: He goes to the record store and he buys a
Speaker 3: Chris Christofferson record and watching it this time, I'd forgotten
Speaker 3: about it. I thought, Yeah, that's so relatable. Who hasn't
Speaker 3: done that. Like, you're interested in somebody and you find
Speaker 3: out what their favorite movie is, or their favorite song
Speaker 3: or performer is. You want to understand what kind of
Speaker 3: makes them tick. You want to speak the same language.
Speaker 3: You're gonna start loving the things they love. Except that's
Speaker 3: not what he did. He bought it for her, right,
Speaker 3: He somehow thinks that even though she's already said she's
Speaker 3: a fan of his, and she probably owns the record already.
Speaker 3: I think she says to him, I already have it.
Speaker 3: I wished you kept it for yourself. That he didn't
Speaker 3: even bother to listen to it. He admits, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: It didn't occur to him to listen to it, right,
Speaker 3: broken record player or not. He's just so focused on
Speaker 3: trying to please her and going through those motions that
Speaker 3: it of course blows up in his face. But he's
Speaker 3: not actually interested in expanding his understanding of the world
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 1: No, that's what it is, going through the motions. How
Speaker 1: much of his life is going through the societal motions
Speaker 1: he's observed but doesn't quite know how to genuinely engage
Speaker 1: in himself. Yes, I'll give you a scene that jumped
Speaker 1: out to me where there's some sympathy for Travis Spickele
Speaker 1: And actually this will give me an example to talk
Speaker 1: about the filmmaking too. This choice is scarces he made.
Speaker 1: But there's a moment after the date where he's trying
Speaker 1: to get Betsy back and he's on a payphone in
Speaker 1: a hallway of a building. A payphone is on the wall,
Speaker 1: and the scene begins with him in the center of
Speaker 1: the screen talking on the phone and the conversation. We
Speaker 1: already know that this is not going to go well,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, as he goes on and on, it's
Speaker 1: we can tell this is just he's really bottoming out.
Speaker 4: Here with her.
Speaker 1: Right, you do feel for the it's kind of an embarrassment, like,
Speaker 1: why aren't you recognizing yet that this is not going
Speaker 1: to work? And so you feel some sympathy. Then Scarsese
Speaker 1: does something interesting. The camera cut slides, well, it doesn't
Speaker 1: even cuts, It slides to the right away from de
Speaker 1: Niro and then settles on a hallway going the other way.
Speaker 1: That's completely empty. There's even an open door, and basically,
Speaker 1: just like we've given up, she's given up on him first,
Speaker 1: you're given up on him and the camera, the camera
Speaker 1: itself has now given up on him. So I think
Speaker 1: there are some subtle things like that Scarase does because
Speaker 1: I was surprised that there wasn't as explosive as this
Speaker 1: material is. It's relatively reserved filmmaking from him. If you
Speaker 1: compare not Scarsese to other filmmakers, he's always more dyna
Speaker 1: than most filmmakers. But if you compare Taxi Driver to
Speaker 1: a lot of his other films, I mean, there are
Speaker 1: flourishes here and there, overhead shots, those sorts of things,
Speaker 1: but it's really reserved compared to a lot of his stuff.
Speaker 1: You get a little moment like that, or you get
Speaker 1: the one where how he reveals the infamous mohawk. It's
Speaker 1: not with like a quick shot a close up. It's
Speaker 1: another camera slide right to slide across to bring Travis
Speaker 1: in the crowd into the frame. From the weight, we
Speaker 1: see his waist, so it slides over, then pauses and
Speaker 1: then slides up to show us his head and the
Speaker 1: reveal that he's really like this is this is hairstyle
Speaker 1: number three. I think in the film. First he has
Speaker 1: kind of a boyish normal cut. Then you can tell
Speaker 1: later he's begun to cut his own hair and it's
Speaker 1: not looking too good, and then.
Speaker 4: We get this.
Speaker 1: So a lot of little touches like that that I
Speaker 1: noticed this time. And the other thing I gotta say
Speaker 1: about Scosese, though Top five director Cameo. I mean, he
Speaker 1: is so good in this scene because, and here's what
Speaker 1: jumped out to me, how scary he is as this
Speaker 1: jealous husband stalking his wife at another man's apartment. Scarcese
Speaker 1: is not trying. There is some ugly violent taboo talk there,
Speaker 1: but unlike happens in a lot of you know, Tarantino films,
Speaker 1: for example, Scarsese is not trying to be cool with
Speaker 1: the language at all. He just know, he just embraces
Speaker 1: the ugliness of it, and it is a really effective
Speaker 1: what forty five one minute performance.
Speaker 8: You see the woman in the window? Do you see
Speaker 8: the woman in the window? Yeah, you see the wind,
Speaker 8: So I want you to see him because that's my wife.
Speaker 7: That's not my appartment.
Speaker 3: It's one of the best, most disturbing scenes in the film.
Speaker 3: And of course Noir was on my mind this week
Speaker 3: as we are going to talk about this gun for
Speaker 3: Hire later in the show, and obviously Taxi Driver is
Speaker 3: indebted to Noir, but it occurred to me that that
Speaker 3: entire sequence could almost be its own film. That's its
Speaker 3: own ure war playing out right with the cuckolded husband
Speaker 3: and the man she's up there with and that whole
Speaker 3: illicit affair. So I found that fascinating. I always silhouet
Speaker 3: right exactly, yeah, right in the shadow there, right. It
Speaker 3: definitely makes sense. But did you also catch because I
Speaker 3: didn't catch this apparently back in twenty eleven, that Scorsese
Speaker 3: I think, has two cameos in the film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the first time. Yeah, the first time we
Speaker 1: see Betsy. We notice him leering at her before we
Speaker 1: notice her, Yeah, which is saying something because Sybil Shepherd
Speaker 1: is just dazzling in this movie. I mean, she's very funny,
Speaker 1: very quick as well in terms of her performances, but
Speaker 1: just such a dazzling contrast to the grime of life
Speaker 1: we otherwise get.
Speaker 3: So I was going to get into the score and
Speaker 3: some more of the filmmaking stuff, but as we're talking
Speaker 3: about the cast and how good some of the supporting
Speaker 3: players are, I mean, coming off just rewatching Silence of
Speaker 3: the Lambs. It's pretty striking to see for me how
Speaker 3: fully formed as an actress Jody Foster was even at
Speaker 3: that age. Because that's also a remarkable performance, Like there
Speaker 3: is an ease to that performance and an intellect to it,
Speaker 3: which you talked about in relation to Clarice that comes
Speaker 3: through that has nothing to do with sort of childlike precociousness.
Speaker 3: It's just not there in Foster's performance, and it's so good.
Speaker 7: So what are you gonna do about support in that
Speaker 7: old bastard when when you leave, I don't know, just leave,
Speaker 7: you leave.
Speaker 2: Got plenty of the girls.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but you just can't do that.
Speaker 4: What are you gonna do?
Speaker 2: What do you want me to do?
Speaker 7: Call the cops? Well, the cops don't do nothing, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, he look sport never treated me bad.
Speaker 7: I mean, he didn't beat me up or anything like
Speaker 7: that once, But.
Speaker 6: You can't allow him to do the same at a girl.
Speaker 4: She's so self possessed.
Speaker 1: The scene of the two of them in the diner,
Speaker 1: you know, talking about why she's why she's chosen this
Speaker 1: life as much as she's had a choice yeah, and
Speaker 1: what twelve or thirteen when filming this, so again we
Speaker 1: can talk about you know, how.
Speaker 4: Is that such a great thing? As good as she.
Speaker 1: Is in the movie, you know that you would you
Speaker 1: would want someone at that age in this sort of part,
Speaker 1: but certainly Foster had the talent to pull it off.
Speaker 1: It's an incredible performance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. Now.
Speaker 3: The Bernard Hermann score, the dissonance of the grimy, sleazy
Speaker 3: New York that we see, and the corruption of probably
Speaker 3: multiple characters, but certainly of Bickel in his own mind,
Speaker 3: against the often lushness of that old Hollywood orchestration. It
Speaker 3: really is so startling and often John and maybe it
Speaker 3: goes back to what Schrader was saying that on some level,
Speaker 3: this really is a movie just about a man and
Speaker 3: his romantic problems, or it could be about Scorsese and
Speaker 3: it's its own kind of twisted love letter to New
Speaker 3: York City in some way. But I really think it's
Speaker 3: that ironic contrast which also takes us, maybe we're not
Speaker 3: ready to get there yet, but to the end of
Speaker 3: the film and why I don't see it as a fantasy.
Speaker 3: But I'll talk here instead about the cinematography I mentioned
Speaker 3: in Michael Chapman, those eerie, sickly greens really stood out
Speaker 3: to me this time as he drives the streets of
Speaker 3: New York City, and even from the very beginning in
Speaker 3: the credits where you get that blurry effect where it's
Speaker 3: almost like an impressionist canvas movie that is, like most noirs,
Speaker 3: actually very expressionistic. But there's just this sense from the
Speaker 3: very beginning that there's going to be a complete distortion
Speaker 3: of reality with regard to how Travis perceives the world,
Speaker 3: including these fantasies where he sees himself as the romantic lead,
Speaker 3: you know, when he's out with Betsy, for example, and
Speaker 3: we get that score that kicks in. You mentioned the
Speaker 3: camera move when we see as the mohawk for the
Speaker 3: first time. It comes through that distortion of reality in
Speaker 3: all of the mirror shots of Travis, the reflections, the
Speaker 3: sudden camera pans. Again, there's a real intent here to
Speaker 3: jar the audience. You know, I'd never noticed this before either,
Speaker 3: but he mentions pretty early on that the rain is
Speaker 3: going to come and wash all this scum out, And
Speaker 3: not too long after, Scor says he draws our attention
Speaker 3: as he's driving to a fire hydrant shooting water right
Speaker 3: over the street, and as he's about to approach it,
Speaker 3: he has the wherewithal to roll up his window and
Speaker 3: to not get sprayed by it, you know, as if
Speaker 3: somehow he's not going to be he's not going to
Speaker 3: be baptized by the street, if you will, or maybe
Speaker 3: this stand in for the rain. The water isn't isn't
Speaker 3: going to get him. He's exempt from the rain in
Speaker 3: some way, depending on your reading of it. But it's
Speaker 3: notable that while he might not get sprayed, his car does.
Speaker 3: And then the view out his windshield Scorsese lingers on
Speaker 3: as he's looking at those New York City streets, and
Speaker 3: it takes a while for all that rain to go
Speaker 3: away and the blurriness to go away. That's the entire
Speaker 3: film and Travis's view of the world in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the most impressionistic shot is when the water
Speaker 1: is rolling off the windshield and you see those lights
Speaker 1: and as you talk about the green in Chapman cinematography,
Speaker 1: and also I would say the red glow that we
Speaker 1: get in so many neon signs, it's almost like those
Speaker 1: signs which the movie associates a couple of times with
Speaker 1: Porn Marquis, Porn Theater, Marquee.
Speaker 4: It's like they've bled.
Speaker 1: Into the atmosphere somehow, and it's not just the signs
Speaker 1: giving off that light anymore. It's everything. And then that's
Speaker 1: maybe how it feels in Travis's head. It's very different
Speaker 1: than not too long ago we discussed Paris, Texas the
Speaker 1: ven Vendors film, and the the beauty of the neon
Speaker 1: signs in that movie, it's there is beauty. There's a
Speaker 1: crispness and a clearness and a sharpness to it. And
Speaker 1: here Chapman takes the same material and gives it alluridness
Speaker 1: and an infectiousness that carries over into the entire rest
Speaker 1: of the film. And I would also say about the
Speaker 1: Hermann score, Yeah, it's as you're describing it. It's it's
Speaker 1: like a split personality score, isn't it, Because we have
Speaker 1: these we have these sexy, mournful saxophones, which would be
Speaker 1: very much of the period. It's it's very seventies. And
Speaker 1: then that's Travis's fantasy.
Speaker 4: And then we get.
Speaker 1: Our reality, the viewers reality, which is where you hear
Speaker 1: those threatening suspense chords that that are reminiscent of some
Speaker 1: of Hermann's work for Hitchcock, I put it's it was interesting.
Speaker 1: The day after I watched this, I put on I
Speaker 1: just chose Psycho and maybe another Herman score is more
Speaker 1: reminiscent of Taxi Driver what we get here, but may
Speaker 1: was there a lot of a lot of similarities there
Speaker 1: In listening to those back to back, we just get this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's old Hollywood instrumentation, but also the threatening suspense nature
Speaker 1: of it. So we've talked about Trader, mentioned Trader a
Speaker 1: couple of times. There's one thing about the script that
Speaker 1: I really want to highlight, which I just think is
Speaker 1: so clever and has a lot of thematic resonance too.
Speaker 1: And it's the trail of the twenty dollars bill. And
Speaker 1: this is the bill that Harvey kai Tell's Sport throws
Speaker 1: at Travis to get him to leave when he yanks
Speaker 1: Iris out of the cap the first time that he
Speaker 1: encounters Sport, I think, and it lands on his seat.
Speaker 1: He looks at it with disgust because he's this is
Speaker 1: the first time he started to entertaining these ideas of
Speaker 1: saving Iris. Right, she gets yanked out of the cab,
Speaker 1: he leaves it there, crumpled on the seat till he
Speaker 1: gets to the garage at night, and then pauses and
Speaker 1: then kind of shoves it in his pocket. We see
Speaker 1: that bill again, I think three times later. I think
Speaker 1: he almost pays for something once but doesn't use it.
Speaker 1: He uses different cash, still it's crumpled up. At the
Speaker 1: coffee shop, he owes a guy some money, five bucks,
Speaker 1: so we see him pull that out next to the
Speaker 1: other cash he has. And then the last time we
Speaker 1: see it is when he rents the room with Iris,
Speaker 1: where he thinks he's going to convince her to leave.
Speaker 1: He's got to pay this guy to rent the room,
Speaker 1: and he slams it in the guy's hand, and running
Speaker 1: through all those make it seem like this really obvious,
Speaker 1: heavy handed symbol. But maybe it isn't a script, but
Speaker 1: the way Scorsese kind of just lightly makes space for
Speaker 1: those moments makes it incredibly, incredibly effective. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: was just curious if that was in the original script
Speaker 1: and if the versions I saw online are true it was.
Speaker 4: I think that's a great touch.
Speaker 3: Well, it is a great touch, and it is subtle
Speaker 3: enough that I probably missed. I'm pretty sure I missed
Speaker 3: at least one of the times you mentioned, and it's
Speaker 3: not something I'd paid any attention to before on previous viewings.
Speaker 3: And yet this time, when he leaves it on the chair,
Speaker 3: you see how he considers the money in a close
Speaker 3: up when it's thrown in in the first place, and
Speaker 3: then when he gets back and he parks the cab,
Speaker 3: he has to make that decision and as a symbol
Speaker 3: of again kind of his own corruption but his sense
Speaker 3: of moral superiority, that he's not going to take that money.
Speaker 3: But of course he also sort of maybe and this
Speaker 3: would be fitting for Strader. It's almost like a cross
Speaker 3: he bears, right, It's that he's going to keep that
Speaker 3: twenty dollars bill because it's going to be the reminder
Speaker 3: to him of what he's not total he hopes to
Speaker 3: not be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's his token in that way. I agree. It's
Speaker 2: a great screenwriting touch.
Speaker 3: So Dana and I did talk about the ending in
Speaker 3: twenty eleven, and it turns out my thoughts about it
Speaker 3: haven't really changed since then. In short, there is a
Speaker 3: reading of the film that suggests maybe everything that happens
Speaker 3: after the blood bath is a fantasy, and there's different
Speaker 3: evidence people point to, including the overhead shot, which is
Speaker 3: almost like a view from heaven it's been suggested there
Speaker 3: near the end. And then the fact that everything that
Speaker 3: happens in this I totally agree with, everything that happens
Speaker 3: after the police show up seems somehow a little bit
Speaker 3: tacked on false or maybe like a fantasy. You certainly
Speaker 3: see it in that exchange with Sybil Shepherd when she
Speaker 3: gets in the cab, and that's something where it's definitely
Speaker 3: not clear from watching it that we are supposed to
Speaker 3: completely believe that she ever got in the car. There's
Speaker 3: something about the shot reverse shot of him looking at
Speaker 3: her and us only seeing her in the rearview mirror.
Speaker 3: It's almost again like it's his perception, he's projecting her
Speaker 3: there in the backseat. That all said, where do you
Speaker 3: fall on that theory?
Speaker 2: Josh?
Speaker 1: So, I think this takes us back to Chris Christofferson
Speaker 1: actually in that conversation, because one other question that we've
Speaker 1: touched on lightly but is why did Betsy ever even
Speaker 1: agree to go get that cup of coffee with this guy?
Speaker 1: And so that's already kind of planting this seed of
Speaker 1: how much of his interaction with her is he imagining
Speaker 1: now the movie toys with us because she gives him
Speaker 1: a reason and thereby gives us a reason. She says
Speaker 1: she's interested, she's intrigued by his contradictions, and that's what
Speaker 1: makes her think of the Christofferson song The Pilgrim, Chapter
Speaker 1: thirty three. So we could tell ourselves that, Okay, she's curious.
Speaker 1: But I really think not everything, but a vast majority
Speaker 1: of what we see between Travis and Betsy is some
Speaker 1: sort of fantasy. And think of what he tells her
Speaker 1: in that conversation. He says he could tell she wasn't
Speaker 1: a happy person when he watched her talk to Albert Brooks.
Speaker 1: But we've been given and I forgot how many scenes
Speaker 1: we got between Brooks and Shepherd. We get like a
Speaker 1: fair amount of them, and every time we get one
Speaker 1: of them, they seem to be pretty happy. They have
Speaker 1: a rapport, they're flirty, they're like giving it back and
Speaker 1: forth to each other.
Speaker 3: His distorted view of the world, he's a threat, so
Speaker 3: he perceives those.
Speaker 4: Guys exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So why you know she is She seems to be
Speaker 1: a happy person, so right, it's his distorted perception. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't think everything after the massacre is a fantasy,
Speaker 1: and this takes us to the top of our conversation.
Speaker 1: I think there's a very there's some interesting commentary in
Speaker 1: the fact that Travis is celebrated as the hero, and
Speaker 1: I think it's more revelatory. We're living with that now,
Speaker 1: right with the media distortion of things makes it extra
Speaker 1: resonant today. But I do think that her getting in
Speaker 1: the cab is fantasy. And here's here's why.
Speaker 4: And it's a.
Speaker 1: Very brief filmmaking touch. It's partly the look in the
Speaker 1: rear room mirror that you talked about, where she seems
Speaker 1: like she's in this dream space. It's almost like we're
Speaker 1: not in the cab anymore, but we're into this portal
Speaker 1: to another dimension, right how the mirror frames her. But
Speaker 1: if you notice, there's a really weird moment. He drops
Speaker 1: her off on this leafy tree line, nice street, her home,
Speaker 1: we presume, and pulls away, watches her in the rearview mirror,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, he does a double take.
Speaker 1: The sound on the soundtrack actually distorts, it's almost like
Speaker 1: a record scratch, and he looks back in the mirror
Speaker 1: and the immediate next thing we see is not her
Speaker 1: leafy green street, but it's the neon soaked, grimy streets
Speaker 1: that he usually drives down. And so I think that's
Speaker 1: the transition of he was just imagining that he was
Speaker 1: with another woman in another place, and in reality he's
Speaker 1: right back where he had been at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think we're completely aligned. If you're suggesting
Speaker 3: that maybe some of the sequences with Shepherd even earlier
Speaker 3: were fantasy, potentially, is that what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I would say his experience of it, or you know,
Speaker 1: the way it's being presented, is the way he's sort.
Speaker 4: Of seeing it.
Speaker 3: Well, again, I'm completely aligned with him seeing the world
Speaker 3: completely differently than everyone else around him, including the people
Speaker 3: he's sitting across from.
Speaker 2: And I agree with you.
Speaker 3: I think that we're supposed to read that entire exchange
Speaker 3: in the cab at the end with Sybil Shepherd as
Speaker 3: a fantasy, But that doesn't mean everything that happens at
Speaker 3: the end is a fantasy. I do reject that, and
Speaker 3: I reject it one for the reason you said, which
Speaker 3: is there is a beautiful, profound irony in the way
Speaker 3: he is celebrated, which again comes back to this idea
Speaker 3: of the perception of reality, because it's very easy to
Speaker 3: just put what he did into frame it the way
Speaker 3: the media does, which is, you know, vigilante rescues, rescues
Speaker 3: girl and kills a pimp. You know, if you just
Speaker 3: look at it that way and you don't see what
Speaker 3: we saw, or you don't know a little bit more
Speaker 3: about the situation and how disturbed Travis is, it's very
Speaker 3: easy to buy that narrative, even the narrative that Iris's
Speaker 3: parents are probably selling to themselves right, and isn't completely
Speaker 3: true about how she's assimilated back home and boy, she's
Speaker 3: been rescued. It's all tied up in this idea that
Speaker 3: the world misperceives what Travis did. Travis now sees himself
Speaker 3: falsely as a hero, and this idea of kind of
Speaker 3: a collective bloodlust, where as Americans we all go, well,
Speaker 3: damn right, they had it coming, so he did the
Speaker 3: right thing. If it's all a fantasy, then that commentary
Speaker 3: is completely watered down. And what else is watered down
Speaker 3: is the moment you spoke to at the end, which
Speaker 3: is that amazing punch of the grabbing of the review mirror,
Speaker 3: I think right, and the jarringness of it, and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, we're back to a certain reality. And
Speaker 3: I think that certain reality is coming back from the
Speaker 3: fantasy that he was just engaged in with Sybil Shepherd
Speaker 3: in his back seat. But it's also this reality that
Speaker 3: any progress somehow that Travis seems to have made, this
Speaker 3: idea that maybe by committing this act and being the
Speaker 3: Avenger has somehow now set him right with the world
Speaker 3: and he's no longer going to be a threat to society.
Speaker 3: We know in that moment, with that cut and with
Speaker 3: the sound, that that's not true, that Travis is still
Speaker 3: disturbed as he's ever been.
Speaker 1: And do you think maybe even like the letter from
Speaker 1: mister Steinsma from Iris's father, which which seems to be
Speaker 1: kind of like a practice run for Schrader's hardcore, because
Speaker 1: I think that came a few years later and had
Speaker 1: a similar plot about a father going after his daughter
Speaker 1: runaway daughter. But I wonder if even that is imagined,
Speaker 1: because just because of the detail of the father making
Speaker 1: so many excuses about how we can't come out to
Speaker 1: see you, like we don't have any more money, and
Speaker 1: it's almost like he's inventing these reasons why these people
Speaker 1: won't actually interact with him because maybe they don't exist.
Speaker 3: Well, we saw earlier him writing a note that was
Speaker 3: mostly a fabrication to his parents, so I wouldn't put
Speaker 3: it past him to fabricate that letter paying true to
Speaker 3: him as a hero either. For more on our seven
Speaker 3: from seventy six Best Year Ever series, including previous and
Speaker 3: future reviews, visit film Spotting dot Net Slash seven from
Speaker 3: seventy six.
Speaker 7: Yeah, people do anything in front of a taxi drive.
Speaker 7: I mean anything. People too cheap to run a hotel room.
Speaker 3: Or drive a hurry up.
Speaker 7: Well this people want to embarrass you. It's like here,
Speaker 7: not even there.
Speaker 6: It's like, you know, like a taxi driver doesn't even exist.
Speaker 3: I've seen there from Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, a movie
Speaker 3: that was part of one of my favorite Best Picture
Speaker 3: crops ever in nineteen seventy six, along with Network and
Speaker 3: All the President's Men and Rocky, which did win the
Speaker 3: Oscar and I love Rocky, don't get me wrong, but
Speaker 3: I'd rank it probably fourth behind those other three movies.
Speaker 3: There were no wins for Taxi Driver, despite four nominations
Speaker 3: for Best Picture, obviously supporting Actress for Jodi Foster as
Speaker 3: the twelve year old prostitute, Iris for Score and for
Speaker 3: Best Actor for Robert de Niro in one of his
Speaker 3: most memorable roles ever as Travis Bickle, the disillusion lonely
Speaker 3: Vietnam vett who watches quote all the animals come out
Speaker 3: at night from the seat of his cab and hopes
Speaker 3: that someday a real rain will come and wash all
Speaker 3: this scum off the streets. In honor of Taxi Drivers
Speaker 3: thirty fifth anniversary and the Blu ray release coming out
Speaker 3: this Tuesday, AMC Theaters had screenings across the country on
Speaker 3: March nineteenth and March twenty second. Dana, we both caught
Speaker 3: it on the big screen. It was the first time
Speaker 3: I'd seen it in more than fifteen years, so I
Speaker 3: almost felt like I was watching it for the first time.
Speaker 3: I know from listening to your Slate Spoiler Special podcast
Speaker 3: that you had a similar reaction to it and are
Speaker 3: always erudite and often contrarian. Film spotting producer Sam van
Speaker 3: Halgren also got a night out and saw the re release,
Speaker 3: which prompted some chatter between us over email. I hope
Speaker 3: he won't mind that I'm going to poach the question
Speaker 3: he posed to me and oppose it to you now,
Speaker 3: because I think it's a really good one. He acknowledges
Speaker 3: that de Niro is beyond brilliant as bikel and he
Speaker 3: gets why it's so beloved, but he ultimately wonders, what
Speaker 3: makes this a great film today as opposed to in
Speaker 3: its day?
Speaker 2: How do you answer that? Ah?
Speaker 9: So his argument was that it's locked in to the
Speaker 9: mid seventies, it's time and it feels dated. Now. Wow,
Speaker 9: I topically disagree, but I don't really have an argument
Speaker 9: except to say that I just don't feel that. Watching
Speaker 9: the movie, I felt that it was incredibly topical and alive,
Speaker 9: and I had that feeling that you feel when you
Speaker 9: watch a great work of art and say, wow, this
Speaker 9: says something new to me now than it did when
Speaker 9: I first saw it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: I think that in its grittiness and its style and
Speaker 3: that sense of alienation that just pervades the whole film,
Speaker 3: there's no doubt it's a nineteen seventies American film, in
Speaker 3: a nineteen seventies New York film. You probably know this
Speaker 3: a lot better than I do. That Times Square just
Speaker 3: doesn't exist anymore. A lot of those scenes that we
Speaker 3: see of him walking or in his cab late at night.
Speaker 3: But I do think it's a great film today. I'm
Speaker 3: with you because it does seem timeless to me as well.
Speaker 3: It's still very audacious cinematically, especially in how it depicts violence.
Speaker 3: I think that still shocks you a little bit. And
Speaker 3: I think that the politics of the movie are largely
Speaker 3: secondary to this very vivid portrait of paints of loneliness.
Speaker 3: I think that the senator who's running for president, Palatine,
Speaker 3: his speeches are really full of kind of the same
Speaker 3: bland rhetoric we hear today. It's sort of universal, and
Speaker 3: I think that sadly, there probably are a lot of
Speaker 3: Travis Bickles out there. In some ways, they're may be
Speaker 3: even more dangerous because I was thinking about it. You know,
Speaker 3: Travis's enemy, if he has one, he thinks he has
Speaker 3: a lot of them. But there it's really just himself.
Speaker 3: He's more self destructive than anything. You see how he
Speaker 3: eats and how he lives. But there isn't one group
Speaker 3: of people that he can pinpoint as the cause of
Speaker 3: his miserable life. He doesn't hate, even Palatine, the guy
Speaker 3: he plans to kill because he just really doesn't have
Speaker 3: any conviction about that one way or another. I think
Speaker 3: he's caught up in a more general malaise, this kind
Speaker 3: of intangible malaise, which is also what makes it so frustrating,
Speaker 3: makes it so you have such the sense.
Speaker 2: Of utility that you can't pinpoint.
Speaker 3: And I think that today, one of the things that
Speaker 3: struck me were so divided culturally and politically that the
Speaker 3: bickles out there can probably more easily find a target
Speaker 3: to try and take down. I think about Gabrielle Gifford's
Speaker 3: in Arizona.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, I think that's another thing that makes
Speaker 9: this movie. Again, to answer Sam's question, that makes it
Speaker 9: still vibrant now, is that in nineteen seventy six when
Speaker 9: it was made, it was a prophecy, right, it was
Speaker 9: a prophetic kind of film, And now it's actually happened
Speaker 9: multiple times over. It's just weird to think that this
Speaker 9: movie was made when John Lennon was still alive, before
Speaker 9: Reagan was even president, much less you know, the assassination attempt,
Speaker 9: of course by someone who was obsessed with Jodie Foster.
Speaker 9: I mean, you could, I guess even argue that taxi
Speaker 9: driver created some Travis Bickles, right, but at the very
Speaker 9: least it predicted this, this whole series of Travis Bickles that
Speaker 9: have existed, I mean, including the Columbine Shooters. You could
Speaker 9: connect so many acts of violence to this kind of
Speaker 9: psychology that you see taken apart in Travis Bickle. That
Speaker 9: feels familiar to us now because of you know, current
Speaker 9: events that have answered it, and because this movie's become
Speaker 9: so iconic, But it must have felt so strange at
Speaker 9: the time that this was the hero of a movie.
Speaker 9: You know that this guy obviously an antihero, but that
Speaker 9: he was the protagonist of a movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I think that the interesting part about it is you
Speaker 3: do sympathize with him even though he's clearly derained, just
Speaker 3: because he is such a lonely character. I think that
Speaker 3: the way the loneliness is depicted throughout the film, you
Speaker 3: even see it in all of the supporting characters and
Speaker 3: in his encounters with them. I think about Albert Brooks
Speaker 3: as his character. He doesn't get much screen time, but
Speaker 3: he's clearly just pining for Sybil Shepherd and she's completely
Speaker 3: ignoring him, and she's drawn to Travis, which seems sort
Speaker 3: of hard to believe on its face, but I think
Speaker 3: it's just because of his earnestness and his conviction for her.
Speaker 3: Even if it's just the fact that he's just in
Speaker 3: love with her and seems to be totally devoted and
Speaker 3: passionate in whatever she is, that's at least something that
Speaker 3: Albert Brooks certainly isn't bringing to the table, and that
Speaker 3: gets her somehow connected to him in a way that
Speaker 3: she's willing to explore. And I think even the great
Speaker 3: Martin Scorsese's scene, I really love his cameo in this
Speaker 3: film where he ends up getting in the car just
Speaker 3: as a fair and he makes him park outside this
Speaker 3: apartment and he says, his wife's up there, and he's
Speaker 3: angry that his wife is cheating on him. His wife's
Speaker 3: cheating on him with a black man, which he also
Speaker 3: doesn't like, and he says, I'm gonna actually do something
Speaker 3: about this. You get that same sense of alienation and
Speaker 3: loneliness from that character, And that scene is actually really
Speaker 3: pivotal because it's what, in the end, seems to spark
Speaker 3: something in Travis. It seems to give him this sense that,
Speaker 3: wait a second, I sit here and complain a lot
Speaker 3: about what I see going on in society. I didn't
Speaker 3: think that, you know what, I could actually go out
Speaker 3: and get a forty four magnum and do something about it.
Speaker 9: So it's only after that that he starts thinking about
Speaker 9: about assassinating the politician. I think, so, Yeah, I think
Speaker 9: you're right. I think that happens earlier in the movie
Speaker 9: than I remembered. Yeah, the scorseseic cameo apparently was something
Speaker 9: that was put in at the last minute because whoever
Speaker 9: was going to do it dropped out of the movie,
Speaker 9: and it was just sort of like, hey, this is
Speaker 9: a low budget movie, let the director do it. But
Speaker 9: it ends up being so perfect, right, because it ends
Speaker 9: up sounding as if it's sort of the soul of
Speaker 9: the movie speaking, and it's actually some of the worst
Speaker 9: and most violent, horrific, racist, sexist language in the whole movie.
Speaker 9: And it doesn't come out of Robert Nero's mouth, that
Speaker 9: comes out of the directors, right, So it's this weird displacement.
Speaker 3: It is, I think too. Did you notice the Scorsese
Speaker 3: pops up in another scene.
Speaker 9: Yeah, when he's watching Sybil Shepherd walking into the building
Speaker 9: in the white dress.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just sitting there along the building there and
Speaker 3: just happens to be someone that Travis walks by. And
Speaker 3: it's so weird that he's in the film later, but
Speaker 3: he's also in that early scene.
Speaker 2: I don't know quite what to make.
Speaker 9: He's such an unmistakable bystander. It's kind of funny to
Speaker 9: put him in if you don't want him to be noticed,
Speaker 9: because it's this short, little stubby guy with a black unibrow.
Speaker 9: I mean, nobody else looks like Martin Scorsese.
Speaker 3: We were talking about loneliness and kind of those supporting characters. Obviously,
Speaker 3: the Jodie Foster character, she's someone too who is willing,
Speaker 3: it seems, to prostitute herself because at least someone will
Speaker 3: listen to her. This character that Harvey Kayitel plays sport.
Speaker 3: He says he loves her, he'll somehow validate her existence.
Speaker 3: And the only reason, actually, I don't mind the scene
Speaker 3: between Foster and kit Tell where Kitell basically does this
Speaker 3: Berry White esque soliloquy talking about how happy he is
Speaker 3: to be with her and how happy he is to
Speaker 3: have a woman who loves her man and they're dancing.
Speaker 3: It's a bizarre scene because it does kind of take
Speaker 3: you out of the moment when you realize that Travis
Speaker 3: isn't around. Every other moment in the film has been
Speaker 3: kind of through his lens and he's not there, and
Speaker 3: it felt really obtrusive and unnecessary. But then it does
Speaker 3: explain Iris if you put it in that context of loneliness,
Speaker 3: it makes sense that she is this character who finally
Speaker 3: feels a connection to someone. Clearly her parents aren't giving
Speaker 3: her the kind of validation she needs. This character does,
Speaker 3: and then you see the link she's willing to go
Speaker 3: to continue getting that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that scene accomplishes a lot actually when
Speaker 9: Kyell and Foster dance together, because it humanizes them in
Speaker 9: some way that makes the act of violence at the
Speaker 9: end of the movie more horrifying. Right, They're not just
Speaker 9: a pimp and his hooker, but there are two people who,
Speaker 9: in whatever twisted way, care about each other and need
Speaker 9: each other right. And then also the music in that
Speaker 9: scene I just thought was incredible. The moment that Kayitell
Speaker 9: goes over and puts the needle down on the record
Speaker 9: and the music that comes out is Betsy's theme. It's
Speaker 9: the theme, the saxophone theme that's been associated with Sybil
Speaker 9: Shepherd through the whole movie. It's the love theme, right,
Speaker 9: but somebody else's love theme. It's just a brilliant use
Speaker 9: of sound. I mean, and as you know, I'm just
Speaker 9: in love with that Bernard Herman's score for that movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And why don't we go ahead and jump into that,
Speaker 3: because that is a big discovery for me with this
Speaker 3: film the second time around, as well, seeing it again
Speaker 3: on the big screen and hearing that Bernard Hermann score
Speaker 3: and the romanticism of that main theme that you talked about,
Speaker 3: Betsy's theme. You did write really eloquently about it. I
Speaker 3: want to link to that in the notes for the
Speaker 3: show if anyone wants to check it out. But the
Speaker 3: split there, there's kind of this schizophrenic quality to the
Speaker 3: score where you get something so lush and so are
Speaker 3: romantic and so New York as you see him driving around,
Speaker 3: but jextaposed with all these kind of degraded, you know, images,
Speaker 3: But then also those main themes that you hear throughout
Speaker 3: the rest of the film when he's training, if you will,
Speaker 3: for his assassination, or he's thinking about the things he's
Speaker 3: going to do, and he's really getting worked up about
Speaker 3: the ills of society. It's so dark, it's so menacing,
Speaker 3: and again such a contrast to that great Betsy's theme
Speaker 3: and very.
Speaker 9: Old fashioned, right, I mean, it's like monster movie music
Speaker 9: or horror movie music. For some reason this particular screening,
Speaker 9: going and seeing this thirty fifth anniversary restoration, I was
Speaker 9: just really struck by the music. It almost seemed like
Speaker 9: the whole movie was just this huge jazz improvisation, you know,
Speaker 9: like the music works so perfectly with the film. And
Speaker 9: I know that Herman always insisted on extreme control, like
Speaker 9: he wanted to write the music he wanted to write,
Speaker 9: and the director had to work around it. And I
Speaker 9: don't know whether this happened with Scorsese, but I know
Speaker 9: with Hitchcock sometimes the scenes would have to be extended,
Speaker 9: and Hitchcock would make them thirty seconds longer because there
Speaker 9: were thirty more seconds of music that Hermann wanted him
Speaker 9: to use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned it.
Speaker 3: It's almost like Walldawall jazz, because of course Scorsese often
Speaker 3: gets lumped into that category as someone who has wall
Speaker 3: to wall rock and roll music. It's almost like it's
Speaker 3: just images going with the sound and mean Streets is
Speaker 3: a lot like that, and then you have Taxi Driver here,
Speaker 3: where you get this full orchestra, as you mentioned, this
Speaker 3: really old fashioned, kind of classic score. It actually reminded
Speaker 3: me a lot of those great Miklosh Roscha scores from
Speaker 3: the noirs, like Double Indemnity and The Killers. They're just
Speaker 3: so again menacing and oppressive. It's almost as if these
Speaker 3: characters just have the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Speaker 3: And I think that what I really loved about it
Speaker 3: is it does put this movie squarely in that context
Speaker 3: between old Hollywood and New Hollywood. It's clearly a New
Speaker 3: Hollywood film in its audacity and its style, but at
Speaker 3: the same time it's rooted in the films that Scorsese
Speaker 3: grew up obviously loving and idolizing. And I think actually
Speaker 3: about the end of the film, that great shot that
Speaker 3: everyone talks about deservedly so where after all the violence,
Speaker 3: we get the overhead shot, the ceiling, that aerial view.
Speaker 3: It's great, but then when it cuts outside and you
Speaker 3: get the crowded streets and the crowded street and you
Speaker 3: have the cop cars showing up and the sirens going,
Speaker 3: it really reminded me of something like straight out of
Speaker 3: Sunset Boulevard. It's the ending of that movie when everyone's
Speaker 3: showing up on the scene, or even the beginning of
Speaker 3: that movie when all the cars and you hear the
Speaker 3: sirens blaring as they're going to Norma Desmond's house. So
Speaker 3: it clearly has that influence on it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I didn't thought of the Sunset Boulevard, but you're right.
Speaker 9: It's almost a direct reference to that. And it's that
Speaker 9: same kind of sense that this personal, intimate, painful story
Speaker 9: you've been seeing has suddenly become an event on the
Speaker 9: nightly news and you have to switch into that other context.
Speaker 9: And you're right, it's the same exact note as Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 2: It makes sense to have that noir influence a little bit,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, the movie mostly takes place at night,
Speaker 3: and he sees himself. I think, is this kind of
Speaker 3: dark hero, this dark knight of the underworld. But what's
Speaker 3: troubling about it, of course, is there's no mystery to solve,
Speaker 3: there's no fem fatale to try to blame, there's no solution,
Speaker 3: there's no resolution, there's just life. And that's what makes
Speaker 3: it feel, I guess, so heavy and so bleak. So
Speaker 3: I think we should at least touch on the ending
Speaker 3: of the movie. I know this is something you talked
Speaker 3: about with John Swansburg in your spoiler special, and I'm
Speaker 3: exactly with you, guys. I was just nodding my head
Speaker 3: the whole time I was listening to you, because if
Speaker 3: you had asked me to describe the ending of Taxi Driver,
Speaker 3: and I would have bet any amount of money that
Speaker 3: I knew it. I would have recounted the shootout with
Speaker 3: the pimps and the gun to the head and that
Speaker 3: amazing overhead tracking shot. That's the end of the movie, right,
Speaker 3: And then come to find out, no, it's not. I
Speaker 3: completely forgot about the end with the paper clippings and
Speaker 3: that whole coda with the letter from Iris's parents, which
Speaker 3: in itself just seems kind of crazy. But I'll let
Speaker 3: you jump in on how much of a shock that one.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I don't know what's your policy on spoiling here
Speaker 9: on film spotting. Can we assume that a movie that's
Speaker 9: thirty five years old we can now talk about the
Speaker 9: ending of I would hope.
Speaker 2: So, so let's go ahead and go for.
Speaker 1: It, all right?
Speaker 9: Well, so, yeah, you have this strange coda right, So
Speaker 9: that after the scene that we just talked about the
Speaker 9: sunset boulevard referencing, you know, pulling out and seeing the
Speaker 9: cops arriving at the crime scene of the brothel or whatever.
Speaker 9: Then suddenly we cut to I guess sometime in the future,
Speaker 9: and again we hear Betsy's theme. We hear that, you know,
Speaker 9: romantic theme, and there's this kind of ironic pan across
Speaker 9: this wall of clippings that you realize is on Travis
Speaker 9: Bickle's wall in his apartment. Taxi driver becomes local hero
Speaker 9: save prostitute and gun battle, and that either in his
Speaker 9: mind and his imagination. I guess some people think that
Speaker 9: this is happening only his imagination, but the film doesn't
Speaker 9: signal that in any way. It just seems that realistically
Speaker 9: he's now become this hero. He somehow talked his way
Speaker 9: out of the massacre and made himself look like the
Speaker 9: hero of it. And he gets a letter from Iris's parents,
Speaker 9: Iris being the Jodie Foster Child prostitute character, saying thank
Speaker 9: you for returning our daughter to us. So he's a
Speaker 9: hero to them. They even say, menacingly, maybe you can
Speaker 9: come and visit us in Pittsburgh. Sometime and you think, oh, boy,
Speaker 9: Taxi Driver to the Pittsburgh Years. And then there's a
Speaker 9: coda to the coda, right, then there's the insane part
Speaker 9: where he picks up Sybil Shepherd's character Betsy as just
Speaker 9: a random fair. There's a lot of coincidental cabfairs in
Speaker 9: this movie, right, because he also picks up the politician
Speaker 9: that he's planning to kill earlier, that's true. He drives
Speaker 9: Betsy back to her apartment, and there's this strangely nostalgic
Speaker 9: feeling to that scene, almost as if John and I
Speaker 9: were saying, almost as if it's like the TV show
Speaker 9: Taxi instead of the movie Taxi Driver, Like, hey, you're
Speaker 9: all right, Travis Bickle, you know, but it has to
Speaker 9: be ironic and it has to be maybe a fake
Speaker 9: out of some kind, right, can't be meant to be
Speaker 9: left with the feeling that Travis Pickol's just okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think maybe you guys touch on this
Speaker 3: as well. The one cue that Paul Schrader, the writer
Speaker 3: who we haven't mentioned yet and Scorsese he gives you
Speaker 3: is in that Bernard Hermann score where you have that
Speaker 3: moment of the backward sound that cues you, and cues
Speaker 3: de Niro. He responds to it as if he's hearing
Speaker 3: it in the scene where he quickly looks in the
Speaker 3: review mirror, and it's the sense that there's still something
Speaker 3: lurking back there. There's still something in his psyche that
Speaker 3: suggests that all is not well with him and things
Speaker 3: are not going to go very well. He's going to
Speaker 3: have another moment like this, but maybe he's not going
Speaker 3: to be regarded as a hero when that happens. So
Speaker 3: that part is really interesting. But yeah, it's hard to
Speaker 3: really get a handle on what they were going for there,
Speaker 3: because first of all, you are surprised that he's alive
Speaker 3: at all. And then I don't think you really buy
Speaker 3: that Iris is actually just back home in Pittsburgh and
Speaker 3: is really doing fine. Would she really just go back
Speaker 3: and resume her life as a teenage girl. It seems
Speaker 3: kind of hard to swallow.
Speaker 9: And her home life could not have been as happy
Speaker 9: and christian as all met right if she ran away
Speaker 9: from it and so fiercely refused to go back to it, you.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't think so, And then you do in the Sibil
Speaker 3: Shepherd part, And that is the one part where you said,
Speaker 3: they don't really signal you in any way that this
Speaker 3: could be like a dream. That's the one part anyway
Speaker 3: of the coda that seems like there's something so dream
Speaker 3: like about it. We don't even see her get in
Speaker 3: the taxi, right, He just gets in. They say he's
Speaker 3: got a fair He gets in, Alton, he looks in
Speaker 3: his rearview mirror.
Speaker 2: I don't think I could be wrong.
Speaker 3: I didn't go back and watch the DVD, but I
Speaker 3: don't think we actually see Sybil Shepherd except in the
Speaker 3: rearview mirror. So there is this sense that it's all
Speaker 3: his perspective and it's just in his head that maybe
Speaker 3: she's there, And it does seem crazy that she would
Speaker 3: get in and now we see her in the back.
Speaker 2: Seat, I think, do we okay?
Speaker 9: I mean we see her from that perspective that you
Speaker 9: see him in the front seat and her behind him
Speaker 9: in the back seat. You definitely get a sense that
Speaker 9: she's really riding in the.
Speaker 3: Cab, because all I remember is the shot where he
Speaker 3: sees her for the first time, and that's how he
Speaker 3: sees her is through the mirror, right, So it gives
Speaker 3: me the sense that he's he's fantasizing almost that it's her,
Speaker 3: and their conversation is really bizarre. You wonder where could
Speaker 3: they possibly go in terms of any kind of relationship
Speaker 3: from there. But with that all said, what does make
Speaker 3: you think it has to be legitimate or that they're
Speaker 3: playing it straight in some way is that I've never
Speaker 3: heard Scorsese or Straighter say anything that suggests otherwise. They've
Speaker 3: both always kind of dismissed those readings and said that,
Speaker 3: you know what, it really is legit, And that's why
Speaker 3: we added that part with the score, so you'll realize
Speaker 3: that all isn't really well with the world. And actually
Speaker 3: scor says he does the same thing in The King
Speaker 3: of Comedy, I think maybe a little bit more successfully.
Speaker 3: But both characters, if you think about Rupert Pupkin and
Speaker 3: who de Niro plays here, Travis Bickel, they're both lonely,
Speaker 3: they're both delusional, and at one point at the end
Speaker 3: of the film. I'm not spoiling anything for anyone who
Speaker 3: hasn't seen The King of Comedy, but he really sums
Speaker 3: up his philosophy. He says that it's better to be
Speaker 3: king for a knight than schmuck for a lifetime. And
Speaker 3: I think that, actually, though in a much darker way.
Speaker 3: I think Travis Bickel would agree with that. And so
Speaker 3: both films actually have these really cynical codas where the
Speaker 3: heroes are redeemed they do something really wrong, but the
Speaker 3: heroes are redeemed by I guess society's thirst for sensationalism
Speaker 3: or the Taxi Driver anyway, this thirst for blood and vengeance,
Speaker 3: and I think that somehow end up being these statements
Speaker 3: on redemption. Scorsese obviously wants these characters to be redeemed
Speaker 3: in some way even after they do terrible things.
Speaker 9: In King of Comedy, for some reason, it works better
Speaker 9: for me. I don't know why. I think the iron
Speaker 9: at the end of Taxi Driver is just somehow wrong.
Speaker 9: The movie's not a social satire really, and suddenly for
Speaker 9: the link of that code, it's as if it were.
Speaker 9: It's as if the end is like the end of
Speaker 9: Network or something, you know, where you sort of envision
Speaker 9: this dystopic future where things are going to keep getting
Speaker 9: worse and worse. It just doesn't go with the mood
Speaker 9: of Taxi Driver. Somehow. To me, the ending feels like
Speaker 9: a flaw, one of the few flaws in a really,
Speaker 9: really great movie.
Speaker 3: I think I'm with you on that, but it's certainly
Speaker 3: fun to discuss. One other quick thing I'll mention that
Speaker 3: really struck me on the big screen. I never noticed
Speaker 3: on the small screen before. Is it really was disappointing
Speaker 3: to see how Scorcese had to desaturate the colors during
Speaker 3: the violence. He had to really shift the look of
Speaker 3: the film completely in order to get an R rating.
Speaker 3: They had to try to make it a little less vivid,
Speaker 3: I guess, and I know Michael Chapman, the cinematographer, has
Speaker 3: said that that was something he when they restored it,
Speaker 3: he went out searching for the original film and apparently
Speaker 3: it had been destroyed later, I guess has said that,
Speaker 3: you know, that's fine. He thinks he actually came out
Speaker 3: good that way. It's something that ended up working in
Speaker 3: the end for the film. I don't think it really did.
Speaker 3: And on the big screen I really noticed it. It was
Speaker 3: almost as if someone had had flipped a lens or
Speaker 3: something on the projector when it cuts to that scene.
Speaker 9: It's true that it's strange looking blood. I hadn't attributed
Speaker 9: it to the color, but that moment, that famous shot
Speaker 9: where he's holding his fingers to his head and gun
Speaker 9: style and then this blood is slowly dripping off. Oh
Speaker 9: it's so powerful still and so gross, and the viscosity
Speaker 9: of the blood really struck me that it was like
Speaker 9: a lot of extra carro corn syrup in there or something.
Speaker 3: Well, a taxi driver obviously a film that provokes some
Speaker 3: good discussion. Again out now in this thirty fifth anniversary
Speaker 3: celebration of it, it played. Unfortunately if you missed it, well,
Speaker 3: you can catch it in its Blu Ray release coming
Speaker 3: out this Tuesday. And I mentioned it once, but you
Speaker 3: can read Dane his great article about the Bernard Hermann
Speaker 3: score over at slate dot com. We'll put a link
Speaker 3: in the notes for this show at film spotting dot net.
Speaker 7: Some guy's got to be a secret serviceman.
Speaker 9: What.
Speaker 6: I was just curious because I thought maybe i'd make
Speaker 6: a good view.
Speaker 1: Access to the film Spotting archive is just one of
Speaker 1: the benefits of joining the Film Spotting Family. You'll also
Speaker 1: get bonus shows, a weekly newsletter, early access to events,
Speaker 1: and more. To join, go to Filmspottingfamily dot com and
Speaker 1: through January thirty one, if you use promo code Supreme,
Speaker 1: you'll get twenty percent off. That's promo code Supreme.
Speaker 5: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.
Speaker 2: The burn