SNEAKO - August 28, 2022How Taxi Driver Predicted the Future of Masculinity
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Summary
The film depicts a nightmarish portrayal of mid-1970s New York City with its stark use of shadows, vibrant reds, and omniscient camera movement. Director Martin Scorsese has explained that the idea for the film arose from his feeling that movies often behave as dreams or drug-induced reveries, and that the hypnotic sensibility of the film operates as an attempt to incubate the viewer with the feeling of being in a limbo state between sleeping and waking.
Transcript
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All right, this is Taxi Driver, a study of masculinity and existentialism.
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I've tried to watch it in previous streams, but you guys got bored.
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Let me watch this video today. I really want to watch it.
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First thing that people often note about Taxi Driver is how...
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The film depicts a nightmarish portrayal of mid-1970s New York City
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with its stark use of shadows, vibrant reds, and omniscient camera movement.
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Director Martin Scorsese has explained that the idea for the film arose from his feeling
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that movies often behave as dreams or drug-induced reveries,
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but oh my God, do they give you good inspiration for art.
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as inspiration for Travis's destructive ambition,
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as well as Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground
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in which an isolated and bitter narrator delivers rambling monologues
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much like the diary entries that are ever-present throughout the film.
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And Schrader states that he saw the script as an attempt
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to take the European existential hero and place him in an American context.
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And by doing so, the subject matter devolves to become more juvenile in nature.
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And if you listen to Travis's journal entries, you'll often find that they're
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I love these entries because it sounds really deep,
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And that kind of boils down American frustration.
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especially in a city like New York, a grimy place.
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A lot of people end up developing these thoughts of like,
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but people don't really know what the problem is.
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the problem is masculinity but he blames it on the dirt and the rain and politicians but he
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doesn't realize what he's really what he really should be focusing on and you could hear it in
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diary entries all my life needed was a sense of someplace to go i don't believe that one should
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devote his life to morbid self-attention i believe that someone should become a person like other
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people i believe a person should become a person like other people like it just sounds like yeah
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when you write it and say it in a voice like that just become a person like other people what the
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okay his worldview isn't intellectual but rather shallow and conceited dravis struggles with
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existential grief but isn't smart enough to recognize the source of these issues
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his biggest problem is he can't understand the source of his turmoil and this causes him to
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project his anguish externally through strokes of brutal violence. Now, Scorsese has remarked that
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much of the film was inspired by John Ford's The Searchers, and that Travis in many ways is a
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contemporary manifestation of Ethan Edwards, a character who was also narratively focused
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with rescuing women. And there's tons of Western and Native American imagery littered throughout
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the film. Travis dresses and behaves like a cowboy, his taxicab operating as his horse,
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metaphorically speaking. Sport can be noted as wearing Native American clothing,
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and Travis dons a mohawk haircut in his most destructive phase of the narrative.
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And like The Searchers, racism plays as a subtle backdrop to the film,
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You see, much like Ethan Edwards, Travis is a societal reject.
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In fact, Betsy remarks on his strange personality early in the film.
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He's a prophet and a pusher. Partly truth, partly fiction.
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And she's right. Travis is a walking contradiction.
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He hates the scumminess of New York, but frequents porno theaters and drives around prostitutes.
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He talks about maintaining a good diet, but he pours liquor on his breakfast and pops pills constantly.
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The truth is, Travis is lonely, and as a result, he's a mishmash of various ideologies.
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For example, note how even though Travis mentions he isn't political, he puts Palantine stickers all over his apartment.
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Why? Because Betsy, the woman he's attracted to, is a political supporter of him, so he latches onto this.
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His whole courtship with her is based around this notion that Travis is desperate to fit in,
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to re-assimilate himself into a normal life after his time in Vietnam.
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And this segues into what I want to talk about, the women of Taxi Driver, because this film is
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at heart about Travis's relationship with these two women. And whether it be the violently
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sexualized world of Iris or the politicized superficiality that Betsy surrounds herself with,
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the lives that these characters lead are paralleled and furthermore mirrored by
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Travis's clouded attempts at heroism. So let's begin by looking at Betsy.
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She is first introduced to the audience in an angelic manner, as a woman who is pure.
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Travis remarks on this in one of his first journal entries, saying,
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And notice how this shot in specific makes an overt attempt to display the distance between the two.
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Travis only looks at her from afar, as if window shopping on a lifestyle that he can never truly be a part of.
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But while Betsy is pure, Iris is anything but. She's dumped into Travis's car like a lost child.
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But for Travis, the bridge quality between these two women is the men and their lives.
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What Travis notices and clings onto with Betsy and Iris is that both of these women are puppets to social and political figures.
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But this perception is largely formed after Betsy rejects Travis romantically.
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He's incapable of seeing Betsy's dismissiveness as anything other than a superficial perception of his persona.
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Travis develops hatred for the lifestyles that reject him.
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He labels Palantine in sport as figureheads for his vexation.
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Travis expresses this frustration early in the film, ironically, to Palantine.
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I think that the president should just clean up this whole mess here.
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He should just flush it right down the fucking toilet.
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And Palantine's reaction is to feed him a political limerick to flex his
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personality. Well, I think I know what you mean, Travis. But it's not gonna be
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easy. We're gonna have to make some radical changes. Damn straight. Now if
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If you compare this scene to the one in which Sport is first introduced, the framing demonstrates
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just how different these men utilize their strengths.
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Palantine was in full view in Travis' cab, using his power of speech and charisma.
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Alternatively, we aren't shown Sport's face, only his torso is shown through Travis'
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And Scorsese frames this strategically because Sport is a man characterized by his physical
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And this contrast of physicality vs. personality is demonstrated in other ways throughout the
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For example, take this scene in the beginning of the film with Betsy and Tom.
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Notice how when Betsy is initially bothered by Travis's presence, she sends Tom, her
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Hey, you're blocking our doorway, you think you might want to miss the cab?
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I love the way this movie's shot, I want to make a movie like this.
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I'm really sick of the movies that they're pushing now.
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On the other hand, when Iris is bothered by Travis' presence, she grabs the arm of a man
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And so these themes of status and masculinity begin to sink into Travis' psyche, triggering
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He decides that he must defeat Sport and Palantine in this pseudo-Westernized battle in order
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to give his life a sense of purpose, as he puts it.
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In a 1976 interview with Roger Ebert, Scorsese and Schrader explain that Taxi Driver in many
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ways is a feminist film, and that Travis is an exploration of the confused masculine character.
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Scorsese remarks that Travis exhibits the goddess-whore complex, a psychoanalytic condition
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first identified by Sigmund Freud, in which men cannot achieve intimacy in a loving relationship,
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and thus tend to define women as either Madonnas or whores.
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In Travis's mind, Betsy and Iris become symbols of status and purity, and so he deludes himself
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into believing his avengement is motivated by altruism to rescue them from oppression.
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But in reality, his actions are larger attempts to display his masculinity towards the aggressors
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And because he was romantically rejected by Betsy, he resorts to expressing his masculinity
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Now, what's fascinating about the final act of the film is Travis's immortalization.
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He becomes an accidental hero, and it's no secret that he's monstrous in his intentions.
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In Betsy's world, Travis is a vigilante eager to advance the decay of society.
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In Iris's, he's a cowboy, a lone ranger ready to rescue a captive.
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And in this regard, Travis is mistaken by the public as a hero.
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Ironically, the film fulfills Travis's self-declared destiny in an accidental and superficial sense.
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Now many have speculated that the film's final scene is a dream sequence,
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but I take issue with this for a number of reasons, because while this scene has a dreamlike tone,
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there is an underlying hint of unease that, to me, defines the ending more definitively.
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The narrative perspective of this film is singular and because of that we view the world through Travis's eyes
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And if you study this scene, you'll find it's entirely composed of tight close-ups of Travis
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Betsy is only framed through his rearview mirror as if to present her a step removed from reality
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But none of this is to say that what we're seeing is a dream
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I love the way they portray New York these 70s movies with when it was still filmed and developed rather than all
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digital like it is now the storytelling the it's not even fast-paced it's not
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trying to grab your attention the whole time it's a character study I want to
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make my first film like this my first feature film that's always been my dream
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was to be a film director Betsy's presence in this scene makes sense
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narratively speaking the surreality is simply a product of Travis's fractured
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view of reality and the pivotal moment is after Betsy leaves when we see
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Travis's manic being show up again it's in this moment you see the way they
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changed the color correction they added a lot of contrast and everything to try
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to show his insanity that we see Travis is still deeply unstable he's a ticking
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time bomb waiting to blow again this film is in essence a study of what
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happens to man in solitude how lonely drives him to points of
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insanity and to me the most interesting facet of taxi driver is how Scorsese
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fools us as an audience. We're seduced into liking Travis, into finding his condition relatable in
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some senses. But at some point, he betrays us. And it's in this trick that Scorsese forces us
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to look inward at ourselves. Good analysis. All right, Chad, I'm about to get out of here.
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But I love this movie, man. I love this movie. You should check it out. This was by More Than
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meets the lens. Great, great video. I think he did a good job dissecting it.