Taxi Driver (1976)

This is an archived critique from my work in the Film Studies department at Brandeis University.

Taxi Driver is a combination of Italian and French influence. It originated out of the European movements that had preceded it. In the 40s and 50s, Italian neorealism brought new stories of the poor and working class to film. And later, in France, the rise of “cahiers du cinema” and French directorial styles transported new techniques and themes to the American film tradition. This is the stage upon which Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver was set. Taxi Driver is a product of a director that studied these European styles of filmmaking. From the Italians, Taxi Driver gains its angry working class aura, and from the French, it adopts many of the French techniques of low-budget filmmaking, fragmented editing, and long takes to convey thematic ideas. Moreover, its setting, urban New York, is reminiscent of the urban landscape that the Godard films often displayed. Although separated by time from both European traditions, Taxi Driver feels like a distinctly New York reaction to Europe. Thematically, the influence of European styles is represented in 3 distinct areas of the film: the contrast between French urbanism and New York grittiness as conveyed through the setting, the foundational ideas of societal anger that the film sustains itself on, and the way New York working-class realities shape urban life. On the thematic side of things, Scorcese leans Italian. But stylistically, his work is undoubtedly French. Those French techniques are useful in emphasizing the pseudo-neorealistic ideas he is trying to attack. Therefore, in a sense, Taxi Driver is a sort of battleground for the different styles of European filmmaking. Simply put, Scorcese uses French techniques to enhance and emphasize the themes of the film, as well as Italian Neorealism more generally.

Thematically, Taxi Driver celebrates the Italian tradition. Urban life is hard, dirty, and a perpetual struggle. In his image of New York, there are no beautiful vistas overlooking Sacre-Ceour, as there are in Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959).[1] Rather, there are dirty streets, decrepit porn theaters, and lecherous scum on every block. In this way, Scorcese affirms a more realistic understanding of everyday life. There are different standards in a neorealistic world. For example, in Bicycle Thieves, working-class life is represented honorably, and even outwardly criminal behavior is understood as a natural reaction to the adversities of the environment. When Travis kills the men holding Jodie Foster’s character, we don’t recognize the reality that Bickle committed multiple homicides; we celebrate his actions. Only in the final shots of the film do we recognize Travis’ bloodlust and propensity to commit further. But at his core, he is a working-class hero, to use Lennon’s phraseology.

Viewing Taxi Driver in cultural historical context gives the film more depth. Taxi Driver came out shortly after the Vietnam War, and was written during the early 70s. In the United States, the early 70s were a dangerous time in America. The crime rate in New York was not as bad as it would become in the 1980s, but tensions were rising, especially among the disaffected masses coming back from the war. Bickle being a Vietnam vet is important. He comes back from the brutality of war to a New York that no longer resembles what it had when he left. In a certain sense, this mirrors the sentiment of post-war France and the conditions that created the French New Wave. However, unlike Bickle, French New Wave artists were seeking to unravel conservative society. He wanted to preserve those values. Travis views decrepit New York as the result of a society that has failed to maintain a certain sense of decency, as he colorfully notes in his opening monologue. The setting is also critical. At the time, New York was enduring both a heat wave and a garbage strike. As they were filming, the city was miserable. Garbage was piling on the streets, the West Side was in shambles, and the heat was unbearable. This suffering carried over into the film. The anger and frustration radiate off the screen. Here, Travis resembles bitter and frustrated characters like Zampano from La Strada.[2] In this way, we see the Italian influence.

Stylistically, Taxi Driver bears the hallmarks of the French tradition. The classic overhead shot at the end of the film after the massacre is plucked from the French style of filmmaking. It tracks, without cutting, across the various blood-strewn rooms, finishing with the iconic shot of Travis laid out on the couch. We see this type of shot less famously when Travis is on the phone and the camera tracks into the hallway, finally settling and remaining still as the cars go by. In other scenes, such as in many of the taxi scenes, Scorcese and Chapman mirrored Godard’s style of low-budget filmmaking with their use of natural light. The moody natural aesthetics of 70s New York works well in setting a certain darkness over the film. Low-budget filmmaking in the image of Godard complements both that aesthetic as well as the film’s ultimate goal of telling a working class story. More polished lighting in the classic Hollywood style would have most likely compromised the film’s goal in that way. In addition, French New Wave editing nicely aligns with the ideas that Scorcese, and Schrader, are seeking to convey. For example, by the end of the film, the editing becomes fragmented as Travis’ psyche begins to unravel. Fragmented editing aside, we further see the French influence in the many close-up shots throughout the movie. The close-up shot of Travis’ eyes lit up by the red light shows us a man who’s lost his soul to the city. And if Bickle is supposed to be a symbolic figure of post-Vietnam national resentment and alienation, these methods of filmmaking are critical. Ultimately, it is clear that Scorcese used relatively new French techniques of filmmaking to convey ideas that traditional Hollywood styles could find cumbersome.

Taxi Driver is a neorealistic story filmed using French methods. For most of the movie, Scorcese and Chapman use French aesthetic techniques. However, the ideas of the film do not necessarily align with the general themes of the New Wave, and at times, they even go as far as to challenge them. Scorcese is more comfortable with the grounded, gritty stories of the post-war Italian movements, especially those that involve the angry young man archetype. They align with the post-Vietnam national psyche. Taxi Driver reflects that predilection, but it also reveals the extent of Scorsese’s appreciation for French aesthetics, even if the film’s general themes are closer to Bicycle Thieves. The combination of Italian and French influences enhances and elevates this story into something more than just a fable about an angry taxi driver with a vendetta. They allow it to become a microcosm of the post-Vietnam psyche in the United States.