Review of Taxi Driver by Scorsese

This was the third of fourth time I've seen this film. I saw it when I was in High School. I thought it was great then and I still think it's a great film. Everything is flawless. I, as a screenwriting graduate student, am studying it for it's writing. The screenwriter, for anyone who doesn't know, was Paul Schrader who I am studying. I read the screenplay and watched the film.

The film follows along the screenplay pretty much word for word. Some liberties were taken with shots of De Niro and his apartment, but otherwise there are no major omissions from the screenplay. The screenplay was written without scene breaks or act breaks so it reads more like a novel. The writing is dated. The film was made in the early 70s so much of what it writes about; the scum of New York City, a need for reform, a PTSD Vietnam vet, are all dated. NYC is clean compared to how it is depicted in this film.

Even though it's dated there are still some kernels of writing that still sparkle off the page. The conflicts in the story are still relevant in current discussions about human trafficking and the overwhelming Liberal consensus that does seem to, at times go unquestioned and imposed on it's subject population. This, I think, is what the theme of the film is. Schrader is a serious critic and interestingly enough he is not a fan of Easy Rider which seems to say the opposite of Taxi Driver. In Schrader's opinino NYC is a hell on earth, and in Easy Rider it is the familiar culprit in the American Liberal imagination of the Southern racist. I think both films present an interesting juxtaposition of stories. Schrader is obviously a conservative. The opinions that fill Travis Bickles's monologues sound like they were reiterated by Guliani in his mayoral tenure.

Furthermore, the character of Bickle is so helpless, so naive as to be sucked into the underbelly of the City. Schrader sets him up to be radicalized and has him not assasinate a liberal politician, but rescue a teenage prostitute. I was dissappointed that he doesn't go for the Presidential candidate like John Hinkley, Jr. instead he becomes a hero which I thought was in line with Schrader's dislike of Liberal permissiveness.

The story is character driven. The action stems from Bickle's obsessions, his rants, and his descent into radicalism and mental illness. After seeing the film several times the shock and intensity wears off and what is left is a vigilante hero who is upset with being just a cab driver. He can't accept his status of being a lowly cab driver. So he rebels. And what we get is Guliani and a new Times Square. I suppose it's good for the City, but that is another topic.