Travis looks in the mirror | Little White Lies

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Travis looks in the mirror

04 Mar 2018

Words by Brian Brems

Two shirtless men appear to be in a confrontation, with one man extending his arm towards the other person. The image has a gritty, moody atmosphere with a dimly lit room visible in the background.
Two shirtless men appear to be in a confrontation, with one man extending his arm towards the other person. The image has a gritty, moody atmosphere with a dimly lit room visible in the background.
What does it mean to be an Amer­i­can who loves Mar­tin Scorsese’s Taxi Dri­ver but hates gun violence?

When I was an under­grad­u­ate at South­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty, I sat on the plan­ning com­mit­tee for The Big Mud­dy Film Fes­ti­val, which host­ed screen­ings of films sub­mit­ted from all over the world, in addi­tion to pre­sen­ta­tions of well-known doc­u­men­tary and nar­ra­tive fea­tures. It was tra­di­tion to host mid­night screen­ings at the local Uni­ver­si­ty 8 cin­e­ma as a way of get­ting stu­dents inter­est­ed in the festival’s larg­er film pro­gramme. One year, I lob­bied for Taxi Dri­ver, and when we couldn’t get the rights to show Brazil, I won. We’d be show­ing one of my favourite films on the big screen, on 35mm. I’d nev­er seen it that way before. I was elated.

We screened the film on 26 Feb­ru­ary, 2005. Turnout was good. These were the days before dig­i­tal pro­jec­tion, when most cin­e­mas still ran every­thing in 35mm, but I remem­ber being astound­ed by the crisp­ness of the images. The deep­ness of the colours, the clar­i­ty of the focus – they stood in stark con­trast to how I was accus­tomed to watch­ing it, on my tiny TV/VCR com­bo in my room, on a spe­cial edi­tion VHS. The print was miles away from the scratchy tape I’d rent­ed from Block­buster back in 1999, the first time I saw the film.

That same night in Chica­go, just around the time our screen­ing of Taxi Dri­ver was emp­ty­ing out, a young man and woman were left wound­ed by a shoot­er near the Unit­ed Cen­ter (where the Chica­go Bulls play).

This is life in America.

Four years lat­er, as a grad­u­ate stu­dent at North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty, I served as Vice Pres­i­dent of the NIU Film Soci­ety. We screened Taxi Dri­ver on 12 Novem­ber, 2009. It was the best-attend­ed screen­ing we put on in four semes­ters of my tenure there; just one week after a gun­man at Fort Hood, Texas killed 13 peo­ple, and 21 months after a mass shoot­ing on the NIU cam­pus left five stu­dents dead. I had watched that chaot­ic scene unfold from the win­dow of a class­room just upstairs from the one where we screened Taxi Dri­ver to a room full of students.

I showed Taxi Dri­ver to a hand­ful of stu­dents in the first film class I ever taught at a com­mu­ni­ty col­lege on 2 Novem­ber, 2012. It was here one month lat­er that I found out about the ele­men­tary school shoot­ing in New­town, Con­necti­cut. I showed it again at anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty col­lege (where I am cur­rent­ly an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor) on 22 July, 2014, as a part of a series on Mar­tin Scors­ese. That day, CNN ran a sto­ry about the 47 peo­ple who had been shot in Chica­go the pre­vi­ous week­end. And then again on 25 Feb­ru­ary, 2016, the day that for­mer Ari­zona rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gabrielle Gif­fords, a sur­vivor of a mass shoot­ing, announced a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Min­neso­ta activists for new gun reg­u­la­tions. On 16 Octo­ber, 2016, I went with a group of friends to a 40th anniver­sary screen­ing of the film at our local Cine­plex. That night, two peo­ple died in an appar­ent mur­der-sui­cide in Florida.

It wasn’t dif­fi­cult to match these screen­ings of Taxi Dri­ver to con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous exam­ples of the three inter­linked gun prob­lems plagu­ing the Unit­ed States: every­day, but often unre­marked upon gun vio­lence; an epi­dem­ic of gun sui­cides; and final­ly, mass shootings.

This is not to sug­gest that Taxi Dri­ver – or any form of vio­lent media, for that mat­ter; too often easy scape­goats in this con­ver­sa­tion – are respon­si­ble for this may­hem. I am liv­ing proof of the abil­i­ty to hold two con­cur­rent, con­flict­ing thoughts. I believe that gun vio­lence is a dev­as­tat­ing scourge that must be com­bat­ed by any and all means nec­es­sary. I also believe that Taxi Dri­ver, a film built on a scaf­fold of gun vio­lence and firearm fetishi­sa­tion, is an essen­tial piece of cin­e­ma from which I derive great per­son­al and artis­tic meaning.

Yellow taxi cab with chequered pattern, driver seated behind wheel

When it was released in 1976, Taxi Dri­ver was regard­ed as extreme in its depic­tion of vio­lence. As Mar­tin Scors­ese explains on a director’s com­men­tary for the film, the cli­mac­tic shootout sequence went through a com­pli­cat­ed colour desat­u­ra­tion process in an effort to please the rat­ings board, giv­ing the blood­bath an orange hue. Its ori­gins were dark and vio­lent, as well. Paul Schrad­er, the film’s screen­writer, has said, At the time I wrote it I was very enam­oured of guns, I was very sui­ci­dal, I was drink­ing heav­i­ly, I was obsessed with pornog­ra­phy in the way a lone­ly per­son is, and all those ele­ments are upfront in the script.”

The film’s cen­tral char­ac­ter, the lone­ly New York City cab­bie Travis Bick­le (Robert De Niro), is a smok­ing, hiss­ing fuse. His iso­la­tion, his racism, the sense of betray­al and rejec­tion he feels by Bet­sy (Cybill Shep­herd), his fem­i­nine ide­al – these are the tox­ic ingre­di­ents that make up the pro­file of so many of America’s trou­bled young men, each of whom, like Travis, picked up a gun and pulled the trig­ger in a des­per­ate effort to be heard.

When I view Taxi Dri­ver today, I think about the clash between its supe­ri­or, even beau­ti­ful tech­ni­cal craft and the hor­ror of its dis­turb­ing con­tent. The ear­ly sequences of Travis behind the wheel of the cab, look­ing out the wind­shield at the naked city around him, are mas­ter­ful­ly edit­ed. Scors­ese man­ages to cre­ate a flu­id, lyri­cal mon­tage of the quo­tid­i­an as Travis set­tles into his new job. A series of green lights fly by. The cab’s meter goes up, then down. Bernard Herrmann’s jazzy score floats between pleas­ant and omi­nous. First, there is Travis’ excite­ment, which turns to bore­dom and, even­tu­al­ly, sim­mer­ing rage.

Watch­ing Taxi Dri­ver is like stick­ing one’s fin­gers close to – but not actu­al­ly in – a burn­ing flame. Har­vey Keitel’s Char­lie in Scorsese’s Mean Streets holds his fin­gers in the fire as penance, to remind him­self of the pain of hell that awaits him should he sin. But Travis holds his clenched fist over the burn­ing stove­top as a way of tough­en­ing his body and mind. Short­ly after this moment, Travis buys his first guns from Easy Andy (Stephen Prince), a trav­el­ling sales­man. The cam­era adopts Travis’ fas­ci­nat­ed gaze as it tracks across the guns, laid out on the bed in a line. In these weapons of death, Travis sees an iden­ti­ty, a pur­pose, and a way to reach out to those who have ignored him.

As an adult, I strug­gle to com­pre­hend what he is feel­ing in this moment. I do not have access to the emo­tion which over­comes Travis. I can­not look at a gun and see any part of myself hold­ing it, tak­ing aim, and fir­ing. But I do remem­ber a time in my ado­les­cence where I would twirl a plas­tic, trig­ger-click­ing pis­tol that I had spray-paint­ed black, while watch­ing tele­vi­sion. I can still hear the thrill of the high-pitched crack of a cap gun. I don’t have to think too hard to imag­ine myself car­ry­ing a wood­en rifle, hus­tling through a for­est with child­hood friends. This is a typ­i­cal Amer­i­can boy­hood, I think. When I was small, the idea of a gun made me feel big. When I got old­er, I found oth­er ways to chase the same feeling.

In Amer­i­ca, though, there are those who nev­er find a sub­sti­tute. Mass shoot­ers turn to guns to express what their voic­es can­not artic­u­late: mas­culin­i­ty, racism, sex­u­al­i­ty. Ten years before Travis Bick­le, there was Charles Whit­man. Accord­ing to Rick Perlstein’s Nixon­land’, Whit­man, a 25-year-old for­mer marine sharp­shoot­er climbed to the top of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas’ cer­e­mo­ni­al tow­er and start­ed blow­ing away passers­by at ran­dom… Ini­tial reports were that Charles Whit­man was just anoth­er all-Amer­i­can boy’.” There had been mass shoot­ings in the Unit­ed States before, but this one became yet anoth­er ghast­ly cur­rent in a swirling mael­strom of hor­ror that enveloped Amer­i­ca in the late 1960s and ear­ly 1970s.

Man with bloody face and distressed expression, standing against a red and textured background.

Taxi Dri­ver was not the first film of its era to por­tray a gun-tot­ing killer with such frank­ness. In his book Easy Rid­ers, Rag­ing Bulls’ Peter Biskind notes that Peter Bogdanovich’s 1968 film Tar­gets was, loose­ly based on the recent rash of mass mur­ders,” includ­ing Whitman’s ram­page. The film was not a box office suc­cess, which Bog­danovich argued was in part because of Mar­tin Luther King’s assas­si­na­tion, which made peo­ple leery of sniper films.” Gun vio­lence would fol­low Scorsese’s film when, in 1981, John Hinck­ley Jr, imi­tat­ing Taxi Driver’s Travis Bick­le, attempt­ed to assas­si­nate Pres­i­dent Rea­gan in the hope of impress­ing Jodie Fos­ter.” The film’s pow­er is undeniable.

I feel con­nect­ed to Taxi Dri­ver per­haps more than any oth­er film. And yet, giv­en my own per­son­al feel­ings towards guns and the vio­lence they enable, I should be repelled by it, just as I should be dis­gust­ed by its character’s racism, sick­ened by his misog­y­ny. The scene of Travis metic­u­lous­ly craft­ing his ace-in-the-hole, the sleeve-deploy­ing pis­tol, should mad­den me, but it amus­es me. The way Scors­ese care­ful­ly frames the process of saw­ing the draw­er track in two, or the way he height­ens the sound effect of the pis­tol snap­ping into place, announce them­selves so dra­mat­i­cal­ly, with such cin­e­mat­ic con­vic­tion, that I can­not help but take grat­i­fi­ca­tion from these images. At the same time, I know that prepa­ra­tions just like these may, at this very moment, be ongo­ing in a dim­ly lit, qui­et base­ment some­where in the coun­try. And their con­se­quences will be heart­break­ing­ly, vio­lent­ly real.

I do not see myself, as I am now, in Travis Bick­le. How­ev­er, if I squint, I can see in him what I might have been. There is the poten­tial for dark­ness with­in us all. I fit the basic pro­file – white, straight, male. Some­how, the switch in me nev­er flipped, nev­er could flip, nev­er will flip. I watched vio­lent movies. I played with toy guns. I still, to this day, own a Travis Bick­le Hal­loween cos­tume, com­plete with a We Are The Peo­ple’ button.

Much of Taxi Dri­ver is about look­ing. Travis looks at Bet­sy from the cab. Travis looks at the screen in the dark­ened porno the­atre. Travis looks at his fel­low cabbies.

Travis looks in the mirror.

This is idea from Schrader’s screen­play that became the film’s most famous, icon­ic scene. De Niro impro­vised the You talkin’ to me?” line while pulling his enor­mous .44 Mag­num on his own reflec­tion. The scene’s last­ing impact lies in its rel­a­tive sweet­ness. In this moment, Travis appears as a lit­tle boy, hors­ing around in his room with his toys. The scene’s inher­ent humour, which ren­ders Travis almost harm­less in his inno­cence, is bril­liant­ly dis­arm­ing. This same boy will seem very much a man lat­er in the film, first in his attempt­ed assas­si­na­tion of the can­di­date Charles Palan­tine (Leonard Har­ris) and then in his bru­tal slaugh­ter of Sport (Kei­t­el) and the oth­er pimps.

In Amer­i­ca, we ignore the boys in the mir­ror at our per­il. In this way, Taxi Dri­ver remains a valu­able and vital work of cin­e­mat­ic art. For all of its ugli­ness, it forces us to con­front those demons that lurk with­in our soci­ety, with­in our pol­i­tics, even with­in our­selves. I will teach the film again. I will see it again on the big screen. I will con­tin­ue to look in this par­tic­u­lar mir­ror, in the hope that one day, I see a dif­fer­ent Amer­i­ca reflect­ed back at me.

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