The Ride is Over

This will conclude my Taxi Driver blog. I enjoyed putting it together very much. I found things in the film that I had never noticed and rediscovered things that I had long forgotten.

One thing has stayed the same, though, Taxi Driver is still one of my favorite films of all time. I've seen it nearly twenty times and it never gets old.

Purely as a fan, I'd love to see a sequel, but not some sort of self-ingratiating trash that turns Travis into Dirty Harry. I'd like to see something like Scorsese did with The Color of Money, but he didn't direct The Hustler. That being said, who could take the helm to finish Travis's story? Who would write it? Would De Niro even be interested?

The answer to all of these questions is nobody and no, but it's nice to wonder about.

The Sounds of the City

Taxi Driver is rich with aural stimulation. From the ambient sounds of New York City to Travis's wounded narration, there is so much for us to sink our teeth into, but what really drives the film is Bernard Herrmann's brilliant score.

Herrmann was born in NYC in 1911 and scored such greats as Citizen Kane, Psycho (he was Alfred Hitchcock's favorite composer), and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

The sounds are all around us: The water splashing from a puddle as Bickle's taxi drives through, the torrid sounds of a Times Square porno theater, the muffled bustle of a seedy cafeteria, and the blaring gun shots of a .44 magnum are just some of what's on tap for our ears to feast upon.

And, of course, Bernard Herrmann's score is setting the mood for the duration. Arguably, the film could stand alone and still have just as much impact, but the saxophone and the oboe fill us with that suspense that Herrmann excelled at for his entire career.

I've never been to New York City, but when I do make it there, I bet I'll hear Bernard Herrmann's music floating through my mind at some point.

Tom Rolf and Melvin Shapiro: Editors

Taxi Driver's editors took a traditional approach to cutting, but for a story such as this, the straight forward style compliments the whole. The story and the actors' performances are so engrossing that an experimental style of editing would have changed the tone of the film all together.

Melvin Shapiro was a prolific editor throughout his career. He mainly worked on television projects.

Tom Rolf is one of the most respected and sought after editors in the industry. He was born in 1931 in Stockholm, Sweden, he fought as a Marine in the Korean Conflict, and is a former surfer. He is also a member of American Cinema Editors (A.C.E.) and is a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Rolf has edited forty eight motion pictures (two for Scorsese), including The Right Stuff, Jacob's Ladder,and Heat.

Are You Lookin' At Me?

The camera movement of Taxi Driver is all about apprehension. We are made to feel as if we are walking on eggshells with Scorsese's choice of movements. The camera is a voyeur in a twisted little world, hiding things we want to see while staring into the abyss, refusing to look away.

A scene mentioned in an earlier blog was what Scorsese considers to be the turning point of the film, and the movement of the camera is the exclamation point on this scene. When Travis is on the phone being dropped by Betsy the camera tracks right to show a long empty hallway, but we still hear Travis's agonizing rejection; This makes the scene all the more uncomfortable.

The scene in which Travis purchases his weapons has a shot that displays the enormity of a situation through a simple right pan. As Travis waves his hand over the collection of guns, the camera follows his hand, as if he is ordaining these firearms to be his tools of justice.

The shot of Travis when we first see him with a mo hawk was built to surprise. The camera at dog's eye as it tracks right past a line of people until we get to Travis. The camera stops and pans right and tilts upward revealing only his torso as shakes a few pills from a bottle. When he brings his hand to his mouth, the camera cranes up to reveal Travis's new hairstyle. This shot breeds great anticipation with a startle at its conclusion.

Every scene in Taxi Driver is wonderfully constructed, leaving the audience satisfied while still wanting more.