A descent into madness, viewed from the back seat of a New York cab.
Back home at last! A week after the cinemas have opened their doors, I’ve finally managed to squeeze through the throng of people struggling to sit in that untethered hall. I made a futile attempt to get into the cinemas the very day they opened. My plan was to watch 3 films in a row, staggering out of one screen and stumbling into another. However, circumstances which were complete out of my control rendered my powerless to a situation where the cinemas till systems decided to commit mass suicide that day and the sheer ineptitude and lack of preparation of the cinema staff razed my plans to the ground. A week later, I returned for round 2 and finally got in! It was my grand return to that palace of dreams and nightmares, those reclining chairs that vibrate with the sound of gunshots and marvellous music, that hypnotic chamber of dramatic possession.
The programme flickering throughout the day wasn’t that interesting, apart from Taxi Driver (1976) which I took my girlfriend to watch with me. After a long, wandering day at IKEA, we waltzed into the cinema at 9:00 in the evening with the film just about beginning. Perfect timing huh? As the opening jazz score boomed around the cinema walls and Travis’ demonic cab emerged from the billowing smoke, we took our places near the back row. The film has covered about a week in its theatrical run, so I’m not surprised the hall was almost totally empty, maybe two or three other people were there. I would’ve preferred if my first outing back in the cinema was to full house where the patrons are yelling and whooping like wild animals at the screen, but I’m also glad I got to enjoy the film in undisturbed peace.
For those who have been dwelling under a rock this whole time, Taxi Driver follows the peculiar character of Travis Bickle, disillusioned from a world covered in human scum, he lands a job as a taxi driver so he can do something in the hours where his insomnia hits him the most. From the rear-view mirror of his cab, he witnesses some of the vilest specimens of human depravity, right in his back seat. The film is his decent into vengeful madness, a painful realisation that matters won’t change himself so he should probably do something about it.
This being my second time watching the film, it was something wholly else on the big screen towering above me. My girlfriend was out cold, succumbing to tiredness from a whole day of walking, so I just sat there and felt myself slipping into the decaying New York of the film.
When Travis wheels around town at night in a state of total dissociation, the city comes alive with a bright haze of lights and neon that looks like luminous blood splatter. The cinematography turns New York into this twisted landscape where morality has taken a back seat and fallen into a deep, unescapable coma. The moral putrefaction seething through the vegetated corpse of the city manifests itself in every form of lawlessness imaginable. This dual aesthetic quality becomes even more apparent when the streets are wet from rain, reflecting a hollow and incomplete rendering of the city onto the ground – I often find myself wondering, whether that reflection is the true state of the city. Travis’ decent down the slippery slide of insanity is accounted for by the over-indulgent presence of intense red lights, his rage, disillusionment and instability screaming forth through the bloodlike hues. As the frame fills with red, the camera turns loose as well, wandering off or obsessively fixating upon objects whenever Travis’ mind becomes a blank. This sort of camera work and cinematography was the main nerve of an essay I wrote a few years ago on how this film portrays insanity, the sort that lingers and comes on slow, eventually engulfing you entirely within it.
The duality of the city and Travis’ mental state is also resonant within the score, this wonderful smooth jazz which rises to a deafening orchestral whine. Serenity turning without warning into squalidity.
Everyone delivers a fantastic performance – especially the man behind the camera, Scorsese himself, playing the unnervingly “sick” guy who’s about to unload a .44 magnum into his wife’s face/pussy. De Niro plays a character who exists in a world where it doesn’t pay to play by the rules. Morality doesn’t exist and he’s awfully mad about it. By no means is his character supposed to be idolised, you’re missing the damn point if you do. Deep down and it his core, he’s a creep and a killer, he just so happens to do one good deed by rescuing an underaged Jodie Foster from a prostitution ring because there are some forms of evil that will make even the most sadistic fucker sick to the stomach.
Well, what more is there to say about this wonderful film? Go watch it! We’re here anyway, pay the fare and get out of my cab.
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