Taxi Driver

The flesh and the mind - Robert de Niro's iconic portrayal of Travis Bickle in 'Taxi Driver' (1976).

Taxi Driver - 40th Anniversary

40 years later, 'Taxi Driver' is still talking to you.

Have you ever been in a state of loneliness? No, I am not challenging the fact that you have 2500 friends on Facebook or have 850 likes for an Instagram photo. The question is – have you ever experienced any existential dread, and the desperation of desiring others’ company, companionship and respect? Do you have the faith that, a fictional disturbed man’s story can shed light and give insights on these potential existential crises we may well experience in our lives? If your answer is ‘yes’, you are invited to this final article in 2016. This time, I will talk about one of the most iconic American film in the 1970s, which is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this year – Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976)!

Scorsese’s masterpiece has such an impact that its influences can be seen in many subsequent films and other facets of our culture. A film that has inspired imitations, parodies, and spoofs, ‘Taxi Driver’ contained memorable and poetic cinematic images, that have made the urban experience and alienation as thrilling as any expressionistic attempts to portray it. It was critically very well received at the year of its release, and achieved 4 Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Robert de Niro), and was recognized by the National Film Registry, AFI, BFI and various institutes and magazines. Aside from the large number of movies that has paid homage or spoofed the ‘Are you talking to me’ mantra, ‘Taxi Driver’ has inspired ‘Fight Club’, ‘Reservoir Dogs’, ‘Pulp Fiction’ (and other Tarantino movies), ‘Nightcrawler’ and ‘Mr. Robot’, to name a few iconic examples. Travis Bickle’s dark tale of malevolence still lingers in the psyche of cinematic art.

Robert de Niro has portrayed Travis Bickle, likely the character he will always be remembered for, and his first-rate performance and memorable quotes (like the classic ‘... u talkin’ to me?’) have struck resonance with audience from different generations ever since. Though Travis was supposed to be a psychopathic character, audience seemed to identify with him a lot, leading to the popularity of the film. The reason is because, while many of us may not be as psychopathic as a character like Travis, we do share a lot of problems he has experienced in the film – loneliness, emptiness of life, desperation for love and companionship, and self-actualization in a harsh world. Travis Bickle is the mirror Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader have offered to the audience – to expose our dark sides, and the aspects we do not have the courage to confront. In the ultimate ‘... u talking to me’ scene, the scene is framed in a way that Travis, while apparently looking into a mirror, appears like he is facing the audience. Yes, Travis is talking to YOU – while the intention for him is to train on his cowboy stance, it reflects more of a desperation for him to connect with others, and indeed, the world he situates in. His loneliness penetrates the inner loneliness of the audience. By confronting the image of Travis Bickle, we have an opportunity to confront the darkest corners of our minds. 

The approach is let this work is through a forced perspective, which is an approach Kubrick has also employed in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. For both films, the filmmakers deliberately let the audience to view the world through an unsympathetic (or negative) character, and their sometimes twisted and distorted viewpoints will not only raise the awe of the audience (‘I have never thought about this...’), and may even inspire new and original viewpoints from the audience. The subjective and active participation is absolutely beneficial because now the members in the audience are not just passively receiving ‘facts’ that the filmmakers want you to hear, but they are challenging the assumptions that are often believed or postulated to be correct. Only through these activities, novel cinematic ideas can emerge and enrich the contribution of film to humanity.

‘Taxi Driver’ stands a special place in my cinematic oeuvre. Not only it has always been one of my favorite films of all time, it is certainly the film I have watched the most times in my life, perhaps more than that of ‘The Terminator’ series. I believe I have watched the film no less than 100 times, since I first watched the film around the age of 15. To put it simply, I have developed an obsession to this film. What I am so impressed about ‘Taxi Driver’ is that, every scene, every frame, the rhythm and the images, have a meaning for the film. Scorsese has so deliberately staged and put in mise-en-scene in a detailed and clever way that it makes Travis’ odyssey in this nightmarish world so authentic and memorable. As a viewer, when you are engaged with Travis’ journey in the cab, you are fascinated by what you can see around the dirty world, and yet sense the danger and the ticking of the bomb – the eruption of violence that can take place any time.

Throughout ‘Taxi Driver’, we can see Travis Bickle’s mental deterioration, and his futile attempts to connect with those he wants to love or be friends with. His epic loneliness has led him to form distorted ideas regarding the ones around him, and he seems to only see the dark and negative sides from everyone around him (which, unfortunately, is not too far from the truth in a realistic world). When he discovered the clean spirit in Jodie Foster’s role as a young prostitute, he saw himself as a savior to the young girl, from the pimp (played by Harvey Keitel) who only exploited her for profit. This is obviously a clear inspiration from John Ford’s ‘The Searchers’, and to a lesser extent, George Stevens’ ‘Shane’ – thus ‘Taxi Driver’ has been coined as ‘The Searchers of 1970s’. Like John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in ‘The Searchers’, Travis is a man of enigma. We have absolutely no idea whether Travis is really a Vietnam War Veteran – thus is qualified as a PTSD scenario, or that is just his delusional imaginations, to step into a role that can at least make his existence a bit more meaningful. It is like Ethan Edwards, who has hidden secrets and dishonesty he is not willing to expose (‘Where have you been all these years after the War?’). Both men are motivated by a false sense of heroism, but in their conflicted minds, they are consumed by the demons inherent in the male psyche. Travis Bickle is the descendant of Ethan Edwards – the cinematic male who is driven by paranoia, obsessions, and desires. To this, Anthony Mann’s influence is also evident in ‘Taxi Driver’, as in a number of Scorsese films.

Some commentators have suggested that the taxi cab represents Travis’ inner psyche. That is an insightful observation, yet I can also see ambivalence. The cab is certainly Travis’ comfort zone, that is a place where he can exert minimal interactions with other people, not like on the streets or in a cafeteria, for example. Yet, it is also a place beyond his obsessive control, because crises and problems can enter in the most unexpected manner. Indeed, the narrative is taken on the way by what has been happening in the cab – the introduction of Iris (Jodie Foster), the meeting with the politician he will attempt to assassinate, and the crazy passenger (played by Mr. Scorsese) who gives an monologue about the power of Magnum .44. The taxi cab is where Travis nurtures his conflicted feelings and dark inspirations of malevolence, which, when he steps out of his cab to the daylight, he will put into action. When Scorsese’s cameo character was discussing the possibility of blowing his unfaithful wife out with a Magnum .44, the next day when Travis met a travelling salesman, the first question he asked was, ‘u got a Magnum .44?’

The cab also provides a vehicle for voyeurism (a Hitchcockian motif), a visual pleasure of spying and observing others. It is what Travis does when he stalks on women like Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) and Iris, and when Betsy rejects him, he laments that women are all bad and much like a ‘union’. The idea of voyeurism comes hand in hand with the psychosexual aspects of humanity. A darkly comic, yet quite sad at the same time, moment is when Travis has his first date with Betsy, he is so inept at social customs that he takes her to watch a pornographic movie, leading to Betsy’s rejection. I have read a tongue-in-cheek comment on the internet regarding this scene, stating that, if Travis has taken Betsy to watch ‘All The President’s Men’ (another 1976 film) instead of the porn movie, he would have a better chance. What is so clever about this comment is that it hits the spot on the battle of our conscious and unconscious drives in our minds. In our conscious mind, we view men as brave, courageous, resourceful and honest, just like the heroes in ‘All The President’s Men’, whistle-blowing the Watergate Scandal. But, as Freud has insightfully observed, our irrational unconscious mind is down to illogical, malevolent ideas driven by ideas and blind impulses. That is the area where the pornographic movie will be welcomed instead. It sounds horrible, yet it is an honest observation. Travis does not gate-keep his unconscious desires, and just let his unconscious drives roaming around the apparently civilized, yet dirty streets of modernity.

Travis Bickle lives a circumstantial existence in ‘Taxi Driver’. When the rain that he hopes will be able to clean up the streets does not arrive, he commits to be the martyr instead. After a rather pathetic attempt to assassinate a political candidate, he diverts his focus and attempts to save Iris from the pimps instead. The violent massacre that ensues leads to the gruesome death of the pimps and the customers at the brothel. On the brink of death, Travis attempts suicide. While running out of bullets, he points a finger-gun on himself, very much like a hara-kiri of the Samurai, as pointed out by Schrader. Miraculously, Travis survives and becomes a national hero. While it is ambiguous whether it is only a dying imagination or not, Scorsese tends to favor that Travis has lived, because that makes the meaning of the story deeper. If Travis is successful in the assassination, he will become another Lee Harvey Oswald, a violent psychopath despised by the generations to come, rather than a crime buster he is lauded as. The only thing that is common is the violence. Like ‘A Clockwork Orange’, violence cannot be eliminated – it is only the form of the violence exerted, and the circumstances in which the violence is exerted, have changed. Yet that will lead to 2 completely opposite perceptions, swinging from a despicable villain to a courageous hero. At the end of the day, Travis has not been cured. Even if he has his ‘John Wayne moment’, and has garnered understanding from Betsy, his anger and violence still has not left him. The famous last shot from the rear view mirror suggests vigilance and curiously, anxiety. Travis is alarmed, and this ticking bomb in a human form will soon explode again...

If, after watching ‘Taxi Driver’, you share a similar belief with Travis that you want to take the world and flush it down a toilet, don’t despair. Because if we are not aware of the problems in our own world, how can that lead us to a better future?

See you in 2017!

by Ed Law

31/12/2016

Film Analysis - 71

A Clockwork Orange

Can we really attain true freedom, or is it all a dream or a slogan that makes our waking existences a bit easier to endure? While we are in awe of the progress humanity has achieved throughout history, have we really stepped out of the dark shadow of our violent and impulsive nature? Can conditioning really change and correct our flaws, and lead us to a brave new world? Should we be proud of our civilized status as compared to other species below us on the evolutionary ladder, or are we merely some institutionalized beasts? Can Eros and Thanatos, the two battling drives inherent in all of us, be reconciled in an amoral and hopeless world? These are all provocative questions, and they are the key concerns of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic masterpiece – ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971), which is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year. 

It takes me tremendous courage to write about and defend ‘A Clockwork Orange’, as it is likely the most controversial movie I have ever talked about in my film blog. Be warned, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is a very disturbing movie, and the violence and sex content in this film is intense even by today’s standard. Some of the scenes are really sickening for a mainstream cinema even for today, and the film will inevitably upset some members of the audience. Using kinetic visuals, stunning cinematic imageries and ingenious applications of classical music, very much like ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, Kubrick turned the table on objective morality, organized religion, psychiatry, institutionalized violence, political machines, and most of all, humanism. The film continues to challenge our received ideas about humanity, and inspires us to question the beliefs that are fed to us through various institutions. The anti-humanist perspective of the film has led, or misled, its detractors to call it immoral, misanthropic, sadistic, fascist, mean, and many more ugly labels. While ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was commercially successful and was recognized by 4 Academy Award Nominations, including Best Picture, Director and Screenplay, Kubrick was disturbed by the impact his masterpiece has caused for humanity. He eventually withdrew the film’s circulation in UK until his death, and it was reported that he did not allow anyone to mention the film at home. In Nietzsche’s word, by making ‘A Clockwork Orange’, Kubrick has unleashed a monster, yet it is a proud one. If it roams the world with pride, that is because ‘A Clockwork Orange’ has hit the spot regarding our psyches’ darkest territories.

If you wonder why I have to talk about such a violent X-rated movie, please give some thought on this issue. There are many more violent and sexually oriented movies that are more outrageous than ‘A Clockwok Orange’, yet how many of those films can stand the test of time like this piece of queer fruit? For a film that has inspired Taxi Driver, Fight Club, American History X, Minority Report, The Dark Knight, There Will Be Blood, Mr. Robot, Lady Gaga and many more cultural aspects of our modern life, and given that young people still considers to dress up like Alex DeLarge and his droogs in Halloween parties, you can feel ‘A Clockwork Orange’’s long lasting legacy.

When I first watched ‘A Clockwork Orange’ at the age of 15, what I immediately discovered was a cinema of possibilities. Kubrick has convinced me that, in cinema, you can do anything to make your point, and we have the brave and daring 1970s. The next thing I knew, the film became an instant favorite and it has remained my Top 10 to these days. Over the years, I have asked more and more questions about the film, and my viewpoints on the meaning of the film have altered all the time. This should not be surprising because a Kubrick film is so layered with meanings that it will engage you in an active thinking process long after you have watched the film. At first, I saw ‘A Clockwork Orange’ as an anti-establishment exercise on the potential of authoritarian control, pointing the ultimate evil to be the government who wished to control the civilizations, be it a violent psychopath or not. Soon after, I started to understand the film as a tug of war between the different forces in our minds – the irrational, unconscious impulses versus the conscious mind, which can potentially be conditioned or manipulated to ‘get the correct answer’. When I understand even more about life, I start to have a deeper perspective about the meaning of the film. I feel that Kubrick seems to be questioning whether we have the conditions to attain true freedom at all. No matter how dark or perverse it may seem, Alex De Large’s experience is the human experience, and humanity, to put it provocatively, is a clockwork orange.

Why would I propose such a provocative analogy? Certainly, the development of our conscious minds, as compared to the other organisms, have allowed us a lot of progress and achievement, and the inception of ‘great’ ideas like civility, compassion, liberty and freedom throughout history. Yet, while we may possess the will and cognitive power to envision freedom, we certainly cannot do whatever we want, as there are so many limits that prevent us from doing so. Our biological designs have limited us to do whatever we want, and for Kubrick, our corporeal (bodily) existence is just as important as our spiritual, cognitive activities in our minds. For a number of his films, especially in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘Barry Lyndon’, Kubrick has addressed corporeality as an important determinant that can limit the characters’ advances and their exploits through the narrative. While we are organic on the outside, our bodies are driven by biological mechanisms that are governed by naturalistic laws. Thus, no matter how wild our imaginations may be, we are still seen as mechanistic, and hence ‘clockwork orange’ is not at all a terrible analogy. Furthermore, the advancement of empirical psychology suggests that we can take a mechanistic (and often materialistic) approach to understand our minds, and an approach, which is used rather inappropriately in the film, is that of conditioning, in order to modify behavior and hence improve society’s well being, at least as advertised in this way.

However, there is another limit that has exerted its power on many aspects of human experience – that of institution. This is a prevalent theme present in all the Kubrick films after 1964, and it comes hand-in-hand with the anti-humanist perspective he has insisted on all these films. Kubrick’s anti-humanist stance shows us that, many of the issues we are taught to be ‘bad things’ – such as violence, sex, war and desire – should not be seen as flaws of human nature, rather they are pat of our true nature. The reason why these things are believed to be bad is because the various institutions, while attempting to guarantee a civilized culture, embrace humanism as a primary assumption. By assuming that we are inherently good, for example, the above issues will become deviations from a perfect human being, and thus motivates means (which the true intentions may really be serving self-interest for powerful individuals) to correct and control these errors. While some form of self-control – such as repression in a Freudian sense -  can lessen the potential harm these activities can cause to other, too often humanity may not to be able to come to terms with these issues. Thus, civilizations develop a solution to deal with these bottlenecks – by making sense of these activities, through institutionalization, for example. If you have read Nietzsche, you will be aware that this also happens to many other aspects, like organized religion or even some fields of philosophy. That is the reason why some people cannot really agree to this Kubrickian view, because they choose rather not to believe human being is just a form of advanced beast, is often motivated by animalistic impulses, and also not willing to confront our dark sides. That is why I have once said ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘Barry Lyndon’ are the most Kubrickian films, because they embody the above viewpoints – or mechanisms – of humanity.

The Kubrickian viewpoint shows us that, violence is inherent in humanity. That is an ugly fact, yet we cannot ignore or undermine it. Kubrick believed that, while we cannot eliminate violence at this stage of humanity, it still has to be manifested some how, through controlled or institutionalized violence – thus, a more ‘civilized’ way to settle the score and resolve conflicts. In every Kubrick film, there is always an ongoing war - it is not the war between the Good and the Bad. It is the war between humanity’s dark sides and the institutions or systems that try to control them. Even if this is a hopeless situation, we can at least have a better understanding our true nature, and this will hopefully inspire some innovative changes from our descendants one day.

Thus, objective morality does not work for ‘A Clockwork Orange’. If we only question Alex DeLarge’s morality and try to correlate those factors to his misfortunes in the film, it will not do the film any justice, because it is not Kubrick’s intention. An analysis on Alex’s psychological motivation (such as the clichéd reason like he was traumatized or abused at a young age) was also inadequate. For films like ‘A Clockwork Orange’, ‘Barry Lyndon’ and ‘Taxi Driver’, if we are to understand the protagonists’ – Alex, Barry and Travis respectively – downfall by placing blame on their flawed personalities, we should just place as much blame on the environment they find themselves in. It is the environment which shapes these characters, and potentially dehumanizes or even destructs them.

‘A Clockwork Orange’ is a cinematic nightmare that is worth experiencing. The charismatic Alex de Large, leading his gang of droogs, commit violent sprees that will raise awe even by today’s audience. They are really asserting their utmost freedom and exerting their violent impulse onto the various victims - which should remind us of Moon Watcher in ‘2001’ with all the beating and spanking. When Alex was betrayed after the murder of a woman, he was sent to prison, and the era of institutionalized violence commenced. He has not really changed – because while he claimed he has read the Bible, he just enjoyed the part concerning sex, torture and violence. Then, seeing an opportunity to shorten his jail time, Alex volunteered to join the conditioning (or in a sense, brainwashing) programme, the Ludovico experiment, so that he would be programmed and conditioned to become a good citizen. When Alex was out of jail, he basically met every single victim of his misdeeds in the past, and they exacted revenge of all forms on Alex, culminating in his attempted suicide. When he survived the fall, the politicians decided that the suicide scenario has attracted bad press for the Ludovico technique, and thus Alex was de-programmed to his original status, and the minister closed a deal with him, where Alex would endorse for the government policy in exchange for a great future job. Alex was cured, and back to his psychopathic, violent state.

In Kubrick’s vision, we cannot find much optimism in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. There are almost no good guys in the film, they are either violent by default, controlled by institutions, driven by rage and blind impulses, or just plain docile and sterile. A scene that has particularly impacted me is the one when Alex re-united with his old ‘droogs’, who has now become cops. They decide to handcuff and invite Alex to a private spanking session, in order to exact revenge on Alex’s past maltreatment to them. With a tracking shot, the audience saw the 3 characters walking on their back towards a sunlit environment. I felt the scene to be particularly ironic because, rather than leading to insights or any form of illuminations, this only led to another bout of violence. In contrast, when Alex and the droogs were driving the speeding car and causing havoc on the road during the night, that was the point when one could sense Alex’s gratification – when he was inspired by his violent impulses.

The ending is unsettling not merely because Alex has changed back to his old self, meaning that he would cause more harm for humanity; it is the fact that true freedom can ultimately not be attained. Power has only been transferred from one political opportunist to another. Alex’s freedom was only granted for a circumstantial reason, not through advancement in human reason or capacity for compassion, but through the cold calculation that setting Alex free would benefit the politician involved in the propaganda. Alex’s happiness was only achieved because the political plot coincidentally matched his darkest desires. So, we will never know his smile was happiness for apparent freedom, or he was too clever to look beyond the surface and saw this deal as the best compromise in such a hopeless universe. If you say Alex is de-programmed, then it may sound even  more appropriate that the political machine which controls everyone in the society, has altered its program through the shifting and transference of power.

The nightmare for control has not ended - it has just transformed to another form, and will be fueled by the eternal flame of humanity’s strange love with violence.

by Ed Law

30/12/2016

Film Analysis - 70