DVD Review: Taxi Driver (Limited Collector's Edition)

DVD Reviews

By Adnan Tezer Aug 14, 2007, 10:53 GMT

We’ve all encountered someone like Travis Bickle. There’s nothing immediately intimidating or frightening about him. He is unassuming, almost invisible. You don’t sense an erupting violence or intense desire to “really do something” underneath what is seemingly a bland, perhaps uneducated exterior. He tries to connect with others around him but he just can’t seem to finish the deal.

Taxi Driver, aside from being one of the top 10 films of the 1970s (and that’s saying something) is and still remains the definitive character study of the post-Vietnam era in America even 31 years after its original release in 1976. The film has lost NONE of it’s haunting intensity from Robert DeNiro’s iconic, chilling performance as Bickle, to Paul Schrader’s searing, personal screenplay that is as much self-therapy as it is work of art to Martin Scorsese’s direction that takes you on the road to hell while providing a look at a New York City long gone to legendary film composer Bernard Herrmann’s final, lingering film score.

Rarely will a double dip, or triple dip in this case, on a DVD be anything more than a disguised attempt to steal YOUR money with such extravagant, original selling points as LIMITED COLLECTOR’S EDITION or “INSERT YOUR FAVORITE LINE FROM THE FILM HERE” EDITION.

This 2 Disc Collector’s Edition of Taxi Driver, while still not a reason to discard your previous DVD version, is a VAST upgrade over the previous two R1 releases. There are two brand new commentaries, the importation from the previous version of one of the greatest making of doc’s ever for a film and contains a second disc filled with mostly new featurettes, interviews and interactive features that any fan of the film or Scorsese MUST own.

The story takes place in a New York City that doesn’t even exist anymore but is as important a character and presence as Travis Bickle himself. An argument could be made that the city IS the most important character in the film for it is the city that slowly eats away at Bickle’s soul and provides him with the catalyst towards self-implosion that manifests itself in some of cinema’s most shocking physical violence. One of the more legendary shots in the film that masks as metaphor sums up the Travis/New York relationship perfectly; Travis pops an Alka Seltzer into a glass of water. As the tab starts to bubble and burst apart, Scorsese takes us from Travis’s catatonic, frozen face to a close up of the tab exploding and being ripped apart inside the water.

Travis (DeNiro) is a Vietnam Vet. We never get any details about his war experience other than that he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. You don’t really need more than that. Seldom in art is one’s imagination as crucial as it is here. The film could be construed as a nightmare and as we all know, they are movies in our mind that flash random frightening images without us immediately understanding how or why we’re there.

He truly loathes the buying and selling of sex YET his anger and frustration feeds off of it. Not just because it is destructive but because he sees unattainable women that he can’t have while the pimps and street thugs have easy, frequent access to them.

He does spend an unhealthy amount of time in porno houses but you quickly realize that he’s not there for kicks, at least kicks in the way you would immediately think of. It is his only contact with women and you sense that he watches as a way of understanding women. Ironically, it is that type of “filth” that disgusts him. Impotence, physical and emotional, might also be a possible reason.

One day he sees a gorgeous blonde Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) in the storefront office of presidential candidate Charles Palentine (Leonard Harris) and musters up the courage to ask her out. For some reason, she is intrigued by him and goes out with him twice. Their first date at a coffee shop is filled with uncomfortable moments where Travis nearly blows his chances with her. The second date lasts all of 15 seconds when she disgustedly walks out on him after he takes her to a porno film. Travis can’t understand why she would be upset.

This leads up to possibly the most emotionally devastating moment in the film where Travis makes one last attempt to ask her out. Scorsese, no doubt borrowing from Godard or the recently deceased Ingmar Bergman or Michelangelo Antonioni, first shows Travis on a pay phone, then as Betsy yet again turns him down; he moves the camera and pauses on a long shot of an empty hallway. It’s simply too much to bear and turns out to be Travis last shred of sanity we invisibly see walking down the hall. He is “God’s lonely man.”

This sets off Travis’s disintegration. He buys a small arsenal of guns, begins a rigorous physical regimen, and becomes slowly obsessed with “saving” a 12 year old prostitute named Iris (Jodie Foster) from her slimy, junkie pimp Sport (an unrecognizable Harvey Keitel in a role that no doubt inspired Tarantino’s Drexel Spivey from True Romance). He confides to the oldest and wisest of the cabbies Wizard (Peter Boyle) that he’s “got some bad ideas in my head.” Wizard tries to offer him friendly advice in the form of “get drunk and get laid” but this falls on deaf ears. Travis starts shadowing Palentine and we get the sense of what he’s got in mind. He practices his intimidation tactics in front of the mirror culminating in the infamous, iconic “You talkin to me?” that DeNiro improvised during filming. When his initial plan for violence is aborted he cannot turn back. He HAS to release his violence and social impotence. This sets up one of the more kaleidoscopically violent yet brilliantly shot action sequences you will ever see. Even at the very end, you are still unsure as to what is REALLY happening. Many believe that the last few minutes are a fantasy in Travis’s mind. There are subtle inferences that would suggest that yet Schrader’s genius writing provides us with enough social truisms such as the nature of celebrity and heroism in our society that one could also infer that it is grounded in reality.

It’s easy to see how this film could “inspire” an already deranged, unstable soul. Bickle is on the razor’s edge of sanity as the film opens. It doesn’t take much more than yet one more rejection to push you over that line. John Hinckley, Jr., who was already deeply disturbed BEFORE HE SAW THE FILM transferred Bickle’s obsession with Iris into his own for Jodie Foster after multiple viewings of the film. This led to years of him stalking Foster at Yale and failed suicide attempts, culminating in his attempt to assassinate a real president (Ronald Reagan) as a way of “impressing” Jodie Foster and getting her to “notice” him.

Taxi Driver became, unfortunately, yet another in a long line of ridiculous attempts by certain conservative groups to label films containing extremely graphic violence as “dangerous” and “responsible” for copycat crimes that originated in the film. See A Clockwork Orange, The Deer Hunter and Natural Born Killers for more examples. Hinckley also just happened to be a big fan of Mark David Chapman and even had the requisite Psychos Seal of Approval copy of Catcher in the Rye with him when he tried to kill Reagan. If the movies are responsible, how about we blame all the published books containing anti-social themes as well? The themes of loneliness and alienation are universal for a reason; we’ve all felt those emotions at some point or another. It’s precisely that reason that makes even a walking psychotic time bomb like Travis Bickle so easy to relate to. Who hasn’t had to endure the excruciating pain of a rejection, had misguided anger in their soul or felt a disconnect to those around them at one point or another? However, Bickle feeds off those negative emotions and allows them to overwhelm him. Most of us, hopefully know, where are breaking point is and when to call in for emotional reinforcements.

Many believe that it was Hinckley’s actions, committed on March 30, 1981 (the original date for the 53’rd Academy Awards) that angered older, puritanical Academy members and no doubt some old Reagan buddies from his days as an actor and cost Scorsese a richly deserved (sorry Robert Redford) Best Director Oscar for Raging Bull, released in 1980. The Oscars were pushed back to the following day, March 31, after news of the assassination attempt broke. Even though the ballots were cast long before, there has been that rumor that still persists, especially when looking at the fact that Raging Bull was universally considered the best film of the 1980s amongst established film critics and journalists. I don’t mean to say Ordinary People wasn’t a powerful film but there is no comparing those two films.

All the major players involved here were at their career best. Scorsese, Schrader and DeNiro’s collaboration would be tops for them until they reunited again as director, writer and actor in Raging Bull in 1980. Debating which the better film is would be akin to a debate over whether Jessica Biel or Jessica Alba would make a better girlfriend. Flip a coin and you can’t go wrong with either. The supporting cast including Foster, Keitel, Shepherd, Harris, Albert Brooks and Boyle each make their indelible impressions upon us as well as Travis.

The first disc contains the two new audio commentaries, one by writer Paul Schrader and the other by Professor Robert Kolker. Schrader mostly delves into the genesis of the script and how low his own soul was when he wrote it. Kolker goes into more of the symbolism of the film and how there are several different ways one could interpret it. Also included on the first disc are several unnecessary trailers for other Sony films and the fascinating script to screen comparison option imported from the previous release.

The second disc contains the new featurettes all ranging in length from 4 to 25 minutes. They include Martin Scorsese on Taxi Driver, Producing Taxi Driver, God’s Lonely Man, Influence and Appreciation: Martin Scorsese Tribute, Taxi Driver Stories, Travis’ New York and Travis’ New York Locations. The standout Making Taxi Driver documentary runs 70 minutes and features interviews with all involved in the making of the film. There is a Storyboard to Film Comparison with an intro by Scorsese, as well as the imported photo galleries and promotional materials from the previous DVD.

It might seem silly but the non-inclusion of the theatrical trailer and liner notes for the film are reasons enough to keep the previous DVD version around just for completion’s sake. That aside this version of Taxi Driver is one the best DVDs of 2007 and should be the first of what is sure to be a remarkable, but expensive end of the year for DVD aficionados what with the Blade Runner and Kubrick sets coming up later on. Not many films can rate this high but Taxi Driver is one of the most important American films ever made. It still provokes an emotional reaction no matter who you are and demands that you think. How many American films today can say they do at least one of those well?

Taxi Driver (Limited Collector's Edition) is now available at Amazon. As of yet, this version of the DVD is not available in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.