Saw Taxi Driver awhile back. I thought it was pretty decent and that the ending was a cop out.
But the scene right before the credits, where De Niro picks up this smut, is haunting me. The noir style reflection of Travis looking in the mirror, then the twinge sound when he moves the mirror away. It's bothering me, I can't be the only one.
Scene in question
https://youtu.be/ozjLVMtPYv8?t=232
Thinly veiled cuck thread
>>69068397
it's been a while since i've seen the movie. can you please explain why you felt the ending was a cop out? i recall it being quite fitting result of his festering psychological issues.
>>69068576
You're just as paranoid as Travis in this film seeing cuckoldry in every single thread here. Do some exercise, get some fresh air pal.
>>69068397
>""""""""a while back"""""""
Lol okay.
>>69068679
The whole movie was building up to De Niro being what's wrong with society, then he turns out to be a hero by saving that 12 year old prostitute and taking out some gangsters.
>>69068720
wtf are you zack snyder or something? are you 15-years-old?
what a fucking idiot
>>69068397
The part I'm talking about starts at 3:43 btw.
>>69068720
You sound like a literal retard. This may be one of the worst interpretations I've ever heard of anything.
>>69068776
Enlighten me then. To me it seemed De Niro was becoming a Dylan Roof.
>>69068720
um, yeah. i think maybe you should rewatch the film or maybe read up on it to get some context and perspective on the film. while that point of view is not unique, it does a disservice to what Scorsese and co. were attempting to achieve with the narrative.
>>69068801
Either possible interpretation is meant to be cynical and horrifying. One, De Niro is fantasizing this final moment as he has gone completely inside himself and we are seeing what his twisted reality looks like. Two, we are witnessing the truth and we are supposed to be horrified by a culture in which vigilante justice perpetrated by a lunatic would be upheld as virtuous rather than a consideration of society's systemic issues.
There is absolutely nothing positive about that ending and you sound like someone who never understands when they're watching something that is meant to be metaphorical or when it requires even a hint of critical acumen.
mediocre flick
>>69068397
According to scorsese he is going to strike again and this time ia not going to be heroic
>>69068397
The ending deliberately ignores the conventional plot for films. The whole character development thing is not at all happening in this film, by the end of the film we see a newspaper clipping which tells us Travis is still a taxi driver. After everything he has experienced within the film most movies would have some sort of character turn around, a change of heart. The ending is basically Scorsese saying "the exact same shit is going to happen again because he hasn't changed at all." It is actually quite brilliant in my opinion, probably my favourite all time film
>>69068945
Haven't seen this in ages. What hinted towards him going all crazy again?
>>69068720
The film was never really building up to anything. It's just a character study which deliberately lacks plot
>>69068834
But what did Scoresese mean with the music twinge and camera speed up at 4:35 in the video I posted? It's the only part I can't find meaning to.
>>69068863
Yes it's clear that De Niro was pretty fucked up and that it's unknown to the public how fucked up he was, since they only got a glimpse through the new story. I have a problem with the above.
>>69068397
If you thought the ending was a cop-out, I don't think you got it. But the moment that "haunts you" is the one that drives Scorsese's whole thesis statement home.
Travis was treated like a hero because he killed "bad people." But he didn't kill them just because he wanted to do the right thing. He just wanted to kill. His violent impulse found a socially acceptable outlet, but that wasn't the original plan, was it?
If he hadn't been recognized by that Secret Service agent, he would've killed Palantine instead. He only went back to the whorehouse because he failed, he was angry, and he'd already decided "today's the day," you know? He was strapped up, he was ready to show people what he was all about, he wasn't just gonna go home and watch TV just because he blew the assassination. Somebody had to die.
But in the end, Travis is the only one that knows that. Everyone else thinks he was motivated by his desire to help Iris. And in those days, New York was such a crime-ridden hellhole that the idea of a "righteous" vigilante held a lot of appeal for people. Scorsese and Schrader wanted to discourage that mindset, they wanted to remind people that anyone willing to step outside the law and commit violence could not be trusted to focus their violence on "appropriate" targets, and should not be glorified.
Yet, as with a lot of Scorsese's works, he did such a good job sketching his characters that people glorified Travis anyway. He was an extreme illustration of the way a LOT of people were feeling at that time in America
>>69069000
To put it simply: He can't bear to look at his own reflection, because he knows he is the opposite of what everyone thinks he is. He's not a hero, he's a killer, and it's going to happen again.
>>69069037
>He was an extreme illustration of the way a LOT of people were feeling at that time in America
indeed. especially Bernard Goetz. those unfamiliar with the case should read up on it.
>>69068992
Lot of subtle hints to that. Even one of the first scenes where Travis is getting his taxi driver license- while Travis is talking the camera tilts up to show an argument happening in the background which seems a little strange at the very beginning of the film. Throughout the entire film we've been made aware that he is going to snap eventually although in my opinion it's the scene with Scorsese's cameo- Travis, from what I recall, buys his gun soon after this. From what I've seen I think it's the scene with Scorsese where Travis really sort of snaps and thinks "yea you're right Mr Scorsese, fuck society." Lot more subtle hints in the rest of the movie too, you've got the scene where he's in the cafe and turns around and gives the black character a really weird stare. I think it's also kinda funny in the voiceover when Travis is saying he has to work 12 hours sometimes to make enough money although later on in the film we see him counting out a massive handful of cash- he never had to work until that late at night, he simply wanted an excuse to become violent, he forced himself to go mad to give himself an excuse to kill. This movie is pretty great. Scorsese's best.
>>69068397
It means that Travis is still disturbed and could still potentially snap at anytime, and that it won't likely be a happy ending next time.
>>69069193
It's also worth noting that this was released two years after "Death Wish" with Charles Bronson
>>69069233
Yes, very interesting. I need to rewatch it soon.
>>69069234
i think it's fun to maybe think he goes town to town. Like he's done this before and simply starts afresh in a new town.
>>69069233
What got me was everyone calling him "killer".
>>69069284
Nah, every aspect of Travis was created by New York City
>>69069270
Definitely one of those films you should rewatch. Everything in the film is up to interpretation really. Like even Travis saying he picks up anybody: niggers, hookers, junkies and whatever else. Why does he pick them up? Because he desires the excuse to act out violently, possibly because he's a veteran?
What would Travis be like in today's world, makes me wonder.
>>69069330
I think you really need to live in a city like New York was in the '70s to fully understand Travis. The "walking contradiction" line sums up a lot about him.
My answer to your question would be that he felt a need to appear tough and unflappable, project the "fearless tough guy" image at all times. But at the same time, he hated all the people who made the city so tough, he hated that he had to harden himself to survive among criminals, he had a more sensitive and emotional side that he'd trained himself not to express. And he hated that he didn't know how to express it.
In other words, he was just all fucked up in the head, and he was a product of his environment.
>>69069300
I think that's part of the character. Suppose it could be part of his paranoid schizophrenia which he clearly has elements of. If you think about it, if we didn't know this character at all we would think "oh it's just a nickname" but, because Travis is a paranoid, isolated individual he thinks everybody is 'out to get him.' Being called killer he's probably freaking out thinking "fuck you, why are you calling me that" simply because he, in his head, knows he is planning to kill and so is being paranoid. If you planned to steal something and somebody says the word "thief" in your head you probably get a little paranoid regardless of the context
Was Travis patrician?
>>69069515
Women are never ready to appreciate true kino. He should've known better
>>69069474
Think you're projecting too much m9. Travis never reacted towards being called a killer.
>>69069337
i think he'd descend into madness and be similar to the guy who shot up the abortion doctor recently. today's NY is nothing like late 70s/early80s NY so i don't think he'd have that same outlet. or maybe he would try and become a policeman and kill some criminals on his beat.
>>69069544
Ha, have you watched the movie? One of the most famous scenes from the film when he's in the cafe? Black guy calls him killer and he turns around with this really weird stare. Maybe the stare wasn't enough for you and you wanted him to say "I'm very angry right now"?
>>69069300
Who called him killer other than the black taxi driver?
>>69069703
The pimp, his bald taxi buddy.
>>69069656
Or perhaps he didn't know why people were staring at him? That black guy that stared at him didn't call him a killer by the way.
>that moment you realize you're a complete movie pleb
>>69068397
taxi driver is a movie you should watch in your 20s, a younger person wont understand the themes or alienation at all.
i remember seeing it for the first time while i was holed up in another city while my studies were going to shit, and being completely isolated - the only people i saw were shopper at the grocery store. i could relate to de niro's character a lot. as edgy as it may sound.
>>69068720
Good thing you're too late to shoot Regan! Heh heh, young whipper snappers
>>69069850
Yeah, my first watch was when I was 18-19 or smth. I don't think I got it the way I do know, having passed my uni years and knowing what being alone for weeks is, like you mentioned.
>>69068720
How the fuck does he turn into a hero? Did you miss the part where he was originally going to kill Palentine and just saved Jodie Foster because "Meh, nothing else to do now."
If Travis succeeded with the assassination he wouldn't have been around to help a 12 year old prostitute.
>>69069942
In the eyes of the public*
>>69069971
The opinion of someone reading a newspaper article doesn't matter.
>>69070019
>the way someone is perceived by the majority of people doesn't matter
Nah
>>69069942
>>69070019
I think you completely missed the point of the movie.
He was TREATED as a hero because he happened to shoot a bunch of people that polite society dislikes. We know he's not a hero, as he does, because we've seen his descent into madness and unilateral hatred, and his failed assassination attempt. Hence the ending shot that OP's talking about. The whole city calls him a hero, but he can't look at himself in the mirror because he knows it isn't true.
NO ROUGH STUFF
>>69070120
>The whole city calls him a hero, but he can't look at himself in the mirror because he knows it isn't true.
What did I just fucking say?
>>69070120
Why is this concept so hard for /tv/ users to understand?
>taking your qt high-brow date to a seedy XXX cinema
How socially-inept can you get?
>>69070070
No, it really doesn't.
>>69069850
Yeah, same trope with me, senpai.
>>69069515
That scene is the most uncomfortable thing I've seen in movies. Including the phone call and the tirade at the campaign office.
>>69070150
calm down you fucking autistic weirdo.
he never killed anyone, it was all a dream.
>>69070194
You just responded to me saying I didn't understand the movie but end up posting exactly what I said.
Who's the real autist?
>>69070174
Tell yourself that when most things have been determined by public opinion, not what one "enlightened kino master" thought.
>>69070227
I'm not
>>69070120
I just spotted a assbuger spazzing out. Stop spazzing out, assburger.
>>69070227
>>69069850
I agree. This movie is perfect when it comes to show how being alone feels like
The scene of Travis walking in the middle of the city going to his date with Cybil and everybody out of focus except Travis represents all what Travis is and feels.
Being alone even when you are surrounded by a lot of people
Is this one of those films you have to watch twice to fully digest? Because I literally watched it for the first time yesterday and while I was entertained, I didn't catch a lot of the subtext, and now I don't know what to make of the film. Maybe because I expected an entirely different movie?
Fun facts from the DVD extra documentary:
Ira (the 12 year old prostitute's) pimp was supposed to be black. Scorsese changed him because he was afraid that the movie might cause more racial tensions.
Ira's friend in her street scenes was an actual 14 year old prostitute girl that the writer magically "found". They used her mannerisms for the diner scene between De Niro and Ira at the restaurant where she pours sugar on marmalade toast. That girl was a junkie irl.
They had to tone down the violence because they were close to getting an NC-17 rating. Which is why the blood looks so terrible and fake. That had to change the contrast to make it look much more artificial than what they had. The negatives deteriorated before they could re-release the movie on vhs and dvd though, so the original scenes are lost.
The taxi driving scenes are actually De Niro driving. He legit drove around NY as a taxi driver for a few weeks as preparation for the character. For filming, they hooked up a few cameras around the car, Scorsese was in the back seat and they had a sound guy in the trunk. De Niro did all the driving for every scene.
>>69070267
>>69070156
>>69070194
>one minute apart
Definitely not you :^)
>>69070265
Don't sit there and try to tell me the fabric of reality can be changed with public opinion. What does it matter that the public thinks Travis is a hero? He clearly isn't a hero.
>>69070313
>Is this one of those films you have to watch twice to fully digest?
Absolutely.
>>69070326
Everything you said is true except the pimp part. The producers changed the black pimp for harvey keitel, not scorsese
>>69070330
>>69070330
>Don't sit there and try to tell me the fabric of reality can be changed with public opinion. What does it matter that the public thinks Travis is a hero? He clearly isn't a hero.
Because it's literally autism to think that because you know something, that everyone else should also know it. Yes, the entire viewer population knows that Travis really isn't a hero, but noone in Taxi Driver knows that because they don't have the same information of Travis as you do. They just have the newspaper clippings.
Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCiaaG2yuvo
>>69070428
What's the point you're trying to make exactly?
>>69070409
Nice try.
>>69070629
How can I prove to an autist that I'm not the same poster?
>>69070539
>racism
top kek
Travis killed white people and was equally as hateful to them as he was to blacks.
>>69070265
Explain to me why you think public opinion matters in the context of this movie. This movie should tell you not to trust public opinion since you the viewer and experiencing every Travis is experiencing.
This movie bangs it over your head that public opinion is trash.
>>69070672
You can't prove it retard, that's the point. But we both know. But keep throwing around social disabilities like it makes any sense.
>>69070759
whatever, at least I know you're 100% wrong. :^)
>>69070714
It told me that one should be very interested in how public opinion is swayed, not that one shouldn't care about it at all. Otherwise how would you prevent someone like Travis from being portrayed as a hero rather than what he really is?
>>69070778
That's awesome man.
>>69070817
>how public opinion is swayed
That's a different topic of discussion entirely. The point is you can't prevent someone like Travis from being portrayed as a hero because it's impossible to tell somebody's motives, ambitions and thoughts.
You can't even prevent people like Travis from being people.
>>69070714
It's all about context. "Taxi Driver" arrived on a wave of high-profile political assassinations in the '60s and early '70s. The media would analyze and demonize these people in the same way we do to mass shooters today. They were "lone gunman" nutjobs, a problem to be analyzed and solved.
At the same time, major cities were choked by crime, the police were seen as ineffective. Vigilante justice was a VERY common fantasy for "average guys" living in these cities, and an increasingly common occurrence. And when it did happen, they often had the law-abiding public on their side. They sometimes WERE talked about like heroes. The Bernie Goetz incident came almost 10 years after Taxi Driver, yet his public reception played out like the end of this movie.
Scorsese and Schrader made the argument that the two characters are one in the same. Isolated, angry, marginalized young men who feel entitled to take violent action, outside the law, for whatever they think is right. They're BOTH Travis. Whether he ends up a "violent nut job" or "hero" is just a matter of right place, right time.
>>69070868
You can prevent it if stories were based on information rather than spinning it to fit a viewpoint and using it to further other interests. You don't know Travis' motives, because you never asked or interviewed him. He was in a coma and those newspaper articles projected who he was and what he did onto him, thus giving him a cloak to hide under. So if everyone believes he is a hero, when he isn't, then those opinions of people who read newspapers, or any other form of media, matter.
>>69070993
I just think you're putting too much thought into how much public opinion of these people matters in real life and this film.
My point is public opinion doesn't have any effect on Travis or the majority of people like Travis. Travis almost hated the public. Joe the Plumber should be worrying about fixing those pipes than to try and analyze a newspaper article and draw his own conclusions as to what happens and what kind of person the article is about truly is.
>>69071094
That's not how the printing or news industry works. They're trying to sell newspaper, not sell you a certain viewpoint even if there is a certain viewpoint being made in the particular article.
You have an idea of Travis' motives, he has this belief that the streets (and the government) are littered with human trash that feed on the innocence and lives of others. He's mentally unhinged, but for unknown reasons. Maybe it was being a Marine fighting through Vietnamese jungles, maybe it wasn't.
>thus giving him a cloak to hide under
He already had a cloak he was hiding under the entire time. If he didn't attempt to kill the drug dealers he wouldn't have been in any newspapers and people would have thought about him the same way they didn't before he did what he did: not at all.
>>69071334
>He already had a cloak he was hiding under the entire time.
Meaning he wore the cloak everyone wears, the cloak of "nobody is paying as much attention to yourself as YOURSELF."
Nobody around Travis even knew how mentally unhinged he was, because they don't notice and don't care. The scene with Wizard giving Travis advice clearly spells this out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDgXeYlpbOE
>"I got some bad idea in my head."
To which the response is just go get laid man! Nobody knows what the fuck Travis is talking about.
>>69071334
>He already had a cloak he was hiding under the entire time.
Which was what? His secretiveness?
>If he didn't attempt to kill the drug dealers
But he did, and now the public thinks of him as a hero for it due to those newspapers (and the people who read them).
>>69071334
But "your point" misses the point of the entire movie. It's not just a character study of Travis, it's a criticism of the surrounding society that created him. It'd be a very different film, with a very different meaning, if he went to jail at the end.
Some people in this thread are kinda misinterpreting the movie.
Travis was a contradiction. He was alone and isolated and didn't know what to do with his life, but he also didn't TRY to get out of that sort of life. In almost all his scenes he's doing something contradictory. Here's just a few examples:
-He looks down on people and calls them degenerate filth, yet all he fucking does in his free time is watch porn flicks.
-He tries to get fit, but his meals consist of low fat vitamin D milk in a bowl of bread with maple syrup sprinkled on top.
-He wants to combat crime, but buys guns off the black market.
-The chick he likes and tells her how she's all special? It's all for superficial reasons. He doesn't even know what to do or talk with her.
etc.
Travis identifies with aimlessness of young men in society, which was especially poignant at the time the movie was set in. There was an entire generation of guys like him too fucked up to integrate back into society without any prospects for the future.
He looks for a purpose in his life and goes on these grandeur vigilante delusions, but its all contradictory bullshit. He wants to kill Palatine, a candidate he "supported" without knowing his political stance for a girl he thought was special but knew nothing about.
Eventually, he kills some scumbags because he failed his grand mission. And instead of being reprimanded for his crimes, he's hailed as a hero. A final contradictory closure to his character.
After that, he goes back to being a taxi driver. He doesn't learn anything. Nothing really changes. He's saved one little girl from a life of prostitution, but his life hasn't changed. He hasn't taken the steps himself to change. He's just going back to the same thing until something happens and he snaps again.
The takeaway here is that these type of guys need help. It's something that many guys go through, and they're not alone. But if they don't seek help, nobody will help them. Nothing will change.
>>69071526
Yes. I was more interested in your lack of interest in the misportrayal of Travis.
>>69071514
>it's a criticism of the surrounding society that created him
No, we have no idea what created him. He could have mental problems, he could have PTSD he could be anything.
> It'd be a very different film, with a very different meaning, if he went to jail at the end.
I don't think that's true at all.
>>69068720
If you think that's what the ending was you need to rewatch it because you have a big misunderstanding of it.
The ending shows you despite being lauded as a hero Travis is ready to explode again at any given moment. Most likely resulting in his death.
>>69071560
I don't have a lack of interest of the portrayal of Travis in the public eye, I'm just saying the public opinion of Travis before and after the event both matter in exactly the same way, that they don't.
>>69071555
Sounds like 4chan posters in general
>>69071566
You don't get this movie at all.
>>69071762
Don't try and retort what I'm saying, whatever you do.
>>69071693
>I'm just saying the public opinion of Travis before and after the event both matter in exactly the same way, that they don't.
Not true since before Travis was nobody, but after contributed a story that used to convince people about something only tangently related to Travis, drug dealers, prostitution, crime etc. What's important isn't Travis' public opinion, but the fact he was used as a way to further something that didn't relate to his motive at all.
>>69071848
Well actually you are right, I shouldn't be saying public opinion in an of itself doesn't matter but it clearly doesn't matter to Travis at all.
>>69069942
Too many people miss this point and it's a shame because it's so relevant to our culture today.
People like Travis Bickle are disgusted and dissatisfied with the culture in which they find themselves, but the problems are too complex for them to solve easily.
They are desperate for some way to 'fix' it. The one question on their minds is "Who do I have to fight? Who do I have to kill to fix the world?"
If anyone or anything gives them an answer they find remotely satisfying, they'll seize on it. The anger and the need to *do something* actually outweighs the specifics of the target, or the ideological justification.
This is why school shooters and ISIS recruits often are revealed to have really half-baked ideology that doesn't sound like they thought it all the way through.
The world is full, FULL of people screaming at the top of their lungs "Somebody tell me who I have to shoot to make the world better!!"
Maybe they end recruits for someone else. Maybe they come up with their own half-baked cause.
Most people will think things through a little more and will come to understand that unilateral violence isn't going to solve much...
but a few just have a burning need to do something... anything, and that overwhelms everything else.
>>69071979
It doesn't matter to Travis, but that isn't the point. If you get enough Travises (Travi?) you can convince people to see things a certain way, even if in reality their motives were very different from the motive presented. You get enough of those stories, then you get leaders such as Palantine who spouts rhetoric where he promises to fix the problems presented in stories such as Travis'.
As for Travis himself, he doesn't see reality as the newspapers present it. Which is why he seems so off, and which is why he thinks he's so alone. People are subscribed to a reality that's not of their own while Travis is, for better or worse.
