Taxi driver

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Movie
German title Taxi driver
Original title Taxi driver
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1976
length 114 minutes
Age rating FSK 16 (formerly 18)
Rod
Director Martin Scorsese
script Paul Schrader
production Michael Phillips
Julia Phillips
music Bernard Herrmann
camera Michael Chapman
cut Tom Rolf
Melvin Shapiro
occupation
synchronization

Taxi Driver is a film drama by Martin Scorsese from the year 1976 . The film, based on a script by Paul Schrader , depicts the life of the lonely New York taxi driver Travis Bickle, who is disgusted by the “dirt” of the city and whose obsession with wrestling a young prostitute from her milieu leads to an act of violence.

The film won several awards and is counted among the most important and influential films in American cinema. It made the then 13-year-old actress Jodie Foster a star and is the last film for which the composer Bernard Herrmann, known for his soundtracks for Alfred Hitchcock, wrote the film music.

action

New York City , mid-1970s: Sleep disorder Travis Bickle, 26, accepts a job as a taxi driver . During the interview, he says he was with the US Marines . He is ready to work anytime, anywhere. Due to his sleep disorders, he mainly drives the unpopular night shifts to the darkest corners of the city. Travis transports shady characters at night. Travis believes that there is too much “human scum” on the streets of New York that needs to be cleaned up. In his spare time he visits porn movie theaters or drives around aimlessly and keeps a diary.

One day he sees the campaign assistant Betsy, who works for the Senator and presidential candidate Palantine. In it he recognizes the person he lacks. He starts courting her until Betsy finally agrees to go out for coffee with Travis. For the next meeting, they arrange to go to the cinema.

One evening, Travis happened to be chauffeuring Senator Charles Palantine in his taxi. He tells Palantine that he is “campaigning” for him by trying to convince everyone who gets into his taxi of Palantine's policies. The Senator asks Travis what bothers him most, what needs to be changed in the future. Travis replies that someone should start ridding New York of all that filth and trash. After dropping Palantine down, the underage prostitute Iris gets into his taxi. She is apparently on the run from her pimp . Before Travis can drive off, Travis gets her out of the car and gives Travis $ 20 as compensation. Shortly afterwards he was pelted with eggs by several residents of the "slums" in a taxi.

Travis goes to the cinema with Betsy. Betsy is irritated at first, because the cinema that Travis has chosen is a porn cinema, but goes in anyway. During the film, which contains many sex scenes, she quickly feels uncomfortable and leaves the cinema in disgust. Travis follows her and assures her that he didn't know she didn't like movies like this. She hurries into a taxi. Travis later calls Betsy to apologize for the unsuccessful evening, but she doesn't want to see him anymore. He keeps trying to send her flowers; however, she does not accept them. Travis is depressed. He comes back to Betsy's office and angrily asks her why she doesn't take his calls. Before he can really speak, however, he is pushed out of the office by her colleague, threatening to call the police.

One night, Travis drives a jealous man in the back seat of his taxi who is watching over his unfaithful wife. He describes in detail how he wants to kill his wife with a 44 magnum .

When Travis drives around aimlessly again at night, the underage Iris suddenly runs in front of the taxi. He follows her briefly until she turns to a suitor and then drives away. This experience brings out all of the pent-up aggression in him. He has to do something. Travis purchases four pistols from a dealer who has been recommended to him by his taxi driver colleague Doughboy (in the German version "Dollarboy"). He then begins to train because he wants to regain the physical fitness that has robbed him of sitting so much and wants to swallow less pills.

While attending an election rally by Charles Palantine, he speaks to a security officer. He claims to have seen suspicious people. Travis goes on to say that he would like to work for the Secret Service . The security officer then asks for his address so that he can allegedly send him application material. Travis sees through the bodyguard, gives false personal details and can disappear in time when he puts his colleague on him.

In his run-down apartment, Travis speaks to imaginary opponents and handles his illegally acquired weapons. He is increasingly delusional that he has to clean the streets of New York himself. In the evening he went shopping in a small shop and witnessed a robbery. Travis shoots the robber down and, because he does not have a gun license, is sent away by the shopkeeper he is friends with. The shopkeeper beats the badly injured robber behind him. Travis writes an anniversary greeting card to his parents, claiming he is involved in secret government work and has a relationship with Betsy.

Travis matches Iris. She refers him to her pimp Matthew. He says he wants to sleep with Iris. In the hour hotel he gets into conversation with Iris. He tells her that she was in his taxi before, but that Matthew took her out. But she can't remember it. Iris awakened the protective instinct in Travis. He wants to get her out of prostitution. However, she does not want to know anything about his plan: she was drugged when she tried to escape. Nevertheless, they arrange to meet at noon the following day. Travis wants Iris to go back to her parents. But Iris says her pimp Matthew - nicknamed Sports - loves her and treats her well. She asks Travis if he with her in a municipality of Vermont go, what he rejects. He tells Iris that he has an important government assignment that needs to be done.

Travis prepares for the execution of his "assignment": He trains shooting with his weapons on the firing range, sharpens his knife and optimizes his clothing for "combat". He writes Iris a suicide note, with which he encloses money so that she can leave town.

With a mohawk Travis emerges a campaign rally by Senator Palantine on Columbus Circle on, obviously with the intention to shoot the senator. But he is recognized in time by his bodyguards and flees. Later he drives to the hour hotel where Iris works. In front of the house next door, Travis shoots the pimp Sport in the abdomen. He walks over to the hour hotel and shoots the owner's right hand. Sport picked himself up badly injured, appeared at the hotel with a revolver and fired at Travis, injuring his neck. Travis, in turn, can shoot down sports. He fires two more bullets at the pimp lying on the floor. A man who had previously given money to sports storms out of Iris' room and shoots Travis in the shoulder, causing the latter to lose his gun. However, Travis wears a self-made mechanism on his right arm, through which another pistol comes to light, with which he kills the suitor. During the exchange of fire, Travis is repeatedly attacked by the hotel owner. The two end up struggling in Iris' room. Travis pulls out a combat knife that he had previously taped to his boot. He stabs the blade through the owner's uninjured hand. Although Iris begs Travis to let the man live, he kills him with a headshot.

Travis is badly injured and wants to shoot himself, but he's out of ammunition. When police officers enter the room, he points with his index finger at his temple and indicates a suicide . The camera pans away from Travis and shows the bloody path he has left from high above, panning over splatters of blood, dead bodies and down the stairs to the street, where onlookers and police officers crowd.

Newspaper articles celebrate Travis as a hero and a letter from Iris' parents assures him of their gratitude for saving their daughter, who has settled in again. Travis stands chatting with his fellow taxi drivers. His hair is full again, and the only visible consequence of the shooting is a scar on his neck. Betsy is in his cab and he's driving her home. He smiles when she greets him and asks her about Palantine's nomination; he assures that he continues to hope that he wins the election. She replies that she read about him in the newspaper and asks how he is feeling. He calmly replies that the media are always exaggerating, that he just feels a little weak. He stops at her house and she gets out. He waives her the price for the ride and drives away smiling. In a last shot before the credits, Travis looks confused in the rearview mirror.

Emergence

After Hexenkessel, the film is the second collaboration between the trio Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel.

The script was drafted by Paul Schrader and shows autobiographical traits. Robert De Niro as Method Actor used Schrader's original clothing for his roles and drove a taxi himself in New York for several days in preparation.

Because of Jodie Foster's minority was in the sexually explicit scenes with her then twenty year old sister Constance replaced .

Steven Spielberg was involved in the making of the film as chief editor , but is not mentioned in the credits.

The film music is the last work by Bernard Herrmann , who died a few hours after completing the music recordings.

Locations

The film was shot outside in New York City. The filming location for the taxi office was on the west end of 57th Street, near 11th Avenue. The building is still there, but a large part of the area had to give way to the construction of the West Side Highway. The Belmore Cafeteria on Park Avenue South and 28th Street, where the taxi drivers in the film meet during their breaks, has also been demolished in the meantime . According to Tony Reeves, this cafe was actually a popular stop for taxi drivers. The porn theater that Travis takes Betsy into is on 48th Street and 8th Avenue. The love hotel Iris works at is 226 East 13th Street, in the East Village between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. The front, supported by columns, is no longer preserved.

synchronization

actor role speaker
Robert De Niro Travis Bickle Christian Brückner
Peter Boyle Wizard Wolfgang Völz
Cybill Shepherd Betsy Gisela Fritsch
Jodie Foster iris Hansi Jochmann
Harvey Keitel Matthew aka "Sport" Joachim Kemmer

criticism

source rating
Rotten tomatoes
critic
audience
Metacritic
critic
audience
IMDb

“Because of its moral ambivalence and the shocking scenes of violence, the film sparked heated discussions. Despite the context of the Vietnam War and the Watergate affair , Scorsese's big city nightmare has become a timeless classic. "

- Nicole Röndigs

“With his Taxi Driver Scorsese shows how thin the line is between Weltschmerz and frustration on the one hand and (self-) destructive madness on the other; but also that there is an equally fine line in public perception, namely that between criminals and heroes ... "

- E. Schmitz

“Travis in New York City, the birthplace of punk, at the same time in the mid-seventies. The Ramones were playing at the New York club CBGB's when 'Taxi Driver' was filmed. Travis as the first punk in cinema? First mohawk anyway, and going crazy, rebelling without really knowing what against. "

- Andreas Thomas

“The extremely dense film depicts the psychological deformations of its hero with cool urgency and analytical precision. At the same time, it makes clear that the outbreak of individual violence corresponds with a general climate of latent brutality and dullness. A thriller that combines intensive observation of reality with the mythical qualities of traditional genre films. "

- Lexicon of international film

background

  • "The power of the mind on the wrong path," said Martin Scorsese about the basic character trait of the main character Travis Bickle.
  • The director Martin Scorsese appears in one scene of the film as a betrayed husband in the back seat of the taxi. When Betsy first appears, he sits on a wall and watches her as she walks past him into the house. In another scene he can be seen briefly as a passer-by in front of the Palantines election campaign office.
  • Campaign assistant Betsy compares Travis to Kris Kristofferson's song The Pilgrim, ch 33 . He then bought a copy of the LP The Silver Tongued Devil and I to give Betsy a gift. In the credits, Kris Kristofferson is explicitly mentioned under the acknowledgments.

Adaptations and other aftermath

Stencil by Travis Bickle in Regensburg

Parts of Travis' speech, in which he explains that he wants to wash the "scum" from the street, were used by the English punk band The Clash in the song Red Angel Dragnet on their 1982 album Combat Rock . At the time of the album, Clash frontman Joe Strummer was wearing a mohawk and military clothing inspired by Travis' style in the film. The American punk band Rancid named a song Travis Bickle on their album Indestructible . The content is also about a man who retaliates against the violence and hatred in the streets.

The scene in which Robert De Niro alias Travis Bickle stands in front of a mirror with a drawn revolver and his supposed counterpart, or his reflection in the mirror, achieved cult status with the words "You talkin 'to me?" (German: "Are you talking to me? You talk to me? ") asks for a duel . In the American Film Institute's list of the "100 Best Movie Quotes of All Time", these words are ranked 10th. The scene was not in the original script, but was improvised by de Niro. At a concert, he heard Bruce Springsteen repeatedly say “You talkin 'to me” to the audience, and felt inspired to incorporate this monologue into the film. This scene has been parodied and adapted countless times, for example by Vincent Cassel in Hass , by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future III , by Mr. Garrison in South Park (Season 1, episode 102), Moe Szyslak from the Simpsons (S05E18 ), by Aaron Johnson in Kick-Ass and in the music video Men Are Pigs from the band Die Ärzte . John Warnock Hinckley, Jr. , who committed an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 , wanted to get Jodie Foster's attention. He had seen her in Taxi Driver , had fallen for her and, after unsuccessful attempts to stalk and contact her, decided to assassinate a high-ranking politician like Travis Bickle.

In 2003, the Federal Agency for Civic Education, in cooperation with numerous filmmakers, created a film canon for work in schools, in which this film was included.

Robert De Niro has wanted a sequel for years . At the Berlinale 2010 it was announced that Scorsese and De Niro are working on a sequel. Lars von Trier was also wrongly associated with the project.

Awards

Taxi Driver won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1976 . In 1977 Robert de Niro as leading actor, Jodie Foster as supporting actress and Martin Scorsese as director were nominated for many prestigious film awards in the USA and around the world, and were often also award winners. The film composer Bernard Herrmann , who died in December 1975, also received posthumous film awards for his Taxi Driver score. In 1994 the film was entered into the National Film Registry . The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.

Tabular overview of the awards

price category Nominee result
Int. Cannes Film Festival 1976 Golden palm Martin Scorsese Won
Hochi Film Award (Japan) Best foreign film Martin Scorsese Won
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Actor Robert De Niro Won
Best film score Bernard Herrmann Won
New Generation Award Jodie Foster , Robert de Niro Won
Academy Awards 1977 Best Actor Robert de Niro Nominated
The best supporting actress Jodie Foster Nominated
Best Score (Original Score) Bernard Herrmann Nominated
Best movie Michael Phillips , Julia Phillips Nominated
30th BAFTA Awards (1977) Anthony Asquith Award for Best Film Score Bernard Herrmann Won
Best Supporting Actress (also for Bugsy Malone ) Jodie Foster Won
Most promising young actor for leading roles (awarded 1953–1985) Won
Best Actor Robert de Niro Nominated
Best director Martin Scorsese Nominated
Best movie Nominated
Best cut Tom Rolf , Melvin Shapiro Nominated
Blue Ribbon Awards (Japan) Best Foreign Film Won
David di Donatello (Italy) Special David Jodie Foster Won
Robert de Niro Won
DGA award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Martin Scorsese Nominated
34th Golden Globe Awards (1977) Best film - drama Robert de Niro Nominated
Best film script Paul Schrader Nominated
Grammy Awards Album of Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special Bernard Herrmann Nominated
KCFCC Award (USA) The best supporting actress Jodie Foster Won
Kinema Junpo (Japan) Best direction in a foreign language Martin Scorsese Won
NSFC Awards 1977 (USA) Best Actor Robert de Niro Won
Best director Martin Scorsese Won
The best supporting actress Jodie Foster Won
Best movie Nominated
Best supporting actor Harvey Keitel Nominated
42nd NYFCC Awards (USA) Best Actor Robert de Niro Won
Best director Martin Scorsese Nominated
The best supporting actress Jodie Foster Nominated
Best supporting actor Harvey Keitel Nominated
WGA award Original screenplay Paul Schrader Nominated

Web links

Wikiquote: Taxi Driver  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article in the New York Times from 2011
  2. ↑ Tony Reeves: Taxi Driver film locations. In: web presence movie-locations.com. The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, accessed December 6, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Taxi Driver in the German synchronous file
  4. ↑ a b [1] at Rotten Tomatoes , accessed on October 27, 2014
  5. ↑ a b [2] at Metacritic , accessed on October 27, 2014
  6. ↑ Taxi Driver in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  7. ^ Hamburger Morgenpost, accessed on September 14, 2006
  8. ^ Filmzentrale and ciao.de: A man at the crossroads , accessed on March 4, 2007
  9. ^ Filmzentrale: Critique by Andreas Thomas , accessed on March 4, 2007
  10. ^ Taxi Driver in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  11. ^ Clemons, Clarence (2009). Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales . Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-0-446-54626-3 .
  12. ↑ http://www.kino.de/news/robert-de-niro-will-taxi-driver-2/288673.html
  13. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of February 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive )