Taxi Driver
"you talkin' to me?" yeah, yeah. everyone knows that line. but up until today, i had never seen the movie. figured it was about damn time. the best thing about netflix is that you can keep all the want-to-sees in a nice, tidy list. and this was a want-to-see. so i saw it.
what a creepy movie! i actually got the most creeped out right in the last few minutes, when travis bickle (robert deniro) picks up betsy (cybill shepherd) for the last time; for some reason the fact that he was back out crawling the streets was the most unsettling to me, and made me feel all creepy-crawly and antsy. i was expecting it to be so much more bloody and violent, so that when it wound up being just sort of brooding and edgy and sensual saxophone notes i was a little confused, but in a good way. i think what had kept me from seeing it in the past was that i thought it was mostly violence.
i'd seen bits of taxi driver before, albeit without sound. at the original "beauty bar" in new york's east village they sometimes project movies on the wall, and the night i was there in april 2004, it was taxi driver. i tried not to pay attention, though, because i knew that one day i'd want to see it in full, and i hate seeing too many snippets and segments of things out of context and from the middle, not the start. so i put it out of my mind until today, when i pressed play on the ol' dvd player.
i really liked deniro's performance, and was thoroughly grossed out with harvey keitel's character matt. i particularly liked jodie foster as the hooker, iris. it was amazing to see how she looked so cool and with-it and mature when she was all dolled up in the nighttime, working, and then to see her so childish and plain when she goes to eat with travis. all her goofy sunglasses and the way she gobs jam and sugar on her toast were just perfect little bits of work that gave insight into her character.
i enjoyed the direction as well--the slow tight shots of the details, like the alka-seltzer bubbling, or the rain on the cab were fantastic. i also like the use of mirrors and perspective, like the rearview mirror of the cab, or when travis is in the shooting range and the frame is just a tiny square of him in the midst of black. target practice. eerie stuff.
i also love new york, the scuzzy side of things, and seeing times square in all its hideous triple x glory. i'm also really beginning to formulate a respect for cinema of the 70s, because it seems like a time when film was becoming something different, and directors were coming into the field with such distinct styles, voices, motion. its the era of coppola, scorsese, allen, etc. before hollywood went so far away from art in the 80s and into big budget buffoonery style comedies and hyperbolic action flicks. of course, it's hard to top annie hall. but i give taxi driver a thumbs up.
what a creepy movie! i actually got the most creeped out right in the last few minutes, when travis bickle (robert deniro) picks up betsy (cybill shepherd) for the last time; for some reason the fact that he was back out crawling the streets was the most unsettling to me, and made me feel all creepy-crawly and antsy. i was expecting it to be so much more bloody and violent, so that when it wound up being just sort of brooding and edgy and sensual saxophone notes i was a little confused, but in a good way. i think what had kept me from seeing it in the past was that i thought it was mostly violence.
i'd seen bits of taxi driver before, albeit without sound. at the original "beauty bar" in new york's east village they sometimes project movies on the wall, and the night i was there in april 2004, it was taxi driver. i tried not to pay attention, though, because i knew that one day i'd want to see it in full, and i hate seeing too many snippets and segments of things out of context and from the middle, not the start. so i put it out of my mind until today, when i pressed play on the ol' dvd player.
i really liked deniro's performance, and was thoroughly grossed out with harvey keitel's character matt. i particularly liked jodie foster as the hooker, iris. it was amazing to see how she looked so cool and with-it and mature when she was all dolled up in the nighttime, working, and then to see her so childish and plain when she goes to eat with travis. all her goofy sunglasses and the way she gobs jam and sugar on her toast were just perfect little bits of work that gave insight into her character.
i enjoyed the direction as well--the slow tight shots of the details, like the alka-seltzer bubbling, or the rain on the cab were fantastic. i also like the use of mirrors and perspective, like the rearview mirror of the cab, or when travis is in the shooting range and the frame is just a tiny square of him in the midst of black. target practice. eerie stuff.
i also love new york, the scuzzy side of things, and seeing times square in all its hideous triple x glory. i'm also really beginning to formulate a respect for cinema of the 70s, because it seems like a time when film was becoming something different, and directors were coming into the field with such distinct styles, voices, motion. its the era of coppola, scorsese, allen, etc. before hollywood went so far away from art in the 80s and into big budget buffoonery style comedies and hyperbolic action flicks. of course, it's hard to top annie hall. but i give taxi driver a thumbs up.
posted by Lindsay at 4:09 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home