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Scorsese, Martin, 1942- .Scorsese on Scorsese / edited by David Thompson and Ian Christie. 057114103X : series London ; Boston : Faber and Faber, 1989.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1998.3.S39 A3 1989
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1998.3.S39 A3 1989
Scorsese on Scorsese pg. 53-66
In this chapter from a book on Scorsese films, Martin Scorsese offers his own commentary on the film Taxi Driver. Scorsese discusses the early stages of production and how Brian De Palma introduced him to Paul Schrader. Scorsese included original drawings done by himself for the climactic ending. He talks about how much of Taxi Driver arose from his feeling that movies are like dreams, or like taking dope and that he tried to induce the feeling of being almost awake. Scorsese calls Travis an “avenging angel” floating through the streets of New York City, which was meant to represent all cities. Scorsese calls attention to improvisation in Taxi Driver’s many scenes, such as in the scene between De Niro and Cybill Shepherd in the coffee-shop. The director cites Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man and Jack Hazan’s A Bigger Splash as inspiration for his camerawork in Taxi Driver. He also confirms the fact that Arthur Bremer and Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground influenced Paul Schrader’s script.
Reading Scorsese’s perspective on his own film provides very interesting insight into Taxi Driver and more information about the mysterious Travis. It was crucial to Travis Bickle’s character that he was a war veteran, making his experiences after the war more intense, threatening, and filled with paranoia. Bickle chose to drive his taxi anywhere in the city as a way to feed his hate. Scorsese highlights the religious symbology in Taxi Driver comparing him to a saint who wants to clean up life and his mind. The violence at the end of the film is somewhat justified in the sense that Scorsese wanted Travis to kill all those people to stop them once and for all. Travis attempts suicide at the end of the movie as a way to mimic the Samurai’s “death with honour” principle.
In this chapter from a book on Scorsese films, Martin Scorsese offers his own commentary on the film Taxi Driver. Scorsese discusses the early stages of production and how Brian De Palma introduced him to Paul Schrader. Scorsese included original drawings done by himself for the climactic ending. He talks about how much of Taxi Driver arose from his feeling that movies are like dreams, or like taking dope and that he tried to induce the feeling of being almost awake. Scorsese calls Travis an “avenging angel” floating through the streets of New York City, which was meant to represent all cities. Scorsese calls attention to improvisation in Taxi Driver’s many scenes, such as in the scene between De Niro and Cybill Shepherd in the coffee-shop. The director cites Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man and Jack Hazan’s A Bigger Splash as inspiration for his camerawork in Taxi Driver. He also confirms the fact that Arthur Bremer and Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground influenced Paul Schrader’s script.
Reading Scorsese’s perspective on his own film provides very interesting insight into Taxi Driver and more information about the mysterious Travis. It was crucial to Travis Bickle’s character that he was a war veteran, making his experiences after the war more intense, threatening, and filled with paranoia. Bickle chose to drive his taxi anywhere in the city as a way to feed his hate. Scorsese highlights the religious symbology in Taxi Driver comparing him to a saint who wants to clean up life and his mind. The violence at the end of the film is somewhat justified in the sense that Scorsese wanted Travis to kill all those people to stop them once and for all. Travis attempts suicide at the end of the movie as a way to mimic the Samurai’s “death with honour” principle.
belongs to Taxi Driver Annotated Bibliography project
tagged arthur avenging_angelnew_york_city bremer camerawork dostoevsky dreams martin_scorsese note_from_underground paul_schrader taxi_driver travis_bickle by feldman5 ...and 1 other person ...on 10-APR-08
tagged arthur avenging_angelnew_york_city bremer camerawork dostoevsky dreams martin_scorsese note_from_underground paul_schrader taxi_driver travis_bickle by feldman5 ...and 1 other person ...on 10-APR-08
Scorsese, Martin, 1942-. Scorsese on Scorsese / edited by David Thompson and Ian Christie. [057114103X :] London ; Boston : Faber and Faber, 1989.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1998.3.S39 A3 1989
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1998.3.S39 A3 1989
Section on Taxi Driver pp. 53-67
Scorsese talks about the details of production and how he ended up working with Paul Schrader on Taxi Driver. Some of the original storyboards for the film are included. Scorsese also tells that the inspiration behind much of the visual loneliness in Taxi Driver is from his experience growing up in New York – how his personal experiences had a dreamlike quality to them, which he wanted to capture in the film. Yet this “dreaminess” is for Scorsese not a positive quality, but connotes disease and decay, which become Travis Bickle’s triggers first for uneasiness, then for violence. He is Scorsese’s own “avenging angel” fantasy, come to rid the streets of scum and riffraff.
Speaking of the general sense of paranoia Travis experiences, Scorsese directly credits Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man as a source of formal inspiration. He also claims that there is no boundary between reality and fantasy in terms of how they are treated in film, and that applying this principle forcefully in Taxi Driver is what gives Travis’s insanity credibility. He also credits John Ford’s The Searchers with providing a model for the post-war male who cannot find a place to belong.
Scorsese confirms the prevailing attitudes about the film centering on loneliness and its consequences, but says little about the cultural context of its narrative. He views the film in a very personal way, identifying with Travis’s loneliness, and expecting the audience to feel likewise, such that when the violent act comes at the end, there is both attraction and revulsion. Catharsis is needed, but when its form is realized, it becomes sickening and ironic, no better than the problems it sought to solve.
belongs to Taxi Driver Annotated Bibliography project
tagged 1970s alienation cinema_scorsese scorsese taxi_driver urban_western vietnam violence by jmweed ...and 1 other person ...on 06-APR-06
tagged 1970s alienation cinema_scorsese scorsese taxi_driver urban_western vietnam violence by jmweed ...and 1 other person ...on 06-APR-06