Classic Review: Taxi Driver (1976)

Martin Scorsese has certainly carved his name upon modern cinema, although to be perfectly honest I have always found him a bit hit and miss. He hasn’t made any movies that I have hated, but he has made some that I have felt surprisingly apathetic about, which in my opinion is perhaps worse then being hated because that would be at least eliciting an emotional response. Taxi Driver is a film of his that I sat down to watch recently and it has certainly stirred a deep reaction. Robert De Niro playing the unhinged Travis Bickle explores the streets of New York and in the process explores how perspective can shape both heroes and villains alike.

This film has style. The jazz/blues that cruises along and washes over the streets of New York settles the audience gently under the lights and faces of the evolving city. The contrast between light and day allows for the setting to take on two opposite, yet clearly partnered roles, with the day forming its face and the night becoming the beast that dwells within. All of this frames Travis Bickle, an honourably discharged marine as he tries to find a way to help a city that he sees has gone to hell, whilst in the process woo a young lady. The characters in this film all seem a little clichéd (with the exception of Travis whose evolution is the underlying thesis), but this isn’t necessarily as bad thing- the characters all seem more to be products of the world they live in this way.  Also, keep an eye out for a young Jodie Foster playing a role so different to that which she normally picks up.

De Niro is simultaneously enthralling and horrifying as Travis walks the thin line between vigilante and deranged villain.  It is this performance that allows the movie to haunt you for so long, Travis feels so damn real, his character that seems so simple at first emerges at the climax as a multi-faceted and convoluted mess of the human experience. I wanted to like Travis and during the first act you are lured in by his frank simplicity, but the way in which the world has shaped him becomes more apparent as he hurriedly forms a bond with campaign volunteer Betsy (Cybil Shepherd), an attachment that very deliberately leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

To say that this film has been thought provoking would be something of an understatement: I am truly having difficulty removing it from my cranium. The dark tones and meditations that it lulls the audience into come on subtly and by time you realize the horrifying way in which this film is going to climax it is too late- you’re trapped. The pacing is slow and at first this is a little frustrating, I found it took a little too long for me to attach to Travis and for the actual story to emerge from the woodworks, although this is probably the reason why it was so able to capture my contemplative side. You spend the first part of the movie not really thinking, relaxing as the sounds and sounds wisp around you, only to realize that a truly predatory transformation is taking place.

The climax of this film attracted a deal of criticism at the time of its release and you will see why. Apart from the fact that this scene is intense on the action from, it is also very jarring, and places the audience in the awkward grey area where they are forced to question the perspective the director has placed them behind. It is a brilliant example of forcing the audience to consider that perhaps good and evil are truly relative terms. 

Taxi Driver is a film that clearly made me think, and to be honest it has become more apparent to me in this day and age that so many films do not even try to acknowledge the fact that the person watching them may be able to produce the etchings of a thought. If you want to switch of and watch an escapist thriller, this is not the one for you, but if you want to consider the darker sides of human nature within the vice of an urban setting look no further then Taxi Driver, a very title very worthy of the ‘classic’ label.

Alex
Yeah I'm lookin' at you

Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

OK, so I have put off writing this for far too long. The Dark Knight Rises disappointed me. It didn’t let me down because it was a poor film, quite the contrary, it is a marvelous film rounding off a memorable, well-crafted franchise. No, it disappointed me because by this concluding chapter the narrative has been so extrapolated and removed from being a ‘Batman’ movie, that the comic fan in me felt a little robbed… and by a little I mean very. The names are the same and the characters bare a vague resemblance, but ultimately this greatest strength of the franchise: its heavy entrenchment in reality was for me, its greatest fault.

If you were to meet 4 year old me, I am sure he would proudly tell you that Batman is the greatest hero ever, and with an imaginary grappling hook I would run off, black cape trailing behind. Batman as a comic book character has been a companion of mine my whole life.  I remember being 12 and finding that Dad had Frank Miller’s ‘Batman: Year One’ stashed in amongst history textbooks in the study and how when I read that graphic novel, the a character who had adorned my childhood doona cover, whose action figures had cluttered my drawers, whose cartoon adaptions had clogged my vcr, suddenly became flesh and bone, a grand mythos unthralled- and don’t get me wrong this is certainly the same legend Nolan has presented to the world, only disenchanted into the real world.

The acting is cutting  edge, with Bale’s Bruce Wayne finally getting a grand story arc that develops his character in a truly grand sense. Anne Hathaway is a welcome addition (although if there was any way to incorporate more leather into her costume that would also have been welcome) and Tom Hardy carried an immense screen presence. Like all of Nolan’s films to date though, the supporting cast was just as present and powerful, Joseph Gordon Levitt made a fantastic John Blake, Gary Oldman absolutely delivering yet again as Jim Gordon. Michael Caine once again stole the emotional soul of the film, and without spoiling anything, so many of my friends have remarked that when Michael Caine starts to cry, they couldn’t help but burst into tears. The relationship between Alfred and Bruce was actually something of an underpinned one, that was nicely featured and this truly made me happy.

The action sequences are a true tour de force, although I couldn’t help but feel that the final fight was a little anti-climactic and really did not go down in any kind of meaningful way, which is such a shame because I felt that this was something that the movie was really building towards. The sequences were all very large that cannot be questioned, its just that some of them bore little real meaning other then to drive plot forward as opposed to character development.

The script was tight, (ignoring a few immense, yet not particular consequential plot holes) with the dialogue carrying that typical Nolan brothers swagger, a sharpness that bares a real truth to the characters and knits them together seamlessly. A few characters too many were introduced in my opinion but given the long running time of the film this is not particularly a strain. While we are on the topic of the running time, there were a few real lulls in the locomotion of the film that were perhaps unnecessary, with some of them dragging on, something that I can say never really happened in its predecessors.

The Dark Knight Rises had sizeable shoes to fill. Its predecessor is regarded as one of the smartest and best films in recent years and I am not surprised that it did not surpass it. It is a good movie, just to me it isn’t the Batman that I know and worship. It’s a thrilling action film (even though Batman stories are really meant to be about crime and detective work), with challenging and endearing characters. Nolan has done a fantastic job of rounding of a god trilogy, I just cant help but wish that the tone of Batman begins had have stuck around till the end, rather then being replaced by the hyper-realistic (what a fantastic oxymoron).

Alex

Holy springing Medusa’s bath towel Batman!