Analysing the hairstyle switches

Rating: Null/10 (29 April 2001)

I believe if you watch the movie again and pay special attention to Travis' hair, you will soon notice that in succeeding scenes, his hairstyle switches back and forth many times between regular length to brush cut. The brush cut seems very weird to me; almost as if it was a make-up job: a skullcap with a brush cut hairdo stuck to it. Of course once the mohawk hairstyle is introduced, which is also an obvious make-up job, the style is maintained till the end.
This is not a continuity mistake in the traditional sense but indicates that the movie has been purposefully edited in this fashion in order drastically restructure the narrative. The story of "Taxi Driver" is episodic in nature and could have withstood this sort of rearrangement of scenes more easily had Travis had one continuous look throughout; or at least until the assassination attempt scene. As it is, the changes in hairstyle only help pinpoint the course of this restructuring more easily for the student of the film.
If you read Paul Schrader's published screenplay (Faber and Faber, 1990), and look at the film, much becomes clearer. Director Martin Scorsese went out of his way to remain as faithful as possible to the script. Almost all of the scenes in the script are there; the few minor changes and deletions are of no real importance. The discrepancies between screenplay and film are to be found in the order of presentation of the scenes. Schrader's screenplay indicates precisely where the change in hairstyle occurs in the narrative.
In the script, the first mention of the brush cut is in the scene aptly titled "A new face in the crowd" where Travis attends a Palantine campaign rally and talks to a secret service man. The screenplay makes no mention of a "mohawk" haircut though; this appears to have been a new idea suggested shortly before production. Thus we assume that Travis has the same look from the beginning of the movie onward up until the campaign rally scene.

The problem is that in the movie this brush cut look appears long before the "a new face in the crowd" scene. The first appearance of the brush cut is in two very short snippets of film lasting less that two seconds each in a montage sequence of Travis driving his cab at night. This is early in the movie, right after Tom, the Albert Brooks character, asks Travis to move his cab because he's blocking the doorway. The shots are so short and intercut between similar shots of Travis with longer hair, inside the dimly lit cab, that the brush cut would remain unseen by most people.

The brush cut makes it's next sudden and more obvious appearance when Travis nearly runs over Iris, the Jodie Foster character, in the red light district. The scene is quite long as he follows her down the street as she converses with another teenaged hooker. He watches her at the street corner and drives off infuriated as she picks up a john. This is followed by the "God's Lonely Man" voice-over scene which is actually almost at the end of the script. So we have had quite a long look at the brush cut by now but Scorsese nevertheless cuts back to the old look as Travis sits at his desk and writes: "My life has taken another turn again. The days moves along with regularity, one day indistinguishable from the next, a long continuous chain, then suddenly-there is a change." In the movie, it is assumed that the "change" Travis is referring to is his decision to arm himself as the following scene shows him waiting to be picked up by Andy the gun salesman. In the script, the context is entirely different, as Travis says these lines after Betsy, The Cybill Shepherd character, leaves him after their disastrous first date at the porno theater.
The third appearance of the brush cut is in it's rightful place: the "a new face in the crowd" scene. Unfortunately, it has been moved up quite a bit and is thus premature. This is preceded and followed by scenes of Travis assuming gunman stances in his room, gunning down a convenience store robber, and watching American Bandstand, with of course, his regular hairstyle. Next, Travis is sitting in his parked cab, with his brush cut, not far from where Palantine is giving a speech. This is where he reads in voice-over a card addressed to his parents. This is followed by Travis watching a soap opera on a TV that he precariously rocking with his foot (back to regular hair).
Afterwards, he picks up Iris and the brush cut stays pretty constantly on the screen till the assassination attempt and the appearance of the mohawk, with the exception of the short shot of Travis supposedly sitting in his cab outside of Iris' room where she is with Sport.
That makes for a lot of switches back and forth if you ask me....