This Emperor has an obvious "wardrobe malfunction."

Rating: 3/10 (2 February 2012)

So many have told us this is a great movie, if not one of the greatest. Why? At the beginning, we are introduced to a man, Travis Bickle. who is behaving in a kind of infantile way. We have no idea why. Is he new to the city? All we really ever learn is that he was in the Marines, honorably discharged, and he thinks New York City is filthy, disgusting, etc. Why? The cinematography actually makes the city look vibrant and dynamic. I was there, at the time, though not quite an adult yet, and never got the sense that it was a filthy, disgusting place, despite my parents' somewhat paranoid attitudes. Granted, I did not travel all over Manhattan, as a taxi driver might, but that just compels the viewer to ask why he is in New York in the first place, let alone driving a taxi there!
When Iris talks about going to a commune in Vermont, he says that it's not the kind of place for him. What is? Yes, we understand he is "disturbed," but we are given no clue as to why, which creates a frustrating quality to this film. We get quite a bit of cozy music (which sometimes goes "dark") with the wonderful cinematography, and in general the city appears quite interesting, and not especially dangerous. Why weren't there several scenes of violent crime? Was prostitution only occurring in Manhattan at that time? There is a kind of self-contradictory quality to this film that irritates, and there is not even an attempt to resolve it. A glaring example of this is the long scene with Iris and her pimp; what are we meant to infer from it? It almost seems like Scorsese wants us to think that the "bad" New Yorkers aren't really that bad. If so, it contradicts the apparent point of the film. If not, why was it not cut out of the film?
We do see some characters that represent the more "positive" side of New York, including the politician, Charles Palantine, and one of his campaign workers, Betsy. Does New York appear to them the way it does to Travis? For the most part, if they are concerned with someone who might do them harm, it is Travis, not the people he regards as "scum." This is where the movie could have gone, and it would have been consistent with society, especially the "white flight" of that era. We would see that less educated, more "ethnic," "white" people had become nearly paranoid with stories about fictions, such as the "black snipers of Newark," for example. We could then see the politician character fanning the flames of such fear, perhaps prompting Travis to do something violent. We could get flashbacks and find out that Travis sees Palantine as a surrogate father. Those kinds of scenes could provide some grounding (social and psychological) to this film. It would be a shocking twist for us to think that Palantine is taking Travis under his wing, only to find out that he is trying to use Travis to further his political ambitions, and at that point, with the cozy music turning "dark," an actual drama might just arise !
I like the idea of the world as seen through the eyes of a troubled man, so I don't object to this approach, but the audience needs some idea of why that person is the way he is (and you can't put in scenes that don't include that character, such as the one with Iris and her pimp). As it stands, this is a confused film. It's like the cinematographer went ahead and made his film while the director was making a contrary one. The soundtrack seems like an attempt to bring the two together, but it doesn't work because we haven't been shown enough contrast between "good" and "bad" New York, and too much is seen from the perspective of a character who seems seriously disturbed and clearly paranoid, for some unknown reason. And astute viewer might assume that it may be about racial strife, if we consider the recent history, circa the mid 1970s. Perhaps Scorsese just took that for granted, but there are ways of making your ideas known with subtlety, and Scorsese was unwilling or unable to do that here, for whatever reason. I think of an unfinished Old Master portrait when I think of this film, only with the background finished rather than the head !