Driving a movie

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2019)

The tension between the writer, director and lead actor is what drives a movie. The director usually wins that battle, unless the actor is highly intelligent (like Guy Pearce) or a superstar (like Tom Cruise). It's very rare for the writer to win that battle like he does here, but Paul Schrader is in the same room as John Sayles, Robert Towne, William Goldman - our finest movie writers.
At the time this movie was released, a 12 year old hooker was not something being portrayed in every Hollywood movie. Watching it again lately, you can see how thin Jodie's performance was. It's no fault of her own, she had been acting since a baby. She did the best she could.
The key to a movie that has the lead providing voice over narration, is that the entire movie must be something he personally witnesses. The scene with Harvey and Jodie dancing doesn't really fit into the narrative because Travis is not there in that scene. The movie - and the tension - only works if Travis is in the scene. The camera plays off Travis, and De Niro has to work his butt off to keep the attention on him. The tension in the movie works when this works.
I do believe he died in the ending shoot out. The camera hovering over everyone like an angel makes that perfectly clear. There's no other reason for Cybill to get into the cab at the very end after everything that happened to her with Travis.