Taxi Driver as Neo-Noir

Rating: Null/10 (9 May 2003)

SPOILER AHEAD!!!

Through its underworld milieu, themes of existential angst, chaos, violence, and meaninglessness, the film Taxi Driver is part of the film noir genre. Directed by Martin Scorcese, the film Taxi Driver delves into the bleak life of Travis Bickle (Robert Dinero), a lone taxi driver from Manhattan. Following the tradition of the film noir movement, this film is dark in every way. It uses themes of existential angst, alienation and loneliness, chaos, violence, and disillusionment. As the film digs into Bickle's transformation into his own sick idea of a hero, these themes become more and more apparent. There are also other characteristic noir visual preoccupations, such as water, the darkness, and mist. In addition, being a neo-noir, or `new noir film,' it ties in issues of the day that are important to the mindsets of people that lived in the 1970's. In this way, this film is unique.

The most obvious part of this film that fits into the noir movement is the visual style. I will discuss later how even though this film is in color, (most of the early noirs were black and white) it keeps the same concept in terms of visual style. Dark city streets slick with water from broken fire hydrants, prostitutes, drunks and murderers: an overall sense of trashiness. This is what film noir aimed to show: a gritty look at American life. What differentiates this film as a neo-noir is that it pits a misfit against the underworld, or as Bickle explains: `All the animals come out at night: Whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal'. As Bickle drives aimlessly through the streets, everything he sees is evidence of the underworld at work. There are long shots of Bickle's point of view as he stares at these creatures. One striking example is in a café scene, in which there is a static shot of Bickle's point of view as he stares at a pimp, who is shot unflatteringly from below. This shows Bickle's disgust with the underworld, and preempts his actions toward the end of the film. Bickle's disgust with urban life, especially in New York, is a general theme in film noir. There is a horror in classic film noir at urbanized life, and in Taxi Driver, it is intensified by Bickle's intense feelings.
In addition to the gritty look of film noir, another characteristic of its visual style is the constant use of water. This creates symbolic meaning, as well as enhances the milieu by identifying it as film noir (dark city streets and rain soaked pavement). But, Taxi Driver uses a different meaning for water. In films such as Chinatown and The Man Who Wasn't There, death is associated with water, making it a symbol of helplessness and drowning in life. The meaning becomes apparent in Taxi Driver through Bickle's narrative: `April 10, 1972. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash the garbage and trash off the sidewalks' . Water is a symbol of cleanliness in the film, what Bickle is striving for. He develops an intense anger towards what he feels is the scum of the streets. Frequently he encounters water, such as when he runs through the stream from a broken fire hydrant with his cab. This shot is followed by a shot of the windshield wipers wiping the water off the windshield: another visual clue indicating cleansing. Water is a preoccupation in noir, not only because the streets are always wet, but because characters frequently meet near a port or the ocean, etc. It holds different meanings: cleansing, life and death (the rising and falling tides), and life (water is needed to live).

Water is not the only reoccurring visual; there are symbols provided by normal city objects such as signs and traffic. In many critical moments, such as when Bickle attempts to assassinate Charles Palantine (Leonard Harris II), signs such as `No Pedestrians' or `No Parking' appear in frame. It seems that not only are people impervious to Bickle, but signs and objects in his environment contradict him. In this example, he is in a particularly hostile mindset, and for the first time, we see he has shaved his head into a Mohawk; the sign helps contrast his ignorance toward rules (he wants action; he has to do something about the `trash') with the rules. Another good example of this is the sign hanging in the taxi garage that reads: `BE ALERT!! THE SAFE DRIVER IS ALWAYS READY FOR THE UNEXPECTED. SLOW DOWN AND GAUGE SPEED TO ROAD CONDITIONS. YOU CAN'T STOP ON A DIME!' This is another implicit indicator of Bickle's life spiraling out of control. The sign seems to indicate that he is trapped in life, and cannot seem to get himself out of the filth that he despises so greatly. He is stuck in it, its all around him. In the film, he states: `All my life needed was a sense of direction, a sense of someplace to go. I do not believe one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, but should become a person like other people'.
The irony is that he is never ready for the unexpected, because he works outrageously long hours, and sees his only purpose as keeping himself busy. The sign identifies the rut that he is in, telling him to be `alienated' and `slow down.'

To intensify Bickle's emotions without symbolic meaning, another visual component is used: expressive lighting. The low-key lights of the streets are used frequently as a backdrop, and the few primary colors included in them are used in tinting certain sequences. The film is predominantly red, as Bickle has a score to settle and plans to kill to do so. An example of this is when he walks out the café and sees a prostitute yelling at her daughter. The entire street seems bathed in red light. As he gets in his car to pull out, it disappears. Primarily because this film is color, it uses light in a different manner than black and white shadows used in typical film noirs, but uses it to similar effect. Black and white noirs use shadow to convey mood and possibly hidden motives, while neo-noir such as Taxi Driver, tend to use color in the same way. The neon lights and car headlights of Manhattan seem to envelop Bickle.

Characteristic of later noir films such as Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955) is extreme self-reflexivity. There are certain time cuts used in Taxi Driver, such as when Travis looks at his cash box in the garage, the camera tilts down, and then in the same shot, he picks it up on the other side. By limiting the view of the action, the camera calls attention to itself.
There are some shots that convey Bickle's loneliness and alienation in typical noir tracking shots. The most prominent example of this is when we see Bickle trying to talk things over with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) after their failed date. The camera starts out on Bickle, and slowly tracks right to the hallway, and eventually focuses on an open door as he slowly realizes that she does not want to see him anymore. It signifies their relationship leaving. through the door, and also makes Bickle seem even more pathetic and alone. Film noirs make use of a lot of these complex tracking shots and stagings to reveal information through characters interacting with their setting. In Laura, this is particularly evident with long, static shots that use the setting to convey information. Objects such as paintings, stairwells, and endless amounts of doorways help accomplish this by creating symbolic shapes when characters interact with them. These settings are usually complex, and contain many seemingly random objects which have the tendency to be symbolic.

Like many other films in the noir movement, this film has the dark, gritty visual style that is most easily recognized. But, it is also an update on the movement's preoccupation with the horror of modern urbanized existence. Bickle's disgust with New York city intensifies that of the movement in general, creating a modern (negative) take on urban life. Taxi Driver is neo-noir because it creates an outlook on urban life from the unique view of the 1970's. Only people who had been alive during this time can understand and create a film like this. Events such as the United States' failure in Vietnam are evident in the film: Bickle served in the Marine Corps during the war. This film is a unique neo-noir because it revisits the extremely negative view of urban life found in earlier film noir through the viewpoint of the 1970's.