Episode 79 - Taxi Driver

Missing Frames: Catching up with Cinema

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Alex Calleros of the Lessons from the Screenplay team joins Shawn for a viewing of Martin Scorsese's breakthrough classic Taxi Driver. Alex and Shawn discuss their opinions on Scorsese's filmography, why Taxi Driver is Shawn's favorite Scorsese film and whether or not the film still holds up today. HOSTS Shawn Eastridge Alex Calleros

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Shawn Eastridge

Alex Calleros

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00:03

Welcome to The Nerd Party.

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Shawn Eastridge

00:24

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Missing Frames.

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00:28

This is the podcast where we watch all the movies we should have seen by this point in our lives. I'm your host, Shawn Eastridge. We're just hanging out over here on The Nerd Party Network with the likes of "The A24 Project".

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00:38

"Filibuster", "Aggressive Negotiations", "Ceti Alpha 3" and so much more check them all out on thenerdparty. com and make sure to follow @JoinNerdParty on Twitter and on Facebook, you can find us @thenerdparty as well as on Instagram, but let's talk about movies, specifically movies that people haven't seen.

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00:56

And I am delighted to welcome Alex Calleros from the Lessons from the Screenplay Youtube channel, and the Beyond the Screenplay podcast to the show, Alex, welcome.

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Alex Calleros

01:07

So happy to be here, Shawn, thanks for having me.

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Shawn Eastridge

01:09

Absolutely. So you have been on Missing Frames before but it was between takes episode which is not the actual format of watching a movie you haven't seen before. So this is really, really your first official Missing Frames appearance.

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Alex Calleros

01:25

Right. And actually, it was fun because that in between takes episode was at

Sundance

where we first actually met in person and had a blast together. So I have very fond memories from that week.

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Shawn Eastridge

01:35

We're gonna have to try to top that experience. I don't know if we can do it but we're gonna try and we have a very good movie to try it with it is

Martin Scorsese's

1976 classic

Taxi Driver

, which honestly, I think this was his sort of seminal breakthrough movie. He'd done

Mean Streets

and I think he'd done

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

, but this is the movie I believe that really kicked his career off in the mid-70s.

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Alex Calleros

02:02

Right. So yeah, I think because of all that, it's definitely a movie I get yelled at a lot about having not seen. And in general, there are a lot of

Scorsese

movies I actually am behind on and haven't seen, I haven't seen

Raging Bull

, you know, it's like bad. Yeah, there's like quite a few classics of his that I just never got around to.

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02:21

And I think when I think about it, I think part of the reason they never go to the top of my queue is that there is a

Scorsese

thing, you know, I appreciate of course he's like undeniably a master of the craft, but as far as the content of his films and the themes and the characters he's most interested in exploring.

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02:42

I just never resonate that much with his interests, you know, like I remember when

Wolf of Wall Street

came out, everybody was raving about it like it's so good and I was excited for because I love anything that can kind of dissect the weird culture of that, you know, the-

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Shawn Eastridge

02:58

The crazy

Leonardo DiCaprio

yelling and screaming.

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Alex Calleros

03:03

Right. And I think something about it when

Scorsese

approaches that material, he's as much and maybe this is my interpretation of it, but I don't feel like I'm outside of it as much as I want to be.

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03:17

Like, I think my version of those movies and maybe this is also because I'm a gay man who doesn't really like identify with any of these characters. I've never like gotten into a physical altercation of any sort in my entire life. I've never like been in like immersed in a culture of like super toxic masculinity or like identified with.

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03:41

And yeah, so I think, and I've never even had a desire to like experienced its second hand or like wanted like cathartic release.

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Shawn Eastridge

03:48

Now as a straight man, I am experiencing these things all the time. I'm always getting into fights. I'm always hanging out with the mob. So that's basically my, it's kind of but I get it, I get what you're saying. Yeah.

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Alex Calleros

04:01

Yeah, I think I've just never been like that, interested in it in a way. So I think that's always been just like the kind of part that holds me back from prioritizing like my backlog of

Scorsese

films is I'm just not that interested on the other hand like-

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04:17

I really, I am like a lot of people actually, I really like the

Joker

last year. I know that

Taxi Driver

is very much kind of like a massive inspiration for

Todd

hand's approach to

Joker

.

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04:31

So that in of itself gets me excited because I do like feel-bad movies. I do like a good descent into violence or madness if the character intrigues me. And I think there's just kind of something about the more classic mafia boss character that just doesn't intrigue me.

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Shawn Eastridge

04:49

Yeah, I get that. I mean you're speaking my language. I was, it's funny, I was gonna mention my kind of complicated relationship with

Scorsese

, but you hit the nail on the head, it's identical to how I feel about him, which is that I've always admired his craft.

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05:04

He is undoubtedly one of the master filmmakers, and I love the guy and I think he's made some of the greatest films of all time, but like you, I have a lot of trouble connecting with his films personally.

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05:16

Like, I don't know, I think I could, if I were to make a list of like, what are the, like objectively, what are the greatest films of all time? I'm sure one of his movies would end up on there, or more than one, a few of them.

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05:29

But if I were to make my personal favorite list, I don't think there are a lot of movies that I would put. Like

Raging Bull

is one that I know people hold in high esteem. I've never really loved

Raging Bull

. I like it.

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05:42

But it's never been one of my favorites, same for

Goodfellas

, I've always enjoyed and appreciated

Goodfellas

.

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05:48

But like you were saying, it's one of those things where it's maybe just, I don't know the subject matter the way he portrays characters, it's hard to engage with them. You kind of were witnessing these really terrible people doing terrible things, but there's no end for an audience.

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06:06

It's just kind of, it's technical mastery, it's incredible filmmaking, but it just kind of leaves you cold and it leaves you feeling very detached. So I'm on the same page as you when it comes to

Scorsese

and it took me a while to get into him. I had watched before, I'd seen

Taxi Driver

, I had watched, I think I'd seen

Raging Bull

first.

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06:30

No, I've seen

The Departed

first and

The Departed

, I didn't love.

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Alex Calleros

06:33

It's funny because I actually love

The Departed

and I think first and I think because some of the characters in that movie I was able to access and I was with them in a way that in his, some of his other films, I wasn't, so for whatever reason

The Departed

and it's just kind of like insane twisty epic narrative. Got me in a way that his other films haven't.

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Shawn Eastridge

06:55

Gotcha, I've gone back and revisited it and I've enjoyed it more the first time I watched it, I just wasn't into it and then I think I watched um, I think

Raging Bull

was next and I already explained how I feel about that and then I watched the

Mean Streets

.

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07:09

A friend of mine was like, oh well baby

Mean Streets

, it's kind of low key and it was made on the cheap, so you might be into that and that didn't do anything for me. And I was like, okay, well maybe I'm just not into

Scorsese

movies. And then I saw a

Taxi Driver

.

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Alex Calleros

07:22

I was going to say, there's that weird guilt that you feel when it's like, you're supposed to love something and it's like, supposedly the best movie of all time, but it's like, but I don't love it, is that okay?

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Shawn Eastridge

07:33

Yeah, that happens a lot with

Scorsese

for me,

Scorsese

in particular as a filmmaker is somebody I've always liked but haven't loved his movies,

Taxi Driver

is one of the exceptions. This is the first time I saw a

Scorsese

movie where I was like, I love this. I absolutely love it and I think a lot of it has to do without spoiling anything. It's a character-driven movie.

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07:54

And I think a lot of his movies are driven more by like, the mood and the theme and kind of the, again, the filmmaking technique is incredible and the craft is great, but the storytelling always leaves something to be desired and I always feel like I'm kind of detached from it,

Taxi Driver

and maybe it's because it's

Paul Schrader's

script, but that doesn't give

Scorsese

enough credit because I think it was just the perfect marriage of the script and director and it's no surprise to me that this movie really kicked him off into the stratosphere of like, oh yeah, this is a guy whose career we want to watch.

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08:31

There's so much I love about this movie and I think it is one of the reason it really connected with me is because there was a character I could connect to. And

Travis Bickle

is not necessarily a character you uh...

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08:49

He's not a character you hate, he's not a character you love, but you understand him and his perspective, even as what he's doing might not be the most appealing or the most endearing and I think that's what I really appreciated about it.

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09:06

Whereas before it felt like with

Mean Streets

or even something like

Raging Bull

, we're watching these people who are just kind of despicable and you're never made to feel as if they're not despicable with

Taxi Driver,

Robert De Niro's

character is not despicable, he's a product of the society that he's grown up in, very similar to

Joker

.

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09:31

Again,

Joker

definitely took some cues from

Taxi Driver

when I say some, I mean a lot of, but I think that was the primary difference for me was being able to relate to the character because it felt like

Scorsese

was actually taking the time to understand.

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09:50

As opposed to just saying, nope, here he is and everything is terrible.

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09:54

I don't know if that makes sense. It probably doesn't make sense because we haven't watched the movie yet.

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Alex Calleros

09:57

I know what you're talking about though and it makes me very excited to watch it because I think I also get interested in the film when it's using a character to say a broader thing about society, which I think a lot of his films do.

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10:08

But once again, like in

The Wolf of Wall Street

example, one thing I was trying to get at was I feel like half that movie

Scorsese

was one of the frat bros and like enjoying the like crazy, like kind of disgusting Wall Street world as much as the characters were.

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10:24

There's this weird tension I feel sometimes in his films of like, oh he's kind of liking this too, like he's not really putting them under the microscope as much as I would think, as much as he's kind of reveling in the insanity with them as much as commenting on it.

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10:41

And I think that's where I get kind of detached from his movies and like what is the point here, like why are we spending like three hours on this? Do we need three hours of this?

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10:49

Or is this just getting kind of excessive because you like it, you know,

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Shawn Eastridge

10:53

At a certain point, you have to ask, like, okay, are exactly what you said? Like, is this, are we with these guys? Are we not with these guys? Are we supposed to be condemning them?

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11:03

I think with

Scorsese

sometimes what happens is'cause

Wolf of Wall Street

is a movie I really enjoyed and my take on it was like, he basically was like, well, here's how it is and here's how it works. I'm not judging it.

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11:14

I'm just showing you that. But sometimes you do want to say like, okay, but what do you think? Like, what are you trying to think? And I think that's why that movie didn't work for some people is because they're, it does kind of sometimes feel as if like, are we celebrating this? Are we not? What's happening?

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Alex Calleros

11:35

And I think also when his movies are such epics, you know when you spend so much time in these long extended sequences on something, but it continues to not make any kind of a statement about it. That's where it just starts to feel like we're still here, we're still doing this. Like, why are we still here? Anyway-

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Shawn Eastridge

11:52

Well, I'm gonna be very, I'm gonna be very excited to see what you think about

Taxi Driver

, especially because we seem to be on the same page regarding

Scorsese

as a filmmaker. So I'm curious to see if your opinions do end up aligning with mine. And whether or not this movie connects with you in the same way it connected with me.

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12:12

But I want to hear real quick. What do you know about

Taxi Driver

? Like if you were to try to describe what this movie is about? And I guess having seen

Joker

, you can kind of cheat a little bit, but you tell me what you think the movie is about.

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Alex Calleros

12:27

I think I know a good amount. It's about a

Robert De Niro

plays

Travis Bickle

and he's a taxi driver and I know that at some point a young

Jodie Foster

makes an appearance as a writer of the in his taxi service. I know that he at one point like it's holding a gun and a mirror I think, and says, you know, you're looking at me.

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12:50

And I know there's shots, there's violence, there's blood. I've seen clips of the movie where definitely like violence is going down. So I'm pretty sure it ends in a bloodbath of some sort. But what holds it all together, like what the actual story is in between all that, all those elements. I really have no idea.

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Shawn Eastridge

13:08

And that is going to be the most exciting part for you. And I haven't seen this movie in so long. I'm very, very excited to watch it. So I say, let's get to it and watch

Taxi Driver

?

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Alex Calleros

13:21

Let's do it.

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13:31

Now available to own on video cassette.

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Shawn Eastridge

13:35

And we're back, Alex, what did you think of

Taxi Driver

?

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Alex Calleros

13:40

Overall I liked it, I definitely agree with you and kind of your assessment that it's if you're not a generalized

Scorsese

fan as a standalone film, it's really interesting, well-made kind of riveting movie. So I was very pleased with the movie.

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Shawn Eastridge

13:60

I'm thrilled to hear that I am really excited to chat about it because again it's been a while since I last watched it.

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14:06

So I want to say maybe the last time I saw it was when I was in film school, I don't know if that's accurate but you know I was in a completely different mindset in film school versus now and I think a lot of the more despicable traits of

Travis

were a little bit more lost on me when I was younger.

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14:27

I know I was kind of referred to him, I'm like oh you know he's a likable guy but you know what's interesting is even though he's not necessarily a good person there are redeeming qualities to them.

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14:41

It's a very complex character and a really, the movie itself kind of pulls you down into the grime. It's grimy in the same way a lot of

Scorsese

movies are but I'm curious to get your perspective and seeing as how you liked it.

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14:56

What do you think worked differently about this versus other

Scorsese

movies that made this a little bit more, maybe enjoyable is not the right word, but that engaged you more and made you kind of embrace it a little more.

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Alex Calleros

15:11

I think it's just the focus of it, you know, I think a lot of

Scorsese

movies have such an epic scope and they usually span many years. Oftentimes

The Irishman

is the ultimate example of that and you know, it's just like, wow, this is like a swamp of a movie where I'm just like, I don't know where we are in the narrative.

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15:31

I don't know when it's gonna end. I don't know like how many more decades of time are we going to like sit through? You know, there's a feeling sometimes in his movies, I feel like I'm just like stuck in this morass that may never end.

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15:43

And I think with

Taxi Driver

, I never felt that I felt like I was watching a focused character study that had a lot of interesting threads running through it. I mean, I actually was surprised by some of the elements that were in the film that I wasn't aware of, like the idea of this kind of political campaign running in the background and the whole side story with

Cybill Shepherd

.

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16:05

I had no idea that was in the movie, just a lot of, there's a lot more richness to the movie that I knew from the kind of pop culture references I experienced in the past, and then on top of that, it delivered on my expectation of what the movie was based on those pop culture references, you know, that kind of that simmering, uncomfortable, you know, this feeling of like American decay as embodied in this character.

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16:35

I just thought all of it came through really nicely and it didn't have to take, you know, 3.5 hours to do it with a, with a big sweeping, huge scope. It was focused and narrow in a way that I really appreciated.

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Shawn Eastridge

16:47

Yeah, that was something going back and watching it again, I really admired it and I just watched

Jaws

recently, which is just another, such a tightly structured film, very well made, even though it's a little over two hours, it doesn't feel it and

Taxi Driver

I think is just about two hours, but again, just under and you don't really feel that length, you were really so engaged with what's happening.

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17:15

Every time I watch it, I just, I feel so icky.

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Alex Calleros

17:18

Oh god, it's a grimy, grimy movie and it really makes you feel the kind of, that

New York

of 1976, just like, wow, what a different time and place that was, uh-

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Shawn Eastridge

17:31

From the ground. Yeah, pretty much stuck in that world and it's interesting because as I've gotten older, I think I've become a little less conservative and more open-minded, so it's, I'm always fascinated to think that this is the movie that really opened me up to appreciating

Scorsese

because it is so grimy and there's a lot of disturbing stuff here, but like you said, it's laser-focused and you are really, well, it's tough to explain.

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18:05

I might not necessarily empathize with

Travis

, but I do feel sympathy for him. Like I do, in a certain, to a certain extent, I think especially I was in my early twenties when I first saw this and as an early 20-year-old who felt like, you know, the world owed me something and wanted like sought the love of, you know, women who might not feel the same way about me, it was very easy to like tap into that mindset of, like, not with someone who wants to go on a murderous rampage, but somebody who feels that sense of loneliness and detachment and what that kind of does to a person.

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18:46

And I think that's what I really connected to because

Travis

again, unlike a lot of characters and I'm, this is I may have to trade in my film fan card, but I didn't realize

Paul Schrader

wrote

Raging Bull

too, which is it's funny, that's a movie I'm not a huge fan of and I've complimented

Taxi Driver

so much because I'm like, oh yeah,

Paul Schrader

, he's great versus

Raging Bull

, which I have the same people behind the scenes and I don't like it as much, but I think the difference here is

Raging Bull

again, presents a protagonist who is despicable without a way in at least to me, I never felt like there was there was a redeeming quality to him.

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19:27

I never felt his pain was justified. I always felt like this guy is just annoying with

Travis

when I watch him, even as he's making painful decisions, I feel that pain like, it's almost like my heart goes out to him in a way.

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Alex Calleros

19:43

Well, it's a classic thing, you know, in this type of film, you know, where you're following kind of a tragic character study of somebody who just like they're never going to fit into a certain part of society like there's never gonna be a version of this guy that

Cybill Shepherd's

gonna be comfortable with when she knows who he is and what his apartment looks like and the fact that he doesn't know anything about movies or music or culture, you know, that there's just a certain amount that he just never going to be acceptable in a certain, like layer of society.

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20:19

And so there's a real, like empathy and like pain watching him kind of pass for long enough to get to the date with her and then for it to all just crash down so quickly.

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Shawn Eastridge

20:33

Well, you know, I think another one of the big differences I think with a lot of

Scorsese

movies, particularly ones that are focused on crime and the mob and people like taking advantage of systems, you're typically watching people who relish their bad behavior who just like they love that lifestyle and they love being terrible, they love murdering people, they love the violence.

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20:54

Travis

, you never get the sense that he loves who he is and I think that makes a key difference. I think you're watching this guy who is in a world of pain and just does not know how to escape. So he just descends further and further.

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21:08

And I think one of the examples, I think one of the big things that proves that is because

Travis

, he's not so out of tune with humanity or with like reality that he doesn't know how to charm somebody or have a conversation with someone, you know, he's extremely lonely.

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21:29

But when he first talks to Betsy, he's borderline charming, like he's kind of, like it's a little kind of creepy. I mean he's snooping on her outside her place of work, but when he comes in and talks to her, there's no sense of sleaze. It's very like, he's cool, collected, he's connecting with her and there it feels like there's a sincerity.

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Alex Calleros

21:53

Yeah, there's there was real chemistry in that scene and I actually, I was like rooting for them. I was kind of excited that he got her to go on a coffee date.

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22:02

So that's really big credit to the film that it can pull that off because they're, you know, it compared this from the

Joker

.

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22:10

I couldn't believe how many things

Joker

took directly from this film. Now that I've seen it like literal like line for line or kind of image for image references, which is fine I guess. But it's wow, yeah,

Joker.

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Shawn Eastridge

22:24

It's pretty explicit. It's almost too much. It's too much. It's not even they don't even try, it's not taking inspiration. They basically take carbon copies and put them in the movie.

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Alex Calleros

22:35

Even just like the him like, you know, shooting himself in the head with the finger gun and like all these, these are really iconic moments from

Taxi Driver

that are kind of leaned on and

Joker

. Anyway-

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Shawn Eastridge

22:44

Without the deeper subtext and I know I don't want to beat up on

Joker

, I think I've beat up on

Joker

a lot and I know you were a fan of the film, but I think watching

Taxi Driver

, it just helped me admire this movie more and really like

Joker

less because I feel-

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23:01

Joker

, I think one of its main issues is its protagonist when you compare

Arthur

to

Travis

.

Arthur

doesn't feel like he has any purpose or thought process or point of view.

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23:18

Travis

has very specific points of view. He has very specific ideas and you might not agree with them but you can't argue that they're there and they're very, very clear and I think that overall is what makes that character so much more effective.

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Alex Calleros

23:35

Yeah, I have only seen

Joker

once and I probably got to see it again to have any coherent thoughts about it, especially now that I've seen

Taxi Driver

and I was gonna say can compare like how much was just ripped directly out of

Taxi Driver

.

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Shawn Eastridge

23:45

Travis

, he's kind of sympathetic and you relate to him cause he's not despicable. Another, they constantly, even though he's doing kind of grimy things again, you never get the sense that he enjoys it. Like when he goes to the porno, he's not really indulging in it in the way that he just kind of sits there sort of like just this dead-eyed expression and you constantly see him compared to other people around him.

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24:12

And I think another brilliant maneuver on

Scorsese's

part and

Schrader's

part, mostly

Scorsese

.'Cause

Scorsese

does actually play this part but the crazy guy. Who makes-

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Alex Calleros

24:23

What a cameo!

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Shawn Eastridge

24:26

I know what a came- God, he makes

Travis

go watch you know my wife's up there and she's with this guy.

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24:32

There's a clear sense that

Travis

is not like, again, I think the difference in this movie versus other

Scorsese

movies, I can almost see another

Scorsese

character being like, yeah man, we should go up there and take that guy out.

Travis

is deeply disturbed by what's happening behind that. There's a sense of recognition that he knows what this guy is saying is wrong.

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24:56

And the whole time he has this kind of misplaced virtue of like, we gotta clean up these streets, it's great, I hate this place, it's disgusting and I'm going to be the one to clean it up and it comes out in a very disturbing, violent and inappropriate way.

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25:09

But the motivation is clear as far as his feelings about these people, these people who he drives around and are supposedly higher class aren't much better than

Travis

really, at the end of the day.

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Alex Calleros

25:22

That's interesting.

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Shawn Eastridge

25:23

Yeah, you get that sense, that's what I was trying to do because I was trying to pick out, I'm like, why do I really do love this character a lot as much as I am disturbed by him, I love the character and there is a sense that they're, you know, they're at times where it's like, is this guy is kind of like racist, semi-misogynistic and very clearly disturbed and violent but also can recognize the difference between right and wrong and has enough redeeming qualities that when he starts to go downhill, you really, really feel it and you really, it hurts to watch.

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Alex Calleros

26:01

Right, because there's like there's a world in which like he could have like made it, you know, like there's he does have enough, he can barely kind of pull off people skills to the point of like he could have maybe a kind of normal life in a better society that didn't kind of wear him down with his isolation and just general sense of like decay but because of, you know, the time and place where he's living because of his isolation, he is the type of person that could be tipped either direction and when we see him good in that spiral.

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26:38

But yeah, I really agree and I think, you know, I like complicated characters and anti-heroes and people who are, say the wrong things and do despicable things and believe maybe nasty things but our three-dimensional characters and so you can't just caricature them.

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26:59

You know, like I think one thing that I want to make sure we were we retain it, we're living in a time where there's a lot of positive change happening where we're making a lot of things unacceptable which I think are good, to make unacceptable, you know, I'm gay, I'm glad that it's no longer okay to have like a ridiculous gay stereotype character in a movie be like bashed on in a way that seemed like it was basically just saying all gay people are x, y, and z.

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27:33

Like I'm happy we live in a time where we are sensitive to those things and just really don't find them acceptable anymore, so that's great.

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27:42

But I do want to retain as a filmmaker and just as an audience score is the ability to not have the director be this person, be a person that is like ignorant and has these like shitty views of society, but the ability to have characters that are that way and not have it be automatically assumed the movie is endorsing this character.

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28:07

You know, I think that's what bothers me sometimes when it feels like there's a one-dimensional reading of films in this kind of present moment where it's like, oh, this film is about a character like this. Therefore the director believes this. Therefore this is a bad movie about a bad thing and it's like, no, no, no, let's have some nuance here.

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28:27

Like a director can very clearly be taking this objective perspective on a character with some repugnant views, but it's looking at them as a character study in a three-dimensional way, and that's interesting and you can look at that person with that objective lens without supporting the beliefs that they have within this narrative. So yeah.

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Shawn Eastridge

28:49

I completely agree. Yeah. I think I mean, part of what I was thinking while I was watching this was like, oh my god, can you imagine if somebody released to this movie today?

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Alex Calleros

28:59

Yeah, I mean the stuff with

Jodie Foster

, I mean, by the way, she's great. Like I always thought this was her first big role, but wow, what a first role. I was a little bit like worried for her, like jesus.

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Shawn Eastridge

29:11

It's very disturbing. I mean, the movie, they get away with a lot in this movie and like you said, I think the important thing is, we can't, we have to be willing to express truth and to look at truth and to analyze hard truth and what's happening right now is I think like you said, people are mistaking truth for what's appropriate. What is the

PC

? Things like that.

Share

29:39

And I think the danger becomes when we start to condemn something mindlessly because it depicts a certain point of view or depicts a certain thing, if the movie is bad and it's shallow and it's mindset, absolutely have at it. But when you have a movie, like

Taxi Driver

that is clearly thoughtfully examining something and doing it in a way that is intelligent and is executed to the best of everyone's abilities.

Share

30:09

I think that's the difference is, you know, the movie is supposed to make you uncomfortable, maybe look take a look at yourself and say why is this making me uncomfortable? What is it about this that has really hit a nerve with me?

Share

30:21

And I think we've got to be careful because if we start, if we ignore the

Taxi Driver

presents us with the kind of person who if that person feels ignored and has continued to be ignored, they're more of a danger to society than if we're able to take a look at them within the context of a film in a safe space like that and see what that person is and what they're capable of. So yeah, I completely agree.

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Alex Calleros

30:47

That's why despite all its flaws and I understand a lot of the critique of

Joker

, I do think there's a reason why it hit such a nerve and why it did such a good box office numbers is because we are in a similar moment in time right now where there's this crisis of loneliness and isolation and weird social media like we're more connected than ever and yet more like detached and screwed up than ever.

Share

31:15

And I think we are at another moment culturally when there was something resonant about looking at that the person who feels that there's no place for them in society and feels, but also feels entitled, you know, somebody who feels both, they were promised something by movies and TV, you know, being a man, being a straight white man, whatever.

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31:44

There's actually a kind of, there's an implicit promise made throughout childhood from a lifetime of watching media that shows this is the life you're supposed to have and if you don't have this life you're a failure, and when adulthood is reached and that life seems impossible, there's a real rage that comes out because of that promise that was made implicitly.

Share

32:08

So I just think, I think movies like

Joker

or

Taxi Driver

or even, you know, I think back to movies like, remember when

Zero Dark Thirty

came out, that movie had torture in it.

Share

32:21

Like there was there were some scenes of torture and there was a whole controversy with like, oh this movie is endorsing torture and

Kathryn Bigelow

was like, excuse me, Like I didn't I'm not saying torture is good like we're just showing like, what we understand actually happened like we have to be able to depict reality without it being interpreted as an endorsement.

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32:42

And so that's really my only concern is just like, you know, how do we like allow filmmakers to keep showing some of the more brutal parts of reality without it coming across his endorsement?

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32:54

And I guess that's kind of a subjective line, you know, like there are films that I watched and some of

Scorsese's

films like

Wolf of Wall Street

, like I've mentioned previously some of his just indulgence in like these long, extended like partying sequences felt almost more like endorsement than objective, like critique.

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Shawn Eastridge

33:14

Right.

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Alex Calleros

33:14

It felt like he was just like, oh, this is like really fun, let's just do this for a long time. So it's a fine line, like how do you know when it's endorsement versus not endorsement, but I'm interested in movies that clearly do not endorse these, like, you know, what's the word for it?

Share

33:32

Just kind of, they're making a critique of society of a moment in time of a cultural thing.

Share

33:39

And show it and it's all of its reality, but from this third person, objective viewpoint that allows you to see it almost like a science experiment, like, whoa, what is this thing?

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Shawn Eastridge

33:50

Yeah, that's how I feel too. I think that's what is important about cinema is it creates empathy, it allows you to see stories you wouldn't necessarily see, but it also gives you a safe distance from which to view things that you need to see, but might not want to experience for yourself, and

Taxi Driver

is a perfect example of that.

Share

34:09

And it's really, I mean, ultimately, it's a depiction of loneliness and

Paul Schrader

, he and

Scorsese,

and

De Niro

just really, and

Schrader

wrote the script, and

Schrader

wrote it while he was kind of in a dark period of his life, he had left the American film institute or I don't think he'd left it. I think he pretty much got kicked out.

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34:31

And he'd been, I think he was married, but he was like living with another woman, so his wife divorced him, and then the woman he was living with kicked him out, and he was basically just a drifter, and it was after spending a couple of weeks sort of driving around and not really talking to anybody that he kind of had this realization of like, yeah, I haven't spoken to anyone in two weeks, like I've literally not talked to another person.

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34:56

And it was in that mindset that he started to set about and write this movie and I know he said he brought it, eventually when

Scorsese

came on board, it was like he couldn't have felt it was in safer hands like he said, they,

Scorsese

and

De Niro

really clicked with the material and really got it.

Share

35:16

But one of the things

Schrader

said that I thought was interesting is it's not just a depiction of loneliness but self-imposed loneliness. Like it's, you're talking about the type of man who is willfully cutting himself off from society who seems to have the social skills and the abilities to work within society, but for whatever reason doesn't want to and continually cuts himself off.

Share

35:44

And I thought that was really interesting cause it's something I never necessarily noticed before in the film and sometimes I don't know if I even fully agree, sometimes I feel like

Travis

is just in over his head and it's just like people are gonna judge him regardless.

Share

35:60

He's a taxi driver which is about the most dismissed, one of the most dismissed professions. I feel like out there like people don't think about who's driving them around and things like that, but I wanted to get your thoughts on that. Like did you get that feeling off of

Travis

almost willfully isolating himself and cutting himself off from people?

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Alex Calleros

36:23

I guess to the degree of his, when you listen to his views of society at large, you know, he basically thinks of his whole world, which is

New York City

, you never get a sense of what he thinks of the outside world beyond his kind of local city limits.

Share

36:41

But what he, what he thinks of

New York City

is just that it's this like horrible, disgusting place basically that needs to be like washed away in an almost like genocidal way he talks about it.

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Shawn Eastridge

36:53

It's almost like biblical proportions.

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Alex Calleros

36:55

Yeah, he's like, yeah, let the flood come and like wash the streets clean.

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37:01

So he really has a very poor view of society and the society he's living in. So I think to that degree, yes, he is kind of self-isolating because he doesn't really see much hope for other people except for these rare exceptions, you know when he talks about Betsy's character, she's like this very special angel amidst all the trash.

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37:26

And so he has this kind of like this fantasy of these special angel people and you kind of latches onto Iris the same way. These kind of special people that are worth saving.

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Shawn Eastridge

37:40

Yeah, it's almost kind of, with her, it's very much, with Betsy, it's the same thing as the idealization. Like I think guys tend to do this a lot more than girls do, at least in my experience. But it feels a lot like guys tend to put, an object of romantic interest on a pedestal.

Share

38:02

Like it's that idea of like this woman, this person is going to save my life. They're going to make everything okay, not looking at them as a person, but looking at them more as an object, this untouchable object.

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38:16

And in a way, it's more unhealthy to do that.

Share

38:20

And

Travis

absolutely does that. He has, you know, her, he has Betsy and then there's Iris almost him serving as the savior in a way like, okay, well I can't be saved by this other person, but I can at least actively be the savior of this other girl.

Share

38:36

And sometimes I wonder I'm like, how much of this is out of the goodness of your heart and how much of it is just this disturbed psyche that forces you to act in this way to like have some semblance of control.

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Alex Calleros

38:49

Well there's obviously a lot going on in this movie around gun culture and around just the American film depiction of violence and he obviously has, he has all these contraptions of you know, hiding the guns in his shirt sleeves and on his boots and it's very-

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Shawn Eastridge

39:04

Which is all admittedly awesome. But also in the context of the film, it's like, oh my god, this is terrible. But there's nothing, this is probably what the movie is warning against. But there's a part of me that gets a little thrill when he goes in and takes out all the guys and Iris like there is a bit of a thrill and I think

Scorsese

knows it.

Share

39:25

I think he's like yeah, yeah, I know you like this. I just spent the whole movie explaining why this is like messed up but I know this is you get the thrill from it.

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Alex Calleros

39:34

I mean yeah and like those guys are bad guys so like you do get it. But I think what I respected about that finale is how uncomfortable it is like it's not like a fun clean action scene.

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39:48

It's like oh his hand got blown off but he's still alive and he's like riding around and like chasing after him and none of the deaths are clean. It's all very messy, realistic, kind of piecemeal deaths and-

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Shawn Eastridge

40:01

And then the victory isn't him. He doesn't pick up Iris and like yes, let's go, let's get out of here honey and like carry her out the door. He basically tries to kill himself and then he sits there and when the cops come in, you have the iconic moment of him with the finger to his temple just like, like I'm in hell.

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40:20

This is not like you never get a sense of like you said, you get the thrill of like everything he's been planning for his paid off, he's murdering people, you're right who are despicable and is rescuing this girl, this poor girl.

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40:35

But at the end, it's like the sense of he's not saved by any of this. There is no salvation. He will just suffer forever and he is almost willfully suffering. You don't it's not a rallying finale. It's just a like, oh man, it's almost the confirmation of like his like, yep, I'm stuck here forever.

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Alex Calleros

40:58

Now, what do you think of the ending-ending? Because I was really surprised that the movie went on after that scene. Like I've seen that shot that overhead shot that kind of floats over the bodies and into the hallway which I loved that shot.

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41:12

And I thought that was gonna fade to black and that's gonna be the end of the film and then it kept going, which was a real surprise to me because I didn't know there was anything past that bloodbath finale, so-

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Shawn Eastridge

41:24

Yeah, it's such a fascinating ending, and people have analyzed it and everyone has their interpretations. Watching it this time, I think, because what happens is all of a sudden he's back in his regular routine like nothing went wrong.

Share

41:36

There is some talk like they show there's kind of a little very quick montage of not even a montage, but they showed the newspaper clipping of like

Taxi Driver

hero, he saved the day and you over hear, Iris' parents, they leave him a voicemail where they say we wanted to thank you in person, but you're we wanted to call you and talk with you, but you're still in a coma and da da da and then they cut to him kind of living out his life in this almost not reality.

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42:06

And that's the vibe I get is the sense of me, he's probably trapped in his head somewhere, like if he's in a coma or in a mental institution or in a prison.

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42:15

That final scene to me, especially when he sees Betsy, just how angelic and not, she's not at all tied into reality. She's very like, "Hey,

Travis

how you doing?"

Share

42:27

And like the way they shoot her, like the way the

DP

frames the shot and kind of the way the lights are moving around her, then she gets out and he has this moment where like the music kind of gets weird and he, the frame rate speeds up and you're like, "What is going on?"

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42:45

But my interpretation this time around is I'm like I think he is somewhere trapped inside his own head and is not actually living out this life. But what were your thoughts?

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Alex Calleros

42:57

That's where I jumped too because I think especially when she got in the car and she was giving him a look in the mirror that was kind of rewinding back to when they were flirting, you know, she was looking at him with this kind of almost like wistful, like lustful.

Share

43:13

I'm really intrigued by you again because you murdered a bunch of gangsters I think and that just seems so incongruous for her character to go to that place after being so freaked out by him.

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43:27

So I also found the whole thing, just felt like off-tone from the rest of the movie. Like his hair was all back to normal, he was kind of all relaxed with his fellow taxi drivers, he was kind of more confident and you could interpret it if it was reality, you could interpret it as kind of an interesting statement about how we view like psychotic behavior.

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43:53

Like if you're psychotic behavior can fit into a like news story narrative of like a hero then now you are redeemed by society and you are like the new hero because you like you murdered the right people to like save the girl. Like that's a good thing.

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Shawn Eastridge

44:09

I think that's absolutely a theme in this film is what is the difference between a hero and a villain and is it because you murdered a bad person? Does that automatically make you a hero versus, you know, because the the the whole time he's trying to kill, uh, what's his name?

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44:26

The president who by the way, I thought his name was Palpatine, which would have been amazing. It's Palatine, but he is, that was his,

Schrader

described it as he tries to kill the father figure of Betsy, that fails. So instead he kills the father figure of Iris.

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44:49

Although not, I don't know necessarily, it's a father figure, it's a twisted-

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Alex Calleros

44:54

Well, yeah, I think it's a screwed-up father figure.

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Shawn Eastridge

44:57

Yeah, but yeah, I do find that fascinating, but I absolutely, I think that is, again, like you said, the movie is not necessarily, the reason you know, it's not endorsing there isn't and this is something

Scorsese-

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45:10

I think the difference is

Scorsese

tends to showcase a lot of sequences with like upbeat music, like

The Rolling Stones'

playing in the background and you get the sense of like and this is kind of entertaining.

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45:22

Am I supposed to be enjoying this, but you don't get a lot of that in

Taxi Driver

a lot of it is framed to be disturbing and it's never a question of, oh, is this violence awesome or is it terrible? It's almost always terrible and there's no sense of like, yeah, sticking it to the man, it's just this kind of despicable, disgusting sort of like, I just feel terrible.

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Alex Calleros

45:46

Yeah. And overall, I was just so intrigued anytime I can be transported back to a certain place in time. Like I was thinking about, yeah, what was going on in 1976, I think

Jimmy Carter

was elected and it was just this moment, It was after the 60s and after the counterculture revolution that happened.

Share

46:07

And now there was, yeah, Vietnam, so there's this kind of like there was this kind of cultural decay where like we'd, the

Pandora's Box

had been opened culturally. So it was a free for all.

Share

46:18

But then there was this dark side to that and I feel like

Taxi Driver

was exploring the dark side of the free-for-all that happened when that

box

was opened with the counterculture.

Share

46:29

So yeah, just really fascinating to just explore that time because you know, neither of us was alive during it and it really is a missing piece of my kind of cultural memory. Honestly, like I would like to see more of these gritty 70s films to just kind of understand what it was like and this was such a great immersion in the dark side of that time.

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Shawn Eastridge

46:52

Yeah, and I mean

Scorsese

, like we said, we've both been pretty clear about how we feel about him, but as far as watching his technique here, what did you admire about it versus his other films? Like what about this film, do you think makes it superior to his other work?

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47:07

I think for me personally, what I already said about the restraint, maybe I don't, there is a level of restraint, but you know, of course, you get into some indulgent violence, you do get a lot of stylization.

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47:22

There are a lot of fast camera moves, there's a lot of random edits and things very clearly inspired by the

French New Wave

, like random voiceovers with disconnected images and cuts and things that don't necessarily feel connected to a reality.

Share

47:39

But I think he gets a little carried away later in his career and not in a bad way, but he definitely indulges in those things a little bit more.

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47:47

They're here, but not as pronounced to me or not as insane or as self-serving, I guess, in some ways.

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Alex Calleros

47:58

I think restrained is the right word because I really felt like he could see the Scorseseness, you know, there was some great shots where some really simple shots, but one was he was following the taxi cab pulling into the station and they just pans over and lands perfectly as like it parks in this spot, like just simple stuff like that, where it's like, oh, it's like that's a great way to get coverage of this moment.

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48:20

It's like, yeah, I have a frame where he's coming into the garage quickly pan over and now he's just perfectly landing in the parking spot here.

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48:29

There's nothing really that special about it except for like, what a much more fun way to show a car parking than just a one wide shot or-

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Shawn Eastridge

48:38

There's something else interests. Different shot.

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48:40

Yeah, there's something else interesting. I don't mean to interrupt you. There's something else interesting about that shot that I was I was watching one of the documentaries on the film and based the shot where

Travis

gets out and instead of following

Travis

,

Scorsese

and he directs the camera to pan around the station.

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49:01

Like this is his place of work, this is the garage, he comes back around and meets

Travis

as

Travis

exits the garage.

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49:08

But apparently

Michael Chapman

, the

DP

was saying that the crew was so put off by that decision because they had been on so many movies where it's like, no, you follow the main character, you felt like that's what your coverages and they were so like confused by

Scorsese's

decision not to follow

Travis

, but to like just pan around the room and come back and meet him later.

Share

49:32

I just thought that was so funny, but also very telling in terms of

Scorsese

knew exactly what he was going for. It was unconventional, but he wanted to capture something that he felt versus something, like just grounded in any kind of logic.

Share

49:49

But I love that story. It's these with these early films from great filmmakers, you get a lot of these great stories of like, what were they thinking? And then it's like now he's

Scorsese

, he can do whatever he wants.

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Alex Calleros

50:00

Right. Yeah. But I feel like everything every shot like that in this movie felt like it was doing something, it had an intention behind it.

Share

50:10

Sometimes in more modern

Scorsese

films, it's like, alright, yeah, you're doing a real fast dolly over here and a real fast, you know, motion over here, that's great. But did I really need that in this scene or is it actually drawing my attention to the camera itself in a way that is maybe actually not telling the story the best way?

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Shawn Eastridge

50:27

Yeah, I agree. I think that's a problem. Again, it's hard. I don't want to say problem quote-unquote when it comes to

Scorsese

. I think that will, exactly. And I think again, I've made it clear, I admire him so much and I think he's undoubtedly one of the masters of cinema, but I agree with you.

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50:46

I think sometimes I look at his technique and I think this guy is more interested in like showing off the technique. Like it's all about the technique versus the storytelling to me. And as somebody who cares more about the storytelling and the characters and how the direction serves the story. Sometimes it can feel unjustified.

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51:06

But I think of this movie and some of the more stylistic shots in it, like there's the shot of him talking to Betsy for the first time where he kind of wipes his hand over the desk where he's like all this stuff and you just see this out of context shot of his hand kind of going over all the papers on her desk.

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51:23

There's another great shot. I'm curious to get your thoughts on where he's calling Betsy after the whole fiasco at the theater and he's on the phone and then it just kind of dolly over while he's on the phone to the empty hall and we don't watch him. But I'm curious to see what you thought about that moment.

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Alex Calleros

51:42

I loved it. Yeah, I think those are the kind of interesting choices that at first it feels strange like, okay, this is unmotivated. We're not landing in anything in particular here, but there's such an emptiness and a sadness to that conversation. It's just such a desperate losing battle. But he's waging at that point.

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52:01

That there's something interesting about sitting on this empty, long hallway as you hear that painful conversation go down.

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52:10

And so I think those are the choices that feel very

Scorsese

. It's like, oh that's a bold choice. That's not, you're just default way of shooting this and yet there's an emotional, like a clear emotional job it's doing and so yeah, I really, whatever kind of era of

Scorsese

Taxi Driver

is, I think I like better and some of his more recent films.

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Shawn Eastridge

52:34

Yeah, agreed. And I think we'd be remiss not to talk about

Robert De Niro

. I know we've talked a lot, we love

Travis

as a character, but so much of it is just

De Niro

and at this point, I mean he'd, he had been in

Mean Streets

, which and he plays a completely different character in

Mean Streets

.

Share

52:52

He's kind of just like the unhinged I guess you could compare him to

Joe Pesci

in

Goodfellas

is very similar to that character. Like just unhinged. You never know when he's going to go off and just beat someone senseless, so much more restrained. And then, of course, he had just been in the

The Godfather: Part II

, he just won

The Oscar

for that role.

Share

53:12

But like Man De Niro is somebody who, I haven't necessarily found sympathetic in other roles.

Share

53:21

Like

The Irishman

more recently is one where I thought it was wonderful, but so many times, he's just playing this like almost larger than life character in a way it feels like

Taxi Driver

, he is so incredibly powerful with small moments again, the scene with the

Scorsese

in the back seat where he's just watching this guy in the backseat and listening, not saying anything but there's so much happening.

Share

53:51

And then of course you have the greater moments. You have the, "Are you talking to me?" "You're talking to me?" And just the fury in his like face whenever like he's popping out that gun and he's like yeah, I got you. Like just like the raw energy there.

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54:07

The guy this I think is his it may very well be his greatest performance. He's been in so much and it's hard to say that because there's so he's literally been the greatest performance in so many movies.

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54:21

But I don't know. This may be my favorite of his.

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Alex Calleros

54:23

Same. Honestly. Yeah, I mean it's such an amazing performance. And I was thinking one of the scenes that came to mind when you're mentioning just so much is going on with him, even when he's just silent.

Share

54:35

That scene with

Harvey Keitel

when he first approaches him and the

Harvey Keitel

character keeps accusing him of being a cop potentially.

Share

54:44

And there's just this really long uncomfortable silence where

Travis

just stares at him after He makes a last joke about him being a cop, whatever.

Share

54:54

And it's so uncomfortable.

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54:57

There's an energy coming off of

Robert De Niro

that is so intense and uncomfortable and unnerving that the

Harvey Keitel

character has to just keep kind of like making jokes kind of and like you see him like unravel, he's like trying to make it all okay because there's something about this guy that is going to snap any second and that was a remarkable scene to me because there's such tension there.

Share

55:21

Watching one character just be in this like headspace that is unpredictable and unnerving and intense and watch another character feeling that energy so strongly there, like kind of like desperately finding a way to make it all okay. It was a really great scene and there are so many scenes like that in this movie were all

Robert De Niro

was doing was just like giving off an energy.

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Shawn Eastridge

55:48

The exchange. That's a great, great example. Another one, the exchange with the secret service guy, I can't remember what he said. There's something, he's like, oh you're working for the government or something.

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55:60

He says something to the guy where it's like the veiled threat and the danger in this, like when-

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Alex Calleros

56:08

The subtext is so intense, it's like it's such like it's those scenes are almost painful because you know that nothing is okay about this, you know that like the other guy does not, is not mean what he says when he says like, "Hey, we'll send you an application to join the secret service", like "What's your address?"

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56:28

Like, you know, none of this is real.

Share

56:30

You know that he's just like playing along because this guy has been labeled a threat now, it's just so uncomfortable and so riveting to watch scenes like that where like nobody's saying what's actually happening, but it's just so that the tension is so thick

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Shawn Eastridge

56:45

When the conversation ends and the

Secret Service

guy calls his cameraman over, it's like almost you're like, yes, please, somebody get a photo of this guy like you are so like they are so on top of it because it's so uncomfortable.

Share

56:57

But there are so many great moments like that and the progression, One of the things I forget about because the movie is full of so many iconic visuals. But one of the things I actually forget about is the most iconic visuals, which is, is

Travis

with the shaved head, the mohawk, the gun pointed at his head.

Share

57:15

It is always such a shock to me when that brilliant camera move where it kind of tilts up and you see him with the shaved head, how effective that is, where you're like, oh my god, I don't even know what's happening anymore.

Share

57:28

And this guy is very clearly unhinged and reaching the end of his journey, whatever that journey is, but how did you feel as far as the progression watching

Travis

go from sort of like endearing, if not just confused and kind of strange to just flat out dangerous.

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Alex Calleros

57:49

Yeah, it's always hard to do to pull that off in a film, you know, to have a character go down that spiral in a convincing way and I think what did solid for me ultimately was actually some of the just the simpler, simpler, just like in between seen scenes, like when he was like watching tv and watching the like dumb love story play out and he's kind of tilting the tv back further and further and just letting it fall and crash.

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58:19

I think it seems like that really resonated with me because it shows this almost like these maddening like societal influence that has just like almost scrambled his brain where it's like he's been fed all these love stories, all these images of like man meets woman and like they fall in love and this is what life is and he doesn't know how to do that and it's almost just like, like f you to this television vision, like I can't have this and I'm going to explode now.

Share

58:56

And I think there were enough of those sprinkled throughout that, I think that came through loud and clear of like it's that idea of life is supposed to be one way, I don't know how to make it that way and it seems like it's never going to be that way. And so I'm kind of disintegrating as a result?

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Shawn Eastridge

59:14

Was there anything else that really I know we talked a little bit about the subtext and the themes that kind of really jumped out at you and you weren't expecting, were there any moments from the film that really just kind of blew you away and surprised you that you had no clue we're going to come out of this.

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Alex Calleros

59:30

Like I said, I really didn't expect, I didn't know about any of the political story, I didn't know about the Betsy character, I just really knew about the

Jodie Foster

storylines. So that was really a surprise that I really got invested early on in the movie. In him, kind of trying to have a normal relationship for a second, you know?

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59:48

And I actually really enjoyed the first conversation, has a little bit of tension in it because yeah, there's something creepy about him just marching in there and it's not really okay, but he's pulling it off and she kind of is attracted to him and maybe it's going to work out somehow.

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01:00:03

So I was actually really surprised by how much the movie made me get invested in the character with some of those earlier scenes before he starts to spiral and I was just really impressed.

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01:00:15

I thought the movie was gonna be a little more one-note, I thought it was going to be more of just kind of a cynical descent the whole time and the fact that it gives you a little bit of hope early on makes it all the more painful when he just keeps screwing up.

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Shawn Eastridge

01:00:32

Yeah. Yeah. Was there anything that and on the flip side, was there anything that like, disappointed you or things that didn't work about the movie?

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Alex Calleros

01:00:40

You know? I think I almost wanted more of an arc with him and the

Jodie Foster

character,

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Shawn Eastridge

01:00:49

It comes very at the end in the last 30 minutes all of a sudden it's like, oh there we go.

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Alex Calleros

01:00:54

Right, I feel like there was more to explore there and more to explore about, like why is he so invested in her and saving her and what does she really want?

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01:01:03

And I almost wanted more of that story earlier in the movie, so that they could have more of a complete arc and it felt like it kind of went from, I have the idea that I want to help you out to I'm gonna now murder everybody and it just seemed like it was kind of, it was kind of a sudden jump and I didn't I actually didn't get, you know, because he has that like brunch with her where she, I love that she puts the jam on the white bread with sugar and that's her breakfast,

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Shawn Eastridge

01:01:31

The kitchen, like what a childish thing to do.

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Alex Calleros

01:01:33

Yeah, really brilliant character choices for that character, but anyway, I like it, like that was an interesting scene and I feel like they actually had an interesting dynamic and I wanted to see it either kind of devolved or evolve or like more naturally lead to him shooting everybody and being kind of like, like the natural course of events and instead it felt more like, well now I'm going to try to assassinate the candidate hopes that's not gonna work, okay, I'll kill these guys and it didn't seem as motivated as I would have liked.

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Shawn Eastridge

01:02:05

Part of me wonders if that was sort of the point, I think like I wonder if not to say that you're wrong, but part of me wonders if it was the sense of

Travis

is so determined to murder somebody that it was literally just like we introduced this

Jodie Foster

character, iris and all these people around her because it's just like all right, well, now, where do I point my misery and violence towards them?

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01:02:29

Well, here these guys, these guys are despicable, I can feel kind of justified in taking them out because they're horrible human beings.

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01:02:35

I wonder if the rapidness with which it happens is really just a sense of like, all right, well, let me redirect all my pain and suffering towards these people instead, in the sense reinforcing the theme of like what it's like if he had killed Palatine, it would have been a different story, but because he killed these guys, he's a big hero and his issues that he has or suddenly considered justified.

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Alex Calleros

01:03:01

That's interesting. That's kind of a good case for the ending not being a dream because the theme comes through stronger that way you know because if you think about what the newspaper headlines would have been if he killed a presidential candidate they would have been the exact opposite. So there's something interesting about the juxtaposition of you know, he could have killed a VIP.

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01:03:21

Instead, he killed these people that are considered scum.

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01:03:25

And so the same action is regarded as heroic as opposed to crime.

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01:03:31

So that's maybe one point towards the not a dream-ending interpretation.

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Shawn Eastridge

01:03:36

Gotcha. Yeah, no that's true. That's a very good point but I am something, so something I asked Michael and Tricia, I totally forgot to ask Brian, your co-host and co-writers and co-editors on "Lessons from the Screenplay."

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Alex Calleros

01:03:51

I love that this is that we've completed the circle is now complete. We've opened the doors for the apocalypse. Oh, maybe I shouldn't say that right.

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01:03:59

Oof. Yeah. Too soon.

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Shawn Eastridge

01:04:01

Cut this.

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01:04:02

But I should have asked Brian for Titanic, Brian, hit me up later. We'll get your opinion later. But this is totally your guys' thing. One of the things I love about Lessons from the Screenplay and Beyond the Screenplay as an extension is the way you break down stories and approach them as aspiring writers yourself.

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01:04:21

But what lessons would you take from

Taxi Driver

as far as storytelling, in the same way, you guys kind of analyze that on "Beyond the Screenplay." What lessons do you think you would take from

Taxi Driver

?

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Alex Calleros

01:04:36

I think, you know a big lesson I kind of have alluded to throughout this conversation is just letting things be really uncomfortable, you know, because I think sometimes when I'm writing I'm almost too kind to my characters or I'm like nervous on their behalf and so I don't let things get excruciating. And I think, no, let them get excruciating. That's why we're watching, that's why we're glued to the screen.

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01:04:59

You know, I think this movie is willing to push things to an almost painful point, you know in some of those dialogue scenes when he's on the phone talking to her, we only hear his side of the conversation in that in that one shot we talked about, like it's really painful to listen to him. I'm almost begging the movie to stop because I know that everything he's saying is just making it worse and but I think that's what makes it captivating.

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01:05:25

And so I think the lesson I'm taking away from this movie is you know really go for it if your character is this type of character that just doesn't fit in with this world and doesn't know how to navigate it.

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01:05:35

Like don't go easy on him. Like show us the consequences of that deficiency and like make us feel it along with him and don't give your audience a respite from that because that's what makes the movie really captivating, not the comfortable feeling, but the really uncomfortable feeling.

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Shawn Eastridge

01:05:54

Yeah, I think you can learn a lot more from the uncomfortable than the comfortable and something else we've alluded to that I think is important to remember is you can take a character to a dark place, but we have to kind of understand why they're going there in order for it to be effective.

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01:06:11

We have to in some sense, I mean, there are characters where they're just kind of despicable and you're just kind of along for the ride. I can't think of a good example off the top of my head, but like I think what makes

Taxi Driver

superior to a lot of

Scorsese's

other work is that we're not necessarily relishing or celebrating or feeling like this guy is just like a horrible person.

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01:06:32

This guy feels miserable. He's lonely and he's sad. There's that little glimmer of hope there, like you said, it makes it all the more effective and frustrating and emotional and engaging to see that journey from confusion and despair into just utter darkness. But I feel like it's important to remember, we have to understand why it can't just be like this guy is just miserable and he hates everything like and then he goes and kills people.

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01:07:02

You don't want to, you don't get that ending and have that ending work unless we've been on that journey and we understand who that person is and why he feels the way he does

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Alex Calleros

01:07:13

Because I detached movies like that when a film just kind of has a total nihilism from the beginning and just isn't really about caring about anybody, but just showing bad people doing bad things and everything's bad, I really just kind of become numb to it and just really don't care what happens to those characters.

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01:07:31

It's self-fulfilling prophecy. It's miserable and you don't like if it's just miserable people being miserable, what's the point? It's like, there's no, I don't necessarily have to root for you.

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Shawn Eastridge

01:07:45

Like, I'm not necessarily rooting for

Travis

, but I'm empathizing with him, I'm watching him and understanding him and if a movie like you said, if it's just misery right out the gate and just kind of like, yeah, isn't this great? It almost feels like annoying or obnoxious in a way, like yeah, really cool guys.

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Alex Calleros

01:08:04

Yeah, it's kind of like an arthouse cliche, you know, it's like there's certain films that come out once in a while or I'll see the occasional arthouse film where it's like, oh, like you're kind of high on the fact that you're just so freaking dark, you know, like everything is as dark and as almost like obscenely, just awful as possible and that is considered art and I think I'm okay with feel bad movies and really dark movies but I have to have some in that makes me care so that when the darkness comes, like I'm with the characters and I'm like feeling that tension but otherwise I'm just kind of watching from a distance just like okay yeah, this is all going to be bad, it's going to continue to be bad, it's gonna get worse, it's gonna get even worse and it's gonna be over, who cares?

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Shawn Eastridge

01:08:54

Absolutely. Well, I mean like there's, I feel like there's so much more, I mean what is it? It's Bernard Herman, yeah, I love the music, I mean that's so great, it's almost romantic in a way it really works for me. Yeah, it does and it's another great example of like something that it's not even necessarily reflective or at least the more romantic theme.

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01:09:21

There is this kind of more uh foreboding theme that's in the film that definitely gives you the sense of some what's boiling underneath the surface, but there's this sort of romantic theme that flips through the soundtrack. This it's just so beautiful, it's in a wonderful score. I know

Matt Reeves

who is directing the upcoming

Batman

film has said he's had this soundtrack pretty much on repeat?

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01:09:46

While he's been working on

Batman

which makes me very, very excited, but is there any are there any other points or is there anything else we want to say about

Taxi Driver

that we haven't said or any other final points you want to make?

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Alex Calleros

01:09:59

I don't think so. Just thank you for making me finally watch this movie because it's definitely been a long time coming and it's one of those films you just never get around to. But I'm really happy that I've seen it.

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