Word: taxies
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Taxi Driver, Scorsese's latest effort, is a much tauter, much more disciplined work. Without sacrificing any of the authenticity of his feel for the subject, Scorsese controls the tension of the movie; he's constantly holding something back. The violence is always there, murmuring relentlessly in the facial expressions of Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro), in the sweltering New York City streets, but Scorsese restrains it, draws us ever closer to the explosion then retreats, telling us smilingly, "No, it's not time yet." And we wait anxiously for deliverance...
...AFTER A WHILE, everyone becomes his job," declares the self-proclaimed Wizard of New York cabbies to Travis. The Wizard (Peter Boyle) holds court in the fluorescent, all-night Bellmore Cafeteria, nocturnal stalking ground for taxi drivers and absurdly elegant pimps. The Wizard makes his remarks self-deprecatingly, dismisses them with a "what the hell do I know, I'm just a cabbie," but this idea is the animating force for the movie's action...
...screenwriter Paul Schrader, the taxi driver is a metaphor for modern, urban man. The taxi driver will go anywhere for money, and is forced to see everything, all the degredation and cruelty men are capable of, but always with the understanding that he will remain outside, uninvolved and untouched. This is the hack's code: be deaf and you will hear everything; be blind and you will see everything. Travis does eventually learn the rules, but only after one last, desperate, misunderstood attempt to remake the world in his image...
...comes to New York an innocent. We know little about him--he's in his mid-twenties, he mentions that he was in the army, and he maintains a deceptive correspondence with his parents. Travis tells the dispatcher that he wants to drive a taxi because he can't sleep, and he wants to go everywhere...
When asked what purpose these might serve, he replied, "Take them to your office, screw them into the light sockets and take home the better ones." Moscow taxi drivers, instead of cruising for passengers, sometimes stash their vehicles in courtyards and let the motor run, while the back wheels, held up by a jack, spin away for hours. Keeping the wheels off the ground burns up gasoline very efficiently, while the odometer goes up. The drivers, who are state employees, are thus able to claim miles of fareless cruising and get reimbursement for gasoline on the basis of phony mileage...