Notable for its shocking moments of violence and avant-garde visual approach, Taxi Driver is packed with memorable scenes beyond Bickle’s famous mirror confrontation. Another short scene in particular really stands as the film’s most important moment of visual specificity. The end result is a very American drama that expresses a distinctly European sensibility and encapsulates the lonely melancholy that runs throughout.
rejection with difference
A third of the way through the film, and after the first act, the focus is on the phone call Travis makes to Betsy after he upsets her with his poor date choices. He calls her from a pay phone in a dingy hallway and begs her for another chance, but despite his efforts to make amends, she remains unmoved.
This scene could have been shot in typical melodramatic fashion, with the camera lingering on Travis as he realizes that his chance with her is lost, and that any glimmer of escape from his alienated life is gone. But Scorsese avoids the obvious. Instead, cameraman Michael Chapman begins a slow track away from Travis, eventually emerging onto the street and coming to rest in an empty hallway with an open doorway at the end. The hallway that serves as the entrance to the offices of Broadway’s Ed Sullivan Theater has a dilapidated and hopeless atmosphere, overlooking the bustling darkness of the city at night.
Viewers hear Travis’ reaction to being awkwardly thrown off-camera (not that Betsy told him), then Travis hangs up the phone and returns to the shot, leaving the painful moment with Travis walking down the hallway with his back to the camera.
This shot is so contrary to the rules of classic Hollywood cinema, where the drama rather than the visual language of the scene naturally takes precedence, and brilliantly embodies both the film’s unorthodox creative spirit as one of the seminal works of the “New Hollywood” revolution of the 1970s, and the loneliness and melancholy of its protagonist. Travis has never looked more vulnerable than in this moment, a contrast to his bravado in the mirror scene later on. Here, the camera seems unable to witness the character’s heartbreak, even though Travis is undoubtedly responsible for it. By distancing himself from Travis, this shot almost allows him to briefly retain some dignity, something that is rarely available in the urban society in which he lives.
Source: BBC Culture – www.bbc.com
