Joker (2019)

Director: Todd Phillips

Extremely well-done film that was compelling but grim enough to not demand a re-watch by me anytime soon.

Ostensibly offering a possible origin story for arch Batman villain "The Joker," Joker tells the story of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a mentally troubled, severely down-on-his-luck man who is trying to find some place for himself in a grim and deteriorating city. Fleck is an aspiring stand-up comedian who lives at home with and cares for his invalid mother, while trying to make ends meet through menial clowning jobs around the depressed metropolis. In addition to generally being very awkward socially, he suffers from emotional swings and a condition which causes him to laugh hysterically and uncontrollably at random moments. When Fleck is bullied one night on a train, he lashes back and kills his tormentors, setting in motion a spiral into violence and true madness for not only Fleck but also the entire city.

More than any "comic book" movie I've seen, Joker has a very clear vision, and it is exceptionally dark. Writer and director Todd Phillips has himself admitted that he sort of hoodwinked Warner Bros studios by dressing up his movie as an origin story for one of the most famous villains in modern pop culture (in an interview on NPR, Phillips pointed out how the title of the movie is "Joker" and not "The Joker"). What he really offered was a brooding commentary on the state of modern U.S. society and its social ills. Fleck can easily be seen as one of the countless people afflicted with mental illness and carrying the burden of caring for unwell family members, but who have been abandoned by the world around them. Fleck and his mother have no other family, no friends, and early in the movie, Arthur's public assistance and medical care are stripped away from him, leaving him to deal with his myriad difficulties on his own. One doesn't have to look very far in the real world to see much of what is portrayed in Joker. The clarity and commitment to this theme distinguish this film from any other "comic book" movie that I can think of (and I've seen tons of them).

For a better comparison, one need only look at several of the grittier films by Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader. Todd Phillips doesn't bother disguising the fact that he's drawing heavily from movies like The King of Comedy, Taxi Driver, or even the more recent First Reformed. All of these movies deal with angry men who are already teetering on the edge of sanity, and whom we see pushed off. Arthur Fleck is the latest version of a Rupert Pupkin, Travis Bickle, or Toller - people who are struggling to keep a toehold in society but fail in spectacular or violent fashion. What is impressive is not only that Phillips decided to draw from such dark inspirations for this kind of movie, but that he so clearly succeeded.

Arthur, in the middle of one of his uncontrollable and often
out-of-place bouts of laughter. As of now, Joaquin Phoenix is
the second actor to win Oscar Best Actor playing the
notorious villain of comic book origins.

By this time, I probably don't need to point out that Joaquin Phoenix's performance is brilliant (I write this only about a week after he won Best Actor for the role). It is truly a marvel, as painful as it is to take in. All of the supporting cast does a fine job as well, including Robert De Niro himself as an echo of the talk show host character played by Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy. These performances, along with outstanding costume and set design, lighting, cinematography, and an Oscar-winning musical score, shape the story into something that really is a piece of art.

It must be said, though, that the movie is just as depressing as it sounds. Also in keeping with its inspirations and themes, this is not the easiest film to take. Yes, there are a few moments of dark and gallows humor in a few places, but for the most part this movie is one gut punch after another. And just like those aforementioned Scorsese and Schrader films, Joker is a great movie that I find too tough to take more than once in a very rare while. 

The Irishman (2019) [No spoilers]

Spoilers ahead (it's mostly historical record, though).

Director: Martin Scorsese

It's a mammoth of a gangster movie by arguably the greatest director of such films, and it is among his very best.

If you only know a few of Scorsese's rather large and impressive filmography, chances are that Goodfellas and Casino are two of them. They both offered dramatic re-tellings of real-life events in the world of organized crime. In Goodfellas, we saw the rise and fall of Henry Hill, a street-level soldier for the Italian mafia in New York who, after living the criminal life from the 1960s to the early 1980s, turned state's evidence and testified against his former colleagues and bosses. Casino followed the closely intertwined lives of Sam "Ace" Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, who both served to help the mafia carve out a solid niche in Las Vegas during the 1970s. Both movies offered us a view of the rises and falls of the more violent, influential mafia figures, but seen from the perspective of guys - Hill and Rothstein - who were just far enough away from the truly violent and powerful that they avoided complete disaster.

The Irishman follows a very similar blueprint, for most of the way. Scorsese mainstay Robert DeNiro plays Frank Sheeran, an Irish-American truck driver and World War II veteran who eases his way into working for the Italian mafia during the 1950s. Through a chance encounter with Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), a high-ranking mafia boss, Sheeran soon works his way into becoming a reliable hitman. Despite being a foot solider, he builds a great deal of trust with Bufalino, who eventually introduces him to Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). At this point in history, the mid-1950s, Jimmy Hoffa was about as famous a figure as there was in the United States. A hard-nosed and charismatic people's man, Hoffa was never above a little strong-arming and bribery to accomplish his goals, which were often to the benefit of himself as much as the Teamsters. Sheeran and Hoffa strike up a friendship, with Sheeran becoming Hoffa's bodyguard and occasional confidante for a number of years.

In the succeeding decades, Hoffa's star famously falls, starts to rise again, and then completely disappears under famously mysterious circumstances. The Irishman, however, offers an answer to the mystery - that a highly conflicted Sheeran played a role in sabotaging and assassinating Hoffa after he refused to take marching orders from the powerful mafia figures with whom he had previously worked. After Hoffa's death, Sheeran himself remains connected to Bufalino in both professional and friendship capacities. Eventually, though, Bufalino and all of Sheeran's human connections to the mafia and Hoffa pass away, leaving him the last one alive to recount his tale a few decades later.

The epic scope and the sordid nature of organized crime dealings prevalent in The Irishman will feel very familiar to anyone who knows Scorsese's mafia flicks. Some low-rent, morally dubious dude is lured in by the money, and gets a front row seat to some pretty dastardly business, all set to a great soundtrack. But The Irishman does offer something more. Sure, the thugy killings and beatdowns are there. Yes, the hilarious exchanges between not-so-smart guys trying to sound smart are there. But what elevates this movie above even Scorsese's past mafia masterpieces is the final analysis of Sheeran. In the much quieter final 30-or-so minutes of the movie, we see Frank Sheeran reckoning with the cost of his loyalty to Bufalino, Hoffa, and forces far more powerful, personal, and spirit-crushing than he ever quite realized. It all leaves a much deeper impact than Scorsese's earlier mob movies, not unlike how Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven left an indelible final stamp on his own career in Western movies.

As important as any of the typical gangster-film violence in
the movie is the bond that forms between Frank and Jimmy
Hoffa, as well as Russell Bufalino. In the end, Frank has to
live with the decisions he made regarding both, which is
far from easy.

The only thing that might be surprising about the fact that The Irishman is so technically brilliant is that Martin Scorsese is still doing this in his late-70s. The movie is no less sharp or eye-catching than anything in his exemplary career. And it was probably his age, wisdom, and the fact that Netflix granted him the freedom to make a three-and-a-half hour movie that he could extend his previous boundaries a bit and offer broader circumspection on a character type whose story he's told so expertly several times before.

It feels a bit silly to nitpick over such a well-crafted movie, but there were a few things that I couldn't help but notice. Mainly, the fact that DeNiro and Pesci, both 76 years old, are playing characters over a span of four to five decades. Rather than find younger "look-similars," Scorsese had the late-septuagenarians play their own late-30/early-40 year old selves in the earlier flashbacks of the tale. And no amount of makeup and costume ingenuity could cover all of that up, making few of the scenes from the earlier times a tad distracting.

That little gripe aside, it's an excellent movie. The length and relatively somber final act may prevent me from firing it up again anytime soon, but I'll certainly see it again in the future. 

New(ish) Releases: Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2015); Silence (2016)

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2015)

Director: Taika Waititi

Great little movie which feels like New Zealand's comedic answer to the films of Tom McCarthy, such as Win Win.

The story follows the often funny, sometimes sad bond which grows between Ricky (Julian Dennison), an orphan and wanna-be gangster of Maori descent, and Hec (Sam Neill), the crotchety old husband of Bella, the woman who adopted Ricky. Ricky is brought to the couple as his last chance to avoid being put into the juvenile detention system for repeated minor acts of delinquency and vandalism. His new home is in the "bush" area of New Zealand - a rural area where Hec and Bella carve out a modest but fairly happy life by the sweat of their brows. When Bella passes away unexpectedly, though, the overly vigilant child protective services come to reclaim Ricky in order to put him back into the system. Ricky and an very reluctant Hec then go on the run, into the untamed wilderness area around Hec and Bella's rustic home.

The movie has plenty of odd and off-color humor which feels like a novel blend of sillier British shows and the more thoughtful dramedies of the aforementioned Tom McCarthy. The classic setup of two wildly mismatched characters finding themselves stuck together works brilliantly here, thanks to sharp writing and directing, along with typically excellent acting from Neill and Dennison. There is plenty of humor poking fun at some New Zealand culture, most of which I followed but some of which was a bit lost on me. It may be a very regional movie in many ways, but there is certainly a rather universal appeal to the greater story.

Though I did feel the movie lost a little bit of steam during its third act, it does offer a fairly satisfying ending. This was the second film I've seen directed by New Zealand native Taika Waititi, along with his hilarious 2014 vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, and he's becoming one of my favorites. I can't be sure how he'll do with his massive-budget, fantasy/action fest Thor: Ragnarok later this year, but I'm definitely pulling for his success.

Silence (2016)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Visually stunning drama that packs more intellectual than spiritual or emotional punch than probably intended.

Based on the Japanese author Shuusake Endo's novel of the same name, the movie follows a pair of Jesuit priest from Portugal who, in the 17th century, make an ill-advised journey to Japan. The priests, Rodrigues and Garupe (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver), set out to find their old mentor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), after they receive word that he has renounced Christ and become an apostate upon torture at the hands of the Japanese imperial government. The two young priests secretly make their way to a small village where Ferreira had previously ministered, though they must exercise extreme secrecy and caution due to Japan's official outlawing of the Christian faith. Over many torturous months, they are separated and face physical and spiritual hardships of immense intensity. Father Rodrigues does eventually track down Father Ferreira, although their reunion is far from what the younger priest had been hoping for.

This story was based on the highly-regarded novel of the same name by Japanese author Shuusaku Endo, published in 1966. Endo, himself a Catholic, often explored the theme of Catholicism's tortured history in the country of his birth. As such, this story looks back at one of the earliest and most brutal periods of friction between the East and West, as metastasized in the ruthless torture and killing of thousands of Jesuit priests at the time. Endo's novel and Scorsese's movie take a fascinating look at the idea that Catholicism was like a seed that would never find purchase in the "swamp" of Japan, in terms of spirituality. The notion that the two were simply incompatible is probably the most engaging part of the story, especially in seeing the lengths to which both sides will go to either maintain their faith or annihilate what is seen as a foreign infection of the mind and soul.

One of several brutal, if brilliantly filmed, scenes of Christians
being persecuted to death by hardline government officials.

Yet, the movie never completely impacted me the way that I was hoping. I've long been interested in religious history (though an agnostic myself), especially in Jesuit history. The Jesuit tradition of forging into foreign lands to bring not only their religious message but also broader education has long been one that I admire in many ways. And there have been a few excellent movies depicting the rigors of their mission, namely Black Robe and The Mission. That latter movie, in particular, did an excellent job depicting the larger Jesuit pursuits while also imbuing a tale with sympathetic characters and emotional heft. Unfortunately, Silence never quite elicited that same feeling from me. The young priests are clearly very dedicated, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we never fully get to know either of them as real people. Instead, they are simply vessels of faith, swimming upstream for reasons that I wish had been more thoroughly explored.

The one other issue I had with this movie is the depiction of government official Inoue, who is tasked with tracking down and weeding out any vestiges of Christianity in his district. I found that this character comes off with over-the-top unctuousness which makes him cartoonishly villainous. This was a shame, since there are actually a few thoughtful and philosophical verbal exchanges between him and the young Jesuit priests. But these and nearly everything else Inoue does are undermined by an overly sleazy, slurred delivery of his lines that would be more fitting for a B-grade horror movie bad guy. Yes, the character is meant to be dislikable, but I feel that it would have been far more interesting had they given him a more noble carriage and not made him so easy to despise.

If you've heard anything about this movie, it is likely about the visuals. They are truly stunning. As Martin Scorsese has shown time and time again, he knows how to find cinematographers and put them in positions to create visual masterpieces. Silence is no exception. It is an odd contrast to the spiritual turmoil and physical tortures being suffered throughout the picture, but the landscapes, costumes, and sets are beautifully captured, making the movie a pleasure to drink in for much of its considerable running length. It also helps that the acting is (aside from Issei Ogata's portrayal of Inoue) strong.

I recently read the novel, which Scorsese remained highly faithful to. While anyone interested in solid film making or the religious and spiritual themes would appreciate the movie's strengths, those more intrigued by the latter would perhaps gain more from reading the novel. 

Before I Die #598: The Aviator (2004)

This is the 598th movie I've watched out of the 1,187 movies on the "Before You Die" list that I'm gradually working through. 

Director: Martin Scorsese

Despite being a major fan of Scorsese, I had somehow never watched this movie from start to finish. Now that I've put in the required two hours and forty-five minutes, I can say that it's a really solid film that I enjoyed, even if I don't count it among his very best. Bear in mind that this is no slight, given that Scorsese has several all-time great movies to his credit.

Based on a spotty biography, The Aviator tracks the key twenty-year period in the life of Howard Hughes, the infamously eccentric and undeniably talented businessman and American aviator. The movie starts with Hughes at age 21, just as he inherits the sizable tool business his parents created and ran in Texas. Hughes brings the company to near collapse as he funds a massive war picture independent of any major movie studio. Although he burns through nearly all of his considerable fortune, Hughes manages to release the movie to great success, launching him into the spotlight and on a run of tremendous business successes over the next few decades. He designs and test flies planes, buys and runs an airline company, and takes on the aviation giant of the day, Pan Am, and the powerful senator who supports it. In these two decades, Hughes essentially grows his wealth enough to poise himself to become the richest man in the country. The problem is that his own mental problems grow worse and worse, hinting at the infamously reclusive and bizarre behavior that would mark the succeeding decades of his life.

The Aviator is, like virtually all of Scorsese's films, highly watchable. The legendary director has such a keen sense of pacing, dialogue, and scene construction, that his take on such a dynamic figure as Howard Hughes was bound to be engaging, and it is. As he has shown in his most well-known films like Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Casino, Scorsese can take highly energetic and volatile characters and make them sing on screen. With The Aviator, Scorsese was dealing with the largest group of notable celebrities that he's ever dealt with, starting with Hughes but also including the likes of Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and plenty of other screen legends who were noted for their strong personalities. The story sets them up to have plenty of engaging interactions, mostly revolving around Hughes's increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior. Many of the scenes are played for drama, but almost as many are played for humor, nearly all to excellent effect.

As a personal aside, I have to confess that the only element of the movie that annoyed me was Katharine Hepburn. This has nothing to do with Cate Blanchett's portrayal of the film legend, which is nearly spot-on, but rather my general annoyance at the real Hepburn's affect. I've watched a good number of Hepburn's classic movies, and I've always found her "Mid-Atlantic" accent highly grating (that bizarre, made up accent has its own odd little story, too). In The Aviator, Blanchett fully embraces the character, as she stomps around, going toe-to-toe with the equally head-strong Hughes. I actually admire Hepburn's progressive attitudes and general take on life. But that accent? I can't get over it.

One of the many scenes to display the lavish places, costumes,
and powerful entertainers seen throughout the movie. Nearly
every scene is fun to watch, even if there isn't exactly a
compelling narrative thread to tie them all together.

Back to the movie as a whole. While nearly all of the individual scenes and sequences are outstanding, there is a lack of a completely cohesive story. The nearly 3-hour film strongly hints at a few themes and clear points about Hughes, but it never completely resolves any of them or creates a single compelling arc. The only theme or trait that seems to be present throughout the movie is Hughes's increasingly severe mental disorder. However, there are still many questions left unanswered by the movie's end, as he is still functional enough to oversee much of his aviation business. When one reads a bit more about Hughes, one realizes that his truly severe mental fragmentation continued for another two decades after the timeline covered in this film. The movie thus feels incomplete, which is certainly odd for such a lengthy story. It almost seems as if a TV miniseries of 8 or 10 episodes would have done such a biopic more justice.

Like many of Scorsese's best movies, this is one in which the individual scenes are so masterfully crafted and entertaining, that you could channel surf your way into any part of it, settle in, and just ride it all out by enjoying each sequence. I've read some original reviews that weren't terribly impressed with DiCaprio's performance, but I found him to be excellent, right along with the rest of the supporting cast. Such acting, along with a tight script and under the guidance of an all-time great director, make for a highly enjoyable film, if not exactly a historically brilliant one.

That's 598 movies down. Only 589 to go before I can die. 

Gangster Flick 3-Pack: Let Him Have It (1991); Layer Cake (2004); State of Grace (1990)

Let Him Have It (1991)

Director: Peter Medak

A harrowing drama about one of the most personal tragedies in criminal and judicial history.

Let Him Have It is a documdrama about the life of Derek Bentley, a mentally inferior young man who, in London of 1953, falls in with the wrong people and pays the ultimate price. Derek is a young, impressionable 19-year-old who is lured into a small gang of wanna-be criminals made up of boys still in secondary school. The leader is Chris Craig, an especially loud-mouthed lad who works hard to look and sound like the crooks glamorized in Hollywood gangster movies. He and three of his cohorts walk around town dressed in dark trenchcoats and black fedoras, trying as hard as possible to imitate Chris's authentically criminal older brother. Derek, an otherwise gentle soul, is taken in by the strong attitude and image of Chris's gang, and he begins to sneak away from his parents' home to hang out with them.

On the most fateful of nights, Derek finds himself on a warehouse rooftop with Chris, both of them playfully looking for a way to break in. The police arrive, however, and when one of them apprehends Derek, Chris pulls a gun. As the police officer demands that Chris turn over the weapon, a frightened Derek calls out "Let him have it, Chris," which Chris misunderstands as a prompt to shoot the officer. A firefight and standoff ensue, ending with Chris injured from a long fall, one officer wounded, and another dead by Chris's hand. The real tragedy begins when Derek and Chris are brought to court, where the penalty for their crimes is execution.

The movie is a strong one, and the tragedy of the situation is palpable. Thanks to very strong acting and pacing, what could have been a depressing slog is actually a sad but compelling account. Very much in the vein of Kieslowski's 1990 film Decalogue Five: Thou Shalt Not Kill and the 1995 movie Dead Man Walking, with their the juxtaposition of illegal murder with legal execution, Let Him Have It forces viewers to think long and hard about capital punishment.

As with any film which depicts a tragedy which happened in reality, the dramatization offers a buffer which a documentary would not. However, for cases which happened longer in past, such as this one, I feel that a well-crafted and respectful docudrama is the closest we can get to truly feeling the loss the the Bentley family did at the end of this affair. Let Him Have It is not a movie which needs to be seen more than once, but once is all but mandatory.

Layer Cake (2004)

Director: Matthew Vaughn

An entertaining British gangster flick, adding depth to the Guy Ritchie brand of films which preceded and obviously influenced it.

Layer Cake tells the story of a highly intelligent, never-named drug dealer (Daniel Craig) who is on the cusp of sealing a final "big deal" in London which will allow him to retire from the sordid, dangerous world of crime. As such stories go, though, things get extremely complicated, extremely quickly.

Up to the point of the tale's beginning, "Mr. X" has been expert at keeping his head down and remaining under the radar of more powerful or more volatile criminals in his industry. However, once the wrinkles start to pop up, X must navigate lethally treacherous waters infested with British gang lords, headstrong power-grabbers, and his own conscience. Following the actions and reactions of X certainly makes for a sometimes fun, sometimes harrowing, and often violent tale.

The style and construction of the movie is quite familiar to any who have watched 1998's Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels or 2000's Snatch, the two seminal modern British gangster movies by Guy Ritchie. There's a dizzying array of shadowy, vicious characters, and more than a little gallows humor sprinkled throughout. Compared to those earlier movies, though, Layer Cake ratchets down the insanity and overt comedy in favor of taut suspense. This is carried through with great performances all around by the brilliant cast, spearheaded by a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig.

One could criticize the movie for borrowing too heavily from Ritchie's hyperspeed style of storytelling (director Matthew Vaughn was, in fact, a producer of Ritchie's films), but this was easy for me to forgive. While there is nothing of great ingenuity here in terms of subject matter or methodology, Layer Cake feels enough like its own movie not to be overly harsh with any critique. It goes deeper into the protagonist's psyche than any Ritchie film ever dared, which prevents it from being a mere clone.

State of Grace (1990)

Director: Phil Joanou

If timing is everything, then State of Grace had nothing going for it from the jump. This is a shame, as it is a great gangster movie.

I had never even heard of this movie before I came across it on a "best gangster films" list. When I saw the cast list, I was further amazed that it was never on my radar. The movie follows young undercover police officer Terry Noonan (Sean Penn), who has returned to his old neighborhood in the Irish section of New York's Hell's Kitchen. Under the guise of a drifter looking to get back into the criminal lifestyle, he reunites with old friend Mickey Flannery (Gary Oldman), and the two soon begin cracking jokes and skulls, alike. Terry's ultimate plan is to obtain incriminating evidence on Mickey's older brother, Frankie (Ed Harris), who has become the boss of the local Irish mob. However, doing the right thing as a cop becomes far more difficult for Terry as he becomes further entrenched in his old environment.

The characters, plot, acting, and general direction of State of Grace are excellent. The drama between Noonan and the Flannerys is organic and tense, with a palpable emotional depth. The story unfolds and intensifies as well as the very best crime dramas. In addition to the great actors mentioned above, several supporting roles are played expertly by great talents like Robin Wright, John C. Reilly, and John Turturro.

At this point, you many be wondering how a high-quality movie, with such an outstanding cast, is not better-known. I wondered the same thing until I discovered that State of Grace was released on September 14, 1990. For those without a photographic memory for film release dates, this is the exact same day that Goodfellas was released. Yikes. When forced to go head-to-head against one of the absolute greatest gangster movies in the history of cinema, anything less than The Godfather would pale in comparison. Such was the fate of State of Grace. It could not have helped that, by this time, Martin Scorsese was well-established as a brilliant director, so that his return to New York crime tales was bound to drown out even an outstanding effort by a relative newcomer like State of Grace director Phil Joanou. No, Joanou's movie is not as great as Goodfellas, but it is one of the best of its kind.

The commercial and historical fate of State of Grace is rather sad. However, I highly recommend the movie to anyone who loves the gangster genre. 

Film #90: Goodfellas (1990)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Initial Release Country: United States

Timed Previously Seen: probably around eight or nine. Maybe more. 

Rapid-Fire Summary

Goodfellas is a rather epic movie, spanning several centuries. I’ll keep my summary short, but if you want many more of the details, you can check out the synopsis here at imdb’s website. Here’s my version:

In the late 1950s in Queens, New York, young teenager Henry Hill has big dreams. He dreams of becoming a gangster, like the fellows that he sees regularly on the streets of his neighborhood. Though his parents completely disapprove, Henry gets more and more involved with the crime circuit in the area – starting with simple errand-running for book-makers, progressing to orchestrated property destruction, and advancing to the sale of stolen goods. The more he gets entrenched in the life of a criminal, the more he feels welcomed by his fellow criminals, and the more normal it all becomes for him.

This normalized life of larceny follows Henry into adult life (played by Ray Liotta), when he regularly partners with two other noted crooks – the thief and hitman, Irishman Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and the volatile yet charismatic Sicilian mobster Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). These three, along with many other local hoods, spend the next few decades of their adult lives robbing, and occasionally killing, their way to lives of luxury for themselves, their wives, children, and mistresses. Though their methods of attaining wealth are highly illegal, all of them keep up the appearances of being responsible family men who are “providers” for their friends and families. This is all in keeping with the Italian mafia tenets of organized crime, to which all of these three men pay homage.

Tommy, Henry, and Jimmy taking a look at on of their many stashes of ill-gotten money.

Eventually, however, things start to crumble. Starting in the later 1970s and into the early 1980s, Henry starts to get involved in selling cocaine. Despite clear warnings from the mafia father-figure, Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), Henry continues to sell the highly illegal substance. His mistakes catch up to him, and he is caught by the police. Now facing the very likely prospect that he will be killed by any one of his criminal associates, in order to prevent him from informing on them, Henry and his wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) decide that their only recourse is to join the witness protection program. Henry testifies against all of his former friends and criminal associates, thus escaping jail time. However, he lives out the rest of his days in a sterilized suburban neighborhood, far removed from the action, money, and excitement of his former life of crime.

My Take on the Film (Done after this most recent viewing)

Goodfellas is an absolute classic, and it may be the only English-language mafia movie that can hold a candle to The Godfather, in terms of scope, technique, and revolutionizing the genre.

I first saw this movie in the theater when my mother brought me to see it. I was only fourteen or fifteen at the time, and I remember the language blowing me away. The characters drop the f-bomb like most people blink, and violence is as normal as getting a haircut. About an hour into the movie, my mother, who grew up in Queens right at the time that this movie’s events were taking place, leans over to me and says “I think I grew up with these guys.” Now, she didn’t mean that she literally grew up with Henry Hill and the gang; she just meant that she grew up with guys eerily like them. She always said that the dialogue and attitudes depicted in Goodfellas were spot-on, in terms of how the guys from those neighborhoods spoke and acted.

This authenticity has been a hallmark of Scorsece’s New York pictures right from the very beginning. While he’s certainly done other excellent movies that are not based in New York (The Departed, Kundun, et al), his street-level stories have always been his signature ones. The verbal exchanges in Goodfellas, like Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, feel completely organic. Despite being so deeply rooted in a particular region, even people who have never been within a thousand miles of Long Island can sense and be hypnotized and amused by it.

Just another night of booze and poker. This is one of the many scenes in which the dialog and interactions between the New York tough guys are at their most realistic. 

But the dialogue is simply one of several triumphs of this movie. If The Godfather was the ultimate American criminal take on a classical Greek tragedy, Goodfellas is the ultimate deconstruction of the gangster myth. Based on the real story of Henry Hill, the movie depicts the ground-level thugs who made the mob go. There are no honorable Vito Corleones here. Henry Hill and his cohorts were unapologetic thieves and murderers who reveled in their power over others. One line that sums them up fairly well is when Henry Hill is describing Jimmy: “The one thing Jimmy loved to do was to steal. I mean, he actually liked it. Jimmy was the kind of guy who rooted for the bad guys in the movies.” These guys knew they were bad, embraced it, and pummeled anyone who had a problem with it.

Tied to this is probably the element that truly sets the movie apart from other classic gangster movies. Through Henry Hill’s life story, we see the complete and utter sham that the “honor” of the mafia is. All of the seeming friendships that Henry makes are only authentic as long as they don’t threaten any of his fellow thieves’ illicit livelihoods. The moment any one of the crew is suspected of threatening others’ freedom and fortunes, that crew member is not long for this world. The camaraderie is revealed as shallow in the face of real adversity, as evidenced by the protagonist himself. After decades of thinking of his criminal associates as family, he turns on them to protect himself and sends them all to prison. Goodfellas may have been the first film to so carefully and stylishly deconstruct the myth of honor among mobster thieves.

Normally, much of the above would make for thoroughly repugnant, unwatchable characters. Yet herein lies one of the most brilliant part of this movie – at times, you forget what they are and get completely caught up with who they are. Whether it’s Tommy cracking up his fellow mobsters with hilarious stories, Jimmy railing against the stupidity of his partners in crime, or Henry trying to juggle his passionately crazy wife and mistresses, it’s simply fun to watch. Most of the time, you laugh at them, but some of the time you actually laugh with them. There are even times when you feel a twinge of sympathy, as when Henry learns that Karen has flushed their bags of cocaine, their only remaining source of revenue, down the toilet, effectively flushing his entire life down the toilet. His desperation and fear are so palpable that you might be tempted to forget, just for a few seconds, that it’s all his selfish own doing.

Karen visits Henry while he serves time. At this point, it almost seems as normal for us the viewers as it does for the troubled couple and their kids.

All of these moments come through in large part due to the acting. While De Niro rightfully got top billing for this movie and did an outstanding job as Jimmy, it was Pesci, Liotta, and the entire ensemble crew that fully rounds out the picture and makes it come to life. By using that rare combination of world-class actors with lesser known, fully capable New York regionals, not one moment of Goodfellas rings untrue. For the full two-and-a-half hours, they pull you right into a completely different world.

It goes without saying that Scorsese was arguably at his finest with this movie. The cinematography, editing, and music are all blended into a fast-paced story that hums along without missing a single beat. Of his great films (of which there are many), this one is arguably his very best, and one would be hard-pressed to find much fault with it. At this point, anyone who is into crime movies has seen and loves this film. If, by chance, you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor. As long as you are not put off by rough language and graphic violence (none of which is gratuitous, by the way – we need to see how visceral these thugs can be, lest we start to glamorize them), you need to watch this true modern masterpiece.

Henry takes one last look at us from his quaint little house, courtesy of the Witness Protection Program. While he survives, he would hardly call it a "life," as he came to know it on the streets of New York.

A side-note: Any fan of Goodfellas should watch Casino. It’s sometimes called “Goodfellas 2” with good reason. It’s certainly not a sequel, but so much of the tone and feel of it is the same, that one might feel like they’re watching the companion piece to the earlier film. Casino is a bit more sprawling, and some say bloated (I disagree), but it’s another excellent film in the same vein.

That’s a wrap. 90 shows down. 15 to go.

Coming Soon: Unforgiven (1992)

From the movie that deconstructed mafia gangsterism to the movie that deconstructed the American Western film. This is another of my absolute, hands-down, all-time favorites. I’m looking forward to watching it again and writing out my thoughts on the dark tale of Will Munny. 

Film # 79: Raging Bull (1980)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: three or four (last time – about 5 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Real-life boxing champion and general dealer in violence Jake LaMotta doles out serious beatings to opponents in the ring, as well as to his closest family members outside the ring.

Extended Summary (More detailed synopsis, including spoilers. Fair warning.)

It’s the early 1940s, and middle-weight boxer Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) is coming into his own. A bruising, tenacious fighter from the Bronx, New York, LaMotta makes up for in sheer will and toughness what he lacks in grace and technique. His punishing style of boxing has him on a path towards a championship title fight, except for the fact that his way is blocked by the New York mafia, which controls boxing in order to manipulate outcomes to its own advantage. Jake’s manager and younger brother, Joey (Joe Pesci), tries to convince Jake to relent and allow the mobsters to help them get their title shot, but the eminently stubborn Jake refuses any outside assistance.

Jake soon becomes infatuated with a fifteen-year old neighborhood girl, Vicki (Cathy Moriarty), for whom he leaves his wife. After a few years, the two get married. Jake grows ever more jealous and controlling of Vicki as the years go on, relentlessly questioning her every move and suspecting every man around her as trying to take her from him. Through it all, Jake continues to win fight after fight in the ring, though he is still refused any shot at the title. Even after two solid fights, including a victory, against the other prime fighter of the era, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jake is blocked from championship contention by the corrupt powers that control the sport.

Joey and Jake, sweating it out in a training session. Despite Jake's prodigious in-ring toughness, the mafia blocks their title shot for years.

Jake continues to win in the ring, with his main rival Robinson now in the army. He even pummels a supposedly handsome up-and-coming young fighter into a bloody mess, after Vicki offhandedly calls him “good-looking”. Shortly after this fight, with Jake out of town, Joey spies Vicki in a bar with a few local men. Though her evening out is innocent enough, Joey loudly proclaims that Vicki is embarrassing his brother, and he demands that Vicki go home. She refuses, Joey becomes enraged, and attacks one of the men she’s with, local Mafioso and former friend, Salvy. The fight is soon straightened out by the local Mafia boss.

Jake is then allowed his title shot by local gangsters, but on one major condition – he must throw the fight so that the mob can make a killing by betting against him. Jake reluctantly accepts. Throwing the fight, though, is easier said than done. His opponent, Billy Fox, is far inferior to Jake. Jake almost knocks him out on accident, and then refuses to fall down at any point in the fight. The fight is stopped and victory briefly given to Fox, but an investigation in launched and LaMotta is banned from boxing for a time. However, when the ban in up, he receives his first true shot at the title, winning convincingly against current champion, Marcel Cerdan.

Three years pass, and Jake manages to retain his title throughout, though maintaining his fighting weight becomes more and more difficult. One day, he begins to question Joey about the fight that he had with Salvy. Jake, now so obsessed with jealousy over his wife, suspects that Vicki has been having affairs, including with Joey himself. Joey refuses to answer the interrogation and leaves. Jake then begins to question Vicki, who is frustration sarcastically screams that she has had affairs with every man in the neighborhood, including Joey. Jake, too enraged to see that his wife is being sarcastic, storms over to Joey’s house and begins to beat him unmercifully. Vicki catches up and tries to stop Jake, but Jake knocks her out with vicious punch to the face. When the dust settles, Vicki starts to pack up and leave Jake, but decides to stay after Jake apologizes and begs her forgiveness.

Jake wins his next fight, and tries to call Joey afterwards, in order to try and mend their broken relationship. The attempt fails, though. Jake’s next fight against Sugar Ray Robinson is a bloodbath. Jake, either outmatched or simply in a completely masochistic temper, allows Robinson to land vicious blow after vicious blow, though he refuses to fall down. The fight is stopped, and Jake loses his championship title.

The Bronx Bull, in the midst of getting mangled by long-time rival, Sugar Ray Robinson. It all goes downhill from here for the champ.

Several years later, Jake is tremendously out of shape and with his family in Miami. He has retired from boxing and opens a night club, where he spends his evenings drinking hard and doing bad standup routines. Vicki soon divorces him and takes their children with her. Jake’s life slides down even farther, as he gets arrested for serving under-aged girls and introducing them to older male patrons in his night club. In an attempt to raise bribe money, Jake even hammers the gems out of his middleweight champion belt, but all for naught as the gems without the belt are far less valuable. Jake does several months in a Miami-Dade county prison, in which he breaks down and wails in despair at his own stupidity.

Jake is eventually released, and he returns to New York, where he does more shoddy standup routines in dive bars. He runs into his brother Joey, with whom he tries to reconnect, with very little success.

The last we see of Jake, he is preparing to do a stage performance for a modest crowd in New York. He gives himself a pep talk, as if he were still the fierce fighter of his younger days.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any further research.)

One of my all-time favorite films, and the one that I think is Scorsese’s best. And that’s saying something.

The real-life story of Jake LaMotta, as Scorsese tells it, is arguably the most artful and profound sports movie of all time. It exhibits the psyche of an athlete as it spills into his personal life, and does not blanch for one second at showing you the ugliest parts of it.

I don’t know that every person would feel as I do about this movie. For one thing, it helps that I find boxing fascinating. I’m no expert, but I know a little bit of my history and went through several years in the 1990s when I followed the sport rather closely. Though it’s one of the most brutal of popular sports, there is an undeniable artistry to it. More than this, I am enthralled by the psychology of stepping into a ring and voluntarily exchanging blows with another human, until one of you is likely knocked unconscious. Raging Bull gives us a shocking and entrancing look at a man who was, even by boxing terms, a unique specimen.

Though a disaster in his personal life, Jake LaMotta was arguably the toughest middleweight fighter in boxing history.

Boxing has been called, by the sports’ devotees, “the sweet science”. What Jake LaMotta did, though, was neither sweet nor scientific. He walked towards his opponent, took every punch they could dish out, and never backed away. His ability to take an unholy number of punches without going down is admirable in a way, but it does make the stomach turn. Though filmed in a less visceral black-and-white, Raging Bull is shot in a way that conveys the brutality not only of boxing, but especially of La Motta’s style, which of course earned him his nickname, “The Bronx Bull”. The ever-present smoke, sweat, and dark pools and rivers of blood seen during the matches threaten to choke the viewer. Every time I watch this movie, I feel like toweling myself off.

While the in-ring scenes are brilliantly filmed (my only gripe is that there are more than a few “phantom punches” that are easily noticed), the real tale is what goes on outside of the ring. LaMotta’s personal life is what vaults this movie to a higher plane of film. Scorsese’s approach strikes me as something akin to the way Stanley Kubrick would have made a boxing movie, or the way that Darren Aronofsky approaches his major theme of obsession in all of his films. The darkness in La Motta’s soul, which we see as irrepressible jealousy and unstoppable rage, is the stuff of universal fascination. As disturbing as it is, it’s hard to look away from it.

I compare Raging Bull in certain ways to Kubrick and Aronofsky, but there is a major difference that is all Scorsese – the dialogue. As with all of his New York films, Scorsese nails the urban language dead on. There is a pace, rhythm, and vulgarity that can be wonderfully entertaining to listen to, and Scorsese has always been well aware of this. This is also where we get moments of levity. Let’s face it – these characters are generally not very bright, and it’s easy to laugh at them much of the time. And when we’re not laughing at them, we’re laughing at the insults that they hurl at each other. These moments keep the movie from becoming a two-hour slog through bloody violence and depression. In other words, it’s an incredibly well-rounded story, with many of the elements of real life, good and bad.

Many of the exchanges between the LaMotta brothers (De Niro and Pesci's first film together, by the way) are as funny as they are insightful towards their relationship.

Every time I watch this movie, the time flies. The story, scenes, and character interactions are so gripping that I will continue to watch this movie every few years for as long as I live. This is the reason that it is one of the very few DVDs that I personally own. Whether a sports fan, boxing fan or not, as long as one can stomach the gritty violence in the picture, I feel that nearly any mature film lover can watch and appreciate Raging Bull.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research.)

There are all kinds of great little documentary pieces on Raging Bull. The ones I mostly delved into came on the bonus disc of the special DVD release in 2004.

The story of the film’s making is rather interesting. It basically was made because of Robert De Niro’s fascination with LaMotta’s autobiography. De Niro approached Scorsese repeatedly to do it with him, but Scorsese was ambivalent, not being any find of sports fan and knowing virtually nothing about boxing.

Eventually, though, Scorsese took interest, wanting to do something a bit different. After a crash course in boxing, Scorsese took the story of La Motta and found the universality in it. He described how he saw it in 2004: “The hardest opponent that you have in the ring [of life] is yourself.” Who better to exemplify this than the tragically unaware La Motta?

Around 1977, there was a renewed interest in boxing films by the viewing public. This, of course, was due to the 1976 smash hit, Rocky. While some of the producers of Raging Bull were initially interested in doing another Rocky film, they were intrigued enough to sign onto De Niro and Scorsese’s project.

De Niro, a noted practitioner of "The Method", felt strongly enough about LaMotta's story that he famously put on a solid 60 pounds of weight, just as the real LaMotta did in his post-boxing years.

I was stunned to learn how little interest in or knowledge of boxing Scorsese had. It’s a tribute to the man’s dedication and artistic genius that he managed to bring a novel approach to filming boxing matches as they happen. He employed several very clever visual special effects to create various moods and convey La Motta’s psyche. These and the strange and evocative sound effects add immense power to the fight scenes. To give an example, in some scenes the ring was expanded to give a sense of openness and freedom, while in another it is obscured by smoke and distorted visuals. I never quite realized the effect that these components were having on me, but they are absolutely true.

Another interesting note about the visuals is the decision to film it in black and white. Why did they do this? The main reason is that Scorsese didn’t like the way that the colors were coming through, particularly the bright red of the boxing gloves. Once they talked it over with the crew, everyone was on board. Also, it helped distinguish Raging Bull from the four other boxing movies coming out that year.

Upon the film’s release, the initial reviews were very mixed. Some reviewers didn’t know what to make of it, and they even advised MGM not to distribute it. Alas, they did. The movie was a modest commercial success, but really garnered attention at the Academy Awards, being nominated for eight awards and winning two.

Maybe the most interesting story I heard about the film’s release comes from Jake La Motta himself. In 2004, the real Bronx Bull recalled going to see the movie upon its release in 1980. He had brought his ex-wife Vicki, also prominently depicted in the film, to watch the portrayal of Jake as the relentless, brutal, thuggish character that we can all see. After the film was over, Jake asked Vicki, “Jesus, was I that bad?” Vicki looked at him and replied, “You were worse.” When you see the movie Raging Bull, you will see why this is a rather stunning announcement.

Hard to believe after you watch the film, but the real Vicki told her ex-husband that he was worse in real life than the film's portrayal of him.

The other fascinating notion I heard came from Scorsese. It had to do with sports culture, and boxing culture in general. There is a very unreal expectation thrust upon prize fighters that few fans of the sport are willing to accept – we demand that the fighters be relentless, vicious, and violent inside the ring, but tend to act with shock and reprehension when they behave that way out of the ring. (Mike Tyson, anyone?).

In Raging Bull, it is clear as day that the man inside the ropes and outside the ropes cannot easily be separated, if at all. This is why, to me, anyone who revels in the violent aspects of certain sports has little room to criticize any of the athletes in those sports when they behave similarly outside of the lines. These are the kinds of topics that a great movie like Raging Bull brings up, and it is why it will not fade into obscurity for as long as more violent sports like boxing or mixed martial arts remain popular.

That’s a wrap. 79 shows down. 26 to go.

Coming Soon: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982):

This is the second in a break-neck 1-2-3 sequence of movies: Raging Bull, E.T., and then Blade Runner. This middle flick was one of the first ones that I remember going to see in the theater multiple times. It’s been a while, but come on back to see how it holds up to me.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film # 75: Taxi Driver (1976)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: twice (last time about 8 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers.)

Lonely cab driver tries to maintain his sanity & humanity in the grunge of 1970s New York City.

Extended Summary (More detailed plot synopsis, spoilers included. Fair warning.)

In mid-1970s New York City, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is struggling. An honorably discharged Marine, Travis is now making a living as a cabbie in Gotham City, though the going isn’t easy. His insomnia and constant headaches lead him to add night shifts to his busy schedule. To take his mind off of his nagging unrest, he tells his dispatcher that he will go “Anywhere, anytime.”

As Travis works through his shifts, he sees some of the darkest aspects of humanity. Drug pushers and abusers, prostitutes and pimps, killers and victims. Travis sees it all pass both outside and inside of his cab. He feels a desire to do something about it, but he doesn’t know what or how, and he cannot articulate his feelings to anyone. Added to this is that he has no close friends. The only people he sees regularly are a handful of other cabbies, who are as jaded and he is becoming.

Travis one day sees a stunningly beautiful woman, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) walking along the street. He becomes transfixed and begins regularly driving past her place of work, the campaign headquarters for presidential hopeful Senator Charles Palantine. He eventually musters up the courage to walk in, awkwardly introduce himself and ask Betsy to coffee. Betsy, seemingly intrigued by Travis’s unusual energy and intensity, agrees. Over coffee, Travis professes his loneliness to Betsy, but also claims that he senses the same loneliness in her. Betsy continues to be intrigued, though in a somewhat reserved way.

Travis and Betsy get to know each other a bit. Betsy is intrigued by the "contradiction" of Travis, never suspecting the darkness with which he is struggling.

A few days later, Betsy agrees to see a movie with Travis. Much to her surprise and disgust, the socially inept Travis brings her to a graphic, X-rated film. Betsy gets up and walks out. Travis tries to stop her and apologize, but she hustles away. Travis tries to call and make amends over the next several days, but Betsy does not return his calls.

Travis begins to grow more hateful towards the world around him, his personal failure with Betsy now piled on top of the degradations that he sees nightly in his job. He soon becomes totally insulated. He buys several handguns from an illegal dealer, and stays in his cramped apartment, fantasizing and acting out confrontations with invisible enemies. He even studies himself in the mirror as he vocalizes his delusional conversations.

Travis begins to focus on Senator Palantine in a strange way, noting his campaign speeches and their locations. He also goes back to the campaign headquarters, where he loudly berates Betsy and condemns her, only to be escorted out of the building. A few nights after, Travis accidentally stumbles across a robbery in progress. He guns down the thief and flees the scene at the shop owner’s urging.

Travis later has a run-in with a painfully young prostitute named Iris (Jodie Foster), who tries to get into his cab. She is pulled forcefully out by a rough pimp named Matthew, or “Sport” (Harvey Keitel), who bribes Travis to stay quiet about the whole thing. Travis continues to dwell on this for several days, and he eventually finds Iris and talks to her. Travis learns that she is a runaway and is not even 13 years old. He tries in his clumsy if passionate way to convince her to leave her life in New York and return to her parents. Iris leaves, considering Travis’s urging. However, Sport smooth talks Iris into staying, with Travis watching through a window.

Travis, now gone completely off the deep end. He has taken on his "warrior" garb and prepares for his suicide mission to kill the Senator.

Now seemingly devastated, Travis goes home and loads for bear. He writes a farewell letter to Iris and puts it in an envelope with all of his remaining money. He then goes to Senator Palantine’s next public speech. Sporting a wild-looking mohawk and an oversized army jacket (hiding Travis’s veritable arsenal underneath), Travis makes towards the Senator and nearly has his chance to shoot him. He is spotted just before he pulls his gun, though, and flees the scene.

That same night, Travis goes into the lower East Side of Manhattan and confronts Sport. After a heated exchange, Travis shoots Sport, then continues to shoot his way past one of Sport’s lookouts, into Iris’s room. Travis also shoots the “john” that is with Iris, but not before being shot himself, once in the neck and once in the shoulder. Bleeding profusely, Travis sits on a couch while Iris crouches in horror next to it. The police arrive to find the bloodbath.

After a short time in a coma, Travis recovers his health. He wakes to find a letter from Iris’s parents, who explain that after the shooting, they came from their home in Pittsburgh and brought Iris home. Travis is also hailed as a sort of vigilante hero in the newspapers. Once recovered, he returns to his job driving a cab, and seems to be more well-balanced. One night, his fare happens to be Betsy. When she asks Travis about it, he denies that he was any kind of hero, and he quietly and calmly does not charge her for her fare.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any research.)

I remember a classmate of mine back in college once telling me that he would watch Taxi Driver once every year. He explained that this was so he could keep a certain perspective on everything. In keeping with this, I understand and agree with what he meant. Taxi Driver is an incredible movie that, while difficult to stomach in several ways, should be required viewing for everyone, at least once in their lifetimes.

Watching the mental fracturing of Travis Bickle is as fascinating as it is uncomfortable. Currently, in the year 2012, we are far more familiar with the psychological profile of the classic “loner(s)-turned-madman”, as in the cases of the Columbine or Gabby Giffords shootings, just to name a few. I have to guess, though, that on Taxi Driver’s release in 1976, this was very new and frightening territory. New because it made a homicidal man the protagonist, and frightening because of just how real it all seemed. Even more, it still has the same power, 36 years later.

I was hardly a year old in 1976, but I wouldn’t time travel back there if you paid me. My general impression of that short era, based solely on films between 1976 and 1978, is that it was hell on earth. The movies are always grainy and shrouded in shadows, and the themes were often doom-saying prophecies spawned by decades of Cold War paradigms and hopelessness. Taxi Driver is, for me, the epitome of it all, boiled down and distilled into the form of Travis Bickle.

An early shot in the film. The washed-out browns, shadows, fluorescent lighting, and disheveled humans are what seemed to be part of every U.S. film made between 1976 and 1978.

Travis Bickle, however, cannot be written off as simply a maniac. Faced with depravity and degradation at nearly every turn, Travis has a powerful desire to see it made better, but he isn’t equipped to enact it. Any attempt he makes at a positive connection is stymied by his own lack of awareness or social graces. His frustration simply fuels his hatred for the things that he sees, rightly or wrongly, as cancerous elements. Eventually, it erupts into the final shooting spree and killings.

What I picked up far more on this recent viewing were not the iconic scenes of Travis doing his “You talkin’ to me?” monologue or the visceral final shootout. Instead, it was Travis’s attempts at real human connection with people. Not only with Betsy and Iris, but even with his fellow cabbie “Wizard” (played well by Peter Boyle) and Senator Palantine, Travis makes a real attempt to communicate to people his pain and frustration at watching the world die around him. The problem is that either he isn’t able to articulate it, or his listeners aren’t willing or able to really hear him. Taxi Driver is easily as much about human contact (or lack of) as it is about social ills and mental instability. Again, this is not an amusing topic, but one that this film explores in an entrancing way.

What can I say about De Niro’s performance that hasn’t been said before? Nothing, really. While he had already made his name in The Godfather Part II, his role in Taxi Driver put him in rarefied air for actors. The man’s range even within this one movie is incredible. Bickle is terrifying at times, but the real power of the movie comes from the more delicate moments when he’s trying to reach out, in his confused and reserved way. As he would show in another Scorsese film, The King of Comedy, several years later, De Niro was equally effective at conveying the vulnerability that the role demanded. As someone who has grown disappointed in Robert De Niro’s roles in the last 10 or so years (don’t get me started on the whole Meet the Parents atrocities), I was glad to go back and be reminded of exactly why he is a film acting legend.

De Niro is obviously the big draw in the movie, but even the lesser roles played by familiar faces are great. A disturbingly young Jodie Foster is perfect, and Harvey Keitel is as I can’t recall seeing him in any picture – a street-jiving pimp, complete with red velvet bellbottom pants and wide-brim hat. Even Peter Boyle in his very small role as Wizard adds to the film.

Yes, that is indeed Harvey Keitel as the long-haired pimp, Sport. Keitel's is one of several excellent minor performances in the movie.

Scorsese’s direction of this movie is rock solid. I need to research it, but I can’t imagine that he had a tremendous budget for this movie. Either way, the entire tone of it is just right for the story it tells. Granted, most of us would want to take a shower after watching it, so grungy and distasteful are the environments and behavior in it, but this is exactly the point. It is this filth that sends Travis Bickle down the road of madness, and we are riding shotgun the entire way, as much as we don’t want to.

At this point, I have seen most of Scorsese’s feature films, and he’s one of my favorites. Seeing Taxi Driver again reminds me of the man’s strengths. While he’s clearly a director of the highest order, no matter what kind of film he decides to do, his greatest seem to come from his home – New York City. Sure, nearly all of his movies set there involve crime, insanity, depravity, and any number of other deadly vices, but the stories he tells of them have always been incredibly gripping. Taxi Driver was one of his very first in this vein. I come away from this latest viewing about the same way I went in: I’m glad I watched it again, and I was able to glean several more things from it than before. I will now let five, seven, maybe ten years pass before I feel the need to watch it again. Watch it again, I will though.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research.)

This is another film that one doesn’t have to research much, in order to learn why it has been put on the “All TIME 100” and many other “best films” lists. The craftsmanship of the tale and the acting is superb, and critics early on proclaimed it an outstanding film. The public also appreciated it; while Taxi Driver was far from a smash hit, it did make a relatively nice profit, grossing just under $30 million. I would say that this is surprising for such a dismal tale of urban decay and insanity, but I suppose it struck a chord with people.

It’s interesting to learn how Taxi Driver was a sort of unintentional bridge between two high profile assassination attempts. To write the script, Paul Schrader researched the personal diaries of Arthur Bremer, who shot presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972. (Travis Bickle’s journal entries are fairly prominent as insight into his mind in Taxi Driver.) Fast forward to 1981. In a delusional effort to impress Jodie Foster, John Hinckley Jr. dons a Bickle-inspired Mohawk and shoots then-president Ronald Reagan. Life imitating art, imitating life, I guess.

Initially deemed too bloody and given an X rating, Scorsese washed out the colors a bit, lessening the visceral nature of Bickle's final suicide assault to rescue Iris. Still, it's plenty disturbing.

In researching the film’s influences, it’s hard not to think of several more modern movies that use a rough Travis Bickle template. The John Doe character in Se7en and even Tyler Durden in Fight Club are clearly cut from the same cloth. Those were also films of malcontented loners who first internalized their disgust at the world around them, and then lashed out with the force of a natural disaster.

Back to Taxi Driver. The ending is certainly food for thought. After the final, bloody shootout and Travis’s recovery, the final scenes at first seem out of place to me. Travis is back out on the street, driving his cab, seemingly in far better mental condition. After picking up and dropping off Betsy, there is a very brief flash of Travis’s face in the rearview mirror, reacting with surprise and anger to some kind of blurred motion. Before you know it, though, the moment is gone. I was left to wonder if I had even really seen it.

Well, it turns out that I did see it, and it is an allusion to the fact that Travis is far from OK at the end of the movie. This was something that sparked debate and confusion upon Taxi Driver’s initial release. However, Martin Scorsese and script writer Paul Schrader confirmed that the scene is, indeed, meant to show that Travis is still thoroughly unstable, and that final, lightning-quick flash of his contorted face portends another violent outburst sometime in his future. This also banished a theory that the final few minutes of the film were a dream sequence and we were seeing inside Travis’s mind for a short while. Not so.

And here’s a final perplexing oddity. In surfing around, I discovered that there are plans out there to make a sequel to Taxi Driver. In both 2010 and 2011, both De Niro and Scorsese confirmed this, and director Lars von Trier is rumored to be involved. Don’t ask me exactly how they plan to do this, as the only information out there says that it would be about an older Travis Bickle. If it really comes off, I don’t know what to expect. Scorsese is an absolute master, no doubt, but it’s hard for me to imagine him capturing the feel of the original setting and character without diminishing it somehow. We shall see.

That’s a wrap. 75 shows down. 30 to go.

Coming Soon: Star Wars (1977):

Talk about a thematic shift. I go from a violent loner in a scum-encrusted New York to an intergalactic hick getting wrapped up in a space opera and learning how to fight with a glowing magic wand. It goes to show how movies truly can take you anywhere…

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.