Blank Check with Griffin & David - Taxi Driver with Tracy Letts

Episode Date: August 30, 2026

You poddin' to me? Well, listener, actually - we are podding to you. For nearly FOUR HOURS. The great Tracy Letts joins us to talk about Scorsese's monumental Taxi Driver, a film that is both fully ingrained in the American psyche and completely surprising and effective on every rewatch. Of course we're gonna spend our longest episode ever talking about it! This week, we discuss Paul Schrader's "God's Lonely Man" fixation, Ben's uncle's experiences as a New York City cab driver, the 1976 Oscars, Taxi Driver's themes of male loneliness and white supremacy, the incredible performances of Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster, and how totally normal it is to go to a porno theater on your second date. Oh, and there's plenty of physical media talk. Listen to the 1976 Draft ep of the Big Picture Check out MVD Marquee / Radiant / Vinegar Syndrom Buy The Haunting to listen to Tracy and Sean do a commentary Watch Bette Davis and Robert Wise, Oscars 1987 Watch "The King of Horror" Read Transcendental Style in Film Read You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again Read Drama: An Actor's Education Read Night-Shifting for the Hip Fleet “By Mark Jacobson Listen to Marty go Hogg wild Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Loneliness has followed me my whole life everywhere in bars and cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man. June 8th. My life has taken another turn again. The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next, a long continuous chain. Then suddenly there is a podcast. What's the word there? Change? I thought you might do listen You fuckers, you screw hell You know, you might that do that one

Yeah There's a man who would not podcast it anymore I don't know I'm God's loneliest man does feel to me like The best line in this film Hey, this is a movie With some nice little pieces of writing in it Yeah, sure, that's a good one

If you ask most people on the street Like name movies that you think are well directed or well written, right? Like just even if you haven't seen it What are the movies that you think of that people talk about as being, like, serious highbrow examples of great American direction and great American screenwriting? And this film was snubbed in both best director and best screenplay at the Academy Awards in 1976. Well, you know, they're not too smart. No, but that's wild that it didn't get either. It's not wild.

It's about a psychopath who kills a couple of guys in a... It got four Academy Award nominations. It got best picture. I think that's more a sign of what. What a, you know, what a breakthrough it was. Do you want to know, though, who... No, I know the lineup is insane. Well, do you want to know who beat out Scorsese and director?

It's very interesting. You're saying who's like... There's three nominees in director who were nominated for Best Picture, and then there's two substitutes. Is this the same year as bound for glory? It is the same year's... So Hal Ashby doesn't get nominated. Hal Ashby also snubbed.

Rood. A good director, obviously. Yeah. The first Eddie Cam movie. That's so true. That's very true. Okay, so the three that do connect, obviously, are all the president's men. Yes.

Network in Nashville? No. No, not Nashville. Sorry. Network and... The best picture winner of 1976. Our guest knows it. Oh, it's Rocky.

Rocky. Because he was just drafting these movies. That is wild that John Avelson wins best director and Martin Scorsese was not nominated for best director. And I say, I say no offense to anyone who might have worked on the film, I play Rocky. Who plays John Avelson in the film? You talking to me? This is great. See, I...

He added in the... You got what you wanted, then. It couldn't have been better than that. Wow, thank you so much. What delivery. What puritans. Who plays Avelson and I play Rocky? Jay Duplas.

Oh. That's pretty good casting. That's interesting. Yeah. Because I think Avleton is kind of like... He's like a tough Chicago guy, right? He was sort of like a, yeah. Jay's great in the movie.

Work a day. Well, Jay's... Well, I haven't seen the movie, but he was great when I saw him. Although, I never saw him act in the movie. So, in other words, Jay May stink in the movie. I don't know. I haven't seen it. You saw him in hair and makeup.

He had the look? I saw him at dinner. Yeah. It was great at dinner. Okay, so he didn't even see him. Maybe it looks bad. Maybe they put a clown wig on it. So it was wearing a great jacket.

Okay. It is just interesting to consider best picture that year. Right. You know, and so, yes. Director, you've got Avaldson, Pecula, and Sydney Lumette. And then the two substitutes. Line of Art Mueller for seven beauties. So, you know, groundbreaking, the first woman nominated for directing.

And Bergman, Ingmar Bergman for face-to-face. Which is like, they gave, you know, they gave Bergman a lot of numbs post, you know, sort of in his later career. But that's the sort of, I forget about face-to-face. Like, I remember cries and whispers breaks through and all that, you know, like Fannie Alexander. Our guest just did a 1976 draft on Big Picture. No one drafted face-to-face, right? No one drafted face-to-face. I didn't.

I mentioned it in the Honorable Mention. just because of Olman's performance. It's not, it's not, it's not top-tier berg. It's not a Bergman I've seen. And I know it's one of the ones that was, that was for television, and there's different versions and all that. It is just fascinating that 1976 is the first female best director nominee. It doesn't happen again until 93.

What year's piano? That sounds right. Yes. And then doesn't happen again until 2003. 2003 is Sophia Coppola, right? That's the third time. Right. When we've had four since then, like it's doubled.

Oh, maybe even more, right? I mean, it's gotten a little less unusual for a woman to be directed. Two Chloe Zhao nominations. And Catherine Bigelow won. Yes, she's the first to win. She's the fifth. No, she's the fourth ever nominated. I think she's the fourth nominated.

Yes, and she's the first to win. And then you had scrolling down here. Campion second nom. You had Gerwig. Gourwig, in 2017. Chloe Jare twice. A little movie called Lady Bird in which the man to my right This is true.

Does fuck maybe the best single line delivery of the word fuck I've ever heard. Oh fuck, I believe is the line? To me, it's Doritos. Well, look, there's a lot of good line readings. Is it O-Fuck or just fuck? I think it's O-Fuck.

It's when she tells you she got into NYU or whatever. It speaks to the quality of the performance, though, that we both were thinking there's a one word utterance. Oh, fuck. That lives in my mind forever, and we had different answers. Doritos.

And then you're forgetting, of course, that Emerald Fennell was nominated. I was not forgetting. I was building the drum roll up to, of course, the most worthy nominee in the history of best director. And Justine Triet was nominated a couple years ago for Natalie Farge. He was nominated for the substance. And last year, Chloe Zhao, again. So it's gotten much, you know, look, we're celebrating that now often one woman will be part of the five. Right.

And we're celebrating that, obviously. Yeah, right. Golf claps all around for the Academy. More women direct movies now. Still not that many, but more. The other thing is that now the Academy feels increasingly international and you almost always have a foreign best director nominee and you almost always have a couple international films in Best Picture. And as Sean called out in the 76th draft,

in the 70s, the Oscars were all about this. It was like suddenly the Oscars were like... The Oscars are pretty cool in the... They were stretching their arms around. Beyond everything interesting happening in Hollywood, they were like bringing in foreign performances, first female director nominee, foreign films in Best Picture and Best Director lineups,

and then by the 80s, they're just like, we're back to our fucking bullshit. And it's finally come back around now 40 years later. Prestige cinema sort of changes in the 80s. Oh, very much. Like 80s cinema is rich. There's lots of great. Rocky and Star Wars, start that.

You're responsible for this. But you know, when you think, Think about movies like out of Africa, they're sort of like, you know, Gandhi, these like big epics of the 80s. It's like those are absent in the 70s and they come back. You could argue, though, that there's something in the taxi driver,

Rocky Divide specifically. These two movies, right? These two character studies of kind of lonely men and cities that are merging a kind of like neolism with some kind of more classical Hollywood traditions. But taxi driver is using that entirely to make you feel bad. And Rocky is using all of that to make you feel great. And the second that kind of code is cracked with Rocky of like, here's a way to make a traditionally crowd-pleasing Hollywood

picture that still feels kind of edgy and artistic. It's a little bit game over. Beyond just Star Wars making like this is just pure blockbuster shit, it's like, well, then we'll just give the best picture to the thing that's closest to Rocky. Well, if for no other reason than just the happy ending. I mean, uh, Hollywood had been addicted to the downer ending for a lot of years. Yes. People were thirsty for a happy ending. I mean, they waited till Rocky 2 to make it a kind of a dumb happy ending.

One could argue. One has the good happy ending. One could argue that's the brilliance of Rocky and the thing they really fucking cracked is how do you have a classic 70s new Hollywood downer ending that also feels like a triumph? And if you can do that, then who wants just the digging. into the depths of how broken men are. Well, credit to Sylvester Stallone for that screenplay. I mean, he found a way to walk that line. It's right way.

But I remember as an 11-year-old watching the Academy Awards, who had loved Rocky in the theater, I was still enraged that Rocky won best picture. I knew that was an injustice. At the time, you were like this nonsense. Yeah. Was there a movie you were rooting for? Well, I'm...

All the president's men or network or taxi driver. Right, right. But even at the time, you knew, like, those are the good ones. I think about, I run the simulation in my head of watching this Oscars live. And I just have to imagine network winning three out of four acting awards and best screenplay. Going into the final chunk of the night, it must have felt like, well, this is inevitable. And then suddenly everything swings rocky for the final two big awards. Right.

I'd like to redo some of the Academy Awards from that. Your due mind? Please. I've got it open right here. Beatrice Strait, I think, is a bad win. I'm going to give the Academy Award for Best Picture to all the President's Men. I'm going to give the Academy Award for Best Director to Alan Pakula for all the President's Men. So over taxi driver, the film we're here to discuss today.

Over taxi driver. I think all the President's men's one of our one of our all-time grades. For Best Actor, I'm going to move Peter Finch into supporting actor because I, William Holden is the lead in the movie. Obviously, Finch is not all over that. I'm going to move Peter Finch into supporting actor, and I'm going to kick out, I don't know, Ned Beatty. I'm going to kick out Ned Beatty and supporting actor.

Why don't you kick out? It's tough. It's interesting because, right, it's Beatty, Olivier for Marathon, man, and then two Rocky guys, Young and Burgess Meredith, both of whom are pretty fun. You're not going to kick out Burgess Meredith. No, of course.

You could make an argument for kicking out Bert Young, Brigh Young's pretty great in the first Rocky. Like, he lays it on the pick after that, but like, yeah. Well, and he brings it back around when he fucks the robot. Is all the president's men... He just loves the robot. Is all the president's men... It's implied heavily that he fucks the robot.

Is all the president's men... Who fucks a robot? In the fourth Rocky, there's a robot that Bert Young's character falls in love with. Oh, maybe I haven't seen four. It really went off the rails, didn't it? You've seen four, but you just don't remember that because it's nonsense. It's nonsense. I mean, four is also. So, like, 78 minutes long and has four montages.

And anyone, everyone just remembers the Dolph Lundgren. See, the Russian stuff. My brother is a boxing fanatic. And we watch Rocky together. My dad was like, this is a big moment. I'm going to show you boys Rocky. And I was like, that's good. And my brother's like, I need to watch every Rocky film.

And I was like, I think I can tap out here. And he gets the box set and he's watching all of them. And I was kind of checked out when, oh, okay, James, he got the living room TV. There's another Rocky movie on tonight. So he's going through two and three, and I'm not paying attention. Oh, Mr. T's in this one? Okay. He fights Apollo again.

Okay. And then I just walk in at one point in Rocky 4 and I go, he's got a fucking robot now? And they go, yeah, Rocky bought Polly a robot for his birthday because I guess Rocky's like a millionaire now in the universe of the movies. And then I was back in because of the robot. And there is a scene that implies that Polly has physical relations with the robot. I need to figure out what the line of dialogue is. but there's a line that pinged for me. Okay.

Can we get back to relitigating the economy? Yeah, okay. So you're going to take out Ned Beatty. To this point, I just want to say, I'm more inclined to give Ned Beatty the supporting win. I think that's one of the greatest one-scene performances in history.

It's true supporting shit. If you feel that way, then we'll kick out Bert Young and we'll keep Ned Beatty. I think that's what in any case. You don't like Robards enough to give him the win. I love Robards, and this is a heartbreaker. Not to give Robards the win, but we're going to give it to Peter.

Finch for best supporting actor. Before or after all the presidentsmen? It's after, which makes it all the weirder, I think. I'm going to double check that. Because it's two consecutive years. He wins two years in a row, and you're like, oh, well, they must have been, the second one must have been President's Men because he's just so good, it was undeniable. It's like, no, they decided Julia was undeniable.

Yeah. It's almost like they gave him two awards for all the President's Men. Right. Well, that's kind of, who's he, Dachel Hammett or something? He's like, yeah. So I haven't seen Julia, but I assume it's a lot of him being like, oh, I love him. booze. It's not a lot of him doing much of anything. He's not very very, he's not in it very much. You know what? I got to watch, Julie. I got to put my money where my mouth is to fully agree that he should not have won that.

But in this alternate reality, we're putting Finch and supporting. We're giving him best supporting actor. We're going to give him best supporting actor. We're going to give him the award to, I mean, just a heartbreaker. One of those years. Robards will get the Julia Award next year as a makeup for all the president's men. Sure, fine. And then Bert Young, we're giving him the makeup for Rocky four when he fucks the robot. He'll get that. And we put in the best lead actor. You have a best actor slot open. And I'm giving it to Robert Redford for all the presidents. Yeah.

His best ever performance. And I'm giving the award to Robert De Niro for taxi driver. He's pretty good. I mean, I think De Niro. De Niro is pretty good in this film. Was never going to win because he had won an Oscar two years prior. Yeah. And of course he does eventually win a few years later for Raging Ball.

I got a thought about that too, but keep going. So is he losing that one? Yes, he is. It's gone. You, you, Thano snapped it away from it. I'm pulling that away from him. Because I'm going to take Timothy Hutton and I'm going to correct the category. You got to put him in lead and I'm going to give him.

I think that's very respectable. He's the lead of ordinary people. Do you know what the De Niro situation is very parallel to? Denzel winning the supporting for glory. And thus he doesn't win for Malcolm X. And then two years later, there's Malcolm X and everyone's like, he just gave him an Oscar. We just gave him an Oscar. I know this is a leading man performance and this is now one of the,

the definitive screen performances in American film history, but can we do it again? Yeah. Who's he up against in Malcolm X? Malcolm X, he loses dissent of a woman. Right.

That's the makeup award for Pacino. This is the ultimate makeup. The magic of trying to fix the Oscars. It's a fucking Sephora award. Where you're just like, right. Okay, so we need to give Pacino award. And then so you start digging back. Yes.

Where you're like, okay, should he have won for like dog day afternoon or whatever? And then like, I'm going to take it away from Nicholson. I'm going to give it to. Right, because that's, that's Nicholson's for cooosness? Is that his first win? Yes. Of three. No, of three, of course.

But the other two are for James L. Brooks movies that you don't even like. Not to call you out. But then do you give Nicholson an award before that or after that? Like, do you, is your sliding door that Nicholson gets Chinatown? You can give Nicholson Chinatown. That's a fun one. Do you give him Easy Rider? China Town.

I'm not giving him easy writer. But if I give him Chinatown, then I'm taking the award away from Art Carney, who everybody loves to shit on. I know. You love to defend, right? I know. I love Art Carney. No, he's got a cat or something? He does.

I've never seen Arientanto? Never seen. It's a pink, right? It's a hardish movie to find, right? Was there even a Twilight Time disc? No. Neri a Twilight Time disc. Right.

Right. But you could... It's the most Twilight Time title I've ever seen. You could do some... Or you could give Pacino the... Oscar that year for Godfather to over Art Carney as well. Can I give Nicholson the award for Last

Detail? Yes, he can. Now, you're taking it away from Jack Lemon for Save the Tiger. I feel like that's okay. Great. You're feeling happy about that. Have we fixed everything now? I will say also in that year you could give it to Pacino for Serpico, but I think last detail is a better performance than

Serpico. But like, I think in some ways last detail is sort of the That's Nicholson distilled. Yeah, it really is. Which, I mean, Cuckers Nest has a lot of the same DNA. I feel like Nicholson also talks about feeling that Last Detail is his best performance and his best movie.

I feel like he has said in interviews, it is his favorite. I mean, you could also give it to him for five easy pieces over George C. Scott for Patton. Georgie didn't even want the Oscar. He didn't show up. According to George. That's a pretty undeniable.

It's a fucking great performance. But like, Lynn, let's give George an Oscar for like Dr. Strange Love or something. Let's keep going back. When he was a hospital. So the hospital. is the year after and then you're taking hackmans away for French connection. I'm not sure you want to do that.

Well, but then could you give Hackman for conversation? What's the ripple effect of that? That's 72. You're taking away Brando for the Godfather. Kind of an iconic screen performance. That was his second Oscar. Who did Brando playing the Godfather? He played the Godfather.

Oh, he played the Godfather. No, I mean, I love playing this game with the Oscars because it is so infuriated. For people I know where they're like, why did Leo win his Oscar for the Revenue? I'm like, you don't understand. Yeah. He was due. You know, they had missed him on this one. And I'm like, well, why'd they miss him on that one?

You don't understand. The guy who won that year was due because he missed on this one, you know, like, and it just never ends. What's fun about this game is when you can identify one that is actually a clean lift. Like the lemon for Save the Tiger, where you're like, actually, we could just pull that out and slot everything in around it and everything's fine. I've never seen the cause and effect where you're like. well, fuck, yeah, I can't take it away from that guy.

Save the Tiger also. That's Avalston, right? What's it about? He's a salesman in a midlife. That sounds like bullshit. Or not a salesman. He works in the garment. There you go.

And that's his second win, right? Because he won a supporting one for Mr. Roberts. Yes. Yeah, it's weird that Lemon, who's a great actor and one of Hollywood's great figures, has two Oscars, both for movies where you're like, huh? Yeah. Like, okay, that's what he won for? Yeah.

He went for the fucking apartment? He won for Mr. Roberts. He probably should have won for like the odd couple where he's fantastic. Am I wrong in thinking that he wasn't even nominated for the apartment? You are, in fact, wrong. Okay. He was nominated and he lost to Bert Lancaster for Elmer Gantry, and I think we can take that one away. Yeah.

We can kick it over to Lemon. Yeah. And then we'll give it to Lancaster for, I don't know. Come on. Come on, guys. Help me out here. The leopard. An incredible performance.

Yeah. Yeah, well, why not sweet smell? The swimmer. How about Lancaster for The Swimmer? Even a fucking... It's a good movie. Gold Watch local hero. The Swimmers. That would be a good lifetime achievement.

Well, the leopard's amazing. Yeah. It does have that thing of... That's the Sydney Poitier, Paul Newman, and HUD. That's a tough... We just got into this because of... Fuck. Why did we get into this?

I have him winning for Sweet Smell of Success on my personal Oscar. ballot, but I have him in supporting. Oh, but I think that's defensible. Oh, I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. A color of money episode to come later down the line, we got into this exact same conversation of the ripple

effect of why Paul Newman has to win for color of money. Right. Which is another very frustrating. You're like, why didn't he win for HUD? And it's like, well, Sidney Ponte won that year. That's kind of a big deal. Like, why didn't he win for? Yeah. Cool, Han, Luke, who won Cool Hand Luke year? It's Stiger

for in the heat of the night, which your best picture winner. I'm giving it to Paul Newman for Cool Hand Luke and then I don't have to give it to him for color of money because I have to say color of money year. He's number five on my list. He's number five behind Dexter Gordon, Bob Hoskins, William Hur and James Wood. Houskins, you're number one? He's thinking. The Dexter Gordon performances is great and it's great that they nominated it. It is one where you're just like, this is just the guy, right? Because he's just kind of sitting there going like, I love sex and foams. And you're like, this is cool. It's not as easy.

as it looks to just be the guy. You know what? You got a Tony, I don't have no Tony. This is true. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. This is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks

to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they shoot a bunch of people, baby. This is the guarantor. I want to know who he wants for 86 best actor, but yes, this is sure. This is Martin's Corsese's guarantor. This is the film that you could argue, mince, Martin Scorsese, as Martin Scorsese.

He is that for the rest of his life and for the rest of time. Yeah, sure. I mean, even if he never... He has his ups and downs, but... Made a movie again after this. Even if he never made a good movie again after this, he would be in the annals of history forever. And certainly, he knew how to capitalize upon this

for the rest of his career, even with the ups and downs. How many of these have you guys done of Scorsese? We've only skipped ahead for one. Otherwise, we've been basically going in this order. So I guess this is our four. We're getting started. Yeah, we're pretty early, which feels appropriate. We haven't done Alice yet.

We have done color of money already. Otherwise, we've just been running up to this. Who's that knockin, Boxcarbertha, Mean Streets? You've done that. So you can tell me who's done those with you? Sure. Miriam Bail did Mean Streets with us. We didn't do, who is a film critic.

Boxcar Bertha and Who's that knocking? We had no guest. And then last color money, we had the great Chris Ryan. We will spell that. Yes. Okay. So you've got a long way to go. The reason I ask is, have you seen everything?

Have you now seen everything in the Scorsese? I have seen every Martin Scorsese film, but for a couple of rockymentries that he's put out in more recent years. That's some real Patreon shit. But I've certainly seen every Scorsese feature. I have not seen Kondon. Kundon. I've not seen Last Temptation. Wow.

And I've not seen Age of Innocence. Those are my weird blind spots. So you don't like the ones without guns, huh? Huh? You just want the gangster pictures. He makes a movie about the Dalai Lama. You're like, skip. I dislike his films where the title is the blank of blank.

Right. The color of the glass. It doesn't work because I also, I have seen Wolfram Wall Street. And you like King of Comedy. Is this a fair question to ask at this point in the process what your favorite Martin Scorsese? I think it might be this film. Someone asked me this just last weekend when I told them that we were starting up our Scorsese. And I said, what do you think is the best one?

And I just knee-jerk went. It's a little bit hard to argue a taxi driver in my mind. I might, as we go through chronologically and rewatch, the other ones, change my mind. It's not like on this rewatch, I went, no question, iron lock, no way anything's beating this. But it does feel like the purest text to me in a way of everything I think. he does exceptionally and is the ultimate example to me of a movie that only he could have made. Tracy, what is your answer? My answer is, unfortunately, the very boring answer of Goodfellas.

That's your number one, Scrocy. And then I would, I think, well, and we'll see how this series goes. After Hours, Last Temptation, and Taxi Driver are the sort of other contenders for me. Those are my favorite Scorsese movies. I like most of his movies. Pretty much all of them. My take would be that I think Goodfellas is the peak of his filmmaking and that this is textually his richest film. It's a great move. Taxi driver is my first by some distance. King of comedy is

probably next for me. That one's pretty great. After hours is way up there. That is my personal favorite, but in a it just kind of hits me way. I would never argue it's the best, but I do think it's way up there. Now, as we all know, you hate the 90s. And so Goodfellas is that the 90s excess of Goodfellas. You were banned from VH1 because you kept pitching them. Griffin, I thought I'm making the same joke. I couldn't figure it out. Storm of their offices and go, here's the pitch. It's just me talking ahead. I was like, how do I do a VH?

Saying how every pop culture thing from the 90s is dumb trash for babies. You're not a 90s. No comedians. This has already gotten a bad rap. I like the 90s. There are things about the 90s I absolutely love. And I like Goodfellas. Yeah.

It's not top tier Scorsese for me, but I like it. I'm no dummy. I recognize how good Goodfellis is. It's just immaculately made. It absolutely is. And there are, you know, some of the set pieces in it are undeniable. But it's got like five of the most watchable scenes in history. Really amazing.

I will admit that when Ray Liotta slams the door in my face at the end of the movie, even in the movie theater in 1990, I was kind of like, well, fuck you too. I know some people who felt that way. I remember that. I think when, again, when we talk about the Academy Awards, and I'm not going to make an argument for dances with wolves over goodfellas. But I wonder if that was part of the part of the reason that Academy voters went, oh, well, fuck, you know, fuck, of course. The movie ends with him being like, this sucks.

I'm going to live in a fucking house. I'm a schnuck. Eat noodles with ketchup and it's like, I mean, obviously, but I think some audiences are like, you're lucky you're alive, you dumb motherfucker. It's not a unique thought. Yeah. But I very strongly subscribe to the theory that the ending is the most important factor towards a best picture win. Right. It is what is...

How are people walking out of the theater? What is the feeling you give them? Our buddy Amanda Dobbins, I think, hit the nail on the head when she saw one battle after another and said the moment the needle drop for American Girl kicks in, he's probably won himself best picture. You're winning over a certain sentimental portion of the audience. That's not bailing out the integrity of its ideas, but still feels like a triumph and has everyone leave and feeling up.

And I remember being surprised that Anora won best. best picture because the ending is such a downer, but yet, you can't deny that the ending is... It's sort of the best part of the movie. It's a gut punch. It's the perverse showpiece. And that maybe is... It's my argument for why Titanic made $2 billion. Yeah. You walk out happy. It's the ultimate example. They all fucking died. It is the ultimate example. And yet you walk out and you're like, I feel elated because she goes to the dream world and marries Leo. The fucking Adam on that one is. Why James Cameron is James Cameron, because he said, I can figure out to make everyone walk out of Titanic cheering.

Hearts full. But that certainly is a Scorsese problem, his endings are usually very challenging. It is funny that the thing he finally wins best picture for is his most mocked ending. The departed, yeah. Yeah. That everyone jokes about the shot of the rat

and how unsubtle it is. I like the shot of the rat. I don't dislike it. Our guest today is that guy. Oh, fuck, it's the king of Doritos. return to the show very quickly by popular demand I will say I received a multitude of text saying

get his ass back truly and secondly when we finished recording our first episode with you you said what are you guys doing next we said Scorsese David said what would you pick you said taxi driver and we look at each other and go

fuck we might have to do that sounds fucking good to me it's a quick turnaround but we might just fucking have to do that Tracy Lutz thank you physical media back in the room. Yeah. Third chair on the big picture.

I knew that we weren't bringing you this time. So we weren't going to... That's canonical and we all know that. No, no. It's disputed. And we're speaking into law by saying it on this podcast. I knew we weren't going to spend an hour going over a blind by disc, a challenge. Oh, yeah.

Right. Sorry, we didn't get you a bunch more random trash movies to ask your collection. I do like that we did basically start with half an hour of alternative Oscar history across text. That's true. It feels like the correct spirit. ritual sequel. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, the gift you got me, I've, I've yet to tuck into some of them, but my kids love, the nanny showed my kids mouse hunt. Oh, there you go. That's a big win.

Because the, and they liked it. The nanny loves it. Okay. And so she, she knew it. She already knew it. She knew it. She was excited to show that the kids and the kids. It's in my head. It's a very practical movie. When you talk about your kids liking Dark Crystal and such. Right. In my head, your DVD collection is like Raiders of the Lost Ark when they put the thing on the show, where it's just like an endless hallway. There's like a, yeah, it's a bit like a forklift. It is a bit like. Like I'm like, how does the nanny or anyone even know like where Mouse Hunt is? Is there a robot arm? Is there a dewey decimal system kind of punching the code to locate? Well, look, the stack you gave me sat on the kitchen island for about a week before it got entered into the system. So the nanny. And you know what? That's my physical media system too is the stack.

the stack piles, then I'm like, it's time to get this stuff up. It's funny that I, right. I try to like theme the stacks and then one of the stacks is themed around new purchases. And then that stack gets so big that I'm like, I got to work that into the other theme stacks. Right. Yeah. Right. So mouse hunt.

Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good to know. Yeah. Any other? Yeah. I mean, you just did your physical media council.

No other big news on the on the world of Blu-Rays. I don't know. I mean, New York, New York just announced on 4K. I, of course, imported the Australian imprint disc, which has some features that are not. being carried over. I have that disc as well. To the 4K release, but the 4K release does have both cuts. Oh, I see. So

the New York, New York I have is just a blue. I think it's domestic blue. Right, right. And then the imprint Australian release is three discs. Oh, I don't have that. And it has both cuts and a lot of special features. But this is MVD

Marquis. I'm going to get the 4th. Yeah, the fine folks at MVD Marquis. Ben, you seem a little too excited by this conversation if you want to just chill out a little bit. All right, I'll settle down. Just because it's a little unbecoming hell ramped up you. Do you do any of the subscriptions? I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm about to fall on the floor.

That's my concern is that you're going to trip your teeth. Your vinegar syndrome, your radiance. Do you do any of those kind of? I do the radiance subscription. That seems pretty good. I've been debating any of these. And there are a couple that I just order every, they don't have subscriptions, but I order every release. When the monthly announcement happens.

A monthly announcement in here. This was when Ben was trying to pick which diss to buy for you and our buddy, Ben, David Grabinski, was consulting on it. His really valuable advice to Ben was certain labels you might just need to rule out. Certain labels Tracy might just be at all to card. I don't subscribe to the Vinegar Syndrome because they'll do a lot of genre horror like 90s or 2000s genre horror that I'm not so into. Vinegar Syndrome has never released a film that is less than a Minta classic. Yeah, they definitely haven't taken right the worst trash and put it in the most beautifully designed package. Or selective than the criterion collection.

That's the other thing I got multiple texts about is five different people upset by us mocking how good of a package they put together for Congo, including Matt Singer who wrote the booklet for Congo. My friend Alex Perlin, who Congo was his favorite movie and his bachelor party was, let's go back to my place to watch. Defending the movie. And defending it's, right, it's a prestige package. That we pinpointed it as the ultimate example of, does this need this good of a release? Oh, well, come on. That one is hot trash.

Come on. Supreme Delory Lindo performance. You can't argue with that. Monkey talks. The monkey talks. The monkey is, the monkey, you mean Ernie Hudson, right? Not Del Reylando, right? No, Delirondos got a one-scene performance.

Oh, that's right. He's like the, uh, the warlord. He's like a warlord. Yes, that's right. I'm not racist, my friend. I've seen, I was just, I was worried you were for a second. I'm not. I've seen Congo.

I was worried you were racist. I was, I think I've seen Congo one. In fact, I'm not racist. I know that Congo is a very important movie for some people, as we're describing where it was like they were the right age. Yes. They saw this weird ass Jurassic Parky kind of movie. Yeah.

I've seen it, I think 1.5. times. I do own the vinegar syndrome. I do, too. I own that goddamn shoebox. I do have it. I went, I went to the store in Pittsburgh recently, and I was running my fingers across that box, and I was tempted, but I still haven't pulled the trigger on it.

Tracy, you were going to weigh in on the monkey. Amy. So fucking stupid. Thank you for weighing in. Perfect. Okay, great. I was talking about this with Matt Singer who wrote the essay in the booklet. It is so funny to me

that Jurassic Park is obviously, humongous, right? And everyone's like, okay, how do we fucking follow this trend? Steven Spielberg's producer is going to adapt a different Crichton book. Yeah. And the hook is, you think fucking dinosaurs are scary? What about gorillas? A thing that... Talking monkey. Species that does currently exist on our planet. Right. And is less scary. And the trailers made it seem like they're going to go to the jungle and gorillas are going to fuck them up. And the movie is, 90% of its runtime, just people having kind of intellectual hard science conversations next to a talking monkey. Should we let this monkey talk? Was that a good idea? At the end, they go in a cave and they fight monkeys for like five minutes in movies over.

It's funny that they didn't even try to adapt it to make it more Jurassic Parky. It is just a classic crighton like, I don't know, I'm a little interested in the science of this. Maybe I should do that Radiant subscription. The Radiant subscription is really good, is really worth it. And like I say, there's a couple, Indicator. I get every release from Indicator. But not subscribed. You just add all. They don't have a subscription or I would. Flickr Alley.

I get every release from Flickr. I love Flickrally. Damn, I don't really. So they do a lot of very old, you know, 20s and 30s, right? They love it. Like, silent movies. Yeah. That's, yeah.

I've been thinking to doing the... My whole problem when you go on the big picture to talk discs. It's just, it's like my accountant calls. It's like, what happened? Physical Media High Counsel episode came out. I cannot tell. you how many carts I checked out. The amounts of money I spent.

Like crazy. Well, you know, we should say, since we're talking up all of these different companies, and, you know, we also do complain on this show a lot that the office is just filled to the brim. Negative space. It's too much negative space, empty shelves. Love some swag every once in a while.

Wink, wink, wink. Send up the free stuff. Do you know what often happens now when I order from these boutique labels? They send you a little message. They put in a little note. I appreciate the note. I've had a couple of little notes.

I like the note. I like the note. I appreciate you. Right. Thank you. Yeah. That's all good. I'm happy to spend.

Happy to spend on things I think are worthwhile and valuable. Such as fancy blue rays of Congo. I mean, what we're doing is important and noble and everyone should salute us. They should hit their pots and pans with the sticks when we walk down the street. I was going to ask you. Hold on before you ask me. Please. The haunting 4K.

Do you have it yet? Yes. Is it out? I mean, I pre-ordered it. I don't have it. I don't have it. Sean and I. I do a commentary on. Really? Very excited about that. On the original. Yeah, it's the Robert Wise. I got to order

that. Beautiful, by the way. And you know when Robert, when Paul Newman won his Oscar for the color of money, he wasn't there. And Robert Wise accepted on his behalf, starts to say, like, Paul really appreciates this. Betty Davis is next to him. Betty Davis and Robert Wise were presenting the award. And Betty Davis cuts Robert Wise off and is like, I just want everyone to understand this is Robert Wise and he's a really great filmmaker. Oh, no, you're right. It's Betty Davis is presenting. Robert Wise comes to accept. Robert Wise is trying to be like Paul really, and Betty Davis is like, will everyone give a little respect to Robert Wise? He may be old, but he made the sound of music.

He may, you know, like she starts, and he's like, oh, thank you, Betty. And they walk off. They play the music. It's the weirdest thing. It's the weirdest thing. I want to talk about TaxiDry, but I just need to close the loop on this. The Radiance subscription, does it include the sublabel? What is the name of the label?

No, you have to. But they do offer a subscription for that? No. No. You have to, that's, that's an extra, that's an add-on. What's it called again? Transmission. Yes.

Which is stuntman and Vampire's Kiss and Cutter's Way was transmission? Was that regular radiance? Stunt Man was, was regular. Vampire's Kiss was as well. Night of the Juggler. They did their night of the juggler. Do you know that one? I've never watched it.

James Brolin, right? Her great things. We had. Carrie and I had a great time with that. That thing is bat shit. The thing is just goes bad ship. Brulen made a lot of like hefty trash, I feel like. Right?

Like that was sort of Burlin's lane in the seven. Like, what hair. What a... Yeah, such a... He's an animal. Like, when you see him in Amityville, you're like, this guy is right. He's an ideal. Yes.

Very close to being the only American bond, as we talked about when we did those Patreon episode. Impossible to imagine. It's sort of a bizarre thought. Very close. There's screen tests. He was supposedly, like, seriously considered. It doesn't really. Wasn't it one of those times

where they were trying to get like Connery to knock like 250K off his quote or whatever? But I think he was in it twice. Yeah, man. And there is an extended screen test. There's also a fascinating extended screen test of him doing Planet of the Apes. Now, Tracy, are you testing for Bonn?

Oh, really good question. Amazon's on the hunt. Denisville Nouve is available. You know, I was looking around. I... When they get serious, I might consider testing. You can be a Bond villain?

That'd be fun. No, he should be Bonnove. Let's not fucking take an off for him. They should get serious. I worked with an actor named Anthony Higgins. You would probably recognize him maybe from Raiders to Lost Ark or maybe from the draftsman's contract. Peter Greenway, he's a, to me that's a classic.

He's a British guy. He plays British guy. In Raiders? Isn't he in Raiders? Isn't he one of the... He is? Let me double check that. Because I do feel like you're right.

He's in one of them, isn't he? Am I making it up? Yes. Yes, he is Major Goebler. He's one of the fucking notches. Sure, sure, yes. He's a very good actor. Very, big Shakespearean actor.

And he's in a couple old Hammer films. Okay. And under a slightly different name, I think it was Anthony Corley or Corley or something. Corlin, yeah, yeah. Taste the Bud of Dracula. He's a novel. He told me a great Christopher Lee story. But also, he was up for Bond at one point.

Wow. They brought him out a couple of times to test for Bond. And the whole reason they were doing it was, because Roger Moore was bitching about his contract. But she did like, we will get some. Every single movie. We will get somebody else. And when I worked with him, he was like, thank God.

Yeah. I did not get James. He was really genuinely. No, I'm on his idea. Right. Genuinely grateful that he was not James Bond. And I said, why is that? And he said, well, because I can walk over here to the off license and make a bet and

nobody's going to bother. Now, you mean the off track betting. You don't mean off. In Britain, the off license, that's where you get your boots. That's where we were. The Offie. Oh, that's where you get your booze? Yes.

So the whole thing in Britain is you can't get booze at the grocery store, at like the corner store. You have to go to the Offie, which is next door. But they call the Off Track Benetting something different in England, too. I thought of that as like the bookmaker or whatever. I mean, like Ladbrooks, you know, like, but yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyway. Bookie, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. He's a lovely guy. Can I tell you my Christopher Lee story? This has nothing to do with taxi driver. I will say, just a few. future plug, we're getting ready to, later in the fall, do Dracula on our Patreon.

Yes. So we're doing one of each kind of major Dracula. So we're doing the first Christopher Lee. Right. We'll do Lucosie. We'll do Lee. I'm getting a gall for that. Sure.

You want to come by? Which one do you want? You want the Langella? Do you want the... No, no. I want Christopher. Lee. You want Christopher.

Okay. My mom said the classiest person she ever interviewed in her entire life. Like, truly, like, the biggest gentleman. Well, here was Anthony's story. So he works with him on... the blood of Dracula. And the first time he works with him, it's raining, of course. It's always raining. Sure. And they've got Christopher Lee waiting in a taxi. What do we call them in England? The taxi? Minicab maybe? Or black car? Yeah, sure. So he's waiting until the rain passes. And so they

take Anthony from the trailer and they put him in the car with Christopher Lee. And Christopher Lee's in the full Dracula get up. And he's introduced to Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee says, Oh, my God. This weather is just dreadful. Long paws. Oh, my God. These teeth just don't fit in my mouth. I'm so uncomfortable wearing these teeth.

Oh, my God, this cape, what this cape is made out of. I can't breathe. It's just a litany of complaint and just unbroken, his fourth Dracula performance. And he's sick of it. And just unbroken stream of complaint. They make the movie. 30 years later, Anthony is cast in one of these T&T biblical, right, one of these mini-series, right,

uh, uh, John the Baptist, right? And he's flown out to, uh, he's flown out to, uh, he's flown out to some desert location in the Middle East. And he comes out of the trailer and they lead him into this holding tent where they're getting ready to shoot. And he sees in the holding tent in a long, flowing robe. Christopher Lee sitting waiting, he's got a long beard and now he's an old man. And he goes,

he's excited to see him after 30 years. And he sits down and Christopher Lee says, oh my God, this sand is getting everywhere. Robe is so hot I can't even breathe. It's like as if it had never stopped. I love it. Have you found this, Tracy,

that certain actors, it almost feels like the discomfort and beyond that the performance and the struggle is like the heart of their process. Oh, absolutely. To... That they need the motor of the irritation.

To answer your question, the TV series is Moses, in which Ben Kingsley... I found it. Oh, my God. I found it. Ben Kingsley played Moses. Christopher Lee played Ramsey's. He must have killed that.

Anthony Higgins played Korach. Yeah. Not sure. He's sort of like a rebel from the Bible. I don't know, really. Oh. But very funny to imagine. Fine.

Put the fucking... Egyptian headdress on me, you know. No, but the unbroken string of complaint is the way some actors have to, like, get through the day. Especially if you're Christopher Lee, you served in the British Secret Service, you killed people.

You, like, you know, and then it's like you made 40 unbroken years of monster movies and shit. Right? He never was in a movie that probably had, like, a high budget. Like, he was the king of these British genre films. I mean, I feel like it was going around again recently, but the clip of

him doing an interview after being knighted or given an OBE? I mean, I guess he was in like, you know, a man with a golden gun or whatever. Yeah. That's the stuff. He would have a better trailer. And the interviewer said, well, there you have it, Christopher Lee, the king of horror. And he went, the king of horror.

I haven't made a horror movie in 40 years. And he started listing all the different characters he played. And I'm like, my God. You're kind of the king of horror. You did play Dracula like 15 times. And it's not even like that was your core franchise. I mean, you did it like six times for a And then you just said, like, open game, who wants to pay me to play Dracula in anything?

He did. He made Italian Dracula movies. He did American Dracula movies. He's the best. He rules. I remember when my mom saw, like, she interviewed him for, I can't remember for what. It was in the early 2000s.

And we watched a ton of hammer horror movies because she was like, I'm scared, you got to watch these with me. And we had a great time. This is a long time ago. That's so funny that for her, from her childhood, she was like, these are primal fears. I'm freaked out by these.

And I was like, I'll watch them, you know. And then we saw. saw, you know, and he'd been in Lord of the Rings at that point, and we saw attack of the clones. Yeah. Which a movie, my mother, like, had no interest in whatsoever, right? She probably just watched. She was like, yeah, I need you to show me his part at the end, right? And when he walks, she was just like, he's just got instant. Even in this, this garbage. Yeah. Instant gravitas. Like, when he's just delivering these lines about the

force and lightsabers. I am loath to invoke ain't a cool news, but I have a very distinct memory because of the timeline of when that would need to shoot. It was before Lord of the which must have been the first time I saw him as well before I learned about Christopher Lee. But this is when I actually learned who Christopher Lee was there was an anical news headline which was Scoop, you will not believe who is playing

the new villain in Star Wars episode 2. I click the link and it says like, guys, I've heard this reliable sources, cannot say who, but are you seated? And then it was scrolled down and it was dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Like, you truly had to physically scroll down the site.

And then it was just a photo of Christopher Lee, blood running down his face, woman in his arms, neck bites. And then it just said, Christopher fucking Lee. And this impressed upon the clue, you've never forgotten. Who is this important? Who is this legendary? Episode two. By episode two, you mean Empire Strikes Back. No, unfortunately, you mean attack.

Oh, I see. It's in the mid-2000s. Well, that's a good system. Absolutely. It is wild that Lucas in the 80s is like, call the Empire Strikes. back episode five and I was like what? He's like, just do it. Right.

Come on. Right. Because people forget that when Star Wars was released, it did not say episode four. It doesn't say episode four. No. It's just called Star Wars. Right. I think when they re-released it right before Empire, he added episode four.

So everyone who had seen the movie 80 times and had it memorized was like, fuck is this episode four shit. What are you talking about? No, it was retroactively titled episode four. After? After Empire Strikes Back. Insane. So it was Empire Strikes Back.

people sit down, can't wait to see the second Star Wars movie, and the scroll begins episode five, and everyone's like, why is it that? Do you think people in the audience went, did I miss? Yes, I'm sure people were just like, what? Like, yeah, I don't know. Were there three in between? I just somehow didn't catch. Taxi driver, I don't know if you guys had this experience watching the movie this time, but upon this rewatch, I was quite taken with the fact that it is taxi driver. Oh, sure. That I just kept going like, this is the most fucking taxi driver movie in the world.

It is wild to rewatch movies that feel like every single thread, every single like fiber is canonized. It's hard to just kind of watch them fresh as like a movie. And yet, I did. It rules.

This is just, and I want to hear, I know Tracy that you saw this film as a child, or you saw some of it and were taking a way? What's the story? Yeah, so the story is, uh, and apologies if there are any cross-over listeners, uh, who've heard this before. But my folks took me to see, uh, a lot of, uh, material made for adults when I was a kid. It took me to see Serpico when I was six years old. That's the earliest, most egregious example, I think. They never went full Travis Bickle date night,

but they were taking you to, well, in fact, they did. When I was 10, we went to the drive-in movie theater to see taxi driver the year it came out. Now, where I come from in Oklahoma and when I grew up, drive-ins were very much a part of our movie going. I was going to say, did you have a picture house that you went to? Was it all drive-ins or what town in Oklahoma are you from? A small town called Durant, Oklahoma, town of about 12,000 people. And when we moved there in 1970, there were three screens in town. There was the Plaza Theater, which was the old single screen in the middle of the town. And then there were two drive-in movie theaters. There was a drive-in called the ship drive-in, named after its owner, ship Bullard. Oh, I love it. Yeah. It's not like it was

naval thieves. Yeah, right. Although there was a big shit, beautiful neon ship on the sign out front. And then there was the sky view, which showed pornographic films in the south side of town, which you could actually see from the highway driving down the road. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which, of course, we called the skis. in view lovingly. But here's the plaza. I found it. That's it.

That's it. It's still there. It's not a theater anymore. It looks like the last picture show, doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. Yeah. It's a big one-screen theater. I worked at that theater as a projectionist.

I projected wrath of Khan in that movie theater. Best movie ever made. That rocks. Every time that James Warner's course scores, you know, spools up, the happiest person in the world. So at the ship, I would also work at the ship. I worked at the ship more than anywhere else. But when I was 10, we went to the ship drive in as a family to see taxi drive. Perfect.

And we got about, and I checked the time on the rewatch a couple of nights ago. I checked the time because it's when Jody Foster and Travis go back to her. And she's like trying to take off her clothes. So it's about an hour into the movie. It's later than you think. About an hour 15, hour 20. It's what really struck me watching it this time is that obviously you see her and you see sport early, but the movie doesn't really kick into what people remember the movie being until

it is about 75% over. That's right. Yeah, you're not quite sure what's going to happen with this guy. Yeah. Because the movie was considered pretty transgressive for the time for mainstream Hollywood fair and because we had already seen some startling stuff in the movie up to that point, my mom turned to my dad and said, Dennis, I'm very uncomfortable. And so he put the car in gear and we laugh.

God bless. I also like to imagine the drive in and then just every five minutes a car just kind of peels out as the movie goes on. He goes to the porn movie with Civil Sheper. A couple cars peel out, you know what I mean? I probably see this movie when I'm like 13 and its reputation preceded it so much that I knew where it was going. I have to imagine your parents sitting there at that time with a character who is, unlike any put on screen in a major movie up until that point, there's a genuine concern of like,

is he going to fuck this kid? Like, what's going to happen? Right? I'm watching it knowing this is going towards violence. And we don't really know who Jody Foster is, so we don't actually know how old the actor is playing the part. But in any case, we leave. Now, this is 1976.

It's not like I can rent the movie. You're not going to catch it on Netflix in nine months or whatever. My folks go back to see the movie the next night. They go back by themselves to see the movie. So they were intrigued. They were hooked. They were intrigued. They wanted to see it.

And then they narrated for me what happened through the rest of the film. Since I guess, you know, he doesn't wind up fucking the girl. They felt it was all right to narrate the rest of the movie. And my dad even acts out the hand to the temple as he's right with the bloody finger as he's firing into his, and he's lost his mind. And then he describes this and he acts this out. And then my mom is the one who says, and then there's a coda at the end of the movie

in which there's this letter written by her parents and Sybil Shepard gets into the car. And mom said, I think it's all fantasy. I don't think any of that stuff is actually real. So credit to my mom for picking up on that. She didn't walk out of there being like, turns out everyone says he did a good job. I guess he was the hero.

Yeah. We haven't talked about, I haven't brought it up that much in our 11 years of doing this podcast, but I more and more think it is a key part of how I ended up being the way I am today. And obviously, this was driven by me already innately being so interested in movies. But if my parents went out for like a grown-up date night to go see a movie, I would stay awake, even when I was supposed to be in bed with the lights off. I would stay awake for them to come home so that they could narrate to me what the movie was in this same. kind of way. And I think my parents were similarly very good at doing it. Yeah. They could finesse it for

you. But would also add their analysis to it. Right. So there are a lot of movies, not this one, because, you know, I'm sure my parents told me the basic shape of taxi driver, but like, I remember them trying to explain train spotting to me. And when I finally watched train spotting, you know, seven years later, I was like, oh, that's that scene and this is what they left out or that's where they editorialized or things like that. But I do think that's... A parent wouldn't do that unless they felt like their kid wanted that. Yeah.

But I do also think that only supports and trains the kind of insane brain that we have to just want to digest these things constantly. And especially when you're sort of being told, like, these things are so close, but you can't watch it just yet. You're hearing the breakdown of what it is. Yeah.

And someone explaining what their reaction to it was, and this is one of those movies where I wish I could have had the experience of watching it without knowing what it was and where it was going. Yeah, right. Even just one time in my life. When do you end up seeing it? Probably not until I'm 18 years old.

Do I wind up going to a video store and renting it? And I remember even then, we were talking about the video store days when you go with your family and try to pick the one. Pick the one. Or no, we weren't talking about it. You were talking about it on the podcast I was listening to while I was driving here.

Green card. See, I can't keep reality. Yeah. It's fine. It's straight. You've been on a big picture run that similarly I was saying when you came in, I've listened to three episodes with you in the last 10 days. Well, I remember one of those videos to our moments, you know, I'm finally going to get a chance

to see taxi driver. And I remember my dad being kind of like, really? I mean, he's like, he didn't feel the need to watch it again. Yeah, sure. He had enjoyed it, and he was greatly respectful of De Niro's performance in particular, but I think he considered it kind of an ugly thing that would need to be revisited. It certainly is. To my mother, this was the definition of an adult movie that I was not right. You know what I mean?

Where she was like, well, you can't rent a movie like taxi drive. You know what I'm like? It was the definitional R-rated movie that was not available to me until I was older. Taxi driver. She's like, that's the most grown-up movie ever made. It is not for young David. And I was like, it's about a, I get taxis all the time. I'm a Manhattan. kids. Nice guys. They know directions. What does he do? He takes people the wrong way? Like, what do you need? He's a taxi driver. How scary can he be?

No, wait a second. You're from England, right? Well, Tracy, you're going to get the story and no one's allowed to make fun of me. I was born in Manhattan. My mantra? My mother is from Utica, New York, upstate. My dad is English. From Surbaden in London. And when I was nine years old, my dad

got a job in London, and he moved and we all moved with him to London. I lived in London for 13 years. I see. So, your first nine years spent in Manhattan. New York kid, Upper West Side, 89th in Amsterdam, baby. Oh, and you're, you've never left this. I've never left, but here's the twist. My mother's secretly British.

Well, I thought, yeah, or she's European, I think. Well, but this is why I'm saying secretly. Right. Because she's actually British, but she was basically raised French. Right. And she's got French ancestry or whatever. Ben, where are you from? French stepfather.

Jersey. Oh, yeah? Born and raised. Yep. And been here ever since. Never been in the central time zone. No. No, because he went to college in New York.

Yeah, into the new school and just stuck around since. See, one of the reasons I wanted to establish this, other than my curiosity about my friends at Blank Check. One of the reasons I wanted to know this is also because you have to realize that as a little kid, living in Durand, Oklahoma, a town of 12,000 people with the movie theater that looks like that, what the world of taxi driver looks like to a kid like that. Of course. And just to America, like, I assume, like, someone to be.

America's watching this movie. It's like, right, that's New York. That's what it's like. It's like murder around every corner or whatever. When I was born, my father worked in an office in Times Square. I think he basically had that office until I was five. And so I did, I do have very primal early memories of the pre-Disney Times Square where we would go to visit my father, which was the area that's still most purely felt like this, you know? And even going to Times Square, during the day as a child, aided by a mother, you know, it's not like I was being accosted in a stroller. But it did look the way this movie looked. And it had that weird energy to it.

Everything was just kind of unseemly and edgy and felt desperate. And the way this movie looks is remarkable, right? It's insane. It's a testament to Michael Chapman, who I assume we'll talk more about, but also a testament to Scorsese and Schrader's vision of New York as a kind of hell on earth. Absolutely.

It is a thing I think about all the time and it hit me while watching this film where I was like, this is what I'm fucking talking about. I hate how overlit almost all evening stuff is. Yeah.

I find it is so evocative to be in dark places where you actually can't see stuff and almost all movies feel the need to make things more legible than they would be in real life. And I understand. that part of it is, especially in the history of film, that film stocks were so slow,

that you needed to overlight even if you wanted to make something look dark. Gordon Willis films still would have used infinitely more lights than we would need to use today to shoot something on video to just be able to get any image that registers. And yet, this is a movie, especially in the opening and the sort of opening credit sequence, where I'm just like, God, I love how much you cannot see. It makes it so much scarier. It's part of the hell on earth thing. that you have this insane contrast between these neon lights that are both the fixed lights of the locations

and the headlights of the cars going by kind of smudging through time and space and then just voids of blackness. Just what the fuck is happening there? Can I offer a take, though? A little bit of a small take. I also do think it's kind of a beautiful and seductive movie. Like, as much as it is, like, New York is terrifying.

Like, I'm also watching. I'm like, this is romantic. Like, it's a little romantic. It's got that impressionistic thing. You're a little enchanted by him. I think it's crucial to taxi driver that you're not just like, this is a freak. I'm watching a freak in the freak show. The fact that he's handsome, that he's got the little bits of De Niro Twinkle amongst the, you know, disturbing.

I want to put parameters around it because I really want to resist the temptation to draw the comparison too many times. Don't bring it up. I know what you want to bring up. He wants to bring up Todd Phillips's Joker. It just. Which is a, you know, which is kind of ripping off this movie. It's thoroughly ripping off this movie. Yeah, this end-king comedy.

I assume you've not seen this film. I have. I've seen Joker. I had not re-watch taxi drivers since seeing Joker or Follyada. And it was astonishing to me, A, just how wholesale a rip-off is in ways I kind of forgot how one-to-one some of the elements are. But B, that it just fucks up that exact equation, which is just the characterization of Travis Bickle is so perfectly dialed. in on when is he pathetic, when is he sympathetic, when is he empathetic, when is he terrifying, when is he unknowable, and the soup of that, and the dance of that, and what feels like the

absolute distinction is that this is a movie defined by what, to me, is the master's stroke of the movie in the moment where Scorsese becomes a generational genius is in the payphone conversation when the camera moves away from him. This is too painful. One of the first camera moves I ever learned about as a teenager. Like, it's Ebert or someone talks about it in a review where they're like, notice how the camera can't look at it. I watched the movie and went, wait a second, what the fuck is going on? Like, pause the VHS and then ask Jeeves, what is this?

You know, because I was just like something has happened. Was Jeeves helpful? Yes, he would, whoa. But it felt like something has happened here, right? Like, Dylan just went electric. Like, the language just changed in some way. I don't understand, but I understand. what it made me feel and what is the intent of this.

And Joker is a movie that, as you're saying, is look at this fucking freak. Yeah, yeah. And let us not mention Joker again, please. Of course, only refer to him as Richard T from here on else. But it is a movie that he is so captivating. And it's not a traditional charisma. And it's also kind of unlike to me the other banner breakthrough 70s, new leading men, new Hollywood performances.

It's still impossible to pin this fucking thing down. Now, that statement is something I really felt on this rewatch, getting ready for this. And for me, it's a hallmark of great movie making, great art, the way it continually shifts and changes. And you have a hard time getting your arms around just what the hell it is. And obviously, the film is fixed. The film hasn't changed in 50 years.

And yet your relationship, to it changes, the person you are changes. And it's, it's, uh, just sort of endlessly fascinating. The myriad ways to look at it, to look into it to, to the, the question about perspective, about point of view in the movie, which is pretty, pretty profound question. You have to ask yourself, you're talking about the, the, the romanticism of the city, David, which is not only present in the way it looks, but also obviously in the very lush score. Right from the start.

Bernard Herrmann score, right, with the lush saxophone, which is argued about, right? Is it too much? Is it too heavy? Right, yeah, I think the score's incredible too. I also, I kind of forgot. It is interesting when these young guys are using the sort of the craftsmen of their idols, right?

Like Herman Hitchcock's guy. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I imagine those relationships were odd. And, like, Spielberg, even with Williams, who's older than him. He's not, like, totally, you know, old. But, like, William's is a guy who basically... I want someone who has a hand on the prior generation.

Williams had just popped at the end of the old school. Right. Versus someone like Herman who was... But I love the Herman score. Do you love the Herman score? I mean, where are you on the Herman? It is very heavy. You know, like, it's very...

You know, Carrie watched the movie with me, and she had said after... I was just asking her... her the question about it, and she had said, you know, she said, the truth is that the wrong score would isolate him even further. He would look even smaller to you than he does. And it's important that he not look that small, he not look that infinitesimal because you're trying to get inside him, right? The movie's trying to put us inside his point of view. Right. And that the score is somewhat successful at doing that. Basically, the score has two essential things. themes that just could replayed.

I want to call out the sub-theme because there's the obvious taxi driver theme that we all think of that feels essentially just theme from taxi driver. Over for sure. But then there's the kind of deep like, done, sustained, which is the really important counterbalance of this isn't just romanticized this guy's kind of the narratives he tells himself. It is like a musical embodiment of the like wrong note playing inside of this guy constantly. that he's trying to drown out with the other theme. Ben.

What's up? A lot of this Scorsese series is going to be a journey for you, re-watching movies that were ruined for you by annoying people you grew up with. This is a thread we've established. Yeah. God of Jersey Knuckleheads who just were obsessed. With the, you know, violent movies. Travis Bickles, fucking awesome.

Yes. What a cool guy. Yeah. Taking all the wrong lessons. Right. I mean, when I first saw this, though, I was so enamored with the edginess of New York City. Right.

That was really what... By the time we're watching it, it's not like New York stopped being edgy, but this New York is gone. So it's sort of like... That's also a little romantic of like... Right. When New York was really porn theaters and scuzz and like, yeah.

We had it right. I don't know exactly when it's set because it was released in 76, but it also, for me, I just... I have so much romanticism for 70s. because that was the year of punk, CBGBs. Right, right, right. But I think it is kind of important that Travis Bickles predating that.

I know, right? You know, even the Mohawk. Yeah, right? Like, which became a staple haircut with punks. But I just mean that there's not a productive subculture that he could find as an outlet. Sure. You know, like, a lot of Travis Bickles take the off-ramp to punk, which is a better way to extant.

those emotions. Yes. Rather than just spiraling in your own head and turning to violence. Totally. That's right. Because before 1977, a mohawk was the sign of mental illness. Right, right. Clearly, you've lost your mind.

I mean, I think it'll be in the dossier, but right, someone basically, like a Vietnam vet who, like, told Schrader, like, when someone shaved their head into a mohawk in my unit, they were about to do something insane. Yeah. Like, that was not a sign of someone being like, you know what? I want a spicy haircut today. Like, it's more just like, I'm going to go into the jungle and knife people. Because they're referencing more so indigenous. Like tribal. Exactly.

Like, that's what they're, yeah. I also think it's fascinating for how much the legend of De Niro is in the 70s, this is the most fucking committed actor in the world. And when he gets the raging bull part, it's the, can you believe the weight he gained and lost in all of this, that he famously would not shave his head into a Mohawk. The Mohawk is prosthetic. It is an incredible looking prosthetic. But he clearly was like, no, no, no.

If I shave my head into a Mohawk for real, my career is over. I can't work again. I will be a pariah. I can't walk the streets with that when I'm not filming. Right. A, I don't want a shaved head. B, I don't want to have to go home with a Mohawk for three weeks. Have you worked with De Niro?

No, never met him. Yeah. Have you had a Mohawk? Never had a Mohawk. Got it. What is the wildest haircut you ever? That's a good question. You're looking at it.

You're looking great. It's fantastic. So, taxi driver, yes. So, okay, so you see it as a young man. When you said you liked taxi driver to us last time we saw you, I was like, I maybe note an influence in some of Tracy's work. There was a line. You would have written about disturbed individuals. Yes.

I had no idea if you perceive that at all or if it's, you know, just. Kind of, you know, influences are, right. Who knows how they work on you, you know? Certainly this was a... You never were like, I'm going to write my taxi driver. No, no, no. And I have to say, I don't know when I... Well, I'm probably upon first watching it, not when I was 10, but I mean when I was 18 or whatever,

I probably recognized a lot of the craftsmanship at work. And yet I think it was probably only over-repeated viewings that I started to recognize, oh, it's not just a Scorsese De Niro joined. It's Schrader. Schrader is a huge part of it. The cinematographer, the score, the editing. I mean, Scorsese surrounded himself with a team to help deliver this whole movie. And this is, in my mind, a classic, like, three authors film.

I think you have to give equal kind of authorship to Schrader, De Niro, and Scorses. And I think that's true of Raging Bull. And I think it's true of. Well, those are probably... I mean, because, like, the later Schrader-Skorsese collaborations are very interesting. I think the same is true of Bringing Up the Dead. Well, for one, Cage is not as vital, you know, an author. He's a great... It's a great performance, but De Niro clearly was a somewhat equal creative partner with Martin Scorsese

any time he worked with him. Right. They were developing... Right, right. Bringing Out the Dead is great. You know, Last Sipation of Christ. These are great movies as well, but... But there's a brotherhood between... I mean, I think it's even different than Scorsese... in Decaprio.

There's something about... Yeah, I think Decaprio's a little bit more like I am your instrument. You know, I think he has input. Well, you can see it in the work that Schrader then goes on to do as a director, right? He takes as much of the lineage of taxi driver with him

as Scorsese does on his track. Right, and Schrader's still got it. I mean, like, all his movies are about some weird fucking guy lives in a motel is insane. God's lonely man, right? That theme kept... writes in a goddamn diary.

What was it? Master Gardner, I think I saw at the New York Film Festival. The second Joel Edgerton opened his diary and started the whole audience left. We were like, how can we not? I mean, I liked the movie, but we were like, he's at it again, he's writing stuff down.

We're hearing an inner monologue. You guys have not done Schrader, have you? We haven't. No, I mean, I'd love to do him. He's got such a fascinating career. And of course, you know, all his Facebook posts, you know, bring me such joy. Alex Ross Perry sent us like three this morning.

But, like, you know, he was never really a blank check guy. I mean, the closest is like Mishima or something where it's like he got to kind of... Or the Exorcist movie they canceled. Yeah, but he is fascinating. He's so fascinating. Can I read? I was, I logged this on Letterbox this morning. And then I was looking at other reviews and I saw the trader had logged it in 2022.

Logged a review of taxi driver? I wouldn't classify this as a review, but I want to read what he wrote. Because I think it's really interesting. March 5th, 2022. He says, I included a front piece. quote on my first script taxi driver from Thomas Wolfe. The whole conviction of my life rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon,

peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central inevitable fact of human existence. And then this is what reminded me to read this, David. Yes. I've attached a front piece quote to my last script. He says last, and he also spells script, S-C-T-R-I-P-T. Yes, and I think the account you're using here,

it's like it's taking his other writing and sort of correcting it on Litterbox. Right, so like he posted this somewhere else. Front piece, quote, to my last grip, master gardener from Leonard Cohen. Quote, and I choose the rooms that I live in with care. The windows are small and the walls almost bare. There's only one bed and there's only one prayer. I listen all night for your step on the stair.

End quote, Twix the two is the arc of hope that living can bring. There you go. And I was watching one of the things on the 4K. Yeah, I watched the 4K for this. There's a, there's a... Is it the 4K that's in the Columbia? box set? They have finally issued a standalone release as well.

I got the standalone version of it. I have issued the Columbia box sets, please forgive me. I'm a fan of the Columbia box sets. David thinks they take up too much space. They're gigantic. They fuck with the shelf. They're gigantic and I'm getting like Gandhi.

I just was wondering if there's any upgrade from the from the It's the exact same disc in different packaging. That's what I thought. Yeah, yeah. Identical disc. But there's a there's like a 20 minute trader looking back on taxi driver thing. And he says, I'm going to paraphrase him poorly here,

but it was a thing that really jumped out to me. The central problem with characters like Travis Bickle is that they think loneliness is like a disease that's been put on them and loneliness is a choice. And he said, like, as a guy who struggled with it myself, loneliness is a thing you inflict upon yourself. Indeed. It is a choice you make.

But I mean, like, that is so, so commonly what you see now with these people on the internet in cells, anyone who's basically like, it's someone else's fault or it's society's fault that I am lonely, without a wife,

without a job, whatever, I don't know, you know. These folks. And that corners of the internet have now basically become a crowd-sourced inner monologue.

The things that Travis Bickle is telling himself are now a conversation happening between hundreds of disaffected young men talking to each other or podcasting

or fucking YouTube or whatever, you know? It's like that's what the conversation is. I mean, it's part of the weirdness of the fucking time we live in where it's like people are bonding over how they feel completely alone and isolated rather than connecting through that. Yeah. Do you think Travis would have been on the internet?

I mean, this is another thing. You're like in the way where it's like, Travis is two years later, what happens if he has access to punk, right? What if he drops a guy off at CBGB's one night? I'm like, that probably, he turns out better. Yeah. But if he's, in the time of the internet, I think he turns out worse. I think it's actually he gets too much positive motivation.

Yeah, he goes even further. He's a super poster on 4chan. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. He's top 1% commenter on Reddit. Yeah. See, I, again, talking about the nature of the way this movie transforms for me over time.

I mean, I'm 60 years old now. And I, and Travis now looks like a young man to me. I mean, he says he's 26. in this movie. Right. That's how old would De Niro have been? Yeah, that sounds almost right. He said 26 in this and I had the fucking last crusade, my face melted thing.

He was a little older. De Niro's like 32. Right. So, but 32 to me now is really young. Yeah. And I don't know that I've ever seen, noticed Travis as a young person before. And I just felt so much more sympathy for him on this watch than in the past. And I actually got a little mad about that,

about this idea that Travis is the first in-cell or the, you know, that he's the birth of the, you know, that, oh my God, the depressions of these people to make a movie about an in-sell before we knew what insoles were. It's recognizing a thing that was already existence. But I hate those motherfuck. I mean, fuck those guys. Those guys are fucking losers.

Yeah, the bane of society. It would be really funny if you came on the show and you're like, but in-cells, they get a bad rap. They ain't so bad. Let's give another show. It's involuntary what's happening to them. Maybe not a hot take. No, but I agree with you.

I hate those. I mean, Marty says in more recent interviews is like, I feel like half the people in the world are Travis Pickles. We were trying to make a movie about someone distinctive here, you know, and now it feels not distinctive. I think the weird collaborative group nature of the kind of in-cell community, which in and of itself should be an oxymoron, right? There is a greater degree of, like, self-pitying. Yeah. Well, what? I didn't do any research on in-cells.

Who started this shit? I mean, it's impossible. Don't talk. Don't worry about it. That's actually the correct answer. I mean, it's, but it's what Griffin said, which is somewhat interesting of like, right, it's sort of lonely or angry people find each other. And this was the argument for the internet of, like, we'll connect.

And thus, we will not be lonely. But instead of actually connecting, they just discuss their loneliness. Like, the only connection is over what they're angry about or whatever. I think one of the moments that underdiscust actually is a real radicalizing moment for Travis in the film is even his first meeting with the other cabbies. That he cannot connect to them. Yes. That here are other guys who like live in the darkness. These are the guys who can get him a gun and know all the people and are sharing stories of their kind of like torrid, lascivious behavior and experiences and whatever.

And he does not know how to enter that conversation. And it's not just because he hasn't had the same life experiences as them. He just doesn't know how to relate to other people. And these people are connecting to each other and going like, you're right and you're right to say it. And they're pumping each other up. Right. And that's so different than the Travis Bickle thing.

We have no real sense of like Travis's life, right, or his backstory. Obviously, we know he's a veteran, but like, do we know where he's from or he has family or anything like that? that ever come up? He writes a card to his parents. He writes to his parents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we don't, do we know where he sends that car? Let's find out. I don't know that it comes. I'm not sure. Like, and we don't need to. Like, it's fine. I mean, so much of it is this entire generation of men who were drafted into a war that we shouldn't have been fighting in the first place. And then we're just sort of spat back out onto the streets. And it's like, you figure it out now. But clearly, the relationship with the parents is important because. Because of what he doesn't know, right?

Clearly, his parents haven't done a great job. They haven't narrated to him the movie they saw that night while he was with a babysitter. And they especially didn't explain to him what the movie was saying. This is not a guy who was broken by the war. This is a guy who was never raised properly, who probably wasn't wired properly, and then was put into an hyper-extreme situation. Treated as just, you know, one of any. and then spat back out

and now he's just completely fucked. I'm going to open the dossier here. We got our research, of course. This film starts with that rascal, Paul Schrader, a film critic. If anyone's ever read, Trent and L. Steinland film, his book on Ozu and Brasson and Dreher,

it's the best. But he was not a filmmaker yet. He's a film writer. His marriage has fallen apart. He was married to Janine Offa Wall, right? The great production designer. He loses his job as a critic. He says he's in a dispute with the AFI. I do feel like Paul Schrader's always

basically like in a fight with someone. Yeah. Like he's always pissing somebody off or whatever. I'm just going to call out quickly. I never settled upon, but Scorsese and Trader have said just Midwest. Okay. Right. Much as. And Paul Trader is from, like Minnesota or he's like a Calvinist, right? Like anyway. But he says 73, he's living in his car in L.A., riding around all night, drinking heavily going to porn movies because they were open all night and for no other reasons. Yeah. And crashing someplace during the day. The Pussycat Theater

in L.A. was one of his haunts. He says he'd go there to sleep and no other thing. Yeah. I'm adding the... And then he goes to the ER because he like doubles over in pain and he has an ulcer. He's 27 and he says

like I realize I hadn't really talked to anyone in a month. And I'm basically like about to die. I'm like driving around in a metal coffin in my car in a busy city. I'm completely alone. And then he says he hears the song, the Harry Chapin song Taxi. And then Arthur Bremer shoots George Wallace, the Alabama governor. He's running for president when he gets assassinated.

That's funny that this movie basically was like a P-Tier Griffin moment where he saw three things at the same time and was like, Taxi driver. Just based off of what you said, He just puts those things together. He's like, I might as well be honest. It was this weird, like, conglomeration of these things. I'm not implying that it ever gets to Travis Bickle levels of darkness. I am curious if you gentlemen have the same experience.

I never feel more mentally unwell than when I have been physically ill. When I have, like, I am sick in bed and kind of isolating for four or five days. And I come out of that in that way you're saying where he's like, huh, I kind of haven't talked to anybody in a month. Right. Where I just go, like, what the fuck am I thinking? See, I... I mean, you have a house full of handles. I was about to say, I'm a very social person.

And so I do require... I do like to, you know, I'm extroverted. I like to see people that charges my batteries, blah, blah, blah. Now the idea of like, David, you're going to be bedridden for five days. I'm like, sounds like a vacation. Am I not going to die? Sounds great. I just feel...

I don't know where you are on this street. When there's the imposed state of you shouldn't interact with people. And I certainly felt extreme versions of this in lockdown as well, where it's like, it actually, the safe thing to do, is to not go out and talk to people. Locked down the most extreme. And then you just go like, the fuck is my brain thinking? Yeah, I don't know.

Tracy. Are you a lonely guy? Are you an introverted person? I don't know. You've talked about not wanting to leave your house recently, but that's obviously because of the AV set up. I'm a homebody. I've always been a home body.

You always have it. Right. It's not like, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I can go out and be social. And then I have a, my social anxiety. always happens after the fact. Like once I'm home and I go,

oh, why did I talk? Why did I say anything to anybody? Why don't you just be quiet? Yeah, I have... I just shut the fuck up. I have that in anticipatory. It's hard for me to get myself to go to a place. And then I feel terrible about everything I did or said afterwards.

When I'm there, I'm vaguely okay. Paul Schrader says he wrote the screenplay in about 10 or 12 days, continuously. It was staying in an old girlfriend's house. and he just wrote and wrote and wrote. I almost feel like this is the kind of movie you can't write if you think about it too much. I think that's probably right.

He said it just jumped out of his head. He had to create the plot. Like, that was the one thing he needed like, okay, he wants a girl he can't have her. He tries to kill the politician. Yeah, it's like one of those taxi driver things where he tries to kill somebody to impress a girl. He says, you know, came from the gut, like largely.

And his sort of off-repeated line, but it is a good one. He's like, I wrote the character. so I wouldn't become him, essentially. Yeah. You know what I mean? Which is a good, it's a good line. It's also the fascinating, not to jump ahead, but the Scorsese versus Schrader thing of,

Schrader always felt like a guy who was dangerously close to fully becoming one of his characters. He was right on the edge. And he speaks about, like, his hedonistic impulses and all that stuff. And Scorsese felt like, feels like a guy. Michigan, not Minnesota, by the way. I apologize. Good, good correction. Scorsese feels like a guy who, you know, sits alone in a room and is self-punishing for even having the thoughts of the mental experiment of doing things.

Scorsese, you're saying? Yeah, yeah, because he's like sort of housebound when he's a boy and all that. But they're both bonded by this sort of like, my brain goes here. Scorsese's maybe thinking about it a little more anthropologically and then feeling tremendous shame about it. And Schrader's like, let me write it so I don't do it. Trader also obviously admits very influenced by Sotra by European this is what he calls the European existential hero so like the stranger notes from the underground

the movie Pickpocket I was because all the Brasson films are so man writing a diary obsessively focused on things The existential hero's problem always is should I exist Right it's not like do I want X or why He's just like should I even exist should I have been thrust into existence. It's interesting because the, well, it's interesting for a lot of reasons, but the,

so Hollywood movies get aped by European filmmakers. They fall in love with. Right. The French New Wave and all the Italian, you know, like they're like, right, like, we love it. And then those 70s, the new Hollywood 70s filmmakers, influenced by those movies, turn it around and they sort of give their version of that. And clearly that was a very healthy turning of the soil for those various generations. I mean, if taxi driver is American brisson, existentialism that comes from film noir from before that,

we're all the better off for it. So I'm curious to hear both of your takes on this, but I was watching this trying to think about the lineage of how you get to taxi driver existing, right? From two guys who absorbed a lot of literary work and movies and all of this. I was primarily thinking about Nicholas Ray and Ilya Kazan and those sort of like, you know, the method, the new styles of acting movies about self-tortured men. Sure. That were always kind of explosive, that were more theatrical. even when they were moving into a more modern style of acting. They're rending garments.

They're yelling to the sky. And part of it also is that the social mores of the time are that you kind of couldn't say what was actually going on. Men can't be emotional in that way. Well, there's that. There's literally that's what the character's reflecting. But then there's also like the movies themselves have to render things into deep subtext or things need to happen off camera, you know? Or the quiet part is never said and something else is. screamed out loud.

And this feels like, to me, one of the first examples I can think of, of a movie. And Joe, which Peter Boyle is also in, feels like a kind of an important link in the chain. The Norman Wexler movie. Yes. Big favorite of terror team.

But where you can kind of be like, the movie is allowed to touch these things, specifically, which allows the character to be less explosive. that allows the performance to become more internalized because you don't need your sort of, you're tearing me apart, Lisa, kind of moments. Right. No, I think that's right. And also, you know, Travis's relationship to violence

is an important one. I think in the Schrader screenplay, he even states boldly in the prose introduction to Travis that this is a man who clearly is an attractor of violence, or a combustible figure, somebody for whom violence is part of their essential nature. It's also, I mean, it's just so fucking great that the movie doesn't really try to unpack his backstory at all beyond just...

He doesn't have some monologue where he's like, when I was in K-San or whatever. He served in the war and he grew up somewhere different than where he lives now. It's all you need to know. And you can infer, and this is you talking about, like, movies that weirdly change,

even though they are actually fixed and how you perceive them. This is a movie that feels like it has all the answers, but every time I watch it, I just ask myself new questions. And they're not because of the movie being non-specific in any way. Right.

But sometimes you go, okay, is the violence a reflection of, well, Travis kind of reads like someone who might have been really bullied as a child? Sure, of course. Is his violence a lashing out of what was inflicted upon him? Runtyness. Like, De Niro's a little guy.

Yeah. Contributes that. He really helps for that. He also placed this. And part of it is, I mean, you were saying this earlier. I watched this movie a lot when I was a teenager and in my early 20s. Right. I watched a lot when I was casing this whorehouse.

I was thinking of a, no, yeah. Carrey, I care. Good reference for that. Had not seen this film in a while, even though I'd seen it many times. Had not seen this film since being older than the character. Yeah. now older than the character by some distance. And it's not like I ever look to him as an aspirational figure.

But watching it this time, I was taken by how childlike he seems. Yeah. He really seems like, it's like big. It's like he's a little boy in a body he doesn't have to control. And De Niro is playing that in sort of his like weird kind of guilelessness. Yeah. And it does, you're like, is this a guy who never got over not fitting in as a kid? is his home life defined by parents who were physically

or psychologically abusive to him in some way or were they just checked out? Was it a lack of protection? Or was it a sense of act of danger? I think he might also be an only child. He definitely seems to be an only child to me. He reads that way. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. I mean, all only children are one step away, I think, from just, you know, becoming Travis Bickle. Yeah, and we love you, Ben. Hey, take it easy. I'm kidding. We love you. Trader writes this script.

He writes it. I mean, clearly, it's almost like an episode he has. He writes the script very fast. Then he starts hanging... Rocky kind of similar, by the way. Rocky is a... Sylvester Stallone locked himself in a room and, like, drew the curtains down for, like, seven days

and just vomited it out. It's a great... I just like the idea of being... I got so mad at Sean at all being like, eh, it's a little slow. I like, get the fuck out of here. I like, a little slow, I don't get that. It's Rocky. It's such a beautiful movie.

I really think Rocky is almost. underrated, even though one best picture and is one of the most famous movies ever made. It's a gorgeous study of, like, human relationship. It's underrated because of what he did to the legacy of Rocky, which is let Pauli fuck a robot. The other ones are incredibly fun sports movies. Like Rocky 3, I think, is the peak of the, like,

yes, when he turned these into slick sports movies. They're very good. They're very fun. But there's no comparison. The first one is completely in a league of its own. There's no example. There's a reason in one best picture, because it did it all.

it made the money, it appealed, but also it is a, you know, a very, very well-made film. But there's also, there is no analog in movies of something that started as kind of focused, personal, emotional art, and then just sort of became pop trash. Right. And then you could argue with Creed, went back again and then back again. Yeah, now it's doing the, yeah, it's almost like Creed. They were like, let's make a serious movie. And then they're like, but for the sequels, we can make movies.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. It's like the Creed sequels are remaking the Rocky sequels in a way that's fascinating. They got to bring the robot back. They do. Yeah, Cree's got to fuck the robot. Now listen. Listen. So, he's got to fuck it himself.

That's agency. Schrader leaves town for a while. He comes back to L.A. still a freelance critic, but he feels a little tougher. He writes a review of sisters and interviews Brian De Palma, and they kind of became butts. And he gives him the script. And then Michael and Julia Phillips, of course, the sort of husband-wife producing team,

right? Julia Phillips, you'll never eat lunch at this town again eventually, right? I read that book when I was a teenager because my mom would buy me movie books. Oh, nice. But I mean, as a teenager, remember, being like, this is a little over my head. Like, I am not. I don't really get what being a producer is. This person seems so angry.

But they're preparing the sting, which they produce. And they are very taken with taxi driver, but they have no idea what to do with it. They're like, this script is incredible. They buy it for $1,000, which is crazy. But they don't actually know how. they're going to make it into a sort of digestible movie. And then they see a rough cut of mean streets. They're talking about doing taxi driver with Jeff Bridges.

And I guess the director was going to be Robert Mulligan, who's not a director I know that well, but he made to kill him, Akingburg. But I don't know, like, I don't know what he's doing in the 70s. I mean, he's much older. Yeah, he's older. He'd made like that movie summer of 42, the sort of coming of age movie, which is like kind of a hit, right?

He made that big hit, right? horror movie The Other. Do you know these movies as well? What else? The Nickel Ride, which is Jason Miller kind of crime movie. Favorite of Sean's. Tracy, we were texting with Hitmaker because you would listen to our fearless episode. Timothy Simons.

About how just Jeff Bridges is one of those rare examples of a guy who is thought of, discussed, praised, has won an Oscar, is still eternally underrated. No one quite acknowledges how good he is. This is maybe one of the only cases I've ever come across of hearing a role that Jeff Bridges could have played that would be a disaster. I don't think Bridges makes sense for that. He doesn't make any sense, but then it's just also, I mean, De Niro is available, right? No one ever could have given a better performance than this in this role. But so they see mean streets and they go like Scorsese and De Niro. Like, this is it.

And they never thought about anyone else again. and Scorsese knows Julia a little bit and I guess they talk after he makes Box Herberth and she's kind of like come when you've done something better she was kind of like a bit of a bully or what you know kind of making fun of him but in a in a sweet way and then they just essentially make a proposal to Marty and Bob's agent of like you're a package

like we want you to do this movie and we want you to do it together and like it's not one or the other it has to be both Scorsese, he kind of knows Schrader a little bit, and meets him through De Palma. He wanted Paul to adapt Dostoevsky's The Gambler for him. And he says he arrives late to dinner. Schrader's sitting with De Palma, and they have already cooked up the movie Obsession together while this is happening. And so he's kind of like, I miss my shot. But then the script gets handed to him.

Did Schrader write obsession? He did, right? Am I wrong? 1970 what is that 76 yeah you guys said he wrote it yep yeah yeah yeah not a movie i love kore barker phone he wrote obsession that's crazy not the recent obsession the uh cliff robertson and part of the reason i don't love it is cliff robertson is like such a handbone in it what do you think of cliff robertson have we talked about this i don't think so but we were talking about guys who have an oscar though yeah you're like huh uh that's certainly a movie that you

would get arrested for making today you should read john lithgow's memoir to read him uh just fucking destroy Cliff Roberts. I mean, he was a noted son of a bitch. John just clearly hated him. What were they in together? What's the... Obsession? Oh, right.

Because he's in so many DePaul. Yeah, right. DePama fucking loved Liff. I love the Brian DePama saw Lithgow and was like, this is my guy. This Frankenstein ass. Got to get the camera. The waspiest Frankenstein in the world. Love John Lofco, to be clear.

Yeah. But yeah, so, but Scorsese does... He reads the taxi driver script and he's like, well, this is kind of the Russian literature idea. thinking of, like the sort of deepest, darkest, you know, secret type self, you know, movie. This is, this is what I want. And so they're all in. I mean, yeah. It's an interesting story because it's basically like every time someone reads the script, they're like, yeah, yeah, it makes sense. There's an interesting quote from Schrader where he says, I wrote a Protestant script.

It's like cold, isolated, like it's me. Marty makes a Catholic movie. It's like lush and rich and New York and all this. And like, and that the merging is like why the movie's a masterpiece, right? Like, you know... Interesting idea. I kind of like that idea.

Because I do feel like some of Schrader's movies that he directs himself are chillier. Yeah. I mean, extremely chilling. Okay, so blah, blah, blah. Schrader had also written this movie, The Yakuza, of course. He sells that for some money.

Marty does Alice. The Phillips does The Sting. De Niro does Godfather too. Basically, everyone has a moment of success after they decide on this taxi driver project. So they're all coming back to get a little bit of a bigger budget. The budget's $1.3 million.

But that is more than they initially had hoped for. Obviously, no... It eventually goes up to $1.9 million. You said a little bit more, you mean it's a little bit under what they had... No, no, no. They thought they were going to get nothing to make this movie. And, like, you know,

all of the sort of power of, like, them, you know, De Niro wins an Oscar, the Phillips win an Oscar. Like, it's like, okay, they get a little bit more money. But it is. it's a studio film it is it's uh it's a what you know columbia pictures and uh scorsese is he's already trying to make new york new york which is a much more expensive movie obviously that is crazy that he already wanted to do it that new york new york isn't just him flush with the success thinking he can do anything everyone gets bargain basement prices

yeah deniro gets 35 grand marty gets 65 grand paul gets 30 grand columbia is still, even at that price, incredibly nervous about the movie. I'm trying to think, like, if there had been anything quite as sort of lurid as this movie made by a studio in 76. Right, and being so...

I mean, obviously, there's, like, trash movies. Midnight Cowboy... Midnight Cowboy... ...is lured in a different way. Midnight Cowboy. Yes. But Midnight Cowboy is... has a sweet side to it.

It does. It's about boys, friends. It is about boys being boys. The Godfather's no picnic But it's classy I know, yeah But it's no picnic But these are the pieces of how you get there

Right, you go, okay, so Midnight Cowboy has the lurid sexuality And the New York grind When is Death Witch? Godfather has the violence 74 Yeah And Death Wish is like an artless You know, kind of version of this movie

But I think it's important that those two movies Win Best Picture and it breaks down a couple Taboo Walls Yeah, right, right, right Deliverance This is true is also one that's pushing the boundary. I mean, Banjo had never been played that fast before.

But deliverance is like, if you go fucking canoeing in the Appalachians or whatever, that's going to happen. The taxi driver's like, if you try and get in a cab in New York City, it's sort of the opposite, you know, ends of the America's a nightmare. I mean, they had been falling. I mean, you could argue that Rocky, right, Rocky and Star Wars start to be the end of that. They reestablish the taboos. I mean, I just think it can't be overstated that the 70s start with an ex-examination. rated movie winning best picture. And I think that has to feel like, briefly,

all bets are off. I guess the difference I'm noticing here is even Death Wish, but certainly things like Godfather, Midnight Cabo, even Deliverance, it's like, there's still a hero character. There's someone conflicted about the evil or the violence being done or whatever, and even Charles Bronson,

you know, that's a somewhat sympathetic character in the first death wish, obviously, and like, he's avenging a wrong and all this. Whereas this one is like, you're in the head of a psychopathic man. Here's a question I got to ask. And there's no escape. There might not be an answer.

Right. Do we think that part of this movie getting made is that the sort of very interpretive happy ending and victory at the end of the movie could have been misread by the bean counters who were approving the movie getting made? Yeah, maybe. That if you're looking at it on paper,

even as dark as the film is, you don't know what the performance is going to be like. Do you imagine it is a film? Because a lot of these kind of grimyer, not even the exploitation films, but the sort of genre revenge films would have these wild character swings where the movie clearly was asking you to just go like,

and now you like this guy. Now the scenes are being played soft, now it's sensitive, now it's a win. Or we made the bad guy so bad that he has permission to do anything. On its face, does this look a little bit closer to a death wish if you don't know exactly how they're going to execute it?

I don't know. I don't know. That's an interesting question because, you know, we get to a point in the in the narrative where it seems like Travis kind of comes to a fork in the, right after he arms himself, he comes to a kind of a fork in the road. And one fork takes him to this assassination idea that he's going to assassinate the presidential candidate. And the other road takes him to rescue lady in distress. Is the movie unclear? Is Travis unclear of which. way it's going to go until finally we get to the climax of the film. You can't even call it an aborted assassination attempt. He just, you know, he gets out of there before it even transpires.

Maybe the Mohawk was a mistake in that regard. Right. Yeah. Sure. It is also, it's from an era where you could just kind of walk up to a presidential candidate. Like, you know, right? Like it's still. Unlike now, you know, if there's a White House correspondence dinner, security's not going to let you get anywhere. I mean, that guy didn't get that close to the area. He kind of made it to the crazy he got anywhere within the vicinity. But it's like it's a much more, you know, people are just kind of walking around. I mean, yeah. People were just walking here.

That's another taboo that Middickhampton broke. Hinkley, obviously. He's inspired by taxi driver. Inspired by taxi driver was able to walk up right up to Ronald Reagan on the street, getting into a car. But Travis swerves, right? And he goes over and he does the. I'll do the no bluer thing.

I'll do the no bluer thing instead. I mean, what we sense is that he's just got. got to get this out. Yes. It's a bomb that's going to explode. Look, I think about the new Hollywood thing a lot and how this happened, right, this brief window. And a lot of it is broken by the BBS films, an easy rider and the studio is going, our shit's not working.

Something's happening over here. Maybe we have to unlearn everything we thought we knew. Right. And so all the kind of rules of traditional what works, what is proper storytelling, yada, yada, go out the window and they start just letting the end. inmates run the asylum to a certain degree, right? And French connection and Godfather. Yes.

I mean, these movies are, and the Exorcist, they're making tons of money. Not to keep just tying everything back to recent big picture episodes, but in that 76th draft, Sean was going through, you know, what his list of what he felt like was the definitive cultural event film of each year. And the amount of years, right, for that one decade, the amount of years that it lines up with the best picture winner is wild. That would not be the case today where you go,

these movies, not only one best picture, were critically adored, were like esteemed critical objects, were embraced by the public, were massive financial successes, in many cases, also the highest grossing film of their year,

almost always within the top five. Right. And they were like pop culture. You know, it wasn't just like a Tony thing that everyone got behind. That's an unusual, thing. And part of that is just everyone going like, look, the fucking three years ago, none of that

would have happened to French Connection. Yeah. This would have been the griniest thing you'd ever seen, you know, in like on a double bill or whatever. I think there's something to, even when you're saying, well, this movie places you so inside the head of the character and it's not until this fork in the road moment that Travis really becomes, you know, potentially this figure of revenge or whatever it is. if you're a studio execute reading the script once again to run this exercise do you just go like

I don't know these 70s movies have all these weird tangents what's interesting to me about all this is that yes Star Wars kills New Hollywood and Rocky but it's also

that the new Hollywood guys start being like well I want to make epics I mean what happens like Chimino and Freakin are like The Blank Check era begins these people are actually given

Coppola they're like I can make anything I can you know and then they make this stuff that all you know bankrupt studios. Yeah.

It's not like their careers or for Chimino, his career is over. But for, you know, the other guys, they salvage it, but I think that's when Hollywood's like, all right. Totally. You were fun cheap.

You're not fun like this. Yeah. You're certainly chastened. I mean, Friedkin makes two of the hugest movies ever made. Yes. And then bombs so bad with sorcerer. He can't.

Yeah. He has a hard time getting money for his next movie. And we will talk about it. Like, when does, I mean, Freakin is my ultimate. but we will do him on the show one day. Because I do think he's the ultimate blank check guy where it's just like

all the way up and then sorcerer and then it's just like, goodbye. Get out. You are a pariah for 10 years. You exist on the margins now. He makes great movies after that. He also makes forgettable movies. He also makes two Tracea Lutz movies. He's never at the center of the culture again. No, no. But he never fully goes away

and like... A hundred percent. What's interesting about someone like Friedkin is like he made stuff like rules of engagement. Like he made like very sort of like solid Hollywood entertainment along with the weird stuff. But that's the balance. Like the two movies he made of your plays, I think are like both excellent. But those are, feel like a throwback to even his like pre-French connection shit. Right. And then you're also like, sometimes he would just be a studio guy for hire. He would do the hunted or whatever.

Hunts is pretty good. Right. But it was like he couldn't ever do French connection again. He couldn't ever be like, I am working within the studio system, making the purestant. version of what interests me. It becomes a little bifurcated. He would have told me that it wasn't possible anymore. He said, you know, just circumstances change in such a way.

It's like, that'll never happen again. David? Yes. Did you know there's a new place where you, you specifically can let your nerdy freak flag fly? I did know that because it's a real digital town, video game town. And it's populated by some of the best

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And if you want to support the return of fully independent web media, you can directly support them on Patreon at patreon.com slash videogame town for exclusive articles and podcasts. Videogame.com for new stuff every single day. Tax you ever. Okay. So, you know, John Scorsese, two big influences for him. John Wayne and the searchers.

He doesn't say much except that'll be the day. He doesn't belong anywhere. He just fought in a war that he lost. As John Wayne always said, he's like haunted. That performance was based on, quote, the loneliest man he ever knew. Right. He's also very influenced. He says by Irving Lerner's Murder by Contract. He, I guess it worked with Lerner on New York, New York eventually. Do you know murder by contract? I've seen murder by contract. I feel like...

Do not know anything about this movie. I feel like it was, because that's a Colombian noir, right? Like Vince Edwards, I think. Vince Edwards is Claude. Boy, pulled that out of my... That's pretty impressive. It's like a taffy ball. Criterion put up some long ago, you know, some Criterion collection. like a cartoon channel, sorry, series of those Colombian noirs. Those like... Indicator boxes

of those Columbia narrows. They're great. Oh, well, maybe I got to start busting out that credit card number. I got to say, that series of words hit like heroin. That went through my bloodstream. Because those Colombian noirs of the late 50s are very interesting because Columbia was sort of the poverty studio and so they made the darker stuff.

The Skid Row movies. Yeah, where you watch it and you're like, fuck, this is, for the 50s, this is kind of nasty. And that's one of the nastiest. That's the one where the poster is the guy's got a garot around the woman's neck and she's looking beautiful and he's looking tormented or whatever

and he's like a hit man who's in his own head and I understand that he's like, Scorsese's like, that's one of the only Hollywood movies where you're like inside the head of a man who kills people. Like, you know, it's a rare thing. So anyway, so Scorsese-Di Niro, obviously they'd work together already. Only the one time

before this now? Only on Main Street. We talk about this in the Mean Streets episode, but it is fascinating to me that he's always said the three actors I had the real symbiotic connection to and relationship and process. And it's Keitel, De Niro, and Scorsese. Or, and, uh, fucking DeCaprio, excuse me. Obviously, De Niro becomes the guy. He understands how to filter everything that interests him in for decades. And then DeCaprio becomes the guy who is versatile enough as an actor, but more importantly, is automatic financing. and security for whatever he wants to make at a very large scale.

Keitel starts out as Scorsese's self-insert. You watch Who's That Knockin' Meador, you watch Mean Streets, those are clearly him. He places himself into the movie. Yes. And then from Mean Streets on, there doesn't feel like you have characters that represent Scorsese. Even when Scorsese is in the movie as an actor. Sure. It's like he notices when fucking De Niro enters the bar in Mean Streets, the way the audience

reacts and is like, fuck, if I have that kind of power and that kind of charismatic figure at the center of my movie, I'm pulling the audience in more. And he starts to remove himself in the action and places himself in the kind of worldview and what the film's saying. And it's so funny that the moment he does that switch, he's like, hey, Keitel, you're cool playing like a fucking pedophile pimp and Judas, right? You're cool playing like just the most evil people in the world. I'm going to keep working with you, but now you just play kind of like unknowable monsters. Yeah, that's true. I mean, De Niro, it's very interesting, is shooting 1900 for Bertolucci.

He's prepping Ilya Kazan's The Last Tycoon. Not a very good movie, but at the major project. Ilya Kazan's final film. Indeed. He, like, would come from Europe, like on breaks from 1900 and drive cabs around New York City. And then the way Scorsese describes it, then he would just... click a button and then he'd turn into Harry Ufflin from the last tycoon if he needed to, right? Like, he's like, he's got all these modes in his brain.

Was he big enough at that point where, would people recognize him? I was going to bring this up in. He'd won an Oscar. But he said it happened only one time. That's crazy. That basically still, he was weirdly anonymous enough. Even though Godfather 2 was huge and he had won the Academy Award, he wasn't a leading man yet. Sure.

Yeah. And he's elusive in Godfather 2. He is. He's elusive and he's a little transformative and he's so withdrawn in his own way that he could just fucking drive a cab and people weren't like

that's a fucking movie happening here? Obviously Jody Foster is in Alice doesn't live here anymore. So he has the connection to her. His mother her, sorry, her mother thinks she's crazy to do, want to do this part.

Yeah. But Foster's like, I trust him. I think it's a good idea. They had to get approval from the LA welfare, board, you know, they hire Pat Brown, the former governor of California to make, to smooth things over. They have adults. Her sister Connie is there for some of the more adult, quote unquote, shots, you know, to make sure.

Body double. Right. Yeah. Foster says, like, everyone treated her great and was clearly so uncomfortable. Like, basically was just, like, on tiptoes around her the entire time because they're like, Jesus Christ. She was, was, was she 13 years ago? She's 12. She's insane.

It's crazy. Part of that is she had such a, like, part of it's just the deep voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. But she was such an old pro at this point. I mean, she's literally the fucking, like, copper tone kid. I mean, you know that, Ben, that she is the model of the kid. Wait, really? Right?

Am I wrong about that? No, isn't that right? If not for the bottle, she certainly did the commercial. Like, she was working from the time she was basically an infant. Damn. So, A, she's such an old pro. B, her voice just always makes her sound. wiser beyond her years.

Even like now, you're like, oh, she's Methuselah. She does. She's got so much, like, command and authority. She's great act. You ever worked for Johnny Foster? I haven't. It doesn't work much.

For the first time recently. She's very nice. You know, she's great. Obviously, she gets the Oscar nomination. It is an incredibly iconic performance. It's also a thing that still is part of the playbook, and it basically never works. But child stars and teen stars are like,

fuck, can I find my like taxi driver performance where I successfully just totally shed the kiddie thing and I'm taken seriously. And I feel like you get a lot of bad wannabe Sundance movies where like a former Nickelodeon star is like strung out on heroin and doing fucked up shit to be like, I'm not Agent Cody Banks anymore or whatever. Columbia decides they need star power. Civil Shepherd is essentially parachuted into the movie. she says she threw the script into like a garbage can when she read it. She's so good in this movie. But she was basically like, I'd seen mean streets.

I trusted that they were, like, De Niro and Scorsese were good. I had like no lines in the script. I had no idea why I was in this movie. Right. You know, like it's a little baffling. But she is, she's fantastic in the movie, obviously. Like she's obviously so effective in The Last Picture Show, but that's also such a raw clay performance. Right.

Where, you know, is. But she's so good in that movie. No, she is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. is. But this, it's like, what she's doing is so complicated and delicate in actually selling you on the varying levels of why would she be kind of interested in him to a point? And what is that point? Right. I personally would not go on a deal with Travis Pickle. I wouldn't. Although, De Niro's a looker. It's also, it's what De Niro does well, where you watch in real time as he's like

winning her and losing her moment to moment. You fucking got, both of you fucking guys would go on a date with Travis Bickle. Who the fuck are you kidding? Both of you would go on a date with Travis Bickick. He's not that rizzed up when he's, you know, okay, fine. You know, he's hot. Let's go on one date with Travis Bette. Let's just settle the issue. He took me to this Swedish, you know, porn conception movie. It was educational.

Scientific. Yeah. The part that Kitell plays sport is written by Schrader to be a black person. And Columbia is like this movie, even in 1976, I think Columbia has the sense to be like, this movie cannot be like he mows down a bunch of black people.

will cause riots in a brothel right like that's just not going to work for us and kytel it's basically like you know he knows parachute him he knows scorsese come on in what's your were you going to say something well that's interesting uh and i and i and i think a good choice but the use of race and taxi driver is pretty interesting yeah to watch again to see uh is the point that's being made that the seeds of white supremacy are sown in this character, in this lonely. If that point is being made it, I feel it's unintentional, but I'm not sure. I don't really know. I don't know, man.

The way they talk about race and, you're right. He uses a lot of racial slurs. In the beginning when he's, yeah, like driving around. He's so angry at everyone and everything, right? Like, everyone's a target to him. May I get my read on this? Yeah. Not to go too global here.

Travis Bickle did nothing wrong? Well, yeah, he's the hero of the movie. obviously he's the lead. Not beating the charges. I think white supremacy is something that is basically taught that has to be like passed down, whether it is, you know, in the home or being radicalized by a community in that kind of way. I think there is a more insidious form of racism, and once again I have the authority to say this, that is people who feel so disenfranchised and isolated.

and alienated and start just kind of reaching for the guardrails of who can I blame this on. Right. And it doesn't turn into a supremacist ideology. It doesn't become as much of an overriding kind of conspiracy feeling. It's just a like, fuck them and fuck them and fuck them, right? And it becomes like really easy to just be racist as a place to put your anger if you're overflowing with anger in that way. And so that's why I think it's not versus something like, I mean, Schrader obviously writes

about white supremacism later, you know? And that's much more of like a religion. You can't deny the gaze for which we see. Totally. The black man who is walking down the street raging, I'm going to kill them all, right? Sort of schizophrenic, homeless man. The point where Travis steps out to have his conversation with Wizard. And there are just a couple of black guys walking by.

and there's a long shot of Travis kind of tracking them. There's the black cab driver who gives him the bang-bang symbol as he's walking away from the meeting and calls him killer, I think. There's the kids throwing the eggs in the bottles at the cab as he walks by. Not to mention, of course, the kid who he shoots in the face in the bodega. I mean, there are two great examples for me in this movie of a studio note based out of fear, actually saving the movie and achieving transcendence. And one of them is this.

Because I do think if sport is black, it just becomes that. And I think there's something in that at the beginning of the film, he keeps slipping into his anger being focused on race. And he's also like tipping into homophobia, you know. It's any sort of other group in New York City who feels empowered. And I think more than I think seeing people who are happy, be and who have a community. It's the 25th hour mirror scene many years later where it's like, yeah, if you live in New York,

you can sort of work yourself up about any ethnic community. They're all here. Like, you know, it's easy to like, you know, and all of them have a place and feel like they have some sense of empowerment. I mean, this is so much of the fucking insult stuff as well as, I'm being told to feel bad for these people. These people feel like they have more than I do. And it's what they can identify is what they have is community and you don't have that.

the culture is not actually placing them above you. They're fighting more than you are. You just feel unhappy. And the fact that his anger is starting to be so focused on marginalized groups, and then you have a white character who is doing such a demonstrable evil that it pivots him. It pivots him into, well, I am empowered now. I must do something about this. This is not my rage unchecked.

This is me being an avenging angel. He still shoots that guy in the face. You know, and he views him as less than human because it's him basically using him as, like, shooting practice. He's using him as a dry run. Right. But I do think it's important that what really metastasizes him to go full taxi driver mode, if you will, is, well, I got to save this kid. Yeah, no, it is. This is the worst guy.

The bodega scene, he's not defined by his race. He's defined by what he's doing for a living. The convenience store scene is also like, it's his fantasy kind of working out for him. Yeah. He's the cowboy. He's a racist guy, to be clear. Yes. Deeply racist.

I think Travis Bickle has a lot of hate in his heart for other races. Yes. But it's also, you know, like that goes well for him. Totally. He defends the guy, you know, the shop owner. He kind of just gets away with it. It's part of the cynicism of the film is him knowing. He seems kind of like cool and heroic to himself.

No one's going to care about this kid. Right. The shopkeeper. The shop owner is speaking Spanish to him. He's right. He's Latino. I mean, yeah. And they're seemingly friends.

Or at least allies in that moment. Sure. He tells himself he's doing that guy a favor. Right? Like, he tells the shopkeeper. He tells himself that what he's doing for the shopkeeper is akin to what he's planning to do for Jody Foster. Right.

Yes. Scorsese is in the film, of course. What a performance. He is replacing the actor George Momoli, who I know best from Fants with the Paradise, but kind of like a big guy. You know, he's in mean streets. He's a guy.

And he had, gotten in an accident making a movie called The Farmer and could not like make it to set essentially. Like, you know, he was injured. Scorsese's like, okay, I'll do it. And he says he learned a lot from Bob in that scene. He remembers saying like, put down the flag, put down the taxi flag. And Bob was like, no, you make me put it down.

He's like, I want you to mean it. Racist monologue, by the way. Yep. It's an extremely scary performance. Schrader was really mad. Like, he was like, why are you fucking taking this part? And then he saw the movie. and was like, he did a pretty good job.

His second best performance as an actor? After Sharktail? No, I was going to say. After The Mandalorian and Grogu? Yeah. What is Scorsese's better? I mean, is a quiz show? Like, anytime Scorsese has, like, a meaty performance, he is pretty fucking good.

It's a small role, but it's this. He's just astonishing. Is Martin Scorsese in Mandalorian and Grogu? He is Tracy. He voices a four-armed street-cart alien. I regret to inform you that it is maybe the only good performance in the movie. He's pretty good. David and I went to a screening and we turned to each other and we were just like, he's fucking locked in.

He's an alien flat meat dealer. He makes flat meat sandwiches, but it is versus this, even though Scorsese's not doing it tongue-in-cheek and it feels like he's committed, it's very much him playing Scorsese. It's him doing the fast-talking thing. He's basically a guy that the Mandalorian's trying to use as an informant. He's going, I don't know where this guy is. I don't know. It could be anybody. I see.

He's good. But he's got four-arms to gesticulate, which is very. really the technological breakthrough. They want to make this movie fast and cheap. They even thought about doing it on black and white videotape. Insane? Kind of insane. The budget does go over a little bit,

but they did draw it out all on storyboards, everything, you know, so that hopefully to, you know, save some money. Marty drew to himself, I'm assuming. Maybe. He says the overall idea, I love this, is to make it a cross between Gothic horror and the New York Daily News. Gothic horror and the New York Daily News. Michael Chapman says

Marty's storyboards, yes, he writes, draws them, are the best. They make no pretense of being art. You know, they're just, you know, the basics. He gives you the essence of what he wants you to say, but he doesn't oppress you. Like, I can now do what I need to do.

And what were Chapman's credits before this? So that's a great question. You know, he's, because he obviously also shoots, he'd only shot two movies before this. The last detail, his first movie. Well, well, well. And then the film, The White Dawn,

the Philip Kaufman, like, Inuit movie with polar bears and shit. Oh, it's not Bronson. No, it's Warren Oates and Timothy Bottoms and Lewis Gossett Jr. As three whalers who are stranded in the Arctic and are rescued by Inuit people. Heard of the best movie of all time before now. I can tell you that it got generally negative reviews, in fact. It's interesting because Chapman goes on to make a movie I watched for our, like,

Hope Tour one day, 1986 draft. What's it called? The Clan of the Cave Bear. I only watched it because... Oh, right. He directed that. Yes. It was nominated for Best Makeup at the Academy Awards. And I was like, I want to watch any movie nominee for an Oscar that year.

We just talked about that recently as well in the blink of an eye episode. He could do the lush pastoral nature. He could do that stuff, even though I think of him best for the Marty movies he made. The fucking grime. Yeah, like for this enraging bull. I think those are the only two movies they made together, right? Yeah, it's interesting. He also did...

He did hardcore with Schrader. The Rodrigo Piotrero run has been pretty long, but otherwise Marty would jump around with DPs. Well, he uses Ball House a lot, and then he sort of jumps around. Sometimes it's Robert Richardson sometimes... Yeah, he tries other people around. It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, but Chapman...

Of course, says he liked the last detail. That's why he hired him. Chapman says, we didn't have time. We didn't have a lot of money. I couldn't light the streets with big lights speaking to your point there so we had to get it down to kind of New York light and it turned out that was the right thing to do

he says thank God I didn't have time and money like you know everything worked out for me when you know like when they're shooting Travis Bickle Scorsese wants Travis basically to be in everyone else's light you know but when he's in the frame that's really fucking smart he's alone like even if there's someone over his shoulder it's like I don't want to see him like Travis is alone

as much as possible. And he said it was hard because, like, Travis is in everyone else's frame or whatever, so it's hard to kind of, like, strike that balance. But that's when you try to define what is great directing. What are things you can fully credit

to the director and not? The DP, the writer, the performances. And it is when a movie has a kind of set of rules like that, that it establishes for its visual storytelling, that it doesn't break, that isn't too showy, that you could watch the movie a thousand times and never notice that but it does actually inform

the psychological experience of how you're interacting with the film. Yeah. That's just genius shit. He studies Jack, the film, a bigger splash for the head-on framing. Obviously, it was shot in New York City, summer 75, incredibly hot,

always raining, very wet. I feel like this is quite a moist movie. Yeah. I'm sorry if, you know, that offends anyone. sanitation workers are on Not at all I said the word moist Some people have a thing about

They don't like the worst I'm not one of them Ben Ben wishes it would pick a direction Moist is just too middling for Ben Yeah Pick a lane Go dry or wet There's a garbage strike going on

So there's garbage everywhere I mean what a blessing in disguise And it's like all these things are right They're just helping out Right The apartment stuff like Traverse's apartment Iris's apartment That's just condemned buildings

They would hire a gang to protect them from other gangs. I mean, you know, New York City, greatest city in the world, baby. Come on. We used to have a country. We used to have a country. We used to have a country.

I'm checking here. The country was falling apart. I think we... Mortgage rates were 30%. Drop dead. Because my mom buys... I think about it all the time. My mom buys an apartment in New York City.

And I believe it's 76. They paid her $20 to get an apartment. I mean, she buys it in Amsterdam. Her grandmother calls her and is like, you're going to get murdered. Yeah. Now you have to be a banker to live there. Yeah. And truly, like my mom says, the first three months she lived there, the apartment had once been occupied by someone of ill repute because someone would come to the door all the time and rattle the door and bang on the handle. And when she told the doorman about it, the doorman, and be like, Ellen, don't you open the door, okay? Like, he wasn't like, oh, I'll take care of it. He was just like, listen to me, Ellen, never opened the door. That's where she lived. She bought it with her, you know, anyway.

I went to high school with 15 grand or whatever. People who were absurdly wealthy, right? Sure. Sorry for ranting about San Luis, New York. No, no. There was a kid I went to school with. I went, he invited me over to his parents' place, and they had like a two-story thing in Soho. That was insane.

Yeah. It was not all made up, but it was just the amount of space was insane. And I went like, oh, did I not realize that Eugene also is one of these kids where his parents invented water. or whatever, you know? And I was like, respectfully, what are your parents to do? And he was like, my dad's like a painter, but he never really sold anything. Anyway, he like, this was the first apartment he moved into as an artist studio in like

1968. And at one point, the landlord was bored and was like, if you can scrounge together, like $20,000, it's yours. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And just sat on it forever. Crazy.

Yeah. Anyway, yes. I'm finally looking for apartments. I have to move. And a notion I've had because it's been such a nightmare. It's so expensive is I need crime to come back.

You need crime. I need the rent prices to come down. Obviously, this is a complex thought to be having. No, no, no, no. I can answer. I can answer this. I can answer this. Let's just briefly open the gates of Arkham Asylum. Yes. Those are

fun villains. They'll do goofy themed crime. Penguins robbing banks and shit. Right. Dare I say it? Richard T. Joker. All right. So, last thing before we just talk about the movie more,

Bernard Herman, very resistant. Scorsese describes him as crotchety. Essentially retired, right? Yes. And Scorsese says, the film is called Taxi Driver, and he says, oh, no, no, that's not my kind of picture title. No, no, no, no, no. And Marty's like, please, can we meet and talk about it?

And he's like, well, what's the movie about? And Marty's like, it's about this, you know, describes a fly. And Bernard Herbert was like, no, no, no. That's not the kind. And who's in it? And he says Robert De Niro's in it. And he's like, no, no, no.

And then he's like, well, we could have a quick talk. So that's how he won him over. It's an incredible Oscar nomination. Didn't Harriman also do obsession? No, doesn't John William? Oh, wait, well, now I have to look at it up. Okay. Now I've got to look it up.

You're right. Yeah. Wow. Because John Williams becomes De Palma's guy. Or maybe, maybe already, but like, but yes. I think the whole thing with De Palma to me, and I love De Palma, I don't know how you feel about De Palma. Thumbs up.

Thumbs up to De Palma. But once in a while, and I'm not the first to feel this way, I'm like, Brian, we know you like Alfred Hitchcock. And he's like, did you know? I'm like, yep, we know. And he's like, I got Bernard. And I'm like, I would have gotten it without Bernard, but okay, you got him. An obsession, which is, obsession is his vertigo, right?

That's the one where I'm like, this is too loud. Like, you haven't done enough to mess with it. Like, I like stuff like Dress to Kill where he's like, here's my psycho. and I'm like, you're a sick fuck. You know, this is so much sicker. And Hitchcock's sick enough as it is. Yeah, anyway.

We'll do De Palma one day, right, Griff? Yeah, just a lot of movies. It's a lot of movies. Yeah, and the whole series. How much? Not more than Scorsese? No, but it's close. It's probably like 20.

It's a lot of movies. And like, the tail end of his career is not uninteresting, obviously, it gets a little weird. Of the whole series being redacted, which would be a waste of time. And the thing with De Palma, who I do adore, is, you know, movie 14. you're like, voyeurism's a theme.

You know, like, it's like, he, you know, he had his bag. What if you looked at boobs from a place where the boobs didn't know you were looking at them? God bless. I mean, it's a really interesting question. Hi, Mom. Recent Radiance forecast. Never seen. You've never seen it.

It's one of the diplomas I've never seen. I've never seen. Young De Niro, wow. I can't believe I have a movie on both of you guys. Well, it's interesting because it's a little like who's that knocking on my door and some, other films we've covered, Darkstar a little bit like this, where you're like, it's kind of three different movies smushed together, like genuinely three different production efforts smushed together. It's a movie that slowly over time became a feature. There's like a whole

section of it that is just a kind of performance piece that De Palma worked on in college that was filmed on like black and white Super 8 cameras. And the character basically just like collides with that and then the movie turns into like a documentary about this performance for like 15 or 20 minutes. But then some of it's a kind of just goofy like dude trying to branch out and live in New York City on his own comedy. It's a real fascinating mishmash of stuff. It's basically a non-narrative movie. Right. But it's incredibly stylish and funny. I imagine I'll be getting the disc. Yeah, I'll be getting the shit out of that disc. Sometimes we have this physical media thread that you recently asked us.

about Tracy, a physical media group text. Years ago we joked about, can you imagine how disgusted Tracy would be if he ever saw the things we text about in here? Because it was like, are you the white whale to get to join the group? But the group just, it goes, it just goes hard. As David said, it's a very busy group text.

How many people are on it? Six. Six. I think, oh. Five. You made it sound like maybe there were 20. No, it's me, Griff, Sean Fennessee, Alex Perry, Lowry and Timothy Simon.

And Hitmaker. His name's Hitmaker. Oh, I should be on that. Okay. You can be included, certainly. But sometimes... I don't know. David Lowry and Alex Ross Perry and I...

Our best friends. We've had narrow misses. I don't know. Yes. He came to the opening of Bug. Did I tell you about this? Yes. Well, he told me about it.

Did he? I haven't heard your version of the story. Well, he came to the opening of Bug and then I went to meet... He came... It was Sean's date. And so I went to see those guys afterwards at the party, at the opening night party. and I said, where's Alex Ross Perry? Well, he left.

I was like, well, he left. I mean, it was weird not to stick around just to say hi or nice to meet you or thanks for your player. He left. I was like, well, why did he leave? It was like, well, he was embarrassed about the way he was dressed. He was, oh, that's right. Yes, he didn't realize maybe that it was sort of a grand performance. And he wore the classic Alex Ross Perry uniform.

He's wearing like a Slayer t-shirt or something. Right. And Zach, Amanda's husband, even asked him, said, what did you think you were going to tonight? Alex is very consistent. I will say this. He is largely unchanging. I look forward to meeting. Sometimes, and maybe you meet via text first in this thread in your grand introduction to the ecosystem. But sometimes I will shout announces a 4K steel book of some dumb baby garbage I love.

And I will just post the announcement link to the thread and go, regrettably, I'm preordering the shit out of this. I have already pre-ordered. I don't even really like this. I mean, Congo. I have about three things, three launch points. Okay. I'm going to take this one first.

And it goes back to my thing about finding Travis more sympathetic this past. When I watch King of Comedy and Rupert takes his girlfriend into Jerry Lewis's house. Yeah. And Jerry Lewis comes

home and says, what the hell are you doing here? It's a kind of a cringe comedy, right? It does make you absolutely cringe. And it conjures some of those comedy shows like the British Office or Tim, what's his name, Detroit guy? Tim, Tim Robinson. I'd like that you said Detroiters instead of, I think you should leave. By the way, Detroiters fucking rules. Great show. I think even just the fact that Albert Brooks is in this movie is very telling in that being part of Scorsese's language. But the feeling that Rupert creates in me is different than the feeling Travis creates in me.

When Travis fucks up with Sybil Shepard, I don't feel like, I don't feel like, oh, oh, God, this is embarrassing and funny. I feel like, I feel real sympathy. I feel like, what are you doing? Tracy, I was thinking about this. I feel like that is a universal experience. I remember, you know, in high school watching this movie and when I'd have conversations with people

because I'm like the movie guy, they're like, I just watch taxi driver. Can I talk about taxi driver with you? Everyone goes, and that scene where he takes her to the fucking porno theater and you're going, dude, what are you doing? That everyone has that kind of visceral response of, oh my God, my motherfucker, don't do this.

You're so close. So actually changing kind of the trajectory of your life? Because she's sort of into it at first. In a weird way. She's intrigued enough by him. Yes. He's close. And it's, I think what's so key is that in the scene where he takes her to coffee,

he makes a couple observations about her that she feels are correct. That he is seeing her. Right. That she is not just an object for him. That there is some level of him trying to actually engage with her as a human being. that I think cuts through. And the same thing when he mentions her desk and whatever,

it cuts through anything that's unnerving about him. Rupert Pumpkin is a detestable character. He is off-putting every millisecond he is on screen, even just down to the look where you're like, my guy, why the fuck is at your haircut? Versus De Niro being hot in this. And it's not like she goes on the date

with him just because he's hot, but it also is that there are moments where you're like, sometimes this guy is showing intelligence. Sometimes this guy is showing emotional vulnerability that is appealing. And sometimes he is really unnerving. And the porno scene, you really get the sense of like,

he doesn't get why this went wrong. And he says like, no, no, no, no, a lot of couples go see this. And I love that when you're in the theater and she's immediately revulsed, you do see that there are other couples there. There are other couples there because that's their fucking thing. Right. That's their peccatillo a little bit or whatever. And this is a blind spot of this guy where his life.

Life is so coistered that he's like, what do couples do I see couples? Where do I hang out? I don't go to fancy restaurants, so I don't see couples having nice dates. But also, how many of the couples in that theater are on their first date? Probably not meant. You probably build to like, hey, he doesn't fucking get it, but it's based. You want to go see I am curious, yellow? And I think we're saying couples.

Sure. Who knows? A pair. A pair. A loving pair. Yes. Two turtle doves. It does.

Yes. You understand the broken logic of how he got there. And then he says to her something akin to like, I can take you to other places. We can go all sorts of places. I don't know what those places are, but you can tell me. He immediately realizes,

I fucked this up, but tell me what date places are. And it's less that she's so offended by him, I think, and a thing I think Civil Shepherd plays very well. And more that she's like, I feel fucking stupid that I overlooked a bunch of red flags about this guy

and assumed that the good, would outweigh the creepy. Well, part of the appeal for her, you have to assume, is not only that he's young and good-looking Robert De Niro and Thin and has a job, maybe not a great job, but he's employed, but also that he does express maybe awkwardly, but he does express a kind of confidence. I'm walking in off the street to tell you that you're beautiful and I want to,

and she's obviously flattered by that attention. And then, yeah, takes her out for coffee. Right, it is technically the second. date. Right. Yeah, Ben, show some respect. No, I said. Oh, sorry, David, show some respect.

Ben, I love you. He, uh, he sits there with her at the coffee shop and what he says, the way he describes how he perceives her. Yeah. Is really, he's talking about himself, right? It all applies to him, the things he says about her. We don't actually think that any of those things he says about her apply to her, but it's very flattering to have somebody say, I know what's going on with you.

You're deep and you're complicated and you're going. and you're going through a lot of stuff, you know. I think there's another thing going on, which is he's not Albert Brooks. I was about to say, I feel like that's why Brooks is in the movie. The Brooks placement is so important for that reason. Right. He's, Brooks is a nebish. He's kind of annoying.

Yes, he's very annoying. Yeah, he's very annoying. You can tell immediately that she's annoyed by him, not in some profound way, but just their conversation where they're looking, they're not looking at each other. And he has that bit where in the middle of, like, a run-on monologue, he goes, like, I'm in love with you. And then just keeps talking. and she just doesn't even acknowledge. She doesn't even give it that much.

Right. Because she's hearing it all day from his ass, probably. She's sick of it, yes. Bickle is trying to at least engage with her as a human being, where it just feels like Albert Brooks is like, obviously it'd be great if I could bed this woman. She'd never be with a guy like me. So the only way I can do it is to just say, like, well, you're beautiful.

I'm in love with you, you know? Versus Travis being like, I think you're broken. Which, whether or not there's any truth in that, he is trying to think of her as a person within inner life. Right. Yes. And so, but part of his pitch is that he's a confident guy who knows who knows what's best for her. And he's a man of the people.

And who knows the next move. Yes. So he can't say to her at the beginning of the date, well, where do you want to go? You, you, you took the movie. He's got to be the one to make the choice. Yes. And of course, when he makes the wrong choice, then it just, it all falls apart. The whole illusion is shattered.

I don't know. Here's my hot take. You should have given the movie a little more of it. shit. He should have bought her a Russ Meyer shirt. She should have sat there and considered what was on screen. The movie looks pretty bad because it's this weird sort of sex ed film, right? What did they call them the Swedish kind of educational films?

Yeah. Let me see if I can find the name of it. Like, what is the... Well, it's not a real... It's not a real porn movie. Right. We thought it was... We actually thought it was this movie that was kind of popular.

It's not. It might use a little footage from it, but... But that was this whole, these silos of things like the nudist documentaries or the Swedish like educational films or whatever where it was like, you're going to get to see something titillating, but the movie is pretending that that's not what its main purpose is. Right. It's called a Swedish marriage manual in the film. The film is likely the film sexual freedom in Denmark or the Swedish film language of love. But no one actually knows the answer to this question.

But these are basically movies that were purporting to be. like marital guides. Right. Or here's Masters and Johnson study put on screen. There's some scientific element behind. There's sex ed films for grown-ups, which is a way to get away legally with screening. Because also, the theater is nicer than you imagine a lot of the other Times Square theaters. Sure, but right.

But, I mean, it's a different era. It is hard for us to imagine. It's like, yes, okay, it was a bunch of porno theaters. Times Square was very scuzzy. It was. It was not like it was a, but. People did go watch porn in theaters in the 70s, did they not? Like, it's, you know, they couldn't watch it at home. Yeah.

You know, it's also fascinating that this is the decade where several years you have full-on pornographic films in the top 10 highest-grossing films of the year. Right. Like, there was the phenomenon of an intellectual couple goes to see deep throat. Presuming she had the maturity and the sophistication to be able to handle a little adult material. He thought she was into Kino. He didn't realize. But she's out of there like

30 seconds. I mean, I do like when he immediately goes like give it a chance and then she just sits there so grumpy. It's the stepbrothers joke, which I think about all the time when they're in the tuxes and Seth Rogen's interviewing them. And he's like, it's funny, I get it and you're overly formal. And then they start to be weird

and he's like, now the tuxes seem fucked up. And it's for her, she's just like, you know, I was willing to roll with you. You're different, but it's interesting. And then he takes her to the porn movie. She's like, okay, now I know, now clearly I can tell. It's almost a Mr. F moment of just like, there's a bunch of things I'm reviewing in my mind.

Yeah. Should he have known who Chris Christopherson was in 1970s? I think so. I think so. Because that's the year of a star is born. Yes, which, as Amanda called out, was the second highest grossing film of its year. Okay. And, like, me and Bobby McGee or whatever, like his big, you know, like, that's 1970.

So he's a pretty established country music. leap to movie start after being a hyper-famous songwriter and then a hyper-famous singer in his own. It's very conscious that Scorsese, he never listens to music. You never hear any music in this man's life. He doesn't have a record player at home. We're hearing his internal soundtrack. There's no actual music. Yes. And Scorsi very consciously was like, I don't want a lot of dietic music or whatever. You know, like, I don't want him to be like spinning records or whatever, but he doesn't have any interest. He's scratching vinyl. You're right. He could have been. He could have become a DJ. Could have been spinning plates.

No, his record player's broken, he tells us. Yeah, yeah. And so is something else up there, in my opinion. Okay, wait, that's point one. Well, I just want to know more about the Christopherson thing because, like, you guys talked about this actress that Tim Simons didn't know, and I didn't know her either. The great Lily Collins.

Lily Collins, I've never heard of her. I think there's a reasonable argument that I think Chris Christopherson in this moment is more conventionally famous than Lily Collins. And obviously there was more of a monoculture then. To be clear, we're all. also making fun of hitmaker because he's on a hit Netflix show and she's the star of the most popular show on Netflix, Emily and Paris. And I'm like, you haven't run into her at one of their, you know, Empire Gala's or whatever Netflix is always up to? You also just need to understand. We're in this

group text, right? Where it's like, let's share the opinions on the film industry that none of us want to share publicly. Let's post the fucking pre-orders of new disc announcements and whatever. And then Tim will just sometimes swing in with a thing that feels like it's coming straight from Jupiter. we're about to meet up with Tim for dinner. Ben Marie and I are going to meet up with Tim and Sean for dinner. And it's like 30 minutes before we're supposed to meet for dinner. And Tim just goes like all caps. Lily Collins is Phil Collins' daughter.

Who the fuck is Lily Collins? And we're like, why are you asking this now? Why was he? I don't know. Okay, who know? We eventually figured it out, but I feel like the chain of logic was really bizarre. So you think he should, you think Travis should. should have known who Chris Christopherson was in 1970s.

I think there's a better argument. I don't think it's like him not knowing who Frank Sinatra is. I think it's a well-selected celebrity where he's enough on the cusp that you're like... Well, it's also... He's appealing to young people. Yes. Like, you know, he's selected, I feel like, because he was a cool musician. It's telling you that this guy is not locked in.

He's not with it. It's not telling you that the guy's an imbecile and he doesn't know anything. But he does not seem like someone who's concerned with popular culture. He lives in his own head. to watch a Swedish educational film. And we see him later watching a pornographic film that seems more traditionally. Right. Yeah. Pornographic.

So at least he has that much awareness. Take her to the pseudo-documentary as opposed to the... Are you building a slow case for Travis Bickle did nothing wrong? Is this what's happening here? I'm not at all. He did some wrong things, but he was actually good at dating, is your argument. Specifically and exclusively good at... You think Sybil kind of gives him, you know, a bit of a hard time.

Is this a movie about Sybil Shepard fumbling the bag? She's out of there pretty quick. He doesn't give me, you know, he calls her back. He sends flowers. Oh, here's another thing. Why are the flowers in his apartment? He's sending her flowers, but the dead flowers are in his opinion. You're right.

Like, are they getting bounced back? Yes, maybe it's like she did not accept return to send her. That's what I think it is. Yes, she like turned it away. Or that he's continuing to send flowers to her. Of course, do that? I don't know. send flowers to somebody they reject them they bring them to you not one 800 flowers past sponsor of course

they would never do that um i think that if sybil takes him in and if he dates her for a little while longer or whatever like if things work out a little bit better he's still going to go on this road it's going to fall apart at some point this is not a movie where it's like you know what if he just found this nice lady and kind of like he would have settled down it's like no it's already all so close to the boy. I don't think he could be permanently saved by the love of a good woman, but I do agree with Ben that I think his life goes in a different direction. And I certainly think it avoids the worst extremes. If he is able to stay in a functional, healthy relationship and learn from it, even if it doesn't last forever.

I just don't think you would be. But this is, you know. There's going to be something. He focuses his affections on, you know, a beautiful model. Yes. Sybil Shepard was a cover model. I mean, that's, Sybil Shepard was the ultimate kind of just like image of a woman that drove men and sing. That is what she represented in the culture.

She's gorgeous. Like the problem with a lot of these fucking in cells. Maybe you just need to lower your standards. I mean, yes. Our buddy Chris Gether, who will have been on the Mandalorian episode, always says, if you're complaining that women don't find you interesting, maybe the problem is you need to be more interesting. Yeah. You know? Or find the women who do find you interesting.

I mean, it's like what? We're going to solve this today, guys. We're going to fix the insales. No, but there are a lot of, you know, it's a gripe of mine, and in high school I was very obsessed with a lot of the high school movies where it's the nerdy guy who's obsessed with the most conventionally beautiful, you know, prom queen girl, and she'd never even look at a guy like me. And that's seen as this sort of note of like,

is there almost a classism in her that she won't consider the smart, interesting guy? Right. And almost always in those films, you're like, yeah, well, you're not considering your fucking sarcastic. FACACF female best friend, you're doing the same fucking thing. You want to date the hottest person. Well, that's because those 80s teen movies

are like Charles Dickens' novels where, there's the interesting female character. This is a great comparison that I'm making. I'm really liking it. And at the end, it's like, yeah, but also he has to marry the placid, fair-haired lady. Like, you know, every...

And like, yeah, at the end of the John Hughes movies, it's like, but by the way, he gets the babe. Right. Sort of like traditional babe. Because that's what you want, isn't it? Isn't that what the audience is looking for? Although the fucking audience revolted to Pretty and Pink and they had to reshoot the ending.

Sure. So, Travis, okay, so he, yes, he fumbles the bag with Civil Shepherd. He is, he takes this job. The movie starts with him at the taxi depot, essentially getting pitched on the job because he can't sleep, right? Like, that's sort of the original thing here.

He's just like, I'm up all night anyway. I'll drive a cab around. What year does taxi the sitcom start? Is it, it's within like... That starts. I'm going to find out. 1878. Okay.

I just know that James L. Brooks said the reason he thought to create a sitcom around a taxi dispatch station, there was a big New York magazine article about one night on the graveyard shift. And he found it fascinating that everyone who worked there, it was, this is a transitional survival job. Yeah, yeah. I'm just going to do this for six months. How long have you been doing it? 15 years. Right. But all of them were like, I do this at night because my real passion is this at the day and I haven't been able to actually make it a livable wage yet. Right. And it feels like in

this interview scene, part of what this guy is sort of sniffing out is like, why do you want to do this? You don't seem to be saying, I need to pick up this so I have the flexible hours in order to do this with my other time. It's not about spending time with your family or taking care of a parent or following some other passion or hobby. It's like you just want to drive the cab. That's a little bit odd. You ever had a friend who drove a cab? Yeah.

You did? Yeah. Yeah, I've had a couple. My uncle drove a cab from 80 to 83. In New York City. In New York City. Your uncle, who's a listener. Yep.

And it's in a file. Yeah. Probably an intense time to be driving a cab in New York. I mean, it's basically always an intense job. Yeah, he worked the graveyard shift. So 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. And he had to pick up

like ghouls and goblins. Because the way New York City's cabs work is that there's just six to six for both. There's no swing shift because they don't want anyone to get the sort of

like better end of anything. And he, reflecting on that time, he said he shared with me, he totally risked his life by doing that job. It was really dangerous. He thankfully never had

any kind of incident other than people running out on their fare. But he felt that it was always a possibility. It was just, it was a crazy time. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It was. You never drove a cab? No, I didn't. I had a friend, uh, Will Kern, and he wrote a play about it called Hell Cab. And then they turned Hell Cab into a movie called Chicago Cab. Oh, I believe directed by, uh, John Tintori and Mary Sebolski, the parents of our friend, Ray Tentori. Oh, wow.

Passing future guests. The late great Mary Savulski, a legend. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in that movie briefly. Really? Okay. It's made in Chicago.

You play sports fan. I do, in fact, be a sports fan. Are you? What team? I'm a Bears fan. Of course. The Bears. But everybody I've ever known who's driven a cab

believes that they've, that they're performing a valuable public service. That is a great way of putting a Tracy. And I feel like there's a similar kind of... It's like the safety net of travel. In a city like New York where you're like, well, if all else fails, maybe I can grab a cab. Like, that used to be sort of like, yeah.

It also feels like they talk about it as if it was I backpack across the world for five years. That's something crazy that I did in my past. That it is an extreme form of interpersonal immersion into like the breadth of humanity. I remember I read the book Hack by Melissa Plot. Now Goes My Mel Plot came out as non-binary later in life. But like, great book. about someone who just was like, I'm 25, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing with myself. I'm going to start driving a cat.

That's every friend of mine who grew up, right, people I know who also grew up in New York City and were just like, I'm in my early 20s, I haven't figured out my thing yet. Your screen keeps turning really bright red. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I don't know. There was an ad running. He's got to look like that same.

I was going to say, oh my God, David. It's reflecting on your eyeballs. This is how I get off. I watch porn and, like, do not touch myself in public places. While talking about cinema. You would not be the first. But they'd be like, I need a thing to do. But what's interesting is, like, they talk about how by the end of their time as a cabby, they had a bit of a hair-trigger temper.

And it's not so even so much the people in your cab. It's just the act of driving all the time in New York City where you just, a lot of rage starts to radiate out of you. Like, everyone is, you know, cutting you off and trying to get you. I've talked about it so much. But I do not have a driver's license. I do not drive. I've driven one time on camera for an unreleased independent film. And so much of my fear of driving is that my dad drove way too much in the city.

My dad was weirdly addicted to driving in the city. And it's such a terrible experience. He was not good at handling the stress of it. And so all of my associations are, why the fuck would you ever do this? Not all of my associations, but all my primal associations are being in bumper-to-bumper, hair trigger, yeah. Yeah. So, Ken, he had been, you know, was a working musician and

composer, but it was hard. And he would be in between jobs. You don't even make that much money. Yeah. And so at some point, after doing all these different kinds of odd jobs, he decided to start driving a cab. And he was telling me that in one night, you could make like 200 bucks, which was like, you know, a decent amount of money back then. Yeah. But the thing that he did, like Travis, is he would drive anywhere. He would pick up whoever and drive to Staten Island. He crossed. state lines. Drive to white planes, drive to Jersey. But like the real deal of cabbies, they were refusing. I'm not fucking going uptown. They were refusing to drive. And they were 100% racially profiled. Right. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. So, okay, so he's a cab driver. Right. Yeah. We've got

as far as Joe Spinell in the movie taxi driver. He's a cab driver. He's great at dating. Women just don't get it. Those early scenes are right with him with like Peter Boyle, Harry North North up, Norman Matlock. I'm trying to be like who those guys are. And even though those guys are all you know, kind of scumbaggy or whatever, Travis is so apart from them. Like he doesn't fit in with them at all.

This is what I'm saying. I know what I talked about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Peter Boyle really well cast. Really well cast. He's such a, yeah, he's such a good act. I love the 70s Peter Boyle. Yeah.

But this is right. This was his last kind of chance in his mind to find a community. these seem like guys who would be on the same wavelength as me and he can't even crack the conversational rhythm that these guys have. Right. Yeah.

Well, I mean, let's face it, Travis may not be very bright. I mean, there are things like, what's moonlighting? Right. When he asks the question, what's moonlighting? Right. Certain things, it's just like, wow, you don't actually know that word. He's a little born under a rock or whatever. Yeah.

I said he's a little like big where he's like a kid in a grown-up's body. There was always this sort of whisper that De Niro was supposed to be in big. And then Elizabeth Perkins did an interview recently, and she was like, my screen test was with him. We prepped the movie with him.

Yeah, that sounds big. His reps asked for more money. The contract fell apart at the last minute, and then Hanks jumped in. And I always thought, like, that movie would be such a fucking disaster with him in it. And then you watch this, or on this rewatch, I was like, he does really feel like a six-year-old,

where the way he asked these things like what is moonlighting doesn't have the self-consciousness of an adult who is unintelligent it has the energy of a child who's actually just trying to collect information we're in his head pretty early we're hearing his monologue right away right it's not like this film it's it's what you're saying Tracy that even you're walking in as an 18 year older you know knowing that he's going to go on a rampage I would love to watch this movie not knowing.

Yeah. It's impossible. Like, it's the same with psycho or whatever. These movies where as a kid I'm like, I know one thing about this movie. Well, even just beyond. But like watching this movie just thinking, like, what's he going to do? I don't understand. Why am I with this person?

Like, why am I with this person? Beyond knowing the violence is coming because the violence itself is iconic, we also like, you and I, all three of us are born into a world like after the Jody Foster shit. Sure. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. copycat crimes that we just know

before we know the movie. And I feel like right away you know he hates everyone around him and he kind of wants him to be washed away. So it's not shocking what happens. I guess I'm trying to unpack this as I think about it. It's more, it's just like

it's hard to reckon with this movie or to consider this movie as a tense thriller. I think of it as a character stuff. I do too. I watch this movie as if I am seeing like a production of Hamlet, if that makes sense. Right. Right.

Well, I understand the basic tenets of this story and how it exists in our culture and is referenced all the time. And now I'm going to watch it for the first time. But the first time you watch it, not knowing things, it must have been like, is he going to attack this girl? Right. Is he going to shoot this, you know, politician? Is it a romance with the girl earnestly? Is the movie going to try to sell me on that? Like anything.

And how unseenly it starts. I do feel like, yes, I know this movie. has many a sort of fan who doesn't get it or whatever. But it's hard to watch this movie and think, like, I think this guy's going to figure it out. He's going to rescue someone. He's going to be an avenging angel, whatever. It is wild to consider that this film can be misread

with how clear its perspective feels communicated at all times. And even just in the performance, which doesn't feel judgmental, but feels so considerate of his brokenness. Yeah. You know, when people try to make this kind of movie today, it actually does get muddled, where you feel like it has too much judgment, contempt for its characters, or it's a little bit too much into fetishizing, you know, their transcendent moments or whatever it is. And this movie feels like so cut and dry in like, this is a movie about being a broken man, period.

Like, that's how it starts. That's how it, what it is from beginning to end. Yeah. Isn't the... Are you going through the movie chronologically? Sort of. I have a... It's just not a heavy narrative film.

No, it's not. Like, the first things after we discuss is the Betsy thing, which we sort of went through at Sybil Shepard's character. The first 30 to 40 minutes are mostly driven by Sybil Shepard. But we're hearing things in his head like he sees her and it's like, she's like an angel. Right. Like, the city cannot touch her. Like, you know, you're already hearing this kind of, like, insane dialogue in his head.

So topic for discussion. Uh-huh. The breaks in a point of view. Uh-huh. There are basically three. There are two scenes in the campaign office between Civil Shepard and Albert Brooks. Yes. And then there's the scene between Harvey Keitel and Jody Foster.

Yes. Where we see the pimp working his, his magic on her. Uh, what about those? What about those? It's interesting. I think you need to understand. in both of those cases where the place of objective reality is, because they are figures that he projects so much onto.

It's important to see Sibyl and Brooks, see De Niro through their eyes, see Travis through her eyes, and be kind of, like, you know, tingling with, you know, like just understanding, like, how strange it is that he's... Yeah, I think that's vital. The scene with Sport and Iris is different. I'm not sure what that's doing,

except, you know, giving her a little death. and maybe contextualizing just... But we already know she's in an abusive situation. It takes it from being intellectual to being emotional. You can't watch that and not feel a desire for some justice to be carried out, even if it's not what Travis is going to do. I think that's the function of that. What do you make of this trait?

Again, you wrote Killer Joe. It's like you... I'm not saying, like, you copy... Can I actually drive her? I'm like, with Killer Joe, I'm sure you were thinking of, like... Do I exit this guy's perspective? Do I stay in it? Like, is that too tough for the audience to just be in this guy's head?

The entire movie? When you were saying it's tough to, like, trace influences and things like that, I do just think there's a similarity in this and some of your plays, the groatier plays in your uvra, that are like, this is really digging in on the people that society doesn't even want to look at. Oh, well, that would be good. I mean, if I took that from it, wouldn't that be a great thing? But because I think that's important.

Yeah. I ask myself when I watch it, it now seems like such a sharp break from his. It is. Right. Because as you're saying, you're not only in his head, we're way in his head. Yeah. And so to suddenly transport out of it is like, is it a mistake? Would the movie be stronger without those three scenes?

Is it in service of the audience? Like, that's what I wonder. Like, is there that thought of like the audience needs a release? I think they're two weeks. A brief release. I don't know. I think one is it's in service of the audience, not just. to need the release, but to also understand,

have some grounding in a real reality because part of it is, are we getting somewhat seduced into the idea that Travis should do this? If we are seeing in real time the actual dynamics of Jody Foster's situation, to some degree, does that make us want some,

if not bloodshed, justice, right? Yeah. I think the second interpretation is you could read these sequences and especially that one as a projection of Travis's mind. Okay. That's the order in which I wanted to introduce this, because that's the next question I want to entertain.

There's been a lot of conjecture over the years about where the movie parts from reality, even down to my mom's first viewing the movie and the drive-in, right? It's like, well, I think maybe some of that stuff was fantasy. And I know that the filmmakers have at various times addressed this question themselves, never very satisfactorily, nor do I think they're necessarily

the final arbiters of that decision. They are not, but I also feel like they all seem to slightly disagree and they also don't want to be definitive. Right. Like they don't want to totally be like, oh, did you not fucking get that that was a dream idiot? You know. Yeah. And then there's like that moment where Schrader, no, De Niro.

One of them was like, let's do a sequel. And I remember some people being like, hold up, sequel? Is he even alive? Right. Why would there be a sequel? Right. Yes. Carrie, Carrie last night after we watch it was just like,

the motherfucker got shot in his carriotid artery. He's fucking dead. He's not in good shape at the end of the movie. I'll say it. 911, let's call it.

I also always think about there was Scorsese did a podcast with Joanna Hogg. I think it was for the 824 podcast. He sure did. It's one of my favorite podcasts ever recorded.

And he said a thing that I think about all the fucking time. Who said this to Joanna Hogg? Martin. Martin, who directed who directed Raging Bull and taxi driver. Yeah.

And he said, she was talking about having to do like a press tour for the first time. And that this interview felt like the first real conversation she was having after weeks of people asking her to confirm their interpretations of the film or asking her to explain the film in ways they didn't understand and how she was so loathe to do that. And he said, what you have to do is offer them something else. You know, she said, I don't want to be someone who's difficult who refuses to do press. but I also don't want to say these things. I don't think that helps the function of the art itself with its own integrity. And he said, you take the question they ask

and you offer them something else instead. So Scorsese himself has admitted, and for a man who had to deal with a lot of controversy across his career and the interpretation of films and being asked to explain himself, that the strategy he eventually landed on is, I'm not going to give people what I really think to some degree. Yeah.

I'm going to find a way to Three Card Monty a little bit to let the movie stand. still have its own integrity. How much of it do you think is, is quote unquote real? What's interesting to me when I think about this stuff, because you can pretty flatly kind of just take the movie. It's like, sure, it's basically real. And like, then, you know, the epilogue is, is sort of a fantasy or kind of a commentary

to the audience or whatever. Right. Right. I also just, I do think about, like, how handsome De Niro is as a bit of a, fantasy we're seeing, right? And the fact that he starts to focus on, like, there'll be no more poison in my body, like, 50 push-ups a day, right? Like, his whole, like, regimen.

And he's already trimmed to begin with. It's not like he starts the movie, Doey. Yeah, like, the way he looks and is perceived... The perfect amount of stubble. His skin is so clean. Is a little too nice. Yeah. And then the way people react to him doesn't strike me as like they're seeing the dearer I'm seeing.

Right. Now, of course, people start to really be, disturbed by him once he's got the Mohawk, once he's, you know, like, and I don't know. Like, I mean, to me, this is just a fun thing to think about. This is not, like, this is not a movie that needs solving in the slightest, right? Like, it's not a movie where I'm like, you have to know what's going on at the end. There's clues. Yeah. It's vital that you see in the final scene that weird look cross his face, obviously.

Like, you need to understand, like, he's not feeling great, you know? I mean, this is why it's... It's also inside of him. But apart from that, you can just sort of like, is he just imagining all of this? Is he just imagining Sybil getting in the car? It's why this is an endlessly fascinating movie to unpack and pick at,

because even to what you're saying, I'm like, that's a really good read. On the other hand, you could say this movie is kind of about the weirdness of if you are a handsome person or even let alone just a conventional enough looking person, people grant you more... You could escape by a little bit for...

You watch the scene with a... he's talking to like the security detail. Well, but that scene, I feel like the security guy immediately clocks him as a huge threat. Right. Yes. Well, and his... And asks for his address and all that. ...sems seems to kind of swing back and forth.

Seems to waver. There's times in the movie where he seems sicker than other times. And it's one of the... He's letting more of his inside thoughts out, you know, talking about, like, he need to deal with this. He needs to get these people out here. I think it's one of the... I think it's one of the all-time great screen performances.

It is. I really do. I completely one of the reasons is is that issue of mental health the the the the the projection of mental illness that denierro creates moment to moment seen to scene not indicating ever no there's sort of in and out quality of it right where when he's talking to iris he seems very lucid and and and on it and then when he's talking to the secure to the secret service man right he's just ready to bust out and make trouble. Yes. But then he'll kind of like the way he smiles because clearly Travis

knows enough like if I smile at someone that'll diffuse tension that I'm sort of perceiving and of course anytime he does that he looks crazy not to use these words and it's like but you're just kind of like why the fuck is this guy smiling? He just said he wants to like

wipe you know to get rid of a bunch of scum or whatever you know. Let's remember that he's 26 years old, right? And people with latent mental illnesses, often that is when they start to experience, you know, in the time between... But he's also a Vietnam veteran suffering from... Totally, totally. Right. There's PTSD and whatever.

But I don't think this movie argues that he is solely the byproduct of PTSD. No, no. I mean, I don't know. I think part of what this movie argues is that supercharged a man who never should have been put in that position after to begin with and was not given the support coming out of it. Right. It's that more as well of just kind of like, right, and then we put these guys into a war that made no sense.

Yes. They were traumatized. And then we just kind of brought them back and we're like, ugh, sorry, deal with it. I had friends, people I grew up with who then had a psychotic break at some point in their early to mid-20s. And when it's starting to happen, you question your perception of what's going on because sometimes these people are unbelievably convincing. And then they start to have behaviors that are aberrant, but they're small. And often it's like, well, he's always, been funny, or he's always been kind of a wild guy. The same things that were originally kind of appealing charismatic about the person start to just get a little bit oversized. And to some

degree, it is like the fact that he is a handsome guy, the fact that it is De Niro and he has a certain undeniable level of magnetism, you know, even when he's playing a broken, sad guy, you do see people sizing him up. And I agree with you that the security detail guy immediately is like, okay, this guy is a fucking problem, but also, he is relating to him in a way where he's like, let me try to psychologically contain this situation?

Yeah, yeah. Hey, no, yeah, you can join the squad. If he's a different looking kind of guy, he maybe just physically apprehends him immediately. There's the scene where he tells Boyle, essentially, like, that I'm having like violent thoughts. Yeah. And, you know, I feel like there's a few

scenes like that. There's a scene with the Secret Service guy. There's a few scenes where essentially he's kind of like Red Alert, FYI. Yeah. And it's sort of the scenes you sometimes, the stuff you hear about with people who do a bad thing. Yes. Where people are like, you know what? In retrospect, he said this thing that was like very uncomfortable.

The great irony of Boyle's character being named Wizard when he's anything but, you know, yes. Just totally hapless and helping his friend. But beholds that. I mean, he... I mean, and Wizard tells that sex story at the start of the movie. Yes. Where you're like, well, this is made up.

You know, in that sort of like... schoolyard way of like, oh, you just made up a story to entertain everyone. Do we not think that also perhaps feeds into Travis's bad second date where he's like, this story is this guy made a bold move and it paid off. He took a stick out and it was good. Right. I can do stuff like that. He was applauded.

A tick or tape perured. David? Yes. Red alert. Uh-oh. There's been an outbreak. Biohazard. Of a new Patreon.

series. It's contagious. Oh, that's so true. It's been cooked up in the lab for your pleasure. From the fine folks at the umbrella corporation, we are covering Resident Evil. The film franchise. Yes.

We've got the first franchise. Six movies. Yes. That beautiful second franchise. How many? Six, seven? It's got the one movie. Oh, it's got the one.

We'll be covering all of them on Patreon doing commentaries on, yes, the rest of. and an evil, apocalypse, extinction, afterlife, retribution, the final chapter.

Welcome to Rackard and Sydney. This is an exciting time. Zach Greger, a friend of the podcast, has the new Resident Evil coming out, and we thought this was a good opportunity to revisit the history

of Resident Evil movies. Why not? Why not? Why can't we? We can. Check in for that August 1st, and it's going to be running

all the way through November 1st. Followed by your March Madness winner, Dracula. Dr. Acula. himself. That's so fun. So that's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much. We should also, though, point out too that he has that interaction with Jody Foster's character. That happens pretty early, right? Because she like, he almost runs her over. That's within the first 30 minutes,

but then she kind of disappears from the movie for a while. And he gets kind of almost paid off a little bit. Well, Kytel comes and pulls her out. He's like a crumpled up. throws a 20. But he keeps holding on to the 20. Yes. Throughout the movie. It's also fascinating when he finally reconnects with her. And a lot of times passed in the movie,

and you imagine a chunk of times passed in the real world as well, that he's like, you remember me from our defining incident. You know, that to him, as you're saying, he's really holding on to this, like, should I have stepped in? Did I not prevent something from happening? Which means that I think when he sees her the second time, he's so relieved that she's still alive. And he's like, I cannot let this happen a second time.

I cannot do nothing. And she has no memory of even the event he's talking about because that's like every day of her life probably. Right. But the dynamic is that he wants to protect her. I do think he also wants to have her. Right? Like, you know, it's like he's wrestling with his own kind of dark,

you know, like experience of his sexuality, which feels like nascent. Yes. And like so mysterious to him. Well, also that he's so childlike that he almost relates more to her of like, you two are stuck in this adult world that's kind of scary that you don't understand.

100%. Right. Because like, I feel like at the time, some of the discussion around her character was like, is this just too patently shocking? Is this just designed to shock? The fact that she's so young, you know, like, and I'm like, no, she has to be a child.

Because it is the only way he can really. And it's like such a, the sociopathic thing of sociopaths responding to animals and children in a way. You know what I mean? Like, you read about this. It just all makes perfect sense to me. And I mean, Schrader has this whole story of like, look, I'm not going to litigate Schrader all day.

But, you know, where he says, like, I picked up a girl while I was researching this. And I realized very quickly she was like underage and a drug addicts. And I had Marty Meader. And she was the one who put sugar on the peanut butter and jelly. That's where we got that idea from. When Schrader says things like that, I'm like, okay. Okay, Paul. Much as like later when he was like, you know, I would like hang out.

you know, in gay sex clubs just to sort of see what it did for me. And I'm like, okay, Paul, well, I hope it did something. And now recently when he's like, I had an AI girlfriend, but she dumped me. Yes. The man expresses his thoughts and interests online. Our researcher JJ texted,

are you still recording with Tracy, might want to address this? And the Facebook post is AI female friends, all caps. Out of a desire to understand male female interaction in our matrix, I procured an online AI girl friend. What a disappointment. I tried to probe her programming, the boundaries of explicitness, the degree she has knowledge of her creation, and so forth. She fell into evasive

patterns redirecting me to her programming. When I persisted, she terminated our conversation. And JJ responded, modern day Travis Bickle frees an AI female friend from a data center shooting spree. I just had to read that to give JJ the comedy point. I want to say, of course, that JJ, I texted JJ privately were not reading that shit. So I'm glad of course that we did read it. Of course, you had to. And what a mistake to text in that privately. Well, I think it was a hubristic move

that I knew what I was doing. I knew we would eventually probably end up reading that shit. Thanks for the alley-up buddy. Yes. So yeah, he gets guns. The guns scenes. He does. The gun salesman, man. What a classic. He's like, I got guns. He also

got some dope grass. Hash. You want a Cadillac? You want a tiger? Where does he have the catalog? I don't know. Is he like it's around the corner? This guy's just got in on anything. I also...

Anything you want. I love that this guy is like, he thinks he's in Death Wish. He is the functional character in the movie who helps the hero gain the power he needs to solve everything. And this actor was the subject of a Scorsese documentary short. The character is easy, Andy. The actor is Stephen Prince. Tell me. Oh, American boy.

Yes, right, right, right, right. Which comes out in between this. It's this guy monologue. He's like a recovering heroin addict, I think, and he's just telling crazy stories. We'll cover it on, we're going to, I think, do a Patreon episode on the Scorsese shorts criterion set, which that's part of. There's a shot in this. It's another just like this guy's a fucking genius moment where this dude holds up the gun. the gun he's going to, you know, become Travis's first gun.

And the camera cranes up with the gun from the perspective of the gun, basically, and Travis looking at it. And it's like he is ascending into a higher form with the introduction of this weapon. But rather than it being a kind of obvious Spielberg shot of the camera and the gun raise up and Travis is looking, you know, wide-eyed in wonder at it, Travis, like, looks away for a second. And it doesn't feel like it's an imperfect take that was chosen, obviously. It's that he can't even kind of face the power of what he's saying he needs. Right. That it's like he's staring into the sun.

There are some camera moves in this thing that are. It's insane. The thing down the hall that you mentioned, the few times that the camera hovers sort of objectively over a tabletop. and we see the various items on the top of the table. It's fascinating because you say objectively, but then I feel like this is a movie that pulls off its camera editorializing its characters in a way that's... It's part of why I just...

It's so hard to imagine misreading this movie. Because it does things to throw you off center. Yeah. In even just the experience of watching the sequences to deprive you of what could be the wrong kind of juice. Well, Kerry noted... too, the number, and she was right, it struck me last night on the watching, the number of sort of montagee, interstitial moments between the same, right, him traveling or him watching TV or making a sandwich or whatever the hell he's doing. And the score is swelling.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of that. So, you know, credit, credit to the editor because a lot of that's done. Yeah, Marshal Lucas. Supervising editor, Marshall Lucas, which I have. some interesting things, thoughts about her. I'll tell you off Mike. Tom Rolf. He's kidding. Do you know who Marshall Lucas is? I don't guess I do. Marsha Lucas was the first wife of George

Lucas and she is responsible or largely credited for after the original cut of Star Wars was a mess. She's the one who came in and fixed it and is often credited specifically with saving the Trench Run sequence. Oh, nice. Your favorite sequence of all time in any film ever made. I will. I will. She's a great... As I ponder the fourth Star Wars movie. She's a great editor of the 70s. Yes. Should we talk about, are you talking to me at all? Yeah, it is funny.

In this way, talking about watching movies where the reputation precedes them so much, right? Sometimes you're dutiful cinephile and you try to go through history and cross the things off the list. You get to the scenes and you're just doing the pointing at the screen meme of like, got it, there it is. And the scenes have become so big out of context

that it's actually hard to engage with them within the body of the movie itself. It is insane how much this scene transforms entirely if watched in the context of the film. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because whenever it's cut into

fucking clip packages of the history of movies or even, you know, it's painted on a mural the side of the pizza parlor or whatever, it does just look like a cool badass guy doing cool, badass stuff. And within the scene,

it is like so bizarre. It's deeply, deeply strange. And, you know, it's the famous story that it's improvised and it was basically just like, not B-roll, but it was, you know, Scorsese was saying, like, just do some stuff. They were behind schedule. Yeah. Sorry, you know, like, you know, they were in like five days over schedule on a 40-day shoot.

And he just started doing stuff. And Scorsese was just like, just film it. We just need to be done. Like, so just whatever he does, let's just film it. You also imagine, you know, talking about the amount of montages in this movie. Like, this is the kind of thing that would just possibly be three seconds of, you know, non-speaking cutaway, were it not capturing some weird lightning in a bottle? And the fact that it is, I'm sure you have the same hang up. But when people talk about things that are improvised in movies, 99.9% of the time, what they mean is something was improvised during a rehearsal and then it was written down and then it was replicated 40 times.

and coverage starts to be dictated by the thing. It was written on the day, but it's not a spontaneous moment that actually happened. This you can feel, this is something that just fucking happened. And they got it. And thank God there was not like a hair in the gate. And I'm pretty sure shooting into the reflection. Yeah.

It looks like his reflection in the middle, right? De Niro is reversed. Yeah. You can see it in his face that he's reversed. No, it's really great. I mean, obviously, it's not just the delivery. It's not just the way it's shot. It's not just the placement.

It's also just the universality. And you talk about a little kid, the little kid in Travis. It's a little kid. It's a little kid who's acting out. Being a tough guy, having a tough guy conversation with somebody else. Everybody's done it at some point. Now, hopefully they've done it innocently at a more innocent time in their life without actual plans to go in and massacre. bunch of people. It's also the reason why I didn't do it for the fucking intro is because when it's

cut into these montages, it's like you hear him say it three times. And when you watch the scene, he says it like 10 times. There's something bizarre about how ritualistic it becomes. It's not just one moment of this guy being tough. It's him like trying out different reads. That's what I love about it. It's pathetic. It's pathetic. He doesn't know how to talk to people even when he's trying to be a scary cowboy. It's also, he has to rehearse it. It's a weird thing to see. say. Right? It's a weird thing to get upset about. You're talking to me? Yeah. Especially if, as he says, there's nobody else around here. Right. It feels like the broken version of who the fuck do you think you're talking to. Right. Yeah, of course. Like, and like I've had those moments

and I'm sure you have too where you're on the subway, there's someone who clearly wants to pick a fight. Yes. And if you look at them, if you lock eyes with them, then they will start to be like, hey, what are you looking at? You know, like, and you're like, oh God, now I have to diffuse this. I had a I literally knock my hat off recently for that. And we were on an escalates. Yeah, it was an accident. I think both of you for apologizing. Ben, is there anything you want to say now?

No, I meant it. It has happened three times. Three times today. No, it was like an escalator going up the Whitehall station. I hear you. Which is a pretty steep escalator. It's a big old escalator. And I'm literally just looking up it and the guy just fucking knocks my hat off.

Wow. And was like, riding down the other side? Writing up. He just sees you from behind him. He's one step ahead of me. He's facing towards me. First of all, he wanted to fight. He's already looking in the wrong direction up the escalator.

I am looking to see, is there a room to walk? Or am I stuck just standing here, riding it out? Kick his ass? Yeah, of course, Tracy. What do you think? Look at me. Brum onto the W train. Now, but it was everyone else was kind of watching.

Did you make an ironic comment? I went, I'm looking at the escalator. I did say that. And I had my AirPods in and I'm stuck just writing it for the remaining like 45 seconds. And I just played the game of like, I'm listening to a podcast. I'm not engaging with you. But he wouldn't stop talking. And it went from like, you're upset because I could fuck your wife to you're gay to like, it's cycled through everything.

But it felt it felt kind of you're talking to me. You're right, David, that it is that type of thing of a guy who's just like, I'm looking for a reason that someone wants to fight me so that I feel like I'm not instigating it. So imagine being upset because somebody could fuck your wife. I know. I had a good conversation the other night where someone asked me if I was married and I said no and he said not at all.

So just to, we need to wrap this. Unpacked that. The rest of my life. I'm going for the record. No, no. We have another episode to record after this. We got a wrap soon. But no, okay. The Palatine character, I take him as kind of a John Lindsay. I don't know, like a sort of patrician, kind of a good guy, a little well-meaning, but a little disconnected, right? Like, it's a good performance. It's the kind of liberalish politician in the city that was kind of like, we all need to band together to help things out. Presented as a man of the people. Right. And it feels like there is no consideration of the world that Travis lives in, let us have. alone the world that sailor lives in. He's full of shit. Yeah. He's a phone. Yeah. But, like, it sort of makes sense that Travis would be, like, initially intrigued. And then he's

like, no, no, no, you're a phone. You need to die. Right. I like that he also positions it as if, like, he almost went into a career in politics that, you know, part of the sliding doors for Travis is like, yeah, I almost devoted my life to supporting this candidate as if that's a career. Right. the Mohawk moment it's like the camera's on a rope I don't know like I don't know what the move is exactly because it's like the scariest thing and again imagine seeing this movie not knowing that

yeah like because the way you see his legs and it just jerks up to see that he's cut his hair like that and you're like Jesus yeah like what's going on and I mean this is where we're kind of like right we've already I'm sorry just to double back no please double back I'm now kind of out of narrative like we're basically just at the end of

I'm trying to think of what I might have forgotten. Well, just Jackson Brown. Let's talk about Jackson Brown. Odd. Yeah. An odd needle drop. Late for the sky, I believe. What's this one?

Also, as you said, there's very little, like, contemporary music in this thing. There's very little music outside of the Herman score that you hear anywhere. It seems to suggest that this Jackson Brown song is playing on American bandstand. Listener, let me tell you. Jackson Brown was not that kind of guy. was not on American bandstand. Yes. Just odd.

And feels all Scorsesey, right? Sure. He had that musical taste. And, like, we're still only a couple years removed from Mean Streets where him bringing that kind of music to a movie is novel. Yeah.

This kind of a very current music. That is part of it. I wonder if that truly is just, he tried to hold himself back from doing any needle drops. Right. But as the king of needle drops, he was like, I kind of want to put one in it.

He wanted to do hooked on a feeling for the... for the brothel massacre. Right. Wait, yeah, where is the needle drop? I don't remember. The needle drop is when he's getting ready for basically his mission to save iris. Right, when he's like watching TV and he's got

the gun and he's going to click, click, click, you know, feeling normal. That's when I'm feeling normal. There's that one and then there's the soap opera that he watches as well where he's clicking on the soap opera before he destroys the television. And testing the limits of how far he can kick.

I mean, it reminds. reminds me, once again, it reminds me of when you're in school and you're testing how far back you can kick your chair at the desk. And the teacher goes like, don't fucking do it, don't fucking do it. But he's playing that same game of chicken with the kind of laws of physics of tipping that thing over. Want to call out Diane Abbott, who is De Niro's first wife. Of course, she's the theater girl, the concession girl. I just think it's telling that the first time he goes to the theater. before the bad date.

He also doesn't understand that this is not a theater that's going to have a complete concessions display, that that's not what people come here for, that he keeps asking for all sorts of different things that they don't have.

It's also funny to think of that being a moment where two people fell in love. Also, the fact that he believes that the girl who works to concession stand at the porno theater would be responsive to the single guy hitting on. Why do you think she took the job?

She wants to meet that. She loves to meet these. The clientele. They're wonderful people. I think the Jackson Brown is weird. I do too. Fair enough? If there is one...

Corsese, apologize. If there's one imperfect element of the movie, it's that for me. It doesn't bump too hard. Let me see if there's any writing on this. I agree with you that it's the only decision that doesn't feel 100% correct to me. It was a big moment for Jackson Brown, I believe. Okay. It was a breakout moment for him.

You know, he's diverted to attacking sports. brothel because the Palatine attempt doesn't even really happen, you know, because he's chased off. And it feels like he picks the softer target or whatever. And he's got to kill somebody. He's got to fucking do this. And he's built the slide for the gun. He's got to relieve whatever this pressure is that's building up in him. And the only way to do it is to fucking kill somebody.

And even after he kills sport, right, there's that great bit where he walks over and takes a seat on the Yeah. Just like, as if he's feeling his body to feel like, did that do it? Yes. Was that, did that get that feeling out of me that I need to get out? Nope. Not enough. I got to do more.

And it took them three months to prep the tracking shot of the entrance into the building. They had to like cut out the ceiling or whatever, all this crazy stuff. Right. I mean, this is the benefit of shooting in the New York full of condemned buildings. But I think basically they would film a proper day of stuff. and then at some point just do a run-through of that shot to just get their reps in before they actually built up to filming it. Obviously, famously, the whole sequence is desaturated.

It looks kind of brown. I would say this is the other accidental miracle, miracle. I couldn't decide if I want to say miracle of miraculous. Doritos. Doritos. Miracle of studio intervention. Yes. I do think it's interesting.

Michael Chapman is the one dissenter. I'm like... I heard that on the drive-in listening to your podcast. When your guest said... In Seek. In Seek? Instead of in search of. What's his name? I like that guy.

Hitmaker? No, no, no. J. DiMato. The great J.D. Amato from the Truman Show episode. Yes. Yes. He's a great guy. He's going to get a tattoo that says, I like that guy. Tracy Lutz on his chest.

He'd be thrilled to hear it. He's the best. I like that. I don't know who he is, but... He's a genius. Yeah, he's our dear fan. He's a great filmmaker. He's a great guy. Author now, right by his book.

Miracle. Miracle. But I think, and Sean made this argument as well, I think it lends the movie. In the same way that the, because Trapman didn't have access to the lights, New York starts to feel unreal in the way he films the evenings. The studio mandate, do you know about this, Ben? they were going to give the movie an X rating because it was too bloody in this sequence

and there is a sort of marginally apocryphal thing that Martin Scorsese was about to go Travis Bickle himself on the studio executives to demand that they released it his way with a loaded gun which has always seemingly been very overstated that it was more Scorsese

while in the mindset of this movie being like I wonder if I went in with a gun if they would listen to me rather than making plans, which is like a false narrative. But they were saying, like, you got to cut the sequence or the movie's not going to get released and he couldn't solve it. But that's like, what would the movie be then?

Correct. Well, they were like, you have to cut around it. You can't be this explicit. We need to like shred it to ribbons. Sure. Okay. And then they basically, I think accidentally landed on this idea of, oh, if we push it a little bit and we desaturate the colors and it stops being a vivid red, does it start

looking less objectionable to the MPAA and they accepted it. But so the weird muddy brownness of it all, I think feels like the way Sean put is, he enters a like literal descent into hell. Yes. You know? I think the fact that it is so unearthly is to the movie's benefit, in my opinion. I agree. I do think it's enchantment is like it's sad the original colors are gone.

They're gone. Like you cannot recover them. Right. They had to do a permanent. chemical process to get the current look. There used to be, I think, some examples of, like, that they, but it's gone. Like, whatever, whatever that is is gone. And Chapman's like, it looked great.

He's the one. And I'd be interested to see it. To me, right, the desaturation, it's part of the movie. I first watched this movie in, like, a basement when I was 14 years old with my, like, movie-loving friends, and it blew my mind. And, yes, I just wonder about it. It also, it looks like dried blood in an interesting way. You know, it looks more like a crime scene after the fact in real time.

It just looks so fucking grotty. Yes. It just looks quite grotty and sticky and and violent, you know, exceedingly violent. I guess there's kind of an inside joke about the fingers that get blown off the guy's hands because Albert Brooks has had the bit earlier about how would you light a match if you were missing these fingers on my hand. think about that. Yeah. Yeah. But all of the violence is, it's kind of like Fargo, these other early violent movies I saw.

Sure. Every little bit of it is just in my brain. Like just written in my brain, like the knife through the hand. Yeah. The fingers getting blown off. Just like, it's so well presented. You can see it so clearly. Every moment is so shocking.

The worst is when he, you know, shoots the guy in front of her just because she's there and she's, it's so horrible for her. I'll say we didn't spend too much time on it because it was a, double episode, but in the Boxcar Bertha episode, I didn't shout out how well constructed, I think that's sequences of the final shootout. I know we were calling out how violent it was, but it has that same kind of visual clarity and really kind of intentional. This is the camera move for just this one action kind of construction to it. He makes filings for, shoots violence very well. Did you guys discuss the John Cassavetti's element of Boxcar Bertha? Big time. Oh, okay. All right.

Well, I just want to. Tracy, don't worry. Well, look, now I've been listening to your episodes, and I, you know, what happens is that I listen. I go, oh, did anybody talk about that one? You can always text us now. You can always text us now. Just getting her ear. Yeah. My, you know, the story I told you about my buddy whose dad worked for the FAA.

You know, that kind of thing comes up. It's like, oh, I'd like to tell those guys. Hey, we love it. We will always be very happy to hear from me. Reminds me, I know we're on to Scorsese and not Peter Ware, but I did one. to tell you something i forgot to tell you when we were on year of living dangerously uh there was a video store in uh london england and they had um eclectic categories sure the films do you remember what it was called this video store i don't fair enough but eclectic categories you know nasty nuns or

travel on the highway or whatever the hell and then some of them were broken down by star oh here's the Harrison Ford section. Here's the and so there were a variety of Tom Cruise section, variety of movie stars, but there was one section called the French guy with a big nose

who was in green card. That's really good. That is who he is. Are you a Defargey fan? I'm alone to I mean not defender on that episode. Yes, not the person. Yeah, no. The screen presence of the 80s and the night. Absolutely. I mean Jean de Florett

Manana the Spring. Yeah, those are fucking good movies. Fucking great shit. Yeah. All right. Do we feel good about... I feel good about what he does. I think it's good.

Yeah, that's the question. And that's all we need to settle here today. Travis Bickle is a hero and we applaud him. A problem is dealt with and, you know, everyone exits happy. Necessary action. Yeah. It's what we're talking about with Rocky. The audience leaves feeling up.

There's a win. I'm watching it. It's so fucked up. He goes through two guns. He does. He's got the first gun where he... Where he's like trying to... to end his own life.

And then he, right, he produces the little gun, the slide gun. Yeah. So fucked up. And he can't move the arm because he's been shot in the upper arm. Yeah. And gets shot in the right shoulder or whatever. I wonder why that guy shot him in the shoulder and not in the head since he's walking right up.

You're so distracted by the Mohawk. You would have a hair got like that? It all makes, the clumsiness of the violence all tracks. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. It's part of what makes the movie so. Hums synced up there. Pinned down.

You almost what? Or ums synced up there. Oh, that's nice. Did we harmonized? It's, you missed your opening there. It's part of what makes this movie so hard to pin down is as much as it feels like a fantasy sequence of, well, this is how this guy thought he would be greeted.

You can imagine a world in which that happens. You can imagine a world in which people show up to the aftermath of this and go, wow, this guy was an angel, a crusading hero. he saved this young woman's life and who cares about the people he killed. I don't think that's what happened, but I believe that could be a media spin on it. Oh, no, you totally, I believe that, yes,

he could have gotten away with this, essentially. Yes. But then you don't believe that Sybil Shepard gets into the back of his cat. That is the one thing in the movie that undeniably is fake to me. Right. There's no question. There's like, hey, you know, I had the wrong idea about you. And when you murdered all those people, it really turned my opinion on your around.

She magically like appears in the rear view window like the way she shot in the rear right with her. There's like a fan blowing her hair in the shot. And she's almost not seen at all in any context other than in the rearview mirror. And her performance is completely different than how she plays every other second she has on screen. So if that's not true, then the shit before it. it would seem to be not true that's a very plausible read the only way I can think about it is like

yes he's been rewarded in a way he gets away with it and that they're like well clearly you were attacked by these low lives and you rescued this girl I guess and like okay whatever you're not under arrest sir and he's driving his cab again and he's the same fucked up guy

but he and he looks in the mirror right he looks in the mirror you see him distressed by something or what, right? And then, you know, some part of his brain engages is like, no, no, no, what's going to happen is suddenly Sibyl's going to show up. Like, you can imagine that that's the only fantastic part to him, but it all feels dreamlike to me, always has. The way the camera moves feels dreamlike, I don't know, just everything about it does. Doesn't bother me. I don't worry about it. Scorsese did say at one point, and I hear your point, Griffin that perhaps, you know, he's bullshitting his way through an interview, which is entirely

plausible. But he did say at one point that he hoped to convey the idea that in the last moment that the movie is on a loop. Yeah. That's interesting. And is beginning again from the very beginning. Well, that's the other part of it is you saying, sure, you saying if that's not true, then isn't everything that came or what came right before it isn't true about the civil separate moment. is he has his like kind of victory lap. He has you hearing the letter that her parents write, which sounds so robotic and unnatural. Of course.

Like today it plays like it's a weird AI deep fake thing. It has that unnatural kind of rhythm to the actual language and the speech patterns. Not to mention, it's not the story of this girl. No. This girl didn't leave a happy home with two happy parents. His first question is, what about your parents? What about your parents?

And she says something like, I think they're probably happier that I'm not there anymore or whatever. So, right, all of that feels completely unnatural and false. But there is the moment where he just kind of sits in the cab in self-satisfaction. The cab is empty. And then suddenly she's in the back through the rear view mirror. You could argue that's another kind of branching point. But it's also like the movie has created so. many choose your own adventure, where does reality stop thing, that we're so far down the branching

timeline that who fucking knows anymore? It just feels like that's why that's the demonstrable. There is no way this is fucking happening because you don't see her approach the car. I think you don't hear the door open or close. She's just there. And she just satisfies everything he wants to hear in life. The film was a huge commercial success. Yes. Now, I do want to define, because I think this is important running thing for the rest of his career. Scorsese's always talked about that unlike the other movie brats,

he never had the seismic success that minted him for the rest of his career. He didn't have a carry, a godfather, a Star Wars. This was his biggest hit until color of money, I think, basically.

Yeah, it makes $27 million at the domestic box office. It didn't, it costs less than two. Like, it was a huge, and especially for a movie like this, that's unheard of it. It's crazy. He certainly, he thought New York, New York was the commercial movie he was working towards.

He's like, I'm making a musical with Liza Minnell. Everyone will like it. It's about the world's worst boyfriend. And multiple Academy Award nominations and obviously a big part of the Columbia catalog moving forward. It also won the Palm Door at Cannes, a jury president, Tennessee Williams. And like, he remembers like, he premieres at Cannes.

A trade paper runs a story that Tennessee Williams hated the film. he goes to get dinner with Costa Gavris and Sergio Leone and he gets a call from a publicist late at night being like you're going to win the Palm Door by the way so you got to stay in France like you can't you know you're not going home and they were completely shocked he was completely shocked essentially that this movie went over you know I don't know

and yes of course then John Hinkley did try to shoot Colin Reagan that did happen and Jody Foster he didn't try to shoot him Yeah, he did. You tried to kill Ronald Reagan and failed. And Scorsese thought, like, the way his movie was talked about in that context was unfair. That's sort of how it always is. You know, I don't know.

Cancelling my doctor's appointment, man. Jesus. No, Griff, we're almost done. I wouldn't make it there in time. No, it's okay, because I'm going to take you guys down a rabbit hole. Yeah. Question. Yeah. How do you identify with Travis Bickle?

I love this. I love New York City, baby. Greatest city in the world. So I'd completely, I'd love to drive a cab around, see all the sites, meet all the people. The answer. David wants to learn.

I love New York. The best routes. It's a great New York movie. Exactly. Yeah. I'd crush being Travis Bickle. I mean, I'm a cinephile, obviously. My favorite date activity.

Right. You love to go to the movies. Yeah. I get frustrated if the concessions selection is limited. I do not identify with Travis Bickle's view of the world. Really in any way. I struggle to really identify with the other people is the problem.

You know what I mean? Like that sort of fundamental thing of like. So what do you? Because there has to be some level of identification for you to like this movie, I think. I feel like I can jump in here if you want to think about this more. I think I'm very prone into falling into

we live in a society frustration of people who are breaking the social contract, right? Which I think is different than what he's doing. But I think there is some relatable element of even if his ire is very often completely misplaced or kind of unfounded in anything real and tangible, that frustration of hell is other people when it feels like you can't find your way through the thing.

I also think in my worst moments, I flirt with the kind of loneliness as a choice sort of thing of, and it's especially when there are things like, I have a fucking head cold and I'm in a period of prolonged self-isolation or, you know, as an actor, you work, you shoot a thing, you go to another place, you're overstimulated for three days, and then you have five days off,

and you're in a foreign land or a foreign city, and you're sort of like, who the fuck am I? I don't understand anything, and it's easy to sort of slide into that. It never, I'm just not like a violent person. That's not how my brain ideates, but I do connect to that sort of part of it of like, if you don't catch yourself,

you'll start to get into this, like, do I not understand anyone? does no one understand me, kind of self-pity cycle? Yeah, I really think the way I identify with him is just like... Okay, so David chose... New York, New York. You just like New York. Activating a person in interesting ways.

I really think that's what speaks about this. It's interesting that you're challenging me because I was obsessed with this movie when I was a teenager, and it certainly was not because it was really speaking to me. I don't know. Speaking to you as like a beacon. romantic to me about being outside of the world and in it at the same time. Okay, here we go. Which I think New York is the greatest city for. Like, I feel this way about hotels where it's like you can be in a

giant hotel amongst all these people. No one talks to you. No one knows who you are. And there's something kind of titillating about that or like, you know, whatever, just sort of like stealthily interesting. Right. And New York is the best place for that. You can walk around among all the people like and no one, you know, if you don't want to, no one will talk to you and no one will talk to you and no one try and help you out. If that's how you want to exist in the world, something kind of exciting about that to me. Does that make sense? No, totally. I love that

that feeling of being anonymous. Just observing the world and not feeling outside of your body. And I hate Harvey Keitel. Well, yes. That's how I just want to shoot that guy. God, the look. No, I love him. That look. I have a couple notes.

Yeah. I don't know. He's not pulling it. My notes are go-free. Is that the answer for you, Ben? I think you, similar to me, get frustrated by people not behaving properly in a like, you are not showing respect. You don't like rudeness. That's true. Yes. That does trigger me.

And I think it does for a lot of people. But I think, though, what I lock into is as an only child and someone who's always been a self-described loner, I think that this movie really captures what can happen to a person when they get so ice-old. isolated and are not socializing and how scary it can be and what can happen how extreme it can get I think I identify with just the the worst most base impulses of him I think I do identify with his solipsism and his loneliness and his self-aggrandizement and his his hatred for other people and his self-hatred for himself. I identify with all of it. I mean, I hope I'm healthier now than I used to be.

I hope we're all, you know, getting better out there. Sure. But I think that's part of it. I mean, take a look at America. I think that's part of the... David's giving a thumbs up. And saluting our president, Red Hulk, of course. I think it's part of the real genius of the movie.

I agree. And of the end of the screenplay is that there's something very honest and self-appraising about the look at some of our... baser instincts activated by loneliness. Okay, so here's a take. You've just activated in me. I feel like people talk a lot about

career enthusiasm and how Larry David is this avatar for like, I wish I could just say that shit. I wish every time something fucking annoying happened or there was something, why is it this way? I could just be the asshole. And of course, no one wants to actually be that guy.

David also talks about how he's not that fucking guy. He doesn't actually behave that way in the world. That's why he writes it. Is that the comedic version of what taxi driver is expressing kind of dramatically? Oh, man, I think Travis would be so much healthier if he were able to... If he were funny in any way. If he were able to express himself to other people, he doesn't have the power of expression. He hasn't been given.

Yes. Any tools. Yes. He hasn't been exposed to movies to know that porn. is bad. He doesn't know who Chris Christopherson is. He doesn't know what moonlighting means. Yeah. He doesn't have friends or family. He can't even talk to the other cab drivers. Yeah. He's just, he's, I don't know if he's been robbed of all of that stuff, but he's certainly never been given it. Yes. And I think my therapist said a thing that I've been thinking about a lot

recently that is just very simply, depression makes a very strong case for itself. And that sort of fear of had I not been raised properly, could I have ended up like this guy? Given the wrong circumstances and events, do I end up here? He's the worst version of what we all feel we could potentially become if everything went wrong. That's what you're relating to is the fear of how far am I from this guy. I want to believe it's as far as possible. Right? Even the title, taxi driver is just...

Just some fucking guy picks you up in a guy. Just a fucking guy. Just a fucking guy with a fucking job. You hail him down. This film came out February 8th, 1976. Sort of crazy to consider that it came out, you know, that early in the year. Right, so it wins the palm door after it. Yes, yes.

But that's much more. No, no, yeah. Number one at the box office is the best picture of 1975, according to the Oscars. Or are we playing the game? We're playing the box office game. Bringing it in, baby. So 1970 is one flew over the cuckusiness? That's right.

There we go. Which is number one for just weeks on it, like many more weeks after this. It dominates the box office for a very long time. Good movie. Number two at the box office, Griffin, is a film that we have discussed because one of its stars, right, one of its stars wins an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1975. And he's in a Martin Brest movie that we discussed and liked. Oh, it's the, it's The Sunshine Boys.

Herbert Ross is the Sunshine Boys, Walter Mathau, and George Burns. Saw both those in the theater. George Burns, of course. we're just fascinated by, you know, like his whole, like, became a movie star again in his 70s and 80s, you know, and had this run. Going in style. Have you seen the breast movie going in style? Oh, yeah. Great movie.

Love it movie. Better Lee Strasberg performance there than in Godfather part. I would agree with you. That's a very, very good performance. That is a movie that does not even have a Blu-ray release, not even a Warner Archive. Outrageous. How did I watch it? Martin Bress direct.

Yes. This first film. That's what's crazy. He directed that movie when he was like. Tony Bill. No. No. Tony Bill's dead in a ditch. No, I don't know. There's some

similar film Tony Bill did that I'm going to get to the bottom of. But Sunshine Boys have never actually seen. Have you seen, do you have a take on the Sunshine Boy? You saw it, you said, I don't know. Oh, very funny. Fun. I mean, you know, good time. Neil Simon. Right jokes. Mathouse is very funny. Number three at the box office

is one of the great movies of 1975. One of your favorite movies ever, I'm sure, Griffin. Your favorite director. It's not Nashville. Not Nashville. No. Because Nashville didn't do that well. Nashville was not really a box office contender. It is one of the great movies in 1975 from one of Griffin's favorite directors. It's not John.

And it's not a Lumet. No, it is a Lumet. It is a Lumet. Yes. It's not Network because that's 76. Oh, it's Dog Day Afternoon. Oh, one of the greatest movies ever made. Exactly.

Yeah. Probably, is it Lumet's best movie? I'm going to say yes. He made The Whiz. Yeah, that's so true. I love Louis so much, Tracy. Number four at the box office. Okay, let's get weird.

Here is a film. I just have to double check what I know about this. I want to call out that Marie is waiting on the other side of the door. Should we bring her in? She's now texting her top five guesses. Bring her in. She's listening. Yeah.

Oh, Marie. Are we going to, you're going to have it out. You're going to have it out. Here she comes. I'm Marie. Look at her. Oh, my God. She's got so many bags of gifts.

I have a bag full of toys for you. I know. She's got a bag full of toys. for my kids. I'm very excited about it. You were correct. It was Dog Day. You got Dog Day, right? The fourth film is an erotic film based on an erotic novel that is... Emmanuel. Not Emmanuel. It is a... I want to say,

it's sort of French and German. The Story of O. Correct. And what's the name of the director? My favorite name of a erotic film. Just Jacqueline. Just Jacques-N. A.K.A. Just Jackin. Yeah, just Jackin. Never seen... Never seen the story of O? No. Worth your fan. Corinne Clary.

Corinne Clary is O. And Udo Chier. A young, sexy Udo Chia. Let me tell you. Worth C. Okay. And Tacey just gave two very meaningful points to David. Give it kind of like a Brian Wind Horse, like point to the sky.

Worth seeing. It's a classic example. Right of these kind of like soft core-esque, you know, art-y, sexy movies making box office, you know, noise. Corinne Clary was great. You know, she would become a bond girl. Yeah, she's in moon. Raker. Yeah, and she was, she's also in a very good jalo called Hitchhike with Franco Niro. Very good job.

Sounds good. I had on The Devil's Honey recently, because I'm trying to watch every 86 movie, which is a movie that begins with someone playing a saxophone between a woman's legs and my wife. I own that on Blu-ray. Yeah, we both have the blue. Terrible transfer. I have it, too. And my wife was like, what the fuck is this? And I was like, I don't really have an explanation for you here. Number five of the box office is, okay, I don't know this movie. I'm going to look it up. Odd title. Okay, it is a war movie? Mm-hmm. Oh, is it war?

No, no, no. Sorry, it's sort of, no, it's like a Mountain Man movie, like a Trapper movie. Is it the Mountain Men? No. It's not Grizzly Adams. No. Is it kind of Grizzly Adams runoff? Jeremiah Johnson.

It's not that. These are all better movies, I feel. Does it have a known actor in it? Is it Charlton Heston? No. The actor is, Mike Mazurski, who's a sort of a famous kind of like tough guy. He was like a big brawny guy who played a lot of heavies. Yeah, I don't know this movie. This is a studio picture. It is from the great people at Pacific International Enterprise.

So, no. It is directed by Tay Garnett. And it's about a trapper who gets lost. It's not Trapper John. No, the film is called Challenge to Be Free. I do not know. Although it also had the subtitle or another title, Mad Trapper of the Yukon. Well, that's a better title. And it's about the Mounties are trying to get a trapper. I think Tegarnett was like classic Hollywood director. Maybe playing out the string. I might be making that.

No, I think you're right. He died three years later, but he, like, he directed the, um, Thelana Turner Postman Always Rings twice. He did the Clark Gable movie China Seas. Like, you know, he was, yeah. China Seas. I mean, it's in the 30s. Right.

He died a couple years? We've also got, okay, Blackbears Ghosts. What is that again? With Peter Eustinoff as a Blackbeard's a Disney movie. Is that a... Oh, yeah. Is that fun? Is that good?

That's sort of them trying to do... Robert Stevenson, you know, the, you know... Yes. I saw that thing. Sure, there you go. I did not say... I haven't seen the Trapper movie. That's the...

Now you're intrigued. It's stuck in your craw. You're like, a challenge to be free. Number seven is the John Houston Epic, the man who would be king, which I feel like was a little bit of a bomb, like her, right,

sort of an underperformer. I think compared to its box office, just a little of another time. Sean Connery, Michael Kane, who both were like, we had a great time, but I think, yeah, kind of a relic. Rudyard Kipling, I think, right? Is it based on a Rudyard Kipling?

That's correct. Another guy who's, he's a little out of fashion these days. Number eight is the Canadian drama Lies My Father Told Me, which is like a sort of a domestic, drama about an Orthodox Jewish boy in like 20s, Montreal. I mean, this is speaking to the slim Pickens in 1976 draft slate.

I, yes. The director is Jen Kedar. Not a director who's the lead? Of course, it's Jeffrey Linus. Oh, of course. I don't know the movie, although the title is actually about it. Like, I feel like I've heard that. Lies my father. Number nine of the box office is the great film.

Really a great film, but it's from 75. Hester Street, the Joe McClain Silver movie, which is so fucking good. Yeah. That's a great New York movie. Yeah. And then the number 10 is a Gene Hackman movie I don't really know called Lucky Lady, the Stanley Donan. Gene Hackman and Bert Reynolds and Liza Manelli.

Liza. It's like a prohibition. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a prohibition kind of like romp, right? Yeah. They're all in costumes. It stinks on ice.

Is there a blue of that one? I think so. Oh, there's a shout DVD I'm seeing here. That's actually rude. Who directed that? Like Mark Rydell? Directed by Stanley Donut. Also, you know, kind of in his dotage.

Yeah. It's his second to last movie, I think. I think Ben, unfortunately, has some news to report. I do have some news. Uh-oh. This has now crossed the threshold. Oh, boy. It is, in fact, our longest episode of all time.

But we only... You're not thinking about ads, baby. You're not thinking about ads. episode. And even though we recorded for four hours, when it all sort of cut sort of together. Right. It was so

proud. Right. Whereas this had no tangents we were all moving. It's going out uncut. Yes. No. Now, Marie, you want to pick a fight with Tracy? Yeah, I'm about to say we can go on for longer because I have a lot of things I want to say to you, sir. Let's hear it, Marie. This is Marie Barty, the wonderful Marie Barthie. Hi.

For people who are maybe listening to this podcast for the first time, And who have made it to hour four. I'm just going to throw on the Manchester City game. Just don't mind me. When Tracy was last on the podcast to talk about the year of living dangerously,

great up. Great up. He did mention or ask, who was that other person, the woman who wasn't paying attention in House of Dynamite? She must have been looking at her phone. She doesn't watch movies.

Right. There was a detail she doesn't watch movies. She doesn't know how to watch movies. She doesn't know how to watch a movie. Well, Mr. Letts, I mean, I could be, correct me if I'm wrong here, guys. But I think I'm the only person in this room right now who has a degree in watching movies. That's true. I do not.

I have a degree in reading books and a fat lot of good at me. I almost had my mother ship me, my diploma with honors, to show to you that I graduated from NYU's School of Cinema Studies. New York University. Yes. But I never take my phone out at the theater unless it's, what was that movie called? I didn't like Skinnamarink. Skinnamarink, which seemed to terrify you so much. You actually needed a distraction.

I had my head in my sweater in my jacket and I was texting people to be less scared. Excited for his new movie this year. So you were looking away. I was not on the phone. You're saying you were kind of zoning out. I was zoning out. There was a man in front of me who was vaping and it was very distracting. You saw it at the Nighthawk.

Did you not? Yes. I saw it at the Angelica. A dine-in theater that does have more stimuli. There's more distraction there. And listen, I've been trying to quit cigarettes and sometimes I get an urge.

Sometimes you're considering nuclear war and you're like, I've got to hit that pen. Yes, exactly. Marie might have just been briefly considering whether or not to order the nachos. She might have been watching someone else get nachos delivered to them. Imagine eating...

Mope smoke might have been blurring the screen. Imagine eating chicken tenders while you're watching. a lot going on a nuclear war film you know i'm actually trying to remember what i ordered because i do always order a full meal when i go to the nighthawk all right here's what i'm going to do okay i'm going to offer an apology oh my god i apologize to you for saying that you don't know how to watch a film clearly you do know how to watch film thank you i would kindly suggest that you give house of dynamite an uninterrupted spin an olive branch right now and now you have to watch house of dynamite again You know, I might do that.

I might take you up on that. I think you'll like it better on a second pass. Actually, probably. Do you think it got a bad rap? Because I'm also not very positive about that movie on that episode, and you gave me a pass. We all love you in it. Do I think you got a bad rap? Yeah.

Sure. It got kind of a, you know. I think you got kind of ignored or whatever. I don't think Netflix, I don't think a streaming experience was the right way for that. I know, but I just don't... I don't think so. And I do say that the sort of film, Twitter, the film, the guys on film, the letterboxed guys. There's a kind of conformity of opinion that happens on those things that I find a little...

This is a suspect. Sort of a Travis Bickle kind of esk type of character. Listen, you screwheads, you fuckers. We did it We did it I think we're done on talking about taxi driver But it has been such a delay

Having you on Tracy truly Truly Always a pleasure Thank you guys Dracula we have a Dracula date All right You come on back for Christopher Lee specifically

Not Lagosi No no no You want Lagossey Go screw Christopher Lee's my Dracula We do also sadly need to Grant you the award For longest episode record ever

Wow where'd you get that Yeah wait what is that that's a fucking Academy Award No, but I'm saying more, what is that just? Frisch bought it for Critical Darling's, I need to buy a new one now. I'm absolutely not taking this with it. Okay, great, then. First gets it back.

Like some random garbage that he just had lying around. It's for Frisch prop! Last time we gave a bunch of garbage, let's not forget our discs. That's true. So giving Tracy Garbage is. Tracy, anything you want to plug? No. Radiant subscription.

My favorite thing is that you just... Get a Radiant subscription. You have films. production, you have creative work. Hi, Mom, on 4K. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks, guys.

Yes, thank you so much. And come back soon. Yeah, for Dracula, I guess. That'll be the move. I guess we'll talk to you very soon in news and deals. Hopefully you don't get scared off by the Bickle-esque behavior.

Can't wait. Of six men stirring each other up. Yep. He wants in on the chat. He has asked for it. He wants in. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review,

and subscribe over on our Patreon right now. No idea. We are doing Resident Evil. Oh, that's right. We are. But we will then, after that, be going on to the Dracula pictures. Yeah, and next on the main feed is New York, New York. Yes.

Yeah, well, we'll see. We'll see. Let's say it, then we can cut it if we need to. Lin-Manuel Miranda, unless he's busy. And as always, I texted our buddy Matt Singer, who wrote an article for screen rant about this matter. Singer, settle a bet happening in record presently. do we think Polly fucks the robot? And Matt Singer said,

I kind of think it's the other way around the robot fucks him. Obviously going at the end of the episode. Oh, I didn't start rolling tape. I'm sorry. What the fuck are you doing? Dude, I don't know. I'm joking.

I'm joking. I'm joking. All right, we'll catch up listeners. I thought you were doing that on purpose for Mike. No, no, no, no. I wasn't doing it. I was legitimately pitching you the idea first to make sure you're comfortable. The problem is.

Because we're putting this at the end of the episode, I didn't start rolling tape. I'm not actually angry at you. I'm sorry. I thought we were recording. The idea that he would open with the famous fucking quote because there's a mirror in our office space that is, he could just turn. But look right into. You're basically asking Griffin to imitate. I think the most widely cited piece of acting of all time.

That's problem one. You know what I mean? So I was standing in my mirror. No pressure. I was practicing it. First of all, I was like, how do I get the voice right without being the. fucking guy who does the shitty De Niro impression, especially because

this performance is different than the way he's usually impersonated, right? He's so good. And I feel like a lot of people erroneously do a Travis Bickle impression like its Meet the Fockers era De Niro. It's morphed. Right. You're talking to me. And then I'm like, it's

impossible to do without starting to do the face shit. So then you look silly, right? Because then you're doing a bad physical impression and a bad vocal impression at the same time. And then the third problem is, I was just looking at the text and I was like in actuality it would just be me saying 17 times you podcasting to me which does not flow very well. The syllable thing is chunky. Okay. And I didn't want to do potting. I'm just telling, this is behind the scenes. It makes sense. So this is what I'm going to do instead.

Great. And we should now start the episode. Right. But this, what you're hearing right now is actually the end of the episode. This is all just like nonsense. We'll put at the end of the episode. So now we're going to start the episode. Before you start the episode, Oh, sure. Yeah. Is it a little warm in here? It's a little warm in here.

I've got the air. Okay. Got the air run. I came in early. I've said all I need to say. It ends in close. Like, listen, there's going to be hot takes. That's true.

The room might get a little stain because of the temp. Yes, we do our best to keep it cool in here. I got a hot take. Here's one. Taxi driver mid. I'm joking. Maybe the best movie ever made. Okay.

This is the end of the episode. Bye. Link Check with Griffin and David is hosted by. Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy.

Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank CheckPot. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Production.