Taxi Driver with Tracy Letts

Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere, and bars, and cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man. Juneteenth.

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 her. I thought you might do that.

I thought you might do that. Yeah. There's a man who would not podcast it anymore. I don't know. That's only a man who 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?

Even if you haven't seen it, what are the movies that you think of that people talk

“about as being like serious, high-brow examples of great American direction and great American screen writing?”

And this film was snubbed in both best director and best screen play at the Academy Awards in 1976. Well, you know, they're not too smart. No, but that's wild. But it didn't get-- It's not wild.

It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's not a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes--

It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes--

It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes-- It's about a psychopath who goes--

They know the lineup isn't saying. The mood will-- Well, do you know want to know who beat out Scorsese and director? It's very interests. You're saying who's like-- There's three nominees in director who were nominated for Best Picture.

And there's two substitutes. Is this the same year as bound for glory? It is the same year-- So how long does he doesn't get nominated? How asked me also snubbed?

A good director, obviously. Yeah.

The first study came movie.

But that's so true. It's very true.

“Okay, so the three that do connect, obviously,”

are all the President's man network in Nashville? No, not Nashville. Sorry, network and-- It's the best picture winner of 1976. Our guest--

Oh, he's Rocky. His wife's just drafting these movies. That is wild that John Avaldson-- He does-- Williams 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. I mean, please John Avaldson in the film. You talking to me? I'm talking to you.

This is great. Let me see. Oh, you were-- Yeah, I didn't know that. You got what you wanted.

You couldn't have been better than that. Wow. That's so much-- That's so much-- Delivery.

What beer do you sense? Uh, who plays Avaldson and-- And I play Rocky. Uh, Jade Duplas. Oh.

That's pretty good cast. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

“Because I think Avaldson is kind of like--”

He's like a tough Chicago guy, right? Yeah. He was sort of like, uh, yeah. Yeah. What's great in the movie?

Work a day. Well, I haven't seen the movie. But he was great when I saw him. Mm-hmm.

Although I never saw him act the most.

So in other words, Jay may stink in the movie. I don't know. I haven't seen it. You saw him in here and make it. He had the look.

I saw him at dinner. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. Because it didn't even--

Maybe it looked bad. Uh, maybe they put a clown-- So it was wearing a great jacket. Okay. It is just interesting to consider best picture

that year right goes for-- You know, and so-- Yeah. Director, you've got Avaldson, Pecula, and--

Sydney Lumet. And then the two substitutes-- Line of art, Miller, for seven beauty. So a, you know, ground-breaking. The first woman nominated for directing.

And Bergman. Being more Bergman for face-to-face. Mm-hmm. Which is like, they gave, you know, they gave Bergman a lot of nums post, you know,

sort of in his later career. Yeah. 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, "Fanny Alexander." Our guest just at-- At 1976, Dr. Afton Bay picture. No one drafted face-to-face, right?

No one drafted face-to-face. And I mentioned it in the honorable mentions, just because of oldman's performance. It's not-- You know, it's not top tier of Bergman.

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

was the first female best director nominee.

It doesn't happen again until '93. Uh-- What year's piano? That sounds right. Yes.

And then it doesn't happen again until 2003. 2003 is coped at Sophia coped up, 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 too. You can go with your nominations. And Catherine-- Bigula, one.

Yes, she's the first to win. She's the fifth--

I think she's the fourth nominated. Yes.

And she's the first to win.

Uh, and then you had-- Scrolling down here. Can't be a second nom. Yeah, girl wig. Girl wig.

A little movie called Lady Bird. And watch the man to my right. It says true. It says fuck-- Yeah.

“Maybe the best single line delivery of the word fuck I've ever heard.”

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. I believe it's the line. To me, it's Doritos. Well, there's a lot of good line reading.

I just-- is it Oh fuck? Or just fuck. I think it's Oh fuck. It's when she tells you she got in the-- Yeah, right.

And why you were around. It speaks to the quality of the performance, though, that we both were thinking. There's a one word. Ordering.

Oh, fuck. That lives in my mind forever. And we had different answers. Doritos. Uh, and then you're forgetting, of course, that Emerald Fennel was nominated for it.

I was not forgetting. I was building the Dremel up to, of course, the most worthy nominee in the history of best director. And, uh, Justine Trier was nominated a couple years ago for, uh, Nary Fallen, Carolee Farjay. Yes, nominated for the substance. And last year, Chloe Jow again.

Yeah, so it's gotten much, you know, and look, we're celebrating that.

“Now you often, one woman will be part of the five.”

Right. And we're celebrating that, obviously. Yeah, right. Go. Golf clubs all around for the Academy.

More women direct movies now. Yeah. 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 76 draft. In the 70s, the Oscars were all about this. It was like suddenly the Oscars were like the Oscars are pretty cool. They have stretch in their arms around.

A lot of things. Interesting happening in Hollywood. They were like bringing in foreign performances. First female director nominee. Foreign films and 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, if that right. Like 80s cinema, there is rich.

Well, there's lots of great Rocky and Star Wars start that. You're you're starting sponsor for this. You know when you think about movies like out of Africa, this 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. Yeah. You could argue though that there's something in the taxi driver, Rocky divides specifically. These two movies, right?

These two character studies of kind of lonely men and cities that are merging a kind of like neo realism 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. Sure. 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, then just the happy ending. I mean, 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 too to make it kind of a dumb happy ending. What could Orn 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 to just the digging into the depths of how broken men are? Well, credit to Sylvester Stallone for that screenplay. I mean, he, he, he found a way to walk that line. It's the right way, but I remember as an 11 year old watching the Academy Awards

who had loved Rocky and the theater. I was still enraged that hockey one best picture. I knew that was, that was at the time you were like this at the time. Yes. Was there a movie you were rooting for?

Well, I'm all the president of men or network or taxid. Right. Right.

“But even at the time, you knew like, yeah, I think about,”

I run the simulation in my head of watching this Oscar's 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 year. Do you mind? Please go ahead. Oh, I've got an open right here.

I'm just straight. I think it's a bad way. I'm going to give you Academy Award for best picture to all the presidents men. Sure. Respect movement. I'm going to give you Academy Award for best director to Alan Pukula for all the presidents men. So over taxi driver, the film we're here to discuss today.

That's right. I think all the presidents men's one of our, one of our all time grades. For best actor. I'm going to move Peter Finch in just supporting actor. Because I, you know, William Holden is lead in the movie.

Right. 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 Bady. I'm going to kick out Ned Bady. See it's important.

Why do you kick out? That's tough. It's interesting because it's right. It's Bady Olivier from 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. Because I'd make an argument for kicking out Ber young.

Ber young is pretty great in the first rocky.

He's like, you know, he's a perfect after that. But like, yeah. Well, and he's back around when he fucks the robot is all the president's men. Love is the robot is all the president's men. It's implied heavily that he fucks the robot is all the president's men. Fucks a robot.

In the fourth rocky. There's a robot that Bert Young's secret. He could fall in love with. Oh, I would've seen four. Yeah. Really went off the rails.

You've seen four.

“But you just don't remember that because it's nonsense.”

Yeah, I mean, four is also like 78 minutes long and has four montages. And anyone, everyone just remembers the Dolph Lungren. My brother is a boxing fanatic. And we watch Rocky together. My dad was like, this is big morning. I'm going to show you boys rocky.

And I was like, that's good. My brother was like, I need to watch every rocky film. And I was like, I think I can tap out here. Yeah. 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. Teas and this one. Okay. He fights a polo again. Okay. And then I just walk in at one point in rocky four. And I go, he's kind of fucking robot now. And then go, yeah, Rocky bought Pauli 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 Pauli has physical relations with the robot. I need to figure out what the line of dialogue is. But there's a line that pays for it.

Okay. Can we get back to re-living game you can. So you're going to take out that baby to this point. I just want to say, I'm more inclined to give net baby the supporting win. I think that's one of the greatest one scene performances in history.

It's true supporting chef.

“If you feel that way, then we'll kick out Bert Young.”

And we'll keep net baby. I think that's fun. But you know, you don't like robots enough to give him the win. I love robots and this is a heartbreaker, not to give robots the win. But we're going to give it to Peter Finch.

It's Julia Best Supporting Act before or after all the presents. It's after which makes it all the weirder. I think I'm going to double check that. Because it's too consecutive years. He wins two years in a row.

And you're like, oh, well, they must have been the second. Well, must have been president's men because he's just so good. It was on the level. It's like, no, they decided Julia was on to that. Yeah.

It's always playing gave him two awards for all the presents.

Right. Oh, that's kind of good. Who's he? Dashwell Hammeter? He's like, yeah.

So I haven't seen Julia, but I assume it's a lot of him being like, all right. I love Boos. Well, it's not a lot of him doing much of anything. He's really not a very, very, he's not very much. It's, you know what?

I got to watch Julia. I got to put my money where my mouth is to fully agree that he should not have met. But in this alternate reality, we're putting Finch and supporting. We're giving him. I'm giving him Best Supporting Act.

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“The poorest tax 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 good fellas. That's your number one's criticizing. And then I would, I think we'll, 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. Right, which all might take would be that I think good fellas is the peak of his filmmaking. And that this is textually his richest film.

It's a grim taxi driver's my first bite by some distance. King of comedy is probably not for me. After hours is after hours. That is a 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 good fellas, is that the 90s access of good fellas. You were banned from VH1 because you have pitching now. Griffin, I thought I'm making the same joke. Good question. Another office is, go, here's the pitch.

It's just me. It was like a way to do a VH1. Saying how every pop culture thing from the 90s is dumb trash for babies. You're not an ideal. No, comedians.

This is already gotten a bad rap. I like the 90s. Sure. There are things about the 90s. I absolutely love.

And I like good fellas. Yeah. It's not top tier of Scorsese for me, but I like it. I'm, I'm no dummy. I recognize how good good fellows are.

It absolutely isn't. 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, really amazing. I will admit that when

Ray Leode slams the door in my face at the end of the movie, even in the movie theater in 1999, it was kind of like, "Well, fuck you, too."

“I know some people who felt that when I remember that.”

I think, again, when we talk about the Academy Awards, and I'm not going to make an argument for dances with wolves over good fellows. But I wonder if that was part of the, Yeah, part of the reason that Academy voters went, "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. Oh, shit." They doodles with ketchup, and it's like, "I mean, obviously, but I think some audiences

are like, "You're like, you're a lot of your dumb mother, fucker." It's not a unique thought, but I very strongly

subscribe to the theory that the ending is the most important

factor towards the best picture win. Right, right. What 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, and he's probably won himself best. You're draining over a certain... Figure it out, head at the head, head at the head, head at the head.

The needle tapping, 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 a Nora, one best picture because the ending is such a downer,

but yet you can't deny that the ending is sort of the best part of the movie.

“It's a gut punch, it's the proverb, showpiece.”

And that, my argument for my Titanic made $2 billion. Yeah, you walk out, it's the old fucking died. And you walk out and you're like, I feel elated, because she goes to the dream world and Mary's Leo. The fucking Adam on that one is why James Cameron is James Cameron,

because he said, I can figure out how to make everyone walk out of Titanic she ran. Hearts full. But that certainly is a scorsese problem, as his endings are usually very challenging.

It is funny that the thing he finally wins best picture for

is his most mocked ending. Yeah, the departed, yeah, that everyone jokes about the shot of the rat and how un-suddled it. 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.

The truly. And secondly, when we finished recording our first episode with you, you said, what are you guys doing next? As David said, what would you pick? You said taxi driver and we look at each other and go,

fuck, we might have to throw that. Sounds fun, good to me. It's a quick turnaround, but we might just fucking have to do that. Tracy Lats. Thanks for that.

Thank you for that. The back in the room. Yeah. Third chair on the big picture. We weren't bringing you this this time.

That's canonical. And we all know that. No, it can dispute it. We speak it into law by saying it on this podcast. I knew we weren't going to spend an hour going

over a blind by disk a challenge. Oh, yeah, right. But we saw some people get you a bunch more of the random trash movies. I do like your collection.

That we did basically start with half an hour of alternative Oscar history.

It feels like the correct spiritual sequel. Yeah. By the way, the gift you got me. I've yet to tuck into some of them. But my kids love.

The nanny showed my kids mouse hunt. Oh, there you go. It's a bit win because the nanny loves it. Okay. So she knew it.

She knew it. She knew it. She knew it. Okay. She was excited to show that.

But they like it. It's in the kids. It's like a practical movie. Yeah. 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 yes.

A bit like lifts. It is a bit like.

“How does the nanny or anyone even know like where mouse hunt is?”

They're about on. They're just decimal system kind of punch in the code to locate. Well, look, the stack you gave me sat on the kitchen island for about a week. Okay. I've got internet into the system.

So the name is accessible. And you know what? That's my physical media system too. Yep. The stack piles.

Then I'm like, it's time to get this stuff up. You know, it's funny that I write. I try to like theme the stacks. And then one of the stacks is themed around new purchases. And then that stack.

It's so big that I'm like, I got to work that into the other. The other theme stacks. Right. Yeah. Right.

So mouse hunt. Yeah. That's good. Good to know. Yeah.

Any other. Yeah. I mean, you just did your physical media council. No. No other big news on the world of blue rays.

I don't know. I mean, in New York, New York, just announced on 4K. I, of course, imported the Australian imprint disk, which has some features that are not being carried over. I have that disk 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 mine too. It's domestic blue. Right.

And then the imprint Australian release is three disks.

Oh, I don't have that. And it has both cuts and a lot of special features. But this is. I'm going to get them. I'm going to get them.

Yeah. The fine folks at MVD marquee. 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, it's a little unbecoming. How are you doing? Yeah.

You're going to trip your team. Your vinegar syndrome, your radians. You do any of those kind of, I do the radians subscription. Okay. It seems pretty good.

I've been debating any of you. And there are a couple that I just order every, they don't have subscriptions. But I order every release. When the monthly announcement. You get the monthly announcement.

This was when Ben was trying to pick which desk to buy for you. And our buddy Ben David Grobinski was consulting on it. His really valuable advice to Ben was. Certain labels. You might just need to rule out.

Yeah. Certain labels. He might just be at all to card. I don't subscribe to the vinegar syndrome because they, they'll do a lot of. genre horror like 90s or 2000s genre horror that I'm not.

So it's been two.

Vinegar syndrome has never released a film that is less than a mint class.

Yeah. They definitely haven't taken right the worst trash and put it in the most beautifully designed package. And 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 matching arts. It's a great pat. wrote the booklet for Congo. Yeah. My friend Alex Perl and who Congo is his favorite movie in his bachelor party was let's go back

to my place to watch. People are defending the movie. Correct. And defending it's right. It's a prestige pack that we that we pinpointed it as the ultimate example of.

Does this need this good of a release? Oh, well, come on. That's a hot trash. It's a premium Delorelando performance. You can argue with that.

Monkey, monkey talks. The monkey to Amy. The monkey is the monkey. You mean Ernie Hudson, right? Not Delorelando, right?

Not Delorelando, right? No. It's got a one scene performance. That's right. He's like me.

The world. Yes. That's right. I'm not racist.

I was just worried you were first.

I'm not. I've seen Congo. I was worried you were racist. I was. I was talking about the 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 Parkie kind of movie in it. No. I think one point five times.

I do own the vinegar syndrome. I do too. I own that goddamn shoe box. I do have. I went to the store and Pittsburgh recently.

And I was. I was running my fingers across that box. And I was tempted. But I still haven't pulled the trigger on it. Trace.

You were going to weigh in on the monkey. Amy. So fucked. Stupid. Thank you for weighing in.

Perfect. Okay. Great. I was talking about this with Matt Singer who wrote the essay. Yes.

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 writing book. Yeah. And the hook is you think fucking dinosaurs are scary. What about gorillas? Right.

A thing that talking monkey. Amy. Species that does currently exist on our planet. Right. 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 and 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 Creighton.

I don't know. I'm a little interested in the science of this. Amy, I should do that. Radiant subscription. The radiant subscription is really good.

It's really worth it. And like I say, there's a couple indicator. I get every release from indicator. But not subscribed. You just add them. They don't have a subscription or I would.

A flicker alley. I like it. Every release from flicker. I love flicker alley. I don't really know.

So they do a lot of very old, you know, 20s and 30s. Right. I guess they're silent movies. Yeah. Yeah.

I've been thinking of doing that. My whole problem when you go on the big picture to talk discs. It's just, it's like, my account calls me. It's like, what happened? Physical media high counsel episode came out.

I cannot tell you how many carts I checked out. It's like, the amount of money that's been 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 the show a lot that the office is just filled to the brim.

Next space. It's too much negative space empty shelves.

When you went.

When you went up the free stuff.

Sure. Yeah.

“Do you know what often happens now when I, when I order from these boutique labels?”

They send you a little message. They put in a little note. I appreciate that a couple of little. I like to know over there. Yeah.

I like to appreciate you. Yeah. Right. Thank you. Yeah.

That's all good. I'm happy to spend happy to spend on things. I think. Worth while about. 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 walked down the street, I was going to ask you. Hold on. Before you ask me, please.

The haunting 4K. Do you have it? Yes. Is that out? I mean, I pre-ordered it.

I do a commentary on. Really. Very excited about that. On the original. Yeah.

It's the, I got, I got to order that.

Beautiful. By the way. And you know, when Robert, when Paul knew when one is Oscar for the color of money, he wasn't there. And Robert Wise accepted on this behalf.

Starts to say like Paul really appreciates this Betty Davis is next to me. 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, great. No. You're right. Right. Robert Wise comes to his behalf.

Robert Wise is trying to be like Paul really in Betty Davis is like, well, everyone give a little respect to Robert Wise. He may be old. But he made the sound of music. He made, you know, like, she starts.

And he's like, oh, thank you, Betty. They forgot. They played the music. They didn't even get nothing. It's the weirdest thing.

I want to talk about taxi driver. But I just need to close the loop on this. The rating subscription. Yeah. Does it include the sub label?

What is the name of the label? Okay.

“Have to, uh, 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 cutters way was Transmission.

Was that regular rating? stuntman was, uh, was regular. Vampire's kiss wasn't. Well, night of a jugular. They did.

Yeah. Judging by night of the jugular. Do you know that one? I've never watched it. Yeah.

James Brolin, right? Her great things. Yeah. Yeah. And I had a great time with that.

That thing's batshit. Yes. Yes. The thing is just ghost batshit. Bolin made a lot of like hefty trash.

I feel like. Right. Like that was sort of Bolin's lane. Like in the seven. What am I?

What am I? Such a, he's an, he's an animal. Like when you see him an animal, 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. Impossible to imagine. Sort of a bizarre, very close. How does green test?

He was supposedly like seriously considered. Doesn't really. Wasn't it one of those times where they were trying to get like Conoried and possibly Not like 250k off his quote or whatever. But I think he was in it twice.

Yeah. And there is an extended screen test. There's also a fasting extended screen test of him doing plan of the apes. No, Tracy, are you testing for bond? Oh, we know.

Amazon's on the hunt. Don't even know if it's available. Yeah. I'm around. I.

When they get serious. No, I might consider testing. You could win bonds. That'd be fun. No.

He should be bond. Let's not fucking take an offering. 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 Greenman. He's a clot. To me, that's a classic. He's a British guy.

He plays British guy. Proper British guy. In Raiders? Isn't he in Raiders? Isn't he one of the, is, let me double check.

Because I do feel like you're right. He's in one of them. Am I making it up? Yes. He is major goblery.

He's one of them. Oh, yes. He's a very good actor. A very big Shakespearean actor. And he's in a couple of old hammer films.

Okay. And under a slightly different name. I think he was Anthony Corley or Corley. Corley. Corley.

Yeah. I'll taste the blood of Dracula. He's a man. He told me a great. He was a Christian for least 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. So he did like we will ever ever single movie. Yeah.

He will get somebody else. And when I worked with him, he was like, thank God. Yeah. I did not get James. He was.

He's genuinely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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 know, I mean off. I mean, in Britain, the off license. That's where you get your boo. That's where we coffee. Yeah.

Oh, 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. It's like the the the the the corner store.

“You have to go to the offie, which is next door.”

But they called the off track betting something different in England too. I would. I thought of that is like the bookmaker or whatever. I mean, like, lad Brooks, you know, like, but yeah. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, booking.

Yeah. He's he's lovely guy.

“Can I tell you my Christopher Lee short.”

This is nothing to do with that. I will say. Just a future plug. We're getting ready to later in the fall. Do Dracula on our Patreon.

Yes. So we're going to watch that on the first kind of major Dracula. So we're doing the first Christopher Lee. Right. We'll do.

We'll go see. We'll do Lee. - Oh, you wanna come by? - 'Cause you're not there. - Which one do you want?

- You want to tell Angelad? - Do you want Chris for Link? - You want Chris for the best. - Okay. - My mom said the classiest person she ever interviewed

in her entire life.

- Like, truly like, well, here's what's Anthony's story.

So he works with him on Taste of Blood of Dracula. And the first time he works with him, it's raining, of course. It's always raining. - And they've got Chris for Link waiting in a taxi. - What do we call them in England?

The taxi, a mini cab, a beer, a black cog, so he's waiting until the rain passes. And so they take Anthony from the trailer and they put him in the car with Chris for Link. Chris for Link's in the full Dracula get up.

And he's introduced Chris for Link. Chris for Link says, "Oh, my God. "He's in this weather. "It's just dreadful." Long pause.

"Oh, my God, these teeth just don't fit in my mouth. "I have so uncomfortable wings. "Heath." "Oh, my God, this cape, what this cape has made out of. "I can't breathe."

- It's just a litany of complaint. - Right. - And just-- - Unbroken. - On fourth. - Dracula.

- Any second of it. - Right. - Just an unbroken stream of complaint. - They make the movie. - 30 years later.

- Anthony is cast in one of these TNT biblical. - Mm-hmm. - Right. - One of these mini-series, right. - John the Baptist, right?

- And he's flown out to-- - 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. Chris for Link, 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 Chris for Link says, "Oh, my God, this sand just can't stand." - I was getting it. - I can't stand that everywhere. - This robe is so hot.

I can't even breathe.

There's like, as if it had never stopped.

- What? - Have you found this Tracy that certain actors, it almost feels like the discomfort and beyond that, the part of the performance and the struggle is like the heart of their process.

- Oh. - Absolutely. - So they need the motor of the irritation. - To answer your question, it's the film "The TV Series" is Moses.

- Oh, in which sense. - Ben King's League. - Ben King's League. - The Ben King's League played Moses. Chris for Lee played Ramsey.

- He must have killed that. - Anthony Higgins played Korotch. - Yeah. - Not sure. He's sort of like a rebel from the Bible.

I don't know, really, but a... - Oh. - But very funny to imagine. He would find, put the fucking Egyptian head dress 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. - Yeah.

“- You served in the British Secret Service.”

You killed people. - You killed people. - And then it's like you made 40 unbroken years of monster movies. - That's right.

- He never was in a movie.

The 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 his stuff. - He would have a better trailer.

The interviewer said, "Well, there you have it. Christopher Lee, the king of horror." And he went, "The king of horror." (laughing) I even made a horror movie in 40 years.

And he started listing all the different characters. - Right, right. - And I'm like, my God. - You kind of a king of horror. - Like Dracula, like 15 times.

And it's not even like that was your core friend. - I mean, you did it like six times for Hammer. And then you just said like, "Open game, who wants to pay for any Dracula in anything." - He did.

- He made Italian Dracula movies. He did American Dracula movies. - He's the best. - You wrote? 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 gotta watch these with me." And we had a great time.

- That's so long time ago. - That's so funny. - That's so funny. - For her, from her childhood, she was like, "These are primed for you."

- I'm free here by these. - Yeah. - And I was like, "I'll watch them." And then we saw, you know, and he'd been in Lord of the Rings at that point.

And we saw a tack of the clones. - Yeah.

“- Which a movie my mother had no interest in whatsoever, right?”

She probably just watched. She was like, "I need you to show me his part at the end." Right? And when he walks you, he's just like, "It's just got instant, even in this, this garbage."

- Yeah. - Instant gravitas. - He's like, "When he's just delivering these lines "about the force and lightsabers." - I am low 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,

which must have been the first time I saw him as well,

before I learned about Chris Filly.

“But this is when I actually learned to Chris Filly was,”

there was an Inakul News headline which was, scoop, you will not believe who is playing the new villain in Star Wars episode two. - Oh. - I clicked the link and it says, "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, like you truly have 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 is impressive, I was like,

you never forgot. - Who is this important? Now it's this episode two. By episode two, you mean Empire Strikes Back. - No, unfortunately, you mean attack.

- Oh, I see. - In the mid 2000s. - Well, that's a good system. - It's okay. - Okay. (laughing)

- He is wild that Lucas in the 80s is like, "Call the Empire Strikes Back episode five." And he was like, "What?" He's like, "Just do it." - Right, right, because people forgot a plan.

- That when Star Wars was released. - There's no way episode four. - Does that 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 as this episode four shit. What are you talking about?"

- No, it was retroactively titled episode four. - After, after Empire Strikes Back in sync. - 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's 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 have 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 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 wanna hear, I know Tracy that you saw this film is a child or you saw some of it and we're taking away

what's the story? - Yeah, so the story is, and apologies if there are any - The projectors who have heard this before, but my folks took me to see a lot of 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 Pickle date night,

but they were taking you to, well, in fact, they did. But I was 10, we went to the drive-in movie theater to see Taxi driver, here 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 gonna say, did you have a picture house that you went to, was it all drive-ins? Or were we're what town in Oklahoma for? - A small town called Durant Oklahoma. - And we talked 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 it's owner, Ship Bullard. - Oh, I love it, yeah, I thought it was Neville Beach. - Yeah, right, although there was a big ship, a beautiful neon ship on the sign-out front. And then there was the Skyview,

which showed pornographic films on the south side of town. Which you could actually see from the highway driving down the road. - And sign. - Yeah, which, of course, we called the skin view lovingly. - But here's the Plaza, I found it.

- That's the Plaza. - That's the Plaza. - It's still veered, it's not at least like the last picture show. Doesn't it? - Yeah, really does.

- Yeah, actually. - One screen could work at that theater as a projectionist. I projected Wrath of Con in that movie theater. - Yes, movie ever made. - That rocks.

- Every time that James Warner's course scores, you know, spools up into 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, and I checked the time on the rewatch. - Yeah. - And 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. - Yeah. - So it's about an hour in the movie theater. - And you think that's about an hour 15 hour 20. - It's what really struck me watching at 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.

- Yeah, you're not quite sure what's gonna 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 and the movie up to that point, my mom turned to my dad and said, Dennis, I'm very uncomfortable. They put the car in gear and we didn't let it go.

- I mean, I have to. - I also like to imagine the drive in for, and then just every five minutes of car just kind of peels out as the movie goes on. And we go to the porn movie with civilization.

We're gonna cars feel out in our movie. - I probably see this movie when I'm like 13. And it's 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 gonna fuck this kid? Like what's going to hash, right?

I'm watching it knowing this is going towards violence. - And we don't really know who Jodie Foster is. So we don't actually know how old the actor is. - Yeah, apart, but in any case, we leave. - Now this is 1976, it's not like I can rent the movie.

- It's not gonna be catching on Netflix in nine months. - 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 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,

he's right with the bloody fingers, he's firing into his, he lost his mind and he describes this and he acts this out. And then my mom is the one who says, and then there's a quota at the end of the movie in which there's this letter written by her parents

and civil shepherd 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. - Right. - She didn't walk out of there being like,

"Trincer, everyone says you 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 and neatly 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. - Oh, wow. - Oh, wow.

“And I think my parents were similarly very good at doing it.”

- Yeah. - And what finesse it for you. - But we'd also add their analysis to it. So there are a lot of movies, not this one, 'cause 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 seven years later,

I was like, oh, that's that scene, and this is what they left out, or that's where they had a tutorialized or things like that. But I do think that a parent wouldn't do that, unless they felt like they could one of 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, 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. - And I wish you end up seeing it. - Yeah, probably not until I'm 18 years old.

“- Do I wind up going to a video store and running 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, I can't keep reality. - Yeah, it's fine. - It's just a straight. - You've been on a big picture around 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 video store moments,

you know, I was finally going to get a chance to see

to actually drive her. And I remember my dad being kind of like really, I mean, 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. - Well, you need to be revisited. - It certainly is. - To my mother, this was the definition of an adult movie that I was not ready.

You know what I mean where she was like, "Well, you can't rent a movie like taxi driver." You know what I mean? It was the definitional R-rated movie that was not available to me until I was older.

Like 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 taxi's all the time.”

I mean, my Manhattan kids, guys, they know directions. - What does he do? - Yeah. - Takes people the wrong way. - Like what? - He's a taxi driver. - He's a taxi driver. - That's scary, can he be?

- No, wait a second, you're from England, right? - Well, so Tracy, you're going to get the story and no one's allowed to make fun of me. I was born in Manhattan. - Is that my mantra?

- My mother is from New York, upstate. My dad is English. - So, from Surberton 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 you first nine years spent in Manhattan. New York, kid, up to West Side. - Nathan, I had an Amsterdam, baby.

- Oh, and you're, you've never left this.

You're, I've never left, but here's the twist. My mother's secretly British. - Well, I thought, yeah, or she's European. And I think of her. - Well, so this is British- - I am saying secretly, because she's actually British,

but she was basically raised French. - Right, and she's got French ancestry. - Ben, where are you from? - French stepfather, Jersey. - Oh, yeah, born and raised, and been here ever since. Never been in the central time zone.

- No, no, because you went to college in New York. - Yeah, yeah. - It's at the new school. - Right. - 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,”

time of 12,000 people with the movie theater that looks like that. What the world of taxi driver looks like. - Do a kid like that. - Of course. - And just to America, like, like, I assume, like so much of America's watching this movie is like,

right, that's New York. That's what it's like, it's like murder around every corner, whatever. - Well, 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, it did look the way this movie looked. - Right. - 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, that's amazing. - It's a testament

to Michael Chapman who I assume we'll talk more about, but also a testament to Scorsese and Shrader'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. - Yeah. - They needed to overnight,

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, or I'm just like, "God, I love how much you cannot see." - Right. - 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. - Yeah. - Just what the fuck is happening there?

(upbeat music) - Can I offer a take, though, like 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, and like, I'm also watching them, like this is romantic,

like it's a little romance. - It's great. - It's great. - It's great. - 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 Nira Twinkle amongst the parameters around it, because I really want to resist the temptation

to draw the comparison to him anytime. - Don't bring it up. - I know what you want to bring up. - What? - He wants to bring up Todd Phillips's Joker. It's just, which is a, you know, which is kind of ripping off this movie. - It's the really rocking of this movie.

- Yeah, this movie. - I see you've not seen this film. - I have. - You've seen Joker. - I had not rewatched taxi driver since seeing Joker or Follida, and it was astonishing to me,

how one to one, some of the elements are, but be 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 super 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 Shroke 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, and you're like notice how the camera can't look at it. - I watched the movie and went way to second, what the fuck is going on, like pause the VHS,

and then ask jeeps, what is this, you know, because I was just, something is happening. - But that jeep's helpful, yeah, he would've noticed.

“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's, as you're saying,

is look at this fucking freak, yeah, yeah, that's it. - And let us not, not mention Joker. - Well 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 break through 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 it 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 just sort of endlessly fascinating, the myriad ways to look at it, to look into it to the question about perspective,

about point of view and the other view,

“which is pretty profound question you have to ask yourself,”

can you talk about the romanticism of the city, David, which is not only present in the way it looks, but also obviously in the very lush score, the part of the art heritage score right with the lush saxophone, which is argued about, right?

- Yes, it's too much, it's too heavy.

- Right, yeah, I think the scores are incredible.

- I kind of forgot, it isn't just when these young guys are using the sort of craftsmen of their idols, like Herman Hitchcock Scott, you know what I mean? Like, and I imagine those relationships were odd, and like Spielberg, even with Williams,

who's older than him, is not totally old, but like right now. - Williams is a guy who hates someone who has a hand on prior generation. Williams had just popped at the end of the old score.

Versus someone like Herman, who was, but I love the whole score, do you love the Herman score? I mean, where are you on the Herman? - It is very heavy, I can, you know, like it's very, you know, carry watch the movie with me,

and she had said after me, I was just asking 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, right? And it's important that he not look that small, he not look that infinitesimal, because you're trying to get inside it, right? - The movie is trying to put us inside his point of view.

- Right. - And that the score is somewhat successful at doing that.

- Yeah. - Basically, the score has two essential themes.

- I was gonna replayed, I wanna call out the sub theme, 'cause there's the obvious taxi driver, the thing that we all think of, that feels actually just theme from taxi driver. - Over for sure, but then there's the kind of deep,

like, duh, 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. - Yeah. - Ben, what's up? A lot of the Squarespace series is going to be a journey for you, rewatching movies that were ruined for you

by annoying people you grew up with. This is a threat we've established. - Yeah, got a jersey knucklehead, read just for us, even in the wrong way. - With the, you know, violent movie.

- Travis sickles, fucking awesome.

- 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 were watching it, it's not like New York's stop being edgy, but this New York is gone, so it's sort of like, that's also a little romantic of like,

New York was really porn theaters and scuzz. - Yeah, yeah. - We have to raise this issue. - I don't know exactly when it's set, 'cause it was released in '76,

but it also for me, I just, I have so much romanticism for '77, 'cause that was the year of punk. - Mm-hm. - It's like G-B-Ease.

- Right, right. - But I think it is kind of important that Travis Pickle's pre-dating now. - 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 sub-culture that he could find as an outlet. - Sure, you know, I like to feel you. - A lot of Travis Pickle's take the off-ramp to punk,

which is a better way to exercise those emotions, rather than just spiraling in your own head and turning to violence. - Totally. - That's right, because before 1977,

the Mohawk was the kind of mental illness, right? - Right, clearly flushed your brain. - I mean, I think it'll be in the dossier,

but right, someone basically, like a Vietnam vet,

who, like, told Trader, like, when someone shaped their head into a Mohawk in my unit, they were about to do something insane. Like, that was not a sign of someone being like, you know what, I wanna, a spicy haircut today.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - 'Cause I'm gonna 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 that 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, but I'm not seen looking like that.

- Right. - A, I don't want to shave head. B, I don't want to have to go home with a Mohawk for three weeks. - Have you worked with De Niro?

- No, I've never met him.

- Have you had a Mohawk? - Never had a Mohawk. - What is the wildest haircut you ever had? - That's a good question. - You're looking at it.

(laughing) - You're looking great. - It's a good bet, doesn't it? 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 of things about disturbance. - Do you have no idea if you perceive that at all, or if it's, you know, just go, you know,

- Yeah, it's an investment. - Right. - Who knows how they work on you, you know, certainly this was a, - You never were like, I'm gonna 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 scorsacy, the nearo, - Right, it's straighter. - Right, it's straighter is a huge part of it.

The cinematographer, the score, editing. I mean, scorsacy 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 authors”

to Shrader, Dinuro, and Scorsese. - And I think that's true of raging ball and I think it's true of, well, those are probably, I mean, 'cause like the later Shrader Scorsese collaborations are very interesting.

- I think the same is true of bringing up the dead. - Well, but for one case, it's not as vital, you know, an author, it's great, it's a great performance, but Dinuro clearly was a somewhat equal creative partner with me, Scorsese, any time he worked with him.

- Right, they were developing. - Right, right, right, bring out the dead is great. You know, last of his show of Christ, these are great movies as well, but if there's a leather hood between, I mean, I think it's even different

than Scorsese and DiCaprio. There's something about, yeah, I think DiCaprio is a little bit more like, I am your favorite. - Dinuro, yeah, I think he has input. - Well, you can see it in the work

that Shrader then goes on to do as a director, right? - He takes as much of the lineage of taxi driver with him, Scorsese, he does on his-- - Yes, yes, yes. - And Shrader's still got it.

- I mean, like, he all his movies are about something. - Yeah, fucking guy. - We've said a motel is the same thing. - God only man, right, that thing kept.

- I was a master gardener, I think I saw

“at the New York Film Festival, the second Joel Edrick”

an opened his diary and started the whole audience laugh. - Yeah, we're like, how can we not? - I mean, I liked the movie, but we were like, he's at it again and he's right and stuff down. - We're hearing an intermodologue.

- Yeah, you guys have not done Shrader, have you? - No, 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, we're bringing me such joy. - Alex was 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, me Schumer is something where it's like, he got to kind of-- - Or the exorcist movie that canceled. - Yeah, but he is fascinating.

- 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 that Shrader had logged it in 2022. - Logged a review of Taxi Driver.

- I didn't classify this as a review, but I wanna read what he wrote, 'cause 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 Wolf. "The whole conviction of my life "rest upon the belief that loneliness, "far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, "but kill your two 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-B-T-E."

“- Oh, yes, and I think the account you're using here,”

is like it's taking his other writing and sort of correcting it on letterbox, right? So like you posted this somewhere else. - Front piece quote to my last script, Master Gardner from Leonard Cohen, quote,

"And I choose the rooms that I live in with care. "The windows are small and the walls are must bare. "There's only one bed and there's only one prayer. "I listen all night for your step on the stair." - End quote, "Twicks 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 the 4K that's in the Columbia...

- Yes, set.

- They finally issued a standalone release as well.

- I got the standalone version of it. - I have issued the Columbia box sets. - I'm gonna be Columbia box sets. David's thanks, I take up too much space. - It's checkin'.

- They fuck with the shelf. - They're checkin'. - I'm getting like Gandhi. - I was just wondering if there's any upgrade from the... - It's the exact same disk in different packages.

- That's what I thought. - Yeah, yeah. - Identical disk. - But there's like a 20 minute trader looking back on taxi driver thing.

And he said, "I'm gonna paraphrase importally here, "but it was a thing that really jumped out to me." He's like the central problem with characters, like Travis Bickel, is that they think loneliness is like a disease that's been put on them

and loneliness is a choice. And he said, 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, that is so commonly what you've seen 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. What a, I don't know, you know. - Well, and that corners of the internet have now basically become a crowdsourced in our monologue.

The things that Travis Bickel 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? What if he drops a guy off at CBGBs 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's like good for other.

- He's a super poster on 4chan. - Yeah. - For sure. - He's top one percent commenter on Reddit. - Yeah.

- Yeah. - So yeah, again, talking about the nature of the way this movie transforms for me over time. I mean, I'm 60 years old now. And Travis now looks like a young man to me.

And he says he's 26 in this movie. - Right. - How old would D'Niro have been? - Yeah, that sounds like it's 30. - Yeah, right.

- He said 26 in this and I had the fucking last crusade. My face melted thing. - He was a little older. D'Niro's like 32, right? - Okay.

- So, but 32 to me now is really young. - Yeah. - And I don't know that I've ever seen no-dist 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,

or the he's the birth of the, you know, that, oh my God, the prescience of these people to make a movie about an in-sell before we knew what in-sell was. - That's one of the things that was already existing.

- Right. - But I hate those motherf- I mean, fuck those guys, right? Those guys are fucking losing. - Yeah, I hate those.

- It would be really funny if you came on this show and you're like, "But in-sells, they got a bad rap." - They ain't so bad, let's, let's get another shit. - It's a very, what's happening to them. - Maybe not a hot take, but I hate those ones.

I mean, Marty says in more recent interviews, he's like, I feel like half the people in the world are Travis Pickles, and we were trying to make a movie about someone distinctive here, you know, and now it feels, there's also not distinctive.

“- I think the weird collaborative group nature”

of the kind of in-sell community, which in and of itself should be an oxymoron, right? - There is a greater degree of, like, self-pitting. - Yeah, well, what? - I didn't do any research on in-sells.

- Who started this shit? - I mean, it's... - It's possible, so the worst fucking loser. - That's actually the correct answer. - I mean, it's, but it's what Griffin said,

which is someone interesting of, like, 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, but the only connection is over what they're angry about, or whatever, I mean, - I think one of the moments that under-discussed actually is a real radicalizing moment

for Travis in the film is, even his first meeting

with the other cabbies, that cannot connect them. - Yes, that's right. - And we're all the 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 all right. And that's so different than the Travis Pickle thing.

- We have no real sense of, like, Travis's life writer is back story. Obviously, we know he's a veteran, but like, do we know where he's from or he has family or anything, like, that does that ever come up?

- He writes, he writes his card. - He writes his parents, right? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we don't, do we know where he sends that card? - That's fine, that's fine.

- I don't know if it comes, I'm not sure. Like, and we don't need to, like, it's fine. - And it's 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.

“- And the relationship with the parents is important”

because, because of what he doesn't know. - Yeah. - Clearly, yes. - Parents haven't done a great job. They haven't narrated to him the movie they saw

that night while he was with the baby sitter. - 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 anyone, and then spat back out, and now he's just completely fucked. - I'm gonna 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's in an old-style and film his public, you know, his book on Ozu

and Brasson and Dreyer, it's the best, but he was not a filmmaker yet. He's a film writer. He is marriage is fallen apart. He was married to Jeanine Ophowall,

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 gonna call out quickly. I never settled upon, but Scorsese and Trader

have said, just Midwest. - Okay, right. - And Paul Schrader is from, we're like Minnesota or he's like a Calvinist, right, like anyway. But he says, '73 he's living in his car in LA,

riding around all night, drinking heavily, going to porno movies 'cause they were open all night and for no other reasons, and crashing someplace during the day, the pussycat theater in LA was one of his haunts. He says he'd go there to sleep and no other thing.

- Yeah. - I'm adding them, all right. And then he goes to the ER 'cause 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.

the Harry Chapen song, "Taxi."

“And then Arthur Bremer shoots George Walls,”

the al-Bammer governor, who's running for president when he gets assassinated. - That's the movie, basically. It was like a p-tier griffin moment where he saw three things at the same time

and was like, "Hexie, driver, just based off of what you said, "I didn't just put those things together." He's like, "I might as well be honest. "It was this weird, like concomeration of these things." - I'm not implying that it ever gets to Travis Bickle

levels of darkness. I'm 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 and bad 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, "Hah, I kind of haven't talked to anybody

"in a month." - Right. - Where I just go, like, the fuck am I thinking? - See, I, I mean, you have a house full of hands. - I was about to say, I'm a very social person. And so I do like, you know, I'm extraverted.

I like to see people charges my batteries, Boba. Now the idea of, like, David, you're gonna be better than for five days. I'm like, sounds like a vacation. Am I not gonna die?

- Sounds crazy. - I just feel like, I don't know where you are. - When there's been a close state of you shouldn't interact with people. And I certainly felt extreme versions of this

and in lockdown as well, where it's like, it actually, the safe thing to do is to not go out and talk to lockdown 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. - I don't know. - You talked about not wanting to leave your house recently, but that's obviously because of the A.V. set up.

- I'm a homebody, I've always been a homebody.

- No, it's not like, it's not like, yeah. - Yeah. And you know, I can go out and be social and then I, and I have a, my social anxiety always happens after the fact, like once I'm home and then I go, oh, why did I talk?

Why did I say anything to anybody? Why didn't you just be quiet? - Yeah, I have, I have the fuck off. - 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 Shredd. - Says he wrote the screenplay in about 10 or 12 days.

Continuously. - It's saying that it's a girl friend'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. - Right, that's probably right. - And he said he just jumped out of his head. He had to create the plot like that was the one that you needed like, okay, he wants a girl he can't have,

or he tries to kill the politician. - Yeah, it's like one of the steady driver things. - He tries to kill somebody to impress the girl. - But he says, you know, came from the gut, like largely. And his sort of oft repeated line,

but it is a good one. He's like, I wrote the character, so I wouldn't become him, essentially. - 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 scarsazzy versus trader thing of,

trader 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 scarsazzy felt like, feels like a guy. - Michigan not Minnesota, by the way, I apologize.

- Good, good correction. - Scarsazzy 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.

- Scarsazzy, you're saying, yeah, 'cause 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. Scarsazzy's maybe thinking about it a little more anthropologically

and then feeling tremendous shame about it. And traders, like, let me write it so I don't do it. - Straight, trader also obviously admits, very influenced by Satra, my European, this is what he calls the European existential hero, so like,

the stranger notes from the underground, the movie "Pick Pocket." - That's because I think it's the song, all the person are vicious. - 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 Y? He's just like, should I even exist? - Should I have been thrust into existence?

- It's interesting because I, 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 you wave in all of the time,

like they're like, right, like we love it. And then those 70s, the new Hollywood 70s filmmakers, influenced by those movies, turned 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 press on.

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 like 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 Nicolas Ray and Ilia Kazan and those sort of like, you know, the method, the new styles of acting movies

about self-torchered men, sure.

That were always kind of explosive,

that were more theatrical. Even when they were moving into a more modern style of acting and preventing garments, they're young to the sky. And part of it also is that the social moreays of the timer

that you kind of couldn't say what was actually going on. - Men can't be emotionally mad way. - Well, there's that, there's that.

“There's literally that's what the characters are 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 screened 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 change. - And Norman Maxwell movie.

- Yes, they got a favorite of 13. - But where you can kind of be like, the movies 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 your tearing the apart Lisa kind of moments. - Right, no, I think that's right. And also, you know, Travis' relationship to violence is an important one.

I think in the Shrader Screenplay, he even states boldly in the prose introduction to Travis that this is a man who's clearly is, an attractor of violence or 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, she doesn't have some moral awkward, he's like, when I was in the case on, 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 or reflection of, well,

Travis kind of reads like someone who might have been really bullied as a child. - Sure, of course. - His violence, a lashing out of the world is neuro to the panhand.

- Runtiness, like, dinner is a little guy. - Yeah, contributes to, he'll really help us for that. - He'll also please 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 of "Horehouse," I was thinking of, - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - Hadn't good reference for that.

- Hadn't not seen this film in a while, even though I'd seen it many times. Hadn't not seen this film since being older than the character. And now older, but then 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. He really seems like a, it's like big. It's like he's a little boy in a body, he doesn't know how to control.

And De Niro was playing that in sort of his, like, weird kind of diallessness.

And it does, your 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 active danger?

“- I think he might also be an only child.”

- He definitely seems to be an only child. - Yeah, 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, we love you, Ben. - Hey, take it easy. - I'm kidding. - We straight, straighter writes this script. He writes it, I mean, clearly it's like,

it's almost like an episode he has. He writes this script very fast. - Then he starts hanging. - Rocky kind of somewhere by the way. Rocky is a Sylvestre Stallone locked himself in a room

and like drew the curtains down for like seven days and just vomited it out. - It's a creepy thing. - I just like you, he, he, he, he, - I got so mad at Sean at all being like,

yeah, it's a little slow, I like Rocky too. I'm like, it's a fuck outta here. - A little slow, I don't get that touch, it's Rocky.

- I really think Rocky is almost underrated. Even though one best picture and just one of the most famous movies ever made, it's a gorgeous study of like human relationships. - It's underrated because of what he did

to the legacy of Rocky, which he's literally far above. - Right, 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 an illegal thing.

- So, there's no example. - There's no reason to one best picture, because it did it all, like, it made the money, it feels, but also it is a very, very well made film. - But there's also, there's no analog in movies

of something that started as kind of focused, personal, emotional art, and then just sort of it became pop trash. - Right. - And then you could argue with Creed went back again and then back again.

- Right, right, right. - Now it's doing the, yeah, it's almost like Creed, they were like, let's make a serious movie and they're like, we're off of the sequels, we can make, it's the Creed suners are remaking the rocky sequels in a way that's fascinating.

- They gotta bring the robot back. - They do. - Yeah. - Creed's got to fuck the robot. - Now listen, listen, so he's got to fuck it himself. - He could, so it's agency.

- Drainer leaves town for a while. He comes back to LA 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 buds.

And he gives him the script and then Michael and Julia Phillips, of course, that sort of husband wife producing team,

right, Julia Phillips, you'll never eat lunch

in this town again eventually, right. - I read that book when I was a teenager 'cause my mom would buy me movie books. - Not nice.

“- But I mean, as a teenager, remember being like,”

this is a little weird, like, I don't really get what being a producer is his person seems so angry. But they're preparing the sting and which they produce. And they are very taken with taxi driver, but they have no idea what to do with it.

They're like, the script is incredible. They buy it for $1,000, which is crazy. But they don't actually know how they're gonna 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 gonna be Robert Mulligan, who's not a director, I know that well, but he made to kill a mockingbird, but I don't know what he's doing in the '70s, I mean, he's much older.

- Yeah, he's older. He'd made that movie summer of '42, this sort of coming of age movie, which is kind of a hit. He'd made that big hit, par movie, the other, do you know these guys?

- The Nickel Ride, which is Jason Miller, kind of crime movie. - Favorite of shons. - We were texting with Hitmaker, 'cause he would listen to our fear list of the summons.

About how 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. - He doesn't make any sense, but then it's also, I mean, De Niro's is the yellow one,

no one ever could have given a better performance than this in this role. - Yeah, but so they're seeing me, they see me in streets and they go like, "Scarse has the internet." Like this is it.

And they never thought about anyone else again.

And "Scarse has a nose, Julia, a little bit." And I guess they talk after he makes box her a birthday and she's kind of like, "Come when you've done "something better." She was kind of like a bit of a bully or whatever,

you know, they're kind of making fun of him. But 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 of the other. It has to be both. "Scarse, he kind of nose Shrader a little bit "in meets him through De Palma.

"He wanted Paul to write to adapt Dostrayevsky's "the gambler for him." And he says he arrives late to dinner. Shraders sitting with De Palma and they have already cooked up the movie obsession together.

Well, this is happening. And so he's kind of like, "I miss my shot." But then the script gets handed to him. - Did Shrader write obsession? - He did, right?

- Am I wrong? - 1970, what is that? - '76? - Yep. - You guys wrote it?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Not a movie I love. - Great Barcloth. - He wrote obsession? That's crazy.

- Not the recent obsession, the Cliff Robertson. And part of the reason I don't love it is Cliff Robertson is like such a hand bone 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, we were like, huh. - That's certainly a movie that you would get arrested for making tension.

“- You should read John Lithko's memoir to read him,”

just fucking destroy Cliff Robertson. - I mean, he was a noted son of a bitch.

- Yeah. - What were they in together? What's the obsession? - Oh, right, there was a question. - Of course, he's in somebody to pop out.

- Right, to pop out. - I'm a fucking love-liquid. - Right, what was the reason? - Right, what was the reason? - Right, what was the reason?

- Right, what was the reason? - Right, what was the reason? - Right, what was the reason? - The philosophy is Frankenstein in the world. Love John with God to be clear.

- Yeah, but Scorsese, he reads the tax driver's company. He's like, well, this is kind of the Russian literature idea.

“I'm thinking of the sort of deepest, darkest secret type self.”

You know, movie, 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, I make sense. - It is 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 in New York and all this. And like, and that the merging is like, why the movies are 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 chillier. - Okay, so blah, blah, Schrader had also written this movie. The Yakuza, of course. He sells that for some money. Marty does Alice.

The Phillips is through 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,

about just $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, I mean, it's a little bit under what they had it. - No, no, no, they felt they were gonna get nothing to make this movie. And like, 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 a, what, you know, Columbia Pictures. And Scorsese is, he's already trying to make New York New York, which is a much more expensive movie. - That is crazy that he already wanted to do with that New York New York isn't just him

flush with the success thinking he can do anything. - Everyone gets bargain basement prices. - Yeah. - De Niro 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 blurred as this movie made by a studio. - It's really quite expensive.

- I mean, right. I mean, being so, I mean, obviously there's like trash but it's like habitation film. - It's lured in a different way. - Right, cowboy.

- Yeah. - But Midnight Cowboys has a sweet side too. - It does. - It's about boys, friends. - It is about boys being boys.

- The Godfather's no picnic. - This is true. - But it's classy. - I know. - Yeah.

- But it's no picnic. - But these are the four seasons of how you get there. Right, you go, okay. So, Midnight Cowboy has the lured sexuality and the New York when his death got father half the boys.

- Yeah. - And death wishes like an art list, you know, kind of, for sure.

“- But I think it's important that those two movies”

win best picture and it breaks down a couple taboo balls. - Yeah, right, right, right. - Deliverance. - That's true. - That's true.

- So, one that's pushing the boundary.

- Right, I mean, bands who had never been played that fast.

- But Deliverance is like, "If you go fucking canoeing in the Appalachians or whatever, that's gonna happen." - Now, Taxi drivers, like, if you try and get in the cab in New York City,

it's sort of the opposite, you know, ends of, - Like, there are those taboos. - I mean, yeah. - They had been falling, I mean, you could argue that Rocky, Rocky and Star Wars

start to be the end of it. - They've re-established the taboos. I mean, I just think it can't be overstated that the 70s start with an x-rated movie winning best picture.

- And I think that's true. - That's true. - But briefly, all bets are all. - I guess the difference I'm noticing here is even death wish, but certainly things like Godfather,

Midnight Cowboy, 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 somewhat sympathetic character

in the first death wish, obviously,

and like he's, you know, 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, 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, that happy ending and victory at the end of the movie

could have been misread by the bean counters who were proving the movie getting made? - Yeah, maybe. - If you're looking at it on paper, even as dark as the film is,

you don't know what the performance is gonna be like. Do you imagine it is a film? 'Cause a lot of these kind of grimey or, not even the exploitation films, but the sort of genre of 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,

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 gonna execute it. - I don't know. - I don't know, that's an interesting question because we get to a point 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. - Yes. - That's gonna assassinate the presidential candidate.

- Palatine. - And the other road takes him to rescue Lady Indistress. Is the movie unclear? Is Travis unclear of which way it's gonna go?

And till finally we get to the climax of the film,

you can't even call it an aborted assassination attempt. - Just, you know, he gets out of there before even transpires. - Yeah. - Maybe the Mohawk was a mistake in that record. - Right, sure.

- It's from a nearer where you could just kind of walk up to a presidential candidate. - It's gonna write, like it's still like now, if there's a White House correspondent and her security's not gonna let you get anywhere.

- I mean, that guy didn't get that close. He's a 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. - Yeah.

- People were just walking here, that's another taboo that, I mean, I can't know. - Pinkly obviously, he's inspired by the taxi driver. - Inspired by the taxi driver was able to walk up right up to Ronald Reagan on the street,

getting into a car. - But Travis swears, right?

- Yeah, he goes over and he does the,

I'll do the no blur thing. - I'll do the no blur thing instead. When, I mean, we, what we sense is that he's just gotta get this out. - Yes, right.

- It's a bomb that's gonna explode. - Yeah.

“- 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 and easy writer and the studio is going, our shit's not working. Something's happening over here.

Maybe we have to... - Let's look into this. - I'm gonna learn everything we thought we knew. - Right. - And so all the kind of rules of traditional

what works, what is proper storytelling. Yada, Yada, yada, go out the window and they start just letting the inmates run the asylum to a certain degree. - Right, and French connection.

- Mm-hmm. - And Godfather. - Yes. - I mean, these movies are, and the exercise, they're making time in so much money.

- I'm not to keep just tying everything back to recent big picture episodes. But in that '76 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 BBS picture winner is wild. But not the case today where you go, these movies, not only one BBS picture,

were critically adored.

Were like a steamed critical objects.

Were embraced by the public. Were massive financial successes. In many cases, also the highest grossing film in their year, almost always within the top five. 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 in French connection. This would have been the grimyest thing you'd ever seen, you know, 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, the Travis really becomes, you know, potentially this figure of revenge or whatever it is. If you're a studio exec reading this script

once again to run this exercise, do you just go like, I don't know, at least 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.

- Yeah. - But it's also that the New Hollywood guy start being like, well, I want to make epic. - I mean, like the Chimino and Freakin are like, like, like, like, check her begins.

- Right. - These people are, of course, as even Copa. - Yeah. - They're like, I can make anything. I can, you know, and then they make the stuff

that all, you know, bankrupt studios. - Yeah. - It's not like their careers or for Chimino is careers over. But for, you know, the other guys, they, they salvage it, but I think that's when Hollywood's like,

all right, like, you know, totally, they're fine. - You were fine, cheap. - You're not fun, like this. - Yes, yeah, certainly Jason.

I mean, Freakin makes two of the hugeest movies ever made 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, we will do him on the show one day, 'cause 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,

- Good, buy, get out, you are a pariah. - Yeah, 10 years. - And then he's on the margins now. - He makes great movies after that. He also makes forgettable movies.

- But he also makes chapters at the center of the culture again.

- But he never fully goes away and like 100%.

- What's interesting about someone like Freakin is like, he made stuff like rules of engagement. Like he made like very sort of like solid Hollywood entertainment along with the-- - But that's the balance. Like the two movies he made of your plays,

I think are like both excellent. But those are, it feel like a throwback

“to even his like pre French connection ship, right?”

And then you're also like, sometimes he would just be a studio guy for hired. He would do the 100 or whatever. And it's pretty good. - Right, but it was like he couldn't ever do

French connection again. He could never be like, I am working within the studio system making the purest version of what interests me. - It becomes a little bifurcata. He would've told me, it wasn't possible anymore.

He said, you know, the just circumstances change in such a way, it's like that'll never happen again. - Yeah. (upbeat music) - Tax driver, okay, so, you know,

John at Scorsese, two big influences for him. John Wayne in the searchers. He doesn't say much except that'll be the day. He doesn't belong anywhere. He just fought no war that he lost.

- As John Wayne always like haunted.

- That performance was based on quote, the loneliness man he ever knew. - Right. He's also very interested in fluency says by Irving Learner's murder by contract.

He, I guess it worked with Learner on New York, New York eventually. - No murder by contract. - I've seen murder by contract. I feel like, do not know anything about this movie.

“- I feel like it was, 'cause that's a Colombian war, right?”

Like Vince Edwards, I think. Vince Edwards is Claude Boy, pulled that on him, right? - That it's impressive. - Right, like it's like a taffy role. - Craterian put up some long ago,

you know, some cartoon collection like cartoon channel, sorry, series of those Colombian wars. There's like later boxes of those Colombian wars. They're great. - Oh man, they've got to start a bust now,

that credit card number. - I got to say that series of words hit like heroin. That went through my bloodstream. - Because there's Colombian wars of the late 50s, very interesting, 'cause Colombian was sort of the poverty studio,

and so they made the darker stuff. - Let's get real movies. - Yeah, well, 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.

Like that's the one where the poster is, the guy's got to garot around the woman's neck. And she's looking beautiful and he's looking tormented or whatever.

“And he's like a hitman who's in his own head.”

And I understand like that he's like, this course says he'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 Deerra, obviously they've worked together already. - Only the one time, only on this now. - Only on this now. - 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 Cytel, De Neuro, and Scorsese. - And the Caprio, excuse me. - Obviously, De Neuro becomes the guy

he understands how to filter everything that interests him in for decades. And then the Caprio becomes the guy who is, first of all, enough as an actor, but more importantly, is automatic financing

and security for whatever he wants to make at a very large scale. Cytel starts out as Scorsese's self insert. You watch who's that knockin' in my door, you watch me in 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. It's like he notices when fucking De Neuro 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, Cytel, you're cool playing like, a fucking pedophile, Panpen Judas, right? You're cool playing like just the most evil people in the world, I'm gonna keep working with you. But now you just play kind of like unknowable monsters.

- Yeah, that's true. I mean De Neuro, it's very interesting, is shooting 1900 for Bertilucci. He's prepping Elyocasans the last tycoon, not a very good movie, but at the major project.

- Elyocasans find a film. - Indeed, yeah. - He would come from Europe like on breaks from 1900 and drive cabs around New York City. And then the way Scors says he describes it,

then he would just click a button and then he'd turn into Harry Offland from the last tycoon if he needed. Right, he's like, he's got all these modes in his brain. - I see big enough at that point

where what people recognize--

- He's one in Oscar.

“- But he said it happened only one time.”

That's crazy.

- That basically still he was weirdly anonymous enough.

Even though Godfather II was huge and he had won the Academy Award, he wasn't a leading man yet. - Sure. - And he's elusive in Godfather II.

- 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,

and that's fucking movie happening here. Obviously, Jodie Foster is in Alice, doesn't live here anymore. So he has the connection to her. His mother, her mother thinks she's crazy to do what I 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. Well, Fairbore, you know, they hire,

they hire Pat Brown, the former governor of California to make to smooth things over. They have adults. Their sister Connie is there for some of the more adult couldn't quote shots, you know, to make sure.

- She bought a 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 she 13 years old? - She's 12 years old. - She's crazy.

- And she did that as she had such a, like part of its child's dark voice. - 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 band 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. - Yeah. - So A, she's such an old pro.

B, her voice just always makes her sound wiser beyond her ears. Even like now, you're like, oh, she's Methuselah. She does, she's just got, she's got so much, like command and a thought.

- It's great at all ways. - You ever worked with Jenny Foster? - I haven't. - It doesn't work for the first time recently. - Hell yeah.

- 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 taking seriously. And I feel like you get a lot of bad

want to be some dance movies or like a former Nickelodeon star is like strung out on heroin and doing fucked up shit. - Right.

- 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 cam 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 Daenerys Krasesi 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 last picture show but that's also such a raw clay performance. - Right.

- But she's so good in that movie. - No, she is. - She is. But this it's like what she's doing is so complicated and delicate and 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 would though.

- But here's the looker. - It's also, it's what Daenerys Krasesi 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 Pickle. Who the fuck you kidding? Both of you would go on a date. - He's not that raced up when he used to go. - But let's go on one date with Travis.

- That's just that old-eish. - I mean, it took me to this Swedish porn conception in the original sense of occasional. - Yeah. - The part that a cocktail place sport is written

by a shredder 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. - It will cause right. - In a brothel, like that's just not gonna work for us. - And Kytel, it's basically like, you know,

he knows, parachute can be no score says he come on it. - What's your, what are you gonna say something to say? - Well, that's interesting, and I think a good choice, but the use of race and taxi drivers pretty interesting to watch again to see

is the point that's being made that the seeds of white supremacy are sewn in this character, in this lonely. - If that point is being made, I feel it's unintentional, but I'm not sure.

I don't really know. - I don't know, man, we see the way they talk about race and you're right. - Yeah, he's a lot of racial slurs that occur into the stepping, but he's also, he's so angry

Like everyone's a target to hit. - May I get my read on this? - Yeah. - I, not to go too close to you. - Travels people 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 a taught that has to be passed down,

whether it is 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 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, sure, there are obviously rights about white supremacism later, you know?

And that's much more of like a religion.

- You can't deny the gaze through which we see. Total, the black man who is walking down the street raging, I'm gonna kill him all, right? - Yes, 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, 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 and who have a community, the 25th hour mirror scene on your theater 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, 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, is, well, 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 as community and you don't have that. The culture's 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 on checked. 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. But I do think it's important that what really metastasizes him to go full taxi driver mode, if you will, is, well, I gotta say this kid mode.

- Yeah, no, it is. - This is the worst guy that's not defined by his rage. 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 Pickle has a lot of hate and his heart”

for other racist, yes. - But it's also, you know, we like, that goes well for him. - Totally. - He defends the guy. - Yeah. - You know, the shop owner. He kind of just gets away with it.

- Part of the cynicism of the film is him knowing. - He seems kind of like cool in her own dick. - No one's gonna tell about this kid. - Right. - The shop owner is speaking - He's finished. - Yeah, he's right.

- He's Latino. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - They're seemingly friends. - But he think-- - Or at least allies in that moment. - Yeah, right. - 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. - Of course, as he's in the film, of course. - Whatever we should. - Whatever we should.

- He is replacing the actor George Mammoli, who I know best from fans with a paradise. But like kind of like a big guy. He's in mean streets. He's a guy. And he had gotten in an accident,

and could not like make it to set essentially. Like, he was injured. - Score says he's like, okay, I'll do it. And he says he learned a lot from Bob and 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.

Shrader was really mad.

“Like he was like, why are you fucking taking this part?”

And then he saw the movie. And was like, yeah, he did a pretty good job.

- His second best performance as an actor?

- After Sharktail? - No, the main delorean and grugu? - Yeah. - What is Scorsese's bad? I mean, he's a quiz show, like, and he has like a meaty performance. - It's just pretty thick in this. - It's a small role,

but it's this. - Yeah. - He's just astonishing. - He's smart and Scorsesey. In Mandalorian and grugu. - He's trying to say, "For armed street cart alien." - I regret to inform you that it is maybe the only good performance

in the movie. - Yeah, 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. - Yeah. - He's an alien flat meat dealer. He makes flat meat sandwiches.

But it is versus this. Even though Scorsese is not doing it tongue-in-sheek and it feels like he's committed, it's very much him playing Scorsese. It's him doing the fast talking thing.

- Yeah. - He's basically a guy

“that Mandalorian is trying to use as informant.”

- I don't know where this guy is. I don't know, I could be anybody. - I see. - He's good. - But he's got four arms suggesticulate,

which is really the technological breakthrough.

- They want to make this movie fast and cheap. They even thought about doing it on black and white video tape. - And saying? - Kind of insane. The budget does go over a little bit, but they did draw it out all on storyboards,

everything, hopefully to save some money. Marty drew it himself, I'm assuming. - Maybe he says the overall idea of this is to make it across between Gothic R and the New York Daily News, Gothic R and the New York Daily News.

Michael Chapman says, Marty's storyboards, yes, he writes the draws them are the best. They make no pretence of being art. They're just 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. He's, 'cause he obviously also shoots, he'd only shot two movies before this.

The last detail is first movie. - Well, well, and then the film The White Dawn, the Philip Kaufman, like, Inuit movie with polar bears in shit? - Oh, it's not Bronson.

- No, it's Warren Oates and Timothy Bottoms and Louis Gossett Jr. As three wailers who are stranded in the Arctic and are rescued by Inuit people. Part of the best movie of all time before now.

- I can tell you that it got generally negative reviews. In fact, it's interesting for Bronson. - 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" area. - I only watched it, but directed that. - Yes, it was nominated for Best Makeup at the Academy Awards. And I was like, I want to watch any movie not made for an Oscar that year.

- We just talked about that so he is well in the blink of an eye. - Yeah, he could do the lush pastoral nature. He could do that stuff, even though I think of him best for the Martian movies. - A fucking grind.

- Yeah, for this and raging bull. And those are the only two movies they made together, right? - Yeah, it's interesting, like the, he also did, he did hardcore with Shrader. - The rugby group here for a run has been pretty long,

but other words, Martian would jump around with DPs. - Well, he uses ballhouse a lot. - Yeah, and then he sort of jumps around. But sometimes it's Robert Richardson, sometimes, yeah, he tries other people around.

It's interesting. - Yeah. - But Chapman, of course, as 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 like 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, "Think God, I didn't have time in money."

Like, you know, everything worked out for me. When they're shooting Travis Bickle, of course, as he wants Travis, basically, to be in everyone else's light. But when he's in the frame, that's really what we're talking smart.

He's low. - Yeah. - 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."

'Cause 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 kind of set a 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

- 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, you know, that offends anyone. - Sanitators are on. - Sanitators are on. - Not at all. - I said the worst voice. - Yeah. - Yeah, people have a thing about it.

They don't like the worst time. - I'm not one of them. - Ben, Ben wishes it would pick a direction. - Yes. - He wishes just to middling for Ben. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Pick a lead. - Okay, so dryer wet. There's a garbage strike going on.

So there's garbage everywhere. - I mean, what a blessing. - And it's like, all these things are right. They're just all lined up. - It's just all lined up, right? - The apartment stuff like Travis'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. - We used to have a country. - We used to have a country. I'm checking here, the country was falling up there. - I think we thought mortgage rates were 30 proofs. - This dropped dead. - I think my mom buys, I think about all the time.

My mom buys an apartment in New York City. And I believe it's 76. - They paid her $20 to get to the 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. - Like, and truly, like my mom says, the first three months she lived there, the apartment had once been occupied by someone of ill-repeated, 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 would be like, Ellen, don't you open the door for anyone you don't know? Okay, like he wasn't like, "Oh, I'll take care of it." He was just like, "Listen to me, Ellen,

never open the door." - I, that's what 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? - And, sorry for ranting about this. - Sorry for ranting about this. - No, there was, 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 and 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 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, currently looking for a partner. - Oh yeah, let's 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. - Yeah, you need crime. - I need the rent. - This is the-- - This is the-- - This is the-- - This is a complex thought to be-- - I can answer this. - I can answer this. - Let's trust it, only flee.

- Open the gates of Arkham, asylum. - Yes. Those are fun villains. They'll do goofy themed crime. - Uh-huh. - Penguin's robbing banks in the shed. - Right. - There I say it, Richard, he'll go. - All right.

So, last thing before we just talk about the movie more, Bernard Herman, very resistant. Scorsese describes him as crotchity. Essentially retired. - Yes. - And Scorsese says, the film's called Taxi Driver, and he says, "Oh, no, that's not my kind of picture title.

No, no, no, no, no, no." And Marty's like, "Please, can we meet?" When talk about it, and he's like, "Well, what's the movie about?" And Marty's like, "And it's about this, you know, and I'm telling you." - Oh, I'm telling you.

- The describes-- - Hold on. - And Bernard Huron's like, "No, no, no, no, no, that's not the kind." And who's in it? And he says, "Robber De Niro's in it." And he's like, "No, no, no, no." And he's like, "Well, we can have a quick talk."

So, that's how he won him over, just coming in front of Oscar nomination. - Didn't Herman also do obsession? - No, it doesn't John really-- - Oh, wait. - Now I have to look at it, okay.

Now I've got to look at 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 would de Palma to me. And I love De Palma. I don't know how you feel about De Palma. 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."

And obsession, which is obsession is his vertical, 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 Dressed to Kill, where he's like, "Here's my psycho,

"and I'm like, you're a sick fuck." - Yeah. - 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 eyes. - It's a lot of movies. - Yeah. And the whole crew is how much? - Not more than Scorsese? - No, but it's a close.

- Yeah. - And like, the tail end of his career is not an interesting one. - We obviously can't rest. - Run the rest of the week. - 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, voirisms of theme. - You know, like it's a key, you know, he had his bag. - What if he looked at Boo 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. - I'll release it from you, I'll release it from you. - I'll release it from you, I'll release it from you.

- Radiance 4. - Never seen.

- You never seen it. - It's one of the de Palma's I've never seen it. - I've never seen it. - I've never seen it. - I've never seen it. - Yung Taro, right? - I can't believe I have a movie. - What's it about, guys?

- Well, it's interesting because it's a little like who's at knocking on my door and some other films we've covered, dark star a little bit like this, where you're like, it's kind of three different movies smooshed together, like genuinely three different

production efforts, smooshed 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 the Palma worked on in college.

That was filmed on black and white super eight 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

do trying to branch out and live in New York City on his own comedy. It's a real fascinating, mismatch of stuff.

It's basically an on narrative movie, right?

But it's incredibly stylish and funny. - I imagine I'll be getting the discs. - Yeah, I'll begin 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? 'Cause it was like, are you the white whale

to get to join the group? But the group just goes, it just goes hard. As David said, it's a very busy group text. How many people are on six, six? - I think so.

- Five, you made it sound like they said there were 20. - No, it's me, Gryff, Sean Fantasy, Alex Perry, David Lowry, and Timothy Smith. - And Hitmaker, he seems hitmaker. - Oh, I should be on that.

- Okay, you can be included, certainly. But sometimes I don't know if you're David Lowry and Alex Ross Perry and I are 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. - Deadly, 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, he was Sean's date. So I went to see those guys after words at the party

and the opening of that party. And I said, where's Alex Ross Perry? Well, he left. I was like, well, he left. I mean, we're not to stick around just to say hi

or not to meet you or thanks for your play or what. 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, 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, something. - And Zack, man does 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 him.

- Sometimes, maybe you meet via text first

in this thread and your grand introduction to the ecosystem, but sometimes I will shout and announce as a four-case 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 pre-ordering to shit out of it. I have already pre-ordered. I don't even really like this. - I mean, you know, Congo. - I have about three things, three launch points.

Okay, I'm gonna take this one first. And it goes back to my thing about finding Travis Moore sympathetic this past room. When I watch King of comedy and Rupert takes his girlfriend into Jerry Lewis's house, 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?

Tim Robbins. - Yeah, I like that you said Detroiters instead of I think you should leave. By the way, Detroiters fucking rules. - Great show, forever.

“- 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. I mean, when Travis fucks up with civil shepherd.

- Yeah, I don't feel like, I don't feel like, oh, God, this is embarrassing and funny.

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, 'cause I'm like the movie guy, they're like, I just want to taxi driver, can I talk about taxi driver with you? Everyone goes, and that scene where he takes and takes you 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 mother fucker, don't do this. You're so close. - To actually change in kind of the trajectory of your life.

- It's because she's sort of into it, ever. - It's true. - And it's true. - She's treated not by him. - Yeah.

- He's close, and 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, 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 that your hair cut? Versus De Niro being hotness,

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, a lot of couples go see this, and I love that when you're in the theater,

and she's immediately revolts, you do see that there are other couples there. There are other couples there, because that's their fucking thing. - Right, that's where they want to put her on a little bit, and this is a blind spot of this guy

“where his life is so cloistered that he's like,”

what a couples do, where 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, man. - No, you probably build two dates.

- He doesn't fucking get it, but it's basically,

I am curious, you know, and I think we're saying, couples, I am a who knows. - A pair of people. - A pair of people. - Yes.

- Two turtles, those, it does, 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 it 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, or her,

“you have to assume, is not only that he's young”

and good looking, Robert De Niro and Finn, and, you know, 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 telling you that you're beautiful,

and I wanted to, and she's obviously flattered by that attention. And then, yeah, takes her out for coffee,

and it is technically the second date.

- Right, yeah, yes, and, and respect. - No, sorry, David chose some respect. - And I love you, thanks. - He sits there with her at the coffee shop, and what he says, the way he describes

how he perceives her, is really, he's talking about himself. - I did 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 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 middle.

- The Brooks placement is so important for that reason. - Right, he's Brooks's a nebis, 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 a run-on monologue he goes,

I'm in love with you, and then just keeps talking, and she just doesn't even acknowledge you. - Right, because he's giving me all day from his ass, probably, she's sick, and just. - Bickle is trying to at least engage with her

as a human being, where it just feels like Albert Brooks is obviously 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,

- 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 who knows the people, and who knows the next move. - Yes, so he can't say to her at the beginning of the day.

- Well, where do you want to go? - You, you, you, you, you, you, you, what's your favorite revolution, he's going to be the one to make the choice. - Yes, yeah, and of course when he makes the Ron choice, then it just, it all falls apart.

- And I don't know. - Here's, here's my hot take.

“- You should have given the movie a little more of a show.”

- I, he should have bought her a Ross Meyer shirt, she should have sat there, and considered what was on - The movie looks pretty bad, 'cause it's this weird sort of sex-ed film, right? - What did they come the Swedish kind of educational films?

- Yeah, let me see if I could find the name of it, like what it was. - Well, it's not a real, it's not a real porn. We thought it was, we actually thought it was this movie that was kind of popular, it's not, it's a little footage

from it, but that was this whole, these silos of things, like the nudist documentaries, or the Swedish 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 it's main purpose.

- Right, it's called 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 we're purporting to be like marital guides, right? - Right, here's Masters in Johnson study put on screen. - Some scientific element. - There's sex head films for grown-ups, which is a way to get away legally with screen. 'Cause also the theater is nicer than you imagine

a lot of the other time 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 porn of theaters. Time square was very scuzzy, it was, it's not like it was,

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, 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 a year. - Right, right. - Like there was the phenomenon of an insurgent film goes to see. - He was deep through. - Presuming she had the maturity and the sophistication to be able to handle

a little adult material. - He thought she was into keynote, he didn't realize. - But she's out of there, like 30 seconds. - Yeah, I mean, I don't like the 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 taxes”

and Seth Rogan's interviewing them. - Yeah, he's like, it's funny, I get it, you're overly formal and then they start to be weird and he's like, now the taxes seem fucked up. - And it's for her, she's just like,

you know, I was willing to roll with your different, but it's interesting and then he takes you to the poor, and she's like, okay, now I know, now clearly it's almost a mystery for a moment of just like, there's a bunch of things I'm reviewing in my mind.

- Yeah, should he have known who Chris Christopheerson was in 1970s? - I think so, he's like her. - 'Cause that's the year of a star's born. - Yes, which, as Amanda called out,

was the second highest grossing film of its year. - Okay, but it was, and like me and Bobby McGeeer, whatever, like he's big, you know, that's 1970s. So he's a pretty established, like that's him, he needs to move the star to move the star

down after being a hyperfamous songwriter and then a hyperfamous singer in his own way.

- It's very conscious that Chris says 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 sound effect. There's no actual music. - Yes, and Chris says he very conscious it was like,

"I don't want a lot of energetic music." You know, like I don't want him to be like spin and record so whatever, but he doesn't have any attraction vinyl. He could, you're right, he could have been, he could have become a DJ.

- Could have been spin and play. - Yeah, his record player's broken needles. - Yeah, yeah. - And so it's something else up there in my opinion. - Okay, wait, that's what he wants.

- Well, I just want to know more about the Christophe or something because like you guys talked about this actress that Tim Simon's didn't know and I didn't know or either.

- The great Lily Collins, I never heard of her.

- I think there's a reasonable argument

“that I think Chris Christophe or Stofferson in this moment”

is more conventionally famous than Lily Collins. And obviously there was more hormonal culture than. - But we're 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 Barrett's. And I'm like, you haven't run into her at one of their empire, gollas 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. - Sure, right. - Let's post the fucking pre-orders of new disc announcements and whatever.

And then Tim will just sometimes swinging with a thing that feels like it's coming straight from Jupiter.

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? - By was he? - I don't know. - Okay, we eventually figured it out but I feel like the chain of logic was really bizarre.

“- So you think you should, you think Travis should have known”

who Chris Christophe received us. - 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 listening.

- We're like, he's appealing to young people. - Yeah. - 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 his own head.

He's watching Switchers Occasionally. - And we see him later watching pornographic film that seems more traditional. - Yeah. - 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? - I like John.

- 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?

- You think civil kind of gives him a bit of a hard time. - It's a movie about civil shepherd fumbling the bag. - She's out of there pretty quick. - He doesn't give him, 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. - I mean, maybe he's like, they can pronounce the bag. - Yes, maybe it's like she did not accept.

- That's what I think it is. - That's what I think it is. - Or that he's continuing to send flowers to her. - Or does that, do send flowers to someone? They reject them, they bring them to you.

Not 1-800 flowers as passponsor, of course.

They would never do that.

- I think that if civil 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'd just found this nice lady and kind of like, he would have settled down. - That's right. - 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. - But this is, you know, there's gonna be something. - He focuses his affections on, you know, a beautiful model.

- Yes. - Civil Shepherd was a cover model. - I mean, that's, civil shepherd was the ultimate kind of just like image of a woman that drove men and sing.

“- So that's what she represented in the cult.”

- She's gorgeous. - Like a problem with a lot of these fucking insults. Maybe you just need to lower your stand. - I mean, yes. - Our buddy Chris Gather to 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. - You know, or find the women who do find you interesting. I mean, that's like, what, what? We're gonna solve this today, guys.

We're gonna fix the insults. - No, but there are a lot of, you know, it's a gripe of mine. And then high squad was very obsessed with a lot of the high school movies

where it's the nerdy guy who's obsessed with them was conventionally beautiful, you know, prom queen girl. And she'd never even look at a guy like me. And that scene 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 female best friends.

You're doing the same fucking thing. You wanna date the hottest person. - Well, that's because those 80s, teen movies are like Charles Dickens novels. We're like, there's the interesting female character.

This is a great comparison to make. And 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,

“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 imping 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 like, I'm up all night anyway. I'll drive a cab around. - What you're does, it taxi the sitcom start. Is it, it's within, like,

20 stars on the finance, right? - Yeah, in 1978. - Okay. - I just know that James O'Brucks said,

the taxi dispatched 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 gonna do this for six months.

How long you been doing it 15 years? - Right, but that 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.

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, I've had a couple.

- My uncle drove a cab from 80 to 83. - In New York City. - And you're actually the-- - Your uncle who's a listener? - Yep.

- And a cinephile? - 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 six PM to six AM, and he had to pick up like, ghouls and goblins. - 'Cause the way New York City's cab's 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. - Yeah. And he reflecting on that time, he said, he shared with me,

he totally risked this 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--

- It's always been possible. - It's always been possible. - It was just a crazy time. - Yeah. - Yeah.

- It was, you never drove a cab? - No, I didn't. I had a friend, Will Kurn, and he wrote a play about it. - No, the hell cab. - And then they turned to hell cab into a movie

called Chicago Cab.

“- Oh, I believe directed by John Centauri Mary Sybolson.”

- That's a kind of a friend, right Centauri. - Oh, wow. - Passing future guests. The late Great Mary Sybolski, a legend. - Yeah.

- I'm in that movie briefly. - Really? - Yeah, it's made in Chicago. - You place 4% I do, in fact. - Yes, sports fan.

- What team? - I'm a bear fan, of course. - The bears. - But everybody I've ever known is driven a cab, believes that they've,

that they're performing a valuable public surface. - That is a great way of putting a trusty. And I feel like there's a similar kind of, - It's like the safety net of travel. - Yes, in the 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 path.

- That it is an extreme form of interpersonal immersion into like the breath of humanity.

“- I remember I read the book Hack by Melissa Plot.”

Now, because 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 gonna start driving a cab.

- That's every friend of mine who grew up. People I know who also grew up in New York City and we're just like, I'm in my early 20s. I haven't figured out my thing yet. Your screen keeps trying really bright red.

- Oh, I'm sorry. - Yeah, I don't know. - There was an app right there. - These good look. - Or an app right now. - I was just going to write it to you, David.

(laughing) - It's reflecting on your eyes and how I get off. I watch porn and but 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 is a cabby. They had a bit of a hair trigger temper. - Yeah.

- And it's not so even so much the people in your cab. It's just the active driving all the time in New York City where you just, a lot of rage starts to radiate out of you. Like everyone is 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. - Right. - 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. So Ken, he had been, you know, was a working musician and composer. But it was heart and he would be in between jobs.

- He don't even make that much money. - Yeah. And so at some point after doing all these different kinds of odd jobs,

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. - 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's cross state line.

- Drive to white plain, drive to Jersey. But like the real deal, cabbies. - They were not fused. - I'm not fucking going up town. - We're not going to bring it to them.

- They were 100% reachily-profile. - Right, of course. - Right. - So, okay, so he's a cab driver. - Right.

- He's a cab driver. - So we've got as far as Joe Spanell, he's a cab driver. - He's a cab driver, he's great at dating. Women just don't notice it. - Early scenes are right with him with like Peter Boyle,

Harry Norther, North Norman Matlow. I'm trying to be like who those guys are. And even though those guys are all, 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, like talking about it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Peter Boyle really well cast.

- Really well cast. - He's such a good act. - I love the like 70s Peter Boyle. - 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 of me and he can't even crack the conversational rhythm that these guys have. - Yeah. - I mean, let's face it, Travis may not be very bright.

“I mean, there are things like, what's moon lighting?”

- Right, right. - Right, right. - What's moon lighting? - Right. - Certain things, 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 a big, where he's like a kid in a grump spotty.

There was always this sort of whisper

that De Niro was supposed to be in big. And then Elizabeth Perkins didn't interview recently, and she was like, my screen test was with him. We prepped the movie with him. - Yeah, that's his own way.

- We're asked for more money. The contract fell apart at the last minute and then Hank's 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 moon lighting 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 what you're saying, Tracy,

that even you're walking in as an 18 year older, you know, knowing he's gonna go in a ramp page. I would love to watch this movie not knowing. - Yeah. - It's impossible.

- It's the same with psycho or whatever. These movies were as a kid, I'm like, I know what, I know one thing about this movie. - Well, even just being like watching this movie just thinking like, what's he gonna do?

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 Jodie Foster shit. - Sure, yeah. - We're not just like there are 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 kind of wants him to be washed away. - Yeah. - 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 tenants of this story and how it exists in our culture

and is referenced all the time.

And now I'm gonna watch it for the first time.

- But the first time you watch it, not knowing things, it must have been like, is he gonna attack this girl? - Right. - So he gonna shoot this, you know, politician?

- Is it a romance with the girl or honestly is the movie? - Right. Tell me on that, like anything. - And I haven't seen Lee at starts.

- I do feel like yes I know this movie has many 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 gonna figure it out. He's gonna rescue himself.

- He's gonna be an avenging angel. - But wild to consider that this film can be misread with how clear it's perspective feels communicative 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 modeled where you feel like it has

too much judgment, contempt for its characters. Or it's a little bit too much into fetishizing, their transcendent moments or whatever it is. And this movie feels like so cut and dry. And like this is a movie about being a broken man.

That's how it, what it is from beginning to end, you know. - Isn't there, 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 a similar to the 40 minutes or are mostly driven by a simple shepherd. But we're hearing things in his head like he sees her and is like she's like an angel. - Right.

- Like the city cannot touch her. Like you're already hearing this kind of like in the same dialogue in his head. - And also topic for discussion. - The breaks in a point of view.

There are basically three. There are two scenes in the campaign office between civil shepherd and Albert Brooks. And then there's the scene between Harvey Kytel and Jodie Foster.

- Yes. - We see the pimple working his, his magic on her. What about those? What about those?

- It's interesting.

“- Yeah, 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 civil and Brooks see De Niro through their eyes. - Yes.

- He travels through his eyes and be kind of like you know, tingling with you know, like just understanding like how strange it is these. - 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 dab. And maybe contextualizing just, but we already know she's in an abusive situation. - It takes it from being intellectual

to being emotional. - Yeah. - 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 gonna do.

- I think that's the function of that. - What do you make it this way? Again, you wrote killer jokes like you, you, I'm not saying like, yes, 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?

- What, where 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 grow to your plays in your, in your Uber that are like,

this is really digging in on the people that society doesn't even wanna look at. - Oh well, that would be good. - I mean, if I took that from it, wouldn't that be a great thing.

But, 'cause I think that's important. - Yeah, I ask myself when I watch it. Now seems like such a sharp break from his, - It is, 'cause as you're saying, you're not only in his head, we're way in his head.

- 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 the release? - I think there's 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. - Great.

- 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 on my mom's first viewing in the movie in 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.

“- No, no, no, no, 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? Was it dreamy to get?" - Yeah. - And then there's like that moment where Shrader, no,

De Niro. One of them was like, "Let's do a sequel." And I remember some people being like, "Hold up, sequel, what do you even live?" - Like, why would there be a sequel?

- Right, yes. - Very, very last night after we watched it. We just like, the motherfucker got shot in this carated artery. He's fucking dead.

- He's not in good shape, but he's not in the movie. - I'll say it. 911, let's call it.

- I also always think about there was Scorsese

did a podcast with Joanne Hog. I think it was for the A24 podcast. - He sure did. - It's one of my favorite podcasts that were written. - And he said a thing that I think about

all the fucking, who said this to Joanne Hog? - Martin Scorsese. - Martin Scorsese, who directed a raging bull

- 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 low to do that.

And he said what you have to do is offer them something else. 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 Monti, a little bit. But so let the movies still have its own integrity. - How much of it do you think is quote unquote real?

“What's interesting to me when I think about this stuff?”

'Cause you can pretty flatly kind of just take the movie.

It's like, sure, it's basically real.

And like, then the epilogue is sort of a fantasy or kind of a commentary on the audience or whatever. - Right. - I also just, I do think about like,

how handsome D'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. 50 pushups a day, right?

Like his whole like Regimen. - And he's already trimmed to begin with. It's not like he starts the movie doughy, right? - Yeah. - Like the way he looks and is perceived,

especially kicked him out of stubble. - Right. - It's so clean. - It's a little too nice. - Yeah.

And then the way people react to him doesn't strike me as like they're seeing the D'Niro I'm seeing. - Right. - Now, of course, people start to really be disturbed by him once he's got the Mohawk, one sees you know.

- Right. - 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.

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 crosses face, obviously. Like, you need to understand, like, he's not feeling great. You know?

- I mean, this is why it's, it's all completely side of him. But apart from that, you can just sort of like, is he just imagining all of this? Is he just imagining cymbal getting in the car? Like, 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 of it. - You could skip by a little bit for it. - You watch the scene where he's talking to like the security detail. - Well, but that's seen, I feel like the security guy

immediately clocks him as if he's in your threat, right? - Yes, yes. - Well, and his, and asked for his address. - Cycosis seems to kind of swing back and forth, seems to waver.

- He helps the times in the movie where he seems sicker than other times, and it's one of the-- - He's letting more of his insight thoughts out. - You know, talking about like, he need to deal with this. - Yeah.

- You need to get these people. - I think it's one of the, I think it's one of the all-time great screen performances I really do, I am wondering. - One of the reasons is, is that issue of mental health, the projection of mental illness that De Niro creates

moment to moment scene to scene, not indicating ever. - No, there's sort of in and out quality of it right where when he's talking to, I receive seems very lucid and on it, and then when he's talking 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.

“- Let's remember that he's 26 years old, right?”

And people with latent mental illnesses, often that is when they start to experience, and it's also a Vietnam veteran suffering from. - Totally, totally. - Right, there's stress in whatever,

but I don't think this movie argues that he is solely the byproduct of PTSD. - No, no, I think part of what this movie argues

is that super charged man who never should have

been put in a position after, to begin with, and was not given the support coming out of it. - Right, that's, it's that more, as well, of just kind of like, right, and then we put these guys

They were traumatizing, and then we just kind of brought him back and were like, "Oh, but I, you know, 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." - Yeah. - 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,

"he's always been kind of a wild guy." - Uh-huh. - 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 has 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's 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, hey, no, yeah, you can join this guy." - If he's a different looking kind of guy,

he may be just physically apprehensive. - Oh, immediately. - There's the scenery tells boil, essentially like that I'm having like, violent thoughts. And, you know, I feel like it's a few scenes like that.

There's the scene with the secret service guy. There's a few scenes where essentially he's kind of like red alert, FYI, and it's sort of the scenes you sometimes the stuff you hear about with people who do a bad thing. - Yes. - Where people like,

you know what, in retrospect, he said, this thing that was 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 by holds that, I mean, wizard tells that sex story at the start of the movie. - Yes. - Where you're like,

well, this is made up, and it's like, in that sort of like, school yard way of like, "Oh, you just made up a story to entertain everyone "and you didn't even think that was over."

- Perhaps feeds into Travis's bad second date,

where he's the story is this guy made a bold move. - He took a stick out and it was good. - Right. - I can do something like that. - He was applauded.

(laughs) - It's like, or take a period. (laughs) (upbeat music) - We should also, though, point out to that,

he has that interaction with Jodi Foster's character. - Oh, man, that happens pretty early. - Yeah, she 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, Kaitel comes and pulls her like a couple that goes right in front of the movie, right? - Right, he's sort of holding on to the 20. - Yes, throughout the movie, it's also fascinating

when he finally reconnects with her.

And a lot of times past in the movie, and you imagine a chunk of times past 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.

- But the dynamic is that he wants to protect her, I do think he also wants to have her. Like, he's wrestling with his own kind of dark experience of his sexuality, which feels like nascent. - Yes.

- And like, so mysterious. - Well, so 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. - I feel like at the time, some of the discussion around her characters, 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.

“- Yeah, 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. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? - Yes, you read about this.

- It just all makes perfect sense to me. And I mean, Shrader has this whole story of like, not gonna litigate Shrader all day, but, you know, where he says like, I picked up a girl while I was researching this,

and I realized where it could be, she was like underage in a drug addicts and I had Marty Meeter, and she was the one who put sugar on the peanut butter and jelly. That's where we got that idea from.

When Shrader says things like that, I'm like, okay, okay, Paul, much just 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.

- Yeah. - And I'm like, okay, Paul. - I hope it did something. - And now recently when he's like, I had an AI girlfriend, but she dumped me.

- The man expresses his thoughts and interests online.

- Our researcher JJ texted, are you still recording with Tracy?

“Might wanna 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 girlfriend, 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, freeze an AI female friend from a data center, shooting spree. - I just had to read that to give JJ. - I really wanted to say, of course,

that JJ, I texted JJ privately, we're not reading that shit.

So I'm glad, of course, that we did read it.

- Of course, you had to. - I didn't mistake to text in that private. - Well, I think it was a heuristic move that I knew what I knew what I knew what I was doing. I knew we would eventually probably end up reading this shit.

- Thanks for the alleyway. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, he gets guns, the guns he does. - The guns salesman, man. - What a classic, he's like, I got guns.

- He also got some dope grass. - Hash, you wanna cat-alak. - You wanna tiger. - Where does he have the cat-alak? - I don't know.

- Is he like, it's around the corner? - This guy's just got in on anything. - 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 and the actor is Steven Prince, tell me what, oh, American voice.

- Yes, right, right, right, right, which comes out into this, and it's this guy monologue. He's like recovering heroin addict,

“I think, and he's just telling crazy story.”

- We'll cover it on, we're gonna, I think do a Patreon episode on this, 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 gonna, 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 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 the thing down the hall that you mentioned that the few times that the camera hover is sort of objectively over a table top. And we see the various items on the top of the table. - 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 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. - And even just the experience of watching the sequences to the preview of what could be the wrong kind of juice. - Well, Carrie noted too, the number, and she was right, it struck me last night in the watching,

the number of sort of montage, interstitial moments between the same right, the him traveling or him watching TV or maybe making a sandwich or whatever the hell he's doing. - And the scores swelling.

- Yeah. - There's a lot of that. So, credit to the editor because a lot of that's done. - Yeah, Marshall Lucas. - Supervising at her Marshall Lucas,

which I have some interesting things thoughts about her, I'll tell you off mic. Tom Rolf, he's kidding. - Do you know how Marshall Lucas is? - I don't guess I do.

- Marshall Lucas was the 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 trend trend trend. - Oh, nice. - You're favorite sequence.

“- Well, it's all time and then you can't remember that.”

- That's crazy. - I will. - She's a great pondered the fourth Star Wars movie. - She's a great editor of the series. - Yes, yes.

- Should we talk about, are you talking to me at all? - Yeah, it is funny. In this way, talk about watching movies where the reputation proceeds them so much, right? Sometimes you're a beautiful 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, "God it, there it is."

that's actually hard to engage with them within the body of the movie itself.

“It is insane how much this scene transforms”

entirely if watching 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 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 what's the--

- The story that it's improvising, it was basically just like,

not be roll, but it was, you know, Scorsese is saying like, just do some stuff. - They were behind schedule. - Yeah, sorry, you know, like you know, they were in like five days of our 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 montage in this movie, like this is the kind of thing that would just possibly be three seconds of, you know, non-speaking cutaway, or it not capturing some weird lightning in a bottle. And the fact that it is, I'm sure you have this 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 think of 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?”

- Yeah, 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. - Uh-huh. - And you talk about a little kid, the little kid in Travis. - Yep, it's a little kid, it's a little kid. - A kid is doubting a cowboy.

- Yeah, 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 some more innocent time in their life without actual plans to go in and mask her a 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 them 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 that-- - If that's what I love about it. - It's pathetic, it's pathetic. - He doesn't know how to talk to people,

you know, when he's trying to be a scary cowboy. - It's also what he has to rehearse. - It's a weird thing to say, right? - It's a weird thing to get upset about. - 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, right?

- Yeah, of course. And like, I've had those moments that 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 block eyes with them, then they will start to be like, "Hey, what are you looking at?" Like, and you're like, "I've got, now I have to." - I had a guy literally knock my head off recently. - What?

- And we were on it. - Me. - That was an accident. - I think both of you for apologizing.

“- I think you're ready to be ready to be ready to be ready to be.”

- You want to say no? - No, it doesn't happen. - What do you say about it? - Three times today. - No, it was like a escalator going up the white hole station.

Which is a pretty steep escalator. - Big old escalator. - And I'm literally just looking up it and the guy just fucking knocks my head off. - Wow.

- And was like, riding down the other side? - Right up. - He just sees you. - We're both riding up. He's one step ahead of me.

He's facing towards me. - You want to--

- First of all, he wanted to fight.

He's already looking in the wrong direction of the escalator. I am looking to see, is there room to walk? Or am I stuck just standing here riding it out? - Kick his ass?

- Yeah, of course, Tracy. - What do you think? - What do you think? - Look at me. - Room out of the W train.

- No, but 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 air pods in, and I'm stuck just riding 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 your gay, too.

Like, it's psyched 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.

'cause somebody could fuck your wife.

- I know. - Craft. - 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 two weeks, we need to wrap this. - Unpack that. - The rest of my life, for nodding. - Don't go for the record man. - No, no, we have another episode to record after this,

we got our episode. But no, okay, the Palatine character, I take him as kind of a John Lindsay, I don't know, like a sort of Patricia, 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. - It's important that it's a, it's a,

it takes out, presented as a man of the people. - Right. - And it feels like there is no inspiration for the world that Travis lives in, let alone the world to say their lives.

- It's full of shit. - Yeah, it's a phone, yeah. - Yeah. - But like, it sort of makes sense that Travis would be like, initially intrigued,

“and then he's like, no, no, you're a fucking unit 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. - With the Mohawk moment, it's like the camera's on a rope. I don't know, like, I don't know what the movie is exactly. 'Cause it's like the scariest thing and again, imagine seeing this movie not knowing that.

- Yeah. - Like, 'cause 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, we've already, I'm sorry, just to double back up. - No, police, I'll go back, I'm, I'm now kind of out of narrative.

Like, we're basically just at the end.

I'm trying to think of like, what I might have forgotten. - Well, just, Jackson Brown, let's talk about Jackson. - How's it around? - Uh-huh. - Odd.

- Yeah. - An odd, needled drop, late for the sky, I believe. - Uh-huh.

“- Also, as you said, there's very little, like,”

contemporary music in this thing. There's very little music outside of the Herman Square that you hear anywhere. - It seems to suggest that this Jackson Brown song is playing on American bandstand.

- Listen, there, let me tell you. - Jackson Brown was not back and out again. - That was not on American bandstand. - Yes. - Just odd.

And feels all, of course, AC, right? - Sure. - And that needs to be able to taste. - Yeah. - And like, we're still only a couple of years

removed from Mean Streets where Kim bringing that kind of music to a movie is novel. - Yeah. - This kind of, that is part of it. I wonder if that truly is just,

if he tried to hold himself back from doing any digital draw drops, right? - But as the king of digital drops, he was like, I don't want to put one in it. - And wanted to do hooked on a feeling for that.

- For the brothel massacre. - Right. - Yeah, we're still in the movie to part of a day by our member. - The needle drop.

- When he's getting ready for basically

when he is missioned to take off. - When he's 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, which is clicking on the soap opera before he destroys the television. - And testing the limits of how far he can kill. I mean, it 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. - Wanna call out Diane Abbott, who was the first wife she's the Peter girl, the contestant 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 gonna have, like 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 the concessions standard the poor no theater

would be responsive to the single guy hitting on you. - Why do you think you took the job? She wants to meet her. - Oh, so the client told her. - Not wonderful people.

- I think the Jackson Brown is weird. - I do turn off, if there is going to be-- - You're gonna see a apologize. - If there's one imperfect element of the movie it's not for me.

It doesn't bump too hard. - Let me see if there's any writing on it. - 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 this after Target or whatever. - And he's got to kill somebody. - He's got to fucking do this and he's built the slide

- He's got to, 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 stoop. - Yeah. - And just like, as if he's feeling his body

to feel like did that do it? - Yes. - Was that, did that, did that get that feeling out of me that I need to get out? - Nope, not enough.

- I gotta do more. And it took them three months to prep the tracking shot of the entrance into the building. - They had to cut out the ceiling or whatever all this crazy stuff.

- Right. - I mean, this is the benefit of shooting in your 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 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 satisfies the other accidental, Maracle, Maracle. I couldn't say if I want to say Maracle. - Maracle, Maracle, Doritos.

“- Doritos, Maracle 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 on your guest in seek. - In seek.

- In seek? - In seek, instead of in search of. - Oh, yes. - What's his name? I like that guy.

- Hit maker? - No, no, JD Amato from the great JD Amato. - The great JD Amato from the German show episode. - Yes, he's a great guy. - He's gonna get a tattoo that says I like that guy.

- Yeah, he's tracing lots on his face. - He'd be thrilled to hear it. - Oh, I like that, I don't know who he is. - He's a genius, he's a great filmmaker. - He's a great filmmaker, director, he's great guy.

- Off Earth now. - In book. - Maracle, Maracle of Studio Intervention. - But I think, and Sean made this argument as well, I think it lends the movie in the same way

that the, because Chapman 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 band? - They were gonna give the movie an X rating.

- Yes. - Because it was too bloody in this sequence. And there is a sort of, a 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 gotta cut the sequence

or the movie's not gonna get released and he couldn't solve it. - But that's, like, what would the movie be then? How did it?

“- Well, it's kind of like, you have to cut around it.”

You can't be this explicit. We need to like, shred it to ribbons. - 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 his, he enters a like literal dissentant to help. - Yes, you know? I think the fact that it is so unearthly is to the movie's benefit.

- My opinion. - I agree. I do think it's, in Chapman is like, it's sad the original colors are gone. They're gone.

Like, you cannot recover them. - Right. - Whatever the original phrase. - A permanent chemical process to get the current. - They're used to be, I think, some examples

of like that they, but it's gone. Like, whatever that is is gone. And Chapman's like, it looked great. He's the one that, and I'd be interested to see it. To me, the, right, the desaturation,

it's part of the movie.

You know, I first watched this movie

and like, a basement when I was 14 years old with my like movie loving friends and it blew my mind. And yes, but I just wonder about it. - It also, it looks like dried blood

in an interesting way. You know, it looked more like a crime scene after the fact, in real time. - It just looks so bloody. - Fucking gruddy.

- Yes, it just looks like a gruddy. - Gruddy and sticky and violent, you know, exceedingly violent. I guess there's, 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? - Oh, sure. - Oh, sure. - You're missing these fingers on the hand.

- Yeah, I 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 didn't my brain. - Yeah. - Like just written in my brain like the knife through the hand, the fingers get blown off. Just like, it's so, well-presented, you can see it so clearly.

Every moment is so shocking.

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 birth of the episode, I didn't shout out how well constructed

“I think that sequences of the final shootout.”

I sure 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 films for shoot films? - Yeah, well. - Did you guys discuss the John Casavetti's element of boxcar birth time? - Big time.

- Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. - Tell me what, the crazy don't worry. - I look, 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?

- Oh, he can always talk to us now.

- He can always talk to us now. - He can always talk to us now. - Yeah, Mike, you know, the story I told you about the, my buddy who's dad was working for the FAA. You know, that kind of thing comes up and he's like,

oh, I like to tell those guys, hey, we love it. - We will always be part of our video here for you. - Reminds me, I know we're on to Squarespace, he's not Peter Weir, but I did want to tell you something I forgot to tell you when we were on.

You're a living dangerously.

“There was a video store in London, England.”

And they had 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, a variety of movie stars.

But there was one section called the French guy with a big nose who was in green card. (crying) - That's really good. That is who he is.

- Are you a deferred you fan? - I'm alone deferred. - I mean, not deferred on that episode. - Yes, not the person, yeah. - The screen presence of the eighties.

- Absolutely. I mean, Jean de Floret, man, on the spring. - Yeah, those are the fucking good movies. - Fucking great shit. - Yeah.

- All right, to, to we feel good about, I feel good about what he does. - Yeah, it's good. - Yeah, that's the question. And that's all we need to settle here.

- Your pro-tradicycler is a hero and we applaud. - A problem is dealt with. - And, you know, everyone exits. - And that's their reaction. - 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's like,

trying to win his own life. - And then he, he produces the little gun, the slide gun. - Yeah. - So fucked up, guys.

- And he can't move the arm, because he's got a shot right in the upper arm. - Yeah. - He got shot in the right shoulder or whatever. - It's wonder why that guy shot him in the shoulder

and not in the head. - So it's distracted by the Mohawk. - He would have a hair gun like that. - It all makes, the clumsyness of the violence all tracks fantastic.

- It's fantastic. - It's part of what makes the movie so hard synced up there. - Pinned out. - You almost what? - Or um, synced up there.

- Oh, that's nice. Would it be 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. - Well, no, you totally, I believe that, yes, he could have gotten away with this, essentially.

- Yes, but then you don't believe that civil shepherd gets into the back as exactly. - That is the one thing in the movie that undeniably is fake to me. - Right, there's no way she'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 own." - You're magically like a pears 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 rear view mirror. - And her performance is completely different

than how she plays every other second she has on screen.

- Yeah, so if that's not true, then... - And the shit before it was the truth. - Isn't it 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 then they're like, "Well, clearly you were attacked by these low-lifes "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 looks in the mirror right, he looks in the rear view mirror, you seem distressed by something or when, right?

like, no, no, no, what's gonna happen is suddenly, civil's gonna show up.

“Like, you can imagine that that's the only fantastic part”

of him, but it all feels dream-like to me. Always happens. The only the camera moves feels dream-like. 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. - The movie resets and is beginning again from the very beginning. - Well, that's the other part of it is,

- That's one way. - That's one way. - You say, sure, you say, if that's not true that isn't everything that came, or what came right before it isn't true about the civil separate moment, is he has his kind of victory lap.

He has, you hearing the letter that her parents write, which sounds so robotic and unnatural. 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, that's not the story of this girl. - This girl didn't leave a happy home with two happy parents.

- That's the first thing. - There's nothing we've been talking about.

- I am low for there. - And she says something like, I think they're probably happier, but I'm not there anymore, 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 and 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 an important running thing for the rest of his career.

Suresh says he's always talked about

that unlike the other movie brats, he never had the seismic success. That meant it 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 money,

I think, basically. - Yeah, it makes $27 million in domestic box office. It didn't cost less than two. Like it was a huge, and it's especially for a movie like this that's unheard of, it's crazy.

He certainly, he thought New York New York New York was the commercial movie he was working towards. He's like, I'm making a musical with lies in my nose. 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 Can, jury president, Tennessee Williams. And like, he remembers like he premieres at Can 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 like late at night being like you're gonna win the Palm Door, by the way. So you got to stay in France.

Like you can't, 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 Ronald Reagan. - That did happen. - And Jodie Foster tried to shoot him. - He did try 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.

I don't know. - Canceling my doctor's appointment. - Jesus, no, griff or almost done. - I wouldn't make it there in time. - No, it's okay, because I'm gonna take you guys down

a rabbit hole. - Question. - Yeah. - How do you identify with Travis Bickle? - I love this.

- I love New York City, baby. (laughs) - Greatest city in the world. So I've completely, I'd love to drive a cab around to see the sights.

- Yeah, that's all the people. - The answer, David wants to learn. - I love New York. - The best route, the great time is a bit. - Exactly.

- Yeah, I'm crushed being Travis Bickle. - I mean, I'm a student of file, obviously. My favorite date activity. - 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.

In order to mean like that, that's 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 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 is doing. But I think there's some relatable element of even if his mirror 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 shows New York, New York. - You're 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 is like,

- There's something you're meant 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 and 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 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 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. - Yeah.

- I love that feeling of being anonymous, just observing the world and not feeling, feeling outside of your body. - And I hate Harvey Kytel. - Well, yes, right, that's how I do it.

- It's not like I just want to shoot that guy. - No, I love him. - That look. - It's a couple notes. - Yeah.

- I don't know. - He's not pulling. - My notes are go further. 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 the lock into is as an only child

and someone who's always been self-described loner,

I think that this movie really captures what can happen to a person when they get so 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 worst, most base

impulses of him. I think I do identify with his, the solopsism and his loneliness and his self-aggrandizement and his hatred for other people and his self-hatred for him. So I identify with all that.

I mean, I hope I'm healthier now than I used to, I hope we're all getting better out there, but I think that's part of, - 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, your 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 Kerberin Thuzehism and how Larry David is this avatar

for, like, I wish I could just say that shit. I wish every time something fucking annoying happens 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

and Larry 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 funny, and if he were able to express himself to other people, he doesn't have the power to express language. - Yeah, he hasn't been given any tools. - Yeah, he hasn't been exposed to movies to know that porn is bad.

He doesn't know who Chris Christopheerson 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.

He's just, I don't know if he's been robbed

of all of that stuff, but he 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? - Yeah. - Even the title, taxi driver, is just a seat and guy picks me up and a guy. - Just a fucking guy.

- Just a fucking guy. - Just a fucking guy with a fucking job. - It hailed him down. - This film came out February 8th, 1976. - I 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 one more thing. - No, yeah. - Number one of the box offices is the best picture

of 1975, according to the Oscars.

“- Before we play the game, is this time the box office game?”

- Yeah. - Bring it in, baby. - So in 1975 is one flow over the Cookers. - That's right. - There we go. - Which is number one for just weeks on it, like many more weeks after.

- Nice. - Dominates the box office for very long. - That move. Number two at the box office Griffin is a film that we have discussed because one of its stars, 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 Sun Shemboys? - Herbert Ross's Sun Shemboys, Walter Mathau, and George Burns.

- So I 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 rock. - And going in style.

- Have you seen the breakfast movie going in style? - Oh, yeah. - Great movie. - I love it. - Better Lee Strasburg performance there than in Godfather Park. - I would agree with you.

- I think that's a very stressful movie movie. - That is a movie that does not even have a blue ray release. - Not even a Warner R archive, outrageous. - And a Martin Brest director. - Yes, first film.

“- That's what he directed that movie when he was like,”

"It's Tony Bill." - No, no. - Tony Bill's dead and a ditch. - No, I don't know. - There's some similar film Tony Bill did that I'm gonna get to the bottom of.

- But Sun Shemboys have never actually seen...

- Thanks. - Have you seen, did you have a take on the Sun Shemboy or you saw it? - You said, I don't know. - Oh, very funny. - Funny. - I mean, good time. - Neil Simon.

- Right jokes, math, that was very funny. - Number three at the box office is one of the great movies of 1975. What are your favorite movies ever? I'm sure Griffin, your favorite director.

- It's not Nashville. - It's not Nashville. - Not Nashville. - Because Nashville didn't do that well. - Not Nashville was not really a box office container. It is one of the great movies in 1975 from one of George's favorite directors.

It's not George. - And it's not a blue mat. - No, it is a blue mat. - It is a blue mat. - Yes, it's not network, 'cause that's '76. - Oh, okay. - Oh, okay.

- Oh, okay. - I don't know. - One of the greatest movies ever, exactly. - Yeah. - Probably, is it a little mat's best? - Why? - I'm gonna say yes. - He made the whiz. - Yeah, that's so true.

I love the whiz so much tracing. - 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. - Let's call out that Maria's waiting

on the other side of the door. - We bring her out texting her top five guesses. - Bring her, she's listening. - Oh, Marie, are we gonna throw down? - We're gonna throw down, we're gonna have it out.

- Here she comes, I'm ready. - Oh, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom - Oh, look at her. - Look at her. - Oh, my God, she's got so many bags of gifts.

- I have a bag, I have a bag full of toys. - 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-- - Oh. - Emmanuel. Not Emmanuel, he is a, I want to say, sort of French and German.

- A story of O. - Correct, and what's the name of the director? - My favorite name of director Veronica. - Just Jacqueline. - Just Jacqueline. - Okay, just Jacqueline.

- Just Jacqueline. Never seen the story, though.

- Oh. - Oh. - What's your name? - Corin Clary. - Corin Clary is old. - And Udo Kier. - And Udo Kier. - A young sexy Udo Kier. - Let me tell you. - Worth to see. - Okay, all right, no.

- And Chase you just gave two very meaningful points to give a kind of like a brand to endorse, like, point to the sky, worth seeing.

already sexy movies making, making box office, you know, noise.

- Corin Clary was great. You know, she would become a bond girl. - Yes, she's in Moonbreaker. - Yeah, and she was, uh, she's also in a very good jala, called "Hitchhike" with Franco Nero. - Very good jala. - Sounds good. - Uh, I had on the Devil's Honey recently, because I'm trying to watch every 86 movie,

which is movie that begins with someone playing a saxophone between a woman's legs and my wife. - I own that on Blue, right? - Yeah, we both have the Blue, terrible transfer. - I have it too. - Uh, 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 gonna look it up."

“- Uh, odd title. - Okay, it is a, it's a war movie?”

- Mm-hmm. - Oh, is it war no?

- No, no, no, sorry, it's sort of, no, it's like a mountain man movie, like a trapper movie. - Mm-hmm. - Is it a mountain man? - No. - It's not necessarily atoms. - No. - Is it kind of grizzly atoms runoff? - No, it's not a Jeremiah chicken. - It's not that. - These are all better movies. - Okay.

- Does it have a known actor in it? - Uh, Charlton Heston? - No, the actor is Mike Mazersky, who's this sort of a famous kind of like tough guy. He was like a big bunny guy who played a lot of happys. - Yeah, I don't know this much. - Is this studio picture? - It is from the great people at Pacific International Enterprise.

- So, no. - No, no, no, it is directed by Taegarnet. - Mm-hmm. - 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. - Oh, though 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. - Mm-hmm. - But we like our net, it was like classic Hollywood director. - Yeah, maybe playing out the same thing as string. - Yeah, he, no, I think you're right. He died three years later, but he, like, he directed the, um, the Lana Turner post when I was rings, try twice he did. - Yeah, yeah. - The Clark cable movie China sees, like he, you know,

he was, yeah, China sees. I mean, it's in the 30s. He died of colors. - We've also got, okay, Blackbeard's ghosts. What is that again?

“- That's what he's trying to do. - He used an office of Blackbeard's a Disney movie.”

- Is that a, oh, yeah. - Is that fun? Is that good? - Yeah, that's sort of them trying to do. - Robert Stevenson, you know, the, you know, I saw something. - Yeah, sure. There you go. - I did not say, I haven't seen the trapper. I mean, that's the, now you're intrigued. - Yeah. - It's a documentary. - It's a documentary. - It's a documentary. - It's a documentary. - Challenge to be free, to me. 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, or Riley, sort of an under performer compared to its box office. It's just a little of another time. - Sean Connery, Michael Cane, who both were like, we had a great time, but I think, yeah, kind of a relic. And then you've got a kippling, I think, right? - Yes. - Based on a red, 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 to absolutely. - Absolutely. - I, yes. The director is Jen Kadear, not a director. - Who's the lead? - Of course. It's Jeffrey Linus. - Of course. - I know. I don't know the movie, although the title is actually a vibe. 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. - A Hester Street, the jump with the silver movie, which is so fucking good. - Yeah. - That's a great New York movie. - Yeah. And then the number ten is a jean hack movie. I don't really know called Lucky Lady, the Stanley Donan jean hackman and Bert Reynolds and Eliza Maneliza. It's like a prohibition. - Yeah. - Yeah. It's like a prohibition kind of like

“- Rump, 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? - Directed by Stanley Donan. - Also, you know, kind of in Stoadage.

It's his second to last movie. - I think Ben on first one has some news to report.

It do have some news. This has now crossed the threshold. - Oh boy. - And it is in fact our longest episode. - Wow. - Wow. - But we believe we believe. - You're not excited about it, baby. - I think about it. - I think about it. - Yeah. And even though we recorded for four hours, we didn't cut some stuff out. - Oh, we didn't cut some stuff out. - To sort of together. - Right. - We were so proud. - Right. - This had no tangents. We were all moving. It's going out.

- Oh, yeah. - But, yes. 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. - Here at Marie, this is Marie Barty. The one that is Marie Barty. - Yes, hi. For people who are maybe listening to this

burnt. The Manchester City game just don't mind me. - When Tracy was last on the podcast, I talked about the year of living dangerously. - Great up. - Great up. - Great up. He did mention or ask, who was that other person, the woman, who wasn't paying attention in a house of dynamite. She must have been looking at her phone. She doesn't watch movie. - Right. There was a detail. She doesn't watch the movie. - She doesn't know how to watch it. - She doesn't know how to watch it.

“- Well, Mr. Let's, I mean, I could be correct with my, if I'm wrong here guys. But I think”

and 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 fat lot of good at reading. - I almost had my mother shipped me my diploma with honors to show to you that I graduated from NYU School of Cinema. - New

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 skittermarink. - Skittermarink, which seemed to terrify you so much. You actually needed to distract me. - 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. You were looking away. - You were saying you were kind of zoning. - 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 dining theater. That does have more stimuli. - There's more distraction. - 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 gotta hit that pen." - Yes, exactly. - Yeah, 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.

- It means that they smoke might have been blurring the screen. - It didn't even check intended for your washing up. - It's not a lot going on. - I'm going to clear war foam.

- 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 a film. - Thank you. - Marie, 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. - You look like it better on the second half. - Yeah, I'll actually probably. - Do you think you got a bad rap? Because I'm also not very positive about that movie on that episode and you give me a pass. - We all love you in it. - Yeah, we all love talking about it. - Do I think you got a bad rap? - Yeah, sure.

- It got kind of a, you know, I think you got a bad rap. - Kind of, it 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'm still in a problem. - I don't think so. - And I do say that the sort of film, Twitter, the film, the guys on film. - Yeah, the latter boxed guys. - There's kind of a conformity of opinion that happens on those things.

That I find a little, this is something. - Suspect. - Sort of a Travis Bickle kind of, type character. - Yeah, this is new screwheads, you fuckers.

“- We did it. - We did it. I think we're done on talking about taxidriver,”

but it has been such a delay having you on Tracy. - Truly, truly. - Always a pleasure. - Thank you guys. Dracula, we have a Dracula debate. - We'll come back for Christopher Lee, specific. - Yeah, not Legosi. - No, no, no. - What Legosi goes screw? - Christopher Lee is my Dracula. - We do also sadly need to grant you the award for longest episode of the court, however.

- What would you get that? - Yeah, wait, what is that? - That's a academy award. - No, but I'm saying more, what is that?

Just, first bought it for critical darlings. I need to buy a new one now.

- Absolutely not taking this with. - Okay, great. - No, no, it's not like some random garbage that you just had to learn. - First, prop. - Well, last time we gave him a bunch of garbage, let's not forget our discs. - That's true. - So, giving Tracy Garza is... - Tracy, anything you want to plug? - No. - Radiance subscription. - Favorite thing is that you're just...

- Again, I didn't release an subscription. - You have films in production, you have creative work. - Hi, Mom on 4K. - Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Thanks, guys. - Yes, thank you so much, and come back soon. - Yeah, for Dracula, I guess. - 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. - Yup. - He wants it on the track. - He wants it. - He wants it. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe over on our Patreon right now. - No, I mean. - We are doing Resident Evil. - Oh, that's right. We are. - But we will then after that be going on to the Dracula profiles.

- With, yeah, well, we'll see. We'll see. - Let's say it, and then we can cut it if we want to. - With Lim and Wilmorenda unless he's busy. - Yes.

And as always, I texted our buddy Matt Singer, who wrote an article for Screen Rant about this matter.

“Singer said all about happening in record presently, do we think polyfucks the robot?”

And Matt Singer said, "I kind of think it's the other way around the robot fucks him." - What's the 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, Wilmorenda will catch up with us. - But I thought you weren't doing it.

- We were doing that on purpose for Mike. - No, no, no, no. I wasn't doing it. I was legitimately pitching the idea first to make sure you're comfortable.

- The problem is, we were putting us at the end of the episode. I didn't start rolling tape.

- I'm not acting great. - 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 at it.

“- You're basically asking Griffin to imitate. I think the most widely cited piece of acting ball.”

- That's probably one. That's probably one. Okay, what do you mean? - So I was standing in my mirror 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 denier row impression?" Especially because this performance is different than the way he's usually in person. - It looks good. - It looks good.

- And I feel like a lot of people, erroneously, do a Travis Bickle impression like it's

meet the fuckers who are a denier row. - It's more... - It's more... 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.”

- Yeah. - 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 it.

- It's all just nonsense. We'll put it at the end of the episode. - This is at the end of the episode. So now we're going to start the episode. - Right. But for the start of 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. - I got the air run. I came in early, said I've said all I need to say. - Yeah. - And it is close. - It is close. - Listen, there's going to be hot takes.

- That's true. - The room I get all last night is for the temp. Yes, we do our best to keep it cool in here, but... - 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 Ajama Kean. This show is mixed in edited by Ajama Kean and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lame Montgomery in the Great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Our work by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Mink. National thinks that David Joe, Jordan Fish and Mae Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

Join our Patreon, blankcheck special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by blankcheck production.