Taxi Driver with Jeff Bridges

The brainchild of three men at the top of their cinematic peeks Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver became a symbol of rage, isolation, and unrequited love. It won the Cannes Film Festival's Palm D'or prize (Lost to Rocky at the Academy Awards for Best Picture) and influenced countless films which soon followed. So let's dum-dum some bullets, reconfigure a desk drawer, and tape a knife to our boot.

I should have purchased that piece of Errol Flynn's bathtub.

The Set-Up

Paul Schrader had studied film criticism before he co-wrote, with his brother Leonard, the film The Yakuza, which at the time was sold for a record $300,000. While he wrote the script for Taxi Driver, he had been reading the diaries of Arthur Bremer and was influenced by Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, as well as dealing with his own isolation living out of his car in LA, and visiting a lot of porno theaters. Reportedly, he kept a loaded gun on his desk the whole time he wrote the script for inspiration. Most important, he had pictured Jeff Bridges while writing the part of Travis Bickle.

Brian De Palma had originally been lined up for the directing job, but Scorsese was eventually tabbed if he could get De Niro to play the lead. De Niro at the time had already made Mean Streets with Scorsese and had been nominated, and then won, the Academy Award for The Godfather Part 2. Reportedly, he was also shooting 1900 in Italy during pre-production for Taxi Driver, he would commute back and forth from Italy to the US, shooting/doing research driving a taxi.

The Execution

This is my favorite film, one of the best all-time. To suggest anyone would do a better job in the role of Travis Bickle, than De Niro, is insane. However, it would be interesting to contemplate how a young Bridges would have played the part. Whereas the rage is always lurking right beneath the surface with De Niro, I feel Bridges' Bickle would have been much more of a slow build toward the violent showdown with Sport. De Niro's look and portrayal are physically intimidating (You get the sense he could snap at any moment), whereas Bridges' boy next door look might have been more disarming. Still, nothing beats De Niro in this part.


What might have been

If De Niro doesn't make Taxi Driver, let's say it affects what is in the process of becoming a fruitful working relationship with Scorsese. Perhaps he simply continues on with no changes, they make New York, New York, and ultimately he brings the autobiography of Jake LaMotta to Scorsese and they still make Raging Bull. But, what if they simply make Mean Streets together and go their separate ways?

 

Bridges had already been in The Last Picture Show, Fat City, Bad Company, The Last American Hero, The Iceman Cometh, and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. While he is still early in his process, his resume is not exactly dull. Those are some solid credentials, working with directors such as John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Benton, John Frankenheimer, and Michael Cimino. If he's cast as Travis Bickle, he doesn't make Stay Hungry (One of Schwarzenegger's breakthrough films) directed by Bob Rafelson or plays the lead role in the Dino DeLaurentis remake of King Kong which put Jessica Lange on the map. Does he end up making Tron, Heaven's Gate, Against All Odds, and Starman? Or, does he take a series of more violent and dangerous roles? In some co-existing reality in the multiverse, Jeff Bridges' turn as Travis Bickle is still being talked about.

The rug really tied the room together Sport.