Zoë Coombs Marr and Taxi Driver

Good a, Peter Helly here, welcome to you Ain't Seen Nothing Yet the movie podcast, where our chat to a movie lover about a classical beloved movie they haven't quite got around to watching until now. And today's guest comedian Zoe koomsm Ever Dance with the Devil in the vale Light. I'm walking ahead. I'm walking ahead of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world.

She walks into mine.

Happening right so you don't seen nothing here.

Zoe Kuzmh has in the past six years announced herself as one of the funniest and most interesting comedians on the Australian comedy scene. Dave Her comedy Creation, in which you took on the persona and embodiment of a straight male comedian, won her the Best Show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in twenty sixteen and a couple of green Room Awards as well. The awards kept coming for her follow up show, Bossy Bottom, in which she took

I'm Zoe Koombsma and my favorite movies are dumb and dumber, Book Book, you guysen adaptation.

I don't have any bloody use for.

It, and heart beats.

Robots cannot be criminals because we are bounded by a robots.

Didn't But until this week, I've never seen Taxi driver.

Weliness is following my whole life. Everywhere, bars and cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no excpe. God's only man. June eighth, my life has taken another turn again. The days move along with regularity, all inn orb one day in distinguished perform, the next long continuous chaine, and suddenly there is a change.

Yes, out of all the movies set in New York City, Taxi Driver feels like possibly the most New York ex marine now insomniac taxi driver Travis Biggel drives a dirty streets of pre Juliani's New York City in Martin Scorsese's nineteen seventy six classic Biggle Nos, society is broken but doesn't know how to fix it or even articulate it. When Sybil Shepherd's political campaign worker Betsy captures his eye, and when Trav makes a bad choice for a date,

I guess I am.

Yeah.

It's podcast is the medium for really I am talking to you? Do you know? I didn't when when I knew, obviously I hadn't seen taxi driver I was, but I in my head taxi driver was say hello to my little friend. But are you talking to me? Say hello to my little friend?

Is sc Scarfacecino?

So got my Italians mixed up?

That's not as bad as Georgie Tani thought Planes, Trains and Automobiles was Train Spot.

They couldn't be further apart those movies.

Thank you for joining us. And why why did you choose Taxi Driver? I know there was, I know we spoke.

I chose Taxi Driver because I wanted to see Robert de Niro get shot in the bar. But sorely disappointed. That's not that's not true. Sorry, I'll cut you off there.

No, no, we did have Elma and Luis. I think you nominated on one drunk night back in the pre COVID world in the lad Fringe. I think I wrote it in my notes, and then I kind of lost that note and then found it again. But Alex Edelman had taken the Delvin Luis. That's another one. You can obviously doing your own time.

So damn you, Edmond. I've never seen it and.

I never will now, So we got under Tati driver. How did you watch it? We should point out we are in Lockdown six at the moment. How did you watch it? Was it? Was it a good film to watching Lockdown? Or was it? Was it rather painful?

It was? I literally I watched it this morning. I got up and I watched it on my laptop on my lap on my bed, while my partner, who is a film programmer for the Melbourne Film Festival, watched a real movie on the This isn't a real movie. It's like proper Prestige's real movie. But she she had the television downstairs. She was watching her film for work. So I was watching Little Little Mini DeNiro excellent and it was you know what, it was so good. I loved it.

Okay, It's okay. There you go that say, if you're listening, rite that. On the thirtieth anniversary release, which would be come this even that's gone. Actually this is what thirty five years old. So we'll come back to talk about more why you love Taxi Drive. I want to talk about your three favorite films.

It's so hard to choose three.

Yeah, yeah, you're You're not the first to make that point. And I had no idea. It was just a fun way to kick off the podcast. I had no idea of the torment I was imposing on my guess what was what was your Are these genuinely your your top three films? And did you try to choose like films that represents your tastes?

Yeah, I tried to pick form. I mean there are a few dumb and Dumber and adaptation are probably They're definitely some of my favorite films. I love them both and could watch them anytime. Heart Beats I put in there because I just think more people should know about it.

I'm embarrassed. I it su possibly is the first film, and maybe Tommy Deslo had one film that I hadn't heard of that this is the second one. I don't know this film, yeah.

No one does. Its Heartbeats represents probably my favorite genre of film, which is big budget turkeys, right, Like you know when you find a movie and you're like, that's got a big budget and an all star cast, and I have never heard of it. It must be a shocker, and it is. It's heart Beats? Is it Stares? Bernadette Peters and Andy Kaufman Matchmaker Heaven? What casting? Bernadett Peters and Andy Kaufman play humanoid robots who are in love and they go on a journey through like kind of

It's it's just it's just the one.

Who knows it's anyone's guest. Really, I think it was sort of at the peak of like I think it's aiming to be a quirky Andy Kaufman vehicle, but it's also like a Disney Kids movie almost, and it's just yeah, it's just bizarre. It just was like one hundred bad decisions all encapsulated in one movie. It's a love story. It's meant to be a rom com is the thing, but it's just considering.

Sometimes it takes one bad decision to make a film not work. One hundred bad decisions is a lot.

Yeah, that's how you end up on Coombs Mars doctory lists. You really have to lean into those bad decisions.

And where can people see it? Nowhere?

Really, I don't think it's I own the DVD, so if anyone wants to borrow, I feel it, but I highly recommend even just do a Google image search. Heart beats Heart, Yeah, it's how you'd imagine heart Beats, Andy Kaufman, have a look. It's pretty funny. Just the images from.

It screening at Comedy Republic. Might might be on the cards potentially.

Hell yeah, yeah people. It's one of those ones where you're like, oh, this is funny, and then sort of twenty minutes and you're like, this is not I can't do this. I can't, I can't stay with this.

Well, let's waiting the ship up a little bit. With the Dumb and Dumber. I can't believe I just said that. It took me a long time to swatch Dumb and Dumber. I was not a Jim Carrey, early Jim Carrey fan. It wasn't until Cable Guy that I jumped on the Jim Carrey as a lot of people were jumping off the Jim Carrey Express.

I wasn't Cable Guy the first Jim Carrey.

No. So, Dumb and Dumber and the Mask ace Ventura I think all proceed well. Certainly Ace Venturer and the Mask predated the Cable Guy. Dumb Dumber may have come afterwards.

I think it's maybe I feel I think they were in the same year for him. I think he did like the Mask. Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber in the sat like he had three top box office movies in the one year. I think it's it might not have been that, but yeah, it was, like it's a sort of peaked Jim Carrey moment. I love Dumb and Dumber because Jeff Daniels is so fantastic in it, and it's just so funny. It's just I think it's the

Soumb two was the one that just came out kind of recently.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's terrible.

Did you go into that with any kind of expectations that that could be good?

Oh my god, Pete, I was so excited. I was so excited. I went to I saw it premiered at like so as soon as I could, my partner and I went to the Moonlight Cinema to watch it on a big screen. And it was so bad. But halfway through the movie, the screen started. It was one of those inflatable ones and it started deflating. That was the funniest thing that happened in the whole film, and it was if they if they managed to do that in every screening, good on them, well done.

That was a good It felt like it feels like a choice, Yes, and it was.

It kind of happened at exactly the point when everyone in the audience had realized that the movie was bad, and then it sort of started melting in on itself. Great.

How could these Jeff Daniels like, like, considering the actor who he is, he is, and he has become sense doing that that, Like, I'm not sure if any as good an actor, like a drama actor has given a better comedy got pure comedy performance.

Yeah, I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find anything that would that would match. It's because he's such a good actor, Like you really feel for that character, you really like him. All the lines are like perfectly delivered. When the they kill the parish, just the line his head fell off is so funny. His head fell off, like it's just the whole the whole thing is just so funny. I love it. I love it so much.

It seems like that alongside your other film adaptation, Charlie Kaufman brilliant. Just to thick about Spike Jones Nick Age in multiple roles Mill Street. But it seems like an odd choice. But if I think about your comedy, it's actually it kind of makes sense. Like you think outside the box. You're very cerebral, but there's silliness in your comedy as well. It kind of seems like it does make sense adaptation.

I love how kind of meta it is, Like it's it's such it's so beautifully done, and it's meta on so many different levels. Like I also really like The Orchard Thief, which is the book that it's based on but so not based on, like, and it's so beautiful the way it folds in on itself, And there's this moment where the moment when you realize that the movie that you're watching is the movie that he's writing, is

So you have you read The Orchid Thief before you went into the Sea adaptation?

No? I read The Orchid Thief after. I don't know if many people read The Orcadif and then when do you know what? I want to see? Adaptation? I don't think that's how it works.

I just would love somebody to have read they thinking and hearing that they've either've adapted it now thinking that's what they're going to see, And I would love a lot. I would love a camera set on their face as they're watching a movie, as they realize this is not this is not the movie at all.

It's an unadaptable It's such a fun it's a really funny premise as well, because it's a totally unadaptable book. It's about flowers, like and so the idea that he's this tortured writer trying to write like it's so it's it's actually really funny. It's like the whole movie is like I feel like that sort of made of stuff.

Yes, Chris Cooper's also real good in that movie?

Is he?

Which one's Chris Cooper is the he.

Is the Yes? Yes, yeah, he's great. He's so great and that whole Meryl Streets sort of descent. And also I love like Susan Orlean, like what a good sport to agree to be portrayed like that. But also did you see recently she had this mad drunken Twitter right, No, oh, it was like on Twitter recently. It was just like Susan Orlean just got really drunk during lockdown and was just like tweeting about how like she like was falling over and she her husband would stopped talking to her.

I'm like my cat.

I think my cat hates me. It's great. She's a loose unit Susan.

I wonder if because at that time comes after being John Malkovich, and I wonder if she was in Bold and to kind of take a chance on Charlie Kaufman, knowing that John Malkovich also did a similar kind of roll of the dice and take it, you know, take his chance on this readson me unknown kind of screenwriter and to staggering success that she thought, yeah, why not?

Why not? She seems cool, susan Oline like, she seems like a fun kind of like she's in on the joke. But also apparently I don't know if this is a myth or something, but I heard that John Malkovich heard about the script before being John Malkovich. He wasn't originally involved, and he heard about it and he wanted to get it shut down. He was like, these people can't just use my name. Who's this Charlie Caaufman guy using my name?

Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, I love that story. That's great. Have you have you read his book and kind No, I haven't. It came out last year. I bought it and it's on my bookshelf. It's big, it's very big and I need some time. And yes, it's yes, it's very big.

What a recommendation.

I also, I'm concerned though, that if I don't read it in lockdown, when actually am I going to read it.

You may never read it. It might just be one of those ones. Is this Kaufman's book or Calvin's book? So right, for a second, I was like, do you mean malcol No, he probably does have a book, so doesn't.

Everyone's got a book. Let's have a chat about this nineteen seventy six classic. I was one years old when it came out, so I didn't see it in the cinema, but I caught it, I think in my late teens when I was going through you know, let's watch the classics and learn a bit about a cinema that is not necessarily a modern day cinema. And I've always loved it, and you mentioned earlier you loved it too.

Yeah it's yeah, I reckon, good job, Marty, you did, you did, good mate. It's it's a great it's a great little film, really going places. No, I loved it. It was it's so I mean, I love that you said it before, but it's like so New Yorky and that anything that's sort of filmed in that pre Giuliani New York where it's like just seedy and but so beautiful as well, like all the neon and the kind of bars in the streets. It's just so exciting and great.

Yeah, And I watched it last last lock last year's lockdown with my kids, my two older kids, sixteen and eighteen. You know, we went through, you know, similar to what I was doing when I was their age. You know, I showed them good failures and we watched ex Driver Godfather, and they loved it. They really loved it. And what amazed me so much when I watched it last year for the first time in quite a while, was just

It's I mean, yeah, what I'm I'm mad on their behalf. No, I'm late to the party.

What a snub.

I'm gonna write a placard right to the Academy.

Right to the Academy, and let's get a hashtag in front of it, and let's get something going.

But it did? Did it win the Palm?

Dor you won the Palm New York Khan? Yeah, nineteen seventy seven.

Yeah, so, I mean, yeah, it's so it is so beautiful, but I love like so weird as well, Like the character the story and the character is just so odd actually, Like it's just it's quite a bizarre film. I think That's what I really enjoyed about is like, what the yeah, what is what's like the it feels like the storyline, the whole plot is this isn't going to end well, like that's the arc.

Yes, and you've got this kind of that you know, you've got this political rally and in the end it's almost acting as a red herring. Really it's it's I mean, you know, he does go there with bad intentions and he gets it gets foiled, but it just you just don't like even when even when that all happens, it kind of feels like you might be closing and on the end that you know, towards the end of the film, and you've still got like Jodie Foss's barely even in it at that point.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's sort of it's really I just thought it was so great the way it just slowly like it's just this really weird slow burn where you know that it's not going to end well, even though it's sort of kind of does as well. Like it's got that last scene where he gets where Civil Shepherd is in his taxi or is she like maybe she's not even there perhaps, Like it's quite odd the way that it ends, and you're like, oh, is this just like a happy.

End the whole thing. I mean, I think that the line that Civil Shepherd says about your contradiction, based on that Chris Christopher and song, it's kind of exactly kind of stunt up the whole thing, the whole character he is, is this walking contradiction he's talking about the seediness and a scum. Yet he's going to watch you know porno's. Yeah,

Yeah, and I love all the sort of like when he when he goes to sort of hook well, when he pays for well, he doesn't actually pay her though. That was one thing that really stuck out to me. When he goes to Jodie Foster's pimp and essentially he wants to like save her, but he goes to the pimp and when they're like, oh you a cop, you're a nark, and he's quite sort of offended by that, where but at the same time has this sort of

I mean, yeah, we know you got this big plan. You can still execute that plan. But give her the fifteen bucks.

She's still working, like you know, her time is valuable.

Absolutely, absolutely. Harvey Kytel perhaps is the creepiest character in this film.

Oh my god. I didn't know Harvey Kytel was in this film. So when that character popped up, it was so weird, especially because they're so young. It's like it was really it was like seeing your dad pop up in a whole movie or something like. It was really really odd. I kind of was like, who is that?

Who?

Oh my god, Harvey Cattell.

No, no, what are you doing?

Man?

There is I Whenever I see Harvey Kaietel with long hair, I my brain and can't quite fathom it, Like it doesn't work, Like, no, he should never have had long hair. Long hair does not suit him whatsoever.

No. Yeah, And again it's like a dad thing. You're like, oh, seeing a photo of your dad in the seventies or something. My dad, my dad has a mustache and has my whole life, But he didn't any photo of him like pre seventies when he was a Catholic priest. Actually, so when he left the priest or, he grew a mustache. Wow, when you see him before that, it's like, oh, look at your top lip.

Was he aware that Catholic priests were allowed to have mustaches.

Yeah, they let them in when they the Second Vatican Council was like, and you know, we'll turn the altar around. The Mass. Isn't in Latin anymore? Priests can have mustaches.

One of the first things I noticed, you want to watch it last year with the kids, was just how I quite enjoyed how antiquated and remembering the old taxi system it was when he at first see when he's applying for the job, and you see, you know, the mechanics of people being called out and the taxes coming in and out. We're so you know, we've gotten so used to uber so quickly that yeah, they'd take me back to an idea of like, you know, that's right.

The bit that got me about that was the guy who was like on the microphone, Yeah, sort of corraling all the like got that guy just sitting there on a mic just doing like M seeing the cabs. That's not a job anymore.

Is it? No? No, not at all. What did you think of Travis's diary entries?

I thought, look, I thought they were great. I thought he had a real way with words. No, I thought it was really nice. He's subtly done. I think sometimes those like in a monology type of things, can be really on the nose in a movie. And it felt like so organic and good, and and him writing to his parents as well was great.

Yeah, I felt like I completely agree. It felt authentic because we learned early on that you know, he's got he's not highly educated. Like he can't even say where he was educated. He says, I a little bit here, a little bit there. And it feels to me those letters, those diary entries are like a year nine student who's trying really hard to be a good writer.

There's a self consciousness today.

Yeah, like there's no there's no natural flair or talent, but he's but he wants to be a good writer.

Yeah, yeah, and I think it's Yeah, I don't know. I mean it's such He's such an interesting character because he's kind of horrible the whole time, and he's obviously not only not educated, but he's not a smart guy. He makes weird it like the way that he relates to women. I think that shows up the most where it's just like when he takes Sivil Shepherd to the porno It's like, dude, she's actually going on a date

I really, I really will be watching Heartbeats later on this afternoon. Let's talk about Betsy played by Simble Shepherd. Were you surprised? So we meet her and she's in the Litle campaign office talking to Albert Brooks, first film role for Albert Brooks, and she notices that Travis Pickle is in his cab outside staring at her.

Yep, great way to get a goal.

Feel free to any tips to any fellas listening that where Travis went wrong along along the way and then and it's making her feel uncomfortable sable Brooks goes out and shoes him away basically, but then he approaches her. I'm not sure if she makes the connection that was the taxi driver because he's not in his uniform and not in his cab.

I think she does, I reckon she does, Yeah.

Yeah, you're probably I think you're probably right. But he comes in. He's neatly dressed, but he is. So she has made that. And what's what is she seeing? What's why she go on a date with you? Why is she agreed to this date?

I don't know. I feel like this I'm probably the wrong person to ask because as a les, I like, why would you ever? Like, why would you? Why would you go on a date with any guy? Not just that guy, any guy. But I think it did really make me think, well, I was watching it the way that it's like pre internet and stuff, right, it's pre any of that. I kind of feel like that the idea of like picking up women, that's just sort of

He's confident. He is good looking. Isn't he like young DeNiro?

I think so. I think he is. Yeah, he's got a great bod.

I mean, I'm not sure if the Chevis pickle exercise app is going to be going off anytime soon. That that moment where he's got his arm over the blue flame is just.

What the hell is that.

I'm sure what exercise routine that is, but Jesus.

He's bloody ripped. Yeah he is. Good on him? Well well done de Niro. You really I did, especially because we're in lockdown and all going a bit soft at this stage. I was just like, oh, man, Like I was really thinking about his pre movie, like diet, what it must.

Have been.

His regime, Like he knew that's a guy who knows he's gonna have his shirt off in front of a camera. Yes, Like that's he's put effort into that.

Well, and Danio does put the effort in. I mean he famously put on the kgs for Raging Ball and for this movie. He was shooting a film in Italy, I think called nineteen hundred and he would fly back to New York on weekends to drive cabs and then fly back to Europe on the monday to shoot.

That's madness. Yeah, that's I've kind of feel you know, when you see you hear stuff like that and you're like did you need to I don't know if you needed to do that? Like you can drive right, like what what are you learning by driving cabs? It's just it feels to me like it's they do that so that they can say, you know, when I was making that move, like it's for the anecdote. It doesn't actually make the thing the performance better, does it?

Because basically you're driving and looking into review the review mirror. That's basically what's going on that you that you would need to be in a cab or need to be in a car to kind of like if you wanted to nail that, yeah, there you could.

You don't you don't have to drive a real cab.

Do you drive a cab?

If if Paul Schrader was doing that, I'd be like, okay, yeah, I see why you're riding the move Yeah yeah that who write it.

Isn't And I think he did a lot of that, and I think he recorded conversations that he heard, you know, with cab drivers and where the cabbines would hang out and kind of studied and that I can understand as opposed to just driving a cab. He actually but already when you already won the oscar, I think for Godfather parts two. But still so he was driving in the cab, he was and it wasn't Fame was different back then.

Yeah, imagine that. Imagine if he I would like it, if he were to start driving cabs now, like that would be wouldn't that be great? Imagine if you've got an Uber and it was like Robert Dinnio driving the cab.

I can't believe. Actually, Uber Eats haven't done that as one of their commercials. I'm sure that's been often.

Oh what it should be?

Wouldn't that be? You have sibilis, ye, but jumping in the cat at an Uber and it's robbed the driving it?

Yeah, I feel like that's an ad against like because that's like a deterrent. Like watching this movie, I was like I'm never getting in another cap again, Like this is horrifying.

He's a hero, isn't he a hero?

Yeah? How that shoot him up scene? Though at the end totally different vibe to the whole rest of the movie, Like it feels like a different genre all of a sudden, like it's quite funny. I found myself laughing through that. It's so schlocky. All of a sudden, it becomes like like all the blood and the kind of mechanisms, like it's it's very schlocky. It suddenly becomes like, yeah, funny they did.

He did decolorate. He saturated the blood to get the to avoid the R rating. That was one of the things he did to to soften it a little bit. So it's kind of a brown. It's a brown.

It doesn't look it doesn't look like real, but it looks like tomato sauce.

Outside of laughing even more barbecue, I would suggest that's zoey. But outside of laughing through it. Were you surprised when he got shot? Like when I remember when I first watched it, even when I watched it last year, I kind of forgot that he got shot quite early. Yeah, the neck first, you think jeez, he's dying here. Yeah, I was. I was more.

I was more fixated on the guy, like the the timekeeper hotel guy who gets shot in the hand and then just does the most bizarre performance. Have just been like I'm gonna kill you, like while like all that

I agree. And I wonder when that actor was going through his motivations, if he had a conversation with Scorsees he said, Okay, so why why am I taking this guy on who clearly is a maniac, clearly has a gun, And I don't why why would I be doing this?

I feel like his motivation is get the hand in shot, Like get the hand in the shot that through the thing. He's like, I'm going to cut. He's waving his hand at the camera basically just.

To remind Travis people, this is what you did. In case you forgot you did this step.

It's like he's using to get like a weapon like that. He's wants to like, I'm going to get some blood on your shirt at the very least. But who shoots him? Does he shoot? Does he shoot Travis in the neck?

No, it's a Harvey Kaytel.

Oh, Harvey Kaytel.

Yeah.

Who we think is dead?

The old classic, I think he's dead. They're never dead. You gotta shoot them twice, three times.

If possible to do, especially if they've got long hair like that.

It doesn't work. Harvey, did you the one thing I met outside of say hello to my little friend? Were you aware that you know you're talking to me? Was in this film at all?

Yes? I was. I worked out pretty I did work it out before I watched it. I said to my partner, is taxi driver say hello to my little friend? Or is it are you talking to me?

Or is it both?

And she said it's are you talking to me?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, I never actually seen that.

Let's actually have a quick quick listen to that scene. This is Deneio improvising these lines.

You're talking to me, You're talking to me, talking to me?

Who the hell are.

You talking talking to me? Well, I'm the only one here.

The fuck do you think you're talking to.

Oh? Yeah, m hmm, okay, h h yeah. So he improvises a lot of that, and he got it from apparently he went and saw Bruce Springsteen in concert and the crowd was yelling out, you know, the boss, the boss, and kind of you know, kind of feigning humility. Springsteen was doing a bit of what you're talking to me? You're talking about? Am I the boss? You're talking to me? And that's and that's where DeNiro takes it.

That's really funny. That's wow. I wonder how Springsteen feels about that.

Yeah, I reckon he's I mean, as if.

He needs more like if he's like, you know what, I'm a the boss and b are you talking to me? That's me?

Yeah. I wonder how many times actually he tells people that.

Yeah, I mean, you'd have a lot of if you were Springsteen and he's Springsteen seems to me like a like a kind of cool guy.

Right.

You'd hope he doesn't brag too much because he's got too much to break it down.

You'd hope you get to the point and I'm not there yet where where you don't have to brag anymore, Like it's just you know, there's enough, there's enough gold records on your wall.

Yeah, talking because you don't want to be like, hey, I'm Springsteen. You may know me as the Boss. Did you know Robert de Niro copied me. People would be like.

Yeah, we know, we know that you told us. You told us last dinner party, Bruce, Yeah, we know, we know. I mean, I do love. You've got to spoken about the ambiguity of this Travis's motives in a way like we just don't really know what his plan is. It's even a bit murky when his plan even really begins, Like the turning point seems to be that the date when he's completely shocked that Betsy didn't want to go see a porno on their first date. It feels like a third date thing to me.

And it also looks like one of those films that were like, it's not really a porno either likes. It's like one of those like nineteen seventies to get around the ratings thing. It's like an educational film or something. Yes, like he could have maybe if he'd taken it to a proper good porner. I would like it.

That's what kind of grinded her gears, just like, yes, it's not real porn. This isn't doing it for me, mate, he does, because he says, you know, there are other couples. I've seen other couples here. So it's interesting where he's taking these social cues from. It's not from nowhere like he does. He has seen them, but not realizing that these are probably people in long term relationships who or you know, he's.

Seen men taking hookers in there. I think that's probably that, right. Like the thing I like about it feels like this character is like an alien who's come to Earth and doesn't know how anything works, and it's just sort of like working it out. Like it feels like a very weird, sort of fish out of water type of thing where he doesn't pick up any social cues. He's sort of

And he really sees himself as a master people reader, like he like, he like, and he's he's kind of the opposite kind of It is kind of fun to watch like that. He's that he kind of knows, he knows what's going on. He's he's almost a he's a prophet, you know, he can he can understand the people's motives, why they're doing this, the energy between us. We have a connection. You don't have a connection with that guy.

And yeah, and he's totally wrong.

He's totally wrong.

Totally wrong all the time. But who the person who is a good read? Who is Jodie Foster? She's such a great interesting I mean, she's so talented, she's so amazing in this movie, that scene where they're talking in the cafe and she's sort of like she is reading him.

Yeah, let's have a listen to that scene. Actually is Jodie Foster and Robert de Niro.

Why do you want me to go back to my parents? I mean they hate me. Why do you think I spot in the first place? There are at nothing there?

Yeah, but you can't live like this, It's a hell. The girls you'll live at home?

Can you ever hear of Women's Live?

What do you mean Women's Live?

You you're a young girl.

You should be at home now, you should be dressed up, you should be going out with boys, you should be going to school. You know what, that kind of stuff. God, he's square. Hey, I'm not square.

You're the one that square.

You're full of ship, man, What are you talking about? And you can walk out with those fucking creeps and low lives and degenerates out on the street and you sell you sell you a little pussy for nothing man, for some low life pimp stands in a hall.

I'm I'm square. You're the one that's square.

Man. I don't go school and fuck with a bunch of killers and junkies.

The way you do you call that being hip?

What were you from?

The one thing that really seems to a friend Travis is being accused of not being hip and being square like sport sport happy Cartel accused him of not being hip, and he kind of is offended by and then again there it seems to really really get up in the grille.

Yeah it really, Yeah, it really does. It's so interesting because he's such a like vigilante wants to clean up the streets. It's all that kind of weird like like from the start, it's like the scum of the streets come out Queen's fairies. I want to just clean up the streets. But then it's like, well, he kind of is. He's kind of casting himself. He is a bit of a cop. He is an arc because in the end he comes in and tries to well, he shoots them all.

And you and you're those green glasses. They are weird. They're not hip. They're hip. My my ray bands are hip. Jodie Foster is so good in this. She had done some acting before she comes to this movie, not as an amateur. She's been in quite a bit, but she's twelve years old playing a a sex worker. It's a pretty phenomenal performance.

It is. It is questionable, but phenomenal. She's so amazing because she even in that way, the way that she speaks like she's such a little adult she's so amazing, Like her acting chops is just like incredible. The tone, it's like she's pitch perfect. I think had she just come off doing Freaky Friday, Yeah.

I think she'd done Freaky Friday and a couple of other things as well.

Bugs Him Alone, Yeah, yeah.

Bugs Him Alone. So they used her sister, who's basically the same height and shapes her as a body double in the scenes. I imagine that quite creepy scene when Harvey Kaittell is they're dancing and then they kiss. Yeah, yeah, so she's I think she would have been age twenty, so I think they would have used her there in some of those shots.

Some of those shots, Yeah, I was. I knew that they used her sister. And I mean because it's not super explicit anything that she does, it's sort of I mean, she's twelve, so it's pretty wild. It makes me think of what was the one? Was it Brookshields in Blue Lagoon? Blue Lagoon. But then there's one that she was in before that called like Baby Doll. She plays a child prostitute as well. It's like a French period film thing.

Yeah, And I think with Jody Fash, like you said, you can see that the little adult in her, but you've still always seen this child and that conversation. You know, the fact she's always coming back to she's putting so much importance in horoscopes to make life decisions.

Classic lesbian.

The robbery kind of also is quite quite interesting. You know, it happens, it's like nothing. Yeah, and that's what's kind of what makes it bit full on that there's no consequences. It almost allows him to think, okay, I got away with that. That was easier then I thought. It kind of emboldens him. I guess it's pretty tragic watching that, you know. I imagine it was probably hard in nineteen seventy six to watch it, but you know, to watch it now and the sea oh, you know, a black

Yeah, it's a pretty weird. I thought that scene was so it's so shocking because it's just not shocking at all, Like there's no drama at all in it. It's so different to the shoot him up at the end, which is so like it reminded me of you know, like those rule kind of big grady like Kung Fu type of movies where they'll have like all prosthetics and stuff

Well, originally one of the earliest scripts, all of these the people he killed were all going to be black, so it was all like, I love it was going to be racially. I'm really glad. I'm glad that didn't happen.

Well, and it is. He's fully going to shoot the politician.

Even though he's mad. Politician was actually quite nice of him, I think by politician standards, like he genuinely seemed to listen to him and I want feedback. So he's going he's going to basically kill him as a result. Nothing to do with politics or any kind of policy or platform. It's just because he's been rejected by civil Sibil Shepherd, by Betsy and I and then and then and then basically he's getting back at you know, this gum who

No, I mean, there's certainly a lot of racism in the movie, and there's certainly a lot of that horrible that Martin Scorsese is the guy in the in the cab who's watching his spying on his wife who's having an affair with the black man. That's one of the most disturbing scenes in the movie. I think that really horrifying Mark Scorsese talking about how he's going to kill his worfe Yeah, I think that the murkiness the strangest is because we don't really know what he's motivated by.

With my mayork, which is pretty bloody hip so hip. Yeah, he's he's got some some balls with the When he goes up to the security guard, it's almost like a little almost just a seeing get away, like a practice run, Steve, he can get away with being having this gunn contraption kind of shakes hands with his left hand and like had this conversation with a security guard. It's pretty ballsy.

It is ballsy, but it's also so stupid. I think that he kind of thinks that he's like, oh, they don't like I can just fly under the radar, and he's so obviously like a terrorist like that. He couldn't be more obvious about it. But then yeah, and then he comes back with the mohawk. I like it. I think there's something about you're like, I don't know what you're doing or why, and I don't think you do either. It's nice, yeah, to see that like murkiness.

Did you get ahead of yourself as far as trying to work out what was going to happen, like when he goes back to that second rally with the mohawk, Did you play that play out in the scenarios in your own head?

Not really. I kind of had his sense and probably I think maybe I just knew this biosmost that he was gonna he was going to shoot the pimp, Like I think that was this that I had a sense that that's where it was heading. I think I knew that there was I think maybe i'd read like an interview with Jodie Foster talking about like she had enjoyed making the film, especially that scene, the violent scene, because there's not a controversy about it, right, people were like, oh,

I wanted to talk about the oscars, who got nominated, who won. This is nineteen seventy seven, so it's a good year for movies. I mean, I think that Your Driver was snub particularly in the directing mistakes. The best director that year was John G. Evilson, who won for a little film called Rockie, which won Best Picture that year.

Rookie is great, Rocky is great, He is great.

Yeah, it's lasted a test of time. It's at all these It became a franchise, but without you know, like, I'm not sure if that was part of the plan or not.

Yeah, Where's Taxi Driver too? Huh So.

Jodie Foss is nominated for Best Supporting Actress loses out The Beaches Straight from Network. Patty Jayevsky wins the Best Writer for for Network. Don't have a problem with that, but Poorstraders should have absolutely been nominated. And the score, Bernard Herman was nominated twice that year, the Taxi Driver and another film called Obsession. The score goes A guy called Jerry Goldsmith did the score for the Omen.

I love that soundtrack. I listened to it. I listened to it while I run.

Yeah, I listened to it when I work. It's my working soundtrack. Whenever I write Frankie Fish, I'm always listening to the score. Yeah, yep, you got kids something to think about. But Herman, Bernard Herman, who's the composer, and he composed Citizen Kane, he did Psycho, did north By Northwest.

Wow, what was he old?

He was in the early sixties. I don't think there's anything salacious or suspicious about it. He died and they still don't give him the oscars and it's a good it's a fantastic it's a good score.

Well, I guess they were like, well, we want most of it on the dead guy. He won't even show after the ceremony.

He's gonna be the in the in memorium package. That's enough.

Yeah, that's that's recognition enough.

We don't want to become bird of herme and conscious.

That's weird. Wow, that's so bizarre.

Some other fun facts for years before we wrap this up is this may make you hate Portrader. Okay, but he didn't He didn't see a movie until he was twenty one.

Why did he not see a movie till he was twenty one?

Was he he had strict parents of the religious type, and so.

Then he saw And when how old was he when he wrote his first movie?

So he was born in nineteen forty six. Let's do the side to see his first film in nineteen sixty seven. So basically, this movie comes out nine years after he's seen his first film, which means he's probably written it. I heard that Scores says he maybe saw this scripts in seventy three, it couldn't quite get it made, had the wait a couple of years. So he's basically written Taxi Driver about six years after seeing his first film.

Yeah, that makes sense. I think that's why it's so good. I'm gonna I think it's he's not been clouded with the you know, everything that we've been saying that we like about it. It's like quite murky. You don't really know what his motivations are. It's very weird. He's a very strange character who doesn't kind of make sense. What I'm saying is you never get Taxi Driver made.

Now I completely agree agree.

This guy doesn't make sense at all. What's the ark? The arc is just something bad's gonna happen, and then it sort of does but also doesn't, and then he's fine in the end.

That's not a movie. The Letter from the Dad is a nice touch. Every time I've watched it. I still don't know how to feel about Travis people, which is like amazing.

It's great. Well, it's a it's a really weird portrait. It's like a kind of it's this. It makes sense to me that Paul Traiter hadn't seen a movie till he was twenty one, because it feels like it's approaching character and narrative in a quite fresh different way where it's just like, let's spend some time with this really weird guy and just paint that very odd portrait.

Yeah. He he also writes Raging Ball of years after that, So he's a legend. There's no doubt about that. Knows what he's doing, knows what he's doing. What did you think when Civil Shepherd's in a cab at the end, when Betsy's in the cab basically the final shot, What did you take out of that? Well?

I thought it was weird because all of a sudden it was like the last scene of a rom com or something where it's like, oh and then she is like I read about you in the paper. It's like, yeah, it was a really weird, like well happy ending. But then there's a shot like sort of just after she gets out where he does this. Really you'd kind of quick look at the rearview mirror and then it's like, well, neon and stuff, and it's like it made me feel a bit like crazy, and I think that's the thing.

Yeah, is she there? There's been theories over the years about whether it was either a dream or visions in Travis's own head, but Scorsese has said I think, and Schrader has said no, that this all happens he's alive, because some of them thought he actually has a theory that he actually did die and this is all you know, dream stuff afterwards, which I don't like that, you know, And I woke up and.

It was all a dreams classic ending.

Classic ending.

Yeah, it's.

Yeah.

Taxi Driver actually ends in the same way as Wizard was.

It is a fun fact. Scorsese fills in for another actor who heard his back in another production. That's why he's in that because actually he's in it twice because he's in is sitting when Sybil Sheper we first see Sybil Shepherd and she walks into the building. When Travis first sees him in slow motion, he is sitting with his back to the wall, looking at her as she walks in. It kind of makes sense that he's in it twice, because then he probably didn't know who's going

He's really good. Yeah, he's great. Well, he knows exactly what he's trying to do. I guess he's in a lot of his films, isn't he.

I think he does pop up a bit. He's not quite to the same way as Hitchcock. No, but he does doesn't mind jumping in.

Yeah, doesn't mind mucky in if he needs to.

He did say he did have the world's best acting coach in the front seat when he did that scene, which is you know, a fair point. One last little fun fact, and that is that there actually was a garbage strike in New York City when they shot this, so that ad it nicely to the aesthetic of New York City and the griminess of the streets. It was, it was. It came up a treat beautiful.

It made me miss New York. It's still like that, well, last time I was there, it's sort of still like that. There's no real garbage system in New York. They're just like, yeah, just chuck it on the chuck it on the sidewalk. Yeah, someone will pick it up at some point.

It's a great city. It's a fun city. It's a bit of a stinky city. Yeah, yeah, there's there's wafts. There's no doubt about that. Hey, Zoe koons Mart, thank you this podcast country homework. I appreciate you doing it, and you know, thank thank you so much for for hanging out with us.

Thank you so much for having me.

That was fun. Thanks to Zoe kuns Mart. She's fantastic and you can patch it also at the Grapes of Mirth in Settlesfield on the twenty third and twenty fourth of October. It's a wine, comedy and podcast festival where we will be doing our very first live you Ain't Seen Nothing Yet podcast. That is the plan. I will I will confirm the movie and the guest asap, asap. That's as soon as possible. I'm sure you knew that Derek Myers from Castaways Studios is the man who puts

I watched it last night, and oh my god, I got Yeah, I felt like I got ambushed, probably by my own preconceptions, because I thought it was an interesting bio on a guy's observations driving a cab around New York and that was it. So put about halfway through things changed a little bit from my expectations. It was amazing. Wow, what a film.

Yeah, it moves it this really quitely unique pace, particularly in nineteen seventy six. It's very European feel to it. But stuff does happen. I've seen films like this where it is the internal monologue of the protagonist, but it doesn't feel like it goes anywhere. This actually stuff does happen, and it really does get to a place. Yeah, I love it. I think it's a masterpiece.

Oh and I've been watching Godfather of Harlem and I've been watching and I watched the get Down, so these kind of new stylized sort of versions and this was then and there. Yeah, this was New York in seventy six. It wasn't a period, no, no, it was just an amazing thing to see after these other shows I've been watching about that yeah.

It was beautifully made. Reach out to us at yasny podcast at gmail dot com. Lots of love coming in and also you can help us by jumping on iTunes and giving us a rating. We recommend five stars, but also leaving a review. We got one from Jojo Mack which is the melicaly Young episode is the best. Love her, love this chat, love this movie, Love, Love Love five stars lasted Leon did when Harry met Sally. She is wonderful. She will also be at the Grapes of Mirth. Everyone's