Did these films, as liberal critic Roger Ebert feared, represent the rise of fascism in the USA?
Running Order
00:00 Intro
01:40 Liberal responses to the "Fascism" of Dirty Harry
08:00 Embodiment of the 1970s "social mood"
15:55 Death Wish: turning a pacifist liberal into a ruthless revenge killer
23:40 Comparisons with Taxi Driver
36:20 Bernie Goetz and John Hinckley—life imitating art
30:00 The ambiguity—or sloppiness—of Taxi Driver
36:30 Travis Bickle's quest for the feminine
41:50 The fog of words: working class illiteracy + Middle class obfuscation
44:18 Martin Scorsese "whitens" New York's underclass
46:35 Taxi Driver's ultra-violent "happy" ending
57:10 "This city is afraid of me..."
Transcript
Welcome to Vanguard a heretical podcast on culture society and politics. Here are your hosts Colin Liddell, Andy Nowicki, and Richard Spencer!
SPENCER: Hello everyone and welcome back to Vanguard. This is Richard Spencer and we are recording on Saturday January 26th 2013, and this program will be netcast to the World on the following Sunday the 27th. Well I'm happy to announce to our listeners that this evening's podcast will be another edition of 'Masterpieces of "Bad" Right-wing Cinema,' and we actually put bad in parentheses because sometimes we actually talk about movies that are legitimately good, but I think maybe one could make the case that some of the movies we're going to talk about tonight are bad. We're actually going to be talking about two movies mainly, and we'll we'll bring in a third, and those films are Dirty Harry from 1971, Death Wish from 1974, and Taxi Driver from 1976. So this edition of 'Masterpieces of "Bad" Right-wing Cinema' is our 1970s vigilante and gun revenge films episode, so I'm very excited. Joining me, as usual, to discuss these films are Colin Liddell in Tokyo and Andy Nowicki who is speaking to us from Georgia. Okay, well let's get right into it! I actually wanted to start the program by reading -- what I find to be kind of unintentionally hilarious but maybe also unintentionally perceptive -- reviews of the 1971 film Dirty Harry starring Clint Eastwood, and the first one comes from someone who I don't turn for advice on Cinema and that is Roger Ebert, and this is what he wrote. It says:
"There is a book named From Caligari to Hitler that tries to penetrate the German national subconscious by analyzing German films between 1919 and the rise of the Nazis. I have my doubts about the critical approach. It gets the cause and effect backwards, but if anybody is writing a book about the rise of fascism in America they ought to have a look at Dirty Harry."
In some ways in that review he was actually channelling or maybe borderline plagiarizing or paraphrasing the more famous movie critic Pauline Kael, and when Dirty Harry was released in 1971, she actually said that she she called it "fascist medievalism" which sounds great. Maybe we should change the name of Alternative Right to fascist medievalism.
NOWICKI: Fascist medievalism.com.
SPENCER: I'm gonna go check if that's taken yet. There should at least be a Radix issue or a title or something, dedicated to Pauline Kael. Anyway:
"This right-wing fantasy about the San Francisco police force as a helpless group emasculated by the unrealistic liberals propagandizes for paralegal police power and vigilante justice [i.e. read the Freikorps]. The only way that courageous cop Dirty Harry can protect the city against the mad hippie killer who terrorizes women and children is by taking the law into his own hands."
So, these are some of the liberal responses I I'm actually just to say that how you can kind of turn these things on there on their head a bit uh there's this one of my favorite lines from Death Wish which we'll talk about in a minute is uh the Paul Kersey character is travel to Arizona and he's met a real American who takes him to a gun club and the real American says you're probably one of them knee jerk liberals that thinks us gun boys would shoot our guns because it's an extension of our penises and Paul Kirsty answers "I never thought about it that way it could be true" and the real America says "well maybe it is" but what I I why I kind of thought these...
NOWICKI: And what's wrong with that?
SPENCER: There's nothing wrong with that this is Gun Country Why I thought those reviews um were I kind of unintentionally hilarious but also maybe unintentionally perceptive um is that yes they're kind of like shrill liberal shrieking about fascism and and fascism in in this in some ways has no meaning it just feels
NOWICKI: Ill-defined fasicsm
SPENCER: yeah that's right it's not like they're talking about the um you know Italian uh social movement or something uh and and it's kind of like Orwell says fascist just means "I don't like you essentially" there's there's no really meaning to that but you know maybe in some ways they're right in the sense that it's getting at some anti-modern and I mean these these films Death Wish, Dirty Harry, and even Taxi Driver which is kind of an art house flick they're getting at some masculine maybe authoritarian maybe anti-modern impulse that still exist in post-modern society and in some ways these movies are kind of fantasized... they are fantasies of this in some ways and you could maybe label that impulse fascism there's a kind of ambiguity to these things and I think but in in some real way I I think these these films are Fascist but anyway do you guys want to chime in on that or do you want to just jump right into the film and start talking about them.
LIDDELL: I think it's an interesting question about uh what is fascism and I mean fascism kind of grows out of modernism and the problems of modernism creates so there's symbiosis so those film reviews are just maybe recognizing that kind of connection.
SPENCER: yeah without question I you know I I think there is that connection with modernism of fascism and I think if you think about you know Nazism or something like this which I I would decline I would Define as as fascist I I know some historians would not um but you know they have something like the Autobahn which is this feat of modern engineering yet they would actually do things like take you off course so that you could enjoy nature they kind of you know via the the people's car the Volkswagen and the Autubon they wanted to get you in touch with nature there's this kind of you know dialectic
NOWICKI: it's like the engineer in Arizona in Death Wish has been getting ahead of ourselves how he didn't want to change the landscape where you wanted to keep the hills where they were and
SPENCER: yeah that's a good thing yeah and he wanted it to be in some ways connected to the pioneering Spirit or the old west um that is still maybe just visible in Arizona
LIDDELL: I think the forces that power fascism uh are always late since in you know Human Society but when that Human Society becomes a disorganized and dysfunctional through modernism's attempts to over produce and over democratize then you know those those forces are no longer later and they are they're released so you know Fascism and democracy fascist Fascism and modernism they have this very strong symbiotic relationship
SPENCER: I agree and sometimes when the the organizing principles of of post a modern society break down you almost need to revert to True power, brute force in order to keep the whole thing together uh but uh I guess let's uh let's jump into these films. You know I I think as I've often said I think a good place to start is just first impressions and you know one thing that I think is is worth pointing out about these movies is they just reek of the 1970s in every way and in the music in in the look and the the clothing not surprisingly uh but even in the photography there's just something about the film uh that you just you know when it was made and and I think that that that's interesting I mean maybe you could say you could say that about everything but I think with these it's really uh it's pretty intense and um maybe I harp in this too too much but I I've I've been very interested in this kind of social mood analysis that that is associated with uh Robert Prechter and he kind of he basically thinks that they're these big waves of social mood that flow from pessimism to optimism and that you and that they these big waves of mood Define the news and they Define style and they Define you know what's popular so you'll go from you know bubble gum pop to you know punk rock over the course of a trajectory and and maybe some Downer music in between you know there's a kind of this wave of social mood and that inflects what's popular our movies go from Disney flicks to slasher flicks and uh so and so forth and I think he's really on to something and I think in some ways what what a lot of these movies are coming out of is a kind of like the bad, how do I say, The Hangover of the American dream the collapse of the American Dream all these movies are about modern society not working and how we don't have much of a future and it's all kind of breaking down and it's all dirty and there's a lot of trash on the streets and wouldn't you just like it if someone finally stood up and started kicking ass there's a kind of maybe pessimistic desperation to all the films and and certainly there's not the... None of the people in these films are the kind of unequivocal Action Hero like you'd see in the 80s when you you know social moods at a peak you have high stock market you have you know Commando and you know all this kind of stuff still
NOWICKI: Die Hard
SPENCER Die Hard yeah Rambo is probably the best film because it you know the first Rambo is a kind of depressed movie and then he like yeah Rambo 2 he like he we're gonna go back to Vietnam and win this time uh you know so you know you none of these none of these uh films offer any kind of bright future or anything like that it's they're all based on the on the prospect of of society breaking down it can't enforce laws it won't prosecute criminals it's it's just a bunch of trash and pornography so I think that's really the background all these movies go ahead
NOWICKI: yeah I mean I'm struck by there must have been a real um social mood in the early 70s uh especially in the urban areas that you know crime was just out of control and there was nothing you know the police weren't doing anything about it and people were getting mugged and murdered and raped and and everything you know this is all happening before their eyes and I mean that that kind of mood that you're talking about because this kind of pessimistic and angry mood just you know that we were being overrun with uh you know these terrible criminals these um you know depraved uh sadistic creeps or you know pushing us around and you know raping our women and wreaking all kinds of havoc and somebody needs to stand up and that's that's the kind of vibe that vibrates through... I mean I haven't seen Dirty Harry but I know that they're very much the vibe of that movie uh obviously and you know it's definitely in there in Death Wish and also in Taxi Driver although you know as you mentioned before taxi drivers more uh more of an art House movie so you know there's more room for irony and where it reflects back on itself and so forth. it seems like a mood that in some ways isn't so strong today because crime you know for all of our problems that we're having crime is not as much of a problem violent crime yeah it's not as much of a problem statistically speaking as it was in the 70s yeah and so it does very much Define that period that there was just the sense that it was just just completely out of control
SPENCER: oh yeah I mean we had a there was a long period of of some two decades or crime was just simply rising and really sense about the the early 80s I'll go back and look at it I think it's like something like 83 or something uh crime really has been falling. I mean obviously you have some places like Detroit that are essentially failed States I mean I don't know how else to put it and you know but I think also some of this crime has gone because of we've just been creating this massive prison industrial complex I mean we locked all these people up uh we essentially are warehousing a lot of black males between the ages of 16 and 30. and um so yeah I mean it's it's uh horrible in many ways but uh but yeah you don't you don't have that sense of crime although I think we are in a a period of very dark social mood uh and I think you can see that in films actually yeah...
LIDDELL: It would be interesting to know the kind of cross-racial Statistics with crime I assume that in this in the 70s when crime was much more of an issue, there would be a lot more cross-racial crime than there is now. Now crime is kind has been sort of more racially separated in a way to be more compartmentalised and so because of that has become less of an issue as well.
SPENCER: well there's a actually a hilarious scene in Death Wish where uh Paul Kersey attends a a kind of froofy uh cocktail party because Paul Kersey himself is a uh architect or or kind of a real estate engineer of some kind and uh so he's attending this party and you have a lot of people who are actually in support of the Paul Kersey character who's become become a vigilante and uh and they he said and someone says who's you know a believing heart liberal says oh well he's obviously racist and uh the woman says "well more blacks are criminals so he's killing more plaques what do you want Racial equality in criminality" or something it was actually quite a funny scene.
NOWICKI: yeah I don't I don't think you would have that I don't think they would be allowed to have an exchange like that in a movie today do you I mean it takes on that issue so boldly of the color of crime shall we say
SPENCER: Yeah. No, I think that was a pretty edgy scene
NOWICKI: I know the movie was decried as fascist and racist and everything but we see him shoot some black criminals but there's including uh I don't know if y'all recognize Freddie boom boom Washington from Welcome Back Cotter uh no he's one of the guys who's moaned down by Charles Bronson I used to love that show Growing Up
NOWICKI: it's like the engineer in Arizona in Death Wish has been getting ahead of ourselves how he didn't want to change the landscape where you wanted to keep the hills where they were and
SPENCER: yeah that's a good thing yeah and he wanted it to be in some ways connected to the pioneering Spirit or the old west um that is still maybe just visible in Arizona
LIDDELL: I think the forces that power fascism uh are always late since in you know Human Society but when that Human Society becomes a disorganized and dysfunctional through modernism's attempts to over produce and over democratize then you know those those forces are no longer later and they are they're released so you know Fascism and democracy fascist Fascism and modernism they have this very strong symbiotic relationship
SPENCER: I agree and sometimes when the the organizing principles of of post a modern society break down you almost need to revert to True power, brute force in order to keep the whole thing together uh but uh I guess let's uh let's jump into these films. You know I I think as I've often said I think a good place to start is just first impressions and you know one thing that I think is is worth pointing out about these movies is they just reek of the 1970s in every way and in the music in in the look and the the clothing not surprisingly uh but even in the photography there's just something about the film uh that you just you know when it was made and and I think that that that's interesting I mean maybe you could say you could say that about everything but I think with these it's really uh it's pretty intense and um maybe I harp in this too too much but I I've I've been very interested in this kind of social mood analysis that that is associated with uh Robert Prechter and he kind of he basically thinks that they're these big waves of social mood that flow from pessimism to optimism and that you and that they these big waves of mood Define the news and they Define style and they Define you know what's popular so you'll go from you know bubble gum pop to you know punk rock over the course of a trajectory and and maybe some Downer music in between you know there's a kind of this wave of social mood and that inflects what's popular our movies go from Disney flicks to slasher flicks and uh so and so forth and I think he's really on to something and I think in some ways what what a lot of these movies are coming out of is a kind of like the bad, how do I say, The Hangover of the American dream the collapse of the American Dream all these movies are about modern society not working and how we don't have much of a future and it's all kind of breaking down and it's all dirty and there's a lot of trash on the streets and wouldn't you just like it if someone finally stood up and started kicking ass there's a kind of maybe pessimistic desperation to all the films and and certainly there's not the... None of the people in these films are the kind of unequivocal Action Hero like you'd see in the 80s when you you know social moods at a peak you have high stock market you have you know Commando and you know all this kind of stuff still
NOWICKI: Die Hard
SPENCER Die Hard yeah Rambo is probably the best film because it you know the first Rambo is a kind of depressed movie and then he like yeah Rambo 2 he like he we're gonna go back to Vietnam and win this time uh you know so you know you none of these none of these uh films offer any kind of bright future or anything like that it's they're all based on the on the prospect of of society breaking down it can't enforce laws it won't prosecute criminals it's it's just a bunch of trash and pornography so I think that's really the background all these movies go ahead
NOWICKI: yeah I mean I'm struck by there must have been a real um social mood in the early 70s uh especially in the urban areas that you know crime was just out of control and there was nothing you know the police weren't doing anything about it and people were getting mugged and murdered and raped and and everything you know this is all happening before their eyes and I mean that that kind of mood that you're talking about because this kind of pessimistic and angry mood just you know that we were being overrun with uh you know these terrible criminals these um you know depraved uh sadistic creeps or you know pushing us around and you know raping our women and wreaking all kinds of havoc and somebody needs to stand up and that's that's the kind of vibe that vibrates through... I mean I haven't seen Dirty Harry but I know that they're very much the vibe of that movie uh obviously and you know it's definitely in there in Death Wish and also in Taxi Driver although you know as you mentioned before taxi drivers more uh more of an art House movie so you know there's more room for irony and where it reflects back on itself and so forth. it seems like a mood that in some ways isn't so strong today because crime you know for all of our problems that we're having crime is not as much of a problem violent crime yeah it's not as much of a problem statistically speaking as it was in the 70s yeah and so it does very much Define that period that there was just the sense that it was just just completely out of control
SPENCER: oh yeah I mean we had a there was a long period of of some two decades or crime was just simply rising and really sense about the the early 80s I'll go back and look at it I think it's like something like 83 or something uh crime really has been falling. I mean obviously you have some places like Detroit that are essentially failed States I mean I don't know how else to put it and you know but I think also some of this crime has gone because of we've just been creating this massive prison industrial complex I mean we locked all these people up uh we essentially are warehousing a lot of black males between the ages of 16 and 30. and um so yeah I mean it's it's uh horrible in many ways but uh but yeah you don't you don't have that sense of crime although I think we are in a a period of very dark social mood uh and I think you can see that in films actually yeah...
LIDDELL: It would be interesting to know the kind of cross-racial Statistics with crime I assume that in this in the 70s when crime was much more of an issue, there would be a lot more cross-racial crime than there is now. Now crime is kind has been sort of more racially separated in a way to be more compartmentalised and so because of that has become less of an issue as well.
SPENCER: well there's a actually a hilarious scene in Death Wish where uh Paul Kersey attends a a kind of froofy uh cocktail party because Paul Kersey himself is a uh architect or or kind of a real estate engineer of some kind and uh so he's attending this party and you have a lot of people who are actually in support of the Paul Kersey character who's become become a vigilante and uh and they he said and someone says who's you know a believing heart liberal says oh well he's obviously racist and uh the woman says "well more blacks are criminals so he's killing more plaques what do you want Racial equality in criminality" or something it was actually quite a funny scene.
NOWICKI: yeah I don't I don't think you would have that I don't think they would be allowed to have an exchange like that in a movie today do you I mean it takes on that issue so boldly of the color of crime shall we say
SPENCER: Yeah. No, I think that was a pretty edgy scene
NOWICKI: I know the movie was decried as fascist and racist and everything but we see him shoot some black criminals but there's including uh I don't know if y'all recognize Freddie boom boom Washington from Welcome Back Cotter uh no he's one of the guys who's moaned down by Charles Bronson I used to love that show Growing Up
SPENCER: Jeff gold Bloom also plays a thug which is a little bit uh yeah funny I could think of all these like nerdy characters he played afterwards
NOWICKI: but he I mean so so we have they probably make it much more lopsided in the movie than it was in real life as far as you know they show quite a few white as well as black criminals and or you know violent criminals you know muggers and rapists and and so forth and the truth was probably I mean they probably papered over the racial element to some extent uh just because it would have been too inflammatory I think to just have Charles Bronson just shooting like black guys
SPENCER: well I think it was as Colin likes to say I think it was kind of sub-racist it doesn't it's not going to be like the Turner Diaries I mean needless to say but it's going to push those buttons with people. I was actually really surprised by the film I was expecting it to be really B grade but I thought it was actually fairly complicated and um you know I just to I'll remind everyone I think probably if you're listening to this podcast you should you probably have should have seen it before or maybe you should go on and watch it before you uh listen but essentially Paul Kersey is a you know an architect and a real estate guy in New York City and he is himself a bit of a bleeding heart liberal. I think he's described as such by one of his colleagues and he wants to understand crime and so and so forth and then his wife and daughter are brutally raped uh and his wife is actually murdered and his daughter is um essentially driven insane by these horrible Thugs and uh and and then he to get his mind off this he actually travels to Arizona to do a real estate deal with a this man and I actually quoted from this man earlier and there he actually even sees a kind of Disney World-like re-enactment of a of a old west shooting him up and he talks to this guy who's kind of a real American type uh you know likes guns and freedom and all this kind of stuff and he and actually this red real red meat American gives him a uh a classic colt um I guess a 38 which he's firing and um and then he he you can see there's a slow evolution of Paul Kersey kind of saying oh I want to defend myself and that kind of starts to spill over into I'm going to lure muggers into my spider's web and kill them so he kind of goes from standing up for himself to to becoming a trap for these guys and in order to kill him and um
LIDDELL: one scene before he starts blowing people away he gets a sock and he puts a lot of nickels into it yeah and that's his first weapon and so somebody tries to mug him and he sort of swings around and hits him with his nickel filled sock that's part of the gradation from from that point it becomes easier for him to sort of carry
NOWICKI: and he's a great shot as it turns out even though he hardly ever handled a gun before I don't know whether that's all that realistic but but they they do give him an interesting background in that he was he's served in the Korean War and he was a conscientious objector um that didn't even uh didn't even hold a gun he was you know didn't like guns to start out with and the guy in Arizona who was talking to him says you know and what I think is a you know an incredibly uh relevant uh monologue you know relevant to our post-New-town America uh the the where he says the gun control people have got have people thinking that there's something really horrible and awful about you know like you're just scared of even handling a gun like it's a snake like it's a poisonous snake or something and that's that's what Charles Bronson's character is like at first, but then he he learns to uh he gradually gets into having a gun and fire again he fires it well.
SPENCER: well there's a very strong ambiguity to it all between self-defense and, how should we say, Revenge killing or getting revenge on the world and so and so forth. there's this um there's a scene between uh Paul Kersey and his brother-in-law and his brother-in-law is actually talking about this new essentially white flight essentially we're gonna we'll work in Manhattan but we're gonna live in Connecticut or New Jersey and...
NOWICKI: His son-in-law right isn't it?
SPENCER: excuse me His son in law. I meant son-in-law yes and uh and he's saying this kind of cowardly mendacious white flight plan and Paul Kersey's like ah "nothing but cut and run what else what about the old American Social custom of self-defense" and his son-in-law says "we're not pioneers anymore dad" uh and then Paul Kersey says "what are we, Jack?" He goes "what do you mean" he goes "I mean if we're not Pioneers what Have We Become what do you call people who when they're faced with a condition of fear do nothing about it they just run and hide" and the son-in-law says "civilized" Paul Kersey says "no". So, at the same time, there is a kind of and I think admirable and and certainly without question morally justifiable ideal self-defense that if you're getting mugged and you're carrying a weapon you think this person's going to kill you I think you can shoot them, but at the same time even in this film it kind of spills over into something else I mean I think clearly he's trying to entrap these muggers I mean even as dangerous as New York City got it's not like you were mugged every hour or something, so he basically goes places where he hopes to meet uh people who will mug him and he wants to kill them I mean it also I mean he he has a death wish he shoots first. it's not like all right guys put down your guts he pulls out his gun and blows them away you know and granted all these people are scum like they don't have that moral ambiguity but you know he he clearly is... there's that you know there's a very strong ambiguity and and then there's also this kind of funny aspect of you know him being morally outrageous, as it were, is the only thing that seems to stop crime because you have these kind of funny scenes where you will have all these um you know uh oily politicians the district attorney and the mayor or something and they're kind of like well you know crime is is collapsing across the city because all these thugs are afraid and they're kind of like oh we can't we can't let the public know you know uh that this this one man you know essentially Batman is who he is you know Batman is is is fighting crime and that's going to make us look bad it's gonna inspire people so anyway there's this that's kind of what I like this movie there are all these ambiguities to it you know this way
NOWICKI: this is what surprised me there there was no real catharsis in that I was always expecting that eventually he would track down the Thugs who who killed his wife and and raped his daughter and you know brutally kill them but that never happened. that group of thugs just disappears uh and it's like they're just interchangeable with all the all the rest of the thugs in the movie and so we're denied that catharsis which I I mean I think it's it's interesting that they didn't end it that way because that was where I was sure it was going um
LIDDELL: yeah that is an interesting point I think because uh if he had uh Tracked Down the the individual Thugs who uh killed his wife and raped his daughter, it wouldn't really be so realistic, I mean because the whole point about the movie is that uh this is a very general problem it's not a specific individual problem everybody suffers from the crime and so it makes it a class issue between uh normal people and this kind of scum underclass and that's probably why the film is quite radical and would be considered politically dangerous
SPENCER: I think you're absolutely right Colin because you think about it this way if he had found the Thugs who killed his wife and drove his daughter insane he could have... it could have been just a personal Revenge film he could have got these guys like yeah you're terrible and throwing him off a bridge or something but as Colin said it kind of spills over into vigilantism which isn't personal I mean he's really taking back Society and and not just um seeking Revenge so I agree. I think that the movie almost becomes more dangerous and all of these thugs are totally uh I use these objectified you know they're they're all total shits
NOWICKI: they're interchangeable
SPENCER: Yeah just blow them away there's no you know I think at the very end of the movie he moves to Chicago and he sees some like hippies harassing a woman he's like oh I can't wait to can't wait to shoot these guys
LIDDELL: Effectively you're talking about dehumanizing a whole class Society that's what they that's where the movie is going yeah of course they don't um present-day Society that's almost uh you know that's that's the most shocking thing possible so that you know the movie does really you know go to some quite interesting places
NOWICKI: And and I think maybe we'll maybe we'll pick this up more with uh taxi driver but I think I I was saying before there's this interesting parallel when taxi driver in that even though I I think there's more overall more irony and more of a you know sense of self-conscious questioning of oneself in a more of an art House movie like Taxi Driver but there is this ironic twist at the end where in Death Wish he found out by this one cop who's really on his game and tracked down all these Clues and and actually and eventually find them out that he's given orders by his superiors that they don't want to take him in they don't want to arrest him because then that will just make a martyr out of him and then the common folk will will be want to be Vigilantes left and right and the police just don't want that they won't have to deal with that and so when they find out who uh that it's him and he confronts him and he basically says you you can be a free man but you have to get out of town so there's a there's a interesting parallel with the surprising happy ending of Taxi Driver which we haven't talked about yet where we think Travis is just headed for tragedy and you know death self-immolation but then strikingly he ends up getting this happy ending where there's a there's an epilogue uh and and he's fine and he's a hero and he's respected and admired and so it's in both movies that they take it in a direction that you you aren't necessarily expecting it to go
SPENCER: yeah at the end of Death Wish the the police officer who's kind of a uh a stereotypical cop you know that he's gonna he's actually smart but he's you know he's kind of fat and Gruff and those kind of stuff but he says you know you just get out of town and then Paul Kersey says "by Sundown?" you know which is I guess kind of bringing up this you know old west uh metaphor of of of returning to a a more you know in many ways kind of more primitive than also kind of more real um and more masculine time.
Let me bring up this uh this notion of of inspiration and uh you know in in Death Wish you have his vigilante actions inspiring the public and and the public is not willing to take out a 38 and blow all these people away but they are you know you have a woman who who like scares off a Mugger with her hat pin and you have a...
NOWICKI: that was hilarious the black lady
SPENCER: yeah like a construction crew stopped they stopped a robbery in progress and beat the guy up or something and uh so you know the so it's kind of like this is good for society he's you know granted... this man is morally outrageous but just because there's a kind of a truth quality to what he's doing he's he's inspiring Society to to be better but but if you also think about what Death Wish might have inspired we you know we were chatting about this earlier um the there's there's the Bernie Goetz incident that uh occurred in the um I guess the early 80s in New York City. you can say you know whether you support him or not I mean obviously it's a very you know difficult case uh but he was a kind of vigilante Charles Bronson type killer where he was in the process of being mugged and he blew some thugs away and...
NOWICKI: it's kind of eerie of a scene in the movie oh it dissipates because there's there is a Subway scene where Charles Bronson's character is menaced by these two thugs and killed them and then you know manages to slip out with anybody noticing that he was in the same car with them and it makes you think about Bernie Goetz even though it was a good decade before Bernie Goetz, so it's like life imitating art
SPENCER: how do I say this? I I usually don't like it when silly Liberals are blaming video games or something for violence because I think that that is quite wrong I mean long before we had video games mankind was extremely violent so you have to conclude that the violence is within ourselves, it's not... we don't learn it uh but then at the same time I think it's also wrong not to conclude that you aren't influenced by Art I mean great art inspires you and influences you and so you know
NOWICKI: but it definitely happened with taxi driver I mean there's no doubt that was art inspiring.
SPENCER: well go into that what do you referring to exactly I was referring to John Hinckley watching Taxi Driver like I don't know 50 times or whatever and falling in love with Jody Foster and somehow getting in his mind that Ronald Reagan was the equivalent of Charles Palatine and so he needed to kill Reagan in order to rescue Jimmy Foster like uh
SPENCER: yeah it's so interesting how he conflates all those things in the movie um and and also there's this you know this interesting aspect I um what one of the and I think now we can just turn over onto uh and do Taxi Driver drive and start talking about this film and I I think one one aspect of the movie that I found very interesting well I think it is a a fascinating movie so these really very strongly ambiguous moments where you don't really know how to interpret the film and I think one of the most dramatic of those is a scene in which uh Travis is dressed up in his you know uh Marine fatigue and you you know or you at least suspect that he's carrying all of his weapons and his kind of get up uh under underneath and he goes and he sees a Palantine rally and of course Palantine just to remind our listeners he's a kind of liberal wasp politician, whom uh he's probably modeled on the uh gosh who is that man the famous New York mayor and uh but he could be modeled on a number of people um but uh and he's actually a politician for whom a Cybil Shepherd is working and uh and you know Travis is in love with her or kind of you know falls in love and uh he goes to this rally and you really get the sense that he's about to assassinate this man but it's always ambiguous he doesn't draw a gun and he kind of essentially one of the Secret Service officers whom he had spoken to earlier kind of sees this this guy he maybe remembers them at the release is suspicious and he goes over to them and so the whole scene kind of is broken up very quickly but you don't know whether he was going to assassinate them or you know another way of interpreting it is that you know he had this fantasy of that he was actually working for the Secret Service and there's a scene where he writes his parents and he says you know I'm doing very sensitive work for the government I can't talk about it it's obviously it's fantasy but you almost wonder in that scene maybe he thinks he's over there protecting uh Palatine uh so it's it's a very it's a striking and dramatic and ambiguous name
LIDDELL: uh the movie's sloppiness is actually one of its strands because certain things seem to be badly written or even badly acted but that that kind of creates this ambiguity you're talking about which allows you to view the film in different ways and and to view it anew each time you see it
SPENCER: uh there probably is something to that uh I think Colin is a little bit less of a fan of the movie uh than I am I'm probably less of a fan of the movie than Andy is Andy really likes uh but uh
NOWICKI: I'm the I'm the John Hinckley of the three of us
LIDDELL: I'd have to say that I think a Death Wish is objectively a better movie in the sense that it's more crafty and it's tight and taxi drivers has got a much looser feel to it and and you know in the long run that might actually be a good thing you know the movies now has this kind of legendary status and so the fact that it has all these... it still carries all these ambiguities is is very much in in its favor as a kind of legendary film
NOWICKI: yeah I mean I would say uh I mean I would I I think that there's something to be said for uh the scenes that are I think... we were talking about this earlier uh I don't think there's much improvisation in Death Wish I think it's generally fairly scripted yeah and and that and that's certainly you know it certainly moves along in a faster clip it's faster paced I would say Death Wish is more of a genre film although you know it's a smart genre film yeah like you were saying before Richard it's not just a a you know some Parable B movie it's it's high quality but but I would say uh a Taxi Driver uh transcends genre you know without sounding like I'm gushing over it too much
SPENCER: I think Colin is on something and I think his criticism is legitimate I mean it's interesting that a lot of that movie was improvised but you know a lot of it in some ways doesn't make sense I remember that where Travis is speaking with another cabbie I think the cab is called "the Wizard or something he's a bald guy.
NOWICKI: Yeh Peter Boyle
SPENCER: Anyway uh there's some scene where he's he's leveling with Travis uh but you know his his dialogue goes nowhere and I think at some point Travis says like I don't know what the fuck you're talking about you know they're they're both sitting there by the cab and there's this this very haunting like evil-seeming red glow that's everywhere yeah from a neon light and I think that makes the scene haunting but at the same time if you do really look at the dialogue it's terrible
NOWICKI: Well I have a different take on that scene I mean to me it's always struck me as a very poignant moment let me try to explain I think Travis is looking for at this point in the story he's kind of losing it a little bit, but you know, and he's he's depressed and lonely and you know is contemplating taking this very extreme turn in his life, becoming the kind of would be assassin or engaging with vigilante Massacre or whatever but at this point he's still these ideas are still simmering and he sees this other guy wizard this other cabby who's a little older than him and he kind of sees him as an elder almost like a father figure and wants to you know tell him what's what's going on with him and so he you know he takes he says could we talk for a minute and then he tried and Travis tries to explain what's going on in his head and he can't manage to tell him anything as you say he's just he's fumbling over his... because he's embarrassed and uh and uh you know and he's not very articulate uh anyway and and The Wizard guy you know wants to help he's he's sort of trying to listen to him but he doesn't really know what he's talking about either and so then he goes off and and says look you know you got different people do different things or whatever you know one guy is a doctor and one guy a lawyer it's funny but it's also really incredibly sad I've always found that scene like I said haunting and poignant because Travis is really looking for for someone for guidance looking for answers I mean looking for somebody who will steer him in the right direction uh but but we see this this inability to communicate and you know he wizard is unable to help him uh and Travis just sort of goes off and he says I don't know man that's about the dumbest thing I ever heard you know after
SPENCER: Well he's speaking to the audience at that point
NOWICKI that's my take on that scene there's
LIDDELL: The Wizard character he's also this character who makes up these ridiculous stories of his sexual escapades isn't he earlier. I think one of the things the movie's about it's about this kind of loneliness and alienation atomization and uh you know the Travis character he doesn't belong in society and there is actually no Society on the streets of New York. Society in a census cease to exist so there's no wiser Elder people to kind of direct him and give him advice and and yeah you know pick him up when he's feeling a bit down and also this comes into the sexual Dimension because you know he's trying to connect with women but again he can't do that successfully so he's completely kind of alienated and even the the choice of occupation is very symbolic because a taxi driver is basically somebody who works alone even though they they do meet a lot of people they're basically you know working on their own so I think uh that's one of the sort of domin at themes about how society's been atomized
SPENCER: yeah I think I think that's true I mean he yeah we can go into a lot of this I think you said some interesting things including like someone like Travis doesn't even belong in society anymore uh but I think just going in with his is it attempts at women he's he's you know he's very much you know after he gets off the cab he goes right into a porno theater and he he sees the kind you know he sees this you know realistic pornographic sexuality almost like a medical um uh you know vision of sexuality
NOWICKI: he doesn't really seem to get off on it that's I mean that's never been my impression
SPENCER: well yeah I know that's true I think he is searching for something he never finds it in porn um yeah but then he kind of goes and in a way that a lot of young people are like this he'll be a little too forward with women kind of you know go straight up to their desk and say you're beautiful I want to date you and so and so forth um and but then he obviously takes her to a porno theater - takes Cybil Shepherd on their first date yeah um
LIDDELL: yeah sorry Richard but before that there's a very interesting scene in The porn theater where it goes to the booth
SPENCER: oh yeah he's hitting on that girl
LIDDELL: hits on the I think it's a mulatto girl who's selling popcorn and you know various and and the the composition of that scene really struck me because uh there's a a kind of um a reproduction of the Venus de Milo on one side and then Travis on the other side and he's talking to the to the girl who's sort of in the middle and so he sort of like yearning for the feminine in some you know in some sort of idealized form and that's not available to him so he's he's sort of um he's sort of going down the ladder a bit I think and he's talking to this this uh rather you know scummy girl I have to say trying to get off with her and she's completely not interested you know she's got her defenses up because she works in a porn theater and she has to go with all sorts of you know creeps every day so that kind of piques his interest in Betsy the Sybil Shepard character.
SPENCER: yeah also let's talk a little bit about this um you know we we touched on this actually before we uh turned the recorder on. Colin what you were talking about of the the class Dimension you mentioned this again of how uh Travis almost doesn't exist in class and and let me say a few things I mean there's a interesting scene where Palantine this um you know liberal politician happens to get in his cab and you know
NOWICKI: another great scene
SPENCER: yeah and Palantine is himself you know maybe one of these kind of diluted wasp uh pseudo-intellectual liberals uh you know who you know wants to have you know a new welfare program and he'll save Society um and he meets uh Travis and and there are kind of you know two kinds of things that are interesting I mean one of them is that you know this Palantine is thinking about new welfare programs and Travis is like we need a big rainstorm to clean the traps off the streets
NOWICKI: it's great his answer to like he's like Valentine asked him what do you think what is it about this city that bugs you the most and he expects to get some kind of you know something that he can a kind of answer that he can deal with or file away and answer in this politiciany kind of way and Tennis just goes on this rant about how the city is just a toilet and you know the scum everywhere and somebody should just flush it all down the fucking toilet. it's a very tense moment like it's just you know
SPENCER: because the liberal all in some ways wants to do that it's like oh we should clean up the streets you know we should everyone should have a compulsory welfare system and then we would have no trash and I I you know I think it's kind of like the the confrontation between the deluded liberal and then you know in some ways the kind of uh I I you know dare I say kind of moralistic and and right-wing you Know Travis who wants you to kick out... Travis always he reminds me a little bit of the uh Rorschach character in in the Watchmen yeah uh it's my favorite character but anyway but also you know if you kind of think of it as well like when it when these liberal politicians like Palantine when they think of society you know they kind of check off of every box - there's like okay we have blacks and gays and uh the homeless and immigrants you know we need to serve all these people little programs and in some ways Travis represents kind of like the the white man who has no community and...
NOWICKI: he's not from New York he's supposed to be from the Midwest I think so yeah definitely that that kind of prototype
LIDDELL: the the way that class seems to manifest itself in this movie is is through different approaches to language that you know Travis is sort of a bit illiterate and uh awkward with words and um you know taxi drivers that he uh kind of associates with they have a certain way of communicating which doesn't really get us a problem then you've got the uh the more middle class characters like the Cybil Shepard character and uh the other guy working in Valentine's office who's speaking a much more middle class way where they actually avoid getting at the issue and they use ironic language and they don't say say what they mean and everything's a big joke so you see one group of people who can't actually you know Express what what uh they want to get at and and the other group of people are trying to avoid expressing or getting at something
SPENCER: yeah I you know there was an interesting scene which a lot of people might view as a throwaway scene but which I think supports everything you're saying Colin where the Albert Brooks character who's a uh stereotypically Jewish New York Jewish liberal type and he's there and he's talking on the phone and he has all these campaign buttons from uh Palantine and he's telling him he was like our slogan is "we are the people" yet you've given us this campaigns where you underline we it's not we are the people it's we are but you know I think we're getting at what you're saying before like why are you emphasizing the verb no meaning to you know why emphasizing are as if we aren't the people I mean what and so I think it is it's just it's total bs pr politispeak
NOWICKI: there's there's other scenes in the movie like that there's this constant theme of people being unable to communicate we talked about the scene between Travis and and and the other cabbie Wizard where they they absolutely can't connect uh and attest tragic results and even little things like the scene between the cabbies where they're talking and it's just sort of banter and again it seems like a throwaway in some ways, like you were saying, but uh where they they misunderstand it like somebody says something like um so you know this this midger gets into my cab with this beautiful blonde and then what a lady midget no the guy was a midget the blonde was a lady and uh something like there was this dude on crutches that accomplished chasing him the cop was aren't crutches no no dude he was chasing was on crutches and nobody is able to communicate or like there's always some something getting in the way of the catharsis that comes when people look at each other's eyes and and communicate and understand one another
SPENCER: yeah also with Iris you know Jody Foster's character you have very similar things of of the lack of communication between between her and uh and Travis he's saying you know um he's like oh you're such a square haven't you heard of women's lib or something he's like no you're a square there is that kind of you know semantic
LIDDELL: the pimp character played Von Harvey Keitel he's the only character in the movie who actually seems to y'know know use language effectively he uses it he uses it to kind of control Jody Foster kind of mind control you know what I mean so that that scene yeah quietens her down and keeps her interested in what she's doing that's also very powerful scene uh from a point of view of language but in most scenes in the movie language is obviously dysfunctional it doesn't work yeah and this kind of builds tension that uh later it kind of you know expresses itself cathartically in violence and you know there's another key scene I I really want to mention is like when he sees sitting watching TV and he's got a gun in his hand and he starts rocking the TV with his foot and uh the women on this on the TV is some sort of uh drama or um soap opera or whatever and the women on the TV says please don't do this to me and then he kicks over the TV and so he's kind of like Breaking Free from the kind of media in a way and he's he's detached from society at that point you know
NOWICKI: yeah and with regard to Taxi Driver Paul Schrader's original script had Sport that you know the character played by Harvey Keitel and the other two guys you know in that that Travis shoots and kills in a brutal way that two other scumbags that are one of whom is with Jody Foster and the others hanging around outside they're all black in the original script of Schrader's but Scorcese thought that was too incendiary and and so he changed it and and so it actually there's something that I linked to on an alternative right where uh where actually it's Quentin Tarantino commenting on this uh the fact that all the guys are are white that Travis killed and says that wouldn't happen we tend to think of Tarantino a certain way now with with Django Unchained but he makes an interesting point and I think uh in some ways a good point that this is is not that... the reality is that in New York at that time in those circumstances Iris's pimp would would not have been white a white guy so that's that's...
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SPENCER: um that is fascinating and you know Harvey Keitel does play the pimp very black it's it's almost like there's a echo of the the original character in his in his performance you know if you actually just listen to Harvey keitel's performance you would almost identify him as black you know he's like hey y'all come over here yeah I'll give you some yeah you want some [ __ ] yeah I want like that kind of stuff which is a very I mean I don't know what a white temp sounds like of course
you sound like yeah I remember that hello would you like some [ __ ] would you like some vagina it will be a wonderful vagina and products on sale foreign
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what do we think about some some of these um the the final moments of the film and uh let me just mention a few things uh first off it it is an incredibly violent and I think Andy's you mentioned to me before we went on air it almost got an X rating because of the the violence of the uh of the really the climatic scene I think the the scene after that yeah it's kind of like a coda in a way it's not really the the movie kind of ends but you know even in the age of uh you know Django Unchained and all these kinds of things it is a very shocking scene I mean it's in 2013 watching he you know goes in and he just you know shoots uh the pimp in the stomach and then he blows the guy's hands off there's there's a lot of Close Quarters uh gun play that is uh really deadly and and brutal um it actually can show how you don't need to kill like a million people in a scene you can violence can be much scarier the violence is that the people don't don't immediately die because like usually movie bombs bang bang they're dead you know yeah and the way this is more realistic they can also it's more kind of horrifying because they're they're struggling on and they're still trying to fight him and you have the sounds of people uh roaring in pain and uh people bleeding everywhere and it just makes as much more um kind of tangible oh yeah definitely and Travis has that contract all these has like has rigged himself and he's got these this one Contraption where this knife comes out and he stabs the guy like in the neck or something yeah and then he's got something where he he flinged out his arm and then like a gun yeah there's a little swing that she took onto is it's kind of cool and then he shoots him point blank in the head and there's blood everywhere and yeah it's it's a it's a pretty brutal scene no doubt about it oh yeah and you know in that scene you uh you you have this you have this violence and um and then actually at the end of it you have everything really slows down and um and you know again I think some of Collins uh criticisms Taxi Driver are quite valid but you know Scorsese is an interesting guy I mean there is something to it and the whole thing slows down and I think Travis uh attempts to commit suicide and and then he he almost does a mock suicide where he points his fingers and it's a very I mean you you know De Niro is really into this and you know there's blood everywhere then the movie the the film The the camera rather kind of hands back and you see this just terrifying scene uh and and then and then the movie kind of ends in a way on on this just uh yeah Blood on the walls uh you know this kind of stuff and these these policemen are in there just staring on at the this uh Macabre uh spectacle but then you have this interesting Coda to the film that where you have uh Travis there and he's actually I believe he's reading a letter from Iris who's Jody Foster's prostitute character he's reading a letter from her parents and they're like thank you we can't thank you enough you you gave our daughter back we had we thought she was lost we'd given up on her but now she's here and she's you know she's doing her homework and dating boys so it's kind of like he had given her back that that uh that life that she probably should have had uh and then you actually have him and it's kind of like he's back to his old self he's driving a cab his colleagues slapping him on the back and all this kind of stuff and he is a bit of a folk hero that will have a headline you know Taxi Driver battles gangsters and all this kind of thing and um you know I I haven't read too deeply into the film criticism of a taxi driver but but Andy you had mentioned that there is a theory which um probably has a great deal of validity and that is that that whole Coda to the film is a kind of dream maybe it's kind of the last moments of his existence is a dream and it is a certainly kind of a wish film and he gets to even see Sybil Shepard again and she might even be in love with him you never know or maybe she's an angel or something uh keep their mind about him because you know before she just thought he was at this creepy weirdo and now he's someone who's revered and considered heroic so Alpha Knight yeah definitely we get the indication that she's she might be interested in him again but he kind of rebuffs her yeah he's like oh they blow that stuff out of proportion yeah don't don't buy their paying and he kind of drives off kind of playing hard to get or something but anyway you know obviously you know you don't you don't there's no right or wrong answer to this question I mean it's a movie um but it is I think it is interesting to read the final moments of it that way but do you think in in some ways to get back to the this whole ongoing series we have do you think however you want to read that do you think that this does lend a right wing a certain right wing Quality quality to this and and let me just sorry I'm talking too much let me just go into this a little bit more you know I think the liberal fantasy of violence is that it's only a welfare payment away from being stopped like you know these people they're crazy they need medication or they need a a job or or what have you and um and you know and in some ways if you could see the taxi driver character as like oh this guy's crazy he he just he needs a he needs a college education and otherwise he wouldn't have gone mad and he was about to shoot Palatine so it's almost like the movie was about to become a liberal fantasy but it pulls back he doesn't shoot Palantine and he doesn't make a mockery of himself and instead he goes and in his own small way cleans up the streets and you know granted he was not acting in self-defense or whatever but I'm not sure many people shed Too Many Tears For You know a dead temp when is it or whatever that guy was yeah just like nobody cares no I mean just like Charles Bronson's victims yeah Death Wish yeah and also like a a pimp who's who's pimping out a 12 year old I mean it goes even Beyond you know like shoot the guy already uh right so in some ways it becomes a kind of right-wing film whether you want to view that as a dream or not Travis in a weird way is kind of redeemed he is a hero yeah it's definitely a right-wing film um because the problems are not solved through uh like you say you know they're more welfare and more government spending and more kindness and actually in in the case of New York they did actually you know Implement in their own carefully modulated way a a response just like travesties to the problems they had because New York used to be uh well I mean so it's probably a quite a terrible place for Crime but it used to be a lot worse oh yeah New York police they did uh sort of used almost fascistic uh methods to kind of climb down on a lot of the crime yeah that's kind of interesting point as well like uh New York did Implement a kind of covert fascism to sort of deal with this problem well there are a lot of stories about I mean Giuliani um shipping off the homeless people to San Francisco giving them a one-way bus ticket I I don't know if these things are Urban myths and I don't even um I can look this up I I think actually even the police do a lot of predictive so to speak policing uh they'll you know they'll go to where the crimes the crime is and you know kind of thing and they uh they'll go to people who are most you know more likely to do crime uh certainly the police the New York police do have a reputation of of uh trampoline civil liberties I mean I even I remember you know living there and um uh you know I don't know I don't want to seem like this out I don't want to make this conversation more shallow but just in in little things like parking tickets that you just get a kind of sense of like Jesus guys just the ending of a taxi driver kind of like like we were talking about with the ending of um of Death Wish you know it I think it's a brilliant ending I'm not inclined to see it as a dream sequence although like I said a lot of people I don't know this is like maybe he he does really die because he he does get wounded badly very badly in the in the massacre scenes and there's blood dripping all over him so maybe this is the like the last thing he he imagines happening to him before he of it before he goes toward the light uh that's what which is you know that's that's what some people think but anyway to me it's just a brilliant way of ending it because it's not what you expect well no I I think uh you know Colin is getting at something I think New York and maybe even the country itself uh had a kind of Travis strategy to fighting crime and I think this is also one of those ironies of of these we live in this totally Uber tolerant liberal post-modern multiculty society and yet the reason why America is so livable is because we're locking so many people up and essentially concentration camps
in this in this prison system or we're just putting you know uh the the criminal element which has a very strong racial component to it it's also the abortion angle as well isn't there yeah there is that abortion angle I I find that a little bit less cogent to be honest it's kind of another discussion because I think the Freakonomics thing yeah I find that a little less cogent because I think a lot of the people who aren't having abortions are are the kind of thuggish element I think the people unfortunately who are having a lot of abortions are like more intelligent middle class people Maybe I'm Wrong uh but they made it available much more freely available and so a lot of the uh people who um you know who were contributing to the criminal underclass stopped having uh babies simply because they could have abortions for free yeah I think they're again I'm not I don't want to totally dismiss this and obviously you know the blacks are overrepresented in abortion and and there certainly are you know a lot of pro-lifers we'll talk about this you know abortion of clinics are in uh you know ghetto neighborhoods you don't see Planned Parenthood in my neighborhood you see it in ghettos and that is it's true um but it just it strikes me as even to go to an abortion clinic probably take some intelligence um I I unfortunately I think we have tons of examples of people with ad IQs who are knocking up women left and rights so I don't know um I I'm not sure I totally buy the Freakonomics argument I think in some ways I think it's the abortion has been very dysgenic on the whole but uh but anyway um we better not uh get on a tangent uh well uh Colin Andy I think we might want to even return to these films they're very interesting but at the very least I think this is a uh a uh quite an interesting discussion and um I might just just because I looked this up I might just end the conversation with these stirring lines that uh come at the very beginning of uh another movie we should talk about in Great Moments and bad right-wing Cinema and that is uh Watchman uh where worst access this city is afraid of me I've seen its true face the streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over all the Vermin will drown the accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waste and all the horrors and politicians will look up and shout save us and I'll whisper no
anyway that sounds like it could be in travestical Diary I mean the diary that we hear from from Travis yeah of course a taxi driver no I'm very influenced yeah without question I I think uh worst Shack is a kind of Travis become a superhero
yeah actually you know Colin's writing a piece on just dread for um uh for the next upcoming Radix so we should probably even have a dread uh podcast
uh but anyway let's just put a bookmark in it for now and um I'm sure we can we can return to a lot of these interesting subjects uh the Colin Andy uh thanks for uh being on board as always and I I really enjoyed the conversation I I hope our listeners do too [Music]
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