Analysis:

Visions of Hell: Scorsese's -Taxi Driver- and Dostoevsky's -Crime and Punishment-

By Scott Curl

When film critic Pauline Kael reviewed Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver in 1976, she noted the film's uncanny portrayal of life on the fringes of society and commented that the film played like a "raw, tabloid version of [Fyodor Dostoevsky's] Notes From the Underground." Even though this may have been intended as an offhand remark, Kael just missed hitting on something much deeper and complex; for Scorsese's version of Paul Schrader's script actually shares a very deep and powerful bond with another of Dostoevsky's works: Crime and Punishment.

People who study (and write about) film as an art form often display the annoying habit of going well beyond the context of a movie and trying to drag in supposedly "hidden" meanings and philosophies that just aren't there. Comparing the early work of an intense, Italian-American filmmaker with a 19th-century Russian author may seem to be one of those cases. Yet, upon closer examination, it's not really that far of a stretch. In fact, the upcoming re-release of Taxi Driver affords us a tremendous opportunity to re-examine this epic film and to understand just how closely Travis Bickle's journey follows that of Crime and Punishment's Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov (and you thought you only had a better print and digital soundtrack to look forward to). Despite radically different cultures and a 100-year chasm between Dostoevsky and Scorsese, both author and auteur sent their characters through hellish nightmares to drive home the same humanist message: that we are all inextricably bound to one another; that no one can truly be beyond "ordinary" people and retain their humanity. Those that are cast into the role of a "superman" (whether willingly or by fate) will experience the closest thing to an actual Hell on Earth: being completely removed from the rest of society.

In the final decades of Tsarist Russia, Dostoevsky saw what he believed to be the seeds of the unraveling of Russian society. He feared and resented the growing waves of people he believed to be young, nihilistic intellectuals who were smitten by materialism and selfish philosophies (the Nietzschean concept of the "superman" was new and particularly popular at the time), but cared little for their fellow man. Convinced that a complete disassociation from others would be the ultimate undoing of humankind, Dostoevsky set out to write a cautionary tale in Crime and Punishment that would point out the errors of this "me first" ideology. The story's central character, Raskolnikov, is an extremely intelligent young student whose mind, like those of so many of us in college, has been pumped full of new ideas and philosophies that fascinate him, even if he doesn't fully understand them.

Raskolnikov's undoing occurs at the beginning of the novel, when he comes to the conclusion that he is indeed a "superman," free to do as he wills. Convinced that he is superior to the common "filth" he sees daily in the streets and that he is therefore beyond the law, he secretly murders an old pawnbroker whom he despises in order to prove his point. The crime goes unsolved, but Raskolnikov's troubles are just beginning. For now, not only is he one of the chosen "few," he also possesses a secret he can tell no one. With his very soul cut off from the outside world, Raskolnikov realizes just how alone he is. He recognizes his need for some form of human contact, even though that wish flies in the face of the superman role he believes is his. Raskolnikov winds up living a nightmarish existence through much of the novel, literally torn between his ideas and his compassion like a person with a split personality.

A century later, Martin Scorsese also saw an unraveling of his societal fabric, as an increasing number of people began to exist outside of "ordinary" humanity. These were the people Scorsese saw every day on the streets of New York: the poor, the disenfranchised, the homeless, the mentally and emotionally disturbed that America tries so hard to forget about. Hardly like Dostoevsky's intellectuals, these "supermen" of modern America didn't choose to leave society; rather, they were forced out. They are embodied in the New York cabbie Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro), a man whose profile couldn't be farther removed from that of Raskolnikov.

Certainly no intellectual, Bickle is an unnoticed Vietnam vet whose mind was pumped full not with Nietzschean philosophy, but rather with ways to survive in war. Upon returning to the States, Bickle was forced to forget it all, living as just one small man in a city of millions. Rather than lash out with bold comments like Raskolnikov, Bickle is an obsessive and compulsive man of routine, dutifully sending off anniversary letters to his parents, driving his cab along the same route, and regularly sharing coffee with a small, eccentric group of fellow cabbies. As the film progresses, he begins to cut off even those few acquaintances as he drifts completely away from all normal contact with society. Bickle is now a superman in his own right, and like Raskolnikov, stands at the threshold of Hell.

It is at this point that both characters' lives become remarkably similar. Both live in tiny, cluttered apartments that seal them off from the rest of the world. They frequently voice their disdain for the "filth" and "scum" that they see living around them, yet both are oddly attracted to it (Bickle, with all of New York City before him in which to find fares, continually frequents Times Square). The two men plot killings that will all but seal their mental and emotional extraction from society: Raskolnikov does indeed murder the pawnbroker, while Bickle plots to kill a political candidate, but does not complete the act.

When preparing for their respective crimes, both fashion their own specialized weapons. Like the special ax sling that Raskolnikov makes for an easier murder of the pawnbroker, Bickle creates a mechanical device on his forearm to help conceal, and quickly deliver, his handgun. Both must endure extremely tense moments with the law, yet ultimately evade apprehension and punishment: Raskolnikov is grilled by the police inspector for the unsolved killing, and is almost certain he will be caught; Bickle, in a more cavalier manner, encounters a Secret Service agent while stalking the candidate and talks to the agent nearly too long, asking too many questions and provoking suspicion. Once their crimes are complete (Raskolnikov's is physical; Bickle's is mental) and their capture evaded, both are left to deal with the emptiness of an aftermath with no recognition and no redemption.

Throughout both stories, this awareness of complete solitude begins to destroy both men, and each makes an attempt to break away from their anonymous "prisons." Raskolnikov wants desperately to confess his crime, and have the burden lifted from his shoulders so that he can return to society. Bickle wants out too, and tries to have a "normal" relationship with Betsy, one of the candidate's campaign workers that he is attracted to. Unfortunately, Bickle is as ill-equipped for this as he is for dealing with the rest of humanity (he takes Betsy to a 42nd Street porn theater for their "date"), and as a result, he must endure Betsy's- and society's, for that matter Ñ rejection in a telephone conversation that is one of the most painful and important scenes in the film.

It is during the height of their isolation that Raskolnikov's and Bickle's dual personalities slowly rise to the surface, and their inner conflicts are represented by other characters. Interestingly, both men fall in love with young prostitutes (Sonya in the novel, Iris (Jodie Foster) in the movie), in whom they see compassion and innocence Ñ the last remaining bit of humanity in their lives.

Both characters also despise men that embody everything that is wrong in their own lives: Raskolnikov hates Svidrigailov, a depraved person who took the superman notion to the extreme in pursuing whatever pleased him, regardless of the cost; Bickle has Sport (Harvey Keitel), a seedy pimp who preys upon Iris and other young women for his own gain.

Ultimately, the combination of inner struggle and isolation proves to be too much, and both Raskolnikov and Bickle reach their breaking points, desperate to be released from their sentences in Hell. But it is here where the crucial differences between characters and storytellers come back into play, leading the student and the taxi driver to drastically different resolutions.

Raskolnikov believes that the only way in which he can truly be free is to confess his crime and suffer the consequences. He does confess, and is sentenced to eight years in a Siberian prison camp. Sonya accompanies him, and together both undergo a religious conversion that leads to their ultimate redemption. This series of events illustrates Dostoevsky's notions of how the Russian people must pay for their crimes against each other: endure the punishment, and emerge the better for it.

Scorsese, on the other hand, has no such notions. He has no similar plans for society's salvation. Rather, Scorsese merely provides us with a snapshot of what is. Bickle, as we all know, goes on a murderous rampage, in which he hopes to free Iris and himself from the prisons that hold them by destroying Sport and his friends. It is important to note that several extremely uninspired critics (Leonard Maltin chief among them) bashed Scorsese for this ending, which they took as bearing Scorsese's moral stamp of approval as Bickle engages in an act of self-cleansing and redemption. But both Scorsese and Taxi Driver are too complex and ironic for such an easy answer. Bickle's blood-bath actually accomplishes very little, other than to elevate him to the level of minor celebrity for his attempt to "clean up" the town. As the film ends, however, one can't help but sense that Bickle is still removed from society and quite far from being redeemed; implying that it will only be a matter of time before he slips back into Hell yet again.

Regardless of the fact that one was Eastern and one was Western, that one worked in the printed medium and the other in film; whether or not they used a long character study or a brief snapshot, or that their characters were supermen by choice or circumstance, both Fyodor Dostoevsky and Martin Scorsese recognized that we cannot sever our ties with the rest of humanity. Of course, Scorsese and Schrader didn't intend for Taxi Driver to be only a social polemic, as did Dostoevsky, but the strong humanistic plea is there for the audience to at least recognize what it is we are doing to ourselves.

·        Scott Curl graduated from Purdue University. He currently lives in Boulder and writes fiction.