Music of the Mind

For generations the mesmerizing nature of cinema has had the distinct ability to examine the psyche of numerous, dynamic characters. Through a variety of creative means, filmmakers have been able to reflect on the thoughts and emotions of people without stating the obvious. As demonstrated time and time again, this can be achieved effectively through subtle, yet powerful cues. Travis Bickle is one of these characters, whose psychosis and mental disintegration can be best expressed through Taxi Driver’s dark brooding score. The score itself proves to a crucial element to the construction of the film. In the style of David Bordwell, one can use the film’s musical cues for Travis’ psyche as a way of constructing the syuzhet, or plot elements, in order to reach the fabula in the end. As the film progresses, Hermann’s music complements Travis’ breakdown, one step at a time through a series of repetition and familiar cues. In the 1976 film Taxi Driver, Bernard Hermann uses three somber musical themes in order to personify the film’s central theme of an individual’s descent into madness.



In the first half of Taxi Driver, Travis’ lonely psyche is brought to the surface of the film through Hermann’s simple, jazzy motif on the saxophone. This is one of the first riffs the audience hears, and it appears many times in the film. In the opening title sequence Travis’ cab is seen driving through the steam, almost as a vessel through hell. The film cuts to a close-up of Travis’ eyes as they scan back and forth, looking out into the city night. As the viewer is in the taxi, he or she is able to see the world in the way Travis sees it: an unfocused display of people, lights, traffic, etc. All the while the images
are accompanied with Hermann’s saxophone motif, a reflection of Travis’ lonely psyche. When Travis is in the cab, this theme seems to follow him wherever he goes, personifying his personal alienation to a taxicab. He does not do anything but drive around the city, working six and sometimes seven days a week. His decision to drive constantly creates within him a melancholy existence that is lyrically conveyed to the viewer through the score’s saxophone. It is this lifestyle that leads to a change in his psychosis, which provokes him to spiral out of control. However, this theme is not limited to just the taxi. It recurs several times when Travis is at his apartment, alone, alienated, and lonely. He keeps a journal, spilling his thoughts onto paper in a series of scenes when Hermann’s theme finds the somber tune of Travis’ mind. As he writes the viewer gets glimpses of his apartment. It is a drab, empty place with cracks in the floor and paint peeling off the walls, another reflection of Travis’ mental state. Finally, this musical theme expresses his psyche in moments involving Betsy. The first time the viewer sees her she crosses the frame in slow motion, an angelic figure in the middle of hell as witnessed by Travis. The saxophone blares romantically as the viewer longs for her in the same way he does. To Travis, Betsy is representative of escape, as she is possibly the only person he feels he can interact with. After the second date goes horribly wrong, his mind begins to change. However, her rejection of him does not overcome his desire for her. The next time he drives past the Palantine headquarters, Hermann’s sax solo returns once more as the viewer sees Betsy’s empty desk from Travis’ cab. In the case of Betsy the sax solo finds a sensitive, empathetic side to Travis. One can understand his desire to make a connection with someone, and after he is rejected, the viewer pities him. Ultimately, Travis’ lonely, isolated psyche is brought to life by Bernard Hermann’s saxophone solo in the early half of Taxi Driver.
Aside from the sweet sound of a saxophone, Hermann uses a combination of horns and snares as the basis of another theme. However, it does not become prominent in the film until Travis’ disturbing encounter with a murderous husband. This scene is definitive for Travis, in that it is the moment when something triggers in his mind, throwing him into action. The passenger in the cab says he is going to kill his wife and her African-American lover. What makes this scene significant in explaining Travis’ decline is that it is the first time he is forced to imagine violence. Until this point he does an excellent job of distancing himself from the pimps, whores, junkies, etc. However, in this moment he is forced to face it, seeing as how he has no escape from the situation. To express the beginning of Travis’ psychological transition, Hermann uses a simple riff consisting of three notes on low, ominous horns. They create a tense, dark tone that is mirrored by the look on Travis’ face as the man describes how he is going to kill his wife. Accompanied by the darkness of the horns, the viewer is able to witness the change in Travis through his strangely passive reaction. From this moment on the horns and snare drums represent Travis’ will to act and the force that drives him to into psychosis.



The next time the viewer hears this theme is when Travis is watching Senator Palantine on television. He stares at Palantine in fixation, a clear indication that he has decided to act, having conceived a pious mission to assassinate the Senator. Travis is later seen writing in his journal and he says, “There is change,” a verbal confirmation from the film’s protagonist that he has undergone a psychological transition. This scene, of course, is accompanied by Hermann’s horns, as is the sequence in which Travis gets himself fit. As he does push-ups, lifts weights, and practices shooting, the horns crescendo and reach a shrieking climax. The way in which the horns are played in these moments perfectly reflect Travis’ increasing psychological torment as it builds to an inevitable peak. Finally, this musical theme complements his psyche just before he commits his massacre. He is driving to Sports, the snares rattling like a driving force, provoking him to act. The drums reach their harshest, most aggressive tone, anticipating the following moments just like Travis. Like the sax solo the horns and snares represent another state of Travis’ dynamic mind, in which he has made the decision to abandon life as he knows it and act violently.

Finally, Bernard Hermann’s score paints a portrait of Travis’ psychotic episodes through a theme consisting of low strings. The strings are symbolic of Travis’ psyche when it has disintegrated. Not only do they represent his insanity and drive to kill, they express a lack of closure that leaves him wandering aimlessly. Interestingly, the strings theme is made up of the exact three notes that Hermann used twice in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The first time it is heard is just seconds before Travis kills for the first time at the convenient store. He steps out of his cab and onto the street, and Hermann’s strings rumble with menace, a foreshadowing of the lashing out that is about to take place. The viewer then sees Travis commit his first true act, one of violence when he shoots a man who is holding up the store. Within this moment of the film, the viewer realizes that Travis has crossed the line from a lonely, alienated man to psychotic murderer.



The strings are brought back into the story when Travis leaves Iris’ room and hands some money to the old pimp, whom Travis is disgusted by. The theme is heard over these images and it is an indication that Travis plans on killing again. Finally, the most important moment in which this theme is heard comes immediately after the film’s closing credits. Travis committed his massacre and has been labeled a hero by the public. However, the viewer may think differently, knowing that Travis’ intentions may have been more than simply saving Iris. His cab is seen cruising through night and before the film fades to black, the strings return in the same cue from Hermann’s earlier score, Psycho. This was not in accident, at least in this particular case. Psycho uses this cue during the very last image of Norman Bates, when he looks straight into the camera and smiles like the devil. The audience is left with no closure, seeing that he is still a psychotic murderer and will wander in his thoughts forever. The same impression is given of Travis when the viewer hears this cue. The viewer must face the fact that an insane man will be roaming free, wandering the streets in another desperate attempt to act on his violent impulses. Travis’ psyche is fully comprised of these sort of cues, in which the viewer is gradually revealed certain components that contribute to a character. In his article “Principles of Narration,” David Bordwell argues for the sake of the syuzhet, a critical element in interpreting the content of a story when he writes, “The theoretical concept of the syuzhet offers a way of analyzing the aspects of a film that the spectator organizes into an ongoing story” (Bordwell 31). This statement, in relation to Taxi Driver, relates to the idea of music as an element of the film’s syuzhet. As the viewer witnesses the disintegration of Travis’ psyche through musical cues, he or she is able to construct the film from an objective perspective, building the syuzhet from the ground up in order to make sense of the fabula, which seems to be the end result of the constructed aspects of the film. Furthermore, he writes, “The syuzhet, then, is the dramaturgy of the fiction film, the organized set of cues prompting us to infer and assemble story information” (Bordwell 33). Again, Bordwell’s theory supports the idea of certain, specific cues that help us to construct the ultimate conclusion to the film.



In regard to this image, one can assume that the syuzhet provided to the viewer that Travis is a lost soul left to wander aimlessly through New York City. He stares off in the distance with a puzzled, confused expression on his face. One may assume that he is even angry. However, the film’s syuzhet allows the viewer to create his or her own opinions about Travis through the actions he takes within the film’s context. In the end it is the musical cues that accompany these elements of the film, complementing Travis from one event to the next. With these musical cues comes certain visual cues that effectively accompany Hermann’s score. This image, more than most, provides a clear example of Travis’ lonely, psychotic state of mind, in which he stands alone in the street, staring off in the distance as his mind wanders aimlessly. Ultimately, the strings signal Travis’ delusional, psychotic mindset, which relates back to the film’s central theme of an individual’s psychosis.



In a time of unusual doubt, cynicism, and anti-heroics, Taxi Driver’s score by Bernard Hermann employs the use of three somber musical themes that personify the film’s central theme of an individual’s descent into madness. In her article, “I Got Some Bad Ideas In My Head,” Fuchs says, “The movie combines fragments of rage and intelligence, violence and vulnerability, filtered through the debilitated, difficult psyche of Travis Bickle” (Fuchs 67). Bernard Hermann’s music personifies this idea by playing the tune of Travis’ mind. Instead of letting the music tell the viewer how to think and feel, it tells the viewer how Travis’ thinks and feels. In addition with powerful musical cues that surface again and again in the film, the viewer is able to construct an understanding of Travis’ psyche as if it were the plot of the film. This is what makes the film’s score truly remarkable, as it is just one of many ways in which the viewer can catch a glimpse of what the protagonist is thinking.