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Quentin Tarantino is one of the most famous filmmakers of our time and one of the most influential film lovers today. Claiming that "one more movie will retire", he has only made 9 feature films so far, and he has left a name in film history with a strong personal style.
Quentin has been saying in interviews that he will write a book about film, and now, the time has come. In his first non-fiction work, Cinematic Rhapsody: A Memoir of Quentin Tarantino, he writes about his childhood connection with cinema, and does not shy away from his desire to express and share, and writes about his thoughts about cinema. Looking at it this way, in addition to being a talented director, he is also a sharp film critic.
This is an excerpt from the book "If the Director <出租车司机>Is Not Martin Scorsese, but Brian De Palma".
"Brian de Palma introduced me to Paul Schrader, and together we embarked on a pilgrimage to San Diego to meet the film critic Manny Faber. I wanted Paul to help me adapt Dostoevsky's The Gambler into a screenplay, but Brian took him out to dinner. They did it on purpose to not let me find them. By the time I finally found them, it was three hours later. They have already come up with the outline of "Enchanted Love". However, Brian told me that Paul also had a script called "Taxi Driver," but Brian didn't really want or could make the script at the time, and asked me if I would be interested in reading it. So I went and read the script, and my friend (Sandy Weintraub) read it too, and I thought it was great: we agreed that this was the kind of film we should make. ”
- Martin Scorsese, "Scorsese on Scorsese"
Yes, the first person among the "movie kids" to read the script of "Taxi Driver" and consider directing it was Brian de Palma.
It is said that the beginning of the friendly and cooperative relationship between De Palma and Schrader stemmed from the fact that Schrader, who was still a film critic in The New York Times at the time, wrote a good review for De Palma's new film "Sisterhood". Then, the film critic Schrader interviewed the young director, and the two talked very speculatively. During this time, Schrader mentioned that he could play chess, and de Palma liked it, so the two began to play chess. For the two career planning gurus, "no hit, no deal" on the chessboard is like a perfect metaphor, so perfect that one can't help but wonder if the whole story is actually a made-up PR legend.
Schrader was about to eat the other party's elephant when he casually mentioned that he had written a movie script. "Oh, don't, why is it again!" De Palma complained.
Schrader told him not to be nervous: "Anyway, we're talking nonsense now, I just said it casually, and I wrote another script." ”
The script he was talking about was the first draft of "Taxi Driver." After hearing the critic say that he had written a script, de Palma rolled his eyes, but eventually read it. After reading it, he realized that the script was really good, so he wanted to shoot it himself.
Commemorative poster of "Taxi Driver".
Years later, de Palma would say nonchalantly: "I didn't shoot it because I thought the script was more suitable for the old horse." But sometimes, he will admit that the real reason why he didn't make "Taxi Driver" is that he felt that the script was not commercial enough.
To be honest, it's a sad reason.
The script is not commercial enough?
The script was commercial enough for Columbia Pictures......
Commercial enough for the original director Robert Mulligan......
Commercialized enough for Malegen's original actor, Jeff Bridges......
It was commercial enough for Scorsese, who recently won the Oscar for Ellen Bosteen for "Once Upon a Time in the Sea"......
For Robert De Niro, who recently won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for "The Godfather 2", it is commercial......
But not commercial enough for Brian de Palma?
To be honest, for the young Parma at the time, a film that would put the audience in their seats was the one he was looking for. When his new rock 'n' roll film "Phantom of Paradise," produced by Twentieth Century Fox, was released in New York, theaters were almost empty.
He didn't want to see his next film still unleashed in a theater with few audiences.
Therefore, his next film must be a blockbuster. Parma apparently considered directing "Taxi Driver," but ultimately decided to ask Schrader to co-create a remake of "Ecstasy," also known as "Enchanted," to further solidify her "neo-Hitchcock" character. So, 1976's de Palma had to choose between "Taxi Driver" and "Carrie the Witch", but between "Taxi Driver" and "Romance".
Thus, de Palma could have made "Taxi Driver" instead of "Romance" in 1976, and then "Carrie the Witch" later that year! Or he could have made both "Romance" and "Carrie the Witch" in 1976, but kept the script of "Taxi Driver" and made "Taxi Driver" after "Carrie the Witch", that is, in 1977, instead of "Rage".
But just because de Palma wants to make commercially good films doesn't mean he's prescient in the area. In the end, it was Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" that resonated with the audience, while his slow and flashy "Lost Love" was ignored.
To be honest, "Lost Love" is not a bad movie, but a little dull. But the actor Cliff Robertson is very unpleasant, and it is not suitable for this kind of ending at all, and it is destined to be an impossible love story. Robertson's sexiness is comparable to that of an old grandfather's big toe. In all fairness, Jennivieve Boudrow's performance was more impressive than the eerie Cliff Robertson. If you don't count the "Be Negro, Baby" scene, the best scene de Palma ever made was in a close-up shot of Buzzo being a seven-year-old girl remembering what happened on the night of her abduction, and Buzzo was the absolute center of the scene.
Taxi Driver
Despite all my grievances with "Lost Love" (starring Robertson's performance, the film has no sense of humor), the core of the film, which is a love story that is not destined to end well, is actually okay. Wilmoš Zhigmund's dreamy and floating cinematography and Bernard Homan's heartwarming soundtrack also feel good. In the final airport climactic scene, the hero and heroine (Robertson and Budzhuo) seem to be pushed towards each other by Homan's soundtrack, which is very gripping.
In addition, although Schrader's bloody love tragedy is not very reasonable, it can be said to be reasonable, and it has a bit of the absurd flavor of "Heaven and Earth Are Ridiculous".
Without a doubt, this is a Brian De Palma movie.
But the film has no sense of humor, so it can only be described as a bad de Palma movie.
Anyway, I wish de Palma had written the script himself. Because as a director who didn't start out as a screenwriter, De Palma can be said to be a pretty good screenwriter, at least he knows how to write a Brian de Palma-style script better than Paul Schrader.
De Palma's initial idea that Schrader's "Taxi Driver" was not commercial enough was hilarious and bizarre. Because Columbia Pictures later effortlessly developed a commercial niche for the film — a film in the same vein as "Raptors." The trailer for the movie has the style of "Raptors Monster", except that the protagonist is a more unhinged guy. However, the trailer decisively does not declare that the film is "about a guy with a brain problem", but depicts a lone figure in the crowd who wants to fight back and be heard after having had enough of everything.
Just like Billy Jack.
Just like Joe Don Barker.
It's like Mr. Magistik in "Raptors Iron Kong".
Columbia Pictures promoted "Taxi Driver" as a "Raptor"-style vigilante movie, and it worked surprisingly well. It's strange that Khade Palma didn't think of this when she first read the script. Anyway, I can imagine that he would make a movie like "Dragon Monster" immediately after "Sisterhood", and his performance should be very good.
It was this kind of business opportunity that de Palma had been looking for (and he took it upon reading the script for Carrie the Witch).
However, when Scorsese read Schrader's script, the dust settled. He once said to Schrader: "Brian de Palma introduced us to each other and gave me the script for 'Taxi Driver,' and I felt like I had written it myself." It's not that I can write something like this, but I feel everything I have to say. I feel like a fucking fire is burning in my heart. I've got to shoot. ”
But it's actually fun to think that we almost saw de Palma's version of "The Taxi Driver" and wonder how that version would be different. But how different can it be if you shoot according to the same script?
I guess it's a big difference.
Taxi Driver
In fact, if Schrader's script had been written by Richard Mulligan, who had made "The Past Like Smoke," and Jeff Bridges had played Travis, I feel that it would have been closer to Scorsese's version than De Palma's version (in 1978, Maligan made his own Scorsesese film based on Richard Price's second novel, "My Brothers").
In my opinion, the main difference between De Palma's version of "The Taxi Driver" and Scorsese's version should be the narrative angle.
I don't think De Palma will empathize with Travis Bickel in the same way that Schrader, Scorsese and De Niro do. When the audience watches Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", they will become Travis Bickle. Whether you empathize with or sympathize with those life rituals of Travis, you'll be observing. In the process of observation, you will slowly begin to understand. And once you understand this lonely man, he's no longer a monster - if he really was a monster in the first place.
Scorsese, Schrader and De Niro give you a glimpse into the character's own life.
I guess when de Parma first read Schrader's play, he didn't see the story as a first-person diary dream, as the latter would have liked. I'm willing to bet De Palma's first reaction would have been something along the lines of "Great, this could be my Cold Bloods."
I'm sure De Palma doesn't look at Travis the way Polanski looks at Catherine Deneuve in Cold Blood. De Palma's version of "Taxi Driver" won't have anything to do with "Raptors". His version of "Taxi Driver" won't be a first-person character study disguised as a vigilante thriller. No one would see his version of Travis as a hero. His version of "Taxi Driver" is not just a thriller, it's a political thriller (kind of like the end of "The Murder Line"). De Palma will focus on the political assassination element, so Travis Bickel's storyline will become the story of how a madman becomes an assassin.
He would start with Travis's social disfits, then how he came up with the idea of assassinating Palantine, the little things he did along the way, and finally how he carried out the assassination at an outdoor rally (with the glory of Mohican).
Scorsese portrayed the assassination as a "big car crash scene," but I think de Palma would make another grand "slow-motion ballet," like the prom passage in Carrie the Witch. De Palma would make an action scene of Bickel's failed assassination attempt, with a score by Bernard Homan. But there's no doubt that this version of the soundtrack will be completely different from Scorsese's version of the minimalist "car noise." It was like Holman trying to make a difference, and it sounded like playing the saxophone with his ass. *Given that De Palma could have done "Taxi Driver" before "Carrie the Witch," we can actually imagine how De Palma would have designed the attempted assassination scene in "Carrie the Witch" by looking at the entire prom passage in Carrie the Witch.
Isn't the "Pig Blood Bucket" passage in "Carrie the Witch" an assassination scene?
Carrie the Witch
Carrie White and Tommy Rose won the election (Queen and King of the Prom).
The winning candidate was invited to the stage to the cheers of the audience.
But in the cheering crowd, there was one man who had a lot of speculation and resentment towards the female candidate.
This person is the blonde Chris Hagenson (Nancy Allen). She was hell-bent on killing the female candidate in front of all the voters in her most glorious moments.
A bucket full of pig blood fell heavily on Carrie White's face, just as Jacqueline was splashed in the face by her husband Kennedy's brain.
Killer Chris recruits a team of like-minded volunteers to help her carry out the plot (especially the deputy Villa Girl, Norma, played by P.J. Sauls, who wears a baseball cap and pigtails). Another group of guys (John Travolta's Billy Nolan, Michael Talbot's Norma's boyfriend Freddie) are bewitched and manipulated by the killer to help her complete the assassination mission.
Chris even rigged the election to ensure that candidates Carrie and Tommy would win. Even Carrie's secret campaign manager, Sue Snell (Amy Irving), is smiling and standing with the cheering crowd, seemingly pleased with her PR work.
De Palma would add a scene in his "Taxi Driver" to Spier Shepard's Bessie (either Nancy Allen or Amy Owen would have been a good fit for the role if it had been filmed after Carrie the Witch) so that she would have almost become another protagonist. Schrader and Scorsese would have demanded that every scene of the film be from Travis' point of view, but I'm sure De Palma would have inserted a couple of scenes from Betsy perspective. Perhaps Betsy will preemptively detect and thwart Travis' assassination plans. I'm not saying that these clichéd ideas about Bessie are better than Scorsese's, but they certainly make the film more Hitchcockian. I can imagine how these changes fit into the story.
Another difference between De Palma's version and Scorsese's version should be the departure of the entire "Searcher" perspective. When Schrader reinvented the theme of The Searcher and found Scorsese at the helm, he was lucky, as he found not only an interpreter, but also a conspirator.
Oh my god, Scorsese even skipped the "Searcher" clip in "Back Alley". So, when Schrader introduces the duality between Eisen Edwards in "The Searcher" and Travis Bickel in "Taxi Driver", Scorsese doesn't need to explain much at all, but tells him about the Comanche and the bison.
It's safe to say that De Palma doesn't love John Ford or The Searcher as much as Scorsese, and is unlikely to over-accept the similarities between the two films as much as he does. I can imagine him hearing Schrader talk about Ford's epic work for the umpteenth time, and then telling him, "Paul, maybe you were inspired to write this screenplay with The Searcher," but I'm going to make it into "In Cold Blood." ”
Martin Scorsese
Brian de Palma
Well, the next key question: who will play Travis Bickle in Brian De Palma's version of "Taxi Driver"?
If you think De Palma and De Niro have worked together in the past, so they will choose De Niro directly, it is a bit hasty.
Although their careers started together, it wasn't until the 1987 release of "Iron Mask" that the two worked together again.
I thought they had fallen out.
But recently, I asked about Mr. De Niro's collaboration with De Palma on "Handsome Deserter" and "Hi Mama! The actor fondly recalled: "It's always a pleasure to work with Brian, he's a good audience and knows what he wants. I asked if the two of them had a holiday, and De Niro flatly denied it: "No, as long as we were in town [in the '70s], we would get together for a coffee and a chat." ”
I asked why we didn't continue to work together, and Mr. De Niro said, "Gee, Brian was already a big director at the time, and he was busy with his business, so I was busy with mine." Indeed, if you look back at De Palma's films in the '70s, none of them had to be starred by De Niro. It wasn't until the role of Jack Terry in "The Murder Line" that you realized how appropriate it would be for De Niro to play it.
And what about "Taxi Driver"?
You know, De Niro actually had nothing to do with "Taxi Driver" at first. Columbia Pictures initially identified Jeff Bridges as the lead actor and the Phillips and Tony Beale as producers. Scorsese wanted De Niro to play it, but the producers felt that he didn't have enough coffee. But the truth is that De Niro had already played the young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather 2 at the time. According to Schrader, they decided not to ask Jeff Bridges (which also meant saying goodbye to superstar producer Tony Beale), but to wait for "The Godfather 2" in the hope that De Niro would become famous when the film was released.
They didn't wait in vain, and De Niro won the 1975 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Vito Corleone. But then, Scorsese ran into another problem: De Niro had signed with Bernardo Bertolucci to play one of the leading roles in the Italian epic film "1900". Scorsese had no choice but to sit and wait for Bertolucci to finish his masterpiece that seemed like he would never finish his fucking work.
Robert De Niro
Scorsese and Schrader have identified De Niro as the best candidate to play Travis.
But if De Palma comes to shoot, then I think he should be very happy with Columbia Pictures' arrangement, after all, there are three producers of "Trick of Tricks" involved, and the lead role is still played by Jeff Bridges. I don't think De Palma will wait a year for De Niro. Even if Bridges withdraws, I think that Jean-Michael Vincent as Travis Bieckel should meet De Palma's expectations.
But Brian De Palma is unlikely to go to great lengths to get Harvey Keitel in this film.
Will he face the same pressure that Scorsese has been subjected to?
No doubt.
But if he was asked to direct, then Travis Bickel would certainly not be so sympathetic, but closer to the male character in "Cold Blood", so maybe things would be different. That guy is purely a madman, where is it indiscriminate for a madman to kill people. And it's important to note that if the director who made "Be Black, Baby" thinks the script should be left as it is, then I'm sure he'll be more successful at withstanding that pressure.
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Quentin Tarantino
Qin Tian and Qiu Wenhao/Translation
Unread, Beijing United Publishing Company
New Media Editor: Yuan Huan
Pictured: Stills from the movie
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