Seb Palmer

I first saw this film in my late teens, somewhere around the age of 16-18. I must admit, I found it not just shocking, but actually very traumatising, at the time.

All these years later, having just watched Rolling Thunder, I thought I’d revisit Taxi Driver. It turns out both are based on Paul Schrader screenplays. But whereas Schrader was involved throughout and liked the results, when working with Scorsese, the same was not true with Rolling Thunder.

I won’t synopsise the plot of Taxi Driver in any great depth. Most folk will know it chronicles Travis Bickle’s descent into a paranoid vigilante hell. In a NY that is sleazy and trash-ridden, the titular lonely insomniac ‘Nam vet’ unravels, with unrequited love, politics, and post ‘Nam violence all feeding into his brooding insanity.

Interestingly, the budget for Taxi Driver was less than that for Rolling Thunder ($1.9 million, as opposed to $2 million). It feels the other way around. TD is much, much, much better filmed, directed, acted, and conceived.

Music plays a very prominent part in Taxi Driver’s power. It was Bernard Herrman’s last soundtrack. He died only a few days after completing it (and the movie is dedicated to him, as a result). Jazz is frequently used to create that sleazy urban vibe, whilst sinister brooding orchestral sounds underpin the more ‘psychological’ stuff.

There’s even some contemporary mid ‘70s pop thrown in, with reference to a Kris Kristofferson track (Bickle buys the album for Betsy, the latter played by the enchanting Cybill Shepherd), and the inclusion of Jackson Brown’s song ‘Late For The Sky.’

Whereas Rolling Thunder seems, esp’ by comparison, like quite a sparse empty film, Taxi Driver is packed with layers, nuances and themes. And whilst almost all the characters in RT are wafer thin, and not too believable at that, almost all of those in TD have depth, subtlety, and are – for the most part – very believable.

Taxi Driver tells a pretty grim story, frankly. And leans heavily on such cheering themes as alienation, paranoia and violence. But it has within it many other moments. Such as the brief romance between Betsy and Travis. Which Travis swiftly ruins, by taking her on a first date to… a porno cinema.

That gets us to one area of the movie that doesn’t quite add up. Travis Bickle is a mess. Taciturn by and large. But also prone to offer unsolicited opinions very forthrightly. Clever enough to journal and make a modified handgun rail; for concealment. But dumb enough to take Betsy to a porno, for a first date!

It’s a strange movie. Very much of its time. The post hippy-era comedown from a few summers of love. It’s horribly dark. But it is also beautiful. Beautifully filmed – the opening and closing credits, for example, are gorgeous – terrifically directed and acted, and with a fantastic score.

Scorsese is, undoubtedly, brilliant, as a director. He’s fairly horrid as a character, within the movie; one of Bickle’s graveyard shift fares, seething with vengeful and racist anger. And his New York is a squalid hateful place.

But his skills as a director are sublime. The attention to detail is stunning. Witness the split second moment during the end credits, when a momentary glitch in the smooth shot/soundtrack signifies Bickle’s unsettling volitility.

And the God’s eye view of the bloody crime scene in the brothel? That’s clearly inspired by scene of crime photography. And shows both the breadth of Scorsese’s inspirations, and how he used such ideas creatively.

Just as the above mentioned aerial crime scene shot – a brilliantly conceived and executed long overhead pan – references infamous crime scene photos, so too does the poster image make what I believe to be a deliberate sly and subversive pop culture swicheroo.

I’ve not seen anyone else mention this, but what about the above? In this image we get a cold, gritty urban NY vibe. But it’s basically positive. The Taxi Driver version substitutes the lonely alienated figure of Bickle, sans girl. Still amidst brownstone tenements and traffic. But now, instead of cars and fire escapes, it’s all sleazy fleshpots. Visual poetry, but with a sour taste.

What this shows, and especially if one contrasts Taxi Driver with Rolling Thunder, is how differently similar material can be made to feel, in the hand of different creative and directorial hands. Both are very dark movies. Thunder is ok, I guess. But Taxi Driver really is a great movie.

They’re both so grim I hesitate to actually recommend anyone watch either, to be honest. But they are worth seeing. Well, Taxi Driver is.

I’ve read online that this is a movie Tarantino digs. Well, it is in parts very violent. And it’s a bit grindhouse, I suppose. But it’s also quite slow moving in parts, and fairly basic in execution.

It’s also part of what is now a massive part of the mainstream, what I’m going to call vigilante ‘revenge porn’. And that’s nothing new. A lot of Westerns are revenge based. At least the premise – two ‘Nam vets, both POWs, finally return home, and can’t assimilate – is reasonably well handled.

In fact that’s the best part of the film; exploring the fall-out from a soldier returning home to a dysfunctional, disintegrating and disappointing civilian life.

Layer on there’s a hillbilly-gangster home-invasion scene, which is pretty rough. And that’s kind of what sets up the film’s raison d’etre. It’s perhaps a bit far-fetched? But the brutality is delivered in such a basic way it does still shock.

And from there on in it gets stuck into the anger and violence, only very mildly leavened by a bit of family banality, with a young Tommy Lee Jones’ family, and Linda (played by Linda Haynes), Major Zane’s post family-massacre squeeze.

I like William Devane, as Maj. Rane, despite the rather clichéd taciturn tough guy vibe. He has sufficient grit and charisma to carry the part. TLJ, young and square jawed, is a much less developed character, almost robotically blank, in a way suggestive of prior sociopathic tendencies, in addition to post ‘Nam PTSD.

There’s a character called Cliff – he shacks up with Rane’s wife in the latter’s absence, and (inexplicably and with absolutely no tact) calls Rane’s son ‘runt’! I wrongly assumed he was being set up to be Rane’s first kill.

Personally I think the movie makers missed a trick or two in how they handled both Linda’s and Cliff’s roles in the film.

And then there’s the Mexican whorehouse denouement. This whole type scene has in itself now become something of a cliché. Maybe back in ‘77 it was a fresher idea? But there are a lot of aspects of this ending that feel half-arsed or somewhat disappointing.

And the very ending is pretty abrupt and unsatisfactory. And yet, it was an ok watch. Hardly classic. But compelling enough to want to finish.

As a postscript, it feels to me like a fairly poor riff on Scorsese’s far bleaker and far superior Taxi Driver, of 1976. So much so, I think I’ll watch the latter again, to refresh my memory. In fact it turns out that the two films share Paul Schrader, as screenwriter.

Dexter Gordon

Decided to augment my Blue Note jazz collection with a few more albums. Financial strictures mean I can’t get these as individual albums, which would’ve been nice.

Instead I’m getting two boxed sets that comprise reasonable collections – 15 albums by two artists – at affordable prices. The Dex’ set includes the following: Resurgence, Doin’ Alright, Dexter Calling, Landslide, Go, Swingin’ Affair, Our Man in Paris, One Flight Up.

Resurgence is actually a Jazzland release, not Blue Note. And Landslide, whilst recorded in the ‘60s, and released on Blue Note, wasn’t released until 1980.

Freddie Hubbard

The Freddie Hubbard set contains Open Sesame, Goin’ Up, Hub Cap, Ready for Freddie, Hub Tones, Here to Stay and Breaking Point.

Whilst the Dexter set is a complete survey of Gordon’s 1960s Blue Note output, the Freddie set omits a few: Blue Spirits and The Night of The Cookers, in particular.

I’ve passed St Edmund’s, Emneth, many, many times. And stopped to investigate more than once. But it’s always locked.

Today I sought out a keyholder. And gained entry. As ever, it was a rewarding experience.

Entry is, unusually, via the north or secondary door, not the usual porch.

The guy I got the key from, a Mr Pickles, said something along the lines of ‘there’s not much to see’. Well, there another of those Fenland Angel Beam roofs, some nice stained glass, an interesting funerary monument, and sundry other bits n’ bats.

Look at my pics closely, and you’ll see there are some decrepit areas; flaking paint, crumbling masonry. These old buildings are showing their rage, I guess. A reminder to me of my desire to join the CCT.

The main lights of the large altar end window (east facing?) are beautiful. Rather akin to stuff at Ely Cathedral, in style and colour palette. Even the plainer glass windows are beautiful.

So, yet another satisfying church visit. Oh, and it was raining. Heavily enough that it made being in the church both cosy, and sonically soothing.

I watched this tonight. I started watching Kalifornia, with Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, David Duchovny, etc. But it looked like a steaming pile of poop. So I stopped, and watched this instead.

This looks and feels pretty low budget. But it has Chris ‘Doc Emmett’ Lloyd, of Back To The Future fame, in a starring role. It’s massively unlike most mainstream fare. And that’s a very good thing.

The IMDB plot synopsis succinctly sums up the basic idea: ‘In a small Midwestern town, a troubled teen with homicidal tendencies must hunt down and destroy a supernatural killer while keeping his own inner demons at bay.’

I’m not going to bother delving any further. Suffice to say, John Cleaver (Max Records), our central young dude, is struggling with sociopathic tendencies and ‘dark thoughts’, living a fairly dysfunctional life in a nowhere Hicksville US town. And a serial-killer is preying on local folk.

There’s a dark humour at work here. And it’s also refreshingly ‘kitchen sink’, as opposed to Hollywood gloss. Apparently it’s based on a book. And I’ve read that it’s a quite faithful adaptation. I have no knowledge on that score.

The final surprise is a pretty whopping one. And takes the movie quite abruptly into territory I normally avoid like the plague. But in case anyone doesn’t know, I won’t spoil things.

Where this steers closer to other modern movies is in the several ‘sudden left turns’ aspect. Expectations are set up, only to be deftly switcheroo’ed.

This wasn’t quite what I was looking for. Nor quite what I expected. But I did think it was worth seeing. I’m still not sure what I make of it. Other than it’s refreshingly unlike most movies.

We had a picnic lunch, in the car, sat outside St Wendreda’s, today. Brie, baguette, cream of tomato soup, coffee, etc. Simple pleasures!

But no trip to York to watch The Sealed Knot re-enacting Marston Moor, alas!

Teresa was, as ever, overjoyed that I was taking snaps. Oh, well. Can’t win ‘em all, I guess?

After a very pleasant lunch, only slightly totally ruined by the spirit of ‘bonhomie’, I decided I’d go and take another look at St Wendreda’s famed angels.

So… what’s with the scattered funerary monuments? And where are all the usual graves/gravestones? Some of the stones are on the periphery of the church site. It looks and feels like they’ve been moved. Why?

And across a road at the back of the church, there’s a more normal looking graveyard. I’ll have to go check that out.

Having walked around the church, and pondered the absence of graves, or at least gravestones, we reached the entrance.

Once under the arch, and through the porch, into the church we go…

It’s worth re-visiting these churches, I’m discovering. Often you’ll see something you missed before. Or else you can just just concentrate on one aspect of the place, with that little more time/interest.

Ok, here cum the money shots…

I decided to lay down, on my back, in the middle of the church, to take most (but not all) of these shots. Really I need a much better camera, that can really zoom in. But I’ve tried to do my best, with what I have!

And a few more sundry images, to finish…

Walking back to the car we came across a rather nice old metal turnstile gate. Still working!

Patrick came over today. He and I went for a little country lane pootle. Change of scenery. Fresh air. And a lovely sunny day.

Not far from the pond, I spotted two horses in a field. Can you see them?

Ok… how about now:

Teresa and Pat are watching Dr Who. Old Tom Baker era stuff. I’m in bed!

Last night I cooked a paella. Perhaps foolhardy, having a Spaniard staying with us!? I kept it trad’, except for one or two things: I added chorizo, and the artichokes weren’t raw/fresh, but bottled (all I could get/less hassle!).

Antonio did a delicious salad, to go with it, with mango, walnuts, and balsamic vinegar. I’m not sure that his salad wasn’t tastier than my paella. Well, never mind. For dessert we had tiramisu.

After dinner we watched The Bridge at Remagen, on Amazon Prime. I have it on DVD, but it’s faulty! The old 1969 poster is sooo much better than the more modern packaging. My DVD, alas, uses the latter.

The foodie pics at the top of this post are the leftover paella and salad, which we just had for our Sunday lunch. Antonio is now off visiting Dad and Claire, with the girls. And after that, he’ll be in Spain till 5th June.

I’m still seething over what happened at Morrisons a couple of weeks ago, and the further blows life sees fit to rain upon me. And that’s making booking work with Amazon – easily and always the worst part of the job, by a margin – very dispiriting.

I’d planned to take us hup nurth, leek, to the above. The idea was to go today. But poor weather, total exhaustion, and the desolation of penury – oh, and Teresa would prefer to stay home! – all mitigate against that.

There’s a slim chance – if I could book a nice fat juicy shift today, for example – that we might be able to go tomorrow. But the odds are, alas, about 100-1 against. Hey ho!

I was doing my delivery rounds today. And what a fine day it turned into! And, as ever, various things caught my eye.

My final delivery of the afternoon was in the village of Southery, near Downham Market. My work done, I went and found the village church. Yet another bloomin’ unimaginative St. Mary’s.

The church was shut. But, not one to be deterred, I rang the churchwardens, and a guy came out with a key and unlocked it for me. Fab!

This 19th Century church isn’t as interesting to me, overall, as the kinds of church that are built on and integrate much older buildings.

Perhaps the chief attraction here is the stained glass? And, amongst the folk depicted in the windows, an unusual sight, my namesake, St Sebastian!

Whereas some Fenland churches – such as St Wendreda’s, where we live (March) – have fabulous wooden angels in their roofs, here we find a pair carved into the supports of an arch.

Also of interest are the 12 ‘stations of the cross’ roundels. And numerous written ‘inscriptions’ (inc. the one in the porch that lists the folk who worked on it).

I also found out whilst here, that there was another older church, at a site not too far away. But that it had fallen into disuse and ruin, and is now fenced off. This picqued my interest!

I wandered around the entire old church site. There’s an extensive graveyard here. But access to the old ruins is prevented by a metal fence. Even the wrought iron gate admitting one to the site/graveyard has been made inaccessible.

Careful study of these pics – it’s much easier to see when you’re there – reveals that the structure of what remains standing is visible, in veiled outline. Albeit entirely clad in greenery now.

But, it turns out that hidden under all this rampant growth is a mostly brickwork disappointment. I’ll come back to this in a bit more detail later.

When I got home I took Teresa to the chemist. We passed this amazingly vivid (livid!?) bush, en route.

That kind of shocking pink wouldn’t have appealed to me in years past. But I love it now. Nature’s fecundity, albeit here under human guidance, is a wonderful thing.

I bought the above at Tesco. From their little second hand book library. I initially thought it was a non-fiction history book. But I now realise it is in fact historical fiction.

Never mind! It’s Napoleonic, and set in 1812, against the backdrop of Napoleon’s Russian debacle. One of my particular favourite eras of history. So I shall read away, and hope it lives up to the book jacket hype.

I did say, up above at some point, that I’d say more about the slight disappointment at finding the ruins of the older church completely covered and sealed off by fences.

One would like to think that under it all lies a medieval gothic wonder, or something even older. But, as the two pics above (which I found here) attest, much of this ‘older’ church is a much later red-brick repair.

Anyway, as ever, a trip to a church – or churches? – proves to be deeply interesting, and richly rewarding. Even when neither church is top drawer.

At the end of my delivery shift this afternoon, as I left the final drop, a gaggle of geese were crossing the country lane I was driving back up.

It looked like a primary school crossing. Only missing a lollipop lady. The geese and their furry little goslings were very cute to see.

And a little later, I spotted the two horses, pictured above. The black and white one was originally stood sideways on, and looked more impressive that way. But by the time I’d got my phone trained on him, he was facing me.

Much more annoying than that, however, was missing a potentially fab snap of said horse with a heron flying up and out of the river, at the same spot. My reflexes just weren’t quick enough. Dang it!

Still, lovely to see a few critters.