Adrien Brody would watch one movie forever: “I’ve seen it about a zillion times”
Winning an Oscar is one thing, but winning more than one is a whole different ball game.
In the ‘Best Actor’ category, only 11 stars have won twice or more, with only one of those names having done so from just two nominations, and his name is Adrien Brody.
Both of Brody’s victories came from playing exceptional characters; in The Pianist, he portrayed the real-life figure Władysław Szpilman, a Polish Jew who was able to survive both the Nazi invasion of his homeland and a subsequent spell in a concentration camp.
Then, 22 years later, Brody played another (fictional) Holocaust survivor, László Tóth, in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, which delivered him his long-awaited second Oscar, which he marked by giving the longest acceptance speech in Academy history that made him look like a bit of a tit.
It turns out that Brody has been receiving inspiration from another double Oscar-winner for his entire career. Speaking to author Cindy Pearlman for her book, You Gotta See This: More than 100 of Hollywood’s Best Reveal and Discuss Their Favourite Films, he spoke about his youth and his love of Robert De Niro, and a particularly favourite of his is Taxi Driver, one of the Italian-American idol’s many collaborations with Martin Scorsese.
“I love that De Niro plays Travis Bickle as the ultimate lonely guy,” he said, “All of us wish we could free ourselves from those feelings. The movie is amazing because it just breathes the truth, yet it’s also very visual, very stylised, and has a lot of subtlety and honesty. The characters are tragic, I guess. Tragedy is fascinating to me. I find this… is a way to process tragedy in my own life. This movie is what still attracts me to characters that exist in their own lonely worlds.”
Bickle, the primary protagonist of the movie, is a young man living in New York City after his return from the Vietnam War. Despite serving his country as a Marine and receiving an honourable discharge from the army, he cannot get a job and feels betrayed, which feeds into his ‘angry young man’ persona, something De Niro brought to life with a fascinating combination of rage and anguish, easily making him one of the greatest movie characters of the 1970s, if not all time.
Much has been written about how Bickle has influenced not just movie culture, but popular culture at large, with his memorable “You talkin’ to me?” monologue spoofed, parodied, and paid homage to more times than anyone can keep track of. The character has appeared in art, music, TV shows, literature, you name it. Scriptwriter Paul Schrader’s decision to base the character on Arthur Bremer, who tried to assassinate politician George Wallace in 1972, came full circle when John Hinckley Jr was dressed as Bickle when he shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
There’s a reason why Travis Bickle’s name comes up time and time again when discussing great movie characters and performances, and ff he’s good enough for Adrien Brody, then he’s good enough for me.
