“You talking to me?” The story behind Robert De Niro’s most quoted line
“Travis looks in the mirror.” This was the only scene-setting description in the script of 90 of the most famous seconds in cinematic history. All that Robert De Niro had to go on. Not a single line of dialogue was written for what is now surely Taxi Driver’s most famous scene.
There are in-depth technical descriptions of how Travis Bickle constructs DIY drawing mechanisms for the various weapons on his person in the scene. Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader has said this is because he was “very enamoured of guns” at the time.
Indeed, the script goes into enormous detail explaining how Travis “practises fast-drawing the .38 Special”, “hooks the .44 into his pants,” and “has worked out a system of metal gliders taped to his forearm”. But it doesn’t give any direction whatsoever about what Travis says.
As the film’s director, Martin Scorsese has confirmed on multiple occasions, the crazed dialogue between Travis and himself in the mirror all came from the actor. “You talking to me?” was completely De Niro’s own invention.
Scorcese recently told Stephen Colbert that the film’s producers almost stopped the scene from happening altogether, due to shooting running behind schedule: “We were in such trouble. And they were banging on the door, and I had to go to the door, open the door and go ‘This is good, this is good. Give me five…two more minutes. One more take. One more take.’”
You can hear animated voices and noises in the background of the scene, likely of the producers trying to shut down the shoot, as De Niro continues to act. “And he was improvising it, and I was at his feet because there was no video assistant at the time,” Scorsese explained.
He also recalled that the scene was shot on Columbus Avenue in New York, in a condemned building that has since been knocked down. As De Niro comes up with his famous line, you can hear the sound of an aeroplane passing over the city. Other sounds from the street create the sense of Travis being hemmed into his tiny apartment from all sides.
The background chatter, banging, plane noise, and street sounds not only add authentic atmospherics to the scene. They undercut Bickle’s grandiose posturing to himself with a sense of cruel irony, hinting at the source of the loneliness and alienation that have led him to lose touch with reality. “Well, I’m the only one here,” Travis tells himself accusingly, as voices, rustling, and white noise bounce off the floor and walls around him.
Why De Niro decided to go in exactly this direction with the scene is still up for debate. But one theory that Scorcese believes may bear out is that the actor got the line “Are you talking to me?” from Bruce Springsteen’s live performances at the time. Springsteen would engage the audience by interjecting with the line during his song ‘Quarter to Three’.
Whether or not that story holds water, we can say for sure that De Niro’s off-the-cuff utterance captured the essence of Travis Bickle’s character better than any other. And created one of the most often imitated moments in cinematic history.
