“I’m Walking Here”: 25 Famous Unscripted Movie Scenes

Did you know that Dustin Hoffman’s line “I’m walking here!” from Midnight Cowboy (1969) was not in the movie script? Similarly, Robert De Niro came up with the classic “You talkin’ to me” line in Taxi Driver (1976). Check out this video to hear other classic unscripted movie scenes. The captions provide some additional explanations.

What is your favorite unscripted movie scene? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Taxi Driver Music: Late for the Sky

    This week was Jackson Browne’s birthday on October 9, so this post celebrates his birthday and wraps up our series on Taxi Driver music. Previous posts have touched on music from Van Morrison and Kris Kristofferson that influenced Martin Scorsese in the making of Taxi Driver. In this final post on our “Taxi Driver Music” series, we consider a song that the director actually used in the film, Jackson Browne’s “Late for the Sky.”

    In a scene in Taxi Driver after Travis Bickle has shot a man who was robbing a store, he sits at home, alone with his gun, watching American Bandstand. The scene reflects his loneliness and isolation, emphasized by the contrast between Bickle and the scenes on the television screen where young men and women embrace each other as they dance. It is the dance of life, and Bickle has isolated himself in a way that excludes him from the simple joys of life. And that isolation is leading him into a spiral of madness.

    Interestingly, in watching the dancing on the television, it does not appear to me that the dancers actually are dancing to “Late for the Sky.” Their movements do not seem to match the song, so maybe Scorsese wanted to use the song “Late for the Sky,” so he found an American Bandstand clip that most closely matched the song. Or I may be wrong and the dance is to “Late for the Sky.” Watch the clip for yourself and decide.

    “Late for the Sky” is the opening and the title track from Jackson Browne’s album, Late For The Sky (1974). Even without the visual of the lonely insane man with a gun watching lovers dance, it is a sad song. Browne sings about the end of a relationship: “Awake again, I can’t pretend / That I know I’m alone, / And close to the end / Of the feeling we’ve known.”

    Jackson Browne Late for the Sky Relationships may end in different ways, but often instead of a sudden explosion, they end after a time of drifting apart. Then, one wakes up one morning and wonders what happened “in the bed where we both lie,” which is a great line that may be read with at least three different meanings because of the different definitions of “lie” (including the old expression about sleeping in the bed one makes).

    Finally, in the song, Browne asks, “How long have I been sleeping? / How long have I been drifting along through the night? / How long have I been running for that morning flight / Through the whispered promises, and the changing light / Of the bed where we both lie,/ Late for the sky.” It is a beautiful song of loss, and its overall tone perfectly fits the loss Scorsese wanted to convey in Taxi Driver.

    So ends our third and final post about the relationship between music and what Martin Scorsese called “a movie about a man who hates music.” If you missed the previous posts, check out the post on how Van Morrison’s album Astral Weeks influenced Taxi Driver and the post on the role played by Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33.”

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    Taxi Driver Music: “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33”

    Martin Scorsese made deliberate choices in the music for “Taxi Driver,” including Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33.”

    Taxi Driver Music In a recent post, we discussed the link between Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and the movie Taxi Driver (1976). In this post, we consider a musical connection between the movie and another song: Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33.”

    In Taxi Driver, perhaps the one moment a viewer might think that there is a slight bit of hope for Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) is when he first courts Betsy (Cybill Shepherd). After he charms her into going to a diner for a bite to eat, she quotes a song: “He’s a prophet, he’s a pusher… partly truth and partly fiction… a walking contradiction.” Bickle focuses on the “pusher part,” saying he has never been a pusher, but she explains she brought it up for the “walking contradiction” part. Bickle is amused, and a later scene shows him at a record store, apparently buying the album, which he later gives to her on their next date.  And then he ruins the date by taking her to see a pornographic film.

    Although we do not hear the song or the name of the song in those scenes, the quote is from Kris Kristofferson’s song “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33,” which was off of his second album, The Silver Tongued Devil and I (1971). The album’s biggest hit was “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again),” and the album also included Kristofferson’s version of “Jody and the Kid.”

    “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33,” which was not a hit for Kristofferson, has held up well through the years. A number of artists have covered the song, including Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Jerry Lee Lewis (with Kristofferson).

    When a tribute CD was put together for Kristofferson, they took the song for the title of the CD, The Pilgrim: A Celebration Of Kris Kristofferson. On that album, in the introduction to the title track, Kristofferson explains that he wrote that song “for a good friend of mine, Donny Fritts [Kristofferson’s long-time keyboard player], and Dennis Hopper and Johnny Cash. . .” and then he goes on to list a number of people ranging from Ramblin’ Jack Elliott to Mickey Newbury to “maybe me and I guess my father.” As Kristofferson has aged and seeped into musical legend as one of our classic country elders, the song seems to be more and more about him.

    It is a beautiful song, and while like Astral Weeks it is not completely in sync with the story of Travis Bickle, you can see where Martin Scorsese got a little inspiration from the song. Like “Madame George,” the song “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” also contains some of the themes of isolation and loneliness that Martin Scorsese tried to capture in Taxi Driver.

    Kris Kristofferson Silver Tonged Devil He has tasted good and evil in your bedrooms and your bars,
    And he’s traded in tomorrow for today;
    Runnin’ from his devils, Lord, and reachin’ for the stars,
    And losin’ all he’s loved along the way;
    But if this world keeps right on turnin’ for the better or the worse,
    And all he ever gets is older and around,
    From the rockin’ of the cradle to the rollin’ of the hearse,
    The goin’ up was worth the comin’ down.

    Like many of Kristofferson’s songs, it works as pure poetry. His lyrics in “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33,” describe a man of contradictions, leaving much room for interpretation.

    I have never read an explanation for the “Chapter 33” in the title, but I suspect it is a reference to a man being near the end of his life, just as Chapter 33 will fall near the end of a book. Perhaps that is why the song seems to describe so many of the brilliant artists mentioned by Kristofferson in the introduction mentioned above.

    May we all be so lucky that the going up is worth the coming down.

    In another performance, Kristofferson interprets the song with a more upbeat version of the song with a full band.

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    Did you Know Taxi Driver Was Inspired by Astral Weeks?

    Astral Weeks Van Morrison Taxi Driver Director Martin Scorsese once claimed that the first fifteen minutes of the movie Taxi Driver (1976) were inspired by Van Morrison’s album Astral Weeks (1968). How is this violent movie connected to one of the most beautiful albums of all time?

    Sources About the Connection

    One of the main sources for the link is the essay, “Save the Last Waltz for Me,” where Greil Marcus wrote about the documentary The Last Waltz (1978) and hanging out with Martin Scorsese. The essay was originally published in New West (May 22, 1978) and reprinted in Marcus’s book, Bob Dylan: Writings 1968-2010 (p. 79).

    Several Internet sources claim that the “first half” of Taxi Driver is based on Astral Weeks.  These sources may be perpetuating misinformation from Wikipedia based on a later Marcus interview.  Instead, Marcus’s 1978 essay actually asserts that much less of the movie is based on the album.

    According to Marcus’s story, Scorsese put on the album when Marcus was visiting. “Madame George” came on:

    Down on Cyprus Avenue,
    With a childlike vision leaping into view,
    Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe,
    Ford & Fitzroy, Madame George
    Marching with the soldier boy behind;
    He’s much older with hat on drinking wine,
    And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through
    The cool night air like Shalimar;
    And outside they’re making all the stops;
    The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops,
    Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops.

    Scorsese said, “That’s the song.” He explained, “I based the first fifteen minutes of Taxi Driver on Astral Weeks, and that’s a movie about a man who hates music.”

    The First Fifteen Minutes of Taxi Driver

    During the first fifteen minutes of Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) drives around the dirty 1970s New York streets.  He applies for and gets the job as a taxi driver. Writing a letter, he describes how he cannot sleep at night and that after his shifts he has to clean off the back seat of his taxi.

    Additionally, we see Bickle going to a pornographic movie.  There, he unsuccessfully tries to strike up a conversation with the woman who works at the concession stand.

    Interpretations of “Madame George”

    Critic Lester Bangs wrote an outstanding essay about Astral Weeks that gives some insight, even though he does not address the Taxi Driver rumor. But he did write about the “desolation, hurt, and anguish” in “Madame George.”

    Bangs called the song, “Possibly one of the most compassionate pieces of music ever made, it asks us, no, arranges that we see the plight of what I’ll be brutal and call a lovelorn drag queen with such intense empathy that when the singer hurts him, we do too.” He added, “The beauty, sensitivity, holiness of the song is that there’s nothing at all sensationalistic, exploitative, or tawdry about it.”

    A number of writers have offered various interpretations of the song “Madame George.” And Van Morrison has reportedly disputed some of the interpretations.  But a piece in Rolling Stone correctly asserts that “Madame George” is “a cryptic character study that may or may not be about an aging transvestite but that is certainly as heartbreaking a reverie as you will find in pop music.”

    The Connection Between Movie and Song?

    So what is the connection between the movie and the ambiguous song? Part of the connection seems to be that both are about lonely men wandering the dirty streets.

    There is heartbreak in both the movie and the song, so the connection seems more of tone than a literal connection. In his essay, Bangs also declined to “reduce” the other songs on the album by trying to explain them.

    You should read Bangs’s essay, but I will follow his lead and not try to explain the unexplainable any further. But the next time you watch Taxi Driver, think of the poetry found in the misery.  And reflect on the beauty of both the film and Astral Weeks.

    Check out our other posts on connections between music and the movie Taxi Driver: Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” and Jackson Browne’s “Late for the Sky.”

    Another Scorsese-Morrison Connection and Bonus Information About Taxi Driver: Martin Scorsese later used Van Morrison’s music for the beginning of another movie, Bringing Out the Dead (1999).  That film features some similarities to Taxi Driver.  Bringing Out the Dead opens with the main character driving a vehicle, although in this movie it is an ambulance instead of a taxi, and he is played by Nicolas Cage. During the scene, the music playing is Van Morrison’s “T.B. Sheets.” Regarding Taxi Driver, Obsessed With Film recently posted “50 Reasons Why Taxi Driver Might Just Be The Greatest Film of All Time.”

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