Martin Scorsese as Passenger Watching Silhouette in Taxi Driver (1976)
Providing cameo appearances in his own movies has almost been one of Martin Scorsese’s directorial trademarks over his long and distinguished career. He pops up in various guises during Mean Streets, The King Of Comedy, The Age Of Innocence, Gangs Of New York, and Hugo, among many others, but it is his brief performance in Taxi Driver that stands out – not only in that film – but in over five decades of filmmaking.
Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is the titular cabbie. During the movie, we see him begin to slowly unravel as he winds his way through the dark and dangerous streets of New York City. In a brief interlude, however, he picks up a smartly presented businessman and listens to him talk as he drives him to his destination. The destination is the street outside an apartment block, where the passenger urges Bickle to observe the silhouette of a woman in a window. The woman is his wife, and the apartment belongs to another man.
As Bickle sits in silence, the passenger (Scorsese) unleashes a verbal cascade of racism and violent misogyny so chilling that he makes the obsessive Travis Bickle seem like a reasonable guy. Having listened to the upsetting torrent of hatred, Bickle performs the simple, wordless act of adjusting his rear-view mirror, which prompts the passenger to acknowledge Bickle’s judgement – repeating the phrase, “You must think I’m pretty sick,” again and again. Bickle remains silent, but is visibly disturbed.
The power of this particular cameo is two-fold. Firstly, it serves the purpose of enhancing our understanding of Travis Bickle. He is reacting to what he hears in his taxi cab in a way that allows us to connect with him. He is not a monster – he is shaped by his past experience and his current days spent wading through the detritus of a damaged city. Secondly, having been utterly absorbed by this compelling scene, we suddenly realize that we have seen an acting masterclass from a director, who can more than hold his own in a scene with one of the greatest actors of his generation, performing one of his most iconic roles.