Daily Dialogue — August 23, 2010

Travis Bickle: [Travis is trying his guns on the mirror]: Huh? Huh? [Draws] Faster than you, fucking son of a… Saw you coming you fucking… shitheel. [Reholsters] I’m standing here; you make the move. You make the move. It’s your move… [Draws] Don’t try it you fuck. [Reholsters] You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talking… you talking to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Oh yeah? OK. [Draws] 

 — Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro), Taxi Driver (1976), written by Paul Schrader

The Daily Dialogue theme this week is characters talking out loud to themselves, suggested by Greg Colburn, who also suggested Taxi Driver.

Trivia: The scene where Travis Bickle is talking to himself in the mirror was completely ad-libbed by Robert De Niro. The screenplay details just said, “Travis looks in the mirror.” Martin Scorsese claims that he got the inspiration for the scene from Marlon Brando mouthing words in front of a mirror in Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967).