What’s Aged the Worst?
John Hinckley; Palantine campaign posters; porn-theater date scene; porn theaters; Jodie Foster playing a 12-and-a-half-year-old prostitute; taxis
In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 01:02:01Read transcript
- John Hinkley became anchored to the film: five years later he tried to kill President Reagan to impress Foster after seeing the movie many times, and it postponed the 1981 Oscars, where De Niro was about to win for Raging Bull, by a day.
- The idea of blaming culture for horrible events has not faded; Schrader and Scorsese argue that blaming the movie evacuates everyone else's responsibility. — Sean Fennessey
- An uncomfortable Matt Lauer interview around an anniversary had Foster decline to talk about Hinkley; it messed her up and she stepped back for a couple of years; Hinkley is called maybe the best example ever of aged worst.
- The Palantine 'We Are the People' posters are almost intentionally bad and maybe go too far, answered with a 'make America great' joke.
- Asked what happened when he took his future wife to the porn film on a date, the reply jokes that they got married that night. — Sean Fennessey
- The porn-theater date scene has aged worse and is skin-crawling; one participant goes to the bathroom whenever it plays in a theater.
- The camera dollying away down the hallway during Travis's call to Betsy felt like the movie could not bear to watch, and seeing it in sixth grade turned one participant into a full movie fanatic.
- Porn theaters where strangers watched together in the 70s and 80s are impossible to explain to people under 25.
- Foster playing a 12-and-a-half-year-old prostitute is handled well, but the Keitel dance scene is uncomfortable from a parent's view; the next year's Pretty Baby with Brooke Shields raised the same question.
- The girl who grabs Iris near the cab was the real teenage prostitute who served as her technical advisor, part of the film's honesty.
- Taxis may not exist in 10 years; Schrader recalled a New York audience cheering the title, but with ride-sharing taxi drivers no longer hold the same place, like making a movie about a samurai.
- The film made another taxi-driver movie nearly impossible, likened to how The Shining ruled out a hotel-caretaker story.