{"id":671134,"date":"2026-07-03T06:07:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T06:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/671134\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T06:07:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T06:07:24","slug":"taxi-driver-rocky-other-bicentennial-movies-have-modern-echoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/671134\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘Rocky,’ other bicentennial movies have modern echoes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Movies can also serve as warnings or premonitions. You can draw a line between the plots of the bicentennial\u2019s best picture nominees and the realities of today. To wit:<\/p>\n

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In 1976, the nominees were about distrust in the American government due to corruption; incels; television capitalism run amuck; a guy who sang about socialism and against fascism while trying to help the poor; and a promotional fighting event celebrating America\u2019s bicentennial. <\/p>\n

In the real world of 2026, fascism is in fashion, there\u2019s a Democratic socialist mayor in New York City and similar candidates are winning primaries. Billionaires are buying up television stations and other media while all manner of questionable reality TV programs continue to be broadcast. Every other major YouTube channel and podcast seems to be run by some angry straight white dude blaming everyone but himself because he can\u2019t get laid.<\/p>\n

(As for that promotional fighting event celebrating an American anniversary, I direct your attention to what\u2019s left of the White House lawn.)<\/p>\n

\"RobertRobert De Niro in “Taxi Driver.” Handout<\/p>\n

The real world of 1976 wasn\u2019t a bed of roses, either. The country was in the midst of an energy crisis and dealing with the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate. Desegregation and racism were still major issues. And on the tech front, Apple and Microsoft were founded, which meant very little at the time but would have serious repercussions today. <\/p>\n

A massive party honoring America was a welcome distraction in 1976. The bicentennial celebration seemed like a much bigger deal, and a much more united effort, than this year\u2019s festivities. But then again, in 1976 I was an optimistic 6-year-old who got excited when I found a bicentennial quarter in my Mom\u2019s change purse. And the New York City celebration was indeed impressive. I am neither 6 years old nor optimistic now, but that doesn\u2019t change the realities of 2026.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the bicentennial festivities, 1976 was still part of a decade where movies were daring enough to have unhappy endings. You weren\u2019t guaranteed a good time at the movies, and audiences found that feature cathartic. The year\u2019s box office grosses bear that out.<\/p>\n

\"SylvesterSylvester Stallone in the 1976 United Artists film “Rocky.”UNITED ARTISTS<\/p>\n

The year\u2019s number one movie, \u201cRocky,\u201d and its number 10 movie, \u201cThe Bad News Bears\u201d both bucked the win-at-the-end sports movie clich\u00e9. The last movie to be released in 1976, \u201cKing Kong,\u201d had its protagonist in love fall to his death, but the box office grosses still landed the movie in fourth place. Barbra Streisand was a widow at the end of the worst remake of \u201cA Star Is Born,\u201d the third-highest-grossing movie of 1976. <\/p>\n

And at number 7, there was \u201cThe Omen,\u201d the horror classic that proved Atticus Finch was no match for the Antichrist. Evil prevailed when Satan\u2019s kid, Damien Thorn, outsmarted his adopted father, played by Gregory Peck. Jerry Goldsmith\u2019s Oscar-winning score assisted the demonic little brat, even if its Oscar-nominated song, \u201cAve Satani\u201d should have gotten Goldsmith\u2019s knuckles slapped by a nun\u2019s ruler for its improper Latin grammar.<\/p>\n

Oddly enough, some of the darkest movies of 1976 had what could be considered a happy ending.<\/p>\n

\"RobertRobert De Niro (as Travis Bickle) in “Taxi Driver.”Columbia Pictures\/Photofest<\/p>\n

Take \u201cTaxi Driver,\u201d for example. The first of the five best picture nominees to open, Martin Scorsese\u2019s<\/a> nightmarish tour through New York City at its most rundown premiered in February. Robert De Niro\u2019s Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle became the poster boy for lonely, alienated men. Marty and screenwriter Paul Schrader tried to elicit sympathy for this guy in the famous pan<\/a> that accompanied Travis\u2019s awkward phone call to Cybill Shepherd\u2019s character, Betsy, a woman he had earlier taken to a porn movie on a date. The audience bought it!<\/p>\n

\u201cTaxi Driver\u201d also has a subplot involving a 12-year-old girl forced into sex work played by Jodie Foster. She\u2019s saved from bondage during Bickle\u2019s last-reel killing spree, a sequence that scared the MPAA into initially giving the movie an X rating. The film\u2019s final moments show Travis being hailed as a hero and driving Betsy home as a fare. He seems at ease, at least temporarily. I\u2019ve always questioned if this was all in his mind; wherever it is, it\u2019s a happy ending of sorts.<\/p>\n

\"DustinDustin Hoffman (left) as Carl Bernstein and Robert Redford as Bob Woodward in the 1976 film “All the President’s Men.”AP<\/p>\n

As much as I love the \u201cRocky\u201d franchise \u2014 and \u201cTaxi Driver\u201d is my second favorite Scorsese \u2014 the movie I would have voted for if I had an Oscar ballot would have been \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men.\u201d That movie feels like the most unrealistic one of the bunch nowadays. Since I am an incurable cynic, I can imagine a version on today\u2019s corruption showing Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman\u2019s reporters yelling \u201cFAKE NEWS\u201d while Deep Throat stomps out his cigarette and leaves that garage in disgust. <\/p>\n

Still, director Alan J. Pakula ends the most suspenseful movie about journalism with the Nixon resignation teletype headline we all knew was coming. The film neglects to mention Ford\u2019s full pardoning of Nixon, so I\u2019m calling it a happy ending.<\/p>\n

\"ActorActor Peter Finch (bottom right) appears on a television screen with television commentators (clockwise from bottom left) Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, and Howard K. Smith in a still from the 1976 film “Network.”MGM Studios\/Courtesy of Getty Images<\/p>\n

Though shockingly prescient in 1976<\/a>, \u201cNetwork\u201d has lost all of its satirical sting. Today, screenwriter Paddy Chayevsky\u2019s howl of rage now plays like a documentary, especially Ned Beatty\u2019s spectacular monologue<\/a> to Peter Finch\u2019s Howard Beale. \u201cYou have meddled with the primary forces of nature, Mr. Beale! And I won\u2019t have it!,\u201d Beatty\u2019s corporate head, Arthur Jensen yells in the film\u2019s best scene. Beale himself is a precursor to the current glut of \u201cinfluencers\u201d powerful enough to sway audiences into doing their bidding. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s no wonder \u201cRocky\u201d won best picture. After all that heaviness, it must have felt like a breath of fresh air. However, had Sylvester Stallone scripted that his boxer protagonist won the fight, I guarantee you that something else would have won. The loss made it OK for the Academy to bestow best picture on a film that was, at its heart, a remake of \u201cMarty\u201d with boxing gloves. <\/p>\n

What I find most amazing about \u201cRocky\u201d is that its symbol of American success is Apollo Creed. A Black man is the film\u2019s upper class representative versus the working class world of Rocky. Granted, Muhammad Ali was the inspiration for Creed, but this still seemed striking in 1976. Stallone would really lean into Apollo being as American as apple pie in the 1980s Cold War phantasmagoria that is \u201cRocky IV,\u201d but you know what happens to Apollo in that one. <\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Carradine as Woody Guthrie and Melinda Dillon as Mary Guthrie in the 1976 film “Bound for Glory.”United Artists<\/p>\n

As for \u201cBound for Glory,\u201d the Hal Ashby movie everyone forgets when they try to list the best picture nominees released in 1976: That gorgeous looking movie (it won the Oscar for cinematography) is a super-fictionalized biopic about Woody Guthrie (David Carradine), the folk singer who wrote \u201cThis Land Is Your Land.\u201d \u201cThis land was made for you and me,\u201d Guthrie sang, a line that may have been true in theory but never in execution. <\/p>\n

Guthrie wrote \u201cThis machine kills fascists\u201d on his guitar. Imagine how that would play today. The most forgotten of the 1976 best picture nominees might be the most controversial one of all in 2026.<\/p>\n

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Movies can also serve as warnings or premonitions. You can draw a line between the plots of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-671134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}