Robin Williams: Also, as many people don’t know it, but one of Marty’s eyebrows was
used to make the mohawk. Look at his eyebrow and tell me that’s not that same mohawk.
I’m Tyler, this is the CinemaTyler show and today we are taking a look at… this.
One of the most famous scenes in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is that camera tilt to reveal
that Travis Bickle, a man who is slowly losing it, a man who would not take it anymore, has
shaved his head into a psycho mohawk.
But did you know that this was actually a wig and you can actually go visit it? I never
realized it was a wig until I first saw it in person. I was like,
What’s that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?
I mean, did they shave his mohawk off and make it into a wig to just to show at this museum?’
The thing that blew my mind is that, not only is this a wig, but De Niro is also wearing
a bald cap. He has a full head of hair under there. De Niro wasn’t able to actually shave
his head because he was just about to start a new movie and he needed a full head of hair (Vulture).
Oh yeah?
So let’s pay our respects to this magnificent relic in the church of cinema.
Scorsese: Yeah, the reason he had to do it as a wig, he couldn’t hut his hair because
we were shooting so fast because he had to go on to do The Last Tycoon and so we had
to make a wig and Dick Smith was the one who did it.
That’s right, the wig was made by the legendary makeup artist Dick Smith who also did the
old age makeup in The Godfather, The Exorcist, Amadeus, and a ton of other stuff. The production
had Dick Smith do a test and it worked.
Scorsese said in a panel with De Niro, “I remember I was in the other room and I had
fallen asleep while he was working on the headpiece or whatever it is…
And then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I opened my eyes and you were there with this thing, and
it was terrifying!” (Vulture)
So this is the Museum of the Moving Image, which you’ll recognize from a couple of
my other videos, but the wig is right in there, so let’s go check it out.
And here it is.
This is THE mohawk from Taxi Driver.
It was a gift from Dick Smith
and you can see that the wig is still affixed to the bald cap that De Niro wore.
And not a lot know this, but it’s kind of like a seashell, if you put your ear up to it, you can kind of…
can you hear that?
So you can see here, this is the kind of adhesive that they used to glue the wig onto the bald cap,
but this vial here— this is actually pieces of hair that they would kind of spray
onto the bald cap when there’s glue on it, to kind make that stubble effect.
But what’s interesting is that most of the stubble was drawn on
by an eyebrow pencil by Dick Smith himself.
Apparently, they made sure to make it look like Travis did it to himself instead of a
professional job. That’s why it’s a little scraggly (Shmoop). Kinda looks like a merkin,
but you know, Robin Williams already made that joke, so let’s never speak of it again.
It’s crazy to think that Dick Smith was able to make this look realistic.
I mean the guy was a fickin’ genius.
Never thought I’d be so excited to see some hair glued to a piece of rubber, but here we are.
As you’ll remember, Travis is a Vietnam veteran.
In an interview De Niro said, "A friend of [Scorsese’s], who was in special forces
at that time, would do HALO [high altitude] diving into Cambodia, or Laos, or whatever.
And he showed us a picture of he and his outfit and a couple guys had mohawks, or at least
one or two of them did, as I remember.” (Vulture)
The friends’ name was Victor Magnotta who told Scorsese and De Niro about the significance
of the mohawk in the American military over dinner (IMDb). Magnotta was a stuntman and
sadly, he died while performing a stunt for a 1987 movie called “The Squeeze” (IMDb).
What’s interesting is that the hairstyle doesn’t come from the Mohawk or Mohican
tribes of Native Americans, but instead it more resembles hairstyles from a tribe known
as the Pawnee (Wiki).
The mixup came from an old 1939 Hollywood movie called ‘Drums Along the Mohawk’
with Henry Fonda (Wiki). The Mohawk and Iroquois confederacy of tribes actually had a square
patch of hair on the back of the head (Wiki). The hair was pulled out bit by bit instead
of shaved to get this look (Wiki).
World War One was the first time American soldiers were required to fully shave their
beards and cut their hair to a maximum of one inch long— one of the main reasons for
this was so that they could get a good seal with the gas masks that were so key to their
survival (Defense Media Network).
In World War Two, many members of the 101st Airborne Division “Screaming Eagles” wore
a Mohawk haircut (Mohawks Rock). This paratrooper division was one of the most important to
the Ally’s victory in the war (Mohawks Rock). Half of the men who volunteered were
“killed, wounded, or captured” during the D-Day jump, but the mission was a success (Mohawks Rock).
These guys are from the Filthy Thirteen — a demolition section of the 101st Airborne Division.
Every one of them wore a mohawk haircut. The Filthy Thirteen were called that because they
would go a whole week without bathing at a time because they wanted to use their water
rations for cooking the animals they killed from a local estate (Wiki). They wore the Mohawks
and war paint because Sergeant James McNiece was part Choctaw (Wiki). The life of James
McNiece was used as inspiration for the Dirty Dozen (Wiki).
It seems that historically, the main purpose for the appropriated Mohawk hairstyle is to intimidate.
Travis' haircut is supposed to signify that the person that Travis has kept
hidden for so long is finally coming out. You’ll remember that the first time we see him
with the mohawk is when he is really considering assassinating Palentine.
The screenwriter, Paul Schrader talked about writing about Travis
as a form of [quote] “self-therapy”—he said,
“There was a person I was afraid of becoming… It really does show that art
has therapeutic powers” (The Guardian).
Thanks so much for watching and make sure to subscribe if you haven't already
because next time we'll be talking about the insane production
of Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979).
And head on over to Patreon where I made a little video of me trying to recreate the Taxi Driver mohawk
using some cheap materials from a costume shop.