Tagged: Snap-Down Shirt
Taxi Driver: Travis Bickle’s M-65 Field Jacket
Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976)
Vitals
Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, disturbed taxi driver and Vietnam War veteran
New York City, Spring to Summer 1976
Film: Taxi Driver
Release Date: February 9, 1976
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Ruth Morley
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Martin Scorsese’s violent meditation on loneliness, Taxi Driver, was released 50 years ago today on February 9, 1976—one day after its New York City premiere. Fresh off of his Academy Award win for The Godfather Part II, Robert De Niro received a second career nomination for his portrayal of “God’s lonely man” Travis Bickle, a troubled Marine Corps veteran who combats his insomnia by driving a taxi through the decaying streets of 1970s New York.
After his poorly conceived attempts to woo a sophisticated political campaign volunteer are understandably rejected, Travis refocuses his attention on the pre-teen prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster), whom he attempts to dissuade from her current profession. Meanwhile, Travis’ paranoia grows to the point that he drops just under a thousand dollars on a quartet of handguns that range in power and concealment—his scattered plans ranging from political assassination to a brothel massacre, all the while practicing his heavily armed bravado in his disorganiz-ized home:
“You talkin’ to me?”
Sam Shepard’s Denim Western-wear in Fool for Love
Sam Shepard in Fool for Love (1985)
Vitals
Sam Shepard as Eddie, rodeo stunt rider
Mojave Desert, Spring 1985
Film: Fool for Love
Release Date: December 6, 1985
Director: Robert Altman
Wardrobe Credit: Kristine Flones
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today marks eight years since the death of 10-time Obie Award-winning actor, director, and writer Sam Shepard, who died July 17, 2017 at the age of 73.
As someone who loves movies set in motels and thinks that Shepard and Harry Dean Stanton were two of the coolest guys to have walked on this planet, I had long been intrigued by Robert Altman’s 1985 adaptation of Shepard’s own play Fool for Love, starring Shepard and Stanton opposite Kim Basinger. Continue reading
“Hey, Mr. Sporting Goods!” Llewelyn’s Fancy-Striped Shirt in No Country for Old Men
Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men (2007)
Vitals
Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, ex-welder and Vietnam War vet on the run
El Paso, Texas, Summer 1980
Film: No Country for Old Men
Release Date: November 9, 2007
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy 57th birthday to Josh Brolin! Born February 12, 1968 to casting director Jane Cameron and actor James Brolin, Josh starred in The Goonies as a teen before his career resurgence as an adult following his celebrated performance as Llewelyn Moss in the Coen brothers’ 2007 masterpiece No Country for Old Men, faithfully adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name. Continue reading
Midnight Cowboy: Jon Voight as Joe Buck
Jon Voight as Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Vitals
Jon Voight as Joe Buck, naïve Texan wannabe gigolo and Army veteran
New York City, Summer through Winter 1968
Film: Midnight Cowboy
Release Date: May 25, 1969
Director: John Schlesinger
Costume Designer: Ann Roth
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Harry Nilsson recorded his cover of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin'” 57 years ago this week on November 13, 1967. This Grammy-winning folk hit has since become inextricably linked with the 1969 drama Midnight Cowboy—which celebrated its 55th anniversary in May—after director John Schlesinger chose it as the film’s theme song.
Adapted by Waldo Salt from James Leo Herlihy’s 1965 novel of the same name, Midnight Cowboy received a controversial if critically acclaimed response upon its release. Six months earlier, the MPAA implemented its voluntary rating system to classify age suitability for major releases, replacing the increasingly outdated “Hays Code” that had been enforced since the early 1930s. Midnight Cowboy was one of the first mainstream movies to be rated “X”, which forbade any audience members under age 17 to be admitted and was reserved for movies demonstrating the most extreme sexual themes, graphic violence or language. Despite the stigma of this dramatically restrictive rating, Midnight Cowboy was the third highest-grossing American movie released in 1969 and won three of the seven Oscars for which it was nominated—Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay—and it remains the only movie with an X (or equivalent NC-17) rating to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Continue reading
Kris Kristofferson’s Brown Suede Jacket as Cisco Pike
Kris Kristofferson on the cover of his 1971 album The Silver Tongued Devil and I, photographed by Baron Wolman the previous year while in costume for Cisco Pike (1973).
Vitals
Kris Kristofferson as Cisco Pike, down-on-his-luck musician and former drug dealer
Venice Beach, California, Fall 1970
Film: Cisco Pike
Release Date: January 14, 1972
Director: Bill L. Norton
Costume Designer: Rosanna Norton
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
He’s a poet, he’s a picker, he’s a prophet, he’s a pusher, he’s a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he’s stoned. He’s a walkin’ contradiction—partly truth and partly fiction—takin’ every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.
In tribute to the late outlaw country icon who died one month ago today at the age of 88, I recently received a great suggestion from a BAMF Style reader to cover the style that Kris Kristofferson wore in Bill L. Norton’s directorial debut Cisco Pike. Continue reading
Inherent Vice: Doc’s Blue Denim Western Shirts
Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello in Inherent Vice (2014)
Vitals
Joaquin Phoenix as Larry “Doc” Sportello, hippie private investigator
Los Angeles County, Fall 1970
Film: Inherent Vice
Release Date: December 12, 2014
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Costume Designer: Mark Bridges
Background
Adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s novel of the same name, Inherent Vice premiered as the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival ten years ago today on October 4, 2014, two months before its initial public release.
“Doc may not be a do-gooder, but he’s done good,” the trailer describes of the protagonist Larry “Doc” Sportello, the stoner sleuth played by Joaquin Pheonix who reprised his Oscar-winning role of Arthur Fleck in Joker: Folie à Deux, released in theaters today.
Five years before he first donned Joker’s clown makeup, Phoenix framed his face in mutton chops as the scraggly beach-dwelling private eye spurned into action by visits from his estranged ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), first to ask his help in protecting the real estate developer she’s been seeing. Continue reading
Rolling Thunder: William Devane’s USAF Lightweight Blue Jacket
William Devane in Rolling Thunder (1977)
Vitals
William Devane as Major Charles Rane, twice-traumatized Vietnam War veteran and “one macho motherfucker”
Texas and Mexico, Summer 1973
Film: Rolling Thunder
Release Date: October 7, 1977
Director: John Flynn
Wardrobe Credit: Nancy McArdle
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
You learn to love the rope. That’s how you beat ’em. That’s how you beat people who torture you. You learn to love ’em. Then they don’t know you’re beatin’ ’em.
Today is the 85th birthday of William Devane, the talented Albany-born actor who appeared in the rare starring role in the 1977 revenge-centered action thriller Rolling Thunder.
Written by Paul Schrader and Heywood Gould as an intended expansion of the Travis Bickle Cinematic Universe that began in Schrader’s script for Taxi Driver, Rolling Thunder centers around Major Charles Rane, a United States Air Force pilot returning home to San Antonio after seven years of imprisonment and torture in a Hanoi hellhole.
“He’s unemotional, unresponsive, and stoic to the point of not being among the living,” writes Quentin Tarantino in Cinema Speculation, the volume that introduced me to Rolling Thunder. Continue reading
Bill Paxton in Twister
Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt in Twister (1996)
Vitals
Bill Paxton as Bill Harding, experienced storm chaser-turned-weatherman
Oklahoma, Summer 1996
Film: Twister
Release Date: May 10, 1996
Director: Jan de Bont
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
With its standalone sequel Twisters starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell now arriving in theaters, let’s revisit the original Twister, Jan de Bont’s 1996 blockbuster centered around a group of storm-chasers pursuing and researching tornadoes across Oklahoma.
Our lead storm-chasers are the star-crossed Jo (Helen Hunt) and Bill Harding (Bill Paxton), in the midst of a divorce as Bill seeks to leave his dangerous storm-chasing days as “The Extreme” and settle into a more comfortable life as a TV weatherman with his new fiancée Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz). “New job, new truck, new wife, it’s like a whole new you!” Jo observes as Bill arrives in his new Dodge Ram truck to request that she sign the papers to finalize their divorce.
In the meantime, Jo and her team are preparing to deploy their innovative tornado-measuring device—the realized execution of Bill’s original concept, nicknamed “Dorothy”—into the record-breaking storms wreaking havoc through Oklahoma. Continue reading
Glen Powell in Hit Man: Gary’s Western-Inspired Wardrobe as “Ron”
Glen Powell as Gary Johnson in Hit Man (2023)
Vitals
Glen Powell as Gary Johnson, mild-mannered psychology professor moonlighting as an undercover police contractor
New Orleans, Fall 2022
Film: Hit Man
Release Date: May 24, 2024
Director: Richard Linklater
Costume Designer: Juliana Hoffpauir
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
After a limited two-week run in theaters, Hit Man debuted on Netflix at the beginning of this month and quickly became the service’s #1 most-watched movie in the U.S. The screenplay by director Richard Linklater and star Glen Powell fictionalizes the life of Gary Johnson, a college professor and successful “fake hitman” whose undercover police work led to more than 70 arrests of people seeking the services of a contract killer.
Hit Man is Linklater’s second cinematic depiction of stranger-than-fiction true crime based on a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth (the first was Bernie in 2011), though the production and setting were moved from Houston to New Orleans to take advantage of Louisiana tax credits.
Described in the epilogue as the “chillest dude imaginable,” the real Gary Johnson—whom the same epilogue is sure to insist was never actually involved in any murders—died in 2022 at the age of 75 before getting to see this dark comedy that riffed on his life story.
Though sensationalizing his life for dramatic purposes, Hit Man includes many details from Johnson’s life, like his cats Id and Ego, his unassuming politeness, and the random opportunity that elevated him to the city’s most in-demand assassin who signals his identity to prospective clients with a single response phrase:
All pie is good pie.
Taxi Driver: Travis Bickle’s Tanker Jacket
Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976)
Vitals
Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, disturbed taxi driver and Vietnam War veteran
New York City, Spring to Summer 1976
Film: Taxi Driver
Release Date: February 9, 1976
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Ruth Morley
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy International Taxi Driver Day to all cabbies whose alienation doesn’t drive them to a violent murder spree shooting up a brothel! This observance commemorates when the first gas-powered taxi cabs reportedly arrived on the streets of London on March 22, 1907.
The profession was immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver, written by Paul Schrader and filmed on location in New York City during the scorching summer of 1975. Two years after his first Academy Award win (for The Godfather, Part II), Robert De Niro received his second Oscar nomination for his performance as Travis Bickle, the lonely Marine-turned-cabbie whose PTSD, insomnia, and paranoid psychosis becomes a dangerous powder keg in the squalid decay of 1970s New York. Continue reading
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