Best Actress in a Supporting Role 1976: Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver

Jodie Foster received her first Oscar nomination for her performance as Iris Steensma in Taxi Driver.

Taxi Driver is an amazing film about a mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran who works as a taxi driver in New York and decides to act against what he perceives as decadence and filth. This is a just a phenomenal movie that I already loved the first time but that I loved even more on a rewatch and it's unquestionably my favorite movie of 1976. Martin Scorsese's snub for Best Director is probably one of the worst in Academy history and as much as I love The Omen's score I think Bernard Herrmann should have won for his incredible work in this. The cinematography is also fantastic.

Jodie Foster plays Iris, a twelve-year-old prostitute that Travis (Robert De Niro) encounters for the first time when she jumps in his cab and asks him to take her away before her pimp "Sport" (Harvey Keitel) arrives and carries her off. Her first appearence is extremely brief, yet Jodie Foster manages to leave an enormous impact making Iris a vivid presence that hangs all over the movie even when she is off-screen. Despite her performance being somewhat iconic, Foster barely appears for much of the time and her longest scenes are in the movie's last half an hour; however, thanks to her actress' talent and Scorsese' skillful direction, Iris becomes a haunting and tragic figure that is never forgotten by the viewer despite having uttered just a couple of lines. She has another brief appearence in the middle of the movie that isn't really anything that substantial but that helps to build up to her bigger moments later on in the movie, and when those moments finally come Foster is absolutely up to the challenge of living up to that build up.

In her first scene with Travis, whom she believes is just a client, Jodie Foster is absolutely terrific as her acting feels forced in the best way possible: it's not forced because of inexperience or awkwardness as an actress and it's not excessively phony, just a little too calculated perfectly showing that almost everything that Iris says is a put on. She truly gave me the impression of a child trying to act like an adult which is exactly how I felt Iris was supposed to appear. Her flirtatious attitude towards Travis and her nonchalant attitude while she utters lines like "I must have been stoned" feels properly disingenuous and the all the while Foster injects the character with the right amount of loneliness and vulnerability, two qualities of Iris that she gradually reveals throughout this scene and the following ones. Her best scene in the movie is probably the scene that follows, when Iris and Travis have breakfast together: Foster is amazing as she reveals Iris for her true self - the careless, bold attitude is gone and in front of our eyes we see a normal twelve year old girl. Foster is just excellent as she portrays Iris as warm, bright, likeable and even funny: there's a heartbreaking touch of naivety in her performance as Iris fantasizes about what she could do if she ever got away (Iris says she can leave whenever she likes, but Foster painfully shows that even she knows it's not true) and chats with Travis about the Zodiac signs. Her chemistry with De Niro is also absolutely top notch: both actors are excellent in this scene as they easily make it the bright spot of the movie as the two characters find a moment of solace in their miserable lives and mutually understand and share their loneliness. Foster's line-delivery of "I don't who's weirder, you or me" is both funny and heartbreaking because of how genuine and spontaneous it feels. Her next scene with Harvey Keitel is also brilliantly acted by Foster who does a terrific job at showing how Iris is so easily manipulated by Sport: it's probably the movie's most disturbing scene and she is devastating at wordlessly conveying Iris' desperation. Foster perfectly delivers at portraying Iris' neediness and loneliness - she wants to believe Sport's words, because she really hasn't got anyone else. Her acting in the final scenes is also realistic and terrifying and she adds a lot of pathos and emotional weight to them. 

Iris Steensma could have been a passive and forgettable character, a mere plot device that causes Travis to finally snap. There are also a lot of questions in the movie that are left unanswered - for example, why did Iris ran away from home in the first place? Yet Foster delivers an absolutely amazing performance gradually revealing the vulnerability behind her façade. It's a fantastic, startling performance that is easy to take for granted but is actually an outstanding achievement. 

5/5