"All the animals come out at night" -- and one of them is a cabby about to snap. In Martin Scorsese's classic 1970s drama, insomniac ex-Marine Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) works the nightshift, driving his cab throughout decaying mid-'70s New York City, wishing for a "real rain" to wash the "scum" off the neon-lit streets. Chronically alone, Travis cannot connect with anyone, not even with such other cabbies as blowhard Wizard (Peter Boyle). He becomes infatuated with vapid blonde presidential
campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who agrees to a date and then spurns Travis when he cluelessly takes her to a porno movie. After an encounter with a malevolent fare (played by Scorsese), the increasingly paranoid Travis begins to condition (and arm) himself for his imagined destiny, a mission that mutates from assassinating Betsy's candidate, Charles Palatine (Leonard Harris), to violently "saving" teen hooker Iris (Jodie Foster) from her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel). Travis' bloodbath turns him into a media hero; but has it truly calmed his mind? Written by Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver is an homage to and reworking of cinematic influences, a study of individual psychosis, and an acute diagnosis of the latently violent, media-fixated Vietnam era. Scorsese and Schrader structure Travis' mission to save Iris as a film noir version of John Ford's late Western The Searchers (1956), aligning Travis with a mythology of American heroism while exposing that myth's obsessively violent underpinnings. Yet Travis' military record and assassination attempt, as well as Palatine's political platitudes, also ground Taxi Driver in its historical moment of American in the 1970s. Employing such techniques as Godardian jump cuts and ellipses, expressive camera moves and angles, and garish colors, all punctuated by Bernard Herrmann's eerie final score (finished the day he died), Scorsese presents a Manhattan skewed through Travis' point-of-view, where De Niro's now-famous "You talkin' to me" improv becomes one more sign of Travis' madness. Shot during a New York summer heat wave and garbage strike, Taxi Driver got into trouble with the MPAA for its violence. Scorsese desaturated the color in the final shoot-out and got an R, and Taxi Driver surprised its unenthusiastic studio by becoming a box-office hit. Released in the Bicentennial year, after Vietnam, Watergate, and attention-getting attempts on President Ford's life, Taxi Driver's intense portrait of a man and a society unhinged spoke resonantly to the mid-'70s audience -- too resonantly in the case of attempted Reagan assassin and Foster fan John W. Hinckley. Taxi Driver went on to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but it lost the Best Picture Oscar to the more comforting Rocky. Anchored by De Niro's disturbing embodiment of "God's lonely man," Taxi Driver remains a striking milestone of both Scorsese's career and 1970s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
[Scorsese] seems to need scripts with well-designed humor and performers with the spirit of Ellen Burstyn to compensate for what seems to be a fundamentally depressed view of life and the belief that sobriety is the equivalent of seriousness.
Martin Scorsese's history-making scald is truly a phenomenon from another day and age. Which is to say, imagine a like-minded film of this decade killing at the box office and getting nommed for Best Picture.
Taxi Driver is a brilliant study of alienation, obsession, paranoia and perverse desire. There's an undeniable power and grittiness that very few films have come close to capturing since.
The bustling helter-skelter of Scorsese's Mean Streets gives way to a measured, chilly calm, and cinematographer Michael Chapman ensures the Big Apple glistens with barely concealed menace.
Hitchcockian unease permeates the film, but so too does a Godardian use of space and a Bressonian focus on obsession heighten the mounting sense of dread.
This DVD Limited Collector Edition of Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece contains many bonus features, such as docu about the making of the film, analysis of themes of alientaion and loneliness, interviews with Scorsese, star De Niro and writer Paul Schrader
... a portrait in psychosis and dislocation with a protagonist whose racism and intolerance becomes his excuse to unleash his anger in a violent spree under the guise of heroism.
Writer Paul Schrader and director Martin Scorsese made names for themselves with this exquisitely crafted window into the contemporary male psyche. Taxi Driver seems aimless, taking as many u-turns and detours as a cabby does in the night. But it's
Martin Scorsese's eerily disturbing, greatly thought provoking and entirely unrestrained jewel; Taxi Driver, is one of the most powerful character study drama's in film history. "Someday a real rain will come and wash this scum off the streets". That's my favourite line from the film and also among the best i've
ever heard. A hard hitting inspiration that all film makers who have crafted masterpieces envy. There is quite simply no flaws to it. The iconic performances from DeNiro and Foster and the inspiring direction prove the artistic and raw brutalness of cinema.
April 29, 2012
Directors Cat
Super Reviewer
An absolute captivating movie. "Taxi Driver" is an incredibly complex, dark, psychological character study of a mentally unstable man. Robert De Niro is the character. He is absolutely mesmerizing and entertaining to watch on screen. This is filmmaking at its finest. For those that have not seen it, I highly recommend
watching an old but great movie. Don't let its age scare you away; this is Martin Scorsese's masterpiece.
Sport: Well, take it or leave it. If you want to save yourself some money, don't fuck her. Cause you'll be back here every night for some more. Man, she's twelve and a half years old. You never had no pussy like that. You can do anything you want with her. You can cum on her, fuck her in the mouth, fuck her in the ass, cum on her face, man. She get your cock so hard she'll make it explode. But no rough stuff, all right?
Travis Bickle: I first saw her at Palantine Campaign headquarters at 63rd and Broadway. She was wearing a white dress. She appeared like an angel. Out of this filthy mess, she is alone. They... cannot... touch... her.
Travis Bickle: Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up.
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Luke: Alright. I'll give it a try. Yoda: No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.
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