Taxi Driver

*

This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1994.

Warning! Mature Content! This following work contains material and themes that may include coarse language (albeit censored due to New Qualitipedia rules), sexual references, and/or graphic violent images that may be disturbing to some viewers. Mature articles are recommended for those who are 18 years of age or above. If you are 18 years old or above, or are comfortable with mature content, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another one. Reader discretion is advised.

"Scorsese’s New Hollywood classic, a brutal neo-noir, comes from a different New York: dirty, hardscrabble, crime-plagued, longing for relief. Travis Bickle wants to wipe the city clean, but would he be happy with the shiny, money-slick Big Apple of today? The definitive portrait of an American era."

— MUBI's take

Taxi Driver
Genre: Neo-noir Psychological drama Thriller Directed By: Martin Scorsese Produced By: Michael Phillips Julia Phillips Written By/Screenplay: Paul Schrader Starring: Robert De Niro Jodie Foster Albert Brooks Harvey Keitel Leonard Harris Peter Boyle Cybill Shepherd Cinematography: Michael Chapman Distributed By: Columbia Pictures Release Date: February 9, 1976 Runtime: 114 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $1.9 million Box Office: $28.6 million

Taxi Driver is a 1976 American neo-noir psychological drama thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, and Albert Brooks. Set in a decaying and morally bankrupt New York City following the Vietnam War, the film follows Travis Bickle, a veteran working as a taxi driver, and his deteriorating mental state as he works nights in the city.

Why It Rocks

1. Martin Scorsese had been working in film for over ten years before 1975, but his Hollywood productions were disappointments on a creative level, and his independent films failed to fulfill his vision, partially due to their small budgets, but also because Scorsese was still developing his style. Taxi Driver is different, as Scorsese and his cast and crew were all veterans who knew how to use the machinery of moviemaking.
2. The film's script was written during a period of prolonged depression in which Paul Schrader, the screenwriter, was living in a car and frequenting all-night porn theaters for a place to sit. After an ulcer led him to a hospital emergency room, he finished a draft in ten days, tying his own experiences to a fairly conventional romantic formula. He later described the plot as a sort of existential conundrum for cabbie Travis Bickle, who's attracted to a woman he can’t have and dismissive of the available woman. According to him, the taxicab was a metaphor for loneliness. What excited movie executives who read the script was the transgressive nature of the story. Not only did Schrader fill his script with porn theaters, but he also made a central character a twelve-year-old prostitute.
3. De Niro has a lot of research done for the film, driving a cab at night and talking with other drivers, and Keitel interviewed a pimp.
4. An unforgettable and iconic performance from Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, with the film conforming to his stardom.
5. Cybill Shepherd was chosen to play Betsy and was used the way she was in The Last Picture Show -- as an icy, unobtainable object of desire. Despite the empowerment themes in his previous film, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Scorsese wasn't interested in the female characters for this film. This was a film about lonely men, how they deluded themselves about women, and how in their eyes the search for a personal connection was debasing and ultimately hopeless. The entire film is from Travis Bickle's point of view.
6. Ironically, Scorsese and his crew were capturing a New York City that was rapidly disappearing as most of the streets and buildings were being replaced/updated. But in a way, the film also shows a New York that has always existed, one with the same grit and desperation that was featured in early films. This was partly due to the extraordinary cinematography by Michael Chapman. Now considered one of the premier visual interpreters of New York, Chapman has a brilliant grasp of lighting, especially in difficult circumstances, and an ability to find visual equivalents for narrative situations.
7. Bernard Herrmann's score added a depth and poignancy not present in Scorsese's earlier work.

Comments

Loading comments...