1 of 10
Cinematography by Michael Chapman
Robert De Niro
Cybill Shepherd
Peter Boyle
Jodie Foster
Harvey Keitel
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| Taxi Driver 1 of 10 |
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| Directed by Martin Scorsese Cinematography by Michael Chapman Robert De Niro Cybill Shepherd Peter Boyle Jodie Foster Harvey Keitel |
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| This is the movie that put De Niro and Scorsese on the map. For some reason that is not obvious to me. Now don't get me wrong. De Niro's portrayal of the crazed Travis Bickle is excellent, but I doubt it requires any real range. His roles in Awakenings, The Mission, Ronin, The Untouchables, Wag the Dog, Brazil...I'd say even Rocky and Bullwinkle...require far more from him, because there is some coherent sense to his characters in those films. Which points to my real unhappiness with Taxi Driver. I am becoming increasingly convinced that, despite his amazing reputation amongst the Hollywood community, Martin Scorsese is a very, very bad film maker. He has absolutely no sense of subtlety, of appropriateness, or of restraint. And consequently, no real sense of beauty. Most of his films deal with the dark underside of the human condition, but they do so without any real insight, any new opinions, and (mostly damningly) without any hope. What is the point of doing that? I must admit that he does an excellent job of bringing violence into his stories in as pointless and unnecessary a way as possible, probably because it's popular and "cutting edge" to try and shock people like that. But everyone does it, so it's no longer "cutting edge." And his movies are filled with long, uninterrupted shots, murky visuals, and extreme slow motion. Which I usually like, especially when the camera is focusing on beautiful things. But, since he's never looking at anything even remotely beautiful - I wonder if he even thinks there is such a thing - the long shots and slow motion grate badly on the mind and on the senses. Oh. One other note about Taxi Driver specifically: the ending of this movie was ridiculous. It went against everything the story had set up�even if there wasn't much to start with. So, along with the horrible directing and editing, let's add blatant inconsistency. So I've sworn off Scorsese from now on. Unless someone can make a really compelling argument to the contrary, since Scorsese certainly can't. | ||||||