The film Text copyright (c) Filmverdict 2006-present. Any film titles and artwork used are copyright of their respective owners.
Robert De Niro's surprisingly bogus Mohawk hairstyle is certainly not as attractive as say, Marilyn Monroe's wind-blown skirt or Sean Connery's fully-suited and booted James Bond, but to universal filmgoers it's a striking piece of movie iconography. In fact, all 114 minutes of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver are remarkable and the chef d'oeuvre will indeed stay with you forever - every time the Big Apple's finest (Bobby and Marty), taxicabs, or even New York are mentioned in your daily routine, flickers from the chronicle of God's Lonely Man will surface.
Travis Bickle (De Niro) is cinema's best-executed and most famous anti-hero. With so many sensational turns during his extraordinary career, one should be excused for labelling Bickle as De Niro's greatest performance because it is seemingly an impossible and immeasurable task, but the Vietnam-vet-turned-chronic-insomniac-cabbie plants the seeds of über violence, alienation and indistinct subjectivity future De Niro characters came to perfect. De Niro makes Bickle into a person uncomfortable to watch - an attribute screenwriter Paul Schrader wanted to inflict upon the viewer as the loner's story is a nightmare without background answers. Why does he want to venture into the ugly societal underbelly of New York? Murder, prostitution, firearms, drugs, and pornography are all explored as Scorsese invites personal interpretation - scars from 'Nam, mental instability, and cultural disillusionment are all subconscious suggestions but are never fully justified causes for his chaotic mind and frenzied actions.
If you didn't realise already, Taxi Driver isn't simply a masterclass in acting. With assistance from the other half of the film's majestic partnership, Bickle isn't just De Niro's creation. Borrowing from Antonioni, whilst Bickle is trying to ask Betsy (a hearty Cybill Shepherd) on an unlikely date, Scorsese draws the camera away to focus on an empty hallway. The maestro is symbolically turning away from Bickle's plight and treating his existence as a pathetic lost cause in addition to indirectly saying how using camera time on an empty space is more appealing than watching a loser do what he does best. Every directorial flourish Scorsese contributes is a dazzling triumph. The haunting darkness of the urban mise-en-scène complements Bernard Herrmann's chilling score magnificently, the cadence of Bickle's increasingly eccentric actions matches the intensity of his downward spiral into insanity, his secondary players (Harvey Keitel's Matthew, Jodie Foster's Iris, and even Albert Brooks' Tom) all ooze distressing comedy in different ways and upsetting naivety in the latter two cases, and Marty's knowledge of New York's geography shines through. Sun-kissed 1970s New York has been captured astonishingly - America's premier city is certainly cosmopolitan but Scorsese illustrates an applicable and yet agonising sense of inequality, friction and strife below the tourism guidebooks.
Kudos should also be bestowed upon Schrader's excellent script. Granted, Marty and Bob took the bull by the horns and worked to make Travis and his plight their own, but the talented UCLA alumnus dished up the curveball of originality in the first place when his pen rendition of God's Lonely Man was caressed upon the hit-or-miss format of paper - every screenwriter has a nightmarish headache when he cannot fully express 'faultless' ideas onto the hallowed turf. Luckily for the annals of filmdom, Schrader's determination ran straight over any minor glitches and he punched out movie gold in a few rapid weeks.
With the wisdom of hindsight, Taxi Driver solidifies Scorsese's reputation as one of cinema's greatest ever auteurs with his talents shining through in one of cinema's greatest ever works. De Niro justifies his unchallenged position as one of film's super heavyweight players, and Taxi Driver also kick-started a young Miss Foster's illustrious career. All in all, Marty's case study of Travis Bickle is one of budding torment. The urban psychological drama should be painful to view but it's utterly unmissable.
The extras
Columbia has really stepped up the quality in the transition between the Standard and Special Editions. The excellent 70 minute 'Making Of' featuring all of the main players is still a fixture but everything else on the jam-packed two discs is new-fangled. The only thing missing from the set which would make it as near to perfect as humanly possible is a Scorsese commentary track. The two talkies on the first disc are admirable however - Schrader obviously knows his stuff with his effort and Robert Kolker (author of "A Cinema of Loneliness") adds yet more information on proceedings with an intellectual edge. "Martin Scorsese on Taxi Driver" is fine as one learns how the director's vision was influenced by Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, "Producing Taxi Driver" has a nice interview with director Michael Phillips, "God's Lonely Man" is a wonderful exploration of the protagonist's actions and psyche, "Influence and Appreciation" is a grand admiration of Marty's filmography, "Taxi Driver Stories" are fascinating tales from former and current New York cabbies, "Travis' New York" has some good contributions from former mayor Edward Koch about 1970s New York, "Travis' New York Locations" is a decent then-and-now look at the film's Manhattan sites, and the storyboard feature is of interest to view the filmmaking process. This is a great package with everything included that you could ever ask for, apart from a Marty track. The two efforts from Kolker and Schrader are superb however and cannot diminish the 5 star rating the entire set deserves.
The summary
"You talkin' to me?" repeats Travis in the film's most famous and highly imitated improvisation scene. Never has motion picture dialogue been so relevant without breaking the fourth wall as Marty's masterwork will talk to everyone on some level. Taxi Driver is absolutely crucial, outstanding, and chilling must-see cinema.
Agree? Disagree? Say so in the Guestbook!