Taxi Driver (2 Disc Special Edition) [1976]

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk
Taxi Driver is the definitive cinematic portrait of loneliness and alienation manifested as violence. It is as if director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader had tapped into precisely the same source of psychological inspiration ("I just knew I had to make this film," Scorsese would later say), combined with a perfectly timed post-Watergate expression of personal, political, and societal anxiety. Robert De Niro, as the tortured, ex-Marine cab driver Travis Bickle, made movie history with his chilling performance as one of the most memorably intense and vividly realized characters ever committed to film. Bickle is a self-appointed vigilante who views his urban beat as an intolerable cesspool of blighted humanity. He plays guardian angel for a young prostitute (Jodie Foster), but not without violently devastating consequences. This masterpiece, which is not for all tastes, is sure to horrify some viewers, but few could deny the film's lasting power and importance. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

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Customer reviews

review by: J.Pike date: 2008-10-16 rating:
One of the greatest films ever. 5 Stars.
A truly great film deserving of the maximum 5 stars.

Controversy surrounded this film upon it's release and it's easy to see why upon watching. They just don't make films like this today.

I can't think of a bad thing to say about any part of the film. Keep an eye out for Scorsese's 2 cameo appearances during the film.

If you want to see what New York was like in the 1970's grime and all, buy this film.

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review by: A soul doctor, so to say date: 2008-04-01 rating:
A new validity for this film in this new electoral year
1976 was a funny electoral year. One year after the full defeat in Vietnam and the evacuation of Saigon on the run. Two years after the resignation of Nixon, to avoid an impeachment that would have led to the very first conviction of the President. 1976 was the year when all had to changed, and nothing really changed because the establishment just looked for a way to save face and restore the everyday standard imperialistic power, and of course that will fail with Jimmy Carter, but Scorsese could not know it though everyone knew that success would be a miracle. What's more, success in that line was doomed in the long run. It was not yet possible to know what was going to happen in China, but we could know it was going to change, even if it was quite clear that the Soviet Union was not going to change at all, even if we could not know the industrialized feudal soviet system was going to fall down the chute, was going to be flushed down the drain. That was what Scorsese meant with his crossroads but he did not know how many roads there were in that crossroads nor where they led nor of course which one to take. But one thing was sure in those days: the US were going to take a road that did not lead to any confrontation with their real historical mission which is to create democracy through freedom in a system that had to improve itself all the time because it knew perfection did not exist in this world, be it only because perfection is divine and cannot be found in a non-divine world, in a human world, what's more in a human sinner's world. It was sure the US were not going to face their historical fate and their inner problems and their inner challenges like for example the racial problem, like for example the education of their young, like for example the control of violence, like for example a health care system that was more than necessary. The film is a vague echo of that particular challenge with the allusion to the welfare system, because that was where the US stood at the time: helping the poor. But Warhol had already exposed that problematic solution by showing in his films how vain, hypocritical and corrupted the welfare system was in the US, and that could not be an objective for the US, an objective they could put in their constitution in the form of a new amendment, the only way to really improve the system is by making it constitutional since then to repeal such an amendment is particularly difficult. But the film has aged tremendously since today the US have reached the end of that road, the bad road they chose in 1976. They are deep in the mud of a new war (the Buddhist have a nice saying about elephant getting caught in mud) that has been rejected by the world from the very start, they are confronted to the emerging of a world power they will have to share responsibilities with sooner or later so let it be now, the famous BRIC, Brazil, Russia, India and China, and that has to be done straight away since that BRIC is already the first economic power in the world and will be the first political power in the world within a few years. What's more the US is deeply agitated by the necessity to finally come to terms with the racial divide and the racial problem, by the obligation to provide all Americans with a full health care system, by the duty to provide every American with the possibility to educate themselves even if the government has to cut the military budget to do that. The good old three objectives of equality, good health and education in a system that would recapture freedom and democracy, both having been impaired and limited in the process of the US negating history in order to impose their own self centered epiphanic power. But what does Scorsese envisioned beyond 1976? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The system was defeated in a way. That's why the film has aged since the US and Americans finally have the chance today to be able to choose the road that would lead to their finally getting to political adult age.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

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review by: The music, book and film fanatic date: 2007-11-12 rating:
Superb Oscar-Winning Films. One of Scorsese's strongest
(Warning: This film contains one blood glore scene, gun references and strong language, it is also has a rather dark and depressing theme, so please be careful when viewing if you may be affected by this)

Taxi Driver cemented the second masterpiece in my opinion from director, Martin Scorsese after his work on low budget Mean Streets in 1973. Taxi Driver is chilling, grasping, realistic and horrifying to say the least. Travis Bickle, a former US navy solider, back on US soil, applies to become a New York taxi driver, to reduce his paranoysis and insomnia from travelling on public transport every night. Here he discovers, the country landscape and appearance have declined and it is falling into derelict ruin, which he is determined to save........

Taxi Driver was a controversial film, which tackled the heavy themes of lonliness, depression and intorable to violent motivies and actions. The basis was to show how a polluted driven city like New York City with a mix of wealth, an underworld and povetry slums, make people like Travis feel annoyed with the way they had been abused, betrayed and treated by the government. Travis was in no means, a nice person, he was repulsive, depressive, arrogative and crazy, his personality was a flaw, he presented himself as one who needed assistant to get back on track, he didn't care, he wanted people to care about him, he also became vulenrable to violence and sex to preserve his mood. Maybe this was the time that unreleased his true flavour.

However, his obession to warrant attention to improve the mean streets of New York he has come back to from being a Vietnam Vet, gives the audience the impression he does cares, shows loyalty and respect to the people of the city despite the fact he no longer believes in his country's attitude. No matter what we think of Bickle who intially is described as being cold, callious and fierce we are made to be sympathic with his cause (could this be a reference to Peeping Tom, a film Scorsese loved by Michael Powell) trying to understand the man behind the face and the sad life he leads.

Robert DeNiro in one of his most famous and well-loved performances is the stick thin Travis Bickle. DeNiro gives Bickle a rebellious mind, long cold stares and the opportunity of warmth as a means to care to hide his resentment for blowing up in anger in his pathetic but troubled life. Jodie Foster shines as the spoilt and dependant hooker, Iris and Peter Boyle gives a wonderful turn as the witty Wizard whom Travis looks up to as a legend.

Taxi Driver has a neatly balanced narrative to express Travis' somber tone of his morbid personal thoughts of the washed away reds and oranges that dominate the neon look of the New York underworld. The editing also emphasised heavily on his own montions during his taxi hours, showing how nervous, worn and battered he was starting to look as the night progressed.

Bernard Hermannan whom the film was dedicated to, provides a beautiful and soothing score (his last) which describes the failed man that Travis Bickle is in life. Starting off with a prominant percussion drum roll highlighting the taxi coming into view observing which blends down into a love ballad. Played by a saxophone of the lonely eyes of the farout dreams Travis can only wish for consisting mainly of a good job, a well governed country and family, how he is only making a desperate living to keep himself alive to hold on.

Taxi Driver is truly one of the finest films of the seventies. The lasting appeal can apply to both five Oscar nominations and winning the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1977 which the film did. A must-have.

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review by: The Amazon Reviewer date: 2007-09-29 rating:
A man called Travis Bickle
Would anyone be able to relate to Travis Bickle ? He`s a freak show , a fantasist and a loner who watches porn films in cinemas with a cola in one hand and a candy bar in another and to all intents and purposes is an assassin and a stalker , but he also strikes a cord with any man who`s been angry and young and rejected . He`s an outsider that society has turned its back on : " Why won`t you talk to me " is the heartbreaking question every young angry man screams at the world when he`s very alone

Despite the flawed ending of the screenplay ( Which is superb untill the last ten minutes ) this is still a movie masterpiece with Scorsese getting an acting tour de force from his cast . Jodie Foster as a child who sells her body on the streets of New York , a totally disturbing , brilliant performance , and DeNiro and Keitel in the same movie !


review by: stipesdoppleganger date: 2007-08-20 rating:
"Gods lonely man"
A little known fact about Martin Scorsese,s 1976 masterpiece is that singer Neil Diamond was actually considered for the role of Travis Bickle by one studio when it was being hawked around .How different the film would have ended up should that piece of casting borne fruit is hard to envisage .Suffice to say it wouldn't have become the definitive study of alienation and madness that it did. Instead of the famous" You talking to me?" mirror scene (incidentally , improvised by De Niro, but actually inspired by a scene in the classic western "Shane")we would probably have ended up with a toe curling gun as a microphone vocal number. I like Diamond incidentally as a singer but he would have ended up doing the soundtrack instead if Bernard Hermann's eerie score as well. It doesn't bear thinking about in all honesty .
Thankfully history decreed that the legendary pairing of Scorsese and De Niro re-united for the film ,indeed Scorsese was given the film only on the proviso that he could he bring De Niro on board .Brian De Palma had been slated as director but a viewing of "Mean Streets" changed the studios mind. The film is centred on a screenplay written in five days by Paul Schrader and contains elements of autobiography -Schrader suffered from depression and self enforced isolation for months after moving to L.A, also developing an obsession with guns and porn theatres.
Travis Bickle is a Vietnam veteran who returns to New York(he is originally from the mid-west)and works the night shift as a taxi driver. A chronic insomniac , he prowls the neighbourhood during the day as well , cruising round and visiting porn theatres. He is disgusted by the everyday sights he see's on the streets" whores, skunk pussies ,b***ers, queens , fairies"etc and longs for a "real rain " to come and wash the scum off the streets. He forms a tentative relationship with Betsy (Cybil Shepherd) ,an aide to New York senator Charles Palantine(Leonard Harris) , who is running for the presidential nomination . She rejects him after he takes her on a date to a porn film , a move that shows us early on that Bickle is a man disassociated from society's norms, , and this triggers his descent into vigilantism and violent assertiveness .
Bickle buys a small arsenal of weapons and becomes obsessed with saving a 13 year old prostitute Iris( Jodie Foster).He fixates his anger on Iris's pimp Sport(Harvey Keitel. The pimp was originally meant to have been black but it was felt it would append a racist undertone to the film so it was changed) a man who he thinks is "The worst sucking scum I have ever seen ". Their brief exchanges vibrate with tension and awkwardness. Bickle then , for rather murky reasons decides to assassinate Palantine , cutting his hair into a Mohawk in thrall to his marine past- a man on a mission ready to act out the " bad ideas in my head". When this fails he descends further into psychosis until he returns to the brothel where he knows he will find Iris and goes on a killing spree thus saving her from her degrading existence.
The ending , with Travis feted as a hero and meeting up with Betty again is viewed by many as a fantasy sequence but I feel it serves as an allegorical commentary on the vagaries of fate though Schrader has said it is a commentary on how criminals can become celebrities . Had Travis shot Palatine , as he originally intended, he would have been a figure of loathing , as it is he is feted as a hero and through that comes some sort of redemption, a common theme of Scorsese films.
This DVD comes complete with numerous documentaries, the most revealing of which is a 15 minute piece with Martin Scorsese . There is also a Paul Schrader commentary which is useful from a narrative point of view but misses out the nuances a director can bring .The interviews with other directors and stars about Scorsese is fascinating and the film score is also included which is a nice bonus.
Taxi Driver is not an easy film to like but it is magnetically compelling and a quite brilliant piece of cinema , with Scorsese utilising lots of cinematic quirks to put the audience in Bickles head. There is barely a moment in the film where he isn't centre stage. It also helps that the performances particularly those of De Niro, who is magnetically subtle in his delineation of his characters escalating madness, and Foster are so magnificent. It is ultimately a study of alienation and loneliness , how one person even in a place teeming with others can be become disenfranchised and isolated or as he puts it "Gods lonely man". In an increasingly , or so it would seem amoral society, where innocent people are in mortal danger just from standing up for what is just this film connects more than ever. Travis Bickle is delusional and borderline insane but his desire to have the scum washed off the streets evinces more sympathy now than it did then I would suggest. There is a kernel of Travis Bickle in most of us , that we are all "Just waiting for the sun to shine".

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