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Bookmark this pageTaxi Driver (1976)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Movie review
From Time Out London
It’s almost tempting to see this reissue of Martin Scorsese’s uncomfortably visceral, neon-lit portrait of psychotic urban alienation as the NFT’s sly riposte to ‘Superman Returns’ – a lesson in the dangers of unchecked Messianism and the urge to cure a sick world. In fact it’s showing as part of the season devoted to composer Bernard Herrmann, whose remarkable score – completed hours before his death in December 1975 – offers our best chance of understanding increasingly unhinged zero-tolerance cabbie Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) on his own terms.A vet who takes to nocturnal cab-driving as a distraction from chronic insomnia, Bickle is a casualty of the sex war as well as Vietnam, seeking to ‘rescue’ first Presidential campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) and then juvenile prostitute Iris (12-year-old Jodie Foster, already adept at spinning humiliation into self-reliance) from what he perceives as the cesspit of Manhattan. Scorsese offers a fair bit of support for this perspective, from the banal closed-mindedness of Bickle’s fellow drivers to the director’s own cameo as a murderously jealous passenger.
Initially, De Niro’s performance is a masterclass in contained indignation and a creepy willingness to be amused; Herrmann’s bluesy saxophone voices Bickle’s world-weary romanticism even as cymbal and snare crescendos hint at seismic ructions rumbling underneath. Once set on a course of self-aggrandising retribution, the score echoes his determination, with martial horns and drums unnervingly offset by the hysterical harp of a self-appointed avenging angel. Yet when the metal trap into which Bickle has translated his body is sprung, the resulting carnage – still horrific two decades on – unfolds without music, before Scorsese ushers us into a profoundly unsettling coda. New York may have changed, but ‘Taxi Driver’ is as powerful and painful as ever.
Author: Ben Walters
Time Out London Issue 1873: July 12-19 2006
User reviews of this film
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- Magmabulle said...
- Posted on Jun 07 2008 23:45 Scorsese's biggest masterpiece, a powerful story showing Robert De Niro at the top of his game.
- Report as inappropriate
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- C.J said...
- Posted on Jan 13 2008 17:01 A marvellous and powerful expose of an unhinged mentality
- Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Martin Scorsese
Producer: Michael Phillips, Julia Phillips
Cast: Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, Martin Scorsese, Steven Prince, Diahnne Abbot, Albert Brooks full cast
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: 18
Duration: 114 mins
UK Release: Jul 14 2006
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