Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3051 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-08-13
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 109 minutes

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

Synopsis
Martin Scorsese's intense film, a hallmark of 1970s filmmaking, graphically depicts the tragic consequences of urban alienation when a New York City taxi driver goes on a murderous rampage against the pitiable denizens inhabiting the city's underbelly. For psychotic, pistol-packing Vietnam vet Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), New York City seems like a circle of hell. Driving his cab each night through the bleak Manhattan streets, Bickle observes with fanatical loathing the sleazy lowlifes who comprise most of his fares. By day he haunts the porno theaters of 42nd Street, taking his cues from the violent vision of life portrayed in these movies. As badly as Travis wants to connect with the people around him including Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a lovely blonde campaign worker, and Iris (Jodie Foster), a pubescent prostitute he tries to save, his attempts are thwarted and his pent-up rage grows, turning him into a walking time bomb. Paul Schrader's screenplay is filmed with a tragic realism by Scorsese, which brilliantly captures the muck and grime of New York City. De Niro, playing the fragile hero, steps inside his role so far that the results are deeply frightening. Bernard Herrmann's haunting score, which turned out to be his last, completes the urban nightmare.

Customer Reviews

THE 70's Film
This searing movie from Martin Scorcese is one of the great films of the 1970's. It features Robert DeNiro in the role of a lifetime, as ex-Vietnam vet Travis Bickle, who can't sleep and drives a Cab at night as a form of therapy. Travis also has trouble relating to people and it is this that gives him difficulties when he meets Betsy (played wonderfully by Cybill Shepherd) and things go from bad to worse when he then meets Iris (Jodie Foster) a teenage prostitute.... The supporting cast includes Peter Boyle and Harvey Keitel.

Scorcese works his magic in this film. A number of scenes from this film are unforgettable and some have become iconic. Obviously the "Are you talking to me..." mirror scene is the most well known but there are a number of others. Travis winds up a Secret Service agent, suggesting he would like to join - this is marvellously played. You will notice in a later scene that Travis has made some slight adjustments to his hair! In another classic scene, which certainly influenced Quentin Tarantino for a scene in 'Reservoir Dogs', Travis goes to buy some guns. The dialog is marvellous. Full credit to Paul Schrader for the brilliant script, without his contribution the film would not have as good.

This edition has the following extras:
Introduction to DVD - Martin Scorsese - this was recorded in 2006 and lasts about 15 minutes during which Scorsese talks about the influences that created Taxi Driver (Jean Luc Goddard etc).

Introduction to DVD - Paul Schrader
Commentary - Paul Schrader
Commentary Robert Kolker (Author)
Loneliness and Inspiration - Documentary
Cabbie Confessional - Documentary
Producing a Cult Classic

Appreciation and Influence - this is an interesting series of intereviews about Martin Scorsese with many famous directors and actors.

Taxi Driver Locations - Then and Now
Animated Photo Gallery
Storyboard to Film Comparisons
Behind the Scenes Documentary
Theatrical Trailer
Filmographies

The film also contains the last ever film score from Bernard Hermann who had previously done Citizen Kane and Psycho to name but two. This score is really excellent. A Jazzy saxophone with a haunting melody, but that changes menacingly without warning. Quite brilliant.

This is, particularly at the end, a very violent film and one with an ending that may leave you perplexed. Despite this it has a haunting quality because of its running themes of alienation and loneliness. It isn't easy watching but does reward you with repeated viewings. An essential DVD for any film collection.

"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".

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.