Video Pick of the Week
By MATT NANIA
Scene Movie Critic
"Taxi Driver" is, simply put, a landmark film. It is a brilliant, ruthless movie with a haunting portrayal of urban life, and is arguably one of the best movies ever made. Gaining more and more respect as an important film in American cinema, "Taxi Driver" was recently named No. 47 on the American Film Institute's 100 most important American films of the 20th century. It is an undeniably brilliant, nightmarish portrait of one man's personal hell.
Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a disillusioned ex-Marine who, unable to sleep, becomes a New York City cab driver for the night shift. He observes all the fetid details — drug dealers, prostitutes and murderes — of life on the streets, basically seeing it all.
Bickle secretly wishes to rid New York of all this human garbage. What he doesn't realize is, by being a psychotically irrational man, he is just like the worst of them. And when a relationship with a beautiful campaign worker (Cybill Shepherd) fails, his repression becomes too much. He must find an outlet through which he can express himself.
For Travis, fury is manifested through violence. His burning wrath at New York society only increases by what he sees in his customers — people who seek the death of their philandering wives, rich tycoons who have flings with hookers and 12-year-old prostitutes being battered by their employers.
One such prostitute, Iris (a shockingly young Jodie Foster), embodies Travis' desire to clean up New York. He decides to save her from her wicked boss, Sport (Harvey Keitel), because, like the city itself, she is lost in a world of depravity.
The film concludes with a controversial and almost operatic display of violence in which Travis murders everyone who stands in the way of saving Iris. He thinks what he is doing is good, full of heart and noteworthy. It is so chilling and frightening because the audience knows that this killing spree is only a temporary way of distancing himself from his insanity.
The strength of "Taxi Driver" comes largely from the brilliant direction by Martin Scorsese. He somehow brings all the surreal and hellish aspects of New York together with a story that is electric and latent with violence. Only Scorsese is capable of such dynamics, and "Taxi Driver" is his best example.
At the center of this maelstrom is De Niro's intense and moving performance as Bickle. He gives a multi-layered tour de force that never loses Travis' humanity even as he reveals the monster within. And, of course, he has the film's most hauntingly famous scene, in which Travis looks in the mirror and says, "You talkin' to me? You talking to me? ... Well I'm the only one here." It is hard to imagine anyone but DeNiro delivering those lines.
"Taxi Driver" represents the turning point in both De Niro and Scorsese's careers. With their success from "Taxi Driver," they went on to make such great films as "Raging Bull," "The King of Comedy" and the quintessential gangster-epic, "Goodfellas."
Rising from the past like steam from a subway tunnel, Martin Scorsese's 20-year-old "Taxi Driver" retains its power to shock and disturb. Without a doubt, it spawned two great careers, and that reason alone makes it a crucial piece of cinema.
All Scene Stories for Thursday, September 30, 1999
