Taxi Driver

Rating:
Summary: Great DVD edition of a classic film
Review: Taxi Driver is a great film, and the makers have done it justice by creating a Collectors Edition DVD filled with cool added features.

The picture and sound quality of this DVD are consistently great - only let down by a grainy section at the end of the movie, where the original print had to be desaturated (to satisfy the censors by making the scene look a little less... red). The making-of documentary is approaching an hour in length, and features the director, many of the crew and all the significant actors. Robert de Niro, Jodie Foster, Martin Scorsese and the make-up / special effects artist provide the most interesting behind-the-scenes info, but the whole documentary is intelligent and well-made. In addition to that, you get a storyboard section where Scorsese's original sketches are matched to the corresponding scenes in the movie, and you get the whole original screenplay, with each section linked to the related movie scenes. Also the original (melodramatic!) movie trailer is included. All in all, a very good conversion. I hardly need to add my thoughts on the movie - I agree with all the excellent reviews here. Travis Bickle is a unique anti-hero.

Rating:
Summary: psychotic masterpiece!
Review: Martin Scorscese's Taxi Driver is a highly detailed, superbly engrossing masterpiece, enriched with the subtle nuances of its New York surrounding. The acting in this movie is top notch right down the line, starting with De Nero's complicated, devoted and compelling portrayal of the lonely,detached, and disturbed taxi driver. The performance encompasses a large facet of qualities, from full scale, rage driven agenda to subtle exspressions of loss, bitterness, racism, confusion and self indulgence. His eclectic performance moves in and out of these qualites heightening his prescence in the flic. The others all play their parts as you would expect to see such characters in real life, and in there lies Taxi Driver's strength. It's ability to give a surreal yet almost documentary account to the stories look and pacing brings the viewer deeper into the story. The DVD brings out the best in a movie that looked more than slightly dated on VHS, and also puts in a nice goody bag, complete with an excellent "Making Of Taxi Driver" that includes over 60 minutes of well documented sources and info. The DVD's low price and bright pallete of colors( save for a few instances of grainyness or oversaturated orange) make a tempting bargain. For first time people enamored with its critical acclaim and generally good audience reaction, rent first in spight of what you hear. The film has a love, hate following even among die hard Scorscese fans.

Rating:
Summary: You Talkin a' me!
Review: Taxi driver a violent look in to the seedy under-belly of New York (there is a lot to look at). DeNiro is a taxi Driver trying to get a girl that comes from a totally different world. He tries to clean up, wihout success, so his next project is a young whore, who he runs into all the time. This leads him to violence lashing out at the people causing her pain and making his life hard.

Rating:
Summary: You can learn a lot about this classic
Review: Taxi Driver is one of the most important film in the American cinema of the 70's . Also, after almost a quater of a century after its release, it still is an exciting as well as horryfing experience to see it. What is discribed in this movie is still chillingly true in our days. For Scorsese fans, the Criterion Laser Disc was long thought to be a must-have item. The transfer used in this new DVD looks quite different from the Criterion version which was surpervised by cinematographer Michael Chapman. Frankly, the LD looks better than the DVD, or at least it's more beautiful. The rich color of the Chapman-trasnfer is not on the DVD. The color looks a bit desaturated and often off-balanced. For instance, in daylight exterior, what you see outside the windows are simply too blue (especially in scenes taking place in the Palantine campaign office). It looks more contrasty and you loose certain details in the shadow area. But I do not dislike this transfer: while the Chapman-trasnfer makes Travis' Urban Hell look a bit sexier, Hell's Kitchen in this version is tough, gritty and merciless. The desaturation of colour employed on the notorious "blood bath" sequence is more effective in this edition. If you have the chance to see the film on screen with a good print, the effect is devastating (Scorsese applied the same technique in Bringing Out the Dead, this time throughout the entire picture) . The DVD also features an insightful series of interviews from the filmmakers including Scorsese, writer Paul Schrader, Michael Chapman, Robert De Niro and the other cast member, and the special make-up creator Dick Smith. The interviews with the supporting cast, especially the one with Albert Brooks (who played the presidential election campaign worker) is particullary interesting. Another interesting function is that you can compare the film with the screenplay simultanously, and understand how Scorsese preserved the structure of Schrader's script while filling in more details that makes the characters and the story alive. This DVD is really worth buying if you like the movie. You can see it repeatedly, and learn a great deal about how it was made. But I think Criterion should re-issue their version (with audio commentary by Scorsese and Schrader) on DVD as well (and also Raging Bull).

Rating:
Summary: Over rated drivel
Review: I just don't get it! I wanted to love this movie. Maybe I had to see this movie at the theatre as an adult back when it was first released? At any rate, my opinion is that it simply stinks.

Of course DeNiro is compelling and interesting, but I felt no sympathy for any of the characters in this movie. Jodi Foster is often lauded for her role in "Taxi Driver" but I don't see why. It was small and one dimensional and (I feel) not particularly well acted. And Cybil Shepard? Give me a break! Lousy acting can never be covered up with a soft focus lens. I did like Albert Brooks, however.

And the ending? What is that all about? It makes no sense, has no logic and is not even profound (which it must be if logic is thrown out the window). Just when this movie should've been over there is another 15 minutes tacked on that should've been left on the cutting room floor. It is almost as if the studio exec's said, "Hey, uh, Marty? That ending is too gruesome and unresolved. How about tidying it up nice and neat for us, eh?"

I like many of Scorsese's movies (especially "Good Fellas"), and of course I always enjoy De Niro's acting, but I found no redeeming value in "Taxi Driver". I think one had to see it back when it was first released to appreciate it. Otherwise it is dated, poorly written, and ultimately pointless.

Rating:
Summary: "Are you talking to ME?"
Review: Taxi Driver is an incredible character study, as the viewer gets to witness the gradual disintegration of a personality every pathetic (and empathetic) step of the way and see precisely what makes the tumblers fall.

Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is a former Marine and Vietnam veteran who decides to get a job driving cab because he can't sleep at night and just travels by bus during those hours anyway.

You can tell the lessons Director of Photography Michael Chapman (who also shot Raging Bull, The Wanderers, Hardcore and The Last Waltz) learned by working with Gordon Willis on Jaws and The Godfather. The colors are dark and rich and portray the seediness of the areas Travis travels. He is drawn to the seediest parts of town out of obsessive indignation as well as fascination. His social skills are so retarded that he feels completely estranged from the rest of humanity and when he feasts his eyes upon someone whom he believes is a true vision of loveliness, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), he takes it upon himself to "save" her from the soullessness of her everyday life, a life he patronizingly feels she doesn't even have the intellectual perspective of to realize as being shallow.

Who knows what horrors a character such as Travis witnessed as a Marine in Vietnam? All we can witness is his ineluctable failure to be able to fit back into the social fabric he left behind to serve his country. And I believe this is why this twenty-year-old film is as relevant today, if not moreso, than when it was released: For the past three decades the streets have been filled with the dazed and confused spirits the military abandoned as soon as their tours of duty were over. As much damage has been done to American society by cutting off refuge to the psychologically disabled than all the casualties and fatalities from the Viet Nam war that never came back. When faced with life and death on a regular intimate basis, is the implication, how can one ever become fully integrated back into a soulless, materialistic society?

It's fascinating to observe the way Travis balances his estrangement from women with his own code of honor and ethics and the respective males he feels he has to finally exterminate in order to "save" the females he has chosen to "rescue." Males (one a presidential candidate, the other a pimp) whom he sees as controlling the lives of Betsy and Iris while also recognizing each of their own oblivious complicity in their respective soulless charades of life, as if his is any more ethically or morally sound. It is these males who, nevertheless, have in common the ability to approach a woman without getting everything wrong, which is the tragic situation Travis is terminally locked in. His frustration is fueled even further by the fact that the females he observes are simply "protected" by the other males employment of them, which is the extent of the males purpose in each of their respective lives, no more, no less.

Though the film is shot in 35mm, one very significant scene, when Travis first approaches Keitel in the doorway, is shot in 16mm and then slowed down. Not only is it shot in slow motion, the sound is messed with too, to give it all a macabre nightmare feel to mirror the derangement of Travis's senses when he finally snaps.

The Bernard Herrmann score (his last, he died the day after it was completed, on Christmas Eve 1975) is beautiful. He basically takes that most classic of songs about yearning and opportunities that are strictly imaginative, the old jazz ballad "Laura," and rewrites it into the most lush, evocatively romantic song.

Taxi Driver won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, and De Niro was honored as Best Actor by the New York Film Critics. The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (De Niro), Best Supporting Actress (Foster) and Best Musical Score. Here is a film that was nominated for four major awards and didn't win anything. What won that year? Rocky. But which film is going to be remembered throughout cinematic history as a highpoint and significant sociocultural artifact?

Rating:
Summary: but did you feel it?
Review: After going through the 85 reviews or so on this film, I feel very proud. People have done an extremely good job of explaining the brilliance of Taxi Driver and the emotional experience that it evokes. And although I have little to add in those areas, I do have another perspective that I hope will be of interest.

Probably the one aspect of being a cinephile that I most enjoy is finding a connection between two filmmakers that I really like. It helps explain my reaction to their work---as if to say, it's only natural that you relate to this film; this filmmaker likes the same films as you. In these terms, Taxi Driver has been a tremendously rewarding experience. Watching it again, this time as a more knowlegable cinephile, I discovered connections that I'd overlooked in the past. A couple of these observations, I think are particularly revelatory, and I'd like to share them.

But before I do so, know that these are merely conclusions that I have drawn and that they are by no means fact. If you agree, great. If you learn something, great. If you don't agree and don't learn anything, well, I hope you at least enjoyed the read.

Although Mean Streets is my favorite Martin Scorsese film, I think Taxi Driver is far more interesting from a stylistic standpoint. More than anything, I say this because of Michael Chapman's cinematography---the lighting, the framing, the camera movements, everything. Coincidentally, in recent years, of all the young cinematographers, I have been most impressed by Christopher Doyle and his work with the Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai. I love the way he captures the big city and have always felt that there was something truly original about his work.

Until recently, however, I was unaware of any precursor to the Christopher Doyle style. I thought it was one of those artistic breakthroughs that come without warning and defy all claims of artistic inheritance. But then I re-watched All the President's Men. In the work of Gordon Willis, I recognized those blues and reds and greens that I had always attributed to Christopher Doyle. And now that I've gone back and watched Taxi Driver, I see that Michael Chapman was responsible for many of the other things that I'd always credited to Christopher Doyle. In 1976, he gave the nocturnal city a new look---revolutionizing the way the streets shine and the signs glow and the colors all blend into one another.

Like I said before, findings like these are one of my greatest pleasures as a cinephile. When I like a film, I want it to mean that I've been moved. Recognizing similarities like Doyle-Willis-Chapman enables me to continue filmgoing as an emotional experience. I like a certain kind of lighting. When a film is lit that way, I react. It's not a theory. And I don't have to justify my tastes in any intellectual manner. And for me, that's why I became interested in film in the first place---because it affected me emotionally. That said, back to the game of uncovering parallels between the work of Wong Kar-Wai and Martin Scorsese. As I mentioned earlier, my favorite Martin Scorsese film is Mean Streets. It's not the filmmaker's most stylistically characteristic or even most impressive work, but it is my favorite. I respond to it more than to any of his other films. It moves me, and I care about the characters. Taxi Driver, on the other hand, because of some of the truly anti-social flaws in Travis Bickle's character, leaves me cold. I don't fully respond to Travis' plight. He never exhibits the positive qualities that I need in order to be fully taken in by a character. And he doesn't ever give me a good reason to be sympathetic towards his loneliness.

I've never fully responded to Taxi Driver on an emotional level, and now I understand that it is because I don't relate to Travis Bickle. Yet I still like the film. This paradox---liking a film yet not caring about the central character reminds of Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express.

When I first saw Chungking Express (the first Wong Kar-Wai film I ever saw), I thought it was cool. Its style was new and intoxicating. But I didn't feel totally satisfied. Wong's mysterious swapping of central characters left me confused and kept me from fully implicating myself into his story. I wanted more from a film.

Then I saw Days of Being Wild. Although it lacked the excitement of Wong Kar-Wai's signature style, I found myself responding much more deeply to its characters than I had to anyone in Chungking Express.

And now it all makes sense. For a long time, I fell into one of two traps. I would see a film knowing it was classic and if I wasn't moved, I would think that I had missed something. My defense mechanisms would be set in motion and before I knew it, I'd be convincing myself that I had also thought it was a classic. Or other times I would base my opinion of a film entirely on a film's surface. I'm not saying that any of the previous reviewers have fallen into this trap, but with work of unusually exciting style like Taxi Driver (other examples include Pulp Fiction, Trainspotting, The Wild Bunch, or Clockwork Orange), it is a likely pitfall. From here on out, and I don't think it'll be easy, I hope to live by the following---if the film moved me, I liked it. I don't care if it's a classic or not.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent DVD
Review: Taxi Driver: SE is one of the best examples of what can be done with DVD. The image is excellent (aside from a few rough patches with noticeble grain and wear & tear) and the remastered sound is incredible. That would have been enough for me, but the extras is where this disc really comes through. First off is an excellent 70-minute documentary that covers the film from its beginning stages to the end (if you ever wondered how they accomplished the final showdown, or how they did that wonderful overhead tracking shot, or who the inspirations behind the charcters were, you will find out here) with interviews from the cast and crew. In addition to the trailer, there is a storyboard (drawn by Scorsese) sequence that details how the bloody end will be shot and a comparison with how it came out. There is a wealth of behind-the-scenes photos and a gallery featuring promo materials and poster art. But the coolest feature is Paul Schrader's complete screenplay, featuring scenes that never made the final cut and a neat option to jump to the scene you are reading. I'm glad they put this on the DVD and did not make it a DVD-ROM extra, since those of us who care about the movies like to watch them on our TV screens and not our computer screens. Add to that a cheap price and you've got quite a package. Kudos to Columbia Tristar for their excellent package.

Rating:
Summary: Brutal, unforgiving tour-de-force
Review: A classic Scorcese/De Niro colaboration. Taxi Driver is a heart stopping, often disturbing view of life on the streets of New York, and the scum and filth that inhabit it.

De Niro's performance is exceptionaly powerful and frightning...this role is one of his best, and he has forever inmortalised the character of Travis Bickle in film history.

Scorcese's direction is almost flawless - defining camera shots, moody photography and an ending that portrays how outstanding a director he really is.

Many find this film too disgusting, especially the violent ending. If you're put off by extreme violence, then don't watch this film, but if you appreciate the acting talents of De Niro, combined with the technical brilliance of Scorcese, this is a must for drama die-hards.

Rating:
Summary: Taxi Driver: How to lose your mind in 2 hours. :-)
Review: Taxi Driver, though many would disagree, is what I believe to be Deniro's finest performance. The extensive research he put into his role before ever stepping in front of the camera is commendable, not to mention rare. If you've seen Mean Streets, also directed by Scorsese, you know how effectively Deniro can portray losing his mind on screen. I strongly identify with this movie, in that I feel extremely anti-social now and then. I think most of us do occasionally. The soundtrack is another item worth purchasing on CD. Written and conducted by Bernard Herman, the music seems to slowly simmer, then crash, only to return to sweet melody again. If you listen closely, you can sense Herman tuning in to the mindstate of someone slowly descending into madness, moving between states of faltering calm and violent bursts. Simply put, it is my favorite of all movies, and I recommend it to anyone who likes to become immersed in a characters life. There's plenty of humor, sincerity, violence, sexiness, and above all the dialog between Deniro and Foster in the restaurant is priceless. Deniro's performance is flawlewss and completely surreal. Definitely not a party movie, Taxi Driver is best when viewed alone (at least for the first time.) You can't help but evaluate where you stand mentally when you watch this movie. Don't bother renting it, just buy it! Also, if you can find them, there are posters available of Deniro as Travis Bickle, a gun raised up in each hand, smiling that insane laugh of his, complete with the mohawk. The poster's black and white, and is a must have once you've seen this movie. Well, hope you buy it,watch it, and love it!

P.S. "You talkin' to me?"