Movie Review by Bill Rendall

Taxi Driver

The dark side of New York City is graphically exposed in Taxi Driver. It is a chilling character study of a Vietnam vet struggling to come to terms with the environment he lives in.

The central character is brilliantly portrayed by Robert De Niro. He is in nearly every shot in Taxi Driver so we only see things from his point of view. He has a morbid fascination with the low life of the city and chooses to drive his taxi at night in the seediest areas.

In one scene a politician is a passenger in De Niro's taxi. The politician is stunned by the venom De Niro injects into a diatribe about cleaning up the scum of society. At this stage De Niro is just talk but we can see his fuse is burning.

In a later scene in De Niro's taxi we see the film's director, Martin Scorsese, as a passenger. Scorsese launches into a diatribe about shooting his unfaithful wife and lover. De Niro is about to explode.

De Niro has problems relating with people in general and women in particular. Surprisingly he manages to make a date with an attractive lady (Cybill Shepherd) much to the annoyance of her workmate (Albert Brooks) who has been rebuffed by her. However, De Niro makes a big mistake by taking her out to a porno movie and she immediately ends the relationship. De Niro doesn't understand what he did wrong. Later we see him phoning Shepherd and she rejects any further contact with him. The camera slowly pans away from De Niro as if it is too painful to watch him being rejected.

Driving his taxi through the red light district De Niro encounters a young prostitute (Jodie Foster in an early role.) It becomes his mission to rescue her from the city and her pimp (Harvey Keitel) and return her to her folks where he thinks she belongs. However, she is not convinced that she needs rescuing.

De Niro buys the entire contents of a gun seller's suitcase. Probably the best known and certainly the most imitated scene in the movie is the "Are you talking to me?" scene which features De Niro practising moves in front of a mirror using his newly acquired weapons.

De Niro then goes on a rampage shooting inhabitants of the brothel Foster is working in. The camera dwells in great detail on the violence, with slow motion to add emphasis.

The movie has a feel-good Hollywood ending which is highly implausible, if taken literally. My interpretation is that De Niro is fatally wounded during his rampage and the ending depicts the distorted fantasy of his dying moments.

The soundtrack of Taxi Driver features an old-style movie score. It was provided by Bernard Herrmann, a veteran music composer who was probably best known for his ground breaking score for Pyscho. By the time Taxi Driver was made most movies included contemporary popular music in the soundtrack. The lack of popular music in the soundtrack of Taxi Driver emphasises that De Niro is alienated from society and has no interest in popular music.

Taxi Driver is an outstanding movie. It is not pleasant to watch but it is essential viewing.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Screenplay: Paul Schrader

Music: Bernard Herrmann

Further viewing:

Over twenty years later Scorsese returned to the dark side of New York with Bringing Out the Dead. This time the main character is an ambulance driver going crazy doing the night shift in Hell's Kitchen. It is worth seeing to compare it with Taxi Driver.

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