Taxi Driver

Theatrical Release Date: 1976 02 08 (USA)

UPC: 043396034815

Studio: Columbia TriStar

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Graphic Violence, Not For Children, Profanity, Sexual Situations]

Summary: "All the animals come out at night" -- and one of them is a cabby about to snap. In Martin Scorsese's classic 1970s drama, insomniac ex-Marine Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) works the nightshift, driving his cab throughout decaying mid-'70s New York City, wishing for a "real rain" to wash the "scum" off the neon-lit streets. Chronically alone, Travis cannot connect with anyone, not even with such other cabbies as blowhard Wizard (Peter Boyle). He becomes infatuated with vapid blonde presidential campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who agrees to a date and then spurns Travis when he cluelessly takes her to a porno movie. After an encounter with a malevolent fare (played by Scorsese), the increasingly paranoid Travis begins to condition (and arm) himself for his imagined destiny, a mission that mutates from assassinating Betsy's candidate, Charles Palatine (Leonard Harris), to violently "saving" teen hooker Iris (Jodie Foster) from her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel). Travis' bloodbath turns him into a media hero; but has it truly calmed his mind? Written by Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver is an homage to and reworking of cinematic influences, a study of individual psychosis, and an acute diagnosis of the latently violent, media-fixated Vietnam era. Scorsese and Schrader structure Travis' mission to save Iris as a film noir version of John Ford's late Western The Searchers (1956), aligning Travis with a mythology of American heroism while exposing that myth's obsessively violent underpinnings. Yet Travis' military record and assassination attempt, as well as Palatine's political platitudes, also ground Taxi Driver in its historical moment of American in the 1970s. Employing such techniques as Godardian jump cuts and ellipses, expressive camera moves and angles, and garish colors, all punctuated by Bernard Herrmann's eerie final score (finished the day he died), Scorsese presents a Manhattan skewed through Travis' point-of-view, where De Niro's now-famous "You talkin' to me" improv becomes one more sign of Travis' madness. Shot during a New York summer heat wave and garbage strike, Taxi Driver got into trouble with the MPAA for its violence. Scorsese desaturated the color in the final shoot-out and got an R, and Taxi Driver surprised its unenthusiastic studio by becoming a box-office hit. Released in the Bicentennial year, after Vietnam, Watergate, and attention-getting attempts on President Ford's life, Taxi Driver's intense portrait of a man and a society unhinged spoke resonantly to the mid-'70s audience -- too resonantly in the case of attempted Reagan assassin and Foster fan John W. Hinckley. Taxi Driver went on to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but it lost the Best Picture Oscar to the more comforting Rocky. Anchored by De Niro's disturbing embodiment of "God's lonely man," Taxi Driver remains a striking milestone of both Scorsese's career and 1970s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Category: Drama

Awards: Anthony Asquith Award – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Picture – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Supporting Actress – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Most Promising Newcomer – British Academy of Film and Television Arts U.S. National Film Registry – Library of Congress 100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute Best Actor – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Music Score – Los Angeles Film Critics Association New Generation Award – Los Angeles Film Critics Association New Generation Award – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Director – Directors Guild of America Best Screenplay – null Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – null Best Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Score – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Supporting Actress – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Palme d'Or – Cannes Film Festival Best Actor – New York Film Critics Circle Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Screenplay – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Supporting Actress – National Society of Film Critics Best Director – National Society of Film Critics Best Actor – National Society of Film Critics

Features: Making-of documentary
Photo montage/portrait gallery
Storyboard sequence
Original screenplay
Advertising materials
Filmographies
Liner notes
Theatrical trailers
Digitally remastered audio and video

Taxi Driver

Format: DVD

Release Date: 06/15/1999

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Theatre Wide-Screen

Audio: 2 Europe, Japan, Middle East, Egypt, South Africa, Greenland

Runtime: 114 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: English,Spanish,Portuguese,Chinese,Korean,Thai

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Scene Selections
0. Scene Selections
1. Start [2:10]
2. Travis Bickle [8:47]
3. Tom & Betsy [4:08]
4. Wizard's court [4:56]
5. A new volunteer [8:15]
6. Charles Palantine [2:26]
7. Aborted fare [2:24]
8. A date with Betsy [5:47]
9. Confrontation [1:09]
10. Curbside cuckold [3:53]
11. A word with Wizard [7:35]
12. Running into Iris [2:09]
13. Easy Andy [7:21]
14. Henry Krinkle [4:36]
15. "You talkin' to me?" [2:24]
16. Market robbery [1:37]
17. "Late for the Sky" [1:37]
18. "Dear Father & Mother" [2:05]
19. TV critic [1:16]
20. Looking for action [3:56]
21. A $10 room [5:59]
22. Breakfast with Iris [4:56]
23. Dancing with Sport [4:29]
24. The Palantine rally [3:50]
25. "Suck on this" [1:40]
26. Shooting gallery [2:46]
27. "Bang, bang, bang" [3:27]
28. "Dear Mr. Bickle" [7:49]

Mark Deming

"I'm God's lonely man," says Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro in one of his finest and most memorable performances. Travis, the protagonist and focal point of Taxi Driver, is severely out of his element in New York City, though it's hard to imagine where else he would fit in; he goes through life as if the world speaks a dialect unknown to him. He seems incapable of relating to anyone beyond superficial pleasantries or casual violence, and when he does attempt to reach out to others -- to beautiful campaign manager Betsy (Cybil Shepherd), to philosophical cabbie Wizard (Peter Boyle), or to teenage runaway-turned-prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) -- he runs into a brick wall despite his best intentions, as he can't fully comprehend others and they can't fathom him. Screenwriter Paul Schrader and director Martin Scorsese place this isolated, potentially volatile man in New York City, depicted as a grimly stylized hell on Earth, where noise, filth, directionless rage, and dirty sex (both morally and literally) surround him at all turns. When Travis attempts to transform himself into an avenging angel who will "wash some of the real scum off the street," his murder spree follows a terrible and inevitable logic: he is a bomb built to explode, like the proverbial gun which, when produced in the first act, must go off in the third. While De Niro's masterful performance brings Travis to vivid life, it's Scorsese's dynamic, idiosyncratic visual storytelling (given an invaluable assist by cinematographer Michael Chapman) that provides the perfect narrative context. Capturing New York's underbelly with a palate of reds and yellows that burn with an evil glow, Scorsese fills the story with tiny details and offhand moments that form the fully rounded reality of Travis' fallen world. If De Niro produced one of film's most troubling portraits of a lost soul, Scorsese created a painfully vivid purgatory for him to live in, and, alongside Raging Bull, Taxi Driver marks the finest work of this actor/director team. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Jason Holt  Actor 
Victor Argo  Actor 
Deborah Morgan  Actor 
Frank Adu  Actor 
Norman Matlock  Actor 
Ralph Singleton  Actor 
Robert Shields  Actor 
Carey Poe  Actor 
Brenda Dickson  Actor 
Harry Northrup  Actor 
Vic Magnotta  Actor 
Harry Cohn  Actor 
Gino Ardito  Actor 
Bill Minkin  Actor 
Copper Cunningham  Actor 
Diahnne Abbott  Actor 
Bob Maroff  Actor 
Joe Spinell  Actor 
Peter Savage  Actor 
Bernard Herrmann  Composer (Music Score) 
Michael Phillips  Producer 
Julia Phillips  Producer 
Paul Schrader  Screenwriter 
Martin Scorsese  Director 
Phillip Goldfarb  Producer 
Robert De Niro  Actor 
Cybill Shepherd  Actor 
Peter Boyle  Actor 
Albert Brooks  Actor 
Harvey Keitel  Actor 
Jodie Foster  Actor 
Murray Moston  Actor 
Richard Higgs  Actor 
Leonard Harris  Actor 
Steven Prince  Actor 
Martin Scorsese  Actor 

Country: USA