Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver is a film of 1976 writes by Paul Schrader and realized by Martin Scorsese.

Summary

Travis Bickle (interpreted by Robert De Niro), an young man of the Midwest has - learns one discreetly recently demobilized Navy. It comes out from it an unbalanced personality and a driven back individual, in margin of the Company. Suffering from insomnia, it decides to take a work of Taxi driver to New York and goes voluntary for a night-work. Bickle spends its spare time to look at pornographic films in sordid cinemas, and to roll without goal in its taxi.

Bickle is horrified by the moral decline which he thinks of seeing around him, and when Iris , a twelve year old prostitute and half (interpreted by Jodie Foster), assembles one night in its taxi, it becomes obsessed by the idea to save it, in spite of the total disinterest of the young girl.

Bickle is also obsessed by Betsy (interpreted by Cybill Shepherd), an assistant of the Senator of New York. At the end of some go and of some gifts, it accepts an appointment in a cinema seedy character where, against full sound liking, it will see a pornographic film. At the end of ten film seconds, it leaves the room, disgusted.

Bickle decides to assassinate the Senator. He fails and is caught of them to the procurer Iris (interpreted by Harvey Keitel). It kills it but itself is wounded in the attack. It seems to die.

A fast epilog finishes film and shows beautiful the Betsy getting again into the taxi of Bickle , and which congratulates it for its act on bravery. Some could see in this scene the romantic daydream of a dying Bickle , while others see a real and positive end there.

Comment

In spite of this question, the film finishes in a harmonious way, on the set of themes of the Rédemption, which is one of the principal searches of so much of characters at Scorsese.

Data sheet

Title: Taxi Driver
original Title: Taxi Driver
Realization: Martin Scorsese
Scenario: Paul Schrader
Music: Bernard Herrmann
Producing: Michael Phillips, Julia Philips
Make-up: Dick Smith
Coming out date in France: May 13rd 1976 at the time of the Cannes festival
American Film
Format: spherical, 35 mm, 1:75.1 (colors, its stereophonic)
Kind: drama
Lasted: 113 minutes
Interdict with less than 16 years at the time of its exit into the room.

Distribution

Robert De Niro: Travis Bickle
Cybill Shepherd : Betsy
Peter Boyle: Wizard
Jodie Foster: Iris Steensma
Harvey Keitel: “Sport” Matthew
Leonard Harris: senator Charles Palantine
Albert Brooks: Tom
Martin Scorsese: the man who looks at his wife through the window
Diane Abbott: the usherette

Criticisms of the time

Taxi Driver was a financial success, and gained the gold Palm to the Cannes festival in 1976. It was named for four Academy Awards, including for that of best film.
Bernard Herrmann, type-setter considered for his work with Alfred Hitchcock, worked on Taxi Driver . The music of film was the last on which he worked before his death.
Some critics declared that this film was the first to mention the consequences of the Guerre of Vietnam on the soldiers who fought there.

Around film

It is Robert de Niro who improvised the famous counterpart - according to a exercise of acting of his professor de Drama, Stella Adler: It is with me that you speak? Moreover, there is to only me here or in V.O You talkin' to me? Well, I' m the only one young stag! . De would Niro have been inspired for this counterpart by Bruce Springsteen, which he saw in 1975 at the time of a concert to the Roxy of Los Angeles, addressing back to crowd in jubilation by a You talkin' to me? .

At the time of the turning of film, the scene of slaughter was regarded as excessively strong. Even today, it preserves an indisputable emotional power. In order to obtain an acceptable classification of film by the censure, Scorsese attenuates the colors in this scene, to make blood less visible.

Prize list

Random links: