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You can’t help but have sympathy for the friendless cab driver, but as the character develops, the transformation becomes scary he’s slowly losing his mind right before our eyes and graduates from being mentally unstable to becoming a cold-blooded killer in the form of a vigilante when he shoots and kills a would-be robber inside a store. Playing the lead character Travis Bickle, De Niro’s performance is brilliant in the way he conveys loneliness, social awareness, and isolation. Being a method actor, De Niro, who was already an Oscar winner, drove a yellow cab around the city and picking up fares to prepare for his role in “Taxi Driver”. In his heyday, audiences and critics all agreed that De Niro was the best actor working in the industry at the time. If there wasn’t an old gritty New York City, it’s hard to imagine “Taxi Driver” taking place in another location and having the same visceral impact.įrom his roles in “Mean Streets”, “The Godfather: Part II”, “The Deer Hunter”, Once Upon a Time in America”, and Michael Mann’s “Heat”, Robert De Niro has starred in some of the most compelling movies of the 20th century. Scorsese captured the gritty underworld of the city, casting it as a supporting actor in the film and most times, the city of New York steals the show in “Taxi Driver”. Before rents in the city became unsustainable, the best up-and-coming artists in the world lived here, and musical genres such as hip-hop and punk rock were created here and thrived. New York is the only place where the rich and poor walk the city streets together or ride on the subway with one another.
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While many outsiders felt like New York was a place where no one in their right mind would want to live, one fact couldn’t be refuted: the rich and famous celebrities, and the most powerful influential people in the world all called the city home. On the surface, New York appeared to be an immoral city in need of redemption. The subway system was covered with graffiti, crime was at an all-time high, and most people avoided Central Park at night.
Taxi driver movie movie#
Plenty of X-rated movie theaters and sex shops existed throughout the city, and pimps and prostitutes were the norm.
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The city had a thriving red light district located at the crosswalk of 42nd Street, near Times Square. However, “Taxi Driver” remains his greatest cinematic accomplishment, and 40 years later, the film is still a powerful, hardcore, and timeless work of art.īefore ‘the city that never sleeps’ became a safe haven for hipsters to take up residency, New York City was the scariest place in the world if you weren’t born and raised there. It’s a story with a powerful message that doesn’t preach to the choir.Īfter the release of “Taxi Driver”, Scorsese would go on to have a prolific career directing such films as “Raging Bull”, “Goodfellas”, “Gangs of New York”, “The Departed”, and “Wolf of Wall Street”, and is widely recognized as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.Īt the age of 74, the director hasn’t slowed down one bit, releasing the critically-acclaimed film “Silence” in 2016. The screenplay by Schrader captures the raw essence of the 70s, a decade of political upheaval, high rates of crime, and sexual exploitation. Stylistically, the film is a kinetic, cinematic experience as Scorsese shows off his talents as a filmmaker and storyteller, creating stunning visuals with the help of cinematographer Michael Chapman no other film prior to the release of “Taxi Driver” could match its sheer intensity.
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The movie tells a story of loneliness, urban decay, and vigilantism, and it takes place in the notorious streets of New York City in the 1970s. “Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets.” This pessimistic line of dialogue is recited by the emotionally unstable character Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro in the groundbreaking film “Taxi Driver”, which was released in 1976, directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader.