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Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) -
I'm once again one of the outsiders at the celebration although Taxi Driver has gone up in my estimation about as much as any film I've seen from the time I first watched it and downright hated it until now. I suppose I could stand at the doorway to the party though and ask Holden or cricket for a piece of cake or a beer.
I had a real problem with Taxi Driver when I first saw it in 1976. I didn't like or understand Travis Bickle, and what's more, I didn't like any of the other characters. I've seen it many times since, and I still find it to be extremely-flawed, but its pure cinematics have finally won me over enough to raise my rating up to what it is here. The cinematography and music were always great, but only go so far for what I thought was convoluted. For every scene which I find extended or overkill, I'm rewarded with some spectacular visual/aural pyrotechnics, often something as simple as a taxi driving down a neon-lit night-time street set to the jazzy Bernard Herrmann musical score. Robert De Niro's performance is quite incredible even though he remains an enigma. I believe the most-controversial scenes in the film are the entire rescue bloodbath at the end and the way it's perceived by the press and allegedly the filmmakers. Taxi Driver is definitely a film to be seen, and I'm now begrudgingly allowing myself to come to almost admit that I can "like" or "enjoy" it. One thing's for sure. Compared to all the other vigilante-type flicks which have come along since, Taxi Driver is much more complex and compelling. Ultimately, movies have caught up with Taxi Driver in content and subject matter, but most make it feel much better, both in reality and in the fact that it was almost prescient in the direction a large portion of modern cinema would take. I think it's a very good movie.
I'm once again one of the outsiders at the celebration although Taxi Driver has gone up in my estimation about as much as any film I've seen from the time I first watched it and downright hated it until now. I suppose I could stand at the doorway to the party though and ask Holden or cricket for a piece of cake or a beer.
I had a real problem with Taxi Driver when I first saw it in 1976. I didn't like or understand Travis Bickle, and what's more, I didn't like any of the other characters. I've seen it many times since, and I still find it to be extremely-flawed, but its pure cinematics have finally won me over enough to raise my rating up to what it is here. The cinematography and music were always great, but only go so far for what I thought was convoluted. For every scene which I find extended or overkill, I'm rewarded with some spectacular visual/aural pyrotechnics, often something as simple as a taxi driving down a neon-lit night-time street set to the jazzy Bernard Herrmann musical score. Robert De Niro's performance is quite incredible even though he remains an enigma. I believe the most-controversial scenes in the film are the entire rescue bloodbath at the end and the way it's perceived by the press and allegedly the filmmakers. Taxi Driver is definitely a film to be seen, and I'm now begrudgingly allowing myself to come to almost admit that I can "like" or "enjoy" it. One thing's for sure. Compared to all the other vigilante-type flicks which have come along since, Taxi Driver is much more complex and compelling. Ultimately, movies have caught up with Taxi Driver in content and subject matter, but most make it feel much better, both in reality and in the fact that it was almost prescient in the direction a large portion of modern cinema would take. I think it's a very good movie.