Taxi Driver

WOE! Seeing a young, lean and mean Robert DeNiro from the seventies in a role that seemed tailor made for him is quite the experience of perhaps an ultra earthly world. As the psychotic Vietnam veteran who seems to stalk Manhattan by night, he becomes a horrifying figure who can go off like a bomb at any moment. Scorsese presents such a shock filled life of Manhattan of the seventies both by night and day. The film really is a vision made in hell but oh, so masterfully made. A 13 year old Jodie Foster received her first Oscar Nomination as a teen prostitute who is an obvious embodiment of 70's porn ridden New York. De Niro is at the very top of his game as a figure who could instill fear in the hardest heart of man. He was obviously nominated as Best Actor for Taxi Driver but did not win. He would eventually win Best Actor for Raging Bull and a Supporting Best Actor for Godfather, Part 11 in which he played the young Vito Corleone in flashback.

Taxi Driver boasted an incredible script by a very young 26 year old whose name I simply can't recall at this time. The film made the most of the sleaziness of New York of that decaying 70's period with filming almost always in the streets of the famous metropolis. It presents 'a heart of darkness' that was encrusted into the very fabric of a city which undoubtedly was at its lowest ebb financially, spiritually, totally devoid of any morality, all embodied in the twisted mind of Travis Bickle. And one can't say enough about Martin Scorsese whose vision of this society mirrored perfectly what was happening at the time. This is a film that must be seen for so many reasons. It is also a classic that has become so because of the many great sums of its parts.