As I mentioned in the previous post some time ago, I would be “watching Taxi Driver soon”. Well, finally, I have now seen the second film in the De Niro – Scorsese – Keitel partnership and I have to say that it is the most in depth, honest film centred around character development and social status (or “class system”, as it’s known over here). There are plenty of techniques used by Scorsese which are clearly apparent in his later works, and *touch wood* has the best original soundtrack of any of his films to date (Raging Bull and Goodfellas have no original songs).

Taxi Driver constantly shocks as De Niro shows you the world/New York City seen through Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle’s eyes. A great script and some fantastic improvisation ensure that this is by far De Niro’s best acting yet (even better than in Raging Bull, dare I say it). Scorses also suprisingly pops up as a memorable character, a (perhaps) wannabe physcopath who gets some weird pleasure in telling Travis he’s going to kill his wife.

The more I think about Taxi Driver, the less it becomes a film, the more it becomes the reality of 1976. Scorsese is an artist and Taxi Driver truly is a superb piece of art.

95.2%

Stay tuned for a The Deer Hunter review and, hopefully, Another Scorsese Classic Part 3: Mean Streets.