Part of Midnight Movies
Disturbed New York cabbie Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) haunts the streets nightly, prowling for fares and witnessing first hand the gritty reality of the dangerous and decaying metropolis. After his attempts to connect with pretty campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) fail, he grows increasingly detached from reality as his dreams of cleaning up the filthy city solidify into a deranged plan to save the world, first by plotting to assassinate a presidential candidate, then redirecting his focus to rescuing a 12-year-old prostitute (Jodie Foster).
Martin Scorsese’s iconic Paul Schrader-penned tale of loneliness, desperation and a generation of men who returned from war listless, alienated from civilian life and angry turns 50 this year, and –– depressingly –– it couldn’t be more timely.
“TAXI DRIVER is a brilliant nightmare and like all nightmares it doesn’t tell us half of what we want to know. Robert De Niro…is as good as Brando at suggesting emotions even while veiling them from us.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (Jan 1, 1976) “TAXI DRIVER is a movie in heat, a raw, tabloid version of Notes from Underground, and we stay with the protagonist’s hatreds all the way…. The fact that we experience Travis’s need for an explosion viscerally, and that the explosion itself has the quality of consummation, makes TAXI DRIVER one of the few truly modern horror films.” —Pauline Kael, New Yorker (Feb 9, 1976)
