rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 1976
Directed by William Wyler; produced by Julia Phillips, Michael Phillips; screenplay by Paul Schrader
Starring Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Albert Brooks
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
Martin Scorsese's film about a taxi driver who is totally alienated from our
world is a pure form of great film making. Robert De Niro plays Travis
Bickle, a lonely man, who lives in a world he doesn't understand. The world
doesn't understand him either.
The girl he likes at first is Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) who is on the campaign
team for a guy running for President named Palantine (Leonard Harris).
Travis watches her working in the campaign office, asks her for a cup of
coffee, tells her he sees that she is not happy, that she must not work
where she works and takes her on a date. He takes her to see a pornographic
movie and doesn't realize once he is doing something strange.
He also meets the twelve year old prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster). Like he
wanted to save Betsy from her unhappiness, in a way from Palantine, he wants
to save her from unhappiness, and therefore from her pimp named Sport
(Harvey Keitel). With both girls he can't be sure whether they want to be
saved or not, with the first it isn't even sure how bad her life really is.
Driving his cab we see Travis' New York, not just New York, but his, and
when you see things like that you completely understand what he is thinking.
The way Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Chapman gives us this insight
in the head of Travis is great. The score from Bernard Herrmann helps as
well. It has the perfect tone for the whole movie.
The ending of the movie, a very bloody one, seems inevitable when we realize
what we have learned about Travis. After this there are a couple of more
scenes and to reveal here what they say would be a big spoiler, but you can
see them in more than one way, I guess. Are the events we see really
happening or are they in the imagination of Travis? I am not sure, and I
think no one could be sure.
The last thing I do want to mention is the acting. Cybill Shepherd and
Harvey Keitel are very good, Jodie Foster is terrific and it is no wonder
she would go on to win more than one Oscar. The greatest of them all of
course is Robert De Niro who gives one of the finest performances in his
career. Creating the character the way he does it is perfect. He and
Scorsese have made sure this is a great movie.