(1976) dir Martin Scorsese w/Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Albert Brooks [113 min]
TAXI DRIVER is one of those landmark films that just makes everyone involved look really good. It’s a movie that could only have come from a cinemaniac director like Scorsese – drawing on his classic Hollywood influences and channeling them into an unsettling evocation of urban and personal decay. De Niro’s performance is, of course, legendary – and for good reason – but equally remarkable are the turns by former beauty queen Cybill Shepherd, pre-teen Jodi Foster, and the frightening Harvey Keitel. Michael Chapman’s lurid cinematography captures the ugly poetics of a sweltering, garbage strewn New York City, and the score by Hollywood legend, Bernard Herrmann (whose 100th birthday we celebrate this summer) casts a further undertone of brooding malevolence. TAXI DRIVER is a film that is more than the sum of its parts, even though those parts are amazing on their own.
An ex-marine Vietnam vet turned New York City cab driver, Travis Bickle works the night shift because he can’t sleep anyway; the city is just too out of control. Despite his attempts to find a human connection with a beautiful campaign worker (Shepherd) and an all-too-young prostitute (Foster), the city’s malcontents seem to ratchet up their disturbing behavior, Bickle’s alienation increases, and his already fragile mind is pushed to the breaking point. This is the film that proved that no one does blood-drenched despair quite like Martin Scorsese.
“You haven’t truly seen Martin Scorsese’s NYC nightmare until you settle in for this jaw-dropping restoration!” – Time Out New York
“TAXI DRIVER still stuns! Hysterical yet sublime, the movie crystallizes one of the worst moments in New York’s history—the city as America’s pariah, a crime-ridden, fiscally profligate, graffiti-festooned moral cesspool… No nostalgia, though: In other aspects, the world of Taxi Driver is recognizably ours. Libidinal politics, celebrity worship, sexual exploitation, the fetishization of guns and violence, racial stereotyping, the fear of foreigners—not to mention the promise of apocalyptic religion—all remain. TAXI DRIVER lives. See it again. And try to have a nice day.” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Taxi Driver
Restored New 35mm Print!
Bernard Herrmann Centennial!
Plays Friday, July 1—Thursday, July 7
Buy Tickets Brattle Passes OK
Watch Trailer ↓
(1976) dir Martin Scorsese w/Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Albert Brooks [113 min]
TAXI DRIVER is one of those landmark films that just makes everyone involved look really good. It’s a movie that could only have come from a cinemaniac director like Scorsese – drawing on his classic Hollywood influences and channeling them into an unsettling evocation of urban and personal decay. De Niro’s performance is, of course, legendary – and for good reason – but equally remarkable are the turns by former beauty queen Cybill Shepherd, pre-teen Jodi Foster, and the frightening Harvey Keitel. Michael Chapman’s lurid cinematography captures the ugly poetics of a sweltering, garbage strewn New York City, and the score by Hollywood legend, Bernard Herrmann (whose 100th birthday we celebrate this summer) casts a further undertone of brooding malevolence. TAXI DRIVER is a film that is more than the sum of its parts, even though those parts are amazing on their own.
An ex-marine Vietnam vet turned New York City cab driver, Travis Bickle works the night shift because he can’t sleep anyway; the city is just too out of control. Despite his attempts to find a human connection with a beautiful campaign worker (Shepherd) and an all-too-young prostitute (Foster), the city’s malcontents seem to ratchet up their disturbing behavior, Bickle’s alienation increases, and his already fragile mind is pushed to the breaking point. This is the film that proved that no one does blood-drenched despair quite like Martin Scorsese.