Paired with the vision of a young director named Martin Scorsese (who would go on to direct more masterpieces, like Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and The Departed) Taxi Driver became an insta-classic. Given the desperate conditions in the city, it wasn't too hard for screenwriter Paul Schrader to draw on his own feelings of isolation, concocting the tale of a lonely taxi driver who gradually loses his marbles and decides to pursue a course of vigilante violence. Times Square was a festering sore full of porno theaters, porno shops, and (porno?) drugs. It was in the middle of a garbage strike-yum, hot trash juice cooking in the mid-Atlantic summer sun. Taxi Driver arrived at a time (1976) when New York City was at its sleaziest and grittiest. It's violent, it's dark, it's counter-intuitive-and it's a universally acknowledged classic. Taxi Driver is the tale of how a lonely cabbie befriends a young prostitute and helps her reunite with her abandoned parents… by going on a bloody, psychotic rampage, and blowing away the young girl's pimp and a bunch of hotel employees.
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If you want to see an awesome movie about great cabbies being excellent people, peep Jim Jarmusch's Night On Earth.īut if you feel like going into the small intestine of the seedy underbelly of NYC and watching a man spiral into madness-or hey, if you want to check out what is deemed by directors worldwide to be one of the Top 10 Best Movies Ever Made- Taxi Driver is for you. If you want to see New York City at its finest, check out Ghostbusters. If you want a case of the warm fuzzies, watch It's A Wonderful Life. Stars: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd