Review of Taxi Driver (1976) by Filipeneto — 28 May 2022

“Are you talking to me?!”….

This film is a milestone in cinema, and elegantly combines a good story, good actors, an exceptional director and a technical execution full of talent and well-achieved artistic notes. A perfect movie? Maybe not… but it came close!

The film takes place in New York during a summer of the seventies. The city is dystopian, ugly and dirty in every way: the ubiquitous garbage, the amorality that dominates, the characters from the marginal environment, the misrepresentation of sexuality, the normalization of prostitution and pornography, the violence and crime that occasionally appear to us. . In the midst of this, Travis Bickle, a Vietnam War veteran who lives an unhappy existence in a filthy apartment, makes a living as a night shift taxi driver. A lonely and depressed man, he internally represses his anguish, bitterness and the thoughts of violence that assail him, until a platonic love for a deified woman results in a heartbreak that leads him to a dramatic and brutal outcome, where he will decide the fate of a young minor prostitute who, by chance, crosses his life.

I could talk a lot about this movie, because it's one of those movies that is worth watching carefully to see all the little details. The sexy clothes of the prostitutes, the extravagant clothes of the men, drug dealers and pimps, the dirty and disorganized environment of the protagonist's apartment, the symbolic detail of the burning of flowers or that camera that, leaving the protagonist on the phone with his love interest, shows a hallway as empty and bleak as his personal life. Martin Scorsese gives us one of his most masterful works, with impeccable execution and a magnificent sense of aesthetics and taste.

The cast includes several well-known and talented names, but it's Robert De Niro who makes the movie work. With a powerful, charismatic, brutally intense and sharp performance, the actor achieves one of the most significant works of his career, an authentic business card that will open many doors for him and help to make him one of the consecrated and iconic actors of the second half of 20th century. Equally striking, an extremely young and beautiful Jodie Foster balances herself, harmoniously and paradoxically, between the childlike sweetness of her character and the harshness, inhumanity and vice of the world she inhabits. Harvey Keitel is excellent in the role of a pimp for teenagers and Cybill Shepherd, despite being an ephemeral and extremely deified character, fulfills her role wonderfully. Even Scorsese decides to appear, in a cameo with an apparently sterile dialogue, but which places the weapons inside the protagonist's mind, as a subliminal message.

Technically, the film is extraordinary. Personally, if I were a film student, I feel that I would have to see this film with a student's eye, observing the details and the technical, artistic and stylistic options adopted. Nothing is thoughtless, from the neon ads to the fading of colors in the gunfight scene, which is one of the most bombastic and graphically violent exchanges to date. The cinematography is amazing, the filming work was executed to perfection, the sets and costumes are really well executed. With few effects, the quality stands out. The soundtrack is excellent, atmospheric and powerful, and was the last to be composed by Bernard Herrmann, who would die even before the release of the film, which was otherwise dedicated to him.