Taxi Driver

Our DVD Price: £6.99 RRP: £15.99 Save £9.00 (56%)   Availability This product should be despatched within 7 days.  This product will be dispatched from Guernsey. Delivery times   Earn 30 Bonus Points when you buy this product. More info

Also available on... 

VHS £5.99 

View in full detail

Film Description

As a tale of modern alienation, Taxi Driver was something of a sordid masterpiece of its time. Scorsese captures the after-hours neon underworld of New York streets with a lush, sleazy poetry and turns the sewer into Art. A generation later, the film is dominated by its iconography: De Niro and the mirror, Jodie Foster, precocious in hot pants, and the yellow cab, gliding through steamy night streets to the soulful wailing of a sax.

Film Information

DVD Extras

2 discs; Introduction to the DVD with Martin Scorsese; Introduction to the DVD with Paul Schrader; Commentary: Writer (Paul Schrader); Commentary: Professor Robert Kolker (Author of A Cinema of Loneliness); 'Loneliness and Inspiration' Documentary; 'Cabbie Confessional' Documentary 'Producing a Cult Classic' Featurette; 'Appreciation and Influence' Featurette; 'Taxi Driver Locations: Then and Now' Featurette; Animated Photo Gallery; Storyboard to Film Comparisons; Behind the Scenes Documentary; Theatrical Trailer; Filmographies.

Technical Details

Film Media

5 Stills

View Stills

Reviews & Articles

Share your thoughts and opinions - write a review

Review by Dan Macklin on 14th June 2004

Travis Bickle (De Niro) is a 20-something Vietnam vet, and a loner with chronic insomnia, with which he deals by working long hours as a New York taxi driver. Unfortunately, all this succeeds in doing is to forcibly confirm to Travis what he already believes to be true: that the city's streets are littered with scum and lowlife. Being forced to fraternise on a daily and nightly basis with the people he despises so much exacerbates a torturous descent towards psychosis, illustrated in particularly uncomfortable fashion by several scenes in which we see and hear Travis talking to himself, such as the legendary scene where he is seen acting threateningly into a mirror ("You talkin' to me?").

Travis can find no happiness or pleasure in a world devoid of such things and so, ultimately, the only way in which he feels he can convey his disgust of the society around him is through violence. Although this violence is mostly hinted at, when it does occur it is in a suitably crazed, blood-soaked manner. There is a certain inevitablity to Travis' actions, yet their repercussions provide an unexpected twist in the tale.

Travis does not interact easily with others, particularly on a social basis, and key to the film are his relationships with two members of the opposite sex. Betsy (Shepherd) works as a volunteer for a Presidential candidate, Senator Charles Palantine, and Travis falls for her the moment he lays eyes on her. If nothing else, Betsy is fascinated by Travis; unfortunately, he blows it on their first proper 'date' by taking her to see a porn movie, and thereafter she will have nothing to do with him. Travis' violent intent towards the Senator later in the film is arguably triggered in part by this rejection; Betsy clearly takes her job very seriously and is more devoted (in this sense) to Palantine than she could ever be to Travis.

By contrast, Iris (Foster) is a twelve-year-old prostitute whom Travis befriends and whom he is adamant should be living a 'normal' life at home with her parents and with children her own age. The scenes the two share together bring out a caring side to Travis' character hitherto unseen; yet, of course, he is fighting a losing battle in trying to talk her out of living a life of vice, and so ends up letting actions do what his words alone cannot.

Brilliantly acted and directed, and with a haunting, melancholy score that perfectly counterbalances the mood of the movie, Taxi Driver was one of the seminal films of the 1970s, and still seems relevant today in its depiction of hopeless alienation engendered by a decaying society.

View more reviews by Dan Macklin

Browse all Film Reviews

See Also...

Hand-picked recommendations of related films

Fight Club Dir: David Fincher A disillusioned young man meets a charismatic stranger and together they form The Fight Club, an underground soc... More >

The Martin Scorsese Collection Dir: Martin Scorsese Comprising Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, After Hours and Who’s That Knocking at My Door, this is an invaluabl... More >

Oldboy Dir: Chan-Wook Park A powerful, inventive, stomach-churning thriller in which a middle-aged man seeks explanations after 15 years of... More >

Collections & Lists

This film is part of the following Film Collections

Palme D'Or Winners

Including: All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now Redux, Blow-up, Brief Encounter (1945), Dancer in The Dark, Elephant, Kagemusha, La Dolce Vita, Marty, MASH.

Sight and Sound Critics Choice 2002

Including: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Andrei Rublev, Au Hasard Balthazar, Bicycle Thieves, Breathless (Godard, 1959), Charlie Chaplin - City Lights, Fanny and Alexander, Fellinis 8 1/2, Intolerance, Ivan The Terrible (Parts 1 & 2).

View all collections

This film is part of the following Customer Film Lists

Halliwell's Top 100 Movies by MovieMail

Leslie Halliwell was one of the most authoritative of film critics and a new edition of the film bible lists the Top 1000 movies of all time. Here we list the Top 100, all of which are undoubted classics that stand up to repeated viewings and which are testament to the brilliance that cinema can achieve.

Movies with Beginnings / Middles / Endings by MP Delpeche

I love stories, that are sometimes complex; always engaging; have well developed characters; are paced beginning-to-ending; visually appealing; entertaining. I hope you like my selection.

Some Great Movies to see before you die! by Cliff Haylett

this was only going to be ten films but where to stop!

Create your own Film List!

Customers who bought this also bought...

Recommendations from fellow customers

Seven Samurai

by Akira Kurosawa

Breathless (Godard, 1959)

by Jean-Luc Godard

Triumph Of The Will

by Leni Riefenstahl

La Regle du Jeu

by Jean Renoir

The Battleship Potemkin

by Sergei Eisenstein

Other films by...

More films directed by Martin Scorsese

The Martin Scorsese Collection

Scarface / Carlitos Way / Casino

Martin Scorsese Box Set

Taxi Driver / Casino / Mean Streets

Boxcar Bertha

View more >

More films starring Robert De Niro

Mean Streets

by Martin Scorsese

Heat

by Michael Mann

Once Upon A Time In America

by Sergio Leone

The King Of Comedy

by Martin Scorsese

Sleepers

by Barry Levinson

View more >

More films starring Harvey Keitel

Holy Smoke

by Jane Campion

Mean Streets

by Martin Scorsese

From Dusk Till Dawn

by Robert Rodriguez

Reservoir Dogs

by Quentin Tarantino

The Piano

by Jane Campion

View more >

More films starring Jodie Foster

Bugsy Malone

by Alan Parker

The Silence of the Lambs

by Jonathan Demme

The Accused

by Jonathan Kaplan

Panic Room

by David Fincher

The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys

by Peter Care

View more >

More films starring Cybill Shepherd

The Last Picture Show

by Peter Bogdanovich

Alice (Woody Allen)

by Woody Allen

Daisy Miller

by Peter Bogdanovich

Silver Bears

by Ivan Passer

Taxi Driver / Casino / Mean Streets

by Martin Scorsese

View more >

For questions or assistance, call us on (+44) 0844 776 0900 or email on enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

© 2004-2007 MovieMail, Ltd., All Rights Reserved. Find out more about MovieMail