Description
Unanimous 1st 2005
8vo paperback 200 pages F++ 440 gms
(Order reference 15900)
Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver is one of the key films of the 1970s. In Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro), the Vietnam vet turned New York taxi driver, Scorsese created a character who summed up the seething discontents of an America still traumatised by Vietnam and Watergate. A slave to pornography and junk food, obsessed with guns, Travis was very different from the traditional Hollywood film hero, but struck an immediate rapport with audiences worldwide. Taxi Driver was influenced by eveything from Dostoevsky novels to John Ford westerns, Godard movies, film noir, and screenwriter Paul Schrader's memories of living rough. The movie's impact has been felt in unexpected ways: in the actions of Jodie Foster-obsessed John Hinkley, who tried to assassinate President Reagan after seeing the film 15 times; in the music of British punk bands; and in the work of thousands of other filmmakers, trying to make gritty, urban thrillers.