Taxi Driver

Cast:
Robert De Niro , Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, Cybill Shepherd, and a young Jodie Foster.



Director : Martin Scorsese
Year :1976
imdb score : 8.6/10 imdb rank:#38
Language:English


Plot:
Vietnam Veteran Travis Bickle is 26, a loner in the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into isolation and violent misanthropy. In solving his insomnia by driving a yellow cab on the night shift, he grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets." His touching attempts to woo Betsy, a Senator's campaign worker, turn sour when he takes her to a porn movie on their first date. He even fails in his attempt to persuade child prostitute Iris to desert her pimp and return to her parents and school. Driven to the edge by powerlessness, he buys four handguns and sets out to assassinate the Senator, heading for the infamy of a 'lone crazed gunman'...




Shot on the streets of New York in the summer of 1975, Scorsese and director of photography Michael Chapman were set out to focus not just on Travis, but document the world he lived in. New York became its own character, and the street scenes pound with a hallucinatory intensity; gritty, sad, and at times, disturbing.
The film plunges us right into the heart of darkness, through impressionistic imagery, acute dialogue and character, and the fear and self-loathing of performance.

Awards:
won the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.

American Film Institute recognition:
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies #47
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills #22