Taxi Driver. 1976. USA. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Screenplay by Paul Schrader. With Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Cybill Shepherd. 114 min.
Martin Scorsese's searing urban nightmare stands as one of the great achievements of post-classical American cinema. Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle---Vietnam veteran turned night-shift taxi driver---prowls the rain-slicked streets of a decaying New York City, his growing alienation metastasizing into violent vigilantism. Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Chapman transform mid-70s Manhattan into a living hellscape of moral decay, bathed in neon and steam, while Bernard Herrmann's final score creates an unsettling undercurrent of dread and swooning romanticism. Paul Schrader's screenplay draws from existentialist literature, crafting in Travis a uniquely American antihero whose pathologies reflect deeper national traumas.
Though the film's climax seemed almost unbearably violent at the time of its release, the film's lasting power lies in its willingness to inhabit a fractured consciousness without judgment. Columbia Pictures took a significant risk on this difficult material, resulting in a Palme d'Or-winning masterpiece that captures the disillusionment of post-Vietnam America while establishing the archetype of the alienated loners who continue to haunt the national consciousness.