On every street in every city,
there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody.
Distributed by
Columbia TriStar
Cat.no: CDR 90019
Cert: 18
Running time: 109 minutes
Year: 1976
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 28 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo), Mono
Languages: English, German, French
Subtitles: 16 different languages available
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 5
Price: £19.99
Extras : Scene index, Filmographies, US Theatrical Trailer,
71-minute Featurette, Video Photo Gallery with Commentary, Original Screenplay,
Storyboard Sequence, Advertising Materials
Director:
Martin Scorsese
(After Hours, The Age of Innocence, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Bringing Out the Dead, Cape Fear (1991), Casino, The Color of Money, Goodfellas, The King of Comedy, Kundun, Mean Streets, The Last Temptation of Christ,
New York New York, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver)
Producers:
Michael Philips and Julia Philips
Screenplay:
Paul Schrader
Music:
Bernard Herrmann
Cast:
Travis Bickle: Robert De Niro (Analyse This, Awakenings, Backdraft, Brazil, A Bronx Tail, Cape Fear, Casino, Cop Land, The Deerhunter, The Fan, The Godfather Part II,
Goodfellas, Great Expectations (1997), Guilty By Suspicion, Heat, Jackie Brown, Jacknife, The King Of Comedy, Mad Dog and Glory, Marvin's Room,
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Mean Streets, Midnight Run, The Mission, New York New York, Night and the City,
Raging Bull, Ronin, Sleepers, Taxi Driver, This Boy's Life, The Untouchables)
Iris: Jodie Foster (The Accused, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Bugsy Malone, Contact, Five Corners, Little Man Tate, Maverick, Nell, The Silence of the Lambs, Sommersby, Taxi Driver)
Sport: Harvey Keitel (Bad Lieutenant, Bugsy, Cop Land, The Duellists, From Dusk Till Dawn, Mean Streets, Pulp Fiction, The Piano, Reservoir Dogs, Rising Sun, Taxi Driver, Thelma and Louise, The Two Jakes)
Betsy: Cybill Shepherd (Alice, Chances Are, Daisy Miller, The Heartbreak Kid, The Last Picture Show, The Last Word, Married To It, Once Upon a Crime, Taxi Driver, Texasville, TV: Cybill, Moonlighting)
Taxi Driver
stars Robert De Niro in a powerhouse performance as Travis Bickle, a 26-year-old
loner and mentally-disturbed Vietnam verteran. He's also an insomniac so may as well make use of
his twilight hours and takes a job as the film's title would suggest. After 12 or 14 hours
a night spent driving around though, he still can't sleep so pops down to his local
seedy fleapit for a screening of the "Debbie Does Dallas" of his day.
In a town full of scum, hookers and "skunk-pussies", he sees nothing but filth and
depravity. As the film progresses onwards, so his attitude and state of mind progress
downwards, to the point where he wants to put the world to rights his way - and if things
are going to work out like that, it's not going to have a happy ending. However, you'll know
that even if you've not seen the film, but have seen the oft-copied pose of De Niro
questioning, "You talkin' to me ?"
"Life" may have been the name of the game for Bruce Forsyth when he hosted the Generation
Game, but for Travis, it's "stalking" and he turns his attentions to Betsy (Cybill
Shepherd), one of many campaigners to help Charles Palantine (Leonard Harris)
get elected. Her concerned colleague, Tom (Albert Brooks), is another.
If all of this is not enough for one sad cabbie to get to grips with, he also develops
an affinity for Iris, a young prostitute from the day she tries to catch a ride, but is hassled
by her pimp (Harvey Keitel). There was an outcry at the time of the film's release
because the prostitute was played by Jodie Foster who was only thirteen years old.
The film also has a cameo from its director, Martin Scorsese as one of Travis'
customers, 38 minutes in. Behind the camera though, he cuts a tight masterpiece which even
manages to raise a smile or two in sarcastic humour, amongst the disturbing madness.
If there's one line which sums up Travis' character very well, it's Betsy's comment to him
on their first date :
"I don't believe I've ever met anyone quite like you."
The picture is a bit on the soft side at times and the print could use a
remastering, but a lot of the time it is fairly clean. The film is presented
in its original 1.85:1 ratio and is anamorphic. The average bitrate is an
above-average 5.34Mb/s, occasionally peaking above 8Mb/s.
The sound is more functional than impressive. Although in stereo, there's not
a great deal of stereo separation to tax your speakers. German and French
owners only get a mono soundmix. Couldn't Columbia have pressed the disc as
a dual-layer and boost these soundtracks?
Extras :
Chapters/Trailer :
The usual 28 chapters are applied here and the original US theatrical trailer
is also included.
Languages/Subtitles :
Dolby Digital 5.1 in English and German, plus subtitles in SIXTEEN languages :
English, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hindi, Hebrew, French, German, Turkish,
Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian and Dutch.
And there's more... :
As far as I know this disc contains all the extras of its American cousin,
so chalk up a green tick for Columbia on that point.
Filmographies are available for the four main characters in the film,
plus director Martin Scorsese, photos from the film can be seen in the
Video Photo Gallery with Commentary from Laurent Bouzereau, producer of
this Special Edition DVD, the 'Commentary' part being something I haven't come
across before in this type of extra, only in feature-length audio commentaries,
The Land Girls' delete scenes commentary and
The War Zone's audio-descriptive commentary
from Game On's Neil Stuke.
A Storyboard Sequence details De Niro's closing scene in the film,
so it's vital you don't look at this until after you've seen it. The
Advertising Materials shows a brief selection of publicity photos
and film posters from the film, while fans of the film will also want to
see the extensive 71-minute behind-the-scenes Featurette.
Finally, the disc also contains the Original Screenplay, which is used
in quite a novel way. The screenplay contains the original shooting script
which has been matched up to scenes in the film, apart from those scenes in
the screenplay which aren't a part of the final cut. The disc will also allow
you to navigate back and forth between the film and the screenplay, which gives
this disc an excellent selling point, as if the film alone wasn't enough reason
to make a purchase.
Menu :
Static and silent, with a grim, grey, dirty look. No, no, don't worry. The
latter part of this is done specifically to tie in with the mood of the film.
Overall, the film and the extras are the two best reasons to buy this disc.
However, the film does have one slight cut. Since Jodie Foster was only 13
at the time of shooting, the BBFC saw fit to remove the sound of her unzipping
De Niro's flies...
The picture and sound aren't the best I've ever seen by a longshot, but anyone
who's seen this film beforehand will know what to expect and will agree that
this is the best it's going to get.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
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