TAXI DRIVER : the movie
 

believe it or not, i watched Taxi Driver for the first time yesterday night, bought a nice 2DVD edition for a couple of bucks off ebay.
My expectations were pretty high on this one as i'm the typical Scorcese/De Niro fanboy, but i reallythought this was huh disappointing. I mean it's young De Niro, he always kicks ass in a way or another but you know that plot is a bit minimalistic to my liking. So i kinda liked it and it's a nice in my collection and i will go back to it BUT i will hardly consider this one of my classics...

so the question is
Does everybody think that Taxi Driver is an untouchable CLASSIC film?

+ any thoughts about Mean Streets? Have never seen this one either...:eek:

You wanted it to be disappointing.

not at all, i was eager to LOVE this.

You resent being told it is an untouchable classic so you use this to inflate your expectations to unreasonable heights. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the film fails these expectations and you feel vindicated. You weren't missing out at all, it was all just hype.

I relate to it on an everyday level, in that core of me that feels like apart of me is robbed to have to endure public metropolis traffic (like when he realizes it wasnt quite right to bring a date to a porno. On which level is it acceptable?)

And just the entire alienation. I would elucidate it better if I could. It is just so sad for the spirit to be beaten down, drowned out, anonymously.

Also, I'm kidding. Just wanted to give the old deconstructive rhetoric a whirl.

I trust you were legitimately let down by the movie though I do suggest that you try at least to limit your expectations, as impossible as that sounds, in the future.

I personally like the film. Not enough to watch it often but the film delivers everything I would want with out being too bogged down with plot.

Taxi driver's easy.

Taxi Driver was pretty groundbreaking for it's time.
My guess is that you've seen alot of movies that emulated its style and content since it was made, and that's why it didn't have the punch you were hoping for.
I saw it at the movies when it first came out, and it was all me and my friends talked about for weeks afterwards - it hit us that hard.

i say see it again. it gets better with each viewing

What I like is that Travis Bickle stands as another kind of hero. Neither a true hero nor an antihero but a vigilante that teeters between the two without the idealization of either.

I watched it for the first time a few months ago: I thought it was ok, not great.
Some dialogues are rather cheap ( lots of impro I guess ).

Taxi Driver is like the best film ever made.

For young Gen-Xers who dug rock 'n' roll and everything that was cool in the mid to late '70s/early '80s, Jodie Foster was the coolest female on the planet and Taxi Driver and The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane were like the Old and New Testaments!

Never seen it.

It is a classic for sure, but I don't like this movie at all.

De Niro is an overrated actor too. Dennis Hopper always did it for me when it comes to movie psychos.

This is my favorite movie of all time (though I constantly alternate it out of the top spot and replace it with El Topo or Hana-Bi but it's been in the top spot longer than any other film so...). I heard all about it before I saw it, people going on and on about it. Then I saw it and it was even BETTER than what people had said. Jesus what a film! A truely groundbreaking, daring, innovative, moving, brilliantly-filmed, hypnotic, unbelievable film. Seems ahead of its time even today and is still being ripped off today (did anyone see the Brave One? Ugh...). Regardless of all that mumbo jumbo.. because to be honest, a film's "importance" really has nothing to do with how much I love it.. I love it because it's real. It doesn't apologize for anything. Travis is a likeable-enough guy, but he's a fucking psychopath!

Brilliant acting, I mean what a cast.. DeNiro and Keitel are just amazing as always. The soundtrack is amazing. I mean, I really can't even think of anything wrong with this film. That scene when Travis is on the phone and the camera pans over and shows an empty hallway is probably my favorite scene.

I think you were just expecting something different. Watch it again.

Saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it was ace.

interesting to see the different perspectives here. i totally have to evaluate this according to its context and place in time.
I like the aesthetics of the film. and really am into its main themes : alienation, frustration, like the screenwriter puts it "not being able to have what you want and not wanting what you can easily get".
My fave scene is the small talking with the fellow cabbie where you can see him losing entirely " you know i really wanna... i wanna... you know sometimes i have bad ideas in my head, like i really wanna... do something you know".

i can see myself in a similar state of mind in my very early twenties.
i didn't kill anybody though.
not yet.

good movie. mean streets is good too.

As movies looking into the head space of somebody going psycho and giving us the chance to identify with them a bit it's pretty effective. I'll buy that for it's time there was nothing like it and it landed like a Titan missile, forever changing the landscape. So yeah, I guess that all makes it a classic. I saw it maybe ten years ago, and it made me want to get a drink. I can't say I particularly want to watch it again though, and I think if I did, I'd probably pick it apart and think less highly of it in the end.

I agree, this was simply beautiful.

taxi driver is my favourite scorcese film, then raging bull. it is definately a classic piece of cinema. as a side not it was bernard hermann's last film composition rounding of his career nicely as citizen kane was his first.

I love taxi driver.
its story i simple, sure, but its atmosphere of desperation, lonelyness and anger is the opposite of it.
the impact in its time must be huge, but the impact when I first saw it was huge too, so I have to say: its a true classic.
and I dig that cheesy musical maintheme of it (which you get in multiple different versions on the OST)

I stand by the claims that Taxi Driver is a masterpiece. Although if anything it's current iconic status tends to get in the way of appreciating just how good it is. I'm with fugazifan when he says to watch it again; it really does get better and better. Up there with Dog Day Afternoon, Mean Streets and Duel as one of my favourite films of all time. The bit where he's sitting watching Soul Train with his foot pushing the TV set backwards being probably my single favourite movie scene ever.

You talkin' to me?

I'm the only one here.

will do soonish!

"Faster than you."


But seriously, the only other movies that I can think of that come close to my favorites of all time are The Shining and Clockwork.

there's a scene where its just a shot of him driving, taken from the front of the cab and all you get is rain and the reflection from the street lights on the bonnet/hood, and his expression. and it lingers on that for just enough to make you uncomfortable, and just enough to make you wanna scream (or get loads of guns and shoot loads of people)

me too. and christopher walken. scary scary man

mean streets is an amazing film too. i do like taxi driver more though.

I've yet to really get the whole Dennis Hopper thing. He was fine in Easy Rider, Tracks, Out of the Blue, probably up to his performance in Blue Velvet. Since then though he strikes me as having become something of a parody of himself: Hollywood's resident rent-a-loon.

He's great in Speed, Straight to Hell, Mad Dog Morgan, Hoosiers, River's Edge, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, My Science Project, True Romance, Chasers, Apocalypse Now, Boiling Point, etc.

I hope his film "The Last Movie" gets released one day soon!!

Fuck, forgot to mention RED ROCK WEST!

This film is seriously great:

Taxi Driver does indeed get better with every watch, its one of those that things jump out at you the second, third, fourth, fifth time and continue to every time you watch it.

I don't know, I thought it was one of the best things I had ever seen in my life the first time I saw it!! The characters, the music, the cinematography, the time period, the content, De Niro's obliviousness, the poetry of the script.....so great.

Granted, I was 11 or 12, so.......

Yeah, i agree with both of our points

Brace yourselves people, i'll be watching MEAN STREETS for the first time ever TONIGHT.
yes that's right i'm no cinema expert but at least i'm TRYIN'.
g'day you all.

Taxi Driver is one of those movies where I feel like I'm in the movie long after I've watched it.