Taxi Driver The Rewatchables
Taxi Driver poster
Taxi Driver

What’s Aged the Best?

Mid-70s New York City; Joe Spinell's job interview; God's lonely man line; Harvey Keitel's pimp look; Travis and Wizard scene; De Niro's preparation; Bernard Herrmann's score; cinematography; Jodie Foster's career

In the discussion (16)
Approx. transcript time · 00:53:37Read transcript
  • The mid-70s New York setting holds up, as does the opening job interview in which Joe Spinell sizes Travis up as a lunatic.
  • Spinell's 1970s run, including Godfather 2, Taxi Driver, Rocky, Sorcerer and Big Wednesday, is compared to De Niro's.
  • The 'loneliness has followed me my whole life... God's lonely man' line is Schrader writing about loneliness after almost losing his mind.
  • Keitel's sleeveless-shirt, hat, hair and muscles look is floated as something that should have become a Saturday Night Live character.
  • Keitel reportedly based the pimp on a real pimp he worked with at the Actors Studio; the pimp originally had five lines and Keitel added more, and the 'I'm hip / You don't look hip' exchange is loved.
  • Travis telling Wizard he has bad ideas in his head is short but pivotal; Peter Boyle is great as a man who knows he doesn't know what he's saying yet is weirdly right.
  • 'You talking to me' was an omnipresent catchphrase for 15 or 20 years, though probably not as big a deal in 2021.
  • De Niro's preparation, including 15-hour days driving cabs, studying mental illness, recording Midwestern soldiers for the accent and losing 35 pounds, felt like the first time an actor's commitment was almost part of the marketing.
  • The method line runs from Brando to Dustin Hoffman in the same era, as in Marathon Man, and on to later method actors; De Niro's work is honed into behavior where others' choices show.
  • Asked about riding with cops for eight months for a Superbad cop role, the reply says they did have to ride with a cop in South Central and calls it the dumbest thing of all time.
  • Bernard Herman, arguably the most important film composer and known for Psycho, Vertigo and Citizen Kane, wrote his last score here; Scorsese, who mostly uses needle drops, begged him to do it, and the composer said 'all I hear is brass'. — Sean Fennessey
  • An editor on Barry dislikes the score and the bluesy saxophone gets a reservation, but it works and the opening music hits like a giant wave; hearing it reportedly made Scorsese feel Travis's doom and fate.
  • The composer died right after recording the score, at 64.
  • The cinematography is composed, natural-light and beautiful in a style rarely seen now.
  • The shoot came during a hot summer and the garbage strike with wet streets, and according to the cinematographer a lack of time and money forced them to let New York light itself, which turned out right.
  • In most versions of her life Foster might not have become one of the most celebrated actors of a generation and an accomplished filmmaker; a reply praises her acting and directing.