Taxi driver / Columbia Pictures presents a Bill/Phillips production of a Martin Scorsese film ; written by Paul Schrader ; produced by Michael Phillips and Julia Phillips ; directed by Martin Scorsese.
Material type:
FilmPublisher number: 10178524 | Columbia PicturesLanguage: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish Original language: English Subtitle language: Chinese, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai Publisher: Culver City, California : Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, [2011]Copyright date: ©2011Description: 1 videodisc (114 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 inContent type: - two-dimensional moving image
- video
- videodisc
- Director of photography, Michael Chapman ; editors, Marcia Lucas, Tom Rolf, Melvin Shapiro ; music, Bernard Herrmann.
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Blu-ray
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Main Library | DVD | New | DRAMA TAXI DRI | Available | 33111010005540 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"All the animals come out at night" -- and one of them is a cabby about to snap. In Martin Scorsese's classic 1970s drama, insomniac ex-Marine Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) works the nightshift, driving his cab throughout decaying mid-'70s New York City, wishing for a "real rain" to wash the "scum" off the neon-lit streets. Chronically alone, Travis cannot connect with anyone, not even with such other cabbies as blowhard Wizard (Peter Boyle). He becomes infatuated with vapid blonde presidential campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who agrees to a date and then spurns Travis when he cluelessly takes her to a porno movie. After an encounter with a malevolent fare (played by Scorsese), the increasingly paranoid Travis begins to condition (and arm) himself for his imagined destiny, a mission that mutates from assassinating Betsy's candidate, Charles Palatine (Leonard Harris), to violently "saving" teen hooker Iris (Jodie Foster) from her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel). Travis' bloodbath turns him into a media hero; but has it truly calmed his mind? Written by Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver is an homage to and reworking of cinematic influences, a study of individual psychosis, and an acute diagnosis of the latently violent, media-fixated Vietnam era. Scorsese and Schrader structure Travis' mission to save Iris as a film noir version of John Ford's late Western The Searchers (1956), aligning Travis with a mythology of American heroism while exposing that myth's obsessively violent underpinnings. Yet Travis' military record and assassination attempt, as well as Palatine's political platitudes, also ground Taxi Driver in its historical moment of American in the 1970s. Employing such techniques as Godardian jump cuts and ellipses, expressive camera moves and angles, and garish colors, all punctuated by Bernard Herrmann's eerie final score (finished the day he died), Scorsese presents a Manhattan skewed through Travis' point-of-view, where De Niro's now-famous "You talkin' to me" improv becomes one more sign of Travis' madness. Shot during a New York summer heat wave and garbage strike, Taxi Driver got into trouble with the MPAA for its violence. Scorsese desaturated the color in the final shoot-out and got an R, and Taxi Driver surprised its unenthusiastic studio by becoming a box-office hit. Released in the Bicentennial year, after Vietnam, Watergate, and attention-getting attempts on President Ford's life, Taxi Driver's intense portrait of a man and a society unhinged spoke resonantly to the mid-'70s audience -- too resonantly in the case of attempted Reagan assassin and Foster fan John W. Hinckley. Taxi Driver went on to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but it lost the Best Picture Oscar to the more comforting Rocky. Anchored by De Niro's disturbing embodiment of "God's lonely man," Taxi Driver remains a striking milestone of both Scorsese's career and 1970s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
Blu-ray, regions A, B, C, widescreen (1.85:1) presentation, 1080p High Definition; DTS-HD MA 5.1 (English, French, Portuguese), Dolby Digital 5.1 (Spanish).
English, French, Spanish or Portuguese soundtracks; optional English, Korean, Thai, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Chinese subtitles; optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, Cybill Shepherd.
Director of photography, Michael Chapman ; editors, Marcia Lucas, Tom Rolf, Melvin Shapiro ; music, Bernard Herrmann.
Originally released as a motion picture in 1976.
MPAA rating: R.
CHV rating: 18A.
A psychotic taxi driver tries to save a child prostitute and becomes infatuated with a political campaigner.
Special features: BD exclusive: interactive script to screen; original 1986 commentary with director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader recorded by the Criterion collection; commentaries by writer Paul Schrader and by professor Rober Kolker; Martin Scorsese on Taxi driver; producing Taxi driver; God's lonely man; Influence and appreciation; Taxi driver stories; Making of documentary; Travis' New York; Travis' New York locations; Storyboard to film comparisons with Martin Scorsese introduction; animated photo galleries.
Feature program: Taxi driver / with original 1986 commentary with director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader recorded by the Criterion collection ; commentary with professor Robert Kolker ; commentary with writer Paul Schrader -- Special features -- Previews -- Interactive script to screen -- Martin Scorsese on Taxi driver / produced in association with DZN, the design group. Produced and directed by Greg Carson ; director of photography, Irving Ong ; editor, Robert Elliott -- Producing Taxi driver / produced in association with DZN, the design group. Produced and directed by Greg Carson ; director of photography, Irving Ong ; editor, Michael Ruiz, Don Burton -- God's lonely man / produced in association with DZN, the design group. Produced and directed by Greg Carson ; director of photography, Irving Ong ; editor, Michael Ruiz, Don Burton -- Influence and appreciation : a Martin Scorsese tribute / produced in association with DZN, the design group. Produced and directed by Greg Carson ; director of photography, Irving Ong ; editor, Michael Ruiz, Don Burton -- Taxi driver stories / produced in association with DZN, the design group. Produced and directed by Greg Carson ; director of photography, Irving Ong ; edited by Michael Ruiz, Don Burton, Adam P. Cray -- Making Taxi driver / written, directed and produced by Laurent Bouzereau ; directors of photography, Maury Dahlen, Jim Garcia, Chris Meagher, Ron Siegel ; edited by David Palmer -- Travis' New York / produced in association with DZN, the design group. Produced and directed by Greg Carson ; director of photography, Irving Ong ; editor, Robert Elliott -- Travis' New York locations -- Intro to storyboards by Martin Scorsese -- Storyboard to film comparison -- Galleries.