TAXI DRIVER

Review: Travis Bickle has a job as a night-time taxi driver in New York City. Life for him soon turns to the worst. He soon falls into the depths of suspicion.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Actors: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster and Cybill Shepherd
Year: 1976
Genre: Crime and Drama
Conclusion: 5/5
A complete masterpiece. When this film was released it ran into all sorts of censorship problems in America. For his role as Travis Bickle Robert De Niro worked 12 hour days for a month driving cabs and also studied mental illness. The role of Travis Bickle was originally offered to Dustin Hoffman who turned the role down. He regretted it afterwards. There are several scenes that were cut from this film but what scenes I do not know. The most famous saying in film history is in this film and it is Travis Bickle saying ‘You talkin’ to me?’. In 1977 at the Bafta Awards Jodie Foster won Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles (Bugsy Malone) and also for Best Supporting Actress (Bugsy Malone). Also at the Baftas Bernard Herrmann won an award for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music. At the Cannes Film Festival in 1976 Martin Scorsese won the Palme d’Or Award. One film critic wrote ‘Taxi Driver is a brilliant study of alienation, obsession, paranoia and perverse desire. There’s an undeniable power and grittiness that very few films have come close to capturing since’. Reading through ‘1000 Films to Change your Life’ one particular paragraph stands out for me “The audience retains the contemptuous feelings but rejects their expression, so the dilemma is: how do we differentiate ourselves from Travis Bickle?”. 
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2156724505/