3 min to read
Toma's Review Of: Taxi Driver (1976)
Short Summary Of My Review
Taxi Driver is my favorite movie of all time. It has great music which it uses to tell the story, tricks you into siding with a (at the end) clearly insane person. The directing is great, 10/10.
Full Review
I have seen more or less every Scorsese ever made, and his directing style has never clicked for me. I’ve seen The Wolf Of Wall Street, directing too saturated and basic, Killers Of The Flower Moon, half an hour too long, and (I know this will upset a lot of people) Goodfellas, which has a slightly different point of view then classic mobster movies, with worse directing. I have never liked Scorsese’s music choices, I think it doesn’t fit well most of the time, and his camera work felt basic. Because of this, I slowed down watching him, giving time to other directing that aren’t as famous but I like better. But I was bored this weekend, and I mean really bored. So I decided to watch Taxi Driver. It was one of the last Scorsese’s I hadn’t gotten to because it was older. I turned it on, and I was captivated. One of the first things I noticed was the camera work. I love shots that frame a scene without looking directly at it, and I think using the mirror of a taxi is genius. Then the music started, and this I obsessed over. First off, the saxophone is amazing. Second off, it frames the whole movie. When he’s in love-y dove-y mode the saxophone is playing, and when he’s in kill-y kill-y mode there’s loud drums. This seems pretty basic, and there’s only 2 songs playing so it’s really noticeable. But, then they start quickly cutting between each other, showing his turmoil with love and his dark side. And in the final scene, the saxophone is on the drum track, but it’s deeper so it sounds more demonic. You could not watch the movie, just listen to the music, and get a pretty good idea of what’s happening.
The most universally loved part (for good reason) is De Niro’s performance. Like most movie watchers, I turned off my scary radar for this man who just seemed like a hard worker. He’s ex-military, and starts working a cab. And he’s the protagonist, so how bad could he be? Then, he starts following the girl that works for Palantine and things get a little weird, but all he does is invite her over to lunch. And then suddenly, without warning, my perception of him shifted. Before he killed people, or even met the 12 year old prostitute, my perception changed. The character hadn’t changed anything in how he was acting, and yet now he felt totally insane to me. De Niro’s performance was so convincing as a crazy guy, I didn’t know he was a crazy guy. Usually when people are crazy in movies, the actors act like that character knows they are crazy too. But for most crazy people, I don’t think they know, so they just come off as kind of confused until you see the crazy act. Taxi Driver is an amazing movie. It has great camera work, music that tells the story (and is banging), great acting from De Niro. 10/10 movie, good job Marty.
