Short Take: Taxi Driver

"I'm God's lonely man." Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese from a script by Paul Schrader, may be as close as films have gotten to the power of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s fiction. It’s fevered and intense, and it fully catches one up in its protagonist’s descent from alienation into madness. The main character, played by Robert De Niro, is named Travis Bickle. He is a 26-year-old former Marine who takes a job as a nighttime cabbie in New York City. He cannot find any kind of rapport with others; he’s so disengaged that the friendly overtures of coworkers make little impression. He becomes infatuated with a pretty campaign worker (Cybill Shepherd), who finds him amusing, but he ultimately can’t help but offend her. Having no outlet for any positive emotion, he grows angrily obsessed with the more squalid aspects of the city, and becomes fixated with saving a 12-year-old prostitute (Jodie Foster). He also becomes fixated with the politician (Leonard Harris) who employs the campaign worker. Scorsese powerfully dramatizes the world as Bickle experiences it. The rhythms of life seem off-kilter and halting. Daylight feels harsh and oppressive, and the night is close to hallucinatory. The city is portrayed as a dizzying, luridly tactile nightmare. Robert De Niro’s performance is one of the greatest in all of film. He takes a viewer inside how disconnected Bickle is, and he makes one feel every tick of the time bomb of resentment, obsession, and violence the character becomes. The terrific supporting cast also includes Peter Boyle, Albert Brooks, and Harvey Keitel. Scorsese has a blistering scene in the role of a deranged cab passenger. But the standout among the supporting players is Jodie Foster, who delivers perhaps the most vivid, nuanced work one will ever see from a child actor. The cinematographer was Michael Chapman, and Bernard Herrmann provided the moody, dissonant score.