DVD review: 'Taxi Driver'

An imaginative extra on Sony's new "Taxi Driver" rounds up hacks who worked Manhattan in the 1970s, just like the movie's sicko antihero Travis Bickle. Some of the taxi drivers remember it as "a great adventure"; others start their stories with something like, "The guy pulls out an ax. ..."

One of the hacks thinks back on the pre-Disney Times Square and comes to this conclusion about the street life: "Mr. Bickle wasn't wrong."

Bickle, of course, is the man who couldn't take it any more, who'd had enough of "all the animals" that came out at night. Thirty years later, Martin Scorsese and Paul Schraeder's portrait of a lonely paranoid driven to multiple murders retains all of its punch. The movie holds up 100%.

Scorsese, unfortunately, doesn't do a director's commentary on Sony's fine new double-disc set of "Taxi Driver: Limited Collector's Edition." He already did one, a decade ago, on Criterion's laserdisc. (The track is out there somewhere in bitstream land.) Not having one of the great directors (and movie commentators) talk about one of his greatest movies is a shame, but there's plenty on this two-disc set here to bring "Taxi Driver" into focus -- starting with Scorsese's 17-minute intro to the movie.

"It was a film that we though wasn't going to be seen by anybody," Scorsese recalls. Still an unproven filmmaker, he was willing to shoot "Taxi Driver" on video tape. "We just had to make it." Then came "Mean Streets" and De Niro's performance in "Godfather II."

Scorsese says part of the pull was his and Schraeder's identification with "loser" Bickle -- who declares solemnly in the script, "I believe that someone should become a person like other people."

"We knew how he felt," Scorsese says. "Maybe it (was) a coming of age thing. ... There's a certain truth that Schraeder hit upon. ... I still can't verbalize it."

Schraeder says in his new feature-length commentary that one of several uncomfortable truths about the character is, "He's not an alien. He's an American kid. ... He's one of us."

Also doing a commentary is Robert Kolker, a film professor who talks about the influences of John Ford and Albert Hitchcock. (Bernard Hermann, Hitchcock's music man, did the unsettling, deeply urban score. Unfortunately the DVD extras don't examine Hermann's role beyond images of his written score.)

Other extras include the solid docu "Making Taxi Driver" (also on the last DVD), "Producing Taxi Driver" with Michael Phillips, an interview with the cinematographer Michael Chapman and a fun interactive visit with the Big Apple locations as they looked in the '70s and today. Sorry, the diner's gone.

The surround audio has plenty of punch if not much of a soundstage itinerary. Hermann's music oozes dread with the strong subwoofer track. All that classic dialogue sounds unusually distinct for films of this era.

The 1:85.1 images look as they should -- few signs of wear; city-streets grain but no unintentional murk. Owners of the previous DVD should pay the upgrade fare without hestitation.

Comments

[rod / upcomingdiscs.com]

Do you ever worry that Hollywood will target this movie for a re-make or re-imagining? Shudder.

[Glenn Abel]

Hey Rod -- Funny you should write that. I woke up this morning (no life) thinking that if that movie were made today, "Taxi Driver 2" would be right behind it -- regardless of what the director wanted.

Pity Mr. Hitchcock: "Psycho" remade, now "The Birds." The studio airhead said the movie needed to be reimagined to bring in an ecology hook.

Thanks for the comment, man.