Sigur wrote:
fuckin' love this film. I've never seen a better De Niro.
i'd have to say that i liked de niro alot in Casino and his most bodacious
cameo in the Godfather!! rock on buddy boy!![/quote][/quote]
No way you can call his genious turn in Godfather pt.2 a cameo, it deserves more than that.
Taxi Driver is to me is a story of how a superhero would function in the real world. It's the most realistic superhero flick, ever. Not that I rank it alongside X-Men and Spider-Man (or worse: Daredevil and the Schumacher Batmans) - no way in hell will I belittle this genious piece of art to that, but it bears many recemblance's with the genre. It's the classic origin story: We meet the guy with the special gift; he doesn't sleep at night. He utilizes his powers for something trivial and unimportant; driving a cab. Whilst doing this, he slowly discovers wrongs waiting to be made right, so he decides to use his "powers" to serve the common good. He's Peter Parker with a mohawk
Hell, in the end he even makes his own cosume (mohawk and army jacket) as well as a personalized arsenal, before embarking on his final battle. What it also shows is how the superheroes of fantasy could never work. To elevate themself from the scum of humanity in order to defeat its evils, you'd have to distance yourself from it completely, anything else would be hypocrisy. Travis recognizes that there are evils to defeat everywhere, and thus he isolates himself from society completely. This would never work in reality, which is why it doesn't work in Taxi Driver. Taking his date to a porn flick is probably the best example of this.
BUT with the genious of Scorsese behind the camera and DeNiro in front, this is of course not comparable to any superhero flick, this is a classic merger of direction, performance and story. The movie that comes once in each directors career, where his directing abilities meet the script that perfectly articulates them. It's a masterpiece.[/quote]
If you ever run for president of the world, I'll vote for you.
