A few months after Martin Scorsese finished shooting Taxi Driver, which took place on the actual streets of New York in 1975, the New York Daily News ran a front-page headline, reading: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” The president denied a federal bailout for New York, which was then on the brink of going bankrupt. The city’s near-bankruptcy played a huge part in the film.
Robert De Niro in ‘Taxi Driver,’ 1976. Photo by Columbia / Kobal / Shutterstock
Taxi Driver really captures that all-time low in the city’s history. Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle, a lonely Vietnam vet, drives his cab through the rain-soaked and garbage-filled mean streets of the city. Those streets have since been scrubbed clean, but Taxi Driver has lost none of its power. The stars, director, and screenwriter of the legendary movie Taxi Driver sat down to recount all the hubbub surrounding the film. For starters, the screenplay, written by Paul Schrader, was born out of his own personal crisis.
The film, which went on to earn four Oscar nominations, deserves a deep dive. And this is it…