Scorsese's best

Rating: 9/10 (13 January 2014)

Taxi Driver is a film that marked the start of the 'modern filmmaking'. Scorsese, in fact, still haven't done anything as good as 'Taxi Driver' or 'Raging Bull' yet, not coincidentally both came in his earlier filmmaking years. 'Taxi Driver' is not much different than Scorsese's recent works, it has the vulgarity and the dirty life in the streets as focus, but differently than films like 'Goodfellas' and recently 'The Wolf of Wall Street', 'Taxi is done with an artistic approach, instead of just a thin paper of vulgarities translated for the screen.
The most interesting thing about this film, is the character development. You really want to hate the driver, because is admittedly a despicable, antisocial, racist crazy freak. But we are so near to him all the time that's virtually impossible. We feel sorry for him, but never hate him. He believe in what he believes, and the viewer knows and understand why, despite him being wrong. That is really interesting. Somehow, you can forgive all his faults. Then he tries to establish a relation with a woman, and in the beginning they do relatively well with each other, judging by the circumstances of their meeting, but quickly he realizes that she is way too different of her(in his head, he thinks that she is as dirty as the rest of the world). He became even more upset after that 'big' disappointment, even because he really don't likes the 'dirty' people. and by 'dirty' he refers to prostitutes, bandits, people that works and have a social life, and the most controversial of all: he hates 'blacks'. He is racist, noteworthy. And a completely antisocial person, but that is easily assumable.
His 'rage' against the world just grows more and more, and there is a point when he start to think about really f***** up stuff. He buy guns and then becomes to train and also mastering his abilities of 'hit-man'. He became determined to 'clean' the streets, but his thoughts never turn in actions. He just drive his taxi at night and then train with his weapons in the free-time, but never do nothing about it. I think this is an interesting concept, you know, about people who have fear to concrete his actions. Its an spot on metaphor, because this really happens, people which never create courage to do what he wants to. So, we all know that he isn't a crazy psycho, I mean, he still crazy, but we know that psychos don't hesitate, feel fear, or anything.
But apart from the 'most interesting' thing, there is also the 'most important' thing about the film, who shall be understood. It's, after all, a harsh critic about those individuals that put the fault in everyone due to their condition, but not in themselves, and how this human beings are egocentric. Noteworthy, how the 'driver' behavior changed, after doing something he considered 'relevant' in his life. He simply became a cool person(apparently) after that. Is a fantastic metaphor, it's basically saying if people could do everything they wanted to, so they would be not upset about the world, that in their vision is being 'unfair' with them. Obviously, it's my point of view, can be refuted or accepted but will still a theory and my point of view. There is more thoughts about the film here than the content about the film itself, I guess, but I just think that's a film that it's content can't be told at all only with detailing about his components, how it was made etc., so a superficial review about the cinematography, the storyline and the direction, wouldn't be enough, in my opinion. It's a film that really left you thinking about it for a long time. It's rich in content, and open for various interpretations. Dawn, I don't even mentioned about the 'contradiction' idea, which is the base for the story of the driver. So, as you see, there is a lot of stuff in the film to be analyzed.
So, yeah, I think that's a done review, perhaps it's a review targeted more for people who have watched the film, but it hasn't 'super spoilers' or something like that either. I didn't tell even half the story, so if you'll haven't watched it just yet and read my review, don't worry. You'll still enjoy it, for sure. Now, my rating is 9.5/10. One of Scorsese best, alongside Raging Bull, and It absolutely deserves it's 'classic status'. What more can I say? Watch this film.