God's Lonely Man

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2001)

I've seen this movie at least a dozen times in the twenty five years since its first release. I saw it when it first came out and it played in second-run theatres on double bills with other Columbia releases like "Shampoo" for a long time in Jersey when I was in high school.
Story is of a man who has little or not human interaction in the jungle of the big city. He can't sleep and figures he might as well make some money out of his insomnia. He becomes fixated on Cybill Shepard who then rejects him - on their first date he takes her to the movies but it happens to be a dirty movie. This always seemed like a very poignant moment for me - to him, that was what couples did, they went to the movies on a date. He was not able to differentiate between that movie and a regular movie, it wasn't that he was coming on to her or anything. And it wasn't that he was completely ignorant either.
He becomes increasingly frustrated and is egged on by an encounter with a psycho passenger (played by Scorsese) who discusses in detail what he plans to do to his wife, who he can see is cheating on him from the back of Travis' cab. This scene is a riot and you might hate yourself for laughing, but Scorsese obviously is enjoying himself. I don't think DeNiro says a word in their scene together. He also fancies himself as Saviour - he tries to appeal to a young hooker (Jodie Foster) to go back home and live a normal life. She seems stuck in her world until all hell breaks loose.
This movie has become a classic over the years, mostly because of DeNiro's towering performance. Many other things contributed to the greatness of this movie, not the least of which was the score by the great Bernard Herrmann, to whom the movie is dedicated.