modern masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (17 March 2005)

Paul Shrader's undeniable masterpiece of urban alienation. I grew up in a suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan which was very protestant in a uniquely conservative fashion, much the way Shrader did. I know how it felt not being able to see a movie until he was 18, and then having these floodgates open to a world a fleshly pleasures that you aren't quite ready for. As Shrader said, "it takes a certain kind of white boy". The combination of Bernard Herrman's magnificent score and Scorcese's direction makes the audience feel somehow sympathetic for this man who seems normal to his peers, yet mentally disturbed to only those who see him when he is alone, the audience. No film before or since has brought forth such a sense of impending doom.