arguably DeNiro's second best screen performance

Rating: 9/10 (3 July 2006)

In the seventies, Robert DeNiro was scoring one great performance after the other, under the direction of such masters as Coppola, Bertolucci, Kazan and, of course, Martin Scorsese. In "Taxi Driver" he achieves, in my opinion, his second best performance next to "The Deer Hunter". The whole film is about his character, really. This haunted taxi driver haunts the spooky streets of New York City every night, like a ghost summing up those tormented souls that "came home", from Vietnam. The camera captures the interior world of Travis - where the usual nocturnal "fauna" becomes a gallery of zombie-like, crawling creatures - while filming the surroundings in which the characters evolve. Scorsese superbly directs the young Jodie Foster and also, the beautiful Cybill Shepherd, whose performance was ignored by many critics raving about Foster. This atypical American film was awarded "The Golden Palm" at Cannes while Tennessee Williams was presiding the jury. The famous playwright must of found some truth in Scorsese's vision, right?