Taxi Driver (1976) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 31 titles created 30 Nov 2011 a list of 28 titles created 16 May 2012 a list of 28 titles created 23 Sep 2014 a list of 23 titles created 10 Jan 2016 a list of 23 titles created 8 months ago Search for " Taxi Driver " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 4 Oscars.

Another 21 wins & 15 nominations. See more awards » Videos After a simple jewelry heist goes terribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant. Director: Quentin Tarantino 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.3/10 X In future Britain, Alex DeLarge, a charismatic and psycopath delinquent, who likes to practice crimes and ultra-violence with his gang, is jailed and volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem - but not all goes according to plan. Director: Stanley Kubrick Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy. Director: Martin Scorsese In Miami in 1980, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed. Director: Brian De Palma A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

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Director: Martin Scorsese Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewelers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond. Director: Guy Ritchie Edit Storyline Travis Bickle is an ex-Marine and Vietnam War veteran living in New York City. As he suffers from insomnia, he spends his time working as a taxi driver at night, watching porn movies at seedy cinemas during the day, or thinking about how the world, New York in particular, has deteriorated into a cesspool. He's a loner who has strong opinions about what is right and wrong with mankind. For him, the one bright spot in New York humanity is Betsy, a worker on the presidential nomination campaign of Senator Charles Palantine. He becomes obsessed with her. After an incident with her, he believes he has to do whatever he needs to make the world a better place in his opinion. One of his priorities is to be the savior for Iris, a twelve-year-old runaway and prostitute who he believes wants out of the profession and under the thumb of her pimp and lover Matthew.

Written by Huggo Taglines: On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody. See more » Genres: 8 February 1976 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Did You Know? Trivia Robert De Niro thought of Travis Bickle as a crab - indirect and tended to shift from side to side. See more » Goofs Easy Andy claims that the .44 Magnum revolver will "stop a car at a hundred yards, put a round right through the engine block." It actually won't penetrate an engine block at that range, and the shooter will have little hope of damaging or disabling a component of the engine that will disable the vehicle (such as shorting out the battery or causing the coolant to drain out). However, it's obviously part of his sales pitch. See more » Quotes Personnel Officer : [to the dispatcher] Harry, answer that. [to Travis] Travis Bickle : I can't sleep nights. Personnel Officer : There's porno theaters for that. Travis Bickle : Yeah, I know. I tried that. Personnel Officer : So what do you do now? Travis Bickle : Well, I ride around nights mostly... subways, buses...

I figure, you know, if I'm gonna do that I might as well get paid for it. (the Mad Hatter's tea party.) – See all my reviews A lonely Vietnam veteran who has insomnia spends his nights as a taxi driver in the dirty streets of New York, where he encounters a young prostitute who he tries to help make a difference. This is a very good film and one of Martin Scorsese best (Goodfellas being my fave). An excellent portrayal from Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle the cabbie and good performances from Jodie Foster as the child prostitute Iris Steensman, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle and Harvey Keitel as a pimp called Sport. You actually get drawn into the isolation and anger that Travis is feeling towards these lowlifes and because of that you really feel sympathy for him. Though after a while the loneliness and the city really starts to haunt Travis's mind, causing violent instincts and paranoia. This film is filled with such memorable lines e.g.Travis Bickle 'You talking to me? Well I'm the only one here.' and the many powerful scenes that stay in your head after it's finished.

The hypnotic cinematography is a standout, as if your seeing the harsh & gritty New York streets and twisted people through the eyes of Travis when he is driving his cab. A great screenplay, a stunning score by Bernard Herrmann and a superb atmosphere created. This is a brutally compelling and bleak look at a decaying and corrupt society of the 70's. An unsettling gem of a film. 5/5 166 of 215 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Taxi Driver (6/8) Movie CLIP - Travis Wants to Help Iris (1976) HD - YouTube Taxi Driver (6/8) Movie CLIP - Travis Wants to Help Iris (1976) HD Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Published on Jan 14, 2014 Taxi Driver movie clips: BUY THE MOVIE: Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: CLIP DESCRIPTION: Travis (Robert De Niro) eats breakfast with Iris (Jodie Foster) at a diner and thoughtfully gives her advice about her life. FILM DESCRIPTION: "All the animals come out at night" -- and one of them is a cabby about to snap. In Martin Scorsese's classic 1970s drama, insomniac ex-Marine Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) works the nightshift, driving his cab throughout decaying mid-'70s New York City, wishing for a "real rain" to wash the "scum" off the neon-lit streets. Chronically alone, Travis cannot connect with anyone, not even with such other cabbies as blowhard Wizard (Peter Boyle). He becomes infatuated with vapid blonde presidential campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who agrees to a date and then spurns Travis when he cluelessly takes her to a porno movie.

After an encounter with a malevolent fare (played by Scorsese), the increasingly paranoid Travis begins to condition (and arm) himself for his imagined destiny, a mission that mutates from assassinating Betsy's candidate, Charles Palatine (Leonard Harris), to violently "saving" teen hooker Iris (Jodie Foster) from her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel). Travis' bloodbath turns him into a media hero; but has it truly calmed his mind? Written by Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver is an homage to and reworking of cinematic influences, a study of individual psychosis, and an acute diagnosis of the latently violent, media-fixated Vietnam era. Scorsese and Schrader structure Travis' mission to save Iris as a film noir version of John Ford's late Western The Searchers (1956), aligning Travis with a mythology of American heroism while exposing that myth's obsessively violent underpinnings. Yet Travis' military record and assassination attempt, as well as Palatine's political platitudes, also ground Taxi Driver in its historical moment of American in the 1970s.

Employing such techniques as Godardian jump cuts and ellipses, expressive camera moves and angles, and garish colors, all punctuated by Bernard Herrmann's eerie final score (finished the day he died), Scorsese presents a Manhattan skewed through Travis' point-of-view, where De Niro's now-famous "You talkin' to me" improv becomes one more sign of Travis' madness. Shot during a New York summer heat wave and garbage strike, Taxi Driver got into trouble with the MPAA for its violence. Scorsese desaturated the color in the final shoot-out and got an R, and Taxi Driver surprised its unenthusiastic studio by becoming a box-office hit. Released in the Bicentennial year, after Vietnam, Watergate, and attention-getting attempts on President Ford's life, Taxi Driver's intense portrait of a man and a society unhinged spoke resonantly to the mid-'70s audience -- too resonantly in the case of attempted Reagan assassin and Foster fan John W. Hinckley. Taxi Driver went on to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but it lost the Best Picture Oscar to the more comforting Rocky.

Anchored by De Niro's disturbing embodiment of "God's lonely man," Taxi Driver remains a striking milestone of both Scorsese's career and 1970s Hollywood. CREDITS: Cast: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster Director: Martin Scorsese Producers: Phillip M. Goldfarb, Julia Phillips, Michael Phillips Screenwriter: Paul Schrader WHO ARE WE? The MOVIECLIPS channel is the largest collection of licensed movie clips on the web. Here you will find unforgettable moments, scenes and lines from all your favorite films. Made by movie fans, for movie fans. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MOVIE CHANNELS: SparkNotes: Taxi Driver: Character List Character List Travis Bickle - Played by Robert De Niro The film's protagonist. Travis served in Vietnam as a Marine until 1973, and two years later, he is a taxi driver in New York City. Originally, he comes from an unspecified rural area. Travis is not fully sane when the movie begins, and as the film progresses, his sanity deteriorates. His failed attempt to form a relationship with Betsy pushes him further into insanity, and eventually he succumbs to obsession, fanaticism, and violence.

Iris - Played by Jodie Foster A twelve-and-a-half-year-old prostitute. Iris ran away from her home in Pittsburgh to live in New York, where she does drugs and turns tricks in the custody of her pimp, Sport. She is in love with Sport, and he succeeds in talking her out of leaving him. Travis eventually saves Iris from her corrupt life when he kills the men around her. Betsy - Played by Cybill Shepherd Travis's ideal woman, blonde and beautiful. Betsy works with the Palantine presidential campaign. Initially she finds going out with Travis to be a fascinating experiment, but she cuts off all contact after he takes her on a date to a porn film. Sport/Matthew - Played by Harvey Keitel Iris's pimp. Travis believes Sport to be the worst person in the world, but Sport's relationship with Iris is more complicated and ambiguous than Travis thinks. Sport plays the role of father, lover, and pimp for Iris. The Unnamed Passenger - Played by Martin Scorsese A passenger of Travis's who has perverse ideas about killing his wife. Travis picks the passenger up one evening soon after Betsy rejects him. The passenger directs Travis's attention to the silhouette of a woman in a window.

He says the woman is his wife and that she is sleeping with a black man in the apartment. He says he will kill her, describing his plans in gruesome and suggestive detail. Tom - Played by Albert Brooks One of Betsy's coworkers on the Palantine campaign. Tom, like Travis, is in love with Betsy, but while Travis is too much of an outsider for Betsy, Tom is too square. His jokes mostly fall flat, and he is cowardly in his attempts to protect Betsy from Travis. Charles Palantine - Played by Leonard Harris A senator who is campaigning for President, and whom Travis later tries, and fails, to assassinate. Palantine is a liberal trying to capitalize on the anti-Vietnam youth culture to win the Democratic nomination. His politician's nature comes through when he talks to Travis in his cab, making sure to call him by his name and to shake his hand afterward, even though Travis has unsettled him by swearing and talking like a madman. Palantine may or may not also be the man who gets into the cab early on in the movie with a prostitute, telling Travis to hurry up while pretending he isn't there, a marked contrast to his calm, diplomatic attitude later on.

Wizard - Played by Peter Boyle An experienced cabby Travis sometimes hangs out with on his break. Travis reaches out to Wizard before he buys his guns, hoping Wizard will have some words of encouragement that will stop his violent plans. All Wizard can say is that once a man has a job, like driving a taxi, he becomes that job. Travis doesn't take him seriously. Wizard's words turn out to be prophetic, as Travis fails to kill himself and so remains a taxi driver indefinitely. Charlie T - Played by Norman Matlock A black cab driver who is friendly with Wizard and Doughboy. Charlie T's presence makes Travis uncomfortable, but we know that Travis does have some interaction with him because he borrowed five dollars from him at some point. Doughboy - Played by Harry Northup One of the taxi drivers Travis sometimes hangs out with at an all-night diner. Doughboy is the first to suggest that Travis should carry a gun, and for a fee he sets him up with Easy Andy, the underground gun dealer. Easy Andy - Played by Steven Prince The traveling salesman who sells Travis four guns. Easy Andy offers Travis everything from drugs to cars once Travis makes a purchase.

When Travis finally meets Iris, she tells him her name is Easy, unknowingly echoing Easy Andy's name. Concession Girl - Played by Diahnne Abbott A young black woman with whom Travis tries to make contact before he sees Betsy. This woman works at a porn theater that Travis visits one morning and is not moved enough even to tell Travis her name. However racist Travis may seem, he is threatened only by black men—he doesn't hesitate about approaching this young black woman. More Help Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Keywords: Crime , Prostitution , Taxi , Pimps , New York Suffering from insomnia, Vietnam War veteran Travis Bickle takes a job as a night taxi driver. Bickle's human interactions leave something to be desired; he takes Betsy, an attractive campaign worker, on an ill-advised date to an X-rated movie. Later he meets Iris, a 12-year-old prostitute played by Jodie Foster, and tries to extricate her from that life. Scorsese's masterpiece of alienation and isolation received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Score.

[watch trailer] REVIEWS Review by Walter Frith (posted on 7-Jun-2007) One year after the United States had pulled out of Vietnam and the country had began of new era of recovery. At the tail end of this era, set in a time of one of the worst crime periods in the history of New York City and America in general was Martin Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver'. A landmark film that transformed stomach turning violence into art, confronted social issues many wanted to turn away from and made stars out of many of its cast members. Robert De Niro had already won an Oscar for 1974's 'The Godfather Part II' in the best supporting actor category and 'Taxi Driver' was his first Oscar nomination as best actor. His performance is one of hypnotic gore as he plays Travis Bickle, a taxi driver, and a lonely drifter without family or friends and a man who isn't evil, he just suffers from urban paranoia.

He wants to save a 12 year old prostitute (Jodie Foster) from a sleazy life and return her to her parents in Pittsburgh, is tired of all street scum in general (not realizing later on the potential hypocrisy of his actions), and he executes an armed robber while defending a neighbourhood merchant who thanks him and through all of this, believes he is doing the right thing by planning to assassinate a leading candidate running for president. Travis plans the assassination for two reasons: he was scorned by a woman named Betsy (Cybil Sheppard), volunteering her services for the candidate, and to vent his disgust for a man working with her in the same cause (Albert Brooks). Travis draws a great deal of influence from a middle aged cabbie named Wizard (Peter Boyle) but uses that wisdom in a misguided fashion. If 'Taxi Driver' had been made just ten years earlier, it would have received an X rating by the American style of rating movies through the Motion Picture Association of America or it may have been banned altogether. It is still considered to have hard core violence in this the year 2000 and is not the least bit dated. This is Martin Scorsese's first truly great film.

It is a landmark achievement. Many would say that Scorsese's first great film is 1973's Mean Streets' but as great a film as it is, it is considered more of a cult film among film historians than a mainstream Hollywood film. 'Taxi Driver' is hardly conventional film making but has garnered probably more controversy than most other films in the last thirty years. Film historian Leonard Maltin only rates it two stars out of four which was truly a surprise when I first read his review and the American Film Institute in 1998 rated it #47 on their top 100 list of greatest films ever made. Scorsese directs many scenes slowly and in a stiff manner, which works perfectly as the terror of its psychological qualities make it a full blooded horror film at times without monsters or elements of the paranormal. Also getting his first big break in this film is Harvey Keitel, who plays a street pimp and is one of the most slimy characters you will ever see in a film. My two favourite scenes in the film are, one, where Travis buys arms from a dealer who also trades in drugs and stolen automobiles.

He shows Travis a suitcase full of firearms and Travis' seduction for these deadly weapons transforms him into a full workout mode to get his body into shape and fulfill the fantasies created by the dark side of his mind. The other killer scene actually unfolds several times as Travis performs his assassination rehearsal in front of a mirror where he repeats confrontational lines several times and it is a trademark scene of style that De Niro would uses several times in his career and it works every time. One thing that should be remembered from this film is how devastating the influence of film can be. John Hinckley Jr. said this film made him attempt to kill president Ronald Reagan in order to prove his love to Jodie Foster, who, as mentioned earlier, played a child prostitute in the film. Hinckley attempted to kill Reagan outside a Washington D.C. hotel on March 30, 1981. Reagan at first wasn't believed to have been shot because he didn't feel a thing. After a chest wound was discovered in the presidential limousine, Reagan was then rushed to the hospital and thankfully, made a full recovery.

The 53rd annual Oscar telecast was delayed one day, to March 31, out of respect for the president. I've always found it strange that the 1970's, in my view, the most decadent and dreary decade of 20th century America, has produced the greatest films of the the 20th century. 'Taxi Driver' is certainly one of the greatest films ever made, not only because of its sheer attempt to go for the jugular, but because is celebrates a whole host of subjects which were brought to the attention of many who refused to believe or even know they were present in such a vile way within society. And many of Scorsese's small interjections of freakish characters, such as the one he plays as a well dressed man in the back of De Niro's cab who watches his wife in a strange apartment committing adultery and telling Travis how he plans to kill her, give the film the detail it needs and prevents his film from being a low level exploitation film and instead Scorsese elevates it into influential artistry.

Visit FILM FOLLOW-UP by Walter Frith Review by Vamsee (posted on 15-Mar-2005) Travis Bickle ( Robert De Niro ) is a Vietnam vet who works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City. He disgust for the low-life street thugs and pimps increases day-by-day. He woos Betsy ( Cybill Shepherd ), Senator Palantine's campaign worker. He screws up their first date by taking her out to a porno movie. Travis is also unsuccessful in persuading a child prostitute, Iris ( Jodie Foster ) to return to her parents. Fed up of such a life, Travis buys four handguns and attempts to kill Senator Palantine. After the attempt fails, he now unleashes his hatred on the low-life of New York City. Have you seen this film? We would love to see your review.

Jodie Foster | Jodie Foster: 'Scorsese Was Uncomfortable On Taxi Driver Set' | Contactmusic.com Jodie Foster: 'Scorsese Was Uncomfortable On Taxi Driver Set' Jodie Foster: 'Scorsese Was Uncomfortable On Taxi Driver Set' Jodie Foster Martin Scorsese Robert De Niro Jodie Foster made veteran director Martin Scorsese "uncomfortable' on the set of classic movie Taxi Driver. The then 12-year-old child actress played teenage prostitute Iris in the 1976 psychological thriller which also starred Robert De Niro as loner Travis Bickle. The movie drew criticism for its hyper-realistic portrayal of sex and violence, and concern was shown for the young actress, who at the time was subjected to psychological testing, in accordance with California Labor Board requirements, to ensure she wouldn't be emotionally scarred by her role.

Recalling her experience making the iconic movie in a rare appearance on British chat show The Graham Norton Show, the 53-year-old actress-turned-director, who is in London promoting new movie Money Monster, revealed Scorsese felt "uncomfortable" directing her in the controversial role and would laugh out of embarrassment: "I was 12 years old and had made more movies than anyone else on the film at that point," she explained to Norton. "They were very uncomfortable about my character. Nobody knew how to direct me." By then Foster had worked on several prime time television series and children's films and was already beginning to feel jaded by the movie making process and thought acting was a "dumb job". "Scorsese would say something like 'unzip his fly' and just start laughing and not know what to do so he would hand it over to Robert De Niro and then Robert would tell me what to do. And he was even more ‘Robert De Niro’ then, even quieter and more strange," she smiled to Norton. However working with the legendary director swiftly changed the young star's mind, and having enjoyed a career spanning 40 plus years, she's now firmly in the director's chair like her former mentor.

"I’d done a lot of it and I guess I thought acting was a dumb job because all I ever did was say lines that someone else wrote," she mused. "I thought that was a terrible way to make a living and I couldn’t imagine I would do that when I grew up. But he (Scorsese) took me under his wing and taught me how to improvise and I realised there was more to acting than just saying lines." Contactmusic Taxi Driver | Best For Film Posted by Alice Sinclair On April 13, 2011 1 Comment Travis Bickle, a lonely, insomniac Vietnam veteran, takes on a job as a New York taxi driver to fill his empty nights. As he drives through the streets of the Big Apple, his anger at the dissolution around him grows. We witness the disintegration of Bickle’s sanity and his search for solace; first in political canvasser Betsy and then in an unconventional friendship with underage hooker Iris. More than a quarter of a century on, what is it about Scorsese’s seminal film that endures?

Although a product of its time, audiences watching it now are no less affected by the dark and disturbing currents that swirl across the screen in grimy shadow lit by lurid New York neon. Scorsese masterfully ratchets up the tension scene by scene, the underlying menace building and building until it is barely tolerable. Of course, this is a film which stands or falls around the lead actor and Robert de Niro as eponymous taxi driver Travis Bickle gives the performance of a career – a role which, no matter how many Focker follow-ups he does, sets him on a podium as one of the greats. Bickle as an anti-hero is ideal, and De Niro totally inhabits his skin, creating an intensely disturbing yet compelling character. Dangerous and almost mad with loneliness, he also has a rigid, if warped, moral code. De Niro’s portrayal of a man on a slow spiral into deranged violence is pitch-perfect; right from the very beginning Bickle casts an ominous shadow across the screen, with the constant sense of a man balancing on a knife edge, ready to step off into the void.

The tension created by Bickle’s presence only grows, until the audience is willing a breakdown, if only to release the pressure. The uncertainty of his actions is only matched by the certainty that there will be action – and it will not be pleasant. It is not only De Niro that deserves celebration. Each and every performance is impeccable – and then there is the astounding Jodie Foster, who was only 14 when she played child prostitute Iris. The character’s pragmatic approach to selling her body creates some of the film’s most disturbing scenes, and Foster handles the role with complete and utter aplomb. Both De Niro and Foster, as well as the film itself, were nominated for Oscars, and it is startling to think they didn’t win. Also nominated was Bernard Herrmann’s original score, a fantastic use of music to heighten the threatening tones. The other leading character is the city of New York; the grimy streets filled with pimps, whores, thieves, junkies, awash with fluorescent lights and violence.

Bickle’s nocturnal journeys through this underbelly of America’s dream fuel his hatred of the city’s scum, until all is needed is a spark to ignite the idea that he should be the “rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk”. There have been several celluloid vigilantes, but are there any as ambivalent and unnerving as Travis Bickle? His increasing mental instability twinned with his firearm obsession don’t sit too easily with the hero label pinned on him by media at the end of the film. Is he a hero or a villain? Both or neither at all? Is he a psychopathic trope or (even scarier) an everyman? There are no comfortable answers to any of the questions that the film raises; just the way we like it. Taxi Driver is an absorbing, uncompromising masterpiece of film that has lost none of its ability to discomfit. A true classic that deserves to be seen on the big screen, it feels as fresh and as shocking as the day it was made. Taxi Driver (1976) - Synopsis The content of this page was created directly by users and has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff. Warning!

This synopsis may contain spoilers See plot summary for non-spoiler summarized description. Visit our Synopsis Help to learn more Synopsis Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) goes to a New York City taxi depot where he applies for a job as a driver to the tough-talking personnel officer (Joe Spinell). Travis claims that he is an honorably discharged Marine (it is implied that he is a Vietnam Veteran). After making an impression on the personnel officer, Travis gets the job for the night shift due to his chronic insomnia. Via his narrative journal, Travis is soon revealed to be a lonely and depressed young man of 26 years. His origins and hometown are unknown. He sends his parents letters as well as birthday and Christmas cards, lying about his life and saying he works with the Secret Service. Travis spends his restless days alone in his rundown apartment somewhere in Manhattan, or in seedy porn theaters on and off 42nd Street. At one porn theater he tries to make an advance on the concession lady to no avail. He works 12 or 14 hour shifts during the evening and night time hours carrying passengers among all five boroughs of New York City.

Sometimes during his breaks, he goes to a local all-night diner to have something to eat or just a few cups of coffee where fellow taxi drivers also hang out during their late-night lunch breaks. One of whom is a self-appointed philosophical type named Wizard (Peter Boyle). Wizard talks about the degradation of the night time in the city. Travis barely interacts with the other taxi drivers, mainly speaking awkwardly and shyly when he's spoken to. During taxi driving, Travis spies and becomes infatuated with a woman named Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign volunteer for New York Senator Charles Palantine, who is running for the presidential nomination and is promising dramatic social change. Travis spies Betsy joking with a co-worker named Tom (Albert Brooks). Travis works up the nerve to ask her out and Betsy is initially intrigued by Travis. She agrees to a date with him after he flirts with her over coffee and sympathizes with her own apparent loneliness. She compares him to a character in the Kris Kristofferson song "The Pilgrim." Travis is further revolted by what he considers the moral decay around him.

One night while on shift, Iris (Jodie Foster), a 12-year-old child prostitute, gets in his cab, attempting to escape her pimp. Shocked by the occurrence Travis fails to drive off quickly enough and her pimp, "Sport" (Harvey Keitel), reaches the cab. Sport forcibly grabs Iris away with him and gives Travis a crumpled twenty dollar bill as a bribe not to say anything, which haunts Travis with the memory of his failure to help the girl. During one of his shifts, Travis picks up Senator Palantine himself (Leonard Harris) and an aide. He tells the senator he plans to vote for him and the senator, acting like a real politician, tells Travis he learns more from cab drivers than limo drivers. The senator asks Travis "what's the one thing that bugs you the most?" and Travis responds that he would like the next president to "clean the scum off New York City." On their date, however due to his lack of social skills, Travis takes Betsy to a porno theater to view a hardcore Swedish "sex education" film (titled: Language of Love). Offended, she leaves him and takes a taxi home alone.

The next day he tries to reconcile with Betsy, phoning her and sending her flowers, but all of his attempts are in vain and she refuses to speak with him. Going back into the campaign office, Travis confronts Betsy and shouts that she will "burn in hell like the rest of them". Rejected and depressed, Travis later picks up a man (director Martin Scorsese) who appears to be as mentally unbalanced as he is. The man tells Travis to park outside an apartment building while letting the meter run. He tells Travis to look at the woman in the window and tells him that's his wife in her boyfriend's apartment. He tells Travis he plans to kill them both with a .44 Magnum. One evening at the diner, Travis approaches and tries to express his despair to Wizard, but when Wizard makes a half-hearted response to Travis' problems with the teen prostitute and others, Travis angrily responds with: "that's just about the stupidest thing I ever heard". Travis's thoughts turn more violent. Disgusted by the petty street crime (especially prostitution) that he witnesses while driving through the city, he now finds a focus for his frustration and buys a number of pistols from an illegal drug/weapons dealer (Steven Prince).

Travis develops an ominously intense interest in Senator Palantine's public appearances and it seems that he somehow blames the presidential hopeful for his own failure at wooing Betsy and maybe hopes to include her boss in his growing list of targets. Back at his apartment with his newly purchased guns, he begins a program of intense physical training and practices a menacing speech in the mirror, while pulling out a pistol that he attached to a home-made sliding action holster on his right arm ("You talkin' to me?"). Later, he hangs around a Palantine rally and asks a suspicious secret service man about joining the service before disappearing into the crowd. In an accidental warm-up, Travis randomly walks into a robbery in a run-down grocery store and shoots the would-be thief (Nat Grant) in the face; adding to the bizarre violence, the sympathetic grocery owner (Victor Argo) encourages Travis (who has no permit for his guns) to flee the scene and then proceeds to club the near-dead stickup man to death with a steel pole. Later, seeing Iris on the street, he follows her. Another day later, Travis asks to pay for her time, and is sent to Sport. A tense conversation ensues but Sport sends Travis up to Iris's room.

Once in her room, Travis does not have sex with her and instead tries to convince her to leave this way of life behind. The next day, Travis and Iris meet for breakfast at a local coffee shop and Travis becomes obsessed with saving this naï¿½ve child-woman who thinks hanging out with hookers, pimps and drug dealers is more "hip" than dating young boys and going to school. Iris considers Travis's offer but then Sport seduces and convinces her to stay, while (seemingly) Travis spies into the window from his cab. Travis writes a note to Iris including all his money and stating that he doesn't intend to survive. Any lingering doubt in the viewer's mind about Travis Bickle's sanity is obliterated when he is suddenly and shockingly shown to be sporting a crude Mohawk haircut at a public rally. He creeps through the crowd and prepares to assassinate Senator Palantine but is spotted by Secret Service men and flees. Travis returns to his apartment to collect all his guns, then drives to "Alphabet City" (an area of New York's Lower East side consisting of Avenues A through E). He walks up to Sport and confronts him.

When Sport flicks a lit cigarette at him, Travis says "suck on this" and shoots Sport in the belly. Storming into the brothel, Travis blows the bouncer's hand off. Sport, who has followed Travis, grazes Travis neck with a bullet (causing an arterial gush from his neck) but Travis unloads one of his guns into Sport, killing him. Travis again shoots the screaming bouncer who follows him up the stairs, slapping him. Iris' mafioso customer shoots Travis in the arm and Travis shoots his face off. The bouncer tackles Travis but Travis stabs him through the hand and finally kills the bouncer with a bullet to the brain. He then calmly tries repeatedly to fire a bullet into his own head under his chin but all the weapons are empty so he resigns himself to resting on a convenient sofa until police arrive. When they do, the blood-soaked Travis mimes shooting himself in the head and then blissfully thinks of the mayhem and carnage in his wake. A brief epilogue shows Travis recuperating from the incident.

He has received a handwritten letter from Iris' parents who thank him for saving their daughter, and the media (in newspaper clipping) hails him as a hero for saving her as well. Travis blithely returns to his job and suddenly seems on more friendly terms with the other cabbies. One night one of his fares happens to be Betsy. She comments about his saving of Iris and Travis' own media fame, yet Travis denies being any sort of hero. He drops her off without charging her. As he is driving off, he gets a strange look on his face and adjusts his cab's rear view mirror, giving the impression that his irrationality is about to break through again.

Synopsis 'Taxi Driver' screens at Tribeca Film Festival for 40th anniversary: What we learned about the iconic movie | am New York 'Taxi Driver' screens at Tribeca Film Festival for 40th anniversary: What we learned about the iconic movie By Keira Alexander keira.alexander@amny.com Advertise here Forty years after first wowing cinema-goers, Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" returned to the big screen Thursday evening for the Tribeca Film Festival's highly anticipated "Taxi Driver" anniversary screening and cast reunion. "Every day for 40 [expletive] years, at least one of you has come up and said, 'Are you talkin’ to me?'" Robert De Niro cried during his introduction to a packed Beacon Theatre – a crowd of boisterous fans who moments later couldn't contain their cheers during the screening of the anti-hero's iconic line. An all-star panel discussion followed the film, featuring Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Paul Schrader and Michael Phillips.

Here are some of the highlights from the talk, which covered New York City in the '70s, surviving a sticky summer film shoot and child labor laws. The Board of Education almost didn't let Jodie Foster work the role Jodie Foster had to fight to work on the film, in which she played underage prostitute Iris. She only received her work permit after psychological tests. "The Board of Education didn't want to give me a work permit," Foster, who was a young teen at the time, said. "They said no, I couldn't have one, and we hired a lawyer and they decided to determine whether I was psychologically sane enough to play the part - and I guess I passed!" Was there was anything she was embarrassed about in playing the character? "Just the hot pants," she said. (Credit: AFP / Getty Images / Kena Betancur) Jodie Foster had to fight to work on the film, in which she played underage prostitute Iris. She only received her work permit after psychological tests. "The Board of Education didn't want to give me a work permit," Foster, who was a young teen at the time, said.

"They said no, I couldn't have one, and we hired a lawyer and they decided to determine whether I was psychologically sane enough to play the part - and I guess I passed!" Was there was anything she was embarrassed about in playing the character? "Just the hot pants," she said. (Credit: AFP / Getty Images / Kena Betancur) The famous shootout scene was shot in a condemned building on the Upper West Side While the exterior shots of the building took place on 13th Street, Jodie Foster's "boudoir" was shot in a condemned building on 88th Street Columbus Avenue, according to Scorsese. To get the overhead shot surveying the bloody aftermath of the shootout, set designers spent three months carving out the ceiling. "When it came time to shoot it, the child labor law person [showed up] and said we had 20 minutes [to shoot the scene]... It had been a year building up to it," Scorsese recalled.

"We got it in two takes." (Credit: Getty Images/ Neilson Barnard) While the exterior shots of the building took place on 13th Street, Jodie Foster's "boudoir" was shot in a condemned building on 88th Street Columbus Avenue, according to Scorsese. To get the overhead shot surveying the bloody aftermath of the shootout, set designers spent three months carving out the ceiling. "When it came time to shoot it, the child labor law person [showed up] and said we had 20 minutes [to shoot the scene]... It had been a year building up to it," Scorsese recalled. "We got it in two takes." (Credit: Getty Images/ Neilson Barnard) Jodie Foster wasn't freaked out by all the blood in the shootout scene "Freaked out? It was fantastic!" she said. The actress went on to describe production of the scene, with makeup and special effects artist Dick Smith bringing in "big wonderful gallons of karo syrup.." "All the guys [on set] would teach me what they were doing ... Watching Bob [de Niro] put on his headpiece -- the prosthetic mohawk -- It was fascinating," Foster said.

"People always ask how frightening that scene was and how frightening it was to shoot ... but it was kinda fun." (Credit: Getty Images/ Neilson Barnard) "Freaked out? It was fantastic!" she said. The actress went on to describe production of the scene, with makeup and special effects artist Dick Smith bringing in "big wonderful gallons of karo syrup.." "All the guys [on set] would teach me what they were doing ... Watching Bob [de Niro] put on his headpiece -- the prosthetic mohawk -- It was fascinating," Foster said. "People always ask how frightening that scene was and how frightening it was to shoot ... but it was kinda fun." (Credit: Getty Images/ Neilson Barnard) ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISE HERE Paul Schrader based character Travis Bickle on a person he was afraid of becoming "This script began in the best possible way, as self therapy," Schrader said. "There was a person who I was afraid I was becoming. ... I felt if I wrote about him I could distance him from me. And it worked. It really does show that art has therapeutic powers.

The beauty of it is as it migrated through director, cast, it still retained its original purpose --that purgative power." (Credit: Getty Images/ KENA BETANCUR) "This script began in the best possible way, as self therapy," Schrader said. "There was a person who I was afraid I was becoming. ... I felt if I wrote about him I could distance him from me. And it worked. It really does show that art has therapeutic powers. The beauty of it is as it migrated through director, cast, it still retained its original purpose --that purgative power." (Credit: Getty Images/ KENA BETANCUR) A key character in the film, New York City, was difficult to deal with at times Shooting took place during a hot and humid summer - and went for longer than expected because it wouldn't stop raining. Scorsese discussed the essential role the city and its mood played in the film, and that leaving street scenes out was not an option. "We were just hanging out on the streets," Scorsese said. "Rainstorms and thunderstorms kept pushing us back in scheduling. ...

Being in the city, in the summer - you can feel it in the film, Michael Chapman's photography, you could taste the humidity, you could taste a sense of anger and violence that was emanating from the streets themselves, it was crazy." (Credit: Getty Images / Neilson Barnard) Shooting took place during a hot and humid summer - and went for longer than expected because it wouldn't stop raining. Scorsese discussed the essential role the city and its mood played in the film, and that leaving street scenes out was not an option. "We were just hanging out on the streets," Scorsese said. "Rainstorms and thunderstorms kept pushing us back in scheduling. ... Being in the city, in the summer - you can feel it in the film, Michael Chapman's photography, you could taste the humidity, you could taste a sense of anger and violence that was emanating from the streets themselves, it was crazy." (Credit: Getty Images / Neilson Barnard)

Question: In the movie Taxi Driver, who played child prostitute Iris?
Answer: Jodie Foster