Taxi Driver

Dir. Martin Scorsese. 1976, 113 mins. 35mm. With Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel. Scorsese’s dark, dyspeptic view of New York, made all the more menacing by a brassy Bernard Herrmann score, can now be seen as a love letter to the Big Apple in its seedy 1970s glory. Paul Schrader’s script, focused on the obsessed loner Travis Bickle, pays homage to The Searchers, a touchstone film for many American directors.