The last time Free Car Mag saw this film, we were balanced on top of the shoulders of another staff member, with a huge overcoat, dark glasses, stick on ‘tache and pretending to be 18. This is a very roundabout way of pointing out that one of the best films of all time is back. It would certainly help if you were 18, but the great news is that Sony Pictures’ Taxi Driver is pulling up at cinemas across the UK and Ireland for a reissue on 10 February, opening at BFI Southbank where it will feature as one of the highlights of their Martin Scorsese season, running throughout January and February.
This reissue will see the film screen at selected sites from a 4K digital restoration scanned from the original camera negative.
If you don’t know the story, here it is…Robert De Niro punches in for another shift as Travis Bickle, the insomniac Vietnam veteran struggling to navigate New York’s streets of vice in Martin Scorsese’s searing, seething state of the nation address. Fearlessly exploring fraught urban and psychological landscapes through Paul Schrader’s pitch black script, Michael Chapman’s expressive nocturnal cinematography and Bernard Herrmann’s memorable, menacing score, Taxi Driver possesses a still-striking modernity that marks it out as one of American cinema’s greatest achievements.
Oh yes and there are truly wonderful Checker cabs that you no longer see in New York and all sorts of period Chevys, Fords and Cadillacs. Almost forgot, Free Car Mag ’70s crush Cybill Shepherd is there and a dangerously young Jodie Foster.
It is absolutely brilliant. We can’t wait to go and see it legally this time.
