Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) is a painful and harrowing journey into the underbelly of society. A young man named Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) obtains a job as a cabbie and cruises the mean streets of New York on the night shift. A Vietnam veteran, Travis lives a lonely existence. He has trouble sleeping and regularly goes to porno theaters out of sheer boredom. One day he works up the nerve to ask a pretty campaign worker named Betsy (Cybil Shepherd) out on a date, which goes horribly wrong, only elevating Travis’ feelings of hatred and disgust. Finally, he sets out to free a 12-year old prostitute named Iris (Jodie Foster) from the clutches of Sport, her seedy pimp (Harvey Keitel). Travis sees this as a form of redemption (a key factor in almost all of Scorsese’s work).

In one of the great character studies of our time, Scorsese and DeNiro (in only their second collaboration) have given us a time capsule of 1970’s film-making, capturing the era as few others have.  Written by Paul Schrader, the script makes a highly effective statement about loneliness; how one man’s contempt for society is enough to push him to the boiling point. DeNiro gives one of his best performances as the embittered Travis, creating feelings of hostility and sympathy from the audience. The supportive cast is first rate straight across the board, with stand-outs going to Keitel, Foster and Peter Boyle as a fellow taxi driver who tries pointing Travis into the right direction. With his final composition, Bernard Hermann’s haunting score (both Grammy and Oscar-nominated) is another key factor.  One of the best motion pictures ever made.