Lexmark3200
08-10-2005, 08:59 PM
"4 ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS INCLUDING BEST PICTURE! (1976)"
"WINNER - GOLDEN PALM, CANNES FILM FESTIVAL"
"ONE OF THE 100 BEST FILMS OF ALL TIME!"
-American Film Institute
I am ashamed, friends. Ashamed to admit that I did not get around to picking up this immortal timepiece tale of a desolate man's downward spiral into madness from the cherished film vaults of Martin Scorsese up until now when I've had it on my DVD Want List for......well, you don't really want to know how long, to be honest. You would hunt me down and murder me.
Practically launching the careers of both Robert DeNiro and Harvey Kiatel (both coming right off making another New York based underground Scorsese classic, Mean Streets), Taxi Driver, if you read the back of the DVD box and read the description of the film on your cable box when it's on, on the surface appears to exhibit as simple a plot as you can get. But it's in the fashion that Scorsese crafts this tale and the downright odd dialogue at times and DeNiro's offbeat narration which has made this film stand the test of time. Always having me hooked when I caught it on cable and when a friend in college first sat me down to watch it, this was simply a title that I had to had on my shelf, even if it's the pre-dawn days of HD-DVD.
DeNiro turns in a rather odd, but disturbingly appropriate portrayal of Travis Bickle, a lonely, desolate New York City taxi driver of whom we are immediately pulled into his world through Scorese's direction; the film opens with the horn-based, jazz-like score which resonates throughout the picture, accompanying flashes of gritty New York City street life as we follow DeNiro's character in getting himself an overnight graveyard shift taxi driving job. From the moment his character begins narrating, we have a sense that this character is falling prey to the conditions around him, proclaiming "one day a rain will come and wash all this filth away" and explaining to the viewer how at night all the hookers, pimps, lowlives and junkies come out onto New York City's streets --- a pretty much accurate rendition of the late 1970s New York City. We immediately sense there is something off with this man, who in his mind, has already made these "street people" the enemy who must be "dealt with"; the days go by unchanging for Travis, as he narrates to us and through letters to his parents (which are also narrated) until one afternoon he spots (a rather sexy looking) Cybil Shepherd working in a politician's campaign office who catches his eye. He builds up the nerve to walk into the office and pretend that he is interested in helping Senator Charles Palantine's campaign, but is really there to ask Shepherd out for coffee (much to the dismay of Shepherd's geeky, uptight co-worker who also likes her, played by Albert Brooks). Amazingly, Shepherd agrees to the date, and after the first coffee encounter, Travis asks her out to the movies for a second date, which she amazingly agrees to as well. But on this second date, we get a sense that DeNiro's character simply has no experience with women before because he takes Shepherd to a theater showing a porno-like documentary which insults her and causes her to run out of the theater, Travis not really understanding what he did wrong (Scorsese hints at this character's obsession with porn in earlier scenes where DeNiro goes into triple X rated New York City theaters frequently).
Travis attempts to contact Shepherd after that on the phone for more dates (you would think this guy would take a hint) but is subsequently rejected each time, forcing him, out of his inexperience again with dealing with women and situations, to go to her campaign headquarters job and physically confront her, getting himself kicked out by Brooks who threatens to call the police if Travis ever returns. It's here that DeNiro's character begins to already turn, as his narration becomes angry, telling us that Shepherd's character is "just like the rest of the women" and belong to be treated just like the filth, hookers and pimps he already loathes in the city. We get a sense something is already going wrong here.
At this point, the film develops the relationship between DeNiro and teenage prostitute Jodie Foster, whom he almost hits with his cab as she dashes out from between parked cars. Suddenly and inexplicably, Travis becomes obsessed with Foster --- but not for the reasons you would think. He finds her working her street corner one day, and she tells him he needs to speak to her pimp "Matthew" or "Sport" (as she calls him) played by a rather pumped-up but scummy looking Harvey Kiatel, making us believe that DeNiro has actually come to use the services of Foster as the hooker she is. After an odd conversation between Kiatel and DeNiro on negotiating for the use of Foster's body (as Kiatel puts it, "You aint never had no pussy like that before---you can do whatever you want.....**** in her in the ass, **** her in the mouth, cum on her face....she'll get your cock so hard it'll explode......") and DeNiro getting a bit disturbed at the comments Kiatel is making towards him (which is leading to DeNiro's final violent confrontation with Kiatel), Foster and DeNiro go up to a room where Foster takes all her clients. DeNiro's character suddenly becomes one of desperation to help Foster get away from the life she is living for such a young girl---refusing the sex from Foster and telling her that her way of life is simply not a good path; he already loathes Kiatel, labeling him as one of the "scum" out there that must be dealt with for being a pimp. Once refusing Foster's services and then having breakfast with her the next day, DeNiro continues to try and convince her to get away from Kiatel and live a life a normal young girl should be living. The desperation in DeNiro's dialogue during this scene in the diner is memorable, trying to reach Foster any way he can: "Im square? YOU'RE the one who's square....you're full of ****, man.....at least I dont run around with junkies and pimps...." and goes on to insult Kiatel to Foster's face, attempting to wake her up to the dangers of this man she works for.
The film then takes the final downward spiral for DeNiro's character, as his narration advises us that he is getting in shape, with "no more bad foods" and "no more pills" and routine exercise will be a daily activity for him now; we watch DeNiro's body transform into one of muscular character as his mind begins to transform at the same time, becoming more focused and angry at the people he feels he needs to "stop" in society. He ends up buying a collection of guns, of which he makes custom discharging rails which he can stick under his jacket to pull a gun on someone quick and in a hurry if need be; in that classic scene that everyone quotes from this film, DeNiro stands in the mirror and repeats "You talkin to me? You talkin to me? Who the **** do you think you're talkin to?" as he whips out a gun from his jacket sleeve and prepares to do battle with the "scum of the Earth" he encounters each day in his taxi.
His first victim ends up being a guy who is robbing a grocery store he frequents, as the guy is holding the owner up by the cashier at gunpoint, and DeNiro, from behind, blasts the robber away with one of his new guns. Suddenly, at a rally for Senator Charles Palentine, for whom Cybil Shepherd's character works, we see DeNiro's Travis character completely transformed as a creepy looking individual at the rally now sporting a mowhawk haircut. As the film leads us to believe that he was going to assasinate the Senator at the rally, he runs away as the secret service men chase him, but this is only setting up the real awsome finale of this picture and definitive confrontation between DeNiro and Kiatel.
Driving his cab like a madman in just about the final scene of the film, Travis races through the streets and ends up on the street where Harvey Kiatel runs his prostitute ring, and confronts him in the outside hallway of a building. There is some back and forth bantering between them, as Kiatel recognizes DeNiro from somewhere but cant quite pinpoint where, and DeNiro is just so far gone already with anger and hatred that he snaps and shoots Kiatel right there in the doorway after Kiatel flicks a cigarette at him and DeNiro says "Suck on this" as he blasts the shots into "Sport the Pimp."
In a rather odd sequence after this scene, DeNiro makes his way into the apartment building where Foster services her clients, where he is confronted by the guy who collects the money to rent the rooms when they're ****ing Foster; DeNiro immediately barrels his way past him by shooting his fingers off his hand, as the guy continues to hang onto DeNiro screaming "I'll kill you! I'll kill you! You son of a *****, I'll kill you....." It seems that Kiatel wasnt quite dead, as he returns and takes a shot at DeNiro, hitting him in the side of the neck with a bullet (this ENTIRE end sequence looks completely and utterly fake with hacked editing and horrendously fake looking blood; there is a special feature on the disc which explains what went into making this final shootout sequence). But DeNiro's character is so pumped with hatred and adrenaline that he simply turns around and fires blast after blast into Kiatel, sending him crashing through a glass door. DeNiro makes his way up towards the room where Foster is servicing a client in a suit, the other guy who's hand he shot off still hanging onto him screaming, and as DeNiro collapses to the floor and takes a slug from the guy Foster was ****ing, he whips out his custom made gun rail from inside his jacket sleeve and blasts the guy in the head at least three times, as Foster looks on and screams (another horrible looking special effects shot here). The guy who is still attached to DeNiro screaming "I'll kill you" collapses on top of him in the room as DeNiro whips out a knife he had taped to his boot and sticks it right through the guy's already fingerless hand; its a pretty greusome scene. By this time, the other guy that Foster was ****ing, begins to actually come around from the gunshot wounds to the head (an awful lot of people survive horrendous gunfire in this film, making it, to me at least, rather unrealistic) and as Foster screams "No! Don't shoot him!" DeNiro blows the guy's brains out against the wall.
The film takes an odd feel here as everything goes silent except for Foster crying in the corner of the room, and DeNiro attempts to commit suicide by pulling on the triggers of two guns he puts under his chin, but both are empty. He collapses on a couch in Foster's room as the police close in with guns, and we think that's the end of the film. In a rather strange twist on the ending, it seems Foster's character had quit the hooker business after this shootout and returned to her family and has gone back to school (as we hear the narration of Foster's father, thanking Travis for saving their daughter----which was what DeNiro wanted from the first encounter with the girl); newspaper clippings on a wall indicate to us that Travis had become a "hero" who "saved" this young girl from these dangerous "gangsters in a shootout" and her own evil pimp.
The film concludes with Travis looking the way he did in the beginning of the film --- mohawk gone and hair grown back in --- almost making the film feel like the whole thing was a dream of some kind, as he drives Cybil Shepherd home to her apartment and then drives off, leaving the viewer to interpret exactly what went on in this film --- Scorsese slightly suggests that this character went through an horrific mental breakdown only to come full circle and the irony being he actually was looked upon as a "hero" by society at large for rescuing this young girl from her street life.....although in retrospect, it almost seems as though you can find yourself asking...."well, who cares?" Yet it still makes for unforgettable imagery on the screen.
But Taxi Driver is almost always mentioned in the same breath by Scorsese enthusiasts along with Mean Streets, Raging Bull and GoodFellas --- a topic that sure has a polarizing effect amongst film afficionados but without denying in the same breath that Taxi Driver has become an underground, offbeat-kind-of-way classic.
Columbia/TriStar Home Video has made this title available in a dubbed "Collector's Edition" as part of their remastering efforts which include other titles from their vaults (as most of Scorsese's work has been given authorization --- though multiple studios --- for remastering on DVD format); the results are a mixed bag, audio and video wise, but it's still a simply must-have piece of cinema on our favorite home video format (not speaking for hardcore laserdisc or perhaps D-VHS fans, of course).
VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS:
DUAL LAYER 1:85:1 DIGITALLY REMASTERED ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN TRANSFER
It seems at times this print CAN boast digitally remastered characteristics, but for the most part, it's still and old-looking film; most annoying was the scratchy, very aging and grainy looking Columbia logo which opens the film --- of course this is of little importance to most, but when you're a downright DVD fanatic like yours truly, you can't help but point it out.
Moving away from the opening logo problem, the beginning of this transfer (which filled my screen with no letterboxing so I was able to get a clear indication of its color flaws or richness) is marginally dirtier than the remainder of the film --- the dirtiest part of the transfer coming at the end shootout sequence in Foster's "hooker room" where you can clearly see the age of this print. A lot of Scorsese's work, no matter how well an attempt is made to clean it up (aside from perhaps the downright stunning remaster of Casino from Universal) always seems to exhibit some kind of hint of the age of the film, and Taxi Driver is no exception. While it's probably the best it's ever going to look pre-high definition (IF the title is chosen for remastering at that point) and while Columbia made strides to clean this up for fans, it's still not demo quality video.....but, I suppose we weren't really expecting that from this gritty, intentional look at a disturbed man's dark world and the desperation he exhibits within this world.
AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS:
DIGITALLY REMASTERED ENGLISH DOLBY SURROUND; SUBTITLES IN ENGLISH, SPANISH, PORTUGESE, THAI, CHINESE & KOREAN
Although originally recorded in mono, the film's soundtrack has been remixed in surround stereo --- incorporating Bernard Herrmann's original three-track stereo score and surround stereo dialogue and effects, under the supervision, according to press materials, of Martin Scorsese. The results? To my ears, not a very active Dolby Surround track befitting a film such as this. From the very beginning, as my receiver dropped into Pro Logic II Movie mode to decode this stereo surround soundtrack, I was able to detect the lack of dynamics and overall volume power --- believe this or not, I almost had to, on several occasions, turn my master volume to almost "approaching maximum" territory in order to make out the dialogue on this track which can get downright quiet in places --- much along the lines of both MGM's remix AND original release of Raging Bull. This dissapointed me, as I kept thinking "I'm running out of power here!" as I kept raising the volume of my system; it seemed no matter how much power I fed this soundtrack, it never quite got loud enough.
But, pleasantly enough, there WERE audible surround effects on this mix --- right from the opening score on, which was a nice treat for such an old film; I can recall professionally reviewing Raging Bull and sitting through that newly released Collector's Edition with the freshly prepared Dolby Digital 5.1 track and hearing virtually nothing coming from the surrounds, even during fight sequences; if there were audio cues there, they sure were quiet. Here, in this mix, sounds do in fact make it to the surround channels, so there IS some activity. Yet, the overall lack of power of the mix dissapointed me but was probably absolutely appropriate considering the age, budget and condition of original materials Columbia had to work with here. When the track DID come alive was during the end shootout scene, as well as a scene where DeNiro is taking target practice shooting his guns, where if you have your volume up, the gunshots are strikingly raw and downright thundering through the center channel. In sum, this does sound like a "glorified mono" mix, but there are moments of surround activity that make for a pleasant re-visiting of this classic tale. Just don't go in expecting Black Hawk Down Superbit DTS performance, and you should do just fine enjoying this film.....and make sure you have that remote handy because you're going to need it to make out most of the offbeat dialogue, especially between Peter Boyle and DeNiro.
This COLLECTOR'S EDITION, housed on one disc, came nicely stuffed with extras that included:
-Making Of Documentary
-Photo Montage/Portrait Gallery
-Storyboard Sequence
-Original Screenplays
-Advertising Materials
-Filmographies
-Liner Notes
-Theatrical Trailers
and of course
-Scene Selections
There is only one audio selection onboard, and that is the aforementioned Dolby Surround track; if you're a fan of this film, or this director's work in general, this is a must-have, as it's the definitive version of Taxi Driver currently on the market. Should someone like Criterion decide to revisit this down the road, or should the title ever become available in high definition DVD when it arrives.....well, we'll just have to wait and see.
Thanks for reading, friends, and enjoy!
"WINNER - GOLDEN PALM, CANNES FILM FESTIVAL"
"ONE OF THE 100 BEST FILMS OF ALL TIME!"
-American Film Institute
I am ashamed, friends. Ashamed to admit that I did not get around to picking up this immortal timepiece tale of a desolate man's downward spiral into madness from the cherished film vaults of Martin Scorsese up until now when I've had it on my DVD Want List for......well, you don't really want to know how long, to be honest. You would hunt me down and murder me.
Practically launching the careers of both Robert DeNiro and Harvey Kiatel (both coming right off making another New York based underground Scorsese classic, Mean Streets), Taxi Driver, if you read the back of the DVD box and read the description of the film on your cable box when it's on, on the surface appears to exhibit as simple a plot as you can get. But it's in the fashion that Scorsese crafts this tale and the downright odd dialogue at times and DeNiro's offbeat narration which has made this film stand the test of time. Always having me hooked when I caught it on cable and when a friend in college first sat me down to watch it, this was simply a title that I had to had on my shelf, even if it's the pre-dawn days of HD-DVD.
DeNiro turns in a rather odd, but disturbingly appropriate portrayal of Travis Bickle, a lonely, desolate New York City taxi driver of whom we are immediately pulled into his world through Scorese's direction; the film opens with the horn-based, jazz-like score which resonates throughout the picture, accompanying flashes of gritty New York City street life as we follow DeNiro's character in getting himself an overnight graveyard shift taxi driving job. From the moment his character begins narrating, we have a sense that this character is falling prey to the conditions around him, proclaiming "one day a rain will come and wash all this filth away" and explaining to the viewer how at night all the hookers, pimps, lowlives and junkies come out onto New York City's streets --- a pretty much accurate rendition of the late 1970s New York City. We immediately sense there is something off with this man, who in his mind, has already made these "street people" the enemy who must be "dealt with"; the days go by unchanging for Travis, as he narrates to us and through letters to his parents (which are also narrated) until one afternoon he spots (a rather sexy looking) Cybil Shepherd working in a politician's campaign office who catches his eye. He builds up the nerve to walk into the office and pretend that he is interested in helping Senator Charles Palantine's campaign, but is really there to ask Shepherd out for coffee (much to the dismay of Shepherd's geeky, uptight co-worker who also likes her, played by Albert Brooks). Amazingly, Shepherd agrees to the date, and after the first coffee encounter, Travis asks her out to the movies for a second date, which she amazingly agrees to as well. But on this second date, we get a sense that DeNiro's character simply has no experience with women before because he takes Shepherd to a theater showing a porno-like documentary which insults her and causes her to run out of the theater, Travis not really understanding what he did wrong (Scorsese hints at this character's obsession with porn in earlier scenes where DeNiro goes into triple X rated New York City theaters frequently).
Travis attempts to contact Shepherd after that on the phone for more dates (you would think this guy would take a hint) but is subsequently rejected each time, forcing him, out of his inexperience again with dealing with women and situations, to go to her campaign headquarters job and physically confront her, getting himself kicked out by Brooks who threatens to call the police if Travis ever returns. It's here that DeNiro's character begins to already turn, as his narration becomes angry, telling us that Shepherd's character is "just like the rest of the women" and belong to be treated just like the filth, hookers and pimps he already loathes in the city. We get a sense something is already going wrong here.
At this point, the film develops the relationship between DeNiro and teenage prostitute Jodie Foster, whom he almost hits with his cab as she dashes out from between parked cars. Suddenly and inexplicably, Travis becomes obsessed with Foster --- but not for the reasons you would think. He finds her working her street corner one day, and she tells him he needs to speak to her pimp "Matthew" or "Sport" (as she calls him) played by a rather pumped-up but scummy looking Harvey Kiatel, making us believe that DeNiro has actually come to use the services of Foster as the hooker she is. After an odd conversation between Kiatel and DeNiro on negotiating for the use of Foster's body (as Kiatel puts it, "You aint never had no pussy like that before---you can do whatever you want.....**** in her in the ass, **** her in the mouth, cum on her face....she'll get your cock so hard it'll explode......") and DeNiro getting a bit disturbed at the comments Kiatel is making towards him (which is leading to DeNiro's final violent confrontation with Kiatel), Foster and DeNiro go up to a room where Foster takes all her clients. DeNiro's character suddenly becomes one of desperation to help Foster get away from the life she is living for such a young girl---refusing the sex from Foster and telling her that her way of life is simply not a good path; he already loathes Kiatel, labeling him as one of the "scum" out there that must be dealt with for being a pimp. Once refusing Foster's services and then having breakfast with her the next day, DeNiro continues to try and convince her to get away from Kiatel and live a life a normal young girl should be living. The desperation in DeNiro's dialogue during this scene in the diner is memorable, trying to reach Foster any way he can: "Im square? YOU'RE the one who's square....you're full of ****, man.....at least I dont run around with junkies and pimps...." and goes on to insult Kiatel to Foster's face, attempting to wake her up to the dangers of this man she works for.
The film then takes the final downward spiral for DeNiro's character, as his narration advises us that he is getting in shape, with "no more bad foods" and "no more pills" and routine exercise will be a daily activity for him now; we watch DeNiro's body transform into one of muscular character as his mind begins to transform at the same time, becoming more focused and angry at the people he feels he needs to "stop" in society. He ends up buying a collection of guns, of which he makes custom discharging rails which he can stick under his jacket to pull a gun on someone quick and in a hurry if need be; in that classic scene that everyone quotes from this film, DeNiro stands in the mirror and repeats "You talkin to me? You talkin to me? Who the **** do you think you're talkin to?" as he whips out a gun from his jacket sleeve and prepares to do battle with the "scum of the Earth" he encounters each day in his taxi.
His first victim ends up being a guy who is robbing a grocery store he frequents, as the guy is holding the owner up by the cashier at gunpoint, and DeNiro, from behind, blasts the robber away with one of his new guns. Suddenly, at a rally for Senator Charles Palentine, for whom Cybil Shepherd's character works, we see DeNiro's Travis character completely transformed as a creepy looking individual at the rally now sporting a mowhawk haircut. As the film leads us to believe that he was going to assasinate the Senator at the rally, he runs away as the secret service men chase him, but this is only setting up the real awsome finale of this picture and definitive confrontation between DeNiro and Kiatel.
Driving his cab like a madman in just about the final scene of the film, Travis races through the streets and ends up on the street where Harvey Kiatel runs his prostitute ring, and confronts him in the outside hallway of a building. There is some back and forth bantering between them, as Kiatel recognizes DeNiro from somewhere but cant quite pinpoint where, and DeNiro is just so far gone already with anger and hatred that he snaps and shoots Kiatel right there in the doorway after Kiatel flicks a cigarette at him and DeNiro says "Suck on this" as he blasts the shots into "Sport the Pimp."
In a rather odd sequence after this scene, DeNiro makes his way into the apartment building where Foster services her clients, where he is confronted by the guy who collects the money to rent the rooms when they're ****ing Foster; DeNiro immediately barrels his way past him by shooting his fingers off his hand, as the guy continues to hang onto DeNiro screaming "I'll kill you! I'll kill you! You son of a *****, I'll kill you....." It seems that Kiatel wasnt quite dead, as he returns and takes a shot at DeNiro, hitting him in the side of the neck with a bullet (this ENTIRE end sequence looks completely and utterly fake with hacked editing and horrendously fake looking blood; there is a special feature on the disc which explains what went into making this final shootout sequence). But DeNiro's character is so pumped with hatred and adrenaline that he simply turns around and fires blast after blast into Kiatel, sending him crashing through a glass door. DeNiro makes his way up towards the room where Foster is servicing a client in a suit, the other guy who's hand he shot off still hanging onto him screaming, and as DeNiro collapses to the floor and takes a slug from the guy Foster was ****ing, he whips out his custom made gun rail from inside his jacket sleeve and blasts the guy in the head at least three times, as Foster looks on and screams (another horrible looking special effects shot here). The guy who is still attached to DeNiro screaming "I'll kill you" collapses on top of him in the room as DeNiro whips out a knife he had taped to his boot and sticks it right through the guy's already fingerless hand; its a pretty greusome scene. By this time, the other guy that Foster was ****ing, begins to actually come around from the gunshot wounds to the head (an awful lot of people survive horrendous gunfire in this film, making it, to me at least, rather unrealistic) and as Foster screams "No! Don't shoot him!" DeNiro blows the guy's brains out against the wall.
The film takes an odd feel here as everything goes silent except for Foster crying in the corner of the room, and DeNiro attempts to commit suicide by pulling on the triggers of two guns he puts under his chin, but both are empty. He collapses on a couch in Foster's room as the police close in with guns, and we think that's the end of the film. In a rather strange twist on the ending, it seems Foster's character had quit the hooker business after this shootout and returned to her family and has gone back to school (as we hear the narration of Foster's father, thanking Travis for saving their daughter----which was what DeNiro wanted from the first encounter with the girl); newspaper clippings on a wall indicate to us that Travis had become a "hero" who "saved" this young girl from these dangerous "gangsters in a shootout" and her own evil pimp.
The film concludes with Travis looking the way he did in the beginning of the film --- mohawk gone and hair grown back in --- almost making the film feel like the whole thing was a dream of some kind, as he drives Cybil Shepherd home to her apartment and then drives off, leaving the viewer to interpret exactly what went on in this film --- Scorsese slightly suggests that this character went through an horrific mental breakdown only to come full circle and the irony being he actually was looked upon as a "hero" by society at large for rescuing this young girl from her street life.....although in retrospect, it almost seems as though you can find yourself asking...."well, who cares?" Yet it still makes for unforgettable imagery on the screen.
But Taxi Driver is almost always mentioned in the same breath by Scorsese enthusiasts along with Mean Streets, Raging Bull and GoodFellas --- a topic that sure has a polarizing effect amongst film afficionados but without denying in the same breath that Taxi Driver has become an underground, offbeat-kind-of-way classic.
Columbia/TriStar Home Video has made this title available in a dubbed "Collector's Edition" as part of their remastering efforts which include other titles from their vaults (as most of Scorsese's work has been given authorization --- though multiple studios --- for remastering on DVD format); the results are a mixed bag, audio and video wise, but it's still a simply must-have piece of cinema on our favorite home video format (not speaking for hardcore laserdisc or perhaps D-VHS fans, of course).
VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS:
DUAL LAYER 1:85:1 DIGITALLY REMASTERED ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN TRANSFER
It seems at times this print CAN boast digitally remastered characteristics, but for the most part, it's still and old-looking film; most annoying was the scratchy, very aging and grainy looking Columbia logo which opens the film --- of course this is of little importance to most, but when you're a downright DVD fanatic like yours truly, you can't help but point it out.
Moving away from the opening logo problem, the beginning of this transfer (which filled my screen with no letterboxing so I was able to get a clear indication of its color flaws or richness) is marginally dirtier than the remainder of the film --- the dirtiest part of the transfer coming at the end shootout sequence in Foster's "hooker room" where you can clearly see the age of this print. A lot of Scorsese's work, no matter how well an attempt is made to clean it up (aside from perhaps the downright stunning remaster of Casino from Universal) always seems to exhibit some kind of hint of the age of the film, and Taxi Driver is no exception. While it's probably the best it's ever going to look pre-high definition (IF the title is chosen for remastering at that point) and while Columbia made strides to clean this up for fans, it's still not demo quality video.....but, I suppose we weren't really expecting that from this gritty, intentional look at a disturbed man's dark world and the desperation he exhibits within this world.
AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS:
DIGITALLY REMASTERED ENGLISH DOLBY SURROUND; SUBTITLES IN ENGLISH, SPANISH, PORTUGESE, THAI, CHINESE & KOREAN
Although originally recorded in mono, the film's soundtrack has been remixed in surround stereo --- incorporating Bernard Herrmann's original three-track stereo score and surround stereo dialogue and effects, under the supervision, according to press materials, of Martin Scorsese. The results? To my ears, not a very active Dolby Surround track befitting a film such as this. From the very beginning, as my receiver dropped into Pro Logic II Movie mode to decode this stereo surround soundtrack, I was able to detect the lack of dynamics and overall volume power --- believe this or not, I almost had to, on several occasions, turn my master volume to almost "approaching maximum" territory in order to make out the dialogue on this track which can get downright quiet in places --- much along the lines of both MGM's remix AND original release of Raging Bull. This dissapointed me, as I kept thinking "I'm running out of power here!" as I kept raising the volume of my system; it seemed no matter how much power I fed this soundtrack, it never quite got loud enough.
But, pleasantly enough, there WERE audible surround effects on this mix --- right from the opening score on, which was a nice treat for such an old film; I can recall professionally reviewing Raging Bull and sitting through that newly released Collector's Edition with the freshly prepared Dolby Digital 5.1 track and hearing virtually nothing coming from the surrounds, even during fight sequences; if there were audio cues there, they sure were quiet. Here, in this mix, sounds do in fact make it to the surround channels, so there IS some activity. Yet, the overall lack of power of the mix dissapointed me but was probably absolutely appropriate considering the age, budget and condition of original materials Columbia had to work with here. When the track DID come alive was during the end shootout scene, as well as a scene where DeNiro is taking target practice shooting his guns, where if you have your volume up, the gunshots are strikingly raw and downright thundering through the center channel. In sum, this does sound like a "glorified mono" mix, but there are moments of surround activity that make for a pleasant re-visiting of this classic tale. Just don't go in expecting Black Hawk Down Superbit DTS performance, and you should do just fine enjoying this film.....and make sure you have that remote handy because you're going to need it to make out most of the offbeat dialogue, especially between Peter Boyle and DeNiro.
This COLLECTOR'S EDITION, housed on one disc, came nicely stuffed with extras that included:
-Making Of Documentary
-Photo Montage/Portrait Gallery
-Storyboard Sequence
-Original Screenplays
-Advertising Materials
-Filmographies
-Liner Notes
-Theatrical Trailers
and of course
-Scene Selections
There is only one audio selection onboard, and that is the aforementioned Dolby Surround track; if you're a fan of this film, or this director's work in general, this is a must-have, as it's the definitive version of Taxi Driver currently on the market. Should someone like Criterion decide to revisit this down the road, or should the title ever become available in high definition DVD when it arrives.....well, we'll just have to wait and see.
Thanks for reading, friends, and enjoy!