![\"\u201cTaxi](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/19fe767a17e27ea0a6934eadbf3b187f7f-Taxi-Driver-lede.rhorizontal.w700.jpg\")
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\n Photo: Dominik Bindl\/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival\n <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, Taxi Driver\u2019s about a disaffected young man who has problems connecting romantically with women and hyperfocuses on politicians in the wrong ways and wants to be the hero in his own story but is clearly wrongheaded about it. Why do you think this is relevant today?\u201d<\/p>\n
On that note, moderator W. Kamau Bell kicked off a spirited, 30-minute, pre-movie Q&A ahead of the Tribeca Festival 50th anniversary screening of Taxi Driver, director Martin Scorsese\u2019s howl of loneliness, despair, and violence \u2014 a film that is both a potent time capsule of a New York City that no longer exists and a psychological profile of a kind of young man who is still very much with us.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, you have no idea what impact the film will have later on,\u201d said star of the film (and co-founder of the Tribeca Festival) Robert De Niro with a shrug. \u201cIt just has something that I\u2019m not sure that I can relate or explain to now, what\u2019s going on today \u2014 but then I do understand that people are lonely. Especially today with the internet, especially after the pandemic, as far as\u00a0being alone, being more isolated, getting into their own worlds, getting into worlds that they shouldn\u2019t get into, being turned into something, just getting obsessed with something, whatever that would be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not that any of them thought they\u2019d still be talking about this movie, and their motivations for making it, half a century later. \u201cTaxi Driver, I thought, was a labor of love, and nobody would see it, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Screenwriter Paul Schrader, also in attendance, recalled writing the script after going into the hospital with an ulcer, the result of a state of loneliness and isolation quite similar to Travis\u2019s. He settled on the metaphor of the taxicab as a \u201cyellow coffin\u201d that his protagonist was sealed inside, he said.<\/p>\n
The personal nature of that pain came through in the script. Reading it, Scorsese remembered, he felt that \u201cthe script is so tight and so strong \u2026 each page was like a razor blade. You had to be very careful. And I said, \u2018I could do this, I know this, I know who he is.\u2019\u201d De Niro agreed. \u201cI identified with Travis in ways,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n
And yet, if they identified with him too strongly, and made the character too sympathetic (rather than empathetic), they\u2019re paying tribute to a monster. Co-star Jodie Foster pinpointed that tricky balance. \u201cThe truth and the beauty of Travis Bickle\u2019s character, I think, is that he presents an idea of this meaning that he wants and he wants to be a part of, but there\u2019s no real self-understanding,\u201d she explained. \u201cHe just allows the eyes to witness his descent, his unraveling, and his attempts to connect, and he doesn\u2019t really understand himself. And I think that\u2019s the anti-hero, that\u2019s the draw of the anti-hero.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was falling apart,\u201d Scorsese said of the city circa 1975, and that\u2019s not an overstatement. Taxi Driver was shot during a sweltering summer heat wave, which only exacerbated the garbage that was piling up on the streets due to a sanitation strike. New York City was perilously perched on the brink of bankruptcy, and massive cuts were implemented to city services in a doomed attempt to balance the budget.<\/p>\n
But within that chaos, creative people were thriving. \u201cIt was alive!\u201d Schrader said with a gleam in his eye. \u201cI came here in \u201966, and I remember sitting on the curb at MacDougal Street \u2026 and saying, \u2018This is the greatest fucking place on earth.\u2019\u201d And ultimately, the creativity and the chaos gave Taxi Driver its distinctive flavor. \u201cThere was something in the shoot of this film; you could feel the temperature, you could feel a kind of violence all around you,\u201d Scorsese said. \u201cLike in Do the Right Thing, in a sense, you really felt it all around at night \u2014 and we were out at night most of the time \u2014 and you could taste it in a way. It permeated the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Jodie Foster and Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver.
\n Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI was a bit of a witness \u2014 I mean, I was only 12 years old when I made the movie,\u201d Foster explained. \u201cBeing on set with these guys, being in this moment with those guys, was just such a gift. And at the time I\u2019m not sure I 100 percent understood that, but I was watching and listening, so I probably remember more than everybody.\u201d She remembered De Niro taking her to a diner, like the one in a scene they share, and going over the script, and then sitting in silence. \u201cAnd then finally he introduced improvisation,\u201d she recalled, \u201cwhich I\u2019d never done before, didn\u2019t understand, and it was like a lightbulb went on in my head. I remember getting all happy, and I came home, came up the elevator, and came to the hotel, and knocked on the door, and I said to my mom, \u2018Oh my god, I think I might want to be an actor. This is amazing.\u2019 I thought acting was just saying words people wrote. I had no idea that there was anything more to it.\u201d And then, directly to De Niro, she continued, \u201cYou probably didn\u2019t realize that at the time, but it was a life-changing opportunity for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to look over the shoulder of these extraordinary filmmakers, extraordinary directors,\u201d she continued, \u201cand say, \u2018Why did he do that?\u2019 \u2018Why did he say that?\u2019 \u2018Is that true, or is that true?\u2019 And that really was my film school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not in the script,\u201d Schrader said, about Taxi Driver\u2019s most-quoted line of dialogue. \u201cBob asked me about it once, and I said, \u2018Well, it\u2019s just like a kid who\u2019s 8 years old, standing in front of a mirror with his cap gun, going bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. He\u2019s talking to himself.\u2019 And I never elaborated on what exactly he was saying \u2014 I figured, you know, that was up to the actor; the actor\u2019s job is to come up with something. So that was the last I heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember just being on the floor with earphones on, and you just started playing with the gun, and then this stuff started coming out,\u201d Scorsese said. \u201cAnd I remember saying a couple of times, \u2018Yeah, do it again, do it again\u2019 \u2026 You got into kind of a trancelike state.\u201d<\/p>\n
There have, through the years, been theories about where the ad-lib came from \u2014 that De Niro picked it up from a Bruce Springsteen concert<\/a> or from a New York underground comedian<\/a>. But for the record, when asked directly, De Niro cleared the air: \u201cI came up with it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat advice would you give to young filmmakers in the audience?\u201d is a fairly standard closing question at a film festival Q&A, but with this group of people, it\u2019s still going to yield some gems. \u201cDon\u2019t copy anybody,\u201d Schrader advised. \u201cThere\u2019s a hundred thousand people who can do exactly what you were trying to copy. If you have anything left in you, any nugget of original knowledge, that\u2019s all you have to give. So mine it, explore it.\u201d<\/p>\n Scorsese shared a bit of wisdom from Schrader about working in the Hollywood system: \u201cYou say, \u2018Put me in that lion cage, give me a whip, give me a chair, I\u2019m gonna beat these\u2019 \u2014 and sometimes you win, and sometimes the lion wins.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have all the technology, you can do anything, really, and there are no excuses anymore,\u201d Scorsese said. \u201cBut the key thing is your own will. The will to do it and not be shaken by any hindrance at all \u2026 Because in a sense, what makes a film a hit? Nobody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up for the Vulture Daily<\/p>\n An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n