Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader’s timeless exploration of urban alienation celebrates its 50th anniversary at the Odyssey.
Haunted since leaving the army and unable to sleep, Travis Bickle takes a job in New York as a nighttime cab driver, but finds himself ever more choked off from the world around him. Struggling to connect and revulsed by the city’s crime and filth, he prepares to take matters into his own hands – and make a hero of himself at any cost. Schrader’s painfully lucid study of isolated masculinity took flight in Scorsese’s hands: even now, its descent into hell convinces and immerses, in all its gritty detail and mesmerising compositions. Robert de Niro embraced the challenge of playing a damaged, unreachable man and became an icon, while Bernard Hermann’s wistful, atmospheric score supplied the perfect finish.
