Taxi Driver was one of the bleakest, best movies of the 1970s. Frankly, it still stands up today. But a sequel?
Here's an excerpt from the Guardian story:
Scorsese and De Niro plan Taxi Driver sequel
Xan Brooks
Wednesday February 2, 2005
De Niro in Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver ended with demented Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) hailed by the press as a have-a-go hero and back behind the wheel of his cab. It was regarded as the perfect finale for a film that bleakly satirised the role of the American loner and the cult of celebrity. Except it now transpires that it might not have been the finale after all. Scorsese and De Niro are currently planning a sequel to their 1976 classic.
In an interview with the New York Post, the actor admitted that a further installment was being discussed. "I was talking with Martin Scorsese about doing what I guess you'd call a sequel to Taxi Driver, where [Bickle] is older," De Niro said.
The original film charted the downward spiral of a Vietnam veteran who becomes obsessed with the salvation of a child prostitute (played by Jodie Foster). It was later linked to the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, who had become similarly fixated on Foster.
Taxi Driver was written in a fevered burst by Paul Schrader, who would break off from typing to aim a gun at his head as he searched for inspiration. Schrader last collaborated with Scorsese on 1999's Bringing Out the Dead, and it is not known whether he will be involved in the sequel.
And when you're done reading that, check out this: Are you talking to me ... again? It's a reprint of a Salon article in the Guardian.
Here an excerpt:
It should go without saying that "Taxi Driver" is one of the greatest works in the history of cinema. It follows the classic mythological template that Joseph Campbell has described, of a reluctant hero called forth on a quest that will test his endurance, strength and even sanity. But like its unofficial cinematic inspiration/antecedent, John Ford's "The Searchers," "Taxi Driver" twists that timeless formula by making its hero more of an anti-hero. Travis Bickle is not the kind of guy you pin medals on or take home to Mom.
Not only does De Niro's sleepless, porn-obsessed protagonist come dangerously close to assassinating a presidential candidate, but he may have also been a little misguided in the heroic act that forms the movie's climax. (Iris was certainly better off at home with her parents and attending sock hops than turning tricks and popping pills, but nobody was holding a gun to her head. And don't forget, Travis killed a lot of people to "rescue" her.) But his madness vividly distills the collective moral crisis felt amid the age of Vietnam and Watergate. You filmed it all with a feverish intensity, a kaleidoscope of grimy asphalt and blurring neon. Watching it, one almost wonders if you and screenwriter Paul Schrader were going to go on a killing rampage of your own once postproduction was complete. And don't get me started on that brilliantly caustic soundtrack, the last ever composed by the late, great Bernard Hermann.
It is, to say the least, a little unsettling to imagine catching up with Travis after all these years. Does he live in the suburbs, married to Iris? She was a good 20 years Travis' junior, but that's about the ratio Hollywood prefers anyway. Is Travis still driving a cab, or has he graduated to some kind of chartered limo or town car by now? What of New York itself: Was Travis a Giuliani man, or more the Hillary type? What would he say walking through a Times Square that's gone from porno to Disney?