“New York, again, but a contrasting view of the city and its ‘heroes': this is a troubling, violent film detailing the slipping into psychosis of a New York taxi driver, Travis Bickle. Brilliantly played by Robert De Niro, he is the anti-hero of the seventies: obsessed, lonely, at war with himself and the world, unable to fit in anywhere. His madness is turned inside-out: he sees the streets of New York as an open sewer, needing to be cleaned up of its ‘scum'. And in this world he spies an ‘angel', Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), campaign manager for the ‘We are the people' candidate, Palantine. Travis pursues her, then loses her when he takes her to a porn film on their first date. Rejected, he decides to rescue 12-year-old Iris (Jodie Foster) from her life of prostitution. Screenwriter Paul Schrader has described his taxi driver as a metaphor for lonely men, ignored and untouched by the world around them. But in his world women fall into the all-too-familiar angel/whore stereotype, and in fact are depicted as the catalysts for Travis' violent schemings. In Scorsese's New York there are beautiful, detailed shots of the streets, but no friendly faces, no release from personal nightmares or the nightmare of existence; instead, it is a world where violence is lingeringly examined in bloody detail, and psychopaths are made into local heroes.” Kathy Geritz