Director Martin Scorsese had established himself as a promising filmmaker with his breakthrough film Mean Streets a few years earlier, but with Taxi Driver he exploded onto the scene as a thrilling visionary director. His kinetic, brooding style has never been used better. Through cinematographer Michael Chapman, his camera glides through the hellish streets of New York with the same detached menace as Travis played by Robert De Niro, always adding a remarkable energy to the proceedings, but never getting carried away with visual trickery at the mercy of substance. …
