As plumes of steam rise and dissipate from the grates of New York in the opening frames of Taxi Driver, we see the unsettled brown eyes of Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro in a career-defining role.
The second of Martin Scorsese’s successful collaborations with De Niro, the pair went on to make another eight feature films. Scorsese was a new breed of director, pushing the boundaries of “New Hollywood” – an era that broke the rules of the studio system to produce something rawer, darker and willing to explore the underbelly of the American dream. This kind of filmmaking was more in tune with the depressed 1970s than the upbeat films of an earlier decade.
