When he was 15, Leonardo DiCaprio discovered a cinema monument, signed by the director with whom he would later work a lot, Martin Scorsese. A film that did not leave him indifferent.
Martin Scorsese’s favorite actor – and currently starring in his latest film Killers of the Flower Moon – Leonardo DiCaprio has long been a great admirer of the American director. An admiration which largely precedes the first collaboration between the two men on Gangs of New York.
And since then, they have met many times. But of all the films Martin Scorsese has made, there is one that holds a special place in his heart. It’s Taxi Driver that DiCaprio admires the most, going so far as to call him “greatest independent film ever made” during a interview with journalist Charlie Rose.
But it was at the microphone of AlloCiné in 2010, during the promotion of Shutter Island, that Leonardo DiCaprio returned to THE scene of Taxi Driver which really marked him. He talks about the impact the film had on him when he discovered it at the age of 15.
“This is the first film where a character betrayed me emotionally. I felt close to Travis Bickle, I had compassion and empathy for him. And then there was the scene where he takes Cybill Shepherd to the porn movie. I was so uncomfortable…I had understood him until then and understood his inability to communicate with others.
Later, we realize that he is a sociopath and that he is completely crazy! This scene is the moment where he betrays you for the first time. (…) I was really embarrassed for him, and that had never happened to me before. (…) This is what Scorsese knows how to do best. Exploring these dark and uncomfortable areas of the human condition. This is what makes his strength as a filmmaker.“
Immortalizing Martin Scorsese in the popular consciousness, Taxi Driver became the director’s classic neo-noir crime film, starring Robert De Niro as an insomniac, lonely and highly unstable taxi driver who roams the grimy streets of New York the night.
You have until November 30 to see Taxi Driver before it leaves the Netflix catalog.
The video in which Leonardo DiCaprio returns to this famous scene from Taxi Driver: