Taxi Driver

Martin Scorsese / US, 1976 / 113 min.

For his final film, Bernard Hermann, Alfred Hitchcock’s famous composer, broke new ground. Desolate, extended saxophone solos accompany Vietnam vet Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) on his peregrinations through night time New York’s sleazy streets.

poster Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, US 1976)

Taxi Driver means Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. Both their careers took off after the release of what would become one of the most iconic American films of the 1970s.

Jazz’s influence mounted. Composer Bernard Hermann created extended, melancholy saxophone solos to provide musical texture to Bickle’s grim odyssey through the derelict New York of the 1970s.

Taxi Driver wouldn’t have become the film it is without Hermann’s music contends All That Jazz programmer Thijs Havens. “Jazz scarcely plays a role in cinema yet is crucial, the lonely, romantic sax solos precisely counterbalance the otherwise quite dark, sometimes opera-like music that Hermann composed for Taxi Driver.”

This is part of

All That Jazz Eye on Sound

Special screenings

Bullitt

Let's Get Lost

Whiplash

Director

Martin Scorsese

Production year

1976

Country

Original title

Taxi Driver

Length

113 min.

Language

English

Subtitles

NONE

Format

DCP

Part of

All That Jazz

All That Jazz: a scintillating programme on jazz and film featuring classics, live performances and a focus on exceptional avant-garde and activist filmmakers with a passion for jazz. From Miles Davis to Vincent de Boer, from Sun Ra to Ornette Coleman.

Learn more