Taxi Driver (Faber Film) [Paperback]

Paul Schrader (Author)

Book Description

Series: Faber Film | Publication Date: October 25, 1990

A loner, Travis Bickle takes up driving a taxi in search of an escape from his sleeplessness and his disgust with the corruption he finds around him. His pent-up rage, fuelled by his doomed relationship with the political campaign worker Betsy, leads to an inevitable descent into psychosis and violence.

This volume also contains an extended interview between Schrader and Martin Scorsese in which they discuss their unique relationship-one which stretches from Taxi Driver through Raging Bull to The Last Temptation of Christ.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Schrader is a noted critic, screenwriter and director. By his mid-twenties he had already been a film reviewer for the LA Free Press, while a graduate student at UCLA; editor of his own magazine, Cinema; Fellow in Criticism of the American Film Institute; and author of the uncompromising Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. By the mid-seventies he was one of Hollywood's most successful screenwriters, eventually writing three films for Martin Scorsese: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ. His directorial achievments include Blue Collar, American Gigolo, Mishima, Patty Hearst, The Comfort of Strangers, and Light Sleeper.

Product Details

• Paperback: 91 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (October 25, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571144640
• ISBN-13: 978-0571144648
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,112,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The screenplay to the movie that changed cinema FOREVER!, August 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Taxi Driver (Faber Film) (Paperback)

This positively has to be one of the best written screenplays of all cinematic history. In this text lies a story of desperation, loneliness, and insanity. Paul Schrader has not only captured the mentaility of a sociopath, but the emotions and profound thoughts of a man, driven to insanity by not being able to understand a world unlike his own. If you love well written screenplays, Taxi Driver is a must have!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Blueprint from the Underground, October 19, 2010

By 

John Nava (Chula Vista, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Taxi Driver (Faber Film) (Paperback)

Filmmaking is a collaborative art. And one of the world's finest examples is the 1976 masterpiece, TAXI DRIVER, and how director Martin Scorsese and his cast enhanced Paul Schrader's "novelistic" script, via improvisation, into the classic that it is. This fact, is lost on a lot of the film's fans and more specifically, the reviewers here.

One of filmdom's most famous set pieces, the "Are you talkin' to me?" scene in Bickle's room, was lifted directly from a heretofore anonymous New York stand-up comedian. This and other pieces of information are revealed in the Schrader-Scorsese interview (or is it the Scoresese-Schrader interview?) which precedes the screenplay. It is also very interesting to read what was going through the minds of both Scorsese and Schrader: their cinematic influences, their religious influences and the nods to Dostoevski's "Notes" and Sartre's "Nausea. (Dostoevski's Underground Man says something like "I believe my liver is diseased" while Bickle utters "I think I have stomach cancer.")

As a final reminder, I want to say that the script here is just as it is in those cardstock-covered screenplays that they used to sell in places like Hollywood Scripts. (Are those places still around?) The difference, of course, is that the format is altered to fit printing specifications. And a final note to novice screenwriters, don't use this as a format example.

Compare the printed script here to not only the film, but also to Paul Elman's all but forgotten movie-tie novelization with the same title.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The film is classic, the screenplay is timeless, February 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Taxi Driver (Faber Film) (Paperback)

O.K. we all love the film. Martin Scorcese's portrait of a loner slowly slipping into his own obsession with the horrors of inner-city life is seminal, and is still great viewing. De Niro's performance is brilliant as are his supporting actors. However...it is not until one reads the screenplay by Paul Schrader that the film comes to life. It is written almost like a novel, with directions that give the reader new insight and appreciation into the workings of the film and Travis' state of mind. Not only is it a great compliment to the film, it is actually better than the film. When I first saw 'Taxi Driver' I was blown away (along with all those pimps and drug dealers at the end), when I read the screenplay a new appreciation of the art of screenwriting was revealed to me. If you ever want to give someone who is interesting in writing films a present, give them this. Give them the film too. Make them watch the film, then make them read the screenplay, then watch them weep.