A few words about...™ Taxi Driver -- in Blu-ray

Super!  Thank you for the review, Mr. Harris.  You've been missed and I hope you are well.

In complete awe of this.  I just watched it last night, and was overwhelmed with the detail and beauty of it.  Robert you couldn't be more right by calling this 'Perfect'.  It is a sight to behold.

About the packaging....yes unnecessary.  Like One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest, it is oversized  and stands out in my Blu-Ray collection like a sore thumb.  I do like the mini lobby cards though. 

My only real issue with the packaging is that it's a bit of a spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen the movie before.  The reveal of Travis's mohawk was once one of the more unsettling moments in the film.

Speaking of Travis's hair, one thing I noticed more upon this viewing than I had before was the terrible continuity where the length of his hair is concerned.  He sports three distinct hairstyles: long, cropped and mohawk.  The crazier he gets, the less hair he has.  Once he has the cropped-do, however, it periodically reverts back to the longer style for a shot or two.

I got mine today flown in to Australia and look forward to opening tonight. The price was good, I can tell you for such a package. US$12.99 plus US$1.20 for postage. Can't complain on any score. Yes, I can. I ordered Rio Bravo at US$10.49 and the price jumped US$9 in my cart before I clicked to Proceed to Checkout. Can't win them all, I guess.

Must.  Have.

I'm a little behind the eight ball this past couple of weeks due to many things going on, but I will grab and devour this soon.  Curious about the packaging, too.

Got it.  Going to have me some mid-1970s Scorsese/Herrmann/DeNiro bliss tonight.

Magnificent.  Another Blu-ray that can take me back to experiencing and thrilling to a beloved classic like never before.  As some of us were saying in another thread, it's the really great classics, done right, that make this all worthwhile -- to a degree that often seems unmatched by the excellence elsewhere.

Blu-ray has given me the opportunity and tremendous joy of watching a movie as if you're watching a pristine film print. Several Criterion titles do that, The Godfather movies do that, The Sound of Music does that, and this Blu-ray of Taxi Driver does it as well. That's actually why I almost prefer watching an older movies in HD, that has been tremendously and carefully restored than anything else. Sure, most new movies look great, but most come from a digital intermediate. It feels like cheating to me (I know that that's obviously not the case, but I can't help it).

Giving a movie a different color scheme isn't the goal, updating a movie with new and shiny special effects isn't the goal, removing grain (no matter how well it is done) isn't the goal. Just this, making sure it looks like when it was just released. Sony doesn't release that many classic titles as Warner, or Criterion, but when they do, boy, they knock it out of the park. The small gripe I have is that there's no original soundtrack anywhere on the disc. If they added those on future discs, and in lossless, then I'd buy almost anything they throw at me, blindly.

Does anyone know if the scenes that were darkened and made red during the final sequence exist w/o the optics?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Borst 

Blu-ray has given me the opportunity and tremendous joy of watching a movie as if you're watching a pristine film print. Several Criterion titles do that, The Godfather movies do that, The Sound of Music does that, and this Blu-ray of Taxi Driver does it as well. That's actually why I almost prefer watching an older movies in HD, that has been tremendously and carefully restored than anything else. Sure, most new movies look great, but most come from a digital intermediate. It feels like cheating to me (I know that that's obviously not the case, but I can't help it).

Giving a movie a different color scheme isn't the goal, updating a movie with new and shiny special effects isn't the goal, removing grain (no matter how well it is done) isn't the goal. Just this, making sure it looks like when it was just released. Sony doesn't release that many classic titles as Warner, or Criterion, but when they do, boy, they knock it out of the park. The small gripe I have is that there's no original soundtrack anywhere on the disc. If they added those on future discs, and in lossless, then I'd buy almost anything they throw at me, blindly.

Brian, I couldn't agree more. While I don't get the feeling that modern digital films are "cheats," nothing surpasses the excitement of an old classic reborn on blu ray. I remember day dreaming years ago that someday I'd be able to watch the films I enjoyed in the theater at whim in my home. That dream's become reality and it is fun! I literally 'own" many of the movies I grew up with in high definition, high quality, and in a durable format. They're as much fun to me today as they were then and I am constantly discovering new gems thanks to the amazing format of blu ray.

What a great time to be a movie and home theater enthusiast. With so much going wrong in the world, this is pretty cool.

     Quote:

Originally Posted by allanfisch 

Does anyone know if the scenes that were darkened and made red during the final sequence exist w/o the optics?

On the documentary that was on the 1999 DVD (and ported to the Blu-ray), Michael Chapman says that they looked for them back when they were doing the laserdisc but the footage was in too poor shape to do anything with.

i tiny letdown was the opining logo of the columbia lady. it looked like a vhs blow-up. i can't believe that sony doesn't have a proper logo in their achieve.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnricoE 

i tiny letdown was the opining logo of the columbia lady. it looked like a vhs blow-up. i can't believe that sony doesn't have a proper logo in their achieve.

 

They do have a the logo in better shape, but it always looked that bad, so they opted not to replace it with a cleaner version. Didn't they discuss this in the Digital Bits article?

That was the last time they used that logo before they switched to the blue semi-circle, IIRC.

I kinda liked the original, dated Columbia logo. One of my very tiny disappointments with The Godfather blu rays was the replacement of the original Paramount logo with the spiffy new one. It kind of is out of sync with the rest of the film, looks-wise. At least they did sepia-tone it, though.

Loved watching this for the (*gasp!*) first time ever this weekend. What a fantastic way to have a first viewing of this fine film. Since I was an infant when this was in the theaters, I daresay it was the best possible way for me to watch it, short of a revival festival.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlo Medina 

I kinda liked the original, dated Columbia logo. One of my very tiny disappointments with The Godfather blu rays was the replacement of the original Paramount logo with the spiffy new one. It kind of is out of sync with the rest of the film, looks-wise. At least they did sepia-tone it, though.

 

Loved watching this for the (*gasp!*) first time ever this weekend. What a fantastic way to have a first viewing of this fine film. Since I was an infant when this was in the theaters, I daresay it was the best possible way for me to watch it, short of a revival festival.

The Godfather movies never had a logo in the opening, so there is no original logo.

And I love the fact that Sony not only used the original logo, but didn't go for one with a better quality. It's the exact same one that has always been there. A lot of studios could learn from that.

Never saw it in the theaters (before I was born) so I never knew that. Very interesting! I had always seen the old Paramount logo on the VHS versions I saw way back in the early 80s so I assumed that's how it always was.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Borst 

The Godfather movies never had a logo in the opening, so there is no original logo.

And I love the fact that Sony not only used the original logo, but didn't go for one with a better quality. It's the exact same one that has always been there. A lot of studios could learn from that.

 

A cool thing I just learned from IMDB re: the opening logo for Taxi Driver (and why they probably felt it important to include the original in the blu-ray):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlo Medina 

Never saw it in the theaters (before I was born) so I never knew that. Very interesting! I had always seen the old Paramount logo on the VHS versions I saw way back in the early 80s so I assumed that's how it always was.

 

To be frank, I didn't know either, but Robert Harris commented on that. I only knew the movie, prior to the Blu-ray, with the 90's logo. Truth be told, maybe the logo from that era wouldn't be as jarring as the most recent, CG logo, but I'm not complaining.

When The Godfather first came out in VHS back in the day, I had it, and it did not have a logo at the start. The first time I saw a logo was when they reissed them in the same VHS boxes for the release of Godfather 3.

I have to say I was blown away by the quality of this transfer.  However, I have a few notes/questions.

• I like the packaging except for the all-too-often-used shot of Travis in his mohawk.

• I had adjusted my Panasonic TC-P46S2 46" 1080p Plasma TV to give me pretty natural/neutral colors, but this particular title is coming off greener than some other films I have on Blu-ray (Bullitt, The Godfather Collection, Predator, etc) Anyone else noticed this?  I actually found changing my overall tone from neutral to cool made the colors seem a bit more natural.  I think older Panasonic Plasmas had a bit of a green shift, but I was under the impression from reviews and my own experience with this one, that the problem was fixed.

• I'm really frustrated that the end sequence is still highly desaturated and overly contrasty.  From the documentary with Michael Chapman he seemed particularly upset that this happened. It also sounded like it's irreversible.  Is this the case?  Is there no way to delicately add back the color and lower the contrast, even if only a little bit?

Listened to the "1986" commentary last night, which was fantastic; however, I don't think it was recorded in '86. Scorsese references his "new picture" Goodfellas (released in 1990) several times, and the host cites Scorsese and Schrader's latest collaboration as The Last Temptation of Christ (released in 1988). Further, Scorsese compares Travis Bickle to Batman from Tim Burton's 1989 film...

I'm thinking the commentary was recorded in 1990, but that's an odd mistake to make on the Blu-ray.

Oh, and DellaStMedia, check out Scorsese's comments during the desaturated section - he goes into extensive detail as to why he made that sequence look the way it does (it was to appease the MPAA, yes, but also was inspired by John Huston's 1956 Moby Dick), and says he even considered making the entire film look that way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Writer-dad 

Listened to the "1986" commentary last night, which was fantastic; however, I don't think it was recorded in '86. Scorsese references his "new picture" Goodfellas (released in 1990) several times, and the host cites Scorsese and Schrader's latest collaboration as The Last Temptation of Christ (released in 1988). Further, Scorsese compares Travis Bickle to Batman from Tim Burton's 1989 film...

I'm thinking the commentary was recorded in 1990, but that's an odd mistake to make on the Blu-ray.

 

Oh, and DellaStMedia, check out Scorsese's comments during the desaturated section - he goes into extensive detail as to why he made that sequence look the way it does (it was to appease the MPAA, yes, but also was inspired by John Huston's 1956 Moby Dick), and says he even considered making the entire film look that way.

1991, probably, since the Criterion Laserdisc was released that year. Of course, that makes the mistake even weirder.

For those looking for the original TAXI DRIVER theatrical trailer (it's not on the Blu-ray), it is on the new STAND BY ME Blu-ray, in HD.

I just watched this Blu-ray for the first time and w-o-w! Taxi Driver looks like it could have been filmed yesterday. Simply amazing and for $11? How can you go wrong? Special features galore (3 commentary tracks), documentaries, and a script-to screen comparison that's a lot of fun. 

Robert DeNiro is astounding as Travis Bickle. Taxi Driver is without question a gem of cinema and a great addition to the film library.

One thing I absolutely love about this movie that comes through beautifully on Blu-ray is the way Scorcesse shot NYC back in the mid 70s. In 1978, I took a school field trip to New York and stayed in a seedy hotel about a block from Times Square. The NYC you see in Taxi Driver is exactly the way it was. It was a very different city and Times Square from today. There were thieves, pimps, prostitutes, porn theaters, muggers, sirens, dirt, grime, filth, and a general depressing blight that made quite an impression on me. I remember a gunshot being clearly audible only 10 floors below my window. One did get the impression that a cleansing rain to wash away the grime and seedy characters would have been a very good thing for NYC. For better or worse, I still remember those 5 days as clearly as if they were yesterday and this film brings back the sights and sounds very clearly.