Repeat My VHS Purge: Taxi Driver

Soon I hope to return to "My VHS Purge". The series' most recent filing was done on March 5th of last year. Over the next few days I will be revisiting the original "Purge" postings....


From February 28, 2017:

My VHS Purge: Taxi Driver

As part of a downsizing project eight years ago I purged most of my pre-recorded VHS tape collection. I've never been a big collector of movies -- my DVD library is fairly small -- but the fact is I had accumulated around 70 tapes: 

Taxi Driver (1976) Stunning filmmaking; all departments, including: Direction (Martin Scorsese), Script (Paul Schrader), Cinematography (Michael Chapman), Music (Bernard Herrmann), Editing (Tom Rolf, Melvin Shapiro), Acting (Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and more), etc.

I remember seeing Taxi Driver for the first time on late night television. Few film viewings have had such a grip on me.

Final Note: Check out the VHS tape's box front above. "Jodie Foster is delightful." She certainly is terrific. The 'critic' -- Liz Smith from Cosmopolitan magazine -- was not incorrect, but for such a quote to end up as the box front's representative critical notice tells me that someone at Columbia Pictures Home Video was not doing his or her job.

I can imagine: "Hey, honey, you like romantic comedies. This looks like it might be fun, and something the kids could watch." (Until they turn the box over to read the back....)