Hoping that the largely nocturnal job of taxi driver will alleviate the effects of his insomnia and gnawing depression, Travis (De Niro) instead finds that ferrying passengers through the seedy underbelly of the city only compounds his psychological dislocation, and bubbling anger.

After failing in his attempts to court a young political staffer (Cybil Shepherd), Travis becomes obsessed with both a Presidential candidate and the fate of a young prostitute named Iris (played by a then 12-year-old old Jodie Foster).

One of Scorsese’s greatest works and written by one of cinema’s greatest chroniclers of existential despair, Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver is a brilliant, involving, and ultimately shocking portrait of male isolation and rage.

The screening will be followed by a short talk by Dr Jonathan G. Heaney, Lecturer in Sociology, Queen’s University.

Real to Reel: Film and Social Life is a monthly sociological cinema series presented in collaboration with the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University.