whynotsmile

I was wondering if anyone else had this problem. I bought Taxi Driver new last night. I chapter searched to the "you talking to me" scene. Directly after De Niro finishes "you talking to me" that narrator comes on. He says about 2 lines, something along the line of "listen up you f***in..." and then the dvd repeats itself. it sorta rewinds itself if you will about 3 seconds back. The disk was brand new and had no scratches on it. What was odd to me was how smooth the error was. In fact, I almost thought it could be a layer change. Anyone have an error like this on the TAXI DRIVER dvd or on any dvd?

This is the first time I have bought a dvd that had a slight problem with it. I plan to take it back to blockbuster. Hopefully they wont give me a hassle. The mistake is nothing big and I probably would have let it go, but because TAXI DRIVER is such a great movie, i want the best copy possible.

Oh, one other question. The first time Travis Bickle goes into a porn theater, he hits on the girl and walks in with his food. The movie on the screen is totally blurred out, but you can see what is being thrusted. I had never noticed it had been edited like this before. I found it rather annoying and distracting, even more so than on EYES WIDE SHUT censorship thing. Was it released theatrical like this? What about the laserdisc?


Ok thanks for the help.

Sorry for the spelling mistakes

SilverScreen

You may have discovered an easter egg actually. I just looked it up and all I could find was this on that scene. I checked a couple other sites and they didn't have anything.

You Talking to Me? Easter Egg Page

mookiemeister

I just checked my copy of Taxi Driver DVD on the location you mentioned. I didn't hear the line 'listen up' repeated.

Gil Jawetz

I've seen Taxi Driver about a million times and it sounds like you are describing two things that are in the actual movie.

First, the tirade is repeated in the film. It's something like (off the top of m head) "Listen you ****ers, you screw heads, here is a man who would not take it anymore, who would not... Listen you ****ers, you screw heads, here is a man who would not take it anymore, who stood up (etc...)" It's like Travis corrected his rehearsed speech and started over. The visuals reflect this.

As for the movie screen, it has always been blurred to the best of my knowledge (at least every version I've seen has been). Two reasons I can think of: 1) Taxi Driver is not porn and it wouldn't show hardcore porn in it and 2) the scene is all about Travis' disconnect from the world around him and the weird, mysterious blurry image always looked to me like what he sees when he looks at stuff: warped and wrong.

whynotsmile

yes buskerdog! that is exactly what I was talking about. So I guess my copy is ok then. It's just so strange though. It looks totally out of place, especially when Travis turns to look at the screen, and then he turns back again. I really thought it was a disk problem. oh well...Thanks for the posts guys

Grandmaster C

As has been said already, the part where he starts his speech over again is part of the movie itself, and in fact if you watch the documentary on the disc, they actually talk about that part of the movie. So check it out.