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Taxi Driver: CE / SE R1 & R2
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:08 pm
by Narshty
August 13th in the UK
I wonder if Scorsese managed to get Criterion to hand over the LD commentary? Let's hope so.
Taxi Driver R2
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:14 pm
by exte
Narshty wrote:August 13th in the UK
I wonder if Scorsese managed to get Criterion to hand over the LD commentary? Let's hope so.
Let's pray to God, shall we? I really hope so, but I don't know why it's getting released first in the UK, and not here...
If Criterion sold their unused/non-transfered LD tracks on iTunes, I'd buy them all. At $1 a piece, of course...
Taxi Driver R2
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:36 pm
by Matt
exte wrote:I don't know why it's getting released first in the UK, and not here...
May just have been announced there first. Few R1 major studio August releases have been announced this early.
Taxi Driver R2
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 6:47 pm
by souvenir
Matt wrote:exte wrote:I don't know why it's getting released first in the UK, and not here...
May just have been announced there first. Few R1 major studio August releases have been announced this early.
I was thinking about putting up my R1 for sale and noticed Amazon is no longer selling it directly. I'm assuming the R1 is out of print now?
Taxi Driver CE R1
Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:55 pm
by mogwai
Taxi Driver
New edition coming out on August 14th.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced a collector's edition of Taxi Driver which stars Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, and Harvey Keitel. This two-disc limited edition will be available to own from the 14th August, and should retail at around $24.96. The disc will include a newly remastered 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation, along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. Extras will include a video introduction by Martin Scorsese, an audio commentary by Writer Paul Schrader, a second commentary by Professor Robert Kolker, a Martin Scorsese on Taxi Driver featurette, a Producing Taxi Driver featurette, an Influence and Appreciation tribute to Scorsese, and a God's Lonely Man featurette on the loneliness themes as seen in the film. Completing the package will be a featurette on the New York locations, some storyboard to film comparisons with Scorsese introduction, a making of documentary, animated photo galleries, Taxi Driver Stories, and the original screenplay
Taxi Driver CE R1
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:11 am
by domino harvey
this thing is the Evil Dead 2 of Scorsese films.
Taxi Driver CE R1
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:26 am
by Cinephrenic
Wow that's beautiful.
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 1:39 am
by Highway 61
Damn, I was hoping for a Criterion-licensed commentary. Still, I'll be picking this up since I lent my old disc to a teacher and never got it back.
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 3:27 pm
by THX1378
Damn, I was hoping for a Criterion-licensed commentary.
That or why didn't Scorsese just do a new commentary track. Or it just may be that he's said all he can say about the film. I will say that the Criterion track is one of the better commentarys I've heard and the reason why I still have a laserdisc player.
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:33 pm
by exte
It's the reason I bought my laserdisc player, that's for sure. Luckily I have mine on mp3, but it's really sad that Criterion wouldn't part with it.
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:38 pm
by flyonthewall2983
Couldn't they have just recorded a new one with Marty?
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:53 pm
by THX1378
Couldn't they have just recorded a new one with Marty?
Thats what I was thinking. But I think he's said all he can about the film. I'm also wondering if he's going to do a Departed commentary track down the line.
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 6:31 pm
by Belmondo
I love to hear Scorsese talk on any subject; but if he is all over the bonus features and Paul Schrader does the commentary, we may have something really great.
I read the book and saw the doc of EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS and Schrader should have plenty to say about both the movie and the period of explosive talent in which it was made. Sometimes (not always), we get a wider view if someone other than the director does the commentary track and I understand that this one will have a second commentary by a film historian.
I noted this on another thread, but I got a big kick out of learning that Scorsese got the inspiration for the "you talkin' to me?" scene after watching Marlon Brando talk to his reflection in the mirror in a scene from REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE.
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:55 pm
by Joe Buck
I like my old DVD....don't want to part with it...have to see what the word on the street is before I trade it in for the upgrade...
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:22 pm
by Person
Ian Jane at the DVD Maniacs Forum posted a single
comparison of the old vs. new transfer of
Taxi Driver.
Brighter and with more cropping, especially at the bottom.
I feel that the UK edition of the previous SE still looks great, though I will double-dip as the extras should be amazing.
Edit: Looking at the bloodbath scene on my UK disc, the change in the elements is obvious. Am I right in saying that they duped the neg a few generations to desaturate the blood to appease the censors. It will be interested to see how saturated the color is on the new transfer.
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 9:34 pm
by Oedipax
Oddly enough, the blood looks more or less identical in both the old version and the new restored version (there's now a comparison with the shootout scene in that thread).
But yes, I do remember hearing the scenes were desaturated to appease the MPAA at the time (and I suppose other film ratings boards abroad).
Edit: Actually, looking at it again, I think he might've goofed and put up the same capture twice (even though the file names are different). The cropping is identical in both screens, not to mention you can see the same compression artifacts and what not. Hopefully that will be corrected soon.
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 10:03 pm
by kinjitsu
Check again. The bottom cap is cropped at the top and bottom as well as on the right.
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 11:27 pm
by Person
The saturation of the blood looks identical. Disapointing in an age of advanced color-correction. It is remains a shocking and powerful sequence, but the contrast and color saturation were depreciated when the duped (maybe even flashed) the neg.
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 11:40 pm
by Scharphedin2
I have not seen any of the DVD editions of Taxi Driver, and it has been a very long time since I viewed the laserdisc, and listened to the Scorsese commentary. However, I distinctly remember Scorsese discussing the color of the blood in the final scene (in fact, he discussed the general color scheme extensively throughout the commentary), and he says that they intentionally (flashed the stock) toned down the "candy color" of the red in the climactic scene of violence. Is it possible that the DVD(s) merely reproduce(s) the look of the film, as Scorses intended? It should apparently have a more raw, desaturated, "tabloid" look.
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 12:06 am
by exte
Right, specifically that sequence, I think...
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 1:21 am
by Oedipax
kinjitsu wrote:Check again. The bottom cap is cropped at the top and bottom as well as on the right.
In the first comparison, yes. In the second, I think not... throw both these images in your browser and then alternate between the two:
Old -
New
I don't see any difference at all - shouldn't the second cap have the same slight letterboxing on the top and bottom as in the first comparison?
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 2:08 am
by kinjitsu
I'm going by Ian's first set of caps:
Old vs.
New. Look above the doorway and below De Niro's belt, also on the right, where there is a vertical line on the wall. In the second set, the cropping is barely noticeable, although they are almost identical in every other respect when compared to the first set.
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 4:21 am
by Matt
So confusing. I merged the two images of the blood-spattered Travis in Photoshop. They are the identical image, down to the artifacting.
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:45 am
by What A Disgrace
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:39 pm
by jedgeco
The new disc seems to lose some of the murky quality that I've always associated with the film, but since Taxi Driver has mostly existed for me on home video, it's hard to say what's "correct." I'm going to check the Criterion LD, which was director approved, and should give an idea of what was intended.
