Does 'Taxi Driver' Need A Sequel?

Then, sometimes...just sometimes...a piece of movie news will stand out. This week, I was blessed with such a piece.

'This just in - Martin Scorsese and Lars Von Trier team up!' The greatest living director working alongside the talented and notoriously nutty Von Trier? How interesting... 'The two are in talks to direct a crime movie together!' A crime movie co-directed by Scorsese, who made the gangster pic' what it is today, and Von Trier, the man who is legendary for his unique experimental work? This could be something brilliant! 'Robert De Niro will be starring, working with Scorsese again after more than a decade!' Wow, the finest actor-director partnership in movie history back together once more, where do I sign up?! 'It's a sequel to Taxi Driver!' WHAT?

Taxi Driver, possibly Martin Scorsese's finest film, is the 1976 masterpiece that tells the story of disillusioned Vietnam vet' Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro, in perhaps his best performance). Living out a lonely existence in New York, insomniac Bickle decides to get a job as a taxi driver. Cruising the streets at night, Bickle begins to increasingly lose a grip on his sanity, developing dangerous obsessions with an underage prostitute (Jodie Foster), a glamorous campaign worker (Cybill Shepherd) and a charismatic senator (Leonard Harris).

There are many films out there that are just begging for a sequel - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, with its barely-explored gallery of characters and open ending, demands follow-ups (come on Peter Weir, sort it out man).

There are those that are simply produced with sequels in mind - Transformers, Shrek, Ice Age, you name it, there have been plenty of them.

Then there are those that just need tying up with more movies - The Bourne Identity was originally designed to be its own single movie, but there were one or two loose ends at the climax that its superior sequels managed to tie up nicely.

Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver does not qualify for any of these.

For one, what do most movie sequels share in common? They're nearly all family movies. The ultra-violent, difficult Taxi Driver is not family fare, not unless your family is the Manson clan.

In comparison, something child-friendly and light is perfect sequel material; Star Wars, for example, has a simple plot and a cute and cuddly cast of characters, including two squabbling robots and a ten foot raccoon named Chewbacca. If you're looking for cute and cuddly in Taxi Driver, unless you consider a deranged homicidal cabbie or a drug-addled pimp cute and cuddly, you won't find it. There is nothing in Taxi Driver primed for family viewing.

Still, there have been plenty of sequels to more mature movies. Just because straightforward family films are easier to follow up with more movies doesn't mean an adult movie, with careful preparation, can't be.

No, the biggest issue here is that Taxi Driver is a standalone masterpiece - it works perfectly well as it is, and making a sequel, if it turns out poor, would simply soil the original's reputation. Anyone who says it wouldn't has obviously just forcibly erased The Godfather: Part Three from their memory.

What's more, too much time has passed - nearly 35 years - from the original's release. A great story could be crafted from Travis Bickle's life in the modern day and how the events of Taxi Driver affected him in his life and a great film could be made from it - if this was the '70s. Films like Taxi Driver, a product of the freedom, maturity and boldness of 1970s moviemaking, just don't get made today and a sequel would only reflect the sad reality of it. Mainstream filmmaking today just isn't daring enough to make a justifiable follow up to Taxi Driver, purely because daring doesn't make money (or get funded in the first place). Only if a sequel would complement the original Taxi Driver by offering similarities in style and content would Taxi Driver be done any justice. As this is about as likely in today's environment as Scorsese giving back his Oscar, I see a return to the world of Taxi Driver as a bad idea.

I can only hope it slips Scorsese's mind, turns out to be a rumour or, if it comes down to it, I hope the studios decide not to fund it, realising that the sequel to such a cult film would only bomb at the box office anyway.

Do the right thing, Scorsese, and let Travis Bickle rest in peace.