Manhattan Adult Entertainment: Scorsese, de Niro may remake Taxi Driver
De Niro, now 66, was half his current age when he took on the role of Travis Bickle, a softly spoken New Yorker who, it was suggested, is a Vietnam war veteran – he kept a charred Viet Cong flag in his apartment and had a large scar on his back.
The film begins with Travis as a lonely man living in Manhattan, occasionally writing to his parents to give them the false impression that he is living a fulfilling life as a government employee. He becomes a taxi driver in order to cope with his chronic insomnia, working 12-hour shifts by night, and visiting porn movie theatres by day. Increasingly isolated and unstable, he decides to clean up the streets of New York after he meets a 12-year-old prostitute played by Jodie Foster.