NEW YORK — A newly remastered version of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver will reveal the identity of the mysterious figure with whom the reflection of main character Travis Bickle was conversing, the revered filmmaker confirmed.
“This is how I always envisioned the scene. I just didn’t have the technology available to me at the time. When I was working with the visual artists who de-aged Robert DeNiro in The Irishman, I happened to run into George Lucas. We started talking about these new effects, and he reminded me that he had gone back and fixed his original Star Wars trilogy,” said Scorsese.
“That got me thinking about this scene, which never made sense to me in the existing cut. Travis Bickle is supposed to be crazy. He truly believes that his reflection was trying to talk to him. In the new version, it will be clear that Travis’ mirror-self was actually talking to the other guy in the apartment, who we now get to see.”
Fans of the revered filmmaker were not happy to hear about the proposed change.
“I can’t believe that Scorsese would betray us like this,” said Josh Duffy, who noted that he watches Taxi Driver at least once a week.
“It’s his original vision that we fell in love with. I thought we had a connection. I realize now how much he’s just like the others, cold and distant, and many people are like that. Directors for sure. They’re like a union. It almost makes me want to shoot up a brothel.”
Despite the negative fan reaction, the special effects artists hired by Scorsese were thrilled to work with him.
“This was my best work experience, bar none. Normally directors are so imperious and demanding, and they keep coming back with new requests every time you think you’ve finished the scene,” said Pat Newman, a computer graphics artist who worked on the remaster.
“All these Marvel projects I’ve worked on are always so taxing, everything rushed. With Marty, it was a collaborative process. Very naturalistic. As he would say, it’s nice to work on real cinema and not those fluff theme park movies. He got our absolute best work because he really listened to us. I hope I get to work with him again.”
At press time, Scorsese was reportedly contemplating making similar updates to his other movies, such as adding clown makeup to Joe Pesci’s Tommy Devito character in Goodfellas.
