Episode #223 | 2.25.25

Martin Scorsese (Pt. 2): One Night. One Murder. Five Directors.

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In this episode

Hollywood: 1975. Martin Scorsese sits in his apartment, enraged. He wants to literally kill the man who is ruining his to-be-released film, Taxi Driver. Scorsese’s friends, filmmakers Stephen Spielberg, Brian De Palma, John Milius, and Paul Schrader, rush to Scorsese’s side to talk him out of committing murder, but when they arrive, their friend Marty acts less like himself and more like his Travis Bickle character from the film he’s trying to save. This is the story of that night.

Sources

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, by Peter Biskind

Scorsese on Scorsese, edited by Ian Christie and David Thompson

Cinema Speculation, by Quentin Tarantino

Taxi Driver commentary with Martin Scorsese (2007)

Taxi Driver review by Roger Ebert

Taxi Driver review by Pauline Kael (New Yorker)

Quentin Tarantino on infamous Martin Scorsese rumor

Bridge of Spies DGA Q&A with Scorsese and Spielberg

Taxi Driver (1976, dir. Martin Scorsese)

Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.