The Tribeca Film Festival has announced that to accompany their 40th anniversary screening of Taxi Driver, the film festival will bring together De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader to discuss the film.
De Niro was obviously not a hard person for the festival to access —he’s one of the founders of the festival. His co-founder, Jane Rosenthal (who also co-founded Tribeca Studios… and produced the Fockers movies with De Niro), said of the film:
Taxi Driver is one of the most brilliantly disturbing movies ever made, and why I chose to go into film. It’s had an indelible impact on pop culture, and its performances rank among the most memorable in cinema.
Meanwhile, Scorsese said in a statement:
It’s odd to think that four decades have passed since we shot Taxi Driver on the streets of a very different New York City…It was made in a surge of energy, starting with Paul’s one-of-a-kind script, and I was working with an extraordinary group of artistic collaborators as anyone could ever hope for — Jodie, who was 13 years old at the time, and Bob gave the picture something precious, dangerous, and altogether remarkable. I’m honored to take part in the celebration of the film’s 40th anniversary at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
The talk will take place on April 21 at New York’s Beacon Theatre; it seems unclear whether there’ll be one moderator who asks all the questions or whether they’ll entertain questions from the audience, but a part of me hopes the whole thing will get derailed by an audience member intent on learning everything about The Canyons from Paul Schrader.