Travis looks in the mirror

Taxi Driver
Release Date: 8 February 1976
Director: Martin Scorsese

Sometimes, a performance can redefine a film. A single acting job taking a well-written character and infusing it with life, emotion, passion. The dialogue -- taken from a script, or words made up up offhandedly -- soars well above the filmmaker's ambition as the actor breathes energy, dynamism and raw reality into the words. The actor, in short, becomes far more than a sum of his parts.

Picture, for example, Paul Schrader's screenwriting instruction: 'Travis looks in the mirror.' Then, as director Martin Scorsese eggs on his Mean Streets actor to lace up the scene with total improvisation, feast on what the actor does when pushed entirely into his element.