Are there two different versions of "Taxi Driver"?

Cafe Society
#1

(Couldn’t decide if this should go in General Questions or here.)

About five or six years ago I watched Taxi Driver. I’d seen it before, but it had been a while. One scene that really struck me was the one in which DeNiro and the gun dealer have their meeting in a hotel room. Something I hadn’t noticed the first time I saw it, back in the '90s, was that outside the windows of the room are the looming Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. It really undescored the violent subtext of the scene, though of course Scorsese couldn’t have anticipated that when he shot it in 1976.

But then I saw it again last year, and the towers were nowhere to be seen. When I noticed them before, they were unmissable; it looked like they were right across the street from the hotel.

Did I just imagine that the towers were there? It was vivid enough that I wrote a blog entry mentioning it at the time, so that seems unlikely.

Did Scorsese authorize an edited version, having the towers digitaly removed? That seems unlikely too, as I’ve read he was adamant about including the towers in that final scene of Gangs of New York.

When I saw it with the towers, I think it was on cable, but I’m not sure. The version without them was a Blu-Ray DVD.

Anybody know the straight dope?

#2

They probably went in and CGId them out.

Heck, I watched Dark til Dawn on AMC this past weekend and they no shit CGId the name of the bar to Kitty Twister :dubious::smack:

#3

That doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. I mean, the towers were there during the time period in which the film takes place. What could possibly be the rational for digitally removing them?

#4

I dunno, but the re-release of The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart is really confusing.

#5

They never CGId the Twin Towers out of the opening credits of Barney Miller.

#6

Of course they did. “Titty” isn’t exactly broadcast friendly.

#7

In the U.S., maybe. “Titty” comes through up here, along with the fucks and whatever else you got. Hell, I recall seeing full frontal nudity and masturbation (in the context of First Name: Carmen) on the CBC.

“Titty” doesn’t seem like something to get twisted up about.

#8

Actually, being a cable station, AMC is under no constraints from the FCC to censor anything. Being an advertiser-supported network, however, means they do have to do some editing to keep the sponsors paying for advertising time.

#9

True, but it’s the rare movie that is edited into a “Cable Version” and a “Broadcast Version.”

And Fox used to love playing From Dusk Til Dawn. I remember watching it on Thanksgiving once.

#10

Maybe it’s just me, but does anybody else find it a bit disturbing that the only thing that would make From Dusk 'Til Dawn broadcast-unfriendly would be the word “Titty”?

Kind of like giving The King’s Speech an R-rating, because of Bad Language™…

#11

Yeah. If people can cope with all the rape and murder, I’m sure they can cope with the word titty.

#12

Did they just totally cut out Cheech’s long list of types of pussy available?

#13

Kind of like the Party Wagon in the TBS version of Kill Bill Vol I.

#14

This “edited for cable” notion would make sense, except that the version I saw on cable was the one that DID have the towers in it.

#15

Not sure, I tuned in just after the stripper finished her dance, just when Tarentino got killed.

I agree, as words go, tittie is pretty common and inoffensive compared to the whole stripper, violence and bloodbath.

#16

So I found my copy of my copyright 1999 Taxi Driver DVD and stuck it into my DVD drive. Woah! It’s my copy of Oregon Trail. So that’s where that’s been. Anyway, here is the first window view and here is the second window view. Is that them on the left side of the second view? It’s hard to tell.

#17

It’s definitely them.

#18

Last time I saw From Dusk Til Dawn on basic cable a few months back, they CGI’d the sign, but still actually said the word titty, making it really bizarre. I was only flipping through channels and only saw a few minutes, so I don’t know exactly what else was/wasn’t cut.