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Originally Posted by evollove
Good arguments for Goodfellas' influence, but as far as quality how is RAGING not the obvious choice?
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I knew someone was going to mention this. It's true, Raging Bill is a tremendous film, one of the greatest performances by anyone ever, but the story is relatively insular (it is a bio-pic after all). So the scope of Taxi Driver is much broader. I think the films are kind of like mirrors of each other in a way.
And if the jury will allow it, I'd like to illustrate this point with one of my beloved Christopher Nolan references...
Taxi Driver and Raging Bull almost take on equal opposite perspective in terms of film making. One is broad, colorful, deceptive and potentially dream-induced (Taxi Driver) and the other is down and dirty, microscope zooming in on a cancerous soul (Raging). Kind of (but not really) like how Inception and Interstellar approach similar ideas from the diametrically opposed perspectives of dream/individual mind and... well, interstellar travel/the Fucking universe, through and beyond time.
As a character study, Taxi Driver is, I think, the better film. Raging is the truer film.
But I have to go with symbols and demonrail on this one...
Definitive: GoodFellas
Best: GoodFellas
Favorite: GoodFellas
^ as close to the great American film as last quarter of the 20th century offered, prior to Pulp Fiction.
I'm going to watch Good Fellas tonight. Watching the "Atlantis" scene got me pumped.
EDIT: Obviously I just wants to mention Chris Nolan. No need to tell me how my comparison doesn't work. I'd make it again. Chris Nolan!