Is there an American film more wrongly and regularly misinterpreted than Martin Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece, Taxi Driver? Not even 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Stanley Kubrick, nor Apocalypse Now, by Francis Ford Coppola, have been intellectually, politically, and critically twisted and turned away from what they really are- and this all aside and apart from the silly debates over art influencing real world violence after John W. Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, in 1981, due to his own obsession with actress Jodie Foster. The film has been deconstructed and reconstructed (see references to Death Wish and The Searchers) according to prevailing political and artistic whims more than several times, and matters have been further complicated by the many claims of the film's protagonists, from screenwriter Paul Schrader (is there a better example of a filmic one hit wonder?), to director Scorsese, to star Robert De Niro, the claims and counterclaims about the film have devolved into legendry.