Mark Wahlberg names his favourite movie of all time
Actor Mark Wahlberg rose to prominence as a musician as a member of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. However, he left his rapping and singing career behind in favour of starring in the movies instead and made his first star appearance in 1996 with the thriller film Fear.
Following his successful performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 comedy-drama Boogie Nights, Wahlberg began to be considered a leading man in a number of Hollywood blockbusters, including Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, David O. Russell’s The Fighter and even played in comedy films such as Ted and The Other Guys.
In the book You Gotta See This, when Wahlberg was asked about his favourite film, he merely said, “Well, Taxi Driver real does it for me.” However, he didn’t seem to want to back up his choice with any justification, and the book claims that “he almost wanted a verbal retraction”.
When pressed for a reason on his favourite film pick, Wahlberg was resistant, but he said with a laugh, “Well, I think that’s gonna give you a little too much insight into my own twisted mind.” Perhaps the actor feels a kinship with the deranged mind of Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle.
Taxi Driver arrived on our screens in 1976 and was famously written by Paul Schrader and directed by Martin Scorsese. As mentioned above, the film sees Robert De Niro play a Vietnam War veteran called Travis Bickle, a man clearly in the throes of PTSD who takes a job as a taxi driver working the night shift.
The film is often considered one of Scorsese’s greatest works, and there’s a dream-like quality to it that the director has specifically sought out after watching The Wrong Man and A Bigger Splash. He hired cinematographer Michael Chapman to capture the unreality that represents the psychological downfall of Travis Bickle.
After its release, Taxi Driver won the highly-coveted Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival, and at the Academy Awards, it was on the receiving end of four nominations, including ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Actor’ for De Niro’ and ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for Jodie Foster.
Foster’s performance was also the subject of controversy, though. She appeared in the film as a child prostitute character, even though she was just 14 years old at the time of filming. The violent nature of the film was also a point of controversy, but neither of these facts has prevented the film from being highly lauded ever since its release, including in the eyes of Mark Wahlberg.
