The influence of Martin Scorsese on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights is often noted, but the bit of evidence most frequently cited is the movie’s long, memorable, opening shot through the nightclub, which echoes the iconic tracking shot in Goodfellas.
Ali Shirazi highlights a very different pair of scenes in “Boogie Nights vs. Taxi Driver,” contrasting the armed robbery scenes involving Buck Swope (Don Cheadle) and Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro), respectively. Watched together, the Boogie Nights scene starts to look like a commentary of sorts on Taxi Driver, or, at the very least, like a meditation on similar themes.
(Via Cinephilia and Beyond.)
