Cybil Shepherd and Jodie Foster are excellent as Betsy (the campaign volunteer for a presidential candidate) and Iris (a child prostitute), while Harvey Keitel is suitably creepy as Iris’s long-haired pimp.
It’s beautifully filmed: you could freeze almost any frame and make a poster of it. And Martin Scorsese’s subtle handling of tension was never better judged.
The original score by Bernard Herrmann makes a compelling, noirish film even more so.
You can interpret it as a film about PTSD or a story about isolation and loneliness.
Disturbingly, this classic was an influence on John Hinckley Jr., who in 1981 attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in order to impress Jodie Foster.
