Perhaps it's the metaphor of no longer being in the driving seat but when directors aren't being killed by their own characters, they're usually found in the passenger seat of a taxi. Richard Linklater opens his 1991 Slacker with a cameo appearance that lasts nearly five minutes; the latter half filled with him jabbering on from the back of a cab. He tells the driver about the dreams he's been having lately (''One time I had lunch with Tolstoy, another time I was a roadie for Frank Zappa...'') before drifting into a monologue that reaches a rather profound apex with ''Every thought you have creates its own reality''. As the title suggests, he seems to be both surprised and bored with every word that escapes his mouth, no sooner searching for meaning than grasping at thin air. This combination, the prolix passenger and the silent driver, puts us in mind of a similar situation filmed fifteen years prior. An early scene in TaxiDriver sees a middle-aged man (played by Martin Scorsese) shuffle into the back seat of Travis Bickle's (Robert De Niro) cab and give directions to an apartment where he believes his wife is seeing another man. ''That's my wife'', he smirks as he points to a silhouette in an upstairs window, ''But that's not my apartment''. By now he's a little twitchy, talking quickly and smiling perhaps just a little too much. But it isn't long before he cracks,''I'm gonna- I'm gonna kill 'em''. Bickle says nothing, simply keeps the meter running as per his customer's request and waits. This passenger, half-hidden in the shadows, has almost entranced him. This encounter has proven to be a crucial turning point. After driving the scum of New York through its smoky, seedy darkness, maybe it's time Travis Bickle stopped listening to the city and made the city listen to him...