i adore this movie (especially the first 45 minutes or so), but if you thought the wandering shot in 'taxi driver' was annoyingly self-referential, you will probably loathe it. being metafilmic and self-referential is godard's whole schtick.
Well, I've seen and enjoyed Contempt, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with Godard.
As for self-referentiality, I can dig it (David Foster Wallace uses it frequently), but it just didn't belong in Taxi Driver. That one scene wrecks the flow of the movie.