The 1976 crime noir movie, Taxi Driver, marks the first film I'm writing an essay on from Martin Scorsese's films. Arguably the most influential director in film history, Scorsese explores various themes such as Italian-American identity, Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, faith, machismo, nihilism, crime, and sectarianism. It's easy to identify a Scorsese movie when profanity and violence are liberally used across the film. Probably the most admirable action Scorsese has done, in my opinion, is founding the nonprofit organization The Film Foundation in 1990, as well as the World Cinema Foundation in 2007, and the African Film Heritage Project in 2017. Taxi Driver was nominated for four Oscars: Nominated for 4 Oscars: Best Picture (Michael Phillips, Julia Phillips), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert De Niro), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jodie Foster), and Best Music-Original Score (Bernard Herrmann, posthumously) but failed to bring home any. However, in the 1977 National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA, it won Best Actor (Robert De Niro), Best Supporting Actress (Jodie Foster), and Best Director (Martin Scorsese). The movie brought home 22 awards from 1967-2021 when De Niro's character, Travis Bickle, was added to the OFTA Film Hall of Fame. Scorsese cited The Wrong Man (1956) and A Bigger Splash (1973) as directing inspiration; however, Paul Schrader was inspired by the diaries of Arthur Bremer, who shot George Wallace in 1972 (hence Bickle's letters and attempted murder of Palantine). However, for the ending of the story (when Bickle becomes a media hero), Schrader was inspired by Squeaky Fromme's attempted assassination of Gerald Ford, which resulted in her being on the cover of Newsweek.
The movie's success placed Taxi Driver on the IMDb Top 250 with placement of 113. Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle in the film alongside Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, the late Peter Boyle, the late Leonard Harris, and Albert Brooks. Taxi Driver was Foster's film debut and Harris' first film (although he only did two in his life); it was also Brooks' first mainstream film role. The movie was shot during a New York City summer heatwave and sanitation strike in 1975, which caused many issues with shooting and scheduling. I can't imagine what a nightmare it was. Taxi Driver follows the story of Travis Bickle, a mentally unstable veteran. Bickle works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where he is encountered with all the city's demons. Throughout the film, he attempts to liberate a presidential campaign worker and an underage prostitute who he feels have been taken advantage of by the city's evil. How does Bickle's character progress throughout the story my mentally regressing?
Travis Bickle is the protagonist of Taxi Driver, and it is through his eyes, we witness all of the events of the film. His profound loneliness, alienation, paranoia, and existential disconnect from other people informed his perspective. His dreams are to clean up the streets of New York from the prostitutes, drug dealers, and bad people who crawl in the shadows. Although we become acquainted with Travis throughout Taxi Driver, his mental instability makes his actions unpredictable. Although Travis seems sympathetic, we never fully understand him. Travis is never part of the normal world. He believed he had a shot of normalcy when he started going on dates with Betsy. However, after inviting her to a dirty movie, she rejects him. Her rejection makes Travis hysterical, violent, and obsessive, and from here, he descends into madness. He loses all self-awareness and deludes to believing that shooting a presidential candidate and then shooting himself is a heroic gesture. Travis changes from a wounded man into a hardened one, testing our sympathies and distancing himself through violence.
After visiting one of Palantine's rallies, Travis goes home and starts a conversation with his own reflection. Here, he says one of the most iconic monologs in cinematic history: 'you talkin' to me?' This conversation indicates that he's lost all contact with reality at this stage, assuming his reflection as another man and improvising methods to draw his gun quickly before the opponent. Travis goes to another of Palantine's meetings to kill him. We don't know why he does that. However, judging by his character, we can assume that Travis blames Palantine for his breakup with Betsy, or Bickle wants to get recognized for doing something heroic. When he's at the campaign meeting, he sports a new haircut. Shaved into a mohawk, he replicates the look of the 101st Airborne paratroopers. They wore the haircut into combat when they flew in on D-Day in World War II, showing the military's influence on Travis's character. His attempt to kill Palantine fails when a secret service agent catches him.
He's still high on energy after the attempted murder. He decides to search for Iris: the child prostitute he met earlier in his cab. He finds her and meets her pimp, Sport, who reveals that she is twelve and a half years old. Shocked by this, he talks to Iris (who introduces herself as "Easy" initially), and she agrees to meet him for breakfast in the morning. At breakfast, Travis shows a different side of himself to Iris. She prevents him from turning into a monster by showing him other people in the world are hurting besides himself. He goes on a new mission to save Iris from Sport and the city.
Travis burns all the flowers he bought for Betsy with a new mission, indicating boiling anger and range. He's ready for battle… again. Travis drives to Sport's house and shoots him in the stomach, killing him. He goes upstairs and shoots the hotel manager's fingers off. This shows a parallel to an earlier scene in the film where Betsy tries to get Tom to light a match without his right hand's fingers. Travis gets shot in the neck but manages to go to Iris' room and kills the customer with her. Iris flees to the edge of the couch and cries while the hotel manager chases Travis and shoots him in the arm. Travis kills the manager and sits down on the couch next to a crying Iris. Neither of them acknowledges each other. This "heroic" act of violence was not for his benefit, but for Iris'. He attempts to kill himself, like a samurai's honorable death; however, there aren't any bullets remaining in his guns.
The movie ends with a collage of newspaper cutouts celebrating his heroics and a voice-over of a letter from Iris' parents, thanking Travis for helping Iris. At this moment, you start to think about the person Travis was when he was preparing to kill Palantine. He believed he had cut himself off from all feelings and was training to be a soldier; however, his genuine selfless concern for Iris suggests otherwise. The final scene is the dreamy sequence with Betsy and Travis in his cab. The viewers aren't sure if this is reality or not, showing that Travis isn't sure either. Travis refuses to take any fare from Betsy, showing that he's over her. However, this also means that we are unaware whether Travis has recovered from his previous mental state or not. If he's still searching for his place in the world.
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