TAXI DRIVER

(February 1976, U.S.)

Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER is one of those visual films that sucks you not only into the world of its lonely and isolated protagonist Travis Bickle (played famously by Robert DeNiro), but also the unsettling world he inhabits. Is it any wonder that author and film historian Nick Clooney chose TAXI DRIVER and its controversial violence as one of his selections for his book, THE MOVIES THAT CHANGED US, and its impact on history when John Hinckley Jr.'s obsession with the film and Jodie Foster drove him to attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. Still, this world in question isn't exactly Mars, you know. It's New York City in the heat wave-drenched summer of 1975. But as a visual trip back in time, you can't help but become involved in what the island of Manhattan used to look like back in the days of its filth and scum. The streets are lined with garbage and decay. 42nd Street, in particular, is overrun with hookers, pimps and grindhouse porn theaters. In fact, one can't help but feel that Scorsese is accentuating the point of the many, many movie theaters (porn, or otherwise) that once lined nearly every street and corner that you saw. Concentrate on the scene outside of Travis's taxi cab windshield while listening to Bernard Herrmann's (final) haunting score and you'll see and understand what the city used to look like...

The city is vast and impersonal, and an anonymous man like Travis Bickle is lost within its soul. Suffering from severe insomnia, Travis takes a job as a taxi driver to kill the long hours of the night and get paid for it. He'll drive anywhere, anytime, and will seemingly tolerate any form of scum that enters his cab. Even in his narration to us, he almost nonchalantly points out to us that it's practically part of his nightly routine to clean up the cum and the blood from the back seat of his cab. It would seem that there's no hope of any possible redemption for the city and the human race in Travis's mind, until he becomes infatuated with Betsy (played by Cybill Shepherd), a political campaign volunteer for Senator and Presidential candidate Charles Palantine (played by Leonard Harris). Sadly, Travis has no realistic concept of acceptable social behavior, even with women. On their first date, he naively takes her to a porn film on 42nd Street and has no understanding of why she should choose to be upset about it. That pretty much ends their potential relationship and drives Travis deeper into his isolation from the world and his violent thoughts toward its people. Growing more and more disgusted by the sleaze, dysfunction and prostitution he witnesses throughout the entire city, he seeks to make himself known by contemplating an assassination attempt against Palantine, while also trying to rescue and redeem an adolescent runaway and prostitute named Iris (played by a then twelve year-old Jodie Foster), who would secretly love to escape the world she's in and the pimp that controls her, Sport (played by Harvey Keitel).

Sinking deeper and deeper towards destructive behavior, Travis cuts his hair into a mohawk and attends a public political rally where his attempt against Palantine fails when the Secret Service discover his presence. He escapes capture, but resurfaces to take down Sport and continue on a violent and bloody killing rampage against his brothel's bouncer and one of Iris's mafioso customers. Badly injured in the shootout, he attempts suicide, but has run out of ammunition. As the film proceeds into an epilogue, Travis is not only alive and well, but a redeemed soul who has gained admiration and respect from not only Iris's parents, but from Betsy, as well, who just happens to get into his cab in the final moment of the film.

In a year when ROCKY won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1976, it's clear to see that Scorsese's compelling and hard-hitting masterpiece is what should have truly taken the statue. The world of TAXI DRIVER is hell in a yellow cab driven by a rejected man on the edge of his own insanity. The life of Travis Bickle is a study in deterioration, from his physical appearance down to his own personal confrontations even before they occur on the streets. Even while he's imagining a violent conflict in his own apartment to the tune of his own words, "You talkin' to me?", the stage is set for what will ultimately turn to blood. And yet even despite the film's violent outcome, Hollywood cannot help but offer us a happy ending in which our anti-hero is not only saved from death, but redeemed in his soul, too.

Or is he? There has long been controversy that maybe that so-called happy ending never really happened at all. Did Travis really survive the bloody carnage that took place in that hotel room? The bullet hole in the side of his neck and the additional shots he took to his body would suggest NO. His lifeless body on the floor as the police arrive would also support that suggestion. Did Travis, in fact, die with honor on the floor and simply fantasize about his own "heroism"? Is his reconciliation with Betsy at the film's finale merely his dying thought? Would his agitation after seemingly noticing something in his rear-view mirror as he drives away suggest that his entire story could be looped as one ongoing saga of his inner mind? These are questions that may never be answered, and perhaps it's best for the film's immortal history that they not be answered. Marty may just want it that way.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Travis Bickle (narrating): "Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads! Here is a man who would not take it anymore! A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit! Here is a man who stood up!"