Taxi Driver is a 1976 American motion picture drama directed by Martin Scorsese.
It is widely considered one of the greatest American films, praised for its strong performances and gritty realism. The film also made stars out of both its lead actor, Robert De Niro, and Jodie Foster, then twelve years old.
Bernard Herrmann, who is noted for his work with Alfred Hitchcock (especially Psycho), scored Taxi Driver. The soundtrack was the last he completed before his death.
Plot Description
Travis Bickle (De Niro) is an alienated, sexually frustrated young man of 26 from the Midwest, who claims that he has recently been discharged from the Marines. He suffers from insomnia and consequently takes a job as taxi driver in New York City, and volunteers to work the overnight shift "anytime, anywhere". Bickle spends his spare time watching pornography in seedy theaters and driving around aimlessly through the shadiest neighborhoods of Manhattan.
Bickle is horrified by what he considers the moral decay around him, and when Iris (Foster), a 12½ year-old prostitute, gets in his cab one night to escape her pimp, Bickle becomes obsessed with saving her despite her complete lack of interest in the idea, explaining that she was "stoned" when she tried to escape, and her pimp, Sport, is actually a kind and caring person.
Bickle is also obsessed with Betsy (Shepherd), an aide for New York State Senator Palantine, who is running for the presidential nomination and is promising dramatic social change. She is initially intrigued by Bickle and agrees to a date with him after he flirts with her and sympathizes with her own apparent loneliness. On the date, however, Bickle takes her to a pornographic film (Kärlekens Språk), and she leaves him, disturbed.
Taxi Driver has a number of other disturbing scenes reflecting both Bickle''s worsening mental condition and the seedier side of New York City. Bickle purchases four handguns from an energetic black market "salesman" named Easy Andy. Another scene features an insanely heart-broken businessman in the back of Travis'' cab (played by Scorsese in a last-minute substitution) explaining to Travis how he wishes to kill his wife, who is playing around with a paramour. Bickle happens across a robbery at a convenience store where he is a regular customer, then shoots the would-be robber. The store clerk then proceeds to beat the robber''s dead (or dying) body in full view of any passersby. Bickle writes a letter to his parents, claiming to be involved in "sensitive" government work; he also reports to them that he is dating Betsy. Obviously desperate, Bickle tries to express his frustration to Wizard (Boyle), an older more experienced cabbie, telling Wizard "I got some bad ideas in my head" and that he feels like "doing something big"; not comprehending, Wizard tries to relate from his experience, but can ultimately only suggest that Bickle should "get laid, get drunk" and "don''t worry so much."
The film''s most famous scene may be when Bickle is practicing his quick-draw technique and rehearsing a speech he''ll deliver if confronted: "You talkin'' to me? You talkin'' to me? You talkin'' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin'' to? You talkin'' to me? Well, I''m the only one here."
Bickle then plans to assassinate Senator Palantine at a public rally. When he is spotted by Secret Servicemen and flees, Bickle desperately drives uptown and shoots Iris''s pimp Sport (Keitel), before storming into the brothel and brutally killing the bouncer, the wounded Sport (who has returned), and Iris''s mafioso customer.
Travis appears to be dying from a bullet wound to the neck in Iris'' room, suffered in the fight, but then attempts suicide with his handgun. When this fails, and, once the police enter, Bickle raises a bloody index finger to his head and pretends to shoot himself. A slow-motion overhead tracking shot moves out of the room and examines his path of violence, moving over blood stains, dead bodies, down the steps and outside to the crowd of police and curiosity seekers swarming outside.
A brief epilogue of sorts ends the film and shows Shepherd''s character climbing into Bickle''s cab, and commenting on his "saving" Iris and Bickle''s own media fame, but Travis seems to be mentally recovered now and denies himself as being any sort of hero. This curious ending has inspired some debate as to its meaning and interpretation; see below.
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Awards
Cannes Film Festival (Palme d'Or)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor (Robert De Niro)
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jodie Foster)
BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer (Jodie Foster)
BAFTA Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music (Bernard Herrmann)
Critics' Opinions
Taxi Driver was a financial success and was nominated for several Academy Awards and received honors at the Cannes Film Festival. In later years, the film was ranked #47 on the American Film Institute''s list of "100 Years, 100 Movies", and#22 on its "100 Years, 100 Thrills". It is consistently in the top 50 on the Internet Movie Database''s list of top 250 films, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Roger Ebert has added Taxi Driver to his list of "Great Movies."[1]
Some critics have argued Taxi Driver is perhaps the first film to address--however indirectly--the impact of the Vietnam War on soldiers who fought in the conflict. If we accept his word that he was a marine then it is possible that Bickle is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder[2], a condition that was brought to major attention by the condition of some veterans of that conflict and later included in the DSM-III. More subtly, Bickle''s spartan lifestyle and choice of poorly-paid, dead-end employment is evocative of the experiences of many war veterans suffering from this condition and the perception that veterans who have a mental or physical disability are disowned and inadequately compensated by society or the government. A broader interpretation would point to the repercussions of severe solitude and alienation coupled with the propensity to blame one''s inner deamons on the more visible representation of what one may think is ''wrong'' with society, and the paths that may lead to the eventually homicidal actions of an insane person.
The film includes a subtle reference to military operations in the US. When Bickle determines to assassinate Senator Palantine, he cuts his hair into a mohawk. This detail was suggested by actor Victor Magnotta, a friend of Scorsese''s who had a small role as a Secret Service agent, and who had served in Vietnam. Scorsese later noted that Magnotta had "talked about certain types of soldiers going into the jungle. They cut their hair in a certain way; looked like a mohawk ... and you knew that was a special situation, a commando kind of situation, and people gave them wide berths ... we thought it was a good idea."
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