Taxi Driver*

So much of cinema has rested on the dichotomy of good versus evil. We root for the success of the “good guy” and the failure of the “bad guy.” Yet, what happens when the good guy and the bad guy are the same guy? Goals and motivation become much more complicated because we are not sure whether we want the main character to succeed or fail. While it may be frustrating to watch a film with this kind of person in the lead role, it certainly makes for some interesting cinema. It is also the reason Martin Scorsese has such an impressive resume. Scorsese has built his career around the idea of the anti-hero and even though his characters are not easily accessible or likable, they are some of the greatest film characters in American cinema history. How is this possible? The protagonists of Scorsese films are thieves, sexual predators, gangsters, and murderers. Yet, somehow we not only let them off the hook but feel sympathy for them as well.

It is Scorsese’s unparalleled ability to frame his characters in a particular context that allows him to gain the sympathy of the audience. In Scorsese’s films, the real enemy is the world. It is a cruel and unforgiving world and people do what they do in order to survive in it. While this world may be an exaggeration of the one in which we actually live, when we watch his films, Scorsese makes us believe his is the only world that matters. That being said, how we judge Scorsese’s characters involves appreciating the relationship each character has with his world so that we may better understand his thoughts and behavior. Scrape away all the layers of violence and corruption in these films, and it is possible to find individuals with the same fears and desires as the rest of us. Scorsese’s films suggest that everyone is connected, not by our good or evil tendencies, but by our common goal to survive in a world fully capable of destroying us if we let it.

In Taxi Driver, we see the world through the eyes of Travis Bickle, a disillusioned New York City cab driver. Through Travis’s eyes the world is bleak and repulsive. He sees almost everyone and everything as filthy and grotesque, and if it were up to him, he'd destroy all the things that disgust him. Yet, Travis is no vigilante. He is rather, as one of the film’s characters describes him, a walking contradiction. Travis frequents porno theatres and watches soap operas and American Bandstand even though sexuality sickens him. He prefers to work at night even though sin and corruption run rampant after dark. He buys a bunch of guns and makes speeches about wiping out the scum of the earth but at the end of the day manages only to point the guns at himself. Travis’s life is filled with inconsistencies because of his tumultuous relationship with the outside world. Even though Travis feels this disdain for the world, it is impossible for him to shut it out because he can’t bear the isolation. Travis has an equal disdain for himself because of his inability to connect to the people and places he encounters. Essentially, Travis wants the impossible: to be accepted by a world he feels has no place for him.

What Travis must do to achieve this goal is not simple and it certainly isn't pretty but that's what makes it the film's most provocative element. Travis takes it upon himself to take out a prostitution ring so that he may save Iris, a young runaway, from Sport, the man who runs the ring and who has also made Iris his concubine. Sport has stolen Iris’s innocence and thus he has committed the worst possible offense. Through his debasing of young girls, Sport is paving the way for a new generation of corruption. Travis sees the extermination as an opportunity to save not only Iris, but also the potential for a better world, and so when Travis enters the whorehouse and guns down every person he encounters inside, he does so unapologetically. The shooting spree is graphic and unrelenting, and it is further intensified by Scorsese’s decision to show it in slow motion. Yet, disguised among the bloody chaos of Travis’s killing frenzy is his ultimate redemption. In giving Iris the chance at a better life, Travis has earned his place in the world.

While it may be difficult to sympathize with the extreme nature of Travis’s behavior, we have all experienced the kind of loneliness and insecurity Travis experiences throughout the film. Everyone, at some time or another, must do what is necessary to give his or her own life meaning. Travis may be cynical about the world but he still wants to be accepted by it. When Betsy enters Travis’s cab at the end of the film and she is much kinder and favorable toward him because of what he has done for Iris, it is as though Travis has truly accomplished something. Betsy represents a world that no longer rejects Travis, but embraces him.

The real moment of triumph in Taxi Driver is not Travis’s success in taking out Sport, Betsy’s changed attitude toward Travis or even the newspaper articles branding him a hero for saving Iris, but rather the simple closing image of Travis’s eyes in the rearview mirror of his taxicab. Scorsese shot the image so that while Travis is making eye contact with Betsy who sits in the backseat, he is also making eye contact with the audience. It is a moment of true connection where the barriers of cinema are broken and we no longer see Travis as just another one of Scorsese’s anti-heroes, but as a human being just like each of us.

*Nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Score, and Best Picture