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An undeniably brilliant, nightmarish portrait of one man's personal hell.
Taxi Driver (1976) By Martin Scorsese
#mytop20favouritefilms
Taxi Driver is a film about alienation and obsession. Travis Bickle is a socially dysfunctional, mentally disturbed insomniac war veteran that drives a taxi in New York. He hates the city, especially Times Square because it is crawling with rapists, pimps, and prostitutes, people who he refers to as “filth and scum”. Now we don’t really see all the things that happen that are depicted as “filth”, other than the 12-year old prostitute and his pimp. But remember, we aren’t seeing things as they are, we are put in the eyes of Travis Bickle, but we don’t have his mindset.
Travis is frustrated that he isn’t able to fit in. He is lonely and he wants a companion, ideally a girlfriend. But, he isn’t able to get one. This is one of the root causes of Travis’ frustration. The rapists, pedophiles that walk the streets are able to get women, not buy them, but actually get in a relationship, where Travis, who is much better than the “scum” can’t. Another reason he hates NY is that it is completely different than the way he remembers it before the Vietnam War. People would marry in their 20s and set up nuclear families and earn a living. But, things change and people indulge in premarital sex and fuck prostitutes. Even all the theatres are overrun with pornos. This disgusts Travis. But he does go see these pornos quite often, and even takes Betsy on a date to see one, which doesn’t end up pretty good. It is likely that seeing these films is a way of sexual pleasure that compensates for a partner, kinda like all the single guys that jack off to porn on their computers. But, it is also likely that this is Travis’ attempt to fit in.
Now, one of the main reasons Travis isn’t able to get a girl is his inability to comprehend women. Lika lot of other characters from Scorsese movies, Travis has a Goddess-Whore complex. He views a woman as either a virgin angel from heaven or a shameless slut, no in-between. Travis views Betsy as a goddess, the perfect girl, but after he gets rejected, Travis refers to her as “another one of them”, which implies she is a whore.
We see Travis try to make connections and establish relations with other people, most of which go in vain. However, he does manage to rescue Iris from her pimp. But the thing is, Scorsese never gave us clear insight into whether Iris actually wanted to leave.
One of the greatest shots in the film, and possibly of all time is the shot in which Travis is apologizing to Betsy. As she rejects him, the camera turns away and gives us a look at the hallway. This shot tries to show us the anguish and despair that Travis is feeling, by not actually showing it to us. Scorsese said that the shot was meant to hide the Travis’ rejection, which was too painful for him, even though we are shown explicit shots of violence of murder in the film. To him (Travis, not Scorsese), rejection is more painful than murder.
One of the key aspects of the movie is that even though the guys out there are pretty bad, Travis only complains about them and blames his alienation on the immorality of the people, without acknowledging how socially awkward he is.
To sum it all up, Taxi Driver about a lonely man’s descent into madness as he realizes he can't make meaningful or real connections with the people around him. This sub-conscious realization drives him into crippling anguish and denial and egotism to prevent him from finding out what's wrong with him and how he can change.
© All Rights Reserved
#mytop20favouritefilms
Taxi Driver is a film about alienation and obsession. Travis Bickle is a socially dysfunctional, mentally disturbed insomniac war veteran that drives a taxi in New York. He hates the city, especially Times Square because it is crawling with rapists, pimps, and prostitutes, people who he refers to as “filth and scum”. Now we don’t really see all the things that happen that are depicted as “filth”, other than the 12-year old prostitute and his pimp. But remember, we aren’t seeing things as they are, we are put in the eyes of Travis Bickle, but we don’t have his mindset.
Travis is frustrated that he isn’t able to fit in. He is lonely and he wants a companion, ideally a girlfriend. But, he isn’t able to get one. This is one of the root causes of Travis’ frustration. The rapists, pedophiles that walk the streets are able to get women, not buy them, but actually get in a relationship, where Travis, who is much better than the “scum” can’t. Another reason he hates NY is that it is completely different than the way he remembers it before the Vietnam War. People would marry in their 20s and set up nuclear families and earn a living. But, things change and people indulge in premarital sex and fuck prostitutes. Even all the theatres are overrun with pornos. This disgusts Travis. But he does go see these pornos quite often, and even takes Betsy on a date to see one, which doesn’t end up pretty good. It is likely that seeing these films is a way of sexual pleasure that compensates for a partner, kinda like all the single guys that jack off to porn on their computers. But, it is also likely that this is Travis’ attempt to fit in.
Now, one of the main reasons Travis isn’t able to get a girl is his inability to comprehend women. Lika lot of other characters from Scorsese movies, Travis has a Goddess-Whore complex. He views a woman as either a virgin angel from heaven or a shameless slut, no in-between. Travis views Betsy as a goddess, the perfect girl, but after he gets rejected, Travis refers to her as “another one of them”, which implies she is a whore.
We see Travis try to make connections and establish relations with other people, most of which go in vain. However, he does manage to rescue Iris from her pimp. But the thing is, Scorsese never gave us clear insight into whether Iris actually wanted to leave.
One of the greatest shots in the film, and possibly of all time is the shot in which Travis is apologizing to Betsy. As she rejects him, the camera turns away and gives us a look at the hallway. This shot tries to show us the anguish and despair that Travis is feeling, by not actually showing it to us. Scorsese said that the shot was meant to hide the Travis’ rejection, which was too painful for him, even though we are shown explicit shots of violence of murder in the film. To him (Travis, not Scorsese), rejection is more painful than murder.
One of the key aspects of the movie is that even though the guys out there are pretty bad, Travis only complains about them and blames his alienation on the immorality of the people, without acknowledging how socially awkward he is.
To sum it all up, Taxi Driver about a lonely man’s descent into madness as he realizes he can't make meaningful or real connections with the people around him. This sub-conscious realization drives him into crippling anguish and denial and egotism to prevent him from finding out what's wrong with him and how he can change.
© All Rights Reserved
