Rating: 9/10
I'll start off by saying this is probably my favorite film (probably, because I don't have much of a knack for fine comparison and I like The Godfather just as much).
Have you ever looked at the world around you and felt no connection with it? Have you ever wanted to do something that makes every single person notice and acknowledge you?
Taxi Driver is the story of an alienated man slowly driven to the edge of insanity, and just as much of the society that alienates him. Set in the seedy streets of 70s Manhattan that make Batman's Gotham look like a paradise, this film gave rise to a number of iconic dialogues.
Our main character, Travis Bickle, is an everyman, a Vietnam war veteran who drives a hired taxi. Every night, he is faced with the crime and criminals festering in his city. Every night, he sees the ugly underbelly of his city - the prostitutes, the pimps, the drug dealers, the thieves, the freaks - and is disgusted by it. Under the dirty neon lights, all of the city engages in the same pattern: drinking, eating, partying, sex. Travis sees them as scum, filth, devoid of all morals, all their lives a big lie. Perhaps more importantly, he is also faced with his own loneliness. After the war, he can't fit back into this society he sees. Obsessed with mentally bad-mouthing the 'garbage' around him, he spends his time eating pills, venting his frustration in his diary, and watching porn at the theater.
One day, he sees an 'angel', a woman who seems different from the rest. She works at a presidential candidate's campaign centre. His attempts to date her lead to a series of events that make him lose faith in society. Now suicidally bent on making a difference in the world, on getting noticed, he plots an assassination and hatches a plan to rescue a child prostitute.
After all, Travis is just as psychotic as the rest of the people around him, as are many in our violent and emotionally damaged society even today.
Robert De Niro, known for playing bold and strong characters, here portrays the nervous Travis with just as much excellence. His gestures, facial expressions and blustered manner of speaking paints a genuine, believable psychopath. Supporting actors perform well too. The films shows the grimy city with great style. A manhole with smoke rising from it, a group of teens cooling down using a hydrant, the colorful blur of signboards. The imagery conveys Travis' hate for the city very well.
Taxi Driver's screenplay has a sort of aimless, meandering feel that reflects the chaos in Travis' brain. Most of the film consists of disconnected, seemingly pointless occurences in Travis' life and never gets boring. All of it builds to the impressive climatic sequence. Monologues are more common than dialogues, but both are well written and very memorable. The music is mostly calm jazz and fits the mood perfectly.
Bottomline: Must watch. Technically brilliant, and always relevant.
Not much room for thematical analysis (it's all out in the open), but there are a couple of observations that can be made.
The epilogue is puzzling in a number of ways. Travis surviving a shot to the neck was already unlikely, but the newspaper clippings show us that instead of facing a long incarceration, he is being hailed as a hero by the city. Further, Iris is taken back by her parents who promise to care for her. Perhaps more puzzling is Betsy's behaviour - she wants to date him again just because he's a hero.
While part of me wants this epilogue to actually have happened, I believe that it's just Travis hallucinating before he dies from his neck wound. Why? Let's pay special attention to Betsy. If you think about it, her behaviour in the rest of the film was completely normal and justified. She was impressed with Travis at first for being different. She dumped him over the porn theater matter, as any woman would. But it's clear that Travis did not understand why she dumped him, and thought of her as some sort of manipulative opportunist. This is exactly what is reflected in the epilogue.
The newspaper articles also show Travis' wishful thinking at work. He had hoped that getting Iris away from her pimp would solve all her problems and she would reform, but it wouldn't really be that easy for a 14 year old druggie who had voluntary worked as a prostitute. The other article is far too unlikely.
So I can't be sure, but I do believe he died. There's also the inexplicable sound at the very end that makes him look into his rear view mirror. This possibly marks his death.
Here's a bit of trivia: A man named John Hinckley became obsessed with Jodie Foster, who played Iris, after watching Taxi Driver several times. He stalked her and eventually shot and wounded Ronald Reagan and 3 of his staff in imitation of Travis Bickle, in an attempt to 'impress' Foster.
