"Taxi Driver" must rank as one of the greatest films ever made. A study of the pathology of loneliness in and around the mean streets of 1970s New York City, it's now released on blu-ray and has a timeless status and quality that has never been matched. Not an easy watch by any means, it's still a compelling, engrossing, downright gritty piece of cinema, which I've seen several times,. The following are some observations of the movie I've had over the years, having seen it many times over the years, since I first watched it on a big-box red VHS back in 1986.
Travis suffers and his “mission” at the end is catharsis, a release. He’s looking back in the mirror- nothing has changed. His loneliness is his pathology, his need to save Iris is a little more than focusing his mind away from his terrifying emptiness, which he embraces through his pathology of eating crap food, going to porno cinemas, making a hash of the date he’s on with Betsy and, even worse, trying to get Betsy to embrace his loneliness too. Understandably, Travis is hurt, but he can’t see the normality of just going on a date. He even makes grand judgements to Betsy at the coffee shop. He’s unable to stop the pain he feels because of the trauma of his past, post Vietnam. The taxi is a yellow coffin. He’s suffering. But he’s also dead inside. The nearest he gets to being a hero is that he’s a loner, an outsider. If anything, he’s an anti-hero. He’s also not bitter; he’s pathetic and sad and deserves our pity. His aborted date with Betsy is little more than a self fufilling prophecy, where he thinks that she would be interested in his sad little life. She’s rejects him in the cinema, he rejects her at the end, refusing to charge her for the fare. He remains a sufferer, not an unhinged beast.
He’s bitter when rejected by Betsy, but subsequent attempts to ask her out again are conveyed in a pathetic hoplessness- especially when the camera pans down the empty hallway. He’s pissed off with Betsy’s co-worker and wants to kick the shit out of him, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t raise his voice anywhere during the film. He’s always desperate. He talks to Iris in desperate tones “you should be in school”. His robotic march of death at the end is devoid of emotion- he’s expressing his true force, every muscle must be tight. It’s all about the mission. Bitter people don’t have the energy to do what he’s doing. He’s lonely and suffering passively. The killing of pimps and dealers is an agressive sense of purpose, the only one he’s had since he got back from 'Nam. He must be depressed, because he has no fear of working long hours, driving his coffin through black ghettos, begging to get hurt. He hates black people- that’s for sure. But NY was fairly diverse even in 1975/76, so he had time to come to terms with migration. He probably had black squad members fighting with him? He can’t expect to pick up women in a porno cinema, either by taking them or chatting them up whilst they’re working there. He doesn’t have any skills to jump back for a minute before he pathalogically heads further into the abyss. Whist he maintains his outsider status, he’s also revelling in it, happy to be that loner and for the viewer to empathise him, if only because he can’t see how unhappy he is.
and he wanted to and expects to die at the end. The media label him a hero because he’s diametrically rid NY of some bad anti-social dudes, but the media don’t see how unstable he is, so he’s happy to have the attention. But wait, he looks back in the mirror, and it’s back to the same old misery, if untreated, will cause his death by his own hand, not by the guns of the sleaze merchants of Manhattan.
But he expected to die, which is why he wrote the letter to Iris. I don’t take the idea that society adores him- they would only be doing that on the level of the fact that he got rid of cliched “scumbags”. As an audience we’ve been following Travis from his perspective for the whole time, so we know that what he did isn’t something to be championed. As an Idea of transcendence, this must be a very extreme form of it. He nearly dies after rescuing Iris and fully expects to, but doesn’t. He manages to reject Betsy, but to what end? He’s not happy, despite managing a smirk. He looks in the mirror, is alarmed, the mirror is blurred, which must be a visual representation of Travis’ warped mind. The last images are of scummy 1970s New York, and he’s back in his yellow coffin, wandering the streets, waiting to die again. It’s a hopeless moment. He’s accepted his loneliness, and he will die again again because of it because he has no connection to society. He couldn’t even connect with his cabby colleagues. He can’t live with Iris or her family… It was a one off moment. He got clarity, but only for a moment. He’s still trivial and he’s dead inside.
Regarding the mowhawk- this is just part of his whole ritual. He’s been burning his arm to enhance his muscles, he’s doing pull ups, press ups, but it makes him stand out like a sore thumb. He could have been killed or arrested when he tries to kill Palantine, but, unrealistically manages to evade arrest. Travis means "journeyman", and his cab is a metaphor for his mental journey into suicide and transcendence into another world, where he doesn’t have to feel, so acutely, the pain of rejection and loneliness. The only acceptance he feels are the positive media opinions and the letter from Iris’ parents, who unrealistically, say they can’t come to NY because they’re too poor. Well, if Travis wanted to, on his large salary, could surely head up to Philly for a welcome. A welcome that would be more accepting given that it wouldn’t be in a hospital ward, with Travis in a coma. But he’s not going to take up the offer. He’ll die sooner or later, but for moment, he feels that he’s made an accomplishment, even though it’s in the most extreme form of mass homicide. Did it have to be so extreme, no? But it makes for a classic piece of 70s cinema.
