Taxi Driver Midterm - Grade: A PDF

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Midterm essay from Professor Andrew McElhinney's class....

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Amanda Scheuer 2/21/2017 Midterm Taxi Driver One film that has earned a spot on the British Film Institute’s list of the greatest films of all time was the 1976 psychological thriller Taxi  Driver . The movie was directed by Martin Scorsese and featured Robert De Niro as the main character - Travis Bickle, a Vietnam war veteran who becomes a taxi driver in New York City. He is a lonely man surrounded by the filth and violence of the city, and in his isolation he turns to violence as well. Unrealizing of the danger he is putting himself in, Travis goes from being a miserable but harmless man to being a

 mentally unstable, cold blooded killer. Taxi Driver deserves its place as one of the greatest films of all time because of its psychological elements, impact on the audience, and ability to withstand the test of time as an everlasting classic. Travis Bickle is the center of this film, and his psychological troubles are what makes the plot so thrilling. It does not take long for viewers to recognize that Travis is a self-destructive, depressed, and aggressive man. His long, sleepless nights and lack of a social life are what lead him to becoming a taxi driver. He meets people of all walks of life through his job, but never forms a bond with anyone until he comes across a presidential campaign volunteer named Betsy. They seem to have a good connection, until Travis takes her to see a graphic movie and she becomes uncomfortable and offended. He obsesses over Betsy, repeatedly sending flowers, and eventually criticizing her angrily in her workplace. His frustration and loneliness, combined with his hatred of the disgusting state of the city, lead him to escape his thoughts with a new workout plan. This was a major turning point for Travis, who was seemingly innocent at the beginning of the film. He purchases multiple guns and practices drawing the weapons in the mirror, as if

preparing for a fight. Travis meets a child prostitute named Iris and feels a strong urge to help her escape and get back to her family. He starts making spontaneous, irrational decisions, and even kills a man who was robbing a convenience store; it is clear he is a ticking time bomb. He brings a gun to a campaign rally, with the intent of assassinating the presidential candidate, but is forced to flee when Secret Service agents become suspicious of him. Still looking for trouble and violence, Travis goes to rescue Iris instead, who is in desperate need of freedom even if she claims to enjoy the life she has. He kills three men in the brothel, including her pimp, and is shot multiple times in the process. His attempt to kill himself fails when he realizes he is out of bullets, but after he recovers in the hospital, he learns that Iris was returned to her parents. Travis is thought of as a hero for saving her life, and film closes with him finally making peace with Betsy. In a kind of poetic justice, the film ends with Travis Bickle as both a hero and a villain, and yet he is fated to continue his lonely life in the city. Upon release, Taxi Driver was considered a cinematic masterpiece, and it broke many boundaries in the film realm. The suspense and gruesome nature of the film was probably taken as a shock by the audience when it was released. Roger Ebert, the famous film critic, stated that the film, “is a hell, from the opening shot...we almost want to look away from his life. But he’s there, all right, and he’s suffering” (Ebert, 1976). At the time, the film was controversial because of how typical Travis seems initially, and yet how quickly he transforms into a malicious and brutal murderer. Modern day movies are so often filled with blood and gore that society takes violence with a grain of salt. In 1976, however, Scorsese disturbed the audience by giving them a seemingly normal character who would eventually take pleasure in murdering others. Viewers are able to identify with Travis in a way because of how unfortunate his life seems to be going; it

is easy to pity him from the start. On the other hand, there is an immense impact on the audience when it turns out Travis isn’t just the lonely romantic who gets rejected by the girl - he turns into a nightmarish criminal and goes on a violent murder spree. Another controversial element was Travis’s desire to assassinate the presidential candidate, which most likely unnerved the audience as well, which would have made him appear villainous. He shaves his head into a mohawk, with his gun hidden under his jacket, and stands menacingly in the crowd at the rally. In this scene, it was clear that Travis did not prepare himself for such an unjust crime when he ran away from the Secret Service agents. Still, part of him was still filled with this heinous desire to kill, which is what made the audience fear him. His aggression led him to murdering three other people, who were considered “bad guys” by spectators, so he was considered heroic rather than a wrongful villain. Overall, the controversial nature of this film and state of the art narrative were what made it so successful among viewers. The legacy left by this film is everlasting, in that it was cutting-edge for its time and has since set the stage for other psychological thrillers. Over 40 years after its release, it is considered a classic, from which a famous film quote in pop culture was born. In one of the scenes featuring Travis practicing with his guns, he stares at himself in the mirror as if preparing to shoot someone. To highlight the severity of his isolation and madness, he talks to himself in the mirror, saying, “You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well I’m the only one here.” This leaves a feeling with the audience that Travis is truly depressed and withdrawn completely from society. He seems so desperate for social interaction that he becomes reckless and dangerously violent to others and himself. Although his character was ranked on the American Film Institute’s 50 greatest movie villains, Travis Bickle is neither

hero, nor villain (AFI, 2003). In the end, he is just a pitifully lonesome man who finds himself committing ruthless murders to fit into some part of society. As if the film wasn’t controversial enough, nowadays it is a reminder of the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, John Hinckley Jr. After watching the film and developing a crazed obsession with Jodie Foster, John tried to “impress” her by transforming himself into the character Travis Bickle. On March 30th, 1981, he shot at the president six times, mostly due to his obsession with Taxi Driver. This ultimately brought an even more controversial legacy with the film because of how the crazed cab driver character really struck a chord with Hinckley. The film was still regarded highly as a cinematic work of art and many films since have been inspired by it. Taxi Driver is one of the greatest films of all time, and above anything else it is the most thought-provoking and suspenseful psychological thrillers of its kind. The ability of this film to truly draw the audience into the life of a depressive, yet maniacal cab driver is spectacular. When the film wraps up with Travis Bickle, now a murderer perceived to be a hero, driving off into the night in his cab, it is as if the film could begin again as he repeats this destructive cycle. This is what truly captures the audience and forces viewers to reconsider everything they initially thought about Travis’s story. Everything is not what it seems, and the last scene leaves viewers in a state of dreamlike mystery, questioning what just happened. This film was so successful because of the psychological instability of the main character and of the plot itself, combined with the way it influenced viewers and became a timeless classic. For a film to excite, confuse, disturb, and frighten an audience all at once, it certainly deserves its place on BFI’s list of the 50 all time greatest films.

Works Cited American Film Institute. “100 Greatest Heroes and Villains - AFI.” AMC Filmsite , June 2003, http://www.filmsite.org/afi100heroesvilla.html Biography Editors. “John Hinckley Jr. - Criminal - Biography.com.” Biography , 27 July 2016, http://www.biography.com/people/john-hinckley-jr-17171774#related-video-gallery Ebert, Roger. “Taxi Driver Movie Review & Film Summary (1976) | Roger Ebert.” Roger Ebert , 1 Jan. 1976, http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/taxi-driver-1976. Taxi Driver. Directed by Martin Scorsese, performances by Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, and Cybill Shepherd, Columbia Pictures, 1976....