Case Study - Taxi Driver

Case Study - Taxi Driver

Released: 1976
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Paul Schrader
Starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybil Shepherd
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller, Physiological Thriller
Budget: £1.3 million

When looking at the user ratings for Taxi Driver from IMDB users it is shown that the highest rating comes from males under 18. This could be because of the focused male lead or the influential nature of younger males. Overall the male audiences rated the film higher, this is most probably because it was aimed towards adult males in the first place, although high ratings were received from females too indicating that the female characters in the film were appealing to a wider audience.



Taxi Driver is about Travis Bickle, a supposed ex-marine who suffers from insomnia and possibly a psychological disability. He takes up a job as a taxi driver in New York, driving at night (due to his insomnia) and working in all areas of the city, including the most dangerous. Travis spends his days in seedy cinemas and questioning what has happened to society, with strong opinions about what is right and what is wrong.

Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs

This is a monologue from Bickle, talking about the streets of New York City and the demise of society and those who populate it. Early on this makes the audience aware of Travis' strong opinions on his fellow citizens, especially as he sees every area of the city and the "animals" that populate it. This backs the idea of Travis being a psychopath, a generic convention of some thrillers because of the unstable mental capacity of the protagonist/antagonist and the ease of which the lines between right and wrong become easily blurred, allowing events to take place that are commonly seen in this genre (such as murder etc.) These kinds of characters can be found in films such as 'Psycho', 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', 'Natural Born Killers', 'Seven' and 'Silence of the Lambs'. When Travis talks about "the rain" it could mean several things, perhaps he is referring to himself, a sense of foreboding for events to come, or perhaps he is referring to the upcoming election. It would make more sense to be talking about himself, as he literally takes action in order to "wash the scum from the streets".

John Doe in se7en, this film applies particularly to Taxi Driver because of it's neo-noir qualities

This speech also indicates how alone Travis feels amongst the rest of the people in the society as encapsulated in this scene, I think its ironic that this movie is situated in New York, a place where you cannot go more than a few seconds without encountering people, and yet that is where someone like Travis feels most alone, that is where his sense of loneliness is heightened so as to bring him to the edge of madness.
Travis descends into madness after being rejected by his love interest 'Betsy' but it could also be said that Travis really turns when Iris first gets into his cab and he is handed the $20 note, which he separates from the others suggesting that he views himself as a hero, intending to give the money back. This shows that Travis is becoming deluded when viewing himself as a hero as he loses his self-awareness which tests the audiences sympathy, therefore engaging them to the character which many thrillers aim to do in order to develop an in depth plot line.
 Although the audience know that Travis was a marine in Vietnam, they don't know what actually happened in order to make Travis so fragile to the elements that surround him, thus provoking questions as to why Travis feels the way he does, another clever device that makes the audience feel connected to the character when trying to find out about his past from his actions in the present. His experiences at war must have had an impact on the way that he lives now, as they do on many men that go to war, and this perhaps helps to make Travis a much more feared character because of the way that he easily turns his anger into a ruthless soldier once more. This fear is very important to the thriller genre because it helps to keep the audience hooked and it signifies the genre. Another point of view to this is that Travis in fact never was in Vietnam, this could be derived from his limited knowledge of firearms and the way that he avoids talking about his experiences in the opening scenes. Travis could have created this back story to enable him to be the hero that he always wanted others to view him as, adding to the characters complexities.
When looking at the behaviour of Travis Bickle it would be fair to say that he is living in his own alternate reality, his own dreamscape. This can be seen by the way that Travis looks into his rear view mirror at the beginning and end of the film, most importantly during his last cab ride of the film in which he appears a changed man, implying that he is absent from reality and lost in his own thoughts. This is similar to the dreamworld created by the two girls in 'Heavenly Creatures' and is used to connote escape from the real world and the problems associated with it.

Taxi Driver - Shot Analysis