Film - Taxi Driver

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## How Travis changes.

## What he finds in Manhattan City.

Taxi Driver

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Produced by Julia Phillips Michael Phillips

Screenplay by Paul Schrader

Starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, Cybill Shepherd

Release dates February 8, 1976

Running time 113 minutes

Country United States

Language English

This is one of the best films of latter New Hollywood.

It starts off with the famous scene, steam of the New York City, and Travis's eyes with madness.

After his retirement from navy, Travis is looking for a job. He struggles from insomnia that makes him choose a taxi driver as a job.

He starts off with his service without any emotions. The job seemed suitable for him.

However, Travis finds himself being not able to accept decadence of Manhattan at night and deepens his solitude.

One day, he falls in love with a woman, Betsy, who works at a politician's office where she supports an influential man, Palantine.

He nears her and asks her for a date.

Travis takes Betsy to see a Swedish sex education film that offends her. He tries to contact her after this incident, but she does not answer. Travis wants her to understand and talk to her, but pushed away by one of the staff.

This incident pushes him to extreme. He buys guns, gets ready with knives, and trains himself to purge decadence of Manhattan, watching himself changing in a mirror.

One day, Travis meets a girl, Iris, who has tried to get into his taxi and apparently, she is a young prostitute. Her procurer seduced her, after her having run away from home and used her loneliness.

Travis told her to stay away from the man. Iris seems to accept it but goes back to prostitution, after being allured.

Travis stalks Palantine to kill right after his public talk. However, it turns out in vain because of his bodyguards' prevention that made him give away in disappointment.

Then he meets a robber at a grocery store where he always stops, and kills the robber.

This incident accelerates his extreme thoughts.

He goes to the brothel to save Iris, confronting the procurer who does not notice that he is Travis and tries to get rid of him. Travis fires a few times towards him.

He then kills the lender of the rooms, the customer of Iris and gets injured himself.

Even though his injury is quite serious, his life is saved, and he gets back to driving taxi continuing the same life as before again.

This piece of work is one of the New Hollywood films as mentioned, but war is not discussed. The hero apparently has come back from Vietnam, and he mentions this himself, but just a hint of touch at the beginning of the film.

However, the audience can see that he has been struggling with invisible scars from Vietnam, such as insomnia, hatred towards his environment, his frosty attitudes, as well as his warm fellowship among other drivers.

His environment does not only mean taxi drivers or his work but Manhattan, the huge city where he lives. Not clearly mentioned, to Travis, who has experienced a fatal situation at war, Manhattan is nothing but decay. Whilst some fight, injured and die for the country, others in cities look for pleasure, not knowing real war. Travis has hatred towards those people.

Travis, who has seen deaths of his colleagues at war, probably had good relationships with them. Actually, he keeps nice atmosphere with other drivers.

In addition, he does not even touch the person he wishes to save.

He seems to have had as same relationships with non-soldiers as Iris.

However, he does not mind hurting others. He can be extremely violent towards those whom he recognized as enemies.

He does understand and know better.

Actually, Travis considers Iris as a poor girl who is just used and the man behind her should be the one to hate.

On the other hand, he tends to mislead his thoughts. Thin and tiny misunderstanding leads him to extreme.

His complex personality stiffens after the first incident.

By preparing intricately and recognizing enemies, he seems to go back to a soldier.

In addition, there is a scene where Travis buys guns from a gun dealer. The dealer also advises Travis to buy some drugs. Even though the rules and regulations were not as tight as today, the scene shows the darkness of the U.S. society.

This work shows American society's problems through a taxi driver in a distressing manner.

He is struggled with his emotions and asks one of the drivers for advice.

He says that people know what they need to do, so do what you want to do.

What he means is Travis should know his place, just like a taxi driver he is doing.

Travis, however, understands his way.

The reason why he chases after Palantine is not cleared in this film.

However, this is also merely a selfish prejudice, and there is no excuse.

Being conceited, he misunderstands in his way and gets depressed to find he belongs to nowhere, denying the community he is in as well as other people.

Even though he received an honorable discharge that maintained social privilege, he transforms into a selfish, self-centered man.

There is no clear expression in the story, but his pride, being honored retirement after the service, seems to drive him into it.

After the incident, he becomes ignorant towards the woman he was obsessed with, just like he returned to an emotionless soldier.

He was about to be a human, coming back to the society and loving someone, but he seems to fail to be a human totally.

In the end, he does not leave the job, nor Manhattan, the place he hated. He does not even look at Betsy who finally seems facing with him.

His emotions are not expressed dramatically, but his attitudes indicate his decision to choose Manhattan where he fights. In other words, Manhattan is now a battlefield to him.

Although he survived the Vietnam War, it seems that he would be repeating as same experience as in Vietnam all his life.

This film shows the depth of darkness that America maintains and step forward.

A young man who is supposed to have a bright future, dragging his past at war gives the audience such a big difference from what people would have, as expressed "America of liberty". This film focuses on what real American society holds and darkness behind it.