The character of Travis Bickle is not so much outraged at the signs of social and physical decay around him as he is frustrated that he no longer knows anything else. He’s also conflicted, attracted to the very things he purports to despise. Sick of himself and what he sees, he embarks on a final, desperate quest to reintegrate himself into public. Portraits of urban malaise and anomie don’t come any darker, bleaker, or more claustrophobic than Taxi Driver. This has a lot of film noir elements-Travis narration, the intense music score. The movie proceeds like a film noir told from the perspective of an anonymous stranger standing at the corner of a murder scene, peering over the police tape at the shrouded body splayed out on the street.
Scorsese, Schrader, and DeNiro seem to be asking that of us as well. At the ending, we’re stuck viewing the city from Travis’s relentlessly isolated perspective, with few peripheral glimmers of hope taking us out of his mohawk style. But is this what Travis want? In an ironic ending, Travis is ultimately praised as a hero, and it’s hard to tell if his inadvertent triumph is actually a tragedy. Because the movie has done such a great job wobbling the moral compass, we’re left desperately grappling for impossible answers.
And again, like Mean Streets and some other great Scorsese films, or should I say also films like Bullitt or Drive, this is truly one of the most dark, monotonal, bleaker, gritty film I’ve ever seen. Here is a one man who I say exist for some reasons, like, to give us an example of how once and for all, the city of New York may become anybody’s city. Scorsese is always been one of my favorite filmmakers, I think I never hate any of of Scorsese films at all. And Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickle will never be forgotten nor will be an another movie character, he will be an influential movie character or a person in this real world, not only is a hero, but could he be a villain too? Like what I sad earlier, this movie has some unaswered questions, but that’s so much for it right? Anyways, this is I believe in most of all, the only best film of 1976, don’t also forget Rocky, Carrie, All the President’s men, Network. TAXI DRIVER will always be a great film about paranoia, obsession, and self-pity too.