Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver is a 1976 American motion picture drama directed by Martin Scorsese.

Plot summary

Travis Bickle (De Niro), an alienated, sexually frustrated young man of 26 from the Midwest, has recently been discharged from the Marines. He suffers from insomnia and consequently takes a job as taxi driver in New York City, and volunteers to work the overnight shift "anytime, anywhere". Bickle spends his spare time watching pornography in seedy theaters and driving around aimlessly through the darkest and most repulsive neighborhoods of Manhattan.

Related Topics:
Travis Bickle - Midwest - Marines - Insomnia - Taxi - New York City - Pornography - Manhattan

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Bickle is horrified by what he considers the moral decay around him, and when Iris (Foster), a 12½ year-old prostitute, gets in his cab one night to escape her pimp, he becomes obsessed with saving her despite her complete lack of interest in the idea, explaining that she was "stoned" and her pimp, Sport, is actually a kind and caring person.

Related Topics:
Prostitute - Pimp

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Bickle is also obsessed with Betsy (Shepherd), an aide for New York State Senator Palantine, who is running for the presidential nomination and is promising dramatic social change. She is initially intrigued by Bickle and agrees to a date with him after he flirts with her and sympathizes with her own apparent loneliness. On the date, however, Bickle takes her to a pornographic film, and she leaves him, disgusted.

Related Topics:
Senator - Pornographic

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Taxi Driver has a number of other disturbing scenes reflecting both Bickle's worsening mental condition and the seedier side of New York City. Bickle purchases a hunting knife and four handguns from an energetic "salesman" named Easy Andy; a disturbed businessman in the back of Travis' cab (played by Scorsese in a last-minute substitution) explaining to Travis how he wishes to kill his wife, who is playing around with a . Bickle happens across a robbery at a convenience store where he is a regular customer, then shoots the would-be robber. The store clerk then proceeds to beat the robber's dead (or dying) body in full view of any passersby. Bickle writes a letter to his parents, claiming to be involved in "sensitive" government work; he also reports to them that he is dating Betsy. Obviously desperate, Bickle tries to express his frustration to the Wizard (Boyle), an experienced cabbie, telling the Wizard "I got some bad ideas in my head" and that he feels like "doing something big"; not comprehending, the Wizard trieds to relate from his experience, but can only suggest that Bickle needs to "get laid, get drunk" and "don't worry so much."

Related Topics:
Handguns - Convenience store - Get laid - Drunk

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The film's most famous scene may be when Bickle is practicing his quick-draw technique and rehersing a speech he'll deliver if confronted: "You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one here."

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Bickle then plans to assassinate Senator Palentine at a public rally, perhaps seeing the Senator as a buffer between himself and Betsy. When he is spotted by Secret Servicemen and flees, Bickle desperately drives uptown and shoots Iris' pimp Sport (Keitel), before storming into the brothel and brutally killing the bouncer, the wounded Sport (who has returned), and Iris' customer.

Related Topics:
Assassinate - Secret Service - Pimp - Brothel - Bouncer

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Travis is wounded in his neck and arm in the fight, and he seems to be dying as he sits down on the couch before policemen enter the room. Once the police enter, Bickle raises a bloody index finger to his head and pretends to shoot himself. A slow-motion overhead tracking shot moves out of the room and examines his path of violence, moving over blood stains, dead bodies, down the steps and outside to the crowd of police and curiosity seekers swarming outside.

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A brief epilogue of sorts ends the film and shows Shepherd's character climbing into Bickle's cab, and commenting on his "saving" Iris and Bickle's own media fame, but Travis seems to be mentally recovered now and denies himself as being any sort of hero. This curious ending has inspired some debate as to its meaning and interpretation; see below.

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