My Top 10 Favorite Films : #2 — Taxi Driver

Martin Scorsese is a master of movie craft so it’s no surprise that one of the movies on my list was directed by him.

Taxi Driver is a film about losing a sense of identity, purpose, and society all at the time.

Travis Bickle lives in a simulation day in and day out. He breathes monotony — constantly traveling in the same loop without any aim or purpose. Bickle is the embodiment of someone who is merely surviving, not thriving and whether we like it or not, we’ve all felt that at some stage of our lives. We’re terrifying similar to Bickle and although he takes his emotions to the extremes, we are drawn to him.

With social alienation, boredom and even insomnia kicking in, he’s left with more time with himself and that makes him go crazy. He enters these sinister areas of the human mind which are constantly urging him to do something crazy. Scorsese captures this well — the repetition of reds and yellows, long shots, jazz musicians at every avenue, and even the streets reveal how tedious Travis’s life is. His dull routine messes with his stability and that is the start of his dual personality.

Bickle is an anti-hero. He has solid intentions but a horrible method of execution. He doesn't have any motivation but still wants to make a mark on the world.He wants to do something that will make him feel accepted, acknowledged, and accomplished. The only problem is that in order to fit in he tried to find a sense of purpose in people rather than an activity and as we all probably experienced, people often disappoint.

Bickle’s life objective becomes saving Betty and Iris from themselves. While some may think this is heroic behavior because of his Marine background, this obsession with women may stem from a loss of identity — more specifically from a lost of masculinity. He isn’t the breadwinner of the family and in his eyes, he isn’t a typical man. Both Betty and Iris become a charity case for him,

Ironically, when Bickle feels like he found his goal in life, that is exactly when his life starts going downhill. He gets rejected, injured and nearly arrested. The level of destruction is far from being fixed.

Taxi Driver captures a monk-turned-monster story beautifully, Scorsese’s visuals storytelling and De Niro’s portrayal of Bickle messes with your head.

Robert Ebert said it best when he said

“We’ve all felt as lonely as Travis. Most of us are just better at dealing with it.”