Travis Bickle: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (Part 2)
An analysis of Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle
Disclaimer
The following is the continuation of my previous article about Travis Bickle(https://medium.com/@markschoeberg/travis-bickle-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-part-1-9e6c34213c12). These articles are not meant to be intended as reviews of the movie (Taxi Driver, 1976) but an in-deep analysis of its main character.
Betsy
Taxi Driver is a Robert De Niro solo; Travis Bickle is the only human being that is given enough screen time for us to understand the depth of the character. I used “human being” because there’s another non-human character who is given enough screen time for us to understand its essence: the city of New York. Apart from him, there are only two other characters that are worth to be spoken of, and they are both women: Betsy and Iris.
Travis’ lost mind can’t really distinguish reality from his sexual desires; when he sees Betsy, he doesn’t see a woman. He sees the idea he has of women. That being said, the objectification of females is not what’s going through Travis’ mind. He is incapable of seeing women in a “normal” way because, as an alienated and mentally upset individual, the only representation of a woman he is capable of conceiving and understanding is the one that porn has given him.
Porn is what really fuels Travis.
His approach to it is not what others would think it is. People watch porn for several reasons, to feel better, to get relaxed, etc. But the reason Travis loves porn is that he not only is addicted to it, but he also sees it as a mirror of what real life is. For him, porn is not an exaggeration of human sexual desires but a portion of reality he aims to discover. That is why his interactions with Betsy are almost inhuman. Where she sees an interesting man, in reality, the only thing that awaits her is a porn addict with a megalomania complex who would probably beg for sex if he was in the position to do so, or even worse, he would hurt her for the latter. Travis, somehow, finds rejection more painful than murder.
(…) She goes out with him a couple of times, but the second time he takes her to a hard-core film and she walks out in disgust and won’t have any more to do with him. All the same, he calls her for another date, and it’s here that we get close to the heart of the movie. The director, Martin Scorsese, gives us a shot of Travis on a pay telephone — and then, as the girl is turning him down, the camera slowly dollies to the right and looks down a long, empty hallway. Pauline Kael’s review called this shot — which calls attention to itself — a lapse during which Scorsese was maybe borrowing from Antonioni. Scorsese calls this shot the most important one in the film.
Why? Because, he says, it’s as if we can’t bear to watch Travis feel the pain of being rejected. This is interesting, because later, when Travis goes on a killing rampage, the camera goes so far as to adopt slow motion so we can see the horror in greater detail.
That Scorsese finds the rejection more painful than the murders is fascinating, because it helps to explain Travis Bickle, and perhaps it goes some way toward explaining one kind of urban violence. Travis has been shut out so systematically, so often, from a piece of the action that eventually he has to hit back somehow.
From Roger Ebert’s review of “Taxi Driver”, 1st January 1976. You can find the full review and a lot of other Roger Ebert pieces on rogerebert.com
Iris
Betsy is Travis’ sexual desire, he is a man who’s searching for a female human being with whom he can replicate the things he sees daily on the big (red) screen. But speaking of Iris, the 12 and a half years old prostitute, Travis doesn’t seek sex when he approaches her because he doesn’t see a woman in her; all he sees is a little child who doesn’t know what she’s doing. Even if that sounds kind of sweet and almost makes us connect with the mad taxi driver, Travis sees (and later uses) Iris as a tool too.
Iris is Travis’ excuse to go utterly insane.
During their first encounters, Bickle looks like he actually cares about her, but what if he’s only interested in speaking to her because she reminds him of himself? Travis might see a part of his life experiences in Iris. They both don’t have parents to guide them: we don’t know much about Travis’ past, but seeing his condition, it’s not really difficult to imagine him without parents or having toxic ones. They both lie to themselves to get through life: she convinces herself that being a prostitute is a fair trade for freedom, while Travis tries to convince himself and the others that he’s a real war veteran when he’s just one crazy guy(for the ones who don’t know, I’ve expressed my perplexities on Travis being a war veteran in the previous article). Lies and sex are what they have in common.
So, even though we can’t see Travis’ true feelings toward Iris during their “normal” conversations, we can admire his true intentions at the end of the Picture. The final blood bath to save Iris is just Travis finally having a reason go to crazy on people he doesn't like. He’s an animal, a monster, a demon who has been suppressed for too long. Let the devil out. He doesn’t really care about Iris. All he wants are death, blood, and sex. A man destined to die in his own hell.
That’s all for today, folks. Writing this cost me a lot of effort, but it was worth it; I think I did a good job. Consider following me for more interesting articles. Also, I’m planning to write a piece on Barbenheimer, but I’ll have to wait ‘till the end of August/early September as “Oppenheimer” is releasing on August 23 in my country but on that day and week, I’ll be busy(dammit). I’ve already seen “Barbie,” but I’ll wait to write an article about this strange double feature to reveal my thoughts on Greta Gerwig’s film. See you soon, and have a good day!
