Taxi driver what is it about

One is the "priest's-eye-view" often used in overhead shots, which Scorsese has said are intended to reflect the priest looking down at the implements of the Mass on the altar. We see, through Travis' eyes, the top of a taxi dispatcher's desk, candy on a movie counter, guns on a bed, and finally, with the camera apparently seeing through the ceiling, an overhead shot of the massacre in the red-light building.

This is, if you will, the final sacrifice of the Mass. And it was in "Mean Streets" that Keitel repeatedly put his finger in the flame of a candle or a match, testing the fires of hell: here De Niro's taxi driver holds his fist above a gas flame. There has been much discussion about the ending, in which we see newspaper clippings about Travis' "heroism," and then Betsy gets into his cab and seems to give him admiration instead of her earlier disgust.

Is this a fantasy scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts? Can the sequence be accepted as literally true? I am not sure there can be an answer to these questions. The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. We end not on carnage but on redemption, which is the goal of so many of Scorsese's characters. They despise themselves, they live in sin, they occupy mean streets, but they want to be forgiven and admired.

Whether Travis gains that status in reality or only in his mind is not the point; throughout the film, his mental state has shaped his reality, and at last, in some way, it has brought him a kind of peace. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from until his death in In , he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Rated R for violence and profanity. Cybill Shepherd as Betsy. Peter Boyle as Wizard.

Jodie Foster as Iris. Harvey Keitel as Sport. Leonard Harris as Palantine. Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle. Albert Brooks as Tom. Reviews Great Movies Taxi Driver. Roger Ebert January 01, Now streaming on:. Powered by JustWatch. On the director commentary for Taxi Driver , which amazing, Scorsese said that Travis made it out.

When you're sitting to make your movie, think about how the ending matters. You want people to care about the characters and care about what happens to them. Sometimes an ambiguous ending causes audience introspection. Taxi Driver ends this way deliberately. It makes you think. We don't just fade out on a random line or experience. We leave these characters at this moment because it's time for you to understand what the movie means to you. We take a crack at deciphering the ending of Inception and explaining what the movie Inception is about.

This is, Inception explained! Got a social problem, get a gun and kill them all. Fuck Law and Police. With "heroes" like Travis, slums would be clean A hero is someone planning a massacre? I was very upset when I saw this movie years ago. As you should have been. The movie is clearly not a celebration of this type of character.

It's a tragedy, a portrait of a sick man getting sicker and taking out his illness on the society around him, which is as sick as he is. This is why the end is perfect. Travis gets a moment of relief from his mental illness by his violent actions, but because society celebrates him for it, he is left untreated, and that final, unsettling look back in the mirror shows he is just going to spiral back into his mental illness. It's a movie that holds a mirror up to society, specifically New York in the 70's, and the reflection wasn't flattering.

A truly fascist movie from the time is something like Death Wish, or Dirty Harry, where the protagonists character and vengeful actions are portrayed as purely virtuous and heroic.

Travis is portrayed from the start as a disturbed, anti-social character who only gets worse as the story progresses. A truly fascist movie from the time is something like Death Wish, or Dirty Harry, where the protagonists character and vengeful actions are po. Bickle's actions are caused through bitterness and jealously. He originally plans to assassinate Pallantine so that people will take notice of him - to disrupt privileged lives he would see that everyone who gets to live a normal life without constant mental anguish is privileged.

Iris is a saint on a pedestal - someone with who he can make some sense out of his place on earth. He can do something good, and make a difference. Plus his actions would mean he no longer has to live with the mental pain once completed. It's a childlike understanding of redemption in the character. The first half of the film cements how impossible he finds fitting into an everyday person's life.

His condition doesn't let him plan, or see a place for himself in the future. The second half of the film is him looking for an out. Just a way to get off this earth. Skip to main content. No Film School.

Credit: Fox. By Jason Hellerman. January 16, Taxi Driver's ending has been talked about since the movie came out. We're here to show you how it's viewed today. In other words, Travis has become a hero. He's evaded the feds, and now, people see him as the guy who fought the mob and saved a kid.

He's like a cab-driving Batman with no moral quandaries about killing. And then, in the final few minutes of the film, Travis and Betsy reunite. She climbs into the back of his cab and asks how he's doing. Travis doesn't have much to say, but after dropping her off, he doesn't let her pay for the ride. Instead, he just smiles and rides off into the darkness. This creep, this racist, this killer — everybody loves him now.

He's carried out his homicidal fantasies, and now everybody in New York City is patting him on the back.

Travis might be psycho, but society thinks he's a-okay. So what's up with the ending of Taxi Driver? From the moment Travis Bickle mimes suicide with his bloody fingers to the moment when the credits roll, things feel incredibly weird. This isn't the denouement we were expecting. It seems way too happy, way too neat. It almost feels like a dream. Is this some sort of fantasy?

Well, some Taxi Driver fans suspect that Travis dies in the final shootout with the gangsters and that the last few minutes — when Travis becomes a hero, Iris gives up life on the streets, and Betsy comes back — are just Travis' dying fantasy. Even Roger Ebert considered the theory in his "Great Movies" review , writing, "Are we experiencing his dying thoughts? Can the sequence be accepted as literally true? I am not sure there can be an answer to these questions.

The end sequence plays like music, not drama. Some theorize that the overhead shot of Travis' bloodsoaked body actually suggests the taxi driver is dead, like his soul has risen above the world, and we're getting a God's-eye view of things. And after all the murder and mayhem he's caused, it's comforting to think the taxi driver is in the morgue instead of being hailed as a hero. People who subscribe to the "Travis is dead" theory believe those final few moments are just too perfect, and that it's exactly the kind of ending a psycho like Travis might dream up for himself.

While it's totally cool to think that Travis Bickle dies at the end of Taxi Driver , there are three people who strongly disagree with that interpretation: director Martin Scorsese, actor Robert De Niro, and screenwriter Paul Schrader. In fact, De Niro has spent the last couple of decades pushing for a Taxi Driver sequel , saying, "I'd like to see where Travis is today.

There was something about the guy — all that rage and alienation, that's what the city can do to you. Schrader, for his part, has expressed no interest in revisiting the grimy world of Travis Bickle. When De Niro pitched his idea for a part two, Schrader said it was "the dumbest idea" that he'd ever heard.

Well, as he explained to De Niro, "that character had died not more than six months after that movie was over. He was on a death trip and was gonna succeed the next time.

Later on, in an interview with Sofia Coppola , Schrader reasserted his belief that Travis survived the shootout, saying, "A number of people have attributed the ending of Taxi Driver as a fantasy. I don't have a problem with that ending, but it's not what I intended. So if Travis survives the end of Taxi Driver and really does become a hero, then what's the movie all about? Well, in a commentary track, screenwriter Paul Schrader talked about how he was inspired by real-life would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore, a woman who took a shot at Gerald Ford.

After her failed murder attempt, Moore's face wound up on the cover of Newsweek , and that baffled Schrader. Why was the magazine treating her like a movie star? Confused and frustrated, Schrader decided to work that into the script and have the media turn Travis Bickle into a hero.

In short, the ending of Taxi Driver is wagging its finger at an American culture that idolizes bad guys. Seriously, Americans have been doing that since the days of Jesse James. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wound up on the cover of Rolling Stone , movies have portrayed criminals like Aileen Wuornous and Charles Starkweather as sympathetic figures, and recently, Ted Bundy was in the headlines because so many women were calling him "hot.

And sure, if Travis had killed Palantine, people would be treating him very differently, but since he slaughtered some bad guys, that means he must be good, right?

Perhaps film critic Pauline Kael said it best when she wrote, "It's a real slap for us when see Travis at the end looking pacified. He's got the rage out of his system — for the moment, at least — and he's back at work, picking up passengers in front of the St.

It's not that he's cured, but that the city is crazier than he is. Whether you think Travis lives or dies at the end of Taxi Driver , both endings are pretty bleak.

Either he murdered a bunch of people before dying in a brothel, or he cheated justice and was made a legend by a culture that worships violence. But rest assured, if Travis Bickle survived that shootout, he's definitely going to strike again.

In the last few seconds of the film, after Travis drops off Betsy, he drives away in his cab, accompanied by Bernard Herrmann's jazzy soundtrack. But that's when Travis starts getting really fidgety.

He shoots a strange glance up at the rearview mirror, right as the soundtrack hits a high-pitched, unsettling note. It's a disturbing moment, and Martin Scorese put it there for a reason. As the director explained , "I decided I'd put something on [the ending] that shows that the timer in Travis starts to tick again, the bomb that's about to explode again. In other words, Betsy better stay away. Everybody better avoid this cab.

People better run when they see the taxi driver coming. Travis Bickle isn't a hero, and he isn't healed. Sooner or later, he's going to explode again, and when he does, it's probably going to be even bloodier than before. With its gory climax and ambiguous ending, Taxi Driver has prompted a lot of criticism and controversy over the years, but Paul Schrader's original ending makes the current version feel about as tame as The Wizard of Oz.

Remember how Travis Bickle absolutely hates black people? He drops racial slurs, goes out of his way to stare down black people, and eagerly shoots an African-American in the head. In fact, when that jealous husband hires Travis to help him spy on his cheating wife, the husband makes a point that she's cheating with a black man, a detail that definitely fuels Travis' growing racism. But what does this have to do with the ending?