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Let me preface this by saying that Martin Scorsese (the director of Taxi Driver) is my favorite filmmaker of all time, and Taxi Driver is probably my favorite film of his. I think this movie is the definition of a masterpiece and is one of the best films ever made.
Taxi Driver is a brilliant film because it’s a terrifyingly realistic depiction of how radicalization can and does happen every single day. For a film that was made nearly 45 years ago, it is incredible how relevant it feels. If you want to understand school shooters and religious extremists, Taxi Driver will give at least a little insight into the mindset of the people who commit these heinous acts of violence.
As a filmmaker, Scorsese has a fascination with flawed protagonists ) who the audience both relate to and are terrified of. Any of the modern TV anti-heroes like Walter White, Don Draper, Nucky Thompson and others all owe a debt of sorts to Scorsese anti-heroes. Scorsese has a unique gift for creating characters who the audience feels locked into to, almost as if we’re experiencing the film from the character's perspective rather than the neutral position most filmmakers use. Scorsese is also a vehement pacifist who hates violence and has been known to faint at the sight of blood. Scorsese does not justify or glorify violence, in fact he seems rather critical of society’s attitudes towards violence.
The message of Taxi Driver seems to be that lonely and desperate people just want attention, and that society only gives attention to regular people if they commit horrific acts. Society is fascinated with violence and will, in a sense, reward violent people by giving them the attention they crave.
Taxi Driver seems to be inspired by Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of John F. Kennedy. Oswald was a depressed and lonely young man in his 20’s who felt ignored by society, got caught up in a political ideology he didn’t really understand, committed an extreme and meaningless act of violence by assassinating a president who he didn’t have any strong feelings about. Travis Bickle is almost identical to Oswald in these respects, right down to the fact that he attempts to assassinate a politician who he knows almost nothing about (we never even learn if Pallantine is a Democrat or a Republican). The fact that Taxi Driver inspired another act of political violence (the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by a man who - you guessed it - had no strong feelings on Reagan one way or another) is only further proof that its message is an important one.
I said earlier that Taxi Driver is a “terrifyingly realistic depiction of how radicalization can and does happen every single day”. It’s terrifying for two reasons. The first is the one I’ve already discussed, that society rewards people for committing violent acts. The second is that the audience falls for Travis’ charms. Scorsese believes that cinema is an illusion of sorts, and the illusion in Taxi Driver is that the audience ignores the very clear signs that Travis is a dangerous sociopath and fails to realize it until the final scenes of the film when the illusion breaks, by which time it is to late to stop the waking nightmare than this film is.
But the rest of society is still under that illusion. Travis is rewarded for his ‘bravery’ and given the fame and attention he’s been seeking the entire time, and the only thing he’s learned is that extreme violence is the way to escape from the pit of loneliness and despair. The audience is horrified by the ending because it’s almost like they’ve awaken from a terrible nightmare but everyone else is still deep asleep. This is Scorsese’s biggest indictment on society in the film.
Travis is a little weird and intense, but he’s ultimately likable and the audience can connect with him more than they’d like to admit. Many of his extreme views are things that many people can connect with, especially those who live in New York or another big city. Consider this quote from the film:
This city is like an open sewer, it’s full of filth and scum…we should flush it down the fucking toilet.—Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver
…and that’s something that many New Yorkers or other big city residents have thought at one point or another. Additionally, many of Travis’ internal monologues (represented as voiceovers in the film) are very clear signs of mental illness, and yet the audience (at least on a first viewing) can relate very deeply to many of them because they’re so unusual and yet so honest. So sincere. So true. Take this one:
The headaches got worse. I think I got stomach cancer.—Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver
…which is completely ridiculous, and in some absurd way is relateable and endures Travis to the audience. I can’t be the only person who’s a massive hypochondriac and assumes I have cancer whenever I don’t feel well, can I? This sort of internal monologue is so rarely seen in film, the type that doesn’t convey information but conveys deep emotional insecurity and the type of thoughts we usually share with no-one else. These monologues help the audience understand Travis and see more and more of themselves in him (aided by Scorsese’s claustrophobic direction which often locks us into Travis’s point-of-view), which only makes it more horrifying when Travis begins his murder spree and reveals the monster he has been all this time.
It’s not horrifying because Travis becomes a monster. It’s horrifying because he’s been one the entire time, and we as the audience realize that we ignored it and projected ourselves onto this horrible person.
There are whole levels to Taxi Driver that I haven’t even come close to explaining, like the idea of cyclical fate and how the film treats New York like a Möbius Strip that Travis is unable to escape from. Not to mention that Scorsese is on the top of his game, creating a visually masterful and stylish look for the film that is wholly unique and recognizable, aided by Bernard Hermann’s iconic score:
So that’s why Taxi Driver is considered a great movie. It’s a stylish and well-acted movie with a terrifying central character that manages to both endure himself to the audience and make them question their entire life.
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