Taxi Driver is another American masterpiece which includes in its opus much the same theme as Gatsby and Citizen Kane. It stars Travis Bickle, an isolated, disconnected, and sociopathic taxi driver who is chasing some ideal of human interaction that he does not have, and is likely not sure exists. The character is isolated, as was Gatsby and Citizen Kane, but in a much more serious way. He cannot properly interact with other people; he does not know how!
Travis is awkward and uncomfortable in conversations, always both distant and over analytical. But more then that, he is a sociopath; he is crazy and he thinks he is perfectly sane. This connects him with the murderer in The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. The murderer in that short story goes to great lengths to convince the audience that he is not mad, but in doing so simply furthers the case against him by describing disturbing actions, like watching his victim at night and casually cutting him up and meticulously placing the remains under his floorboards. The most striking case for this complete insanity in Travis comes, rather surprisingly, on his first date with love interest Betsy. Travis, not knowing any better and expecting that it would be perfectly ok with her, takes Betsy to a Swedish sex film, which she reacts to by leaving the movie and calling a cab as Travis desperately tries to convince her that he had know idea she would be offended. This is the kind of isolation we are dealing with in Travis, a kind of isolation more deeply rooted than in Kane and in Gatsby, which corresponds well to the murderer's isolation from reality in believing he is sane in murdering his butler.
After Betsy doesn't return his calls, Travis turns to violence in the absence of love. He buys numerous weapons and makes modifications to allow for carrying capacity, the element of surprise, and extra damage. This is conducive to isolation from rather than connection with people, and the behavior is comparable to that of Bartleby (see Bartleby vs. Raging Bull). But it associates him much more clearly with another character we read this year: Mother's Younger Brother in Ragtime. The similarities between the two are staggering. Mother's Younger Brother and Travis were both young men and were very isolated. While Travis pursued love with Betsy, Mother's Younger Brother pursued love with Evelyn Nesbit (although he succeeded, miraculously, the end of the affair left him as empty as Travis). While Travis modified guns and knives, Mother's Younger Brother made bombs. And both turned these weapons on people for lack of a purpose in life, a feeling aroused and nurtured by their sterile isolation. Mother's Younger Brother joined Coalhouse Walker, the only white in the group, and assaulted firehouses and eventually JP Morgan's library. He died in violence in Mexico, fighting for a cause he had been instructed to fight for (although rightfully so, it can be argued). Travis Bickle tried to assassinate a presidential candidate, but fled the scene after a secret service agent spotted him before he could pull the trigger. He later frees Iris, a 12-year-old prostitute he befriended, by murdering her three pimps in what is in my opinion one of the most spectacular shootouts in cinematic history, as Travis takes down all three as he advances up the stairs of the complex to Iris' room. Once all three have been slain, Travis tries to shoot himself twice, failing both times by chance because the guns were both out of ammo. He then sits there and waits for the police to arrive, and upon their arrival puts his hand up to his forehead in the gesture of a gun and mimes pulling the trigger three times, smiling as he does so, before slumping over, all this time Iris cowering in shock and terror in the corner, two of the pimps having been murdered before her eyes. Both of these men fought for something they had little real connection to. This is because both thoroughly believed their lives were meaningless; they were unable to connect with anything naturally so they made connections to the real world for themselves. They made things they believed in. Mother's Younger Brother got involved in anarchist movements after Emma Goldman pushes him in the absence of Evelyn, his obsessive love. He did not do what he did because of any conscience; he did what he did for his life to have meaning, to make a name for himself, to make a desperate impact on the world he could not touch, the world of real life. He joins with Coalhouse to be a part of something big, and dedicates his every fiber to their mission, reacting desperately when Coalhouse chooses to call it all off. In a similar way, Travis met Betsy by chance on the street and stalked her for a long time before talking to her. He met Iris because she jumped in his cab and begged him to drive but was caught by her pimp before he could drive away. He encountered her by chance and then deliberately later, discovering where she worked in his daily drives around the city. These two women, to whom he devoted his life, he met by chance. He attributed ideals on them that they never really had, established connections with them that were never naturally formed. He was a taxi driver; a man who had no where to go, who simply directs his life around the dreams, the hopes, the opportunity of others, lets others guide him on his way in life, and so thoroughly dependent on people who are complete strangers to him, who he cannot connect to. He does this because his own life is directionless; he is cursed by his isolation and his lack of purpose to wander between the winds, forever searching for a relationship that will not come.
There is one more story that is arguably associable with Taxi Driver: An Occurrence at Owl Creek, in which a prisoner of war is hung and vividly lives his ideal dream of his life's outcome before he dies, that ideal unfulfilled. After Travis' shootout, something very strange happens. The movie shifts, the camera pans over newspaper clippings on a wall detailing Travis' recovery in the hospital and hailing him as a hero who saved Iris from prostitution, all the while the audience hears a letter from Iris' parents in Pittsburgh thanking Travis for what he did. We then see Travis surprised and taking a fare from Betsy. Betsy comments on his being in the paper and he downplays the heroism in it, simply happy to see her. Travis does not charge her for the fare, and she watches him as he drives away, leaving himself to his own thoughts. What is interesting is a few things; for one, it is almost too good to be true, although believable, that the media portrayed Travis as a hero. Travis has a full head of hair when we see him, as opposed to the mohawk he donned for the shootout. More importantly, Travis had taken two hits in the shootout, one in his shoulder, and one in his neck. There is no evidence of either. Some critics have argued that this last scened is a dream sequence, showing us what Travis' ideal outcome would have been, or what he would have imagined before he died, much like in Owl Creek. Everything went better for him than the rest of the movie suggested. I am now reminded of how unresponsive he was to both of his bullet wounds, his arm and especially his neck. One does not simply survive a bullet to the neck, let alone not respond to it. It is then possible that everything after that was him being the hero; him saving Iris like he really wanted to, him living his ideal which was always impossible. This is a conjecture, of course, and may not be Scorsese's intention, but it is a distinct possibility.
Travis' life followed those who rode in his cab. He had nowhere to go, disconnected from those who rode with him, except for those choice few who he reached out to, tried to connect with, in a desperate and, ultimately, vain attempt, to give meaning to his wasted life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWYxEGs9y5Q - buying guns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e9CkhBb18E&feature=related - "you talkin to me?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CImWc7og28&feature=related - final scene/shootout (caution: very violent and disturbing)
