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Taxi Driver


Possibly one of Martin Scorsese's best films. Mean Streets being a close second imho. Robert De Niro at his best too. It is the little subtle things that make this movie stand out from the rest. For example the scene where Travis pours schnapps on his cereal or when he is watching television holding the recently purchased .44 Magnum at his side. For a moment we think he is going to shoot the t.v. Instead he unintentionally pushes it over with his boots. While Travis's mental illness is never specifically identified his growing paranoia and growing distaste for New York leads me to believe it may be PTSD or something similar. His actions leading up to the climatic apartment building shootout, including clipping Sport aka Matthew, was brilliantly directed. The end has seen much debate. Some see it as Travis's death and some don't. My theory is that Travis in fact died and the events following didn't actually take place or were out of sequence to show the audience what things would have been like had the previous events not taken place. At any rate Taxi Driver was a brilliant film with a great screenplay written Paul Schrader.

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I can watch this easily once a year. The settings and environment are as much a character as the roles. Keitel put on a great character. Foster too.

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Yes, you know somethings wrong when he takes his new girlfriend out to the movies and it’s porn. You mention Paul Schrader who I believe did the screenplay for Rolling Thunder (1977) which is also about a Vietnam vet. Please check it out if you have not seen it yet!

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Travis is socially awkward. He doesn't see anything wrong with taking his gf Betsey to a porn movie. In fact porn is normal for Travis and to him it is just something that couples do. He is clearly losing his grip on reality and thinks by killing Iris's pimp he is saving her. I do think that Paul Schrader left the ending open to discussion. It is almost like the film is on a loop and it restarts. Travis looks in the rearview mirror and "sees" something indicating that his illness, whatever it may be, is not cured.

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I really like your take on the ending signifying a cycle for this sort of behaviour. It could represent how media normally praises vigilantism but the reality of such action is gruesome and costly as seen in the apartment shootout. The ending signifies how Travis thinks that the ugly nature of his actions will be forgotten and he'll be unanimously seen as a hero, thus imploring him, or like minded individuals, to carry on taking the law into their own hands.

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