Taxi Driver: The Filth of the Streets and of Self The opening shot is Robert DeNiro’s character, Travis Bickle’s eyes in the review mirror intensely gazing at the city. It then transitions to the view outside of the taxi to the colorful, hectic streets of New York City. This exaggerates the importance of the taxi itself and the main character’s point of view from within it. Bickle is a veteran Marine who can’t sleep and decides to take the job of driving the long hours. He narrates the film as
Martin Scorses’s Taxi Driver is the distinct cry of mid-1970’s America. American society was becoming fabricated, alienated, and distrustful. Above all, American society was throwing away the values of the older days and trying to replace its anger and discontent with violence and paranoia. In the film the viewer is painfully close to its main character, Travis Bickle. This is written in a narration form of a diary he writes in from time to time. Bickle is consistently portrayed as a lonely but
"He's a profit and a pusher. Partly truth partly fiction. A walking contradiction." - Kris Kirstofferson In Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle repeatedly expresses two ideas that are central to the film. First, Travis has an undying wish to purify the world. He wants to rid his city of all the evil and scum that currently inhabits the city's cold and damp streets. Second, is the method by which Travis tries to obtain his goals. Travis Bickle tries to clean up his city by methods