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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Travis a "rebel with a cause" who targets Palantine mistakenly...or is he dissolving into insanity, and his rescue of Iris is just him looking for a justification for his desire to give in to violence? Or both...? For that matter, we never actually learn what is wrong with Travis. He shows signs of Asperger's Syndrome, schizotypal personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress syndrome (from his time in Vietnam), but it's not clear which if any disorder he has or how it/they influence(s) his deteriorating mental state. For that matter, the awkward, overly formal letter he sends his parents which doesn't show any real signs of affection, and where he lies about his life raises questions about what kind of home he came from.
  • Award Snub: At the Academy Awards, it lost Best Actor (Peter Finch) and Best Supporting Actress (Beatrice Straight) to Network, Best Original Score to The Omen (1976), and Best Picture to Rocky. Martin Scorsese wasn't even nominated as Best Director (largely because he wasn't a big name yet; it was this film that made him a big name). Neither was Paul Schrader for his brilliant screenplay. Considering that year was amongst the most competitive in the history of the Oscars, the Oscar losses might be justified or debated against, although less so as time goes on considering the film's immense reputation.
  • Awesome Music:
    • The title theme perfectly captures the film’s melancholic, dark tone.
    • In fact, the score overall, which is by turns brooding, melancholic, and foreboding, and then romantic and gorgeous, perfectly captures the film’s tone. Bernard Herrmann's last and best work.
  • Critical Dissonance: Given its current reputation as one of the landmarks of American cinema, it's easy to forget that a lot of reputable critics gave it negative reviews, mostly from a Too Bleak, Stopped Caring angle. Covering it on their original local Chicago TV show, Siskel & Ebert split on it, with Siskel saying he liked the first half but found the final act repulsive (while Ebert argued that you're supposed to be shocked by the final act, comparing it to The Wild Bunch). Leonard Maltin only gave it two stars. Danny Peary has mixed feelings about it in Cult Movies 2 (noting it has lots of memorable scenes, but feeling that it also has its share of contrived moments that weigh it down).
  • Diagnosed by the Audience: Psychologists frequently interpret Travis as having schizotypal personality disorder. These readings cite his difficulties with socialization (for instance, trying to look charming but instead coming off as creepy), his stilted speech (both in dialogue and his inner monologues), his tendency to see others in black and white terms, and especially his apparent paranoia which morphs into a belief that he's on a mission to cleanse the world of filth.
  • Fair for Its Day: The scene where Wizard and the other taxi drivers discuss homosexuals and more specifically, two homosexual men he drove in his cab earlier that night. Wizard expresses the opinion that whatever sexual activities two consenting adults engage in behind closed doors is none of his business and he won't judge anyone by it, and in fact only opposes the fact that one of them started attacking the other, saying "In my cab, don't go bustin' heads.". While the inclusion of "behind closed doors" would be seen as either homophobic or intolerant today, it was a rather tolerant and progressive opinion in the 1970s. Richard Nixon gave a similar opinion to express his empathy towards and tolerance of homosexuals in a candid moment in 1971 from his notorious White House tapes.note  Additionally, Wizard and the other taxi drivers do not object upon learning about a then-new law in California that allows homosexual couples to collect alimony from each other, they see the law as being perfectly fair.
  • Fridge Brilliance:
    • Easy Andy tells Travis a great deal about the guns he's buying, but it's all very inaccurate and leaves one wondering why an arms dealer wouldn't know his own merchandise. Then one realizes Travis doesn't know anything about the history of the merchandise he's buying, and Andy is just telling him this stuff to convince him to buy it.
    • Another possibility is the fact that after Easy Andy sells Travis the guns, he starts offering to sell drugs to him. Why would a gun dealer be offering to sell drugs? Simple: He's not a gun dealer who also sells drugs. He's a drug dealer who had guns he was looking to unload. This would explain why his information about guns was inaccurate: he's a drug dealer and is trying to get rid of the guns he just happens to get. As to why Travis didn't question him about his information is just as simple: he doesn't care about the information about gun histories, his only interest is that they work.
      • It also brings up some Fridge Horror into the mix with this thought: if Easy Andy is a drug dealer trying to get rid of the guns he has, what's he doing with them in the first place? It explains even more why his info on them is wrong: he could be selling guns that are linked to previous crimes and he's trying to get rid of them, so he doesn't get caught with them.
    • Lastly, it's another example of Travis being an Unreliable Narrator. Travis is persuaded so easily since he's already fixated on guns and getting a step closer to living out his fantasies. Since he has no interest in drugs, Andy's pushy salesmanship is a lot easier to see through.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Knowing about the real-life Bernie Goetz case (which happened eight years after the movie came out) can make watching Travis' shooting rampage much more uncomfortable.
    • Travis considers assassinating Presidential candidate Palantine, which would infamously be mirrored by John Hinckley Jr trying to kill President Reagan to impress Jodie Foster.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Wizard's line about California being more progressive than New York when it comes to homosexual marriage is funny since, of the two states, New York legalized homosexual marriage first.
    • In the first scene, the manager at the cab company asks Travis if he's "moonlighting." Years later, Cybill Shepard would star in Moonlighting.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Travis. Sure, he may be a violent, misguided Vigilante Man, but after being spurned by his crush, mocked by the one he's trying to help, and genuinely disturbed by his bad life experiences (including an implied tour in Vietnam) and his surroundings, it's impossible not to feel for him to some degree.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Travis' "You talking to me?" bit is a heavy source of parody in popular media.
    • After Travis buys guns from Easy Andy, Andy becomes a Motor Mouth in selling drugs and cars to Travis. Predictably, this has been parodied in video comments on obscure items.
  • Misaimed Fandom:
    • The film has badly suffered from being idolized by gun-toting sociopaths who believed they'd found their representative in Travis (most infamously John Hinckley Jr). The other side of the fandom is nutjobs who take Travis' vigilante and racist ways as something to be admired. Like A Clockwork Orange five years earlier, a brilliant work of art that suffered because dangerous idiots viewed it.
    • There are also those who use his famous "You talkin' to me?" scene as a sort of Badass Boast, when in context Bickle's just talking to himself and fantasizing (admirers never remember Travis’ next line, “Well, I’m the only one here”). Specifically, he was irritated by how stupid he came across interacting with secret service agents and wanted to be commanding and intimidating in his next interactions. Eventually, he flees when said secret agents spot him and chase him.
  • Narm: Amidst the otherwise very intense climatic shootout, we have the man with his fingers blown off yelling repeatedly, “I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU!,” and he doesn’t stop yelling until Travis finally puts him out of his misery.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Martin Scorsese's cameo as a psychopathic passenger that Travis picks up. Apparently, Scorsese never planned to be in the scene; the actor they hired got sick on the day of the shoot and so Scorsese had to step in. Despite his lack of acting experience, he does a very good job at being unnerving and creepily polite, making the character very memorable.
    • Easy Andy the gun salesperson.
  • Overshadowed by Controversy: Just try thinking about this movie without also thinking about the attack on Ronald Reagan. This became a major problem for Jodie Foster, who would go on to ban all questions related to the assassination attempt from interviews later in her life.
    "We really have fought over the years to keep people's hands off Taxi Driver, to keep it from being a video game, and to keep it from having a sequel. It's a one-off kind of film."
  • Retroactive Recognition:
    • Albert Brooks as Tom, back when he was still mainly known from his comedy albums and his short films in the first season of Saturday Night Live. Not long after he broke out as a director and actor with his feature film debut Real Life and became a much more recognizable face.
    • A more niche example: the personnel officer in the opening scene who hires Travis for the cab company is played by cult favorite Joe Spinell (best known as hitman Willie Cicci in The Godfather and The Godfather Part II).
    • Alongside the much, much different Freaky Friday (1976), this helped establish Jodie Foster as a excellent young actress, though it wasn't until her Oscar-winning role in The Accused that she moved into Hollywood's top tier.
  • Signature Scene: Travis talking to the mirror, thanks to Memetic Mutation and Pop-Cultural Osmosis.
  • Special Effect Failure: While the film looks great, HD copies can make Bickle's iconic mohawk, which was a bald cap, look fake in certain scenes. The exploding hand from the final shootout is also blatantly made of rubber or wax.
  • Spiritual Successor:
    • Of Notes from Underground and parts of Crime and Punishment. Both Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese were great admirers of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Schrader described Travis Bickle as an American version of the "underground man" featured in Dostoevsky. Scorsese had wanted to adapt Notes from Underground himself before coming across Schrader's script and feeling that no direct adaptation could beat it.
    • The film itself is one to The Searchers. Both films center around returning soldiers from a war whose violent tendencies and disdain for much of the world around them cause them much isolation. The climax with Travis attempting to rescue Iris from Sport, someone he perceives to be subhuman, is a transplanting of the basic premise of the The Searchers from 1870s Texas to 1970s New York City.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: And not just because of the fashions. At the time it was filmed, New York City was America's crime capital, the city was effectively bankrupt, and Watergate was still fresh on the public mind. Not to mention there's a brief scene in a porno cinema.
  • The Woobie: Iris and other child prostitutes who are totally used to that kind of life and cynical enough to be skeptical of such would-be rescuers as Travis. Suffice to say seeing that bloody rampage committed by Travis will give her nightmares for years and years, in addition to her time as a prostitute and her (potentially) abusive parents, whom she says she ran away from, and Travis returned her back to.
  • Writer-Induced Fanon: Travis Bickle is never explicitly identified as The Vietnam Vet (except for it being mentioned in one of the newspapers the camera pans over at the end), but the hints are there in his overall behaviour and jackets, the social context of 1970s New York City and the mention of him being in the Marines and a charred NVA flag in his apartment. Nonetheless, Martin Scorsese considers him to be a Shell-Shocked Veteran returning from Vietnam. Paul Schrader, for his part, while never opposing this interpretation, kept it intentionally vague because he modeled the character on his own personal breakdown and embellished it with more general feelings, so as to lend the film to considerable Applicability. Regardless, it is now rare to find a description of the film which doesn't refer to Travis as a Vietnam veteran.

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