The aim of my research and analysis was to look into the psychological instability of the main protagonist, Travis Bickle. For this, I focused on what I believe are some of the most crucial point of character in the film.
Scene One – Introducing the Character and Mentality of Travis Bickle
There is a horizontal panning shot of a taxi rank, giving the audience an initial straight-forward approach to the narrative, which is also affirmed by the title. However, this has lured the audience into false sense of security as the main character, Travis Bickle, is introduced. The taxi is portrayed as an icon of confinement for him, separating him from the outside world but permitting him a voyeuristic view of the behaviours of others.
The medium shot through the blurred windscreen is representative of Travis’ perspective, with the editing switching shots intermittently to an extreme close-up of Travis’ eyes while driving; this use of continuity editing presents the audience that it is his point of view on screen. The outside world, both traffic and pedestrians, are blurred and in slow-motion. He is unable to distinguish any features, and the colours are distorted to focus on red.
The red covering Travis’ eyes is representative of his anger towards the streets as he is driving, desiring to ‘wash all this scum off the streets’. The disgust that he has for the current societal systems foreshadows his violent tendencies as his mental health deteriorates.
This reflects the auteur style of Martin Scorsese as his use of colour codes is dominant stylistic feature, being used in other films such as Mean Streets (1973), New York, New York (1977), Goodfellas (1990) and the list goes on… The guy likes red.
The use of non-diegetic music in this scene is consistent throughout the film. The timbre created by the use of jazz tones corresponds to Travis’ visuals, inviting the audience to understand his emotions. ‘Filmmakers manipulate timbre continually’ as it allows them to convey, or amplify, the mood of the scene. For example, Scorsese purposely heightens the tempo erratically when Travis is faced with pedestrians, representing his distress in waves and therefore exposing his schizophrenic tendencies through these sudden changes.
Scene Two – The “Death” of Travis Bickle
The climax of the film develops in scene ten, which exhibits an overhead shot of Travis’ lying on the couch after killing the men involved in running the brothel, to subsequently save traumatised Iris. This obscure shot is a reference to his continuous point-of-view shots, presenting Travis as dead, after having descended into madness as he has become completely unable to distinguish what reality is.
Scorsese demonstrates his direct, consistent links between his films. This death of Travis corresponds directly to Robert De Niro’s character, Johnny Boy, in Mean Streets (1973). He was shot in the neck and subsequently died; a character’s ending that alludes to Travis Bickle being shot in the neck and subsequently dying at the end of this scene, with his last moments being a product of his own imagination; it is how he imagined what the outcome would conclude.
He has dressed himself accordingly with his military-style coat, a costume change from his predominantly worn beige boiler jacket. Similarly, his hair has been shaved into a Mohawk. This represents the character’s metamorphoses, declining into insanity, assuming control of societal order through violence. The screenwriter, Paul Schrader, commented on his hairstyle, explaining it was a ritual used ‘if a Special Force member felt he was going to die’, making this Travis’ expectation that this would be his final “mission”. From the get-go, he never intended to come out of that building alive.
The subjective realism in this scene is crucial to the critical evidence for my ideology. The use of slow-motion effects whilst Travis kills three men in the brothel amplifies his psychological downturn as the diegetic inclusion of his heartbeat represents his calm composure, with no anxiety over murder or risk to his own life. One man he wounded and subsequently killed, shouted ‘I’ll kill you!’ which is repeated through the scene as an echo through Travis’ mind, being a completely different cinematic technique that we have been introduced to so far, therefore showing its importance. This acts as foreshadowing for Travis’ death, as well as exposing this to the audience.
As the police enter, Travis- after failing to kill himself through the lack of bullets in his gun- holds his hand up to his head in the shape of a gun, pretending to shoot himself five times.
His hand is dripping with blood, the colour tones being mirrored from the opening scene showing that it was foreshadowed to have a violent closure. Scorsese’s attention to detail is used here as the number of shootings acts as a reminisce of the deaths that he has caused- his previous shooting of a black man in a store, the three men in the brothel and subsequently himself, representing his deterioration of morality that could only lead the character in one direction- his own death.
Scene Three – The Grand Finale
Let’s begin with an obvious…
The final scene is a panning shot with newspaper clippings of Travis’ supposed “heroism” after the shootings at the brothel. Paul Schrader, writer of Taxi Driver, commented:
‘Some strange things are happening near the end … The movie becomes very strange. We’re living out a psychopath’s fantasy’
Now, there are many theories as to what the ending means. Personally, as I’ve explained, I like to think that Travis does die, and the ending is merely how Travis had envisioned the events concluding- taking into account his injury, the echo and distortion of ‘I’ll kill you!’ being repeated as if foreshadowing Travis’ lack of escape and the fact that there is no reality element in the final scene. He could be in a prison cell, a mental asylum, in a coma and so on… But I think everyone can be in complete agreement that the events that follow are not remotely reflective of reality.
The displayed mise-en-scène, the multitude of newspaper clippings, expresses Travis’ mental disassociation with reality as he believes that he is praised and respected due his violent actions. This shot continues to reveal Travis’ television, which he had previously smashed, in perfect condition in his clean apartment. This has alerted the audience that the visuals they witness are not accurate, instead are being an idealisation created in Travis’ mind. Additionally, if you pay attention to the colour codes, they are obscured; everything appears to be a dull, grey tone.
To further illustrate the disjointed perception of Travis’ own mental stability, there is an alteration in the narrative techniques as the voice-over changes to Iris’ father. He praises Travis for saving their daughter, which had been achieved by his murder of the men who involved her in prostitution. However, this suggests psychological imbalance in Travis’ mind as it ‘reflects a lot of the mannerism, inflictions and speech pattern of Travis’ own voice’. This establishes his warped sense of reality that Scorsese is representing showing that it neglects realism.
Similarly, the scene ends when it reaches a note that is written by Iris’ father. This note is crumpled and written with careless handwriting in blue pen. There is a heavy resemblance to Travis’ own diary entries, suggesting that Travis has fabricated a different reality for himself through his own distorted reality, similarly to Shutter Island (2010). Scorsese’s play with subjective realism toys with the film stereotype of having a satisfying, happy ending. Instead, he chose to mentally stimulate his audience to consider their own idea of how the events of the film concluded.
Conclusion
The mental instability of the Travis becomes more prominent over the time of the film, with the use of subjective narrative techniques and camera angles demonstrating Travis’ point of view, Scorsese was able to grip the audience in to a psychologically testing film. He incorporated New York and its symbolism in a different way than had previously been explored to fuel Travis’ anger. The audience are taken into the mind of a mentally unstable character, envisioning from his perspective and creating a traditional Scorsese-branded production.
The point of view aspects lead the audience to question the reliability of the ending as Travis deteriorates drastically, not being able to distinguish reality from his own fabrications. This is a common theme amongst Scorsese’s films, creating a conclusion that is not a standard resolution. Instead, he incorporates realism in leaving elements unresolved.
Bibliography
Blake, Richard, ‘Inside Bickle’s Brain: Scorsese, Schrader, and Wolfe on Psychological Realism’, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 45.7 (2017), 139-151.
Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson, ‘Sound in the Cinema’, Film Art: An Introduction, ed. by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson (London: McGraw-Hill Education, 2012), pp. 347-377
Caron, Andre. (1997). The Last Temptation of Travis Bickle (1997). <http://offscreen.com/view/taxi_driver> [Accessed 1 May 2018].
Hitchman, Simon. New Hollywood: American New Wave Cinema (1967-69) (2013). <http://www.newwavefilm.com/international/new-hollywood.shtml> [Accessed 4 May 2018].
Khairy, Wael. Film Analysis: Martin Scorsese’s Portrayal of New York (2018) <https://cinephilefix.com/2014/09/21/film-analysis-martin-scorseses-portrayal-of-new-york/> [Accessed 3 May 2018].
Pennington, Jon. In the Movie “Taxi Driver” (2014) <https://www.quora.com/In-the-movie-Taxi-Driver-why-does-Robert-De-Niro-shave-his-head-into-a-mohawk-in-the-senator-assassination-scene> [Accessed 1 May 2018].
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