(1976) With a clean conscience and driving record, an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), 26, gets a job in New York City driving a yellow cab, willing to work anytime (nights for 12-14 hours, six or seven days a week), taking any fare anywhere. Director Martin Scorsese also appears as a customer who watches from the curb inside Travis's cab as his wife disrobes in front of a window in a black man's apartment: "I'm gonna kill her," then describing what a .44 Magnum can do to a woman's face and genitals. "You think I'm sick," he says to Travis. The screenplay was written by Paul Schrader.

Travis makes entries into his journal: May 10th, "All the animals come out at night … sick, venal … Someday someone should wash all the scum off the streets." He has insomnia and goes to porno theaters.

At 63rd and Broadway, as she enters the campaign headquarters for Senator Charles Palantine, he first lays eyes on an angel in a white dress, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who seems unhappy and lonely (though he may be projecting his own feelings onto her). She agrees to go out with Travis: "I don't believe I've met anyone quite like you." After she recites lyrics from a Kris Kristofferson song, "a walking contradiction," telling him the words seem to describe him, Travis buys her the album.

By happenstance Senator Palantine gets into his cab and asks Travis's opinion of what needs to be done. When a young hooker gets into his cab, she gets pulled back out by her pimp, who drops a $20 bill onto the front seat to ignore the incident.

Betsy gets upset and walks out of the theater where Travis takes her to see a foreign film she finds disgusting and takes a taxi home; she turns down further efforts at dates. At the campaign office Travis confronts her: "You're like the rest of them!" Women act like a union, being cold and distant.

He has headaches and imagines he has stomach cancer. He occasionally meets with other cabbies - Wizard (Peter Boyle), Charlie T., and Doughboy - for coffee and b.s. When he tells Wiz, "I got some bad ideas in my head," the older man says, "You become the job," assuring Travis he'll be all right, advising him "Get drunk, get laid."

After he sees the young hooker again, he thinks: "I'm God's lonely man." On July 8th he buys four pistols from Easy Andy: a .44 Magnum, a .38 snubnose, a Colt .25 automatic, and a .380 Walther. Three weeks later he begins a physical-training regime and practices target shooting. "Here is a man who would not take it anymore," he says to himself. There's one direction to his life, he realizes, with no other choice. After composing a fantasy letter to his parents, claiming to be a government agent on a special assignment, making plenty of money and dating a beautiful woman, he introduces himself to the pre-adolescent prostitute Iris Steensma (Jodie Foster): "I'm going to get you out of here."

The film is dedicated to the memory of Bernard Herrmann, who composed the film score.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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