Taxi was a weird movie, Our main Character was definetly crazy. With his Background being a vietnam war veteran and uneducated prior to joining the service, it kinda set the stage for something tragic to happen.
Travis' physical appearance was that of an ordinary man, there was nothing that really gave away his mental state in the begining of the film. After getting his job as a nightime taxi driver, Travis starts to associate with people again and decides to go out and chase after a female politician supporter. After unknowingly insulting her on their first date she rejects him and sets his mental state over the edge. After this incident Travis decides to take things into his own hands an make a difference in his city. Travis' opinoin on the city is that it is full of scum and it needs to be dealt with, he feels even the politicians are crooked in my opinoin. I got the feeling he felt they werent doing their job to clean the streets up.
After he decides to take things into his own hands he buys weapons cuts his hair into mohawk, and actually tries to kill the local politician at a rally and kill a local pimp on the streets.
This movie kinda threw me off, i thought the ending was somewhat crazy, he was renowned as a hero? I feel that this is crazy because people dont really know what was actually going through this mans head. He obviously needed help and was without a doubt in a mental state of insanity.
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Who wrote this? By the power of deduction I'm sure I can figure it out, but don't forget to sign your posts. The movie is titled "Taxi Driver"......not just "Taxi".
ReplyDeleteI think you are totally right when you say that Travis just wanted to clean the streets up and he probably did blame the politicians, well more specifically I believe the liberal politicians, such as was Palentine, for being soft on crime, drugs, racial integration, and other "left-wing" stances on political issues. An interesting question you pose is how Travis became a hero, and ultimately this, I believe, is the main question that Scorsese poses within the film. Had his original plan to kill Palentine worked, he would have been put in jail, probably been put to death, and forever been labeled a psycho criminal, killer, traitor. Instead, by luck he kills the bad guys instead and is the ultimate hero. This is probably the same fine line that Marines in combat walk every day, killing for the good guys instead being a bad guy. However, when they are placed back into society, wounded and with stress disorder, confusion and feelings of displacement can lead to psychosis. Either way, the film's message and its relevancy still rings true today. Good essay, whoever you are.