Everyone knows..."You talking to me? You talking to me?" But few knew the character. Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is referring to himself. He seems so alone that he wonders if he's talking to himself. He's a Vietnam veteran that is at a loss for friends or a life. He can't make friends and he can't even tolerate most people. He has a mental illness, but it's one a lot of people have and they just slip through life. But Bickle doesn't give in. He wants to be known. He wants to be a boyfriend, a husband, a brother, a pal. He's just so off that no one wants to be.
He asks a girl, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who he has a slight obsession with out on a date. He takes her to a porn movie and she walks out and his phone call the next day to her is so sad and pathetic. The camera can't even look at Bickle as he does it. It stares patiently down the hall waiting for this misery to end. It's one of the best scenes in the film.
The film seems slow, but picks up after Bickel meets Iris (Jodie Foster), a twelve-year-old prostitute. He hires her, but he doesn't want to sleep with her, he wants to help her. He wants to bring her from the gutter he sees every night on his graveyard taxi routes. She doesn't seem to really want to leave her life. Bickle goes a little off the deep end and...I'll save those of you that haven't seen it because the end is the coolest.
Scorsese's POV direction of Bickle is the coolest. The streets are all blurry lights, but the people stand out. It's like Travis Bickle doesn't care about anything, he just wants a friend.
It's not a film for everybody, but I liked it. I give Taxi Driver a B+.
