I consider the film part of a series that shows the decline of New York City. In 1961, Breakfast at Tiffany's showed a New York that was still classic and magical. By 1969, Midnight Cowboy showed the City to have became a garish mess of crime and poverty. In 1976, Taxi Driver showed things as even worse, where what was once good had become crazy (including Travis), and what was bad was irredeemable. Things bottomed out in 1981, with Fort Apache: The Bronx.
Travis starts, then ruins, a relationship with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who works for Senator Charles Palantine, who is running for President. (He was played by Leonard Harris, who played another New York politician, the Mayor, in Hero At Large, starring John Ritter as another taxi driver who ends up thinking too much of himself.)
Travis buys a gun, and tries to act tough, looking at his reflection in a mirror, and saying, "You talkin' to me?" The line became the one everybody who does impressions does when imitating De Niro. He meets Iris (Jodie Foster), 12 years old and already a prostitute, and tries in vain to get her to quit that life.
He then goes to a campaign rally, planning to assassinate Palantine, but the Secret Service chase him away. He goes to the brothel where Iris works, and shoots Sport Higgins (Harvey Keitel), her pimp. A shootout results, and Travis, despite killing everybody in the room but Iris, is wounded himself.
The film's ending is ambiguous: Travis appears to recover, is hailed as a hero for what he did, is not prosecuted, keeps his job as a cabdriver, and even picks Betsy up as a fare, hearing her say she followed his story in the newspapers, and he refuses to take her money.
None of this is realistic, not even by the standards of 1970s New York City. It's been suggested that the film's epilogue is actually Travis' imagination of what should happen to him, as he dies. Scorcese has acknowledged this theory, but has refused to confirm it.
First, art imitated life: Scorcese has compared Travis to Arthur Bremer, who went around the country in the Spring of 1972, intending to assassinate President Richard Nixon; but, deciding that Nixon's security was too tight, instead went after Governor George Wallace of Alabama, who was running for the Democratic Party's nomination for President. Bremer's attempt paralyzed Wallace, and forced him to drop out of the race.
Then, life imitated art: John Hinckley wanted to assassinate President Jimmy Carter in 1980; unable to get close enough to him, he got his chance in 1981, shooting the new President, Ronald Reagan, who nearly died. Hinckley said he wanted to "impress" Foster.
The film was released just 5 months after the incumbent President, Gerald Ford, faced 2 failed assassination attempts within a matter of days; less than 4 years after the attempt on Wallace; 6 years after an attempted assassination of Pope Paul VI; 8 years after the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Senator Robert F. Kennedy; 11 years after the assassination of Malcolm X; and within 13 years of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers. For some people, it hit a little too close to home. Within 6 years, the world would see the murders of former Beatle John Lennon and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and attempts on the lives of Reagan and Pope John Paul II.
In 1982, De Niro starred in The King of Comedy, as a comedian who wanted to impress the host of a Tonight Show-like program, played by Jerry Lewis. Failing in that, he kidnapped the host, but did kill him.
Both Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy would be influences on the 2019 film Joker, a re-imagining of the origin stories of both the superhero Batman and his arch-nemesis, the Joker. In this film, set in Batman's fictional hometown of Gotham City (named for an old name for New York) in 1981, the now-much-older De Niro plays the Tonight Show-style host, Murray Franklin; while Joaquin Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill man in a world going madder around him, until he sees Franklin mock his standup comedy act, and he takes matters into his own hands, killing Franklin live on the air.
As with Taxi Driver, we're never sure just how much of Joker, and its 2024 sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, is really happening, especially the ending of each film, or if it's happening in the protagonist's head. Phoenix even copied the "You talkin' to me?" scene.
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