Taxi
Driver
(1976)
- Information at Internet
Movie Database
- Themes
- Alienation
- The classic
alienation of Travis Bickel. "You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the
only one here."
- Baptism
- Compare Travis Bickel wanting the rain to
"wash all the scum off the streets" to John the Baptist's
baptism of wind and fire which separates the wind from the chaff.
Could this be related to the wind at the beginning of Mary Poppins?
(submitted by Sterling Bjorndahl)
- Clean/Unclean
- Travis Bickel wants to clean the
filth out of New York. The hope that "someday a real rain will
come and wash all this scum off the streets" becomes his
alienated psychotic motivation to violence.
- Loneliness
- Travis Bickel: "Loneliness has
followed me everywhere...There's no escape. I'm God's lonely
man." (DVD chapter 12) Taxi cab as a metaphor for drifting
loneliness.
- Saving/Saviors
- Travis Bickel attempts to "save" Betsy
and Iris from their respective "captivities," and to
"save" New York from the "filth" he perceived.
He is perceived as a "savior" by Iris' parents and by the
press.
- Transformation
- Travis Bickel's progressively odd appearance as he
transforms into a vengeful killer.
- Vengeance
- Travis Bickel brings vengeance as
"justice" in order to "free" Iris (and those she
represents) from the prison he perceives.
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