Taxi Driver - The Perfect Antihero 

American Psycho

Y'know something eerie? Warner Bros. was making a Batman origin story reboot directed by Darren Aronofsky in the early 2000's, with the original concept seeing Bruce Wayne being a penniless drifter after the deaths of his parents, who becomes frustrated with the societal disarray in Gotham City and eventually becomes a brutal and violent vigilante. Sound familiar, yet?

@@vanlalkimhangsing4250 bruh moment

It also would’ve been the first

Batman is a hero, a real hero who can see the good in his city and good in everyone including someone like the Joker. Travis is a war veteran who hates everybody in his city and is broke. He has a journey to protect his 12 year old niece from degenerates by murdering them in cold blood. He's the Punisher.

Yeah, that's if you just stop in someone's brain for a hot second and leave soon after without getting any context. There wasn't a director deliberately parsing out our thoughts and feelings for the general consumption of other people. Huge huge difference between those two things. You gotta conclude that all those thoughts that we're privy to are especially relevant and helpful in interpreting who the protagonist is and what they're doing.

@@FilthyNobeard so wait.... you're saying its different.... or what.... way too long winded

There are a few individuals who have the tech to actually see what youre thinks. If you ask me, thats reason enough to kill a few people and not feel bad about it.

@@ButchersNailsEnjoyer can confirm

@@ButchersNailsEnjoyer im sorry for you dude. Dont listen to those ignorant psycho fucks

Crazy how the hotline Miami series is so similar to taxi driver and it’s vibe

@@waldinipanini6379 I didn't think of it like that. Cool

"Art thou attempting communication with me?" -Travus Bicklus

and also his love interest in the king of comedy

@@fmellish71 oh shit I was wondering where I saw her from

And later his wife

Luke Bradley and then his ex wife

@@lukebradley4660 that's nice

sure, the guy was bummed out about his wife.

Scorsese*

I was watching that clip in this video and I didn't notice that until now. Pure brilliance.

Nobody's ever noticed that in 43 years

He's in the movie twice back of cab and sitting at. Pallantines headquarters.

Yes, it could be shell shock (these days called PTSD) or it could be a number of other things, including major depression, alienation, paranoia...

@@bertramwinslowiii2119i think he has schizophrenia or bipolar that was either caused by or extremely worsened by his ptsd from vietnam

He hates the "Filth" around him, yet he takes Betsy to Porn Theatre and watches Pornographic movies on a daily basis. He hates the pimps but he has no problem with watching the act on a daily basis. He is a walking contradiction

@@muhammaddawood4382 Were all walking contradictions.

The walking contradiction is a representation of Travis

Nah he's just an Anti-Hero

A prophet and a pusher

Is it any better now?

What would you see?

I saw manything here 😎

I drove a Yellow and Checker in Chicago in 73-74. My wife said I should write a book but I said no one would believe it. You hear a million stories and have many experiences, some good, most not. The difference between nights and days is unbelievable. It is true, we used to say everything that crawls comes out after 8PM. The longer you went into the night, the worse it got. Most night drivers quit around midnight, after that it got too weird. Almost every night driver carried a gun. Some of them used it. I never worked past 10, it wasn't worth it.

Daniel Batitsas somthing like this would get big on reddit you should make a post about it. Plus am also interested.

Gear Zen and being racist

Porn addict, pill addict, violent,

@@johnrife7134 Add to that homophobic, possessive of women, short tempered, Travis is kind of a massive piece of shit. 😂

Really, I was watching this video and thinking "did this guy even see the movie?"

@@Lospollos24 He shot the armed robber! Dats raycist!

Funny that you mention Dostoevsky. I just recently started reading Crime and Punishment and there are definitely some parallels to this film. I feel like if Taxi Driver were two hours longer Bickle would become more like Raskolnikov by contemplating the psychological effects of murdering pimps and drug dealers. Maybe a sequel is in order with Taxi Driver: THE RETURN. De Niro will be playing a 30 year old in some scenes of The Irishman so hopefully it's not too much to ask :)

Absolutely, I'm currently re-reading the novel for perhaps the fifth time and the parallels are certainly there - which, of course, is why I was drawn to your video. I would be interested to know if Schrader or even Scorsese had Crime and Punishment in mind when working on the film. I've long been fascinated by the moral ambiguity associated with the killing of what Raskolnikov would call a 'louse' or evem 'less than a louse' if that one murder directly benefited countless other individuals - not that I would ever act upon such an idea :)

Emerald City I get the thinking regarding Crime and Punishment but I’ve always thought it was more Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground - which I’ve seen Paul Schrader mention as well.

Dostoyevsky is the best ;).

You are so right

finally someone with a hunter x hunter icon not saying some stupid shit

κοιλιόδουλος 🤣🤣🤣

Except they had a better sense of a movie's just a movie then compared to modern pearl clutchers. Not saying they didnt exist then but they were easier to ignore

Pheunith: Psychic-Water Type this also brings up 1993’s falling down.

GOON epic gon profile picture

I agree. Same with prison... there should be some attempt to help people find ways to live that don't involve harm to self or others. This is how we fail as a nation.

@@NonnysHouse this is how we fail as a world

@@NonnysHouse theirs plenty of re entry programs for inmates. After doing my time in prison, before i could go home i was sent to a 90 day program to help inmates back into society. A lot of inmates would fail cause they were to excited to return to a life style that led them to prison to begin with. It was a good program. Taught us to take accountability, to seel help when we know we have a problem to get involved in more productive activity and all over all to change our thinking patterns. Unfortunately a lot of inmates would return to prison just weeks after being released from the program due to like i said. To excited to return to the life style of fast women, getting high and making quick money. They failed to see that was what begin their slow journey to prison, a world where primitive behavior ruled.

There isn't much explained about Travis's time in Vietnam so that is open to wide speculation. Some veterans commented that his character most likely would have came into the military with issues which is possible because at one point the education and health standards of some draftees was lowered to a level under normal circumstances they wouldn't have been enlisted. Travis could have been one of these soldiers, we don't know; again all we know is he served in the Marines and said his discharge was honorable. For all we know they just had him drive officers around all day. Like the ending it is open for speculation.

@@schizoidboy I discussed 'homeless vets situation" with a VA psychiatrist. He finally opened up and discussed that a fair number of people go into the military because they can't succeed in life, often have latent mental problems or vulnerabilities and can only function in the structured environment. Put them in combat and its' not a surprise they are more likely to have increased mental problems.

Couldn't agree more.

I. Wynn Wynn yes, but men try to change the world, for the better or the worse, far more than women, wouldn’t you say?

I. Wynn Wynn Shut your face, you are stupid

@I. Wynn Wynn nice bait

Kendri Nawaskoro thay was so cheesy and cliche

@@mydeathwish6998spot on, thats why he talk’s and looks at the politicians and pimps with digust. They are at the top

It's not perception.

Not perception but realism. It's fact most of these degenerates pimp are the reason he would do such thing in the first place. What would you do if you are in his shoe? Call the police? Yeah good luck with that, keep in mind this was back in 70 when pedophilia wasn't talked alot unlike nowaday.

Any reasoning for your hypothesis?

@@ubcroel4022 it’s been a while since Insaw the movie now but it’s just the way the movie seemed to imply it. She seemed interested in Travis when she got in that cab and didn’t seem like she was surprised to see him. As much as he was into her before, he seemed over it. He made some polite chit chat and didn’t charge her the fare. Seemed his way of showing he is that he’s over it and in control of those feelings. I forget why he was angry with her earlier. She was seeing some guy, right?

That's a good interpretation. Alternatively, Betsy actually doesn't care about Travis beyond what she read "in the papers", but Travis thinks she does so he acts distant to "get back at her". Another real reaction to an imagined slight.

A small book about the film I read published in Britain described Betsy as a "star-f&&ker". It was more damning about her than this review but it gave some credence to the idea that she was interested in re-starting a relationship with Travis now he was a "hero".

perspective is what it all comes down to at the end of the day...

He is the noble hero like all the rest on the surface and a twisted demon underneath. A walking contradiction.

Kirk Douglas's description of Michael Douglas's character, Bill "D-FENS" Foster from Falling Down, also fits Travis: "He's both the victim and the villain."

He’s a villain to pimps

Scorsese doesn't depict Travis as either hero or villain. That's too simplistic. He depicts him as a victim. The ending was left somewhat open and inconclusive for a reason, and that's because they wanted the audience to draw their own conclusions. In my opinion, the real villain of the film is NYC itself.

Larry Pemberton like fake laugh track machines designed to cue the audience when to laugh in sitcoms. I agree, this is way more complex, and therefore realistic...

straight up likable protagonists perpetuate the myth of white male dominance. I lOVE Travis and how he saved Jodi Foster. the only difference between me and Bickel is that my target would have been the corporate execs of the major polluting companies and oil companies that pollute our environment instead of pimps.

unfortunately, travis WAS a hypocrite watching porn but against the pimps doing the same thing.

the scary part is i relate to this guy

@BIGGZ FAN brother. I am a born again Christian so on you can keep your sick comments to yourself because this world is controlled by the devil.

And Travis Is Actually based on a time in Schrader’s life where he was isolated and homeless.He eventually took a job as a delivery driver and spent long days in his car, just like Travis. And Iris is based on a Girl he took to his house one night, he found out she was Underage and a Junkie.

T C Travis is not a hero, nor is he an evil person. Travis is the epitome of mentally ill. He is isolated, unstable, and constantly looking for acceptance from society. He looks down on the world only because it will not accept him, and this causes him to lash out and hate that which does not love him. Travis is not a man who refuses to conform, he is a man who fails to conform. If Travis trained with the sole purpose of killing Sport and saving Iris, then perhaps we could say that he is a hero, but this is only Travis’ plan B. His original intent was to assassinate Palantine, which proves that Travis was not driven by a desire for heroism, but by a need to jealously dominate an icon of masculinity. Travis is deeply jealous of both Sport and Palantine because they are both men who have the admiration of the women he knows and cannot relate to. In his mind there is no difference between the pimp and the presidential candidate. His envy grows like a cancer and eventually manifest itself in a bitter attack against that which he failed to become. His first choice was to kill Palantine, an act which would’ve made him the most hated man in America, but when he fails he instead kills Sport. To Travis both options are morally equivalent, but to everyone else they are complete opposites. Ironically, just because his original plan didn’t work out, Travis becomes a hero instead of a villain. Travis never intended to make it out alive, but he did, and although it coincidentally left him with the respect of the two women he could not relate to, he renters society just as lost and alone as he was before, having stumbled across heroism merely by chance.

Well said. Through most interpretations of the film I like yours most.

He only shot the pimps because he first failed to kill palentine.. I think these actions more so driven by a desire to avenge his insignificance and failures as a man than by any moral obligations

Great discussion here guys, thanks for the great comments. Was very interesting to read the points from you.

Aaron Withers great analysis my guy

Scorsese confirmed that Travis survived. Check it

If you don't see anything wrong with killing someone then you've got mental issues.

Throw communists out of helicopters people are upset at him because he isn’t solving anything. Hell, he probably just gave iris ptsd and all the girls were back to selling themselves the next day because they have to survive. Then again, your username is good indicator that you probably won’t understand

@Mr. Man ofc her prostitution is horrible and unforgivable, but his action probably changed nothing for her. She probably was back to selling herself not long after, he didn't improve her life, he just killed these pimps because it made him feel good about himself.

It's not what he does but why and how he does it. He doesn't do it to save her. He never gave a fuck about her. He uses her to feel better about himself. She pleads with him not to kill those guys, yet he blows their head off right in front of her. If you think that's noble, you're a bit fucked in the head.

@@nectarinedreams7208 Lot of crying, not a lot of critical thought.

Finally somebody with a mind

​@@tru3boc Self improve 😂😂

Nice comment 👌

World IS.

'im 14 and this is deep'

George what’s deep bout this

It's supposed to be thought provoking but it's really just a meaningless statement. If you think the world is the problem and not you, you're wrong.

George I'm of the world, and I accept it. But we're talking about movie here. Don't take it as an autobiographical comment.

@Luis D. as in welcome to today. the culture clashes. especially in massimmigration areas. atleast i rekon thats what he thought

Luis D. It means muh culture war that white nationalists and their sympathizers use to disguise their racism.

I can't see Travis as racist unless the word "spooks" is a racist term. He looks a the pimps in a hateful way, does this make him racist? He shoots the robber who points a gun at him, is this racist? Perhaps its you lot who are inaccurate. So, in some peoples eyes, if a black person is doing a bad thing you should not be able to look at him negatively or you are a racist. How fucked up is that.

Bonnie No he’s racist. If you can’t see that then you’re probably racist too. And this whole “culture vs culture” thing is a way to try and make racist ideology seem reasonable.

@@marshallzane7735 This is your big moment Marshall to prove he is racist. So prove it. We're all ears.

Tyler Durden too

Not similar at all

It's inspired by king of comedy too.

Taxi driver is about a vet who is thrown back into society after seeing how society really acts towards conflict. Joker is about a mentally ill loner who thrown into society and sees how cruel people really are after being told his life "smile and put on a happy face"

ohh so precious ...excuses for a sociopath . you really think martin made this for you to feel sympathy for travis..the school shooter was bullied..lol

It's a sad world for people like him, trapped by his solitude, his only vengeance was he saved her from that world.

@@hicks727 That comment just makes you sound like an idiot

Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader append the perfect conclusion to Taxi Driver. STEEPED IN IRONY, the five-minute epilogue underscores the vagaries of fate. The media builds Bickle into a hero, when, had he been a little quicker drawing his gun against Senator Palantine, he would have been reviled as an assassin. As the film closes, the misanthrope has been embraced as the model citizen-someone who takes on pimps, drug dealers, and mobsters to save one little girl. Yes I did copy and paste that

@@hicks727 Ok...

I thought he lied about being a vet

@@bishopjackfrost why would you think that?

@@shrimpflea i dunno. He just seemed like the lying sort

@@bishopjackfrost Fair enough.

@@bishopjackfrost his jacket was from the marines though. And in Vietnam they used to shave their heads into a Mohawk to symbolise them going on a suicide mission

@Nature and Physics everyone has crapped on themselves.

Bickle puts himself in situations that make the world crap on him. He puts this on himself in order to feed the hatred

Nature and Physics exactly

Nature and Physics well thats the beauty of the movie, we dont know! Everyone has their own theories and none of them are correct

Travis is insane. He is not meant as a representation of “what could become of any of us”, he is meant to show the danger caused by alienation and the self-destruction that comes with it. His downfall is his own fault.

Yep !

I disagree with the first sentence. He was totally isolated, worked 70-80 hour weeks, and longed for connection with someone. No way he couldn't have had mental health issues. His lifestyle was not good for him or for anyone

He has insomnia, self medicates, and struggles to relate to other people. He premeditates ways to threaten, harm, or kill others. He interacts with other violent, antisocial people--the passenger looking to murder his wife, storekeep--so he's not necessarily unique, but that's a little like saying the guy who only drank 6 beers is the least drunk of his buddies, so therefore okay to drive them home. It's not a given that he would be able to function all that well in a different environment. Whatever happened to him in the Corps, in Vietnam, or some other time in his past left him with unresolved issues.

He tries to kill a candidate after endorsing him just because a woman working on his campaign dumped him after taking her to a porno.Ryw world isn't indifferent to him but he's hostile to everyone

great one

He almost 100% suffer from PTSD

guns854 Thank you so much!

Weren't we all ?

@@360Roko i just realized the similarity between travis and scarface/tony montana

That is Scorcese

yep u nailed it

Me

Taxi driver was a masterpiece. Joker was disappointing with so much overacting from Joaquin Phoenix.

Bishal Adhikary joker wasn’t really disappointing it just isn’t comparable to taxi driver

Imagine seeing Joker before the movie that inspired it.

He needs to speak for himself

This was Alka-Selzer, made up of bicarbonate of soda which dissolved in water.

Шамиль Алиев why exactly a role model, care to explain your thoughts in depth?

@@rokanza2293 I was in the same head space, sulking, depressed, a little bit traumatized by the events in my youth, I had a lot of rage but I did nothing with it, I just slept, drank, and slept again, never having the strength to get out of bed and do something about my feelings. But then I saw this movie, and I saw myself, but this guy was doing something about his frustrations, he was struggling to change the world, to prove a point and to make his existence known and his rage free. Even though he was a loser and pushed the good influence of the chick away, he wasn't just lying there. He was manic. He was struggling. And he even did something positive with his blunt, aimless rage in the end unless it really was a dream sequence. So, after watching the movie for about 10 times, I shaved myself a nice mohawk, went to the gym, returned to college, took revenge on about half the people who wronged me. I stopped being a pushover, I went full psycho at times, soon none of the people who pushed me around and wronged me before had the balls to look me in the eyes. I basically turned off all my weaknesses, fears, social anxiety. I made even more people pay. Now I'm in a very happy place, with no care in the world. And it wouldn't be like that, if there was no Travis.

I've seen high schoolers with better analyses than this tbh

where's ur analysis punkass

Okay, let's see your analysis smart guy.

Except for Bruce Wayne was the Black Knight not just some lame white Knight

Yes. If you watch the movie, in a dialogue scene with Travis it is implied that one of the reasons why she supports him is because of his stance on the environment. Also, in the actual script, it's apparent that she supports him for his welfare policies. Her compassion for other people leads her to supporting the policies of Palantine.

Steve Clare I think instead it would rather show her to be a personification of justice, the world's justice in fact, rather than an objective morality. She judges Travis through the same lens as the rest of the world, something which he says himself after she rejects him. Travis' main struggle arises from how he incites judgement with his actions, and how he deals with judgement thereafter. The whole movie, he is being judged negatively. At the end, he is judged positively, and seems happier for it. But in reality, what has changed? The world is still the world, and Travis is still Travis.

Excellent reply, Mimi. This is what I intended to convey in the video, but I wasn't articulate enough.

@@mimi9192 she judges him through the same lens that the world does because the world is not problematic, Travis is. She calls him a "walking contradiction" and she's right. Travis rants throughout the movie how he hates the scum of this city however he frequents porno theaters and drives around prostitutes. Also at the very beginning he continues to hit on a woman who rejects him until she has to call her manager, foreshadowing how he will treat Betsy later on. Travis is a hypocrite.

Scorsese was the guy in the taxi aswell that wanted to kill his wife

base-level response

Yup black people are sensitive

@J.marq703 "way he looks at his black co worker " I don't accept that as racist. " paranoid about the black teens outsiders the diner" I don't remember that scene, but I don't that is racist. Personally, I think he was looking at THE WORLD from a paranoid view point and you are looking at THE WORLD from a view point of wanting someone to be racist and I don't know why. What do you think of that?

@@outsidethepyramid Travis uses a racist term: "it's not racist" Traivs shows contempt for black pimps at the diner: "it's not racist" Travis shows contempt for his black coworker: "it's not racist" Travis looks at black people in the street with disgust: "it's not racist" Tell me then, what IS racist?

@@atlienn2566 As a black person I don't see him as racist I think he just has contempt towards society . Remember he tried to be in a relationship with a black woman at the theater he just hates pimps as he sees them as social denegrates. Also , I don't think that gives you the right to be racist by calling black people in a vacuum are "sensitive"

@@jackburton3540 he liked the black worker at the theater.

No you can't

Please don't

Travis is legit a terrible person wtf

@@quosmo7721 You really didn't watch the movie. He was a socially awkward guy who never harmed anyone except a pimp who was sex trafficking a 14 year old girl, and the guys working with him.

@@dieselscience did you miss all of the scenes of him being racist? An incel? He almost killed palantine if not stopped! He was a bad person

@@quosmo7721 You must be a moral relativist, like "Killing Saddam would be bad because killing is wrong" relativist.WATCH THE DAMN MOVIE WITH THE BLINDERS OFF. Panantine was on the take, HE was the kind of evil that never gets held accountable. Also, read the title of the video - "Antihero"

@@dieselscience what did palantine do wrong?

It was filmed in many locations in NYC in the summer of 1975.

@Luis D. ✔

That much?

You're not a New York City cab driver in the 70s, though. Or a deranged vietnam vet. Bickle isn't meant to represent taxi drivers, you know what I mean?