Taxi Driver story
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris and Albert Brooks. Set in a decaying and morally bankrupt New York City following the Vietnam War, the film tells the story of a lonely veteran (De Niro) working as a taxi driver, who descends into insanity as he plots to assassinate both the presidential candidate (Harris) for whom the woman he is infatuated with (Shepherd) works, and the pimp (Keitel) of an underage prostitute (Foster) he befriends.
14 total · 3 choice · 2 major · 9 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| heroism | choice | Travis dreamed of being a hero, and in fact seems to have ended up as such in the end |
| the making of a monster to society | choice | we saw how a disillusioned war veteran with a lousy job armed himself with a view to do something about the sleaze and corruption in NYC as he saw it, and tried to assassinate a Senator campaigning for president; we are told by the Scorcese to interpret the ending as indicating that we are back to beginning: i.e., Travis is a ticking time bomb |
| vigilante justice | choice | Travis shot a convenience store robber and several shady people involved with prostitution in various ways. |
| prostitution | major | Iris was a child prostitute who Travis decided to save, despite the former's reluctance to be saved. The story ends with Travis killing Iris' pimp. |
| prostitution in society | major | Travis was conspicuously upset about the sleaze in NYC, notably street prostitutes (although he liked the x-rated cinemas himself) and tried to reform Iris the prostitute |
| depression | minor | Travis was depressed before he became a vigilante |
| homosexuality in society | minor | group of taxi drivers discussed "fags" and the treatment thereof |
| infatuation | minor | Travis and Betsy became instantly besotted with each other, albeit for a very short time |
| murder | minor | In the end, Travis killed a number of people without much provocation - although the story also ended with an apologia for him. |
| professional politics | minor | We saw Senator Palantine campaign office hard at work. |