Taxi Driver

In a world that is constantly under criticism by the youth for appearing purposeless through a nihilist lens; it leaves room for a lot of art regarding existentialism. “Taxi Driver” isn’t a deeply philosophical film in this respect, but it sure does beg the question of what really drives people. "Taxi Driver" follows a socially detached cab driver named Travis Bickle (played by Robert De Niro) through 1970's New York. De Niro is iconic throughout the film, he does a tremendous job bringing this character to life, who is really written well. This film isn't so good for the story, but rather makes for a good character study. If there is a classic film that still has relevance for its theme and meaning it has to be this movie. As previously stated, Travis's social detachment leads to a slow loss of grip on reality for our main protagonist.

He isn't “normal” for an assortment of reasons and his poor choices throughout the course of the film solidify that. However, what makes him a relatable character for most people is his lack of purpose. Lack of purpose is a position most of the youth (between Millenials to Gen Z) are at because of several factors that are a little too broad to get into with just this movie review. Perhaps I will revisit this subject on the philosophical page sometime. I digress, back to what makes Travis relateable. In the movie, he has a conversation about wanting more and feeling negative just about everything. How many people do you know in this day and age have the same perspective on most subjects? I think with today’s world it’s much worse than what it probably was then. Look at it this way: you had people back in the 70’s talking about disarming nuclear arms and ending warmongering and now you have people that think that these aren’t issues anymore that pursue social justice on children’s media.

His friend tells him something antithetical to what he should hear (what no one wants to hear) and it's that his job is what makes him who he is. He's a taxi driver. This has to be the worst thing anyone could be told. Imagine your identity is summed up from the type of work you did? For people to label your persona and character as a role? There’s a lot more to a person than what they do and Travis definitely overcomes that. Without any support too! It’s ironic. For someone who's a taxi driver in one of the busiest cities in the world, he's still lonely. He then aspires to make a man for himself which shifts everything in his life towards an insane direction.

Again, the plot is a little hard to follow but simple enough to drive home what this movie’s theme was. (at least what I’ve come to think it was). The music wasn’t anything to write home about, not too groundbreaking for my taste. You don’t really care about the other characters, the blonde love interest isn’t interesting and only serves the role in showing that Travis wasn’t really a super passionate guy until towards the conclusion where he finds out what he truly wants. Overall the film has a morbid grey color in its cinematography (which honestly historically captures What New York was at the time really well in my opinion!)

I believe it to be an important film for the youth straight out of high school to see.

8/10