Retrospective: Taxi Driver

My girlfriend Janet got to see Taxi Driver for the first time on Sunday evening. She had a hard time with it; while she praised the movie as a whole, she visibly and rightly cringed every time Travis attempted to interact with Betsy or Iris. I, on the other hand, laughed my ass off through these scenes. I'd seen Taxi Driver a few times before and loved it, but I'd never realized how funny the movie was. Strange how some obvious observations can hit you the fourth time you watch a movie.

As upsetting as Taxi Driver is (the scene with Sport and Iris is genuinely agonizing), there's something deeply funny about a horrible man with semi-lofty aims failing time and time again. Travis Bickle is one of the many monsters America created in Vietnam and then dropped off at home. He's so consumed by nihilism and fascist instincts that he can't relate to a single human being. When Nancy talks to him about organizing an election campaign, he tells her "yeah man, same here: I gotta clean my room." His plot to murder Senator Palantine doesn't even get as far as Arthur Bremer's failure. After his massacre of the sex traffickers, Bickle realizes he's gotten so carried away with killing these people that he's forgotten to save any ammunition for his intended suicide. He is, of course, applauded by America for inflicting violence on The Right People. Does Bickle have the gumption or the brains to successfully kill the Wrong People? If he did, I imagine he would have followed Palantine home.