Manolo's
   TAXI DRIVER
Script
 
 
Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), an enigmatic, 20th century loner enters into the personnel office of a cab
company. He applies as a hack in a taxi company to drive the taxi night shift, because he is an insomniac:
"I can't sleep nights" and he finds nothing meaningful to do during the days. As a therapeutic solution to his
life, Bickle even offers to work Jewish holidays and ride into the city's sleaziest areas - he explains that he
might as well get paid for wandering haphazardly:
 
 
Bickle: I can't sleep nights.
Personnel Officer: There's pornos up there just for that.
Bickle: Yeah I know. I tried that.
Personnel Officer: So whaddaya do now?
Bickle: I ride around nights mostly. Subways, buses. Figure you know, I'm gonna do that, I
might as well get paid for it.
Personnel Officer: Wanna work uptown nights - South Bronx, Harlem?
Bickle: I'll work any time, anywhere.
Personnel Officer: Will ya work Jewish holidays?
Bickle: Any time, anywhere.
He offers only a few biographical facts about his background - he is a twenty-six year old ex-Marine [Travis
is possibly a battle-scarred Vietnam Vet. His Marine battle jacket has "King Kong Brigade" patches on it,
and his psychological profile approximates those of war-zone combatants. But the film doesn't make that
distinction.]:
Personnel Officer: All right. Let me see your chauffeur's license. How's your driving record?
Bickle (grinning to himself): It's clean, it's real clean like my conscience...
Personnel Officer: Physical?
Bickle: Clean.
Personnel Officer: Age?
Bickle: Twenty-six.
Personnel Officer: Education?
Bickle (replying vaguely and sheepishly): Some, here and there you know.
Personnel Officer: Military record?
Bickle: Honorable discharge, May 1973.
Personnel Officer: Were you in the Army?
Bickle: Marines.
Personnel Officer: I was in the Marines too. So what is it? You need an extra job? Are you
moonlighting?
Bickle: Well I, I just want to work long hours. What's 'moonlighting'?
Personnel Officer: Look. Just fill out these forms and check back tomorrow when the shift
breaks.
As Travis leaves, the camera pans past the interior of a Manhattan cab garage. Following a daily (and
nightly) monotonous routine, Travis writes in his diary as the camera pans across the interior of his
squalid, welfare-style, studio apartment. He has just finished a meal of a Coke and a McDonald's Quarter
Pounder. (There are old newspapers and magazines scattered over his cot/bed, and protective bars on
one of the few windows.) His one-dimensional life, one totally alienated from others, is pathetically built on
fear and loathing. In a droning voice-over, he narrates cynically from the tattered journal he keeps in a
school composition book purchased at a dimestore.
May 10th. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash away the garbage and trash off the
sidewalks. I'm workin' long hours now, six in the afternoon to six in the morning. Sometimes
even eight in the morning, six days a week. Sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle
but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, three fifty a week. Sometimes even more when I
do it off the meter.
The camera cuts to a front fender view of his Checker cab cruising the seedy, slick, wet, night streets
past a movie theatre marquee advertising The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and Return of the Dragon).
Delis, arcades, and streets filled with drifters and prostitutes hypnotically pass by as he transports lost
souls from place to place. [The bright lights marquees and the plentiful sidewalk sex symbolically show
the delicate balance between violence and promiscuous sex which he must drive through.]
He is disgusted by the world of urban decay and sleaziness that needs to be washed away:
All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers,
junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the
streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take 'em to Harlem. I don't care.
Don't make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won't even take spooks. Don't make
no difference to me.
One of his late-night passengers/fares he ferries to 48th and 6th Street is an executive-type businessman
[who looks remarkably identical to presidential candidate Palantine (Leonard Harris) in the first of two rides
in Travis' cab] accompanied by a black hooker (Copper Cunningham) in a long blond wig. The john "can't
afford to get stopped anywhere." He promises his lady of the evening: "There'll be a big tip in it for ya if you
do the right things." The passengers make out during the ride, ignoring him as if he were part of the
inanimate machine. Travis checks them out in the rear-view mirror. After the ride, he drives his cab
through a geyser stream from a broken, erupting fire hydrant, washing the filth off his windshield.
Back inside the cab company's garage in his stall at the end of his stretch shift (six to six), he pops pills to
keep calm. He narrates with self-loathing how he must clean the interior of his cab after each shift,
building up more ammunition in his own arsenal of repressed sexuality:
Each night when I return the cab to the garage, I have to clean the cum off the back seat.
Some nights, I clean off the blood.
Alone during the early morning hours, he walks through the porno district
and spends his free time in a triple-X rated porno film house - a clue that
his personality is schizoid and hypocritical. Although disgusted by his
sleazy environment, Bickle is attracted to the low life during the day, and -
by choice - rides through the same scenes of degradation at night in his
self-loathing occupation.
After transporting late-night passengers who subscribe to the pleasure
principle, Travis models his own behavior after theirs. In the Show and
Tell XXX-rated movie theatre, he is coldly rebuffed in an attempted pickup
of the sleazy porn theatre's female concession counter clerk (Diahnne
Abbott). After failing to engage the woman in conversation (and when she
threatens to summon the manager), he purchases a Chuckles, two candy
bars, two Goobers boxes, popcorn, and a Royal Crown cola. (Everything
he purchases is placed on a magazine page that the clerk is reading - an
expose about "How Your Money Affects Your Sexual Life!") In the small
theatre auditorium, he slumps low in his chair and stares with glazed eyes
fixed on the screen (of pornographic sex):
Twelve hours of work and I still can't sleep. Damn. Days go on and on. They don't end.
He is tormented, pent-up, lying awake on his bed watching daytime soap operas on television in his
littered hovel, and full of agony trying to find his own identity:
All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his
life to morbid self-attention. I believe that someone should become a person like other people.
A faceless person in a crowded city, Travis is unconnected and de-socialized from conventional patterns
of reality. Born of his desire to be "like other people" and make emotional contact with someone, Travis is
attracted and drawn first to a tall, blonde woman dressed in white. Suddenly, she appears (suspended in
slow-motion) from a mass of Manhattanites on the street, walking all alone into the posh campaign
headquarters of presidential candidate Charles Palantine where she works as a political volunteer. He
observes her from afar, worships her and develops a crush on her, viewing her as an untouchable
dream-girl ideal (she is a WASP-ish, angelic beauty in his fantasies):
I first saw her at Palantine Campaign headquarters at 63rd and Broadway. She was wearing
a white dress. She appeared like an angel. Out of this filthy mess, she is alone. (Narrated
from his diary in a cadence - the words are written in large capitals in a close-up)
They...cannot...touch...her.
The outside of the campaign headquarters building is decorated with large red, white, and blue
posters/signs: "Vote for Palantine," "We are the People," and "New Yorkers for Palantine for President."
Inside the building where activity is bustling and phones ring, young campaign worker Betsy (Cybill
Shepherd) is an aide working for Palantine's election with a modishly long-haired co-worker named Tom
(Albert Brooks). They talk about strategies and issues in the campaign:
Tom: Now look, you have to emphasize the mandatory welfare program. That's the issue that
should be pushed.
Betsy: First push the man, then the issue. Senator Palantine is a dynamic man, an intelligent,
interesting, fresh, fascinating...
Tom: Forgot sexy.
Betsy: ...man. I did not forget sexy.
Tom: Listen to what you're saying. You sound like you're selling mouthwash.
Betsy: We are selling mouthwash.
Tom: Are we authorized to do that?
As Tom routinely flirts with Betsy, she notices that a taxicab driver in his car at the curb outside stares at
them - with cold, piercing eyes. Asked how long he has been there, Betsy responds: "I don't know but it
feels like a long time." Bickle squeals off when Tom goes out to tell him to stop blocking the curb in front of
the offices.
A Bernard Herrmann jazzy and seductive saxophone riff accompanies an impressionistic montage of
images on one of Bickle's typical night drives - red and green stoplights, garish neon lights and porno
houses, pedestrians walking the streets, the clicking of the numbers on the taxi farebox, and other taxi
traffic cruising the streets.
During a night-time coffee break at an all-night restaurant (the Belmore Cafeteria), Travis appears through
the glass window behind other cabbies who are seated at a table. One of the cabbies has seen it all - the
philosophic Wizard (Peter Boyle) relates a exaggerated anecdote about one of his odd fare-paying
passengers, a seductive lady who changed her pantyhose in the middle of a ride:
...eye-shadow, mascara, lipstick, rouge...and then perfume, the spray kind. And then get this.
In the middle of the Triboro Bridge - and this woman is beautiful - she changes her
pantyhose!...I jump in the back seat and I whip it out and I said, you know what this is?...If she
says, 'It's love,' you know, I'm gonna f--- her brains out. She goes wild, you know. And she
said, 'It's the greatest single experience of my life.' And she gave me a two hundred dollar tip
and her phone number in Acapulco.
While the other cabbies are talking, Travis becomes lost in his own world, and then describes their
dangerous work environment with "pretty rough customers" and the latest threat - a knife-wielding crazy
madman who cut up another cabbie at 122nd Street:
Travis: I turned on the radio, some fleet driver from Bell just got all cut up...He got cut up by
some crazy f--ker. Cut half his ear off. It was at 122nd Street.
Wizard: F---in' Mau-Mau land.
The two stories bring together the related connection between sex and violence in the routine world of the
cabbie.
As Travis' name is called, it takes two or three times before he responds. One of his colleagues named
Dough-Boy (Harry Northrup) suggests that Travis carry a "piece" to protect himself. And if Travis wishes
to purchase a weapon, he has a source. Off-handedly, Wizard mentions that has a gun but never uses it:
"I never use mine. I'm conservative, you know. It's a good thing to have just as a threat." An anxiety-ridden
Travis dumps an Alka-Seltzer tablet in a glass of water - the camera zooms in and lingers on the
exploding, fizzing action [a symbolic, precipitous descent into the effervescent disturbances in Travis'
inner world].
Gathering up his courage and wearing a dark maroon jacket, an attractively-groomed Travis walks
confidently into the campaign headquarters, attempting to meet the woman he has long admired and
fastened onto from a distance. In front of her co-worker, he volunteers to work for her, flattering her ego:
Betsy: And why do you feel that you have to volunteer to me?
Travis: (smiling slightly) Because I think that you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
Betsy: (after a momentary pause, she responds with a pleasing look) Thanks. But what do
you think of Palantine? (Travis is distracted and cannot answer)...Charles Palantine, the man
you're volunteering to help elect President.
Travis: Well, I'm sure he'd make a good President. I don't know exactly what his policies are,
but I'm sure he'd make a good one.
Betsy: Do you want to canvass?
Travis: Yeah, I'll canvass.
Explaining that he drives a taxi at night, Travis clarifies that he really wants to invite her to have coffee and
pie with him. Although amused, intrigued, flattered, and curiously attracted to him, she wants to know why,
not knowing what to make of him. Charming her, he uses one of the oldest pick-up lines he knows. During
the scene, Tom - pretending to be standoff-ish (but actually jealous) - lurks around in the background.
Appearing cool, beautiful and pure, she is taken aback by his feverish interest in her, but nonetheless
accepts to meet him later in the afternoon:
Travis: I'll tell you why. I think you're a lonely person. I drive by this place a lot and I see you
here. I see a lot of people around you. And I see all these phones and all this stuff on your
desk. It means nothing. Then when I came inside and I met you, I saw in your eyes and I saw
the way you carried yourself that you're not a happy person. And I think you need something.
And if you want to call it a friend, you can call it a friend.
Betsy: Are you gonna be my friend?
Travis: Yeah. What do ya say? It's a little hard standing here and asking...Five minutes, that's
all, just outside. Right around here. I'm there to protect ya. (He quickly flexes both arms,
causing her to laugh.) Come on, just take a little break.
Betsy: I have a break at four o'clock and if you're here...
Travis: Four o'clock today?
Betsy: Yes.
Travis: I'll be here.
Betsy: I'm sure you will.
Travis: All right, four p.m.
Betsy: Right.
Travis: Outside in front?
Betsy: Yeah.
Travis: OK. Oh my name is Travis. (He extends his hand to her.) Betsy?
Betsy: Travis.
Travis: Appreciate this Betsy.
Around four pm, Travis is nervously pacing, smoking a cigarette, and checking his watch outside the
headquarters. He narrates in voice-over his adoration for her as they meet and go for a coffee-shop
rendezvous:
May 26th. Four o'clock p.m. I took Betsy to Charles Coffee Shop on Columbus Circle. I had
black coffee and apple pie with a slice of melted yellow cheese. I think that was a good
selection. Betsy had coffee and a fruit salad dish. She could have had anything she wanted.
During their conversation, Betsy tells him about the organizational problems of 15,000 Palantine
volunteers in New York. Tangentially, Travis discusses his own personal problems in an awkward, forced
way to try to make a light-hearted joke:
Travis: I know what you mean. I've got the same problems. I gotta get organized. Oh little
things, like my apartment, my possessions. I should get one of those signs that says, 'One of
These Days I'm Gonna Get Organizized.'
Betsy: You mean 'organized'?
Travis: Organeziezd. Organeziezd! It's a joke. (He spells it - incorrectly.) O - R - G - A - N - E
- Z - I - E - Z - D.
Betsy: Oh, you mean 'Organizized' like those little signs they have in offices that say 'THIMK.'
During a rambling monologue, he compares himself favorably with her co-worker Tom:
Travis: I would say he has quite a few problems. His energy seems to go in the wrong places.
When I walked in and I saw you two sitting there, I could just tell by the way you were both
relating that there was no connection whatsoever. And I felt when I walked in that there was
something between us. There was an impulse that we were both following. So that gave me
the right to come in and talk to you. Otherwise I never would have felt that I had the right to talk
to you or say anything to you. I never would have had the courage to talk to you. And with him I
felt there was nothing and I could sense it. When I walked in, I knew I was right. Did you feel
that way?
Betsy: I wouldn't be here if I didn't.
Travis: ...That fellow you work with. I don't like him. Not that I don't like him, I just think he's
silly. I don't think he respects you.
Betsy: I don't believe I've ever met anyone quite like you.
Persistent in his pursuit of her, he invites her to go to the movies at some later date. After agreeing, she
realizes how eccentric and unusual he is, ambiguous and misunderstood by everyone - "a walking
contradiction":
Betsy: You know what you remind me of?
Travis: What?
Betsy: That song by Kris Kristofferson.
Travis: Who's that?
Betsy: A songwriter. 'He's a prophet...he's a prophet and a pusher, partly truth, partly fiction. A
walking contradiction.'
Travis: (uneasily) You sayin' that about me?
Betsy: Who else would I be talkin' about?
Travis: I'm no pusher. I never have pushed.
Betsy: No, no. Just the part about the contradictions. You are that.
In the next scene in a record shop, Travis is helped to select the Kris Kristofferson record album that
Betsy quoted from. He purchases it for her and then the voice-over narration sets up their next date as he
drives his cab through the streets:
I called Betsy again at her office and she said maybe we'd go to a movie together after she
gets off work tomorrow. That's my day off. At first she hesitated but I called her again and
then she agreed. Betsy, Betsy. Oh no, Betsy what? I forgot to ask her last name again.
Damn. I got to remember stuff like that.
Suddenly, Charles Palantine (this time with his campaign aides) accidentally crosses Travis' path [again?]
as one of his taxi passengers. Travis notices him as the middle passenger in his rear-view mirror. He
immediately flatters the candidate, sucking up to him in small-talk about his support for his candidacy. The
ultimate politician, Palantine quickly learns Travis' name and is willing to say anything to get elected. In an
ironic remark, he tells Travis how he has learned more about America "from riding in taxi cabs than in all
the limos in the country." When asked to describe a problem with the country, a tongue-tied Travis
expresses his intense disgust for the city's filth in an interior monologue:
Travis: I'm one of your biggest supporters, you know. I tell everybody that comes in this taxi
that they have to vote for you.
Palantine: Why thank you - (Pleased, he glances to check Travis' picture, identification and
license posted in the rear seat) - Travis.
Travis: I'm sure you're gonna win sir. Everybody I know is gonna vote for ya. You know in fact,
I was gonna put one of your stickers in my taxi but you know, the company said it was against
their policy. But they don't know anything, you know. They're a bunch of jerks.
Palantine: Let me tell you something. I have learned more about America from riding in taxi
cabs than in all the limos in the country...Can I ask you something Travis?
Travis: Sure.
Palantine: What is the one thing about this country that bugs you the most?
Travis: Well I don't know, you know. I don't follow political issues that closely sir. I don't know.
Palantine: Oh but there must be something.
Travis: Well. (He thinks) Whatever it is, you should clean up this city here, because this city
here is like an open sewer you know. It's full of filth and scum. And sometimes I can hardly
take it. Whatever-whoever becomes the President should just (Travis honks the horn) really
clean it up. You know what I mean? Sometimes I go out and I smell it, I get headaches it's so
bad, you know...They just never go away you know...It's like...I think that the President should
just clean up this whole mess here. You should just flush it right down the f---in' toilet.
Palantine: (after pausing and thinking for a meaningful answer) Well, uh, I think I know what
you mean Travis. But it's not gonna be easy. We're gonna have to make some radical
changes.
Travis: Damn straight.
Palantine: (after getting out of the cab, he leans down to look into the front window of the cab
for a moment) Nice talkin' to you, Travis. (They shake hands)
Travis: Nice talking to you sir. You're a good man. I know you're gonna win.
Travis' incoherent answer stuns and alarms Palantine with his frankness and politically-suicidal
suggestion.
His next passenger, a young, blonde, street-smart (hippie prostitute) girl (a young Jodie Foster) leaps into
his cab, shouting: "Come on, man. Just get me out of here, all right?" As Travis hesitates and looks back
over his shoulder at her, the rear door opens. She is attempting to flee from an older man (seen only from
the waist down through the taxi window) who drags her from the cab. Travis is bought off with a $20 dollar
bill: "Cabbie, just forget about this, it's nothin'." A little later, a gang of young black kids throw eggs and
beer cans at his cab. When he returns his cab to the company early the next morning, he pulls into his
stall and then sits, silently staring at the crumpled $20 dollar bill next to him untouched on the seat. He
reluctantly picks it up and stuffs it into his shirt.
As a dressed-up Travis walks toward his appointed date with Betsy, the camera captures him in slow
motion. The date with Betsy begins on a positive note - he proudly gives her his gift-wrapped present - the
Kris Kristofferson record. But then she learns that he is a bit disconnected from the world - he has a
broken stereo player and he is unknowledgeable about music: "I don't follow music too much, but I would
really like to. I really would."
Incredibly and pathetically, the socially-inept Travis sabotages his budding relationship with her. He takes
her to a cheap, 42nd Street porno theatre with a garish marquee. Two shows are advertised: "2 Exciting
Adult Hits! Bold XXX Entertainment - 'Sometime Sweet Susan' and 'Swedish Marriage Manual.'" (A loud
snare drum beat is heard on the soundtrack as he purchases tickets for them.) He steps up to the box
office and buys two tickets. Now realizing that he is unbalanced, she can't believe his choice of movies:
Betsy: You've got to be kidding.
Travis: What?
Betsy: This is a dirty movie.
Travis: (somewhat confused) No, no, this is, this is a movie that, uh, a lot of couples come to,
all kinds of couples go here.
Betsy: Are you sure about that?
Travis: Sure. I've seen 'em all the time.
Travis awkwardly gestures and touches Betsy to escort her into the theatre. Travis sits very low in his
seat in a typical porno theatre slouch. After a few minutes of "Swedish Marriage Manual" (a subtitled
pornographic film, presenting hard-core sexual scenes under the guise of teaching sex), she is offended
when the film's discussion about sex in marriage quickly cuts to a couple copulating on a bed and a scene
of a sexual orgy. Now embarrassed and angry, she climbs over him in the aisle and storms out of the
movie theater. Travis is frustrated and confused and hustles out after her. He wonders why she walked
out, again expressing his ignorance about movies as an excuse:
Travis: Where are you going?
Betsy: Have to leave now.
Travis: Why?
Betsy: I don't know why I came in here. I don't like these movies.
Travis: Well, I mean, I, you know, I didn't know that you, you would feel that way about this
movie. I don't know much about movies, but if I...
Betsy: Are these the only kind of movies you go to?
Travis: Well, yeah, I mean I come - this is not so bad.
Betsy: Taking me to a place like this is about as exciting to me as saying: 'Let's f--k.' (Behind
Betsy is a blonde prostitute, facing toward Travis in the same position)
Travis: (flabbergasted by her blunt use of language) Uh. There are other places I can take
you. There are plenty of other movies I can take you to. I don't know much about them but I
could take you to other places...
Travis' attempts to apologize are ineffective - Betsy hails a taxi and dumps him, revealing that she has
only been playing with him from the start - she tells him that she already has the Kristofferson record: "I've
already got it." He pleads for her to take it: "Please, I bought it for you, Betsy." As the car speeds off, he
feebly asks: "Can I call you?"
The next scene is painful to watch. Travis is standing in a bare hallway, talking on a wall pay-phone to
Betsy, apologizing for bringing her to a pornographic film.
Hello Betsy. Hi, it's Travis. How ya doin'? Listen, uh, I'm, I'm sorry about the, the other night. I
didn't know that was the way you felt about it. Well, I-I didn't know that was the way you felt.
I-I-I would have taken ya somewhere else. Uh, are you feeling better or oh you maybe had a
virus or somethin', a 24-hour virus you know. It happens. Yeah, umm, you uh, you're workin'
hard. Yeah. Uh, would you like to have, uh, some dinner, uh with me in the next, you know,
few days or somethin'? Well, how about just a cup of coffee? I'll come by the, uh,
headquarters or somethin', we could, uh...Oh, OK, OK. Did you get my flowers in the...? You
didn't get them. I sent some flowers, uh...Yeah, well, OK, OK. Can I call you again? Uh,
tomorrow or the next day? OK. No, I'm gonna...OK. Yeah, sure, OK. So long.
When he asks if she received the flowers he sent, the camera begins a tracking shot away from him to
the right, moving to a fixed shot of the long, desolate empty hallway next to Travis. His voice-over explains
his frustration over his awkward date and the aftermath of her rejection of him, a failed attempt at a normal
relationship with an attractive woman. Travis is rebuffed repeatedly (she refuses to date him or answer his
phone calls) - the camera tracks across the floor of Travis' apartment, where there is a row of wilted and
dying floral arrangements returned by Betsy. The flower bouquets are progressively more wilted from left
to right:
I tried several times to call her, but after the first call, she wouldn't come to the phone any
longer. I also sent flowers but with no luck. The smell of the flowers only made me sicker. The
headaches got worse. I think I got stomach cancer. I shouldn't complain though. You're only
as healthy, you're only as healthy as you feel. You're only as...healthy...as...you...feel.
Feeling troubled inside, Travis (now wearing his usual cab outfit) storms into the political headquarters
during one of their busy workdays and ends up terrorizing the volunteers. While restrained by Tom's large
frame, Travis confronts Betsy for not returning his phone calls:
Travis: Why won't you talk to me? Why don't you answer my calls when I call? You think I
don't know you're here.
Tom: Let's not have any trouble.
Travis: You think I don't know. You think I don't know.
Tom: Would you please leave?
Travis: Get your hands off.
Escorted to the door (to be made an outsider), he sharply makes quick karate gestures at Tom. Rather
than examine inside himself for the cause of the rejection, he strikes outward. He tells Betsy (whom he
once thought was an angel) that she is demonically going to hell. She is like all the other women he's
known - cold and distant:
You're in a hell, and you're gonna die in hell like the rest of 'em. You're like the rest of 'em.
Soured by the whole experience of his awkward date and aborted relationship with an upper-middle-class
woman beyond his reach, he condemns her and begins his descent into isolation, psychosis (and armed
violence):
I realize now how much she's just like the others - cold and distant, and many people are like
that. Women for sure. They're like a union.
In one of the more memorable scenes of the film, his next fare-paying passenger is a scary-acting,
mustached, middle-aged individual (director Scorsese himself in a cameo role) who insists that Travis pull
over to the curb, keep the meter running, and just sit. The man is the agonized husband of a cheating wife
who watches her scantily-clad silhouette in the lit second-story window of another man's apartment. As
Travis sits expressionless, his lunatic passenger (who speaks repetitively in circles) describes his
homicidal plan. The demented passenger aggressively prods Travis to answer his questions during his
fantasy of murdering his adulterous wife and her black partner with a .44 Magnum:
Passenger (smiling and laughing nervously and inappropriately throughout the dialogue): You
see the woman in the window? Do you see the woman in the window?...I want you to see that
woman, because that's my wife. That's not my apartment. That's not my apartment. You
know who lives there? Huh? I mean, you wouldn't know who lives there - I'm just saying, but
you know who lives there? Huh? A nigger lives there. How do ya like that? And I'm gonna, I'm
gonna kill him...What do you think of that? Hmm? I said 'What do you think of that?' Don't
answer. You don't have to answer everything. I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna kill her with a .44
Magnum pistol. A .44 Magnum pistol. I'm gonna kill her with that gun. Did you ever see what a
.44 Magnum pistol can do to a woman's face? I mean it will f---in' destroy it. Just blow her
right apart. That's what it will do to her face. Now, did you ever see what it can do to a
woman's pussy? That you should see. That you should see what a .44 Magnum's gonna do
to a woman's pussy you should see. I know, I know you must think that I'm, you know, you
must think I'm pretty sick or somethin', you know, you must think I'm pretty sick. Right? You
must think I'm pretty sick? Hmm? Right? I'll betcha, I'll betcha you really think I'm sick right?
You think I'm sick? You think I'm sick? You don't have to answer that. I'm payin' for the ride.
You don't have to answer that.
[Travis and the passenger have identical problems - they have both been spurned by women. Travis,
however, eventually responds by taking his violence beyond fantasy.]
At the Belmore Cafeteria, a group of cabbies (Wizard, Dough Boy, Charlie T, and a fourth cabbie) at a
formica-topped table swap more stories and small talk about their fares - midgets, fags, and other
unusual characters. Wizard explains how he told one group of violent gay passengers to behave:
Wizard: Then I picked up these two fags, you know. They're goin' downtown. [A loud buzzer
is activated as Travis steps through the turnstile into the wall-length counter area of the
cafeteria. When he pulls his ticket from the dispenser, the buzzer is silenced.] They're
wearing these rhinestone t-shirts. And they start arguin'. They start yellin'. The other says:
'You bitch.'...I say: 'Look, I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own home behind
closed doors - this is an American free country, we got a pursuit of happiness thing, you're
consenting, you're adult. BUT, you know, uh, you know, in my f---ing cab, don't go bustin'
heads, you know what I mean? God love you, do what you want.'
Dough Boy: Tell 'em to go to California, 'cause out in California when two fags split up, one's
got to pay the other one alimony.
Wizard: Not bad. Ah, they're way ahead out there, you know in California. So I had to tell 'em
to get out of the f---in' cab.
Travis joins the group and repays a debt of five dollars to one of the cabbies. When he pulls out a large
wad of small denomination bills, the crumpled $20 bill reminds him of the young hippie prostitute incident.
He stares at it for a moment and then puts it back in his jacket pocket. He leaves briefly to speak privately
outside to the philosophic Wizard. As he moves away, Charlie T (Norman Matlock) forms his hand into a
pistol, cocks and fires - making the sound "Pgghew." He bids Travis good-bye using his newly-acquired
nickname: "Goodbye Killer."
In the blood-red light of the outside neon sign, Travis looks for some kind of support and sports a nervous
smile on his face. Wizard leans back against his cab and becomes an elder statesman/adviser for Travis.
Hesitantly, Travis inarticulately explains his deteriorating mental condition and sinister tendencies - he's
starting to get "bad ideas" in his head.
Wizard semi-articulately raps, in philosophical-tabloid slang, about becoming one's job and finding
wisdom by getting drunk or laid. In Wizard's point of view, everyone is "more or less" f--ked and stuck in
an absurd world:
Travis: Well, I know you and I ain't talked too much, you know, but I figured you've been
around alot so you could...
Wizard: Shoot. That's why they call me the Wizard.
Travis: I got, it's just that I got a, I got a...
Wizard: Things uh, things got ya down?
Travis: Yeah.
Wizard: Yeah, it happens to the best of us.
Travis: Yeah, I got me a real down, real...I just wanna go out and, and you know like really,
really, really do somethin'.
Wizard: The taxi life you mean?
Travis: Yeah, well. Naw, I don't know. I just wanna go out. I really, you know, I really wanna, I
got some bad ideas in my head, I just...
Wizard: Look, look at it this way, you know uh, a man, a man takes a job, you know, and that
job, I mean like that, and that it becomes what he is. You know like uh, you do a thing and
that's what you are. Like I've been a, I've been a cabbie for seventeen years, ten years at night
and I still don't own my own cab. You know why? 'Cause I don't want to. I must be what I,
what I want. You know, to be on the night shift drivin' somebody else's cab. Understand? You,
you, you become, you get a job, you you become the job. One guy lives in Brooklyn, one guy
lives in Sutton Place, you get a lawyer, another guy's a doctor, another guy dies, another guy
gets well, and you know, people are born. I envy you your youth. Go out and get laid. Get
drunk, you know, do anything. 'Cause you got no choice anyway. I mean we're all f---ed, more
or less you know.
Travis: Yeah, I don't know. That's about the dumbest thing I ever heard.
Wizard: I'm not Bertrand Russell. Well what do ya want. I'm a cabbie you know. What do I
know? I mean, I don't even know what the f--- you're talkin' about.
Travis: Yeah I don't know. Maybe I don't know either.
Wizard: Don't worry so much. Relax Killer, you're gonna be all right. I know I seen a lot of
people and uh, I know.
Travis, literally stuck in a world he doesn't understand, is unable to assimilate Wizard's existential
sermon, calling it "the dumbest thing" he ever heard.
Travis' next meal consists of crumbled up pieces of white bread in a cereal bowl, covered with peach
brandy, milk and sugar. In front of his rabbit-eared TV in his dreary tenement apartment, an angst-ridden
Travis eats and watches a TV interview with candidate Palantine:
When we came up with our slogan, 'We are the People,' when I said let the people rule, I felt
that I was being somewhat overly optimistic. I must tell you that I am more optimistic now
than ever before. The people are rising to the demands that I have made on them. The people
are beginning to rule. I feel it is a groundswell. I know it will continue through the primary. I
know it will continue in Miami. And I know it will rise to an unprecedented swell in November.
As he drives his cab past the Palantine headquarters, the tracking point-of-view camera peers through the
windows of the building. The headquarters is half-empty - and Betsy's desk is vacant. A sign in the
window reads: "Only 4 More Days Until the Arrival of Charles Palantine - Our Next President." From
another view atop his cab, Travis' "Off-Duty" light goes off as he speeds toward a prospective fare.
Later while driving through a dark street, Travis suddenly hits his brakes to avoid running down the same
young girl he had earlier seen pulled from the back seat of his cab. This time, the girl has recklessly
crossed the street in front of his cab -she stares in shock at him through the windshield, dressed in a
flowery outfit with a floppy hat. He slowly trails the young girl and her blonde female companion down the
street - they both gesture to a figure on a porch stoop, calling him Sport. Travis realizes that they are both
hippie child-prostitutes when they pick up two johns at a street corner.
He speeds off and trails other pedestrians of the night as his voice-over explains his destiny - existential
loneliness. In contrast to his paltry verbal communications, his thoughts are an obsessive, tortured,
skewered record of his thoughts and views on mankind, yet insightful about the ugly corruption of life in the
city:
Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores,
everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man. (Travis is seen writing in his journal.)
June 8th. My life has taken another turn again. The days can go on with regularity over and
over, one day indistinguishable from the next. A long continuous chain. Then suddenly, there
is a change. (Behind him on the wall is his "One of These Days, I'm Gonna Get Organiz-ized"
sign.)
[His thoughts about his loneliness provide a cultural allusion to Thomas Wolfe's 'God's Lonely Man.']
The first way Travis gets organized to combat his existential loneliness is through weapons armament. At
a street corner, Travis pops three or four aspirin from a brown bag directly from the bottle into his mouth.
One of his cabbie friends pulls up and introduces him to "Easy" Andy (Steven Prince), a traveling
salesman who offers to sell him guns. The well-dressed young man carries two large display suitcases
and places them on a bed in an economy hotel room. A full-screen close-up slowly pans up the long,
eight-inch barrel of an inhuman, oversized .44 Magnum. Travis first picks up the Magnum and then three
other different guns to examine them as Easy Andy admiringly describes their features:
There you go - a supreme high re-sale weapon. Look at that. Look at that. That's a beauty. I
could sell those guns to some jungle bunny in Harlem for five hundred bucks. But I just deal
high-quality goods to the right people. How about that? This might be a little too big for
practical purposes in which case for you, I'd recommend .38 snubnose. Look at this. Look at
it. That's a beautiful little gun. It's nickel-plated, snub nose, otherwise the same as the service
revolver. That'll stop anything that moves. The Magnum - they use that in Africa for killin'
elephants. That .38. - it's a fine gun. Some of these guns are like toys. That .38 - you go out
and hammer nails with it all day, come back and it will cut dead center on target every time.
It's got a really nice action to it and a heck of a whallop. You interested in an automatic? It's a
Colt .25 Automatic. It's a nice little gun. It's a beautiful little gun. It holds six shots in the clip,
one shot in the chamber so if you're done, you don't have to put a round in the chamber.
Here, look at this. 380 (?), holds eight shots in the clip. That's a nice gun. Now that's a
beautiful little gun. Look at that. During World War II, they used this gun to replace the P38.
Just given out to officers. Ain't that a little honey?
Travis places the gun under his belt and pulls his shirt over it, testing to see whether it can be concealed.
Then he inquires about purchasing all four guns: "How much for everything?" Andy first dissuades him
from carrying the Magnum, but quickly provides a solution: "Only a jack-ass would carry that cannon in the
streets like that. Here. Here's a beautiful hand-made holster I had made in Mexico. $400 dollars." After
Travis purchases an assortment of four semi-automatic guns for $875 from the underground dealer
(making sure to include a .44 Magnum in his arsenal - taking his cue from the homicidal fare he ferried),
Andy asks if Travis is interested in buying drugs or hot automobiles:
Andy: How about dope? Grass. Hash. Coke. Mescaline. Downers. Nebutol. Tuonal. Chloral
Hydrates? How about any Uppers? Amphetamines.
Travis: No I'm not interested in that stuff.
Andy: Crystal meth. I can get ya crystal meth. Nitrous oxide. How about that? How about a
Cadillac? I get ya a brand new Cadillac. With the pink slip for two grand.
A second means to find a new identity is to begin an intense, action-oriented regimen of rigid, physical
training. Travis exercises fanatically even though his mental condition deteriorates, vigorously doing
excessive numbers of push-ups, pull-ups and weight exercises in his apartment as if preparing for a
war-like mission. Bareback and only wearing jeans, his back is marked with shrapnel scars as he does
push-ups above the oddly-matching linoleum floor of his kitchen. During his 're-organization,' his body
becomes taut and wirey when he denounces junk food and other poisons. The pace of the film quickens:
June 29th. I gotta get in shape now. Too much sittin' is ruinin' my body. Too much abuse has
gone on for too long. From now on, it will be fifty push-ups each morning, fifty pull-ups. (He
passes his stiff arm through the flame of a gas burner without flinching.) There'll be no more
pills, there'll be no more bad food, no more destroyers of my body. From now on, it will be
total organization. Every muscle must be tight.
The soundtrack explodes with practice shots he fires at a target in an indoor firing range with his arsenal
of illegal guns. Without knowing why he has embarked on such rigorous training, Travis' pent-up anger
and frustration he had told Wizard about is being released. In a porno theater while watching a sex scene,
he points his finger like a gun at the screen, linking sex (foreplay) and violence (gunplay). As the action
becomes more graphic on screen, he places his stiffened trigger hand above his eyes, partially shutting
off and shielding his field of vision.
The idea had been growing in my brain for some time. True force. All the king's men cannot
put it back together again.
[Travis' literary/cultural allusion is to Robert Penn Warren's novel, All the King's Men, an account of the
dangers of populist politics.]
Back in his apartment, a bare-chested Travis has attached guns to himself (first one - and then two
shoulder holsters and a third gun from behind). He practices drawing them in front of a mirror. His wall is
decorated with tacked-up maps and political paraphernalia related to demagogue/politician Charles
Palantine [By repressed projection, Betsy is also targeted as Palantine's disciple.] Turning more alienated
and violent and harnessing his puritanical energy, he manufactures a custom-made fast-draw, gliding
mechanism that he attaches to his forearm, and another concealed knife-holder for a horrible-looking
combat knife on his ankle. The weapons and other spring-loaded, metal gadgets attached to him are
extensions of his body - his gunmanship is astonishing. At his table, he dum-dums the .44 bullets, cutting
'x's' across the bullet heads.
A rally platform decorated with red, white and blue bunting is being assembled for an outdoor Palantine
rally, where both Betsy and Tom are busily working. Stalking everyone at the rally in a green Army jacket,
Travis sidles up to a tall, serious, sun-glass wearing Secret Service agent (Richard Higgs), first imitating
his crossed-arm stance, and then leading him into an overly friendly chat about the Secret Service and
guns:
Travis: Hey, you're a Secret Service man aren't ya? Huh?
Agent: (indifferently) Just waiting for the Senator.
Travis: You're waiting for the Senator? Oh! That's a very good answer. S--t! I'm waitin' for the
sun to shine. Yeah. No, the reason I, I asked if you were a Secret Service man, I won't say
anything, because I (Travis pauses, noticing two more agents walking by)...I saw some
suspicious looking people over there. (Travis points away) Yeah, they were over there, right
over there. They were just here, uh. They were very, very, uh...
Agent: ...suspicious...
Travis: Yeah. Is it hard to get to be in the Secret Service?
Agent: Why?
Travis: Well, I was just curious, because I think I'd be good at it. Very observant. I was in the
Marine Corps you know, I'm good with crowds. I'm noticin' the little pin there. (Looking at the
agent's lapel.) That's like a signal isn't it?
Agent: Sort of.
Travis: A signal. A secret signal for the Secret Service. Hey, what kind of guns do you guys
carry? 38s, 45s, 357 Magnums, somethin' bigger maybe?
Agent: Look, uh, if you're really interested, if you give me your name and address, we'll send
you all the information on how to apply. How's that?
Travis: You will?
Agent: Sure. (The agent takes out a notepad.)
Travis: OK. Why not? My name is Henry Krinkle. K-R-I-N-K-L-E. 154 Hopper Avenue.
Agent: Hopper?
Travis: Yeah. You know like a rabbit, hip, hop. Ha, ha. Fair Lawn, New Jersey.
Agent: Is there a zip code to that Henry?
Travis: Yeah, 610452. OK?
Agent: That's, uh, six digits.
Travis: Oh, well 61045.
Agent: OK.
Travis: I was thinking of my telephone number.
Agent: Well, I've got it all. Henry, we'll get all the stuff right out to you.
Travis: Thanks alot. Hey, great. Thanks alot. Hell, Jesus. Be careful today.
Agent: Right. Will do.
Travis: You have to be careful in and around a place like this. Bye.
Travis is quickly marked and fulfills the stereotypical profile for a lone, crazy gunman. As Travis walks
away, the agent signals that a Secret Service photographer (Vic Magnotta) take his picture, but Travis
becomes lost in the crowd when Palantine's car drives up.
Turning more alienated and violent, in the most terrifying, but classic
sequence in the film, he glares at himself in the mirror and recites
conversations in which he threatens and insistently challenges
imaginary enemies, rehearsing his quick-draw with his spring-loaded
holster:
Huh? Huh? I'm faster than you, you f--kin' son of a...I
saw you comin'. F--k. S--t-heel. I'm standin' here. You make
the move. You make the move. It's your move. (He draws his
gun from his concealed forearm holster.) Don't try it, you
f--ker. You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?
(He turns around to look behind him.) Well, who the hell else
are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one
here. Who the f--k do you think you're talkin' to? Oh yeah?
Huh? OK. (He whips out his gun again.) Huh?
The conversation then becomes internal and disjointed - the film
literally replays itself in a jerky rewind, reflecting the disassociated,
obsessive nature of his mind, while he lies on his bed or again taunts
make-believe adversaries in front of a mirror:
Listen you f--kers, you screwheads. Here's a man who would not take it anymore. Who would
not let...Listen you f--kers, you screwheads. Here's a man who would not take it anymore. A
man who stood up against the scum, the c--ts, the dogs, the filth, the s--t, here is someone
who stood up. (A close-up of his diary entry, "Here is," is followed by three erratic dots.)
HERE IS --- (He draws his gun.) You're dead.
In a convenience, all-night supermarket one night where he stops while driving his cab, he witnesses a
holdup of the store manager Melio while picking up a carton of milk and a midnight snack from behind one
of the shelves in the store aisle. He confronts the nervous, hopped-up, young, black stick-up man and
shoots him in the head with his concealed .32. The robber reels and collapses to the floor. Worried
because he used an unlicensed weapon, Travis leaves the gun with the manager and drives off, while the
enraged store manager (wearing a green-shouldered, super-patriotic Tulane T-shirt) beats the
unconscious thief on the floor with a pipe.
Unmoving, expressionless, and mesmerized in front of his TV while watching American Bandstand, one
of the cultural icons of the 1960s. To illustrate his own violent self-hatred, Travis has his gun barrel
propped against his head while he listens to the words of a Jackson Browne song "Late For the Sky," as
young teenyboppers suggestively slow-dance on the screen:
...And close to the end
Of the feeling we've known
How long have I been sleepin'?
How long have I been driftin' all through the night?
How long have I been runnin' for that morning flight
Through the whispered promises and the changin' light
Of the band where we both lie
Late for the Sky.
Estranged by his own sense of inadequacy in his world,Travis feels threatened by the blatant exposure of
teenage sexuality.
At another Palantine rally in a crowded city sidestreet dwarfed by skyscrapers, Travis stalks the candidate
again. He sits coldly staring in his "Off-Duty" cab in the driver's seat and listens to the candidate's speech
on a booming, distant loudspeaker system:
Walt Whitman, that great American poet, spoke for all of us when he said: 'I am the man. I
suffered. I was there.' Today, I say to you, We Are The People, we suffered, we were there.
We the People suffered in Vietnam. We the People suffered, we still suffer from
unemployment, inflation, crime and corruption.
Palantine's populist message is inspiring, but like Travis, separates himself from the populace. As the
camera pans over the Palantine rally audience (which includes Tom and Betsy on the raised platform and
the Secret Service agent), Travis' voice-over recites a greeting card message which he prepares to send
to his parents (The cheap, kitschy card reads: "Happy Anniversary To A Couple of Good Scouts." It
pictures a couple dressed like Boy Scouts on the front.):
Dear Father and Mother:
July is the month I remember which brings not only your wedding anniversary but also
Father's Day and Mother's birthday. I'm sorry I can't remember the exact dates, but I hope this
card will take care of them all. I'm sorry again I cannot send you my address like I promised to
last year. But the sensitive nature of my work for the government demands utmost secrecy. I
know you will understand. I am healthy and well and making lots of money. I have been going
with a girl for several months and I know you would be proud if you could see her. Her name
is Betsy but I can tell you no more than that...
A policeman at the rally (Gino Ardito) interrupts the reading of his letter/card and forces Travis to move his
cab from an unauthorized parking space. Travis resumes reading the letter in his monotonous voice-over
while he examines the card at his desk:
...I hope this card finds you all well as it does me. I hope no one has died. Don't worry about
me. One day, they'll be a knock on the door and it'll be me. Love Travis.
Travis watches a daytime soap opera, a scene of the break-up of a young couple's marriage due to the
woman's desire to divorce her husband and marry another man. The scene painfully reminds Travis of his
own romantic failures. He tilts the table holding the cheap black-and-white TV back with his foot - it
balances precariously there until falling over and crashing, exploding in sparks on the floor. As the
television shatters, so does Travis' life go out of balance. Travis holds his hand between his hands,
swearing at himself.
As a counterpoint to Betsy's untouchable 'angelic' womanhood, Travis finally meets Iris (Jodie Foster) on
the tenement streets, a 12 1/2 year old prostitute (homeless runaway) managed by a small-time pimp
"boyfriend" named Matthew or "Sport" (Harvey Keitel):
Iris: You lookin' for some action?
Travis: Yeah.
Iris: You see that guy over there?
Travis: Yeah.
Iris: You go talk to him. His name is Matthew. I'll be over there waitin' for ya.
The head-banded, T-shirted, long-haired, greaser pimp first mistakes Travis for an undercover cop,
extending his crossed wrists as if to be handcuffed. After suspiciously checking each other out and
verbally sparring, they both find each other 'clean' and then negotiate a price:
Sport: Officer, I swear I'm clean. I'm just waitin' here for a friend. You gonna bust me for
nothin' man?
Travis: I'm not a cop.
Sport: So why are you askin' me for action?
Travis: (gesturing at Iris) Because she sent me over.
Sport: I suppose that ain't a .38 you got in your sock.
Travis: A .38? No. I'm clean man.
Sport: (noticing Travis' Western boots) S--t. You're a real cowboy? That's nice, man. That's
all right. Fifteen dollars, fifteen minutes, twenty-five dollars, half an hour.
Travis: S--t.
Sport: A cowboy, huh? I once had a horse, on Coney Island. She got hit by a car. Well, take it
or leave it. If you want to save yourself some money, don't f--k her. Cause you'll be back here
every night for some more. Man, she's twelve and a half years old. You never had no p---y like
that. You can do anything you want with her. You can cum on her, f--k her in the mouth, f--k
her in the ass, cum on her face, man. She get your c--k so hard she'll make it explode. But no
rough stuff, all right?
As Travis turns to walk away, Sport tells him: "Catch you later, Copper." Travis turns back and freezes,
insisting: "I'm no cop, man." Travis plays along: "I'm hip," but Sport laughingly disagrees: "Funny, you don't
look hip. Go ahead, have yourself a good time. Go ahead. (As Travis stares him down, Sport shoots two
imaginary guns at him to get him going to his sexual escapade.) Ha, ha, ha, ha. You're a funny guy."
As a police siren loudly cries in the streets, fresh-faced and innocent, but world-weary Iris escorts Travis
to a walk-up apartment. At the far end of the corridor, they pass by the manager of the hotel rooms
(Murray Mosten) who rents out rooms to prostitutes and serves as Iris' timekeeper. The two enter a room
through hanging cords of clear, colored beads to have fifteen minutes of sex.
In a room aglow with incongruous sacramental candles and decorated with wall posters of rock stars,
Travis wants to strike up a friendship with Iris instead of having sex. She calls herself "Easy" (the first
person with that nickname crossing his path was gun-seller "Easy" Andy). While she prepares to undress,
she claims that she doesn't remember the incident in the back of his cab when he first saw her. Travis
insists that she keep her blouse on. Unlike Betsy's untouchable sexuality, the young lover Iris helps Travis
unbuckle his pants and pull down his zipper. Bewildered by two different polarities of womanhood and
alternative sexualities, she is as unreal an abstraction to him as Betsy was.
Travis: Are you really twelve and a half?
Iris: Listen mister, it's your time. Fifteen minutes ain't long. When that cigarette burns out,
your time is up. (Iris sits on the edge of the sofa and begins undressing.)
Travis: How old are you? You won't tell me? What's your name?
Iris: Easy.
Travis: That's not any kind of name.
Iris: That's easy to remember.
Travis: Yeah, but what's your real name?
Iris: I don't like my real name.
Travis: (insistent) Now what's your real name?
Iris: Iris.
Travis: Well, what's wrong with that? That's a nice name.
Iris: Huh! That's what you think. (Iris begins to remove her top.)
Travis: No don't do that. Don't do that. Don't you remember me? Remember when you got
into a taxi, it was a checkered taxi. You got in and that that guy Matthew came by and he said
he wanted to take you away. He pulled you away.
Iris: I don't remember that.
Travis: You don't remember any of that?
Iris: No.
Travis: Well that's all right. I'm gonna get you out of here.
Iris: So we'd better make it or Sport will get mad. So how do you want to make it?
Travis: I don't want to make it. Who's Sport?
Iris: Oh that's Matthew. I call him Sport. (She stands up and begins unbuckling the belt on his
pants.) You want to make it like this?
Travis: Listen, uh, listen, hey, can I tell you somethin'. But you're the one that came into my
cab. You're the one that wanted to get out of here.
Iris: Well, I must have been stoned.
Travis: Why, what do you mean? Do they drug you?
Iris: (reproving) Oh come off it man.
Travis: (Iris continues to try to unzip his fly) What are you doin'?
Iris: Don't you want to make it?
Travis: No, I don't want to make it. I want to help you.
Iris: Well I could help you. (Iris reaches for his pants again, but he pushes her back onto the
sofa.)
Travis: Damn man. Goddamn it. S--t man. What the hell's the matter with you?
Iris: Mister, you don't have to make it mister.
Travis: Goddamn it. Don't you want to get out of here? Can't you understand why I came
here?
Iris: I think I understand, uh. I tried to get into your cab one night and you want to come and
take me away. Is that it?
Travis: Yeah, but don't you want to go?
Iris (confidently): I can leave anytime I want to.
Travis: Well then, what about that one night?
Iris: Look, I was stoned. That's why they stopped me. 'Cause when I'm not stoned, I got no
place else to go. So they just, uh, protect me from myself.
Travis: Well, I don't know. I don't know. OK, I tried.
Iris: (compassionate) I understand, and it means somethin', really.
Travis: Oh look, can I see you again?
Iris: Ha, ha, that's not hard to do.
Travis: No, I don't mean like that. I mean, you know, regularly. This is nothing for a person to
do.
Iris: Alright. How about breakfast tomorrow?
Travis: Tomorrow when?
Iris: I get up at about one o'clock.
Treating her like his own child, he attempts to rescue her and persuade her to give up her life of pimping.
When she realizes that he is not interested in sex with her, she is touched by his caring and agrees to
have breakfast with him the next day. Travis hesitates about the time to see her, because it seems to
interfere with his planned assassination schedule, but then agrees. As he leaves, he remembers to
introduce himself, and then sweetly bids her goodbye until the next day: "So long, Iris. See you tomorrow.
Sweet Iris."
The hotel manager appears from a darkened doorway at the end of the hall. Travis gives the man a $20
bill [the same crumpled $20 bill given him earlier by Sport to keep him quiet?]: "This is yours. Spend it
right." He is taunted by the old man and again identified by his boots as a Western cowboy: "Come back
any time cowboy." Travis is revolted and disgusted by Iris' life as a runaway prostitute with "no place else
to go" and content to work for a macho pimp.
In the next brilliant, memorable scene over breakfast, Travis takes Iris to a coffee shop where she has
toast with jelly and sugar on top. [This conversational scene parallels his coffee shop "date" with Betsy,
but this time it follows an 'aborted' sexual encounter.] He becomes obsessed with saving the fresh-faced
girl from her circumstances and restoring her to her family and school:
Iris: Why do you want me to go back to my parents? I mean they hate me. Why do you think I
split in the first place? There ain't nothin' there.
Travis: Yeah, but you can't live like this. It's hell. Girls should live at home.
Iris: (playfully) Didn't you ever hear of women's lib?
Travis: What do you mean 'women's lib'? You sure are a young girl. You should be at home
now. You should be dressed up. You should be goin' out with boys. You should be goin' to
school. You know, that kind of stuff.
Iris: Oh god, are you square.
Travis: Hey I'm not square. You're the one that's square. You're full of s--t, man. What are you
talkin' about? You walk out with those f--kin' creeps and lowlifes and degenerates out on the
street and you sell your, sell your little p---y for nothin' man. For some lowlife pimp - stands in
a hall. I'm, I'm square? You're the one that's square, man. I don't go screw and f--k with a
bunch of killers and junkies the way you do. You call that bein' hip? What world are you from?
Iris: Who's a 'killer'?
Travis: That guy Sport's a killer. That's who's a killer.
Iris: Sport never killed nobody.
Travis: He killed someone.
Iris: He's a Libra.
Travis: He's a what?
Iris: I'm a Libra too. That's why we get along so well.
Travis: Looks like a killer to me.
Iris: I think that, that Cancers make the best lovers, but god, my whole family are air signs.
Travis: He's also a dope shooter.
Befriending her, he again vainly tries to urge her to leave her pimp Sport, revolted by how she is content to
corrupt herself and sell her body at such a young age. She tells him that she likes being with Sport and
doesn't want salvation. When he tells her that her pimp has no respect for her, calling him "the lowest kind
of person in the world...the scum of the earth," she begins to be persuaded to leave her low-life. Then,
Travis offers to give her money to go live in a commune in Vermont, financing her escape from Sport, but
he declines to join her:
Iris: So what makes you so high and mighty. Will you tell me that? Didn't you ever try lookin' in
your own eyeballs in the mirror? (She removes her green plastic sunglasses.)
Travis: So what are you gonna do about Sport, that ol' bastard?
Iris: When?
Travis: When you leave.
Iris: I don't know. I just leave him, I guess.
Travis: You just gonna leave?
Iris: Yeah, they got plenty of other girls.
Travis: Yeah, but you just can't do that. What are you gonna do?
Iris: What do you want me to do? Call the cops?
Travis: What? The cops don't do nothin'. You know that.
Iris: Hey look. Sport never treated me bad. I mean he didn't beat me up or anything like that
once.
Travis: But you can't allow him to do the same to other girls. You can't allow him to do that.
He is the lowest kind of person in the world. Somebody's got to do something to him. He's the
scum of the earth. He's the worst s-s-sucking scum I have ever, ever seen. You know what
he told me about you? He called you names. He called you a little piece of chicken.
Iris: He doesn't, he doesn't mean that. I'll move up to one of them communes in Vermont.
Travis: I never seen a commune before, but I don't know, you know, I saw some pictures
once in a magazine - didn't look very clean.
Iris: Well why don't you come to the commune with me?
Travis: (tongue-tied) Why not cum, come in a commune with you? Oh no.
Iris: Why not?
Travis: I don't, I don't go to places like that.
Iris: Oh come on, why not?
Travis: No, I don't get along with people like that.
Iris: Are you a Scorpion? [mistakenly]
Travis: What?
Iris: That's it. You're a Scorpion. I can tell every time.
Travis: Besides, I gotta stay here.
Iris: Come on, why?
Travis: I got somethin' very important to do.
Iris: Oh, so what's so important?
Travis: Doin' somethin' for the government. Cab thing is just part-time.
Iris: Are you a narc?
Travis: Do I look like a narc?
Iris: Yeah. (laughing)
Travis: I am a narc.
Iris: God, I don't know who's weirder, you or me? Sure you don't want to come with me?
Travis: Well I tell ya what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give ya the money to go.
Iris: Oh no, look, you don't have to do that.
Travis: No, no. I want you to take it. I don't want ya to take anything from them. And I wanna do
it. I don't have anything better to do with my money. I might be goin' away for a while.
Feeling compelled to talk to Sport in the reddish glare of the light, Iris describes her unhappiness to her
streetwise pimp. With a velvety smooth manner, Sport casts a spell over her and coaxes her into
resuming her life as a young street hooker, dancing with her cradled in his arms while soothing her. He
strokes her hair gently, revealing one obscene, red-enameled sharp fingernail as she melts to his
attentiveness:
Iris: I don't like what I'm doin' Sport.
Sport: Oh baby, I never wanted you to like what you're doin'. If you ever liked what you're
doing, you wouldn't be my woman.
Iris: You never spend any time with me anymore.
Sport: Why I got to attend to business baby. You miss your man, don't ya? I don't like to be
away from you either. You know how I feel about you. I depend on you. I'd be lost without you.
Don't you ever forget that - how much I need you. (He puts some slow, jazzy soul music on
the stereo) Come to me baby. Let me hold you. When I hold you close to me like this, I feel so
good. I only wish every man could know what it's like to be loved by you... God, it's good so
close. You know at times like this, I know I'm one lucky man. Touchin' a woman who wants
me and needs me. That's the way you and I keeps it together.
At the firing range, rapid-fire shots blast from Travis' .44 Magnum as he practices more to become a
crack shot at the target. In another part of his crusading plan to cleanse, save and redeem society, Travis
makes more preparations to do "somethin' very important." In his apartment where he wears a white
western-style shirt [foreshadowing the bloody, Western shoot-out], he polishes his boots and burns some
of the dried, wilted flowers intended for Betsy. After sharpening his knife, he tapes it to the side of his boot.
He counts out $500 (in $100 bills) for Iris, accompanied by a poorly-scrawled, hand-written letter (put in an
envelope addressed to Iris Steensman):
Dear Iris:
This money should be used for your trip. By the time you read this, I will be dead.
Travis
His apartment is neater and more orderly - the floor is less cluttered. Travis explains his mission ("to do
somethin") in voice-over - to pursue Presidential candidate Palantine and commit a grandiose act - an
assassination:
Now I see it clearly. My whole life is pointed in one direction. I see that now. There never has
been any choice for me.
To exorcise his empty, tormented life, and to do something for which he will finally be recognized, he turns
to a violent, insanely-destructive solution for his cathartic salvation. Emerging from his Checker cab at
torso-level while Palantine speaks to an assembled crowd at Columbus Circle, Travis blends into the
audience wearing a "We Are the People" button. (Palantine's gestures with arms outstretched model the
statue behind him.) As the camera slowly pans up from his waist-level, it reveals Travis' inappropriately
severe Mohawk Indian haircut (a single strip of hair down the middle of his scalp) - a clear signal that he
has finally snapped. [Special Forces units during wartime would adopt this style haircut on
search-and-destroy missions.] Travis' clapping sounds solitary when he joins the crowd in applause.
When the rally ends, Travis pushes and works his way through the crowd toward Palantine, photographed
from an eye-level perspective. Before he can get close enough to kill Palantine, the Secret Service
bodyguard he had spoken to earlier spots him. Travis flees, barely eluding the agents' pursuit.
Frustrated because his blood lust hasn't been satisfied, a stripped-to-the-waist Travis downs more pain
pills with beer in his apartment. His mattress is rolled up on his bed. His guns are laid out on his table. He
goes looking for Iris, driving to the apartment which Sport uses for his prostitution ring. That afternoon
before Travis arrives, Sport is approached by a middle-aged white Mafioso (Robert Maroff) who receives a
cash payment. Resembling an Indian with his severe haircut [and not a cowboy], Travis greets Sport in a
friendly manner and then baits him with continued questions about Iris:
Travis: How's everything in the pimp business? Huh?
Sport: Don't I know you?
Travis: No, do I know you?
Sport: Get out of here. Come on, get lost.
Travis: Do I know you? How's Iris? You know Iris.
Sport: No, I don't know nobody named Iris. Iris. Come on. Get out of here man.
Travis: You don't know anybody by the name of Iris?
Sport: I don't know nobody named Iris.
Travis: No?
Sport: Hey - go back to your f--kin' tribe before you get hurt, huh man. Do me a favor, I don't
want no trouble huh? OK?
Travis: You got a gun?
Sport: (He throws his lit cigarette at Travis' chest, causing sparks to fly, and then kicks him.)
Get the f--k out of here man! Get out of here.
Travis: Suck on this.
In a shocking, cold-blooded act, Travis wreaks vengeance on Iris' abductor - he sticks a gun point-blank
into Sport's gut and shoots, wounding him in the stomach. A few moments later, he enters the darkened
stairway leading to Iris' apartment where he approaches the manager of the hotel rooms. In another gory
scene of incredible orgiastic violence and cold-blooded slaughter, partially filmed in slow-motion, he
shoots and blows off part of the manager's right hand. The blast splatters blood and causes echoes
throughout the corridors.
Another gunshot sounds behind Travis - he is wounded on the left side of his neck. Travis turns to look
behind him and sees Sport, mortally wounded. He quickly guns him down at the end of the corridor. As
Travis is trying to finish off the manager on the stairs, he is again shot from behind in the right shoulder by
the private cop (one of Sport's Mafioso gangster associates and Iris' customer). Wounded and staggering,
Travis kills him by filling his face and body full of bullets, causing him to fall backwards into Iris' room. Still
alive, the wounded manager crashes atop Travis and wrestles him to the ground - they thrash around into
Iris' apartment where she is shrieking and frozen in fear. Travis pulls his combat knife from his boot and
impales the manager's left hand. He reaches over and picks up the revolver from the now-dead Mafioso
and shoots him point-blank in the cheek - the manager's brains are splattered onto the wall. Iris is
distraught by the gory slaughter.
With two different guns, Travis attempts to shoot himself in the neck, but the guns click empty. Exhausted
and struggling, he simply collapses onto the red velvet sofa next to a fear-stricken Iris. His head slowly
drops back amidst the bloodbath. When the police arrive with guns drawn, Travis is unable to speak. In a
gruesome closeup, he helplessly raises a blood-soaked, dripping finger to his head and makes explosive
sounds with his mouth as he mimics pulling the trigger three times in a mock-suicide: "Pgghew! Pgghew!
Pgghew!" At the end, Travis wishes to sacrifice himself as the ultimate act of fulfillment, cleansing, and
purification, but his suicide attempt fails. He slowly loses consciousness and his head falls backward.
In an overhead tracking shot, the camera slowly pans over the bloody trail of carnage in the room and
down the stairs (Iris is crouched and shaking, Travis lies back on the sofa next to two blood-soaked
bodies on the floor, three police officers stand at the door with their guns drawn, puddles and splatters of
blood cover the hallway corridor, discarded weapons, Sport's body is at the end of the hallway, and police
are holding back crowds that have gathered at the doorway). There are flashing lights and curious
onlookers assembled on the street outdoors.
To his surprise, society and the newspapers absolve him of his sins and praise him for his bloody
sacrifice and vigilante bravery. The society, almost as sick as Travis himself, idolizes the psycho-pathic
assassin with guns drawn for cleaning up the filth and dirtiness of the city in the monumental slaughter. A
tracking shot moves from a new portable TV across to the apartment wall where headlines of newspaper
clippings are attached proclaiming his brave, redemptive deeds:
Taxi Driver Battles Gangsters
Reputed New York Mafioso Killed in Bizarre Shooting
Parents Express Shock, Gratitude
Taxi Driver Hero to Recover
Cabbie Released From Hospital
During the slow pan across the wall, an emotional letter of thanks is read, in voice-over (the voice of an
uneducated man), by Iris' grateful father. Travis emerges as society's hero for his ultimately cleansing and
redemptive act. And in his martyrdom to cleanse the world, he sends a young girl home to her parents -
freeing her from her pimp's grasp:
Dear Mr. Bickle:
I can't say how happy Mrs. Steensma and I were to hear that you are well and recuperating.
We tried to visit you at the hospital when we were in New York to pick up Iris. But you were
still in a coma. There is no way we can repay you for returning our Iris to us. We thought we
had lost her, and now our lives are full again. Needless to say, you are something of a hero
around this household. I'm sure you want to know about Iris. She's back in school and
working hard. The transition has been very hard for her as you can well imagine. But we have
taken steps to see she has never cause to run away again. In conclusion, Mrs. Steensma
and I would like to again thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Unfortunately, we cannot
afford to come to New York again, to thank you in person or we surely would. But if you
should ever come to Pittsburgh, you would find yourself a most welcome guest in our home.
Our Deepest Thanks
Burt and Ivy Steensma
At the end of the clippings, the hand-written letter is attached to the wall.
In the ironic, closing sequence, Travis is recovered, released from his obsessive torment, and back on the
job as a cabbie, peacefully talking to his cabbie friends (Wizard, Dough Boy, and Charlie T) while waiting
for a fare in front of the St. Regis Hotel, a more civilized part of the city. Travis is wearing his standard
cabbie clothes - a light-brown jacket, jeans, and cowboy boots. A passenger has entered Travis' cab, the
front cab in the waiting line in front of the hotel. It is Betsy.
She is the first to speak after a long silence - she is uneasy, wary, cool, and distant, but knows of his
noble deed and is a bit awed by his celebrity and notoriety. Travis reveals a quiet smile on his face and
watches her in the rear-view mirror. When she arrives at her destination after a basically inconsequential
ride, she gets out and Travis declines her fare.
Betsy: Hello Travis.
Travis: Hello. (Long pause as they exchange looks in the rear-view mirror) I hear Palantine got
the nomination.
Betsy: Yeah. It won't be long now. Seventeen days.
Travis: I hope he wins.
Betsy: I read about you in the papers. How are you?
Travis: Oh, it was nothin' really. I got over that. Papers always blow these things up. Just a
little stiffness. That's all. (The cab arrives at her destination and she steps out, speaking to
him through the open, driver side window.)
Betsy: Travis? How much was it?
Travis: So long...
He drives off into the dark night. The camera tracks backward from Betsy on the sidewalk as the cab pulls
away. Travis adjusts the rear-view mirror to look back. [How cleansed and saved is Travis really? How
long will it be before he turns back to more ritualistic violence and bloody retaliation, confusing murder with
sacrifice?]
The credits play over further surrealistic images of New York City at night, from a cabbie's perspective.
The last frame of the picture dedicates the film to Bernard Herrmann, the composer of the musical score -
he passed away only one day after he finished the film's score.
  
 
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