‘Taxi Driver’ explained: was the ending just a dream?
As far as the early works of Martin Scorsese go, it’s hard to look beyond his 1976 neo-noir psychological thriller Taxi Driver, which remains one of the iconic director’s greatest films. Robert De Niro gave one of his most iconic performances as Travis Bickle, a Vietnam War veteran turned night-shift cab driver, as he ventures to clean up the scum of New York City’s streets in the throes of severe PTSD and a declining mental state.
Scorsese had been keen to imbue Taxi Driver, written by his frequent collaborator Paul Schrader, with a dreamlike quality haunting its gritty and yet surreal imagery. This blurring of the lines between reality and fantasy has led to much debate over the film’s narrative, with some questioning whether or not its ending was a dream of Travis’.
There are indeed some possibilities for this dream, and Scorsese drops in a handful of clues to suggest so. For starters, narratively, Travis is an alienated loner who battles with his inner demons throughout the film whilst becoming infatuated with Betsy, a political campaign volunteer. As he descends into madness, it becomes clear that Travis’ own distinction between what is real and what is fantasy is blurred, suggesting that perhaps his violent actions against the “scum of the streets” and his obsession with doing good for young women are all a mere delusion.
Throw into the fact that visually Taxi Driver appears like something from a feverish dream with smoke billowing out the street vents and bright neon signs casting down a sickening light on New York City’s inhabitants, and the possibility for the story to actually take place inside Travis’ head become increasingly likely. Iconic moments like when Travis pulls a gun on himself in the mirror, asking, “You talkin’ to me?” further showcase his mental unwellness and detachment from reality, revealing a fractured psyche incapable of dealing with real life.
It’s the film’s ambiguous ending that leads to the biggest speculation about its dream potential, though. After his violent rampage in which he saves Iris from her pimp, Sport, and mafioso client, Travis is shot and eventually falls into a coma from his injuries, but later awakes to find himself a hero in the press, with the additional thanks of Iris’s parents.
His violent actions are, therefore, heralded as those of a champion, and Travis starts working as a taxi driver once again. After driving Betsy as a fare, his former infatuation explains that she’s been following his story in the papers, and Travis drops her off without taking payment. In the final seconds of the film, Travis notices something in his rear-view mirror and becomes anxious about something.
It’s this look of ambiguity that suggests that Travis has been dreaming all along and that he never really found redemption but was rather fantasising about how his life might have turned out and was retreating into the comfort and safety of his mind, away from the harsh realities of the world, during his final moments of life.
When asked about the film’s ending on Reddit, though, Paul Schrader noted it should not be perceived as a dream, writing, “The epilogue is not a dream sequence, it’s just the restarting of the movie. I’ve always felt that the last frame could be spliced into the first frame, and the movie started all over again. However, good movies leave themselves open for interpretation.”
So, in light of those comments, Taxi Driver is not a dream as some people suggest, even though it is still an ending that provokes thought. Questions surrounding Travis’s fate continue to circulate, and whether or not the film’s end can be taken as literally true will likely never be completely answered, leaving the all-important details up to the audience’s choosing, as all great movies are wont to do.
Whether or not Travis was dreaming throughout Taxi Driver, a dream that repeats over and over again, as Schrader suggests, is ultimately irrelevant. What’s important is to point out that Scorsese’s film is an absolute masterpiece of cinema that explores the impact of PTSD and alienation, and its impact continues to be felt throughout the film world even today.
What is Taxi Driver about?
Martin Scorsese’s 1976 psychological thriller film Taxi Driver details the descent into mental unwellness of Robert De Niro’s character Travis Bickle, a Vietnam War veteran who takes a job as a night shift cab driver in New York City. In the midst of isolation, alienation and PTSD, Travis becomes detached from reality and grows increasingly violent.
He soon becomes obsessed with saving a young prostitute called Iris and dating a political campaigner named Betsy, though these kinds of ventures lead him into further darkness and acts of violence. Scorsese examines the impact of trauma, anxiety and societal decay in one of his undoubted masterpieces.
Where was Taxi Driver filmed?
Taxi Driver was predominantly shot on location in New York City, where Martin Scorsese was born and raised. Opting to shoot in a series of neighbourhoods across New York, Scorsese and his crew managed to capture the gritty aesthetic of the city, which greatly contributed to its sense of uneasy authenticity.
In addition to the suburbs of New York, Scorsese also shot in some of the city’s best-known locations, like Times Square, the hub of activity with its bright lights and deafening sound. From Manhattan to Brooklyn to Queens, the director captures New York in all its glitzy, seedy and desolate variations, inviting his audiences to truly live alongside its protagonist, Travis Bickle.
