(Spoilers?)

When I first saw it, I thought the ending was supposed to be a dying fantasy. But I think in the director's commentary he said it was supposed to be real: the idea was that society is so dysfunctional it would actually make a hero out of a maniac.

So, I think it's supposed to be society as a whole, not just the Vietnam War or NYC in particular.

The whole country seemed to be falling apart in the '70s (Vietnam, energy, Watergate, etc) and New York was sort of the center of the decay. Between the city going bankrupt, the blackout, the South Bronx, the Westside highway, various strikes, lack of any help from the Feds, it seemed like NYC was broken and un-fixable. I think that Schrader and Scorsese looking at how those conditions could push someone over the edge into futile vigilantism. Making him a hero at the end showed how people are desparate enough to grasp at anything as a sign of hope in grim times. I see it as really super-black comedy, sort of Dr. Strangelove of the streets.

or is it an indictment of mirrors ? DeNiro seems to be most peeved that his mirror might be talking to him

I totally agree with TheophileEscargot on this one.
NYC was Post-Nixon, Post-'Nam, post King and Bobby assassinations, Post "Deep Throat" premier....society was pretty f**ked up in in '76 AND it was the Bicentennial anniversary.

Scorsese and Schrader created Travis as a character who was a mental melt of all of this, all at once.

(d). Taxi Driver is a dystopian retelling of The Great Gatsby combined with elements of the Gilgamesh epic and Hrómundar's saga.

I guess I wasn't thinking of it so much as a anti-war message movie, but just thinking that it seemed to show how totally ruined a returning soldier's life could be. And the ending seemed to fit in with the war thing, with the theme of American soldiers in Vietnam getting called heroes for doing impossibly awful violence.

I think it's that the movie felt like it should have been set in Vietnam during the war, that a lot of Travis's actions would have been justified or normal, somehow, there. It taking place in New York, to me, showed their true violence for what it was.

But ikkyu2 was arguing, I think, that instead they showed New York for what it was.

I guess both interpretations could apply.

Bickle, when the walls fell!

I do think it was a melange, representing an overall sickness of society. Ungovernable cities, unprincipled war, distorted or destroyed gender roles. I don't think setting it during the war would have made it as effective; this way it is more about a society dealing with things that it felt necessary to create, something more profound than a straightforward anti-war message.

The Bernie Goetz parallels are eerie, and I think underline my point.

I don't think setting it during the war would have made it as effective; this way it is more about a society dealing with things that it felt necessary to create, something more profound than a straightforward anti-war message.

Yes, that was my (badly made) point. That his actions would be heroic in wartime, but are sociopathic in peacetime. The slipping and sliding around whether NYC in the late 70s would qualify as "war" or "peace" makes it interesting.

Neither. It's a feel-good family picture. Travis is a great role model.

I bought the DVD out of curiosity and watched it once. I think I've blacked out the horror of the film because I can't remember much of it. I was surprised it affected me so much and only remember thinking that I didn't want to see it again.

Neither. It's a feel-good family picture. Travis is a great role model.

That is why we're married. : )

One of my all-time favorite films. It's hard to explain. It understands that the world is shit. Yet Travis, I feel, has a surprising moral center. I think he speaks to all our need to be something more than we are, to matter. And it's that need that can destroy or save, seemingly regardless of intentions.

A brilliantly complex film that's more human than political.

(watch it again, deb, with popcorn)