Taxi Driver

1.
In the end, Travis Bickle, the film's hero, slaughters some men he sees exploiting the object of his affection, the child-prostitute Iris. One bullet in her pimp's belly, another through the hand of his partner and a reserve for anyone else on scene at the time. He took a few for himself. The scene was violent in the typical Scorsese style, equalled or surpassed by Casino only. Jodie Foster when filming was fascinated by the assorted technical details for that one scene, despite initial concerns over her mental health. Knowing that, the scene seems unreal, aethereal, semi-cartoonish without removing any impact. If its intensity is lowered, it reflects Travis' comfort for violence. His history there too. Continued violence dilutes itself -- for him, it's an expression of victim status. (and Iris as an other). Words are always slave to reason, whereas savagery unrestrained sends succinct signals.

2.
Trauma -- that's the theme. Travis is the archetypal veteran-victim -- an alcoholic insomniac, unhelped, ignored, enraged at his supposed faults he twists into injustices to confront. His military history is oblique and only really implied by his own admission, but he appears to be traumatized and likewise responsive to it in others. He acts against himself -- his plots and actions are his reaction to the potential future traumas of those around him whom he can idolize (no empathy there). The consequences of his 'heroism' ensure the traumatization of the person he sought to save. As the scene following is, I'd imagine, a fantasy, one can assume he dies, destroying himself in a literal sense, and her longer-term. He ruined any chance he had of redeeming himself and removing her from a parasitic situation.

3.
Scorsese structures his pictures around a Catholic paradigm, an illustration that his every protagonist is in a purgative-punitive transition -- Taxi Driver is plotless, instead it acts as a series of trials against Travis. Any relationships he starts or has are a continuation of the suffering he seems destined to endure. He desires Betsy and she rejects him. He sees himself in Iris and he ruins her. Contrary to theologians throughout papal history, suffering is the erosion of divine consciousness.

4.
Everyone depicted is either wounded or placid inside wounding circumstances. It's a commentary on the most generic urban alienation while issuing the urge to heal. As mentioned, his attempts exacerbate suffering and the main message is 'vengeance is never liberatory.'

5.
Much scenery is seen from Travis' driverseat vantage (beautiful cinematography). He moves about the city inert. Constructed rooms all around his environment operate on casket principles -- the prevention of rot. If he (or we) held any hope of a legitimate connection with anyone or anything, base urban existences tend to hollow them right out. An aware audience should see the mundante isolation from their seats too. Their experience is shared in him, done to the extreme...Betsy considers him perverse following their date to a porn film. Iris says he's 'weird' -- both, obviously. Travis is too mangled by misanthropy to connect.

6.
Betsy's rejection, aside from the finale, is the film's emotional core. His methods oppose his goals and the resulting discomfort causes him more. This leads to a renewed suffering spiral and creates a new layer to his character -- personal abandonment, not just the perpetual asociality he felt. He idealizes her ('an angel') and dehumanizes her likewise, in affectionate and frictive ways...indicative of his widened mental distance.

7.
The film's style simulates his resentment: ragged, almost amateur shots for tense and combative feelings, still shots martialed and military, expressionist colors, perspectives, long-takes from pedestrian or passer-by positions. It has the same aesthetic of decay coloring most contemporary horror films. Travis is the film, the audience a reflective surface and the germs of his alienated reactions are our own. In him is our lack (of freedom, equality or community) realized. Travis is our Job.

8.
The scene in which Travis purchases weaponry from that suitcase salesman stuns. As does the moment he kills an armed robber in convenience store. He is a product of post-Vietnam atrophy -- he learned violence and relies on it in his interactions with the world, even as his personality perishes into some abstract nothingness. Taxi Driver restructures his world to encourage audience participation, sympathy for the man, questioning the ethics of that creative decision, or their own sense of moral limitation. It works as a Socratic Dialogue -- Travis converses with the audience and introspection follows: how justified is he when we see Iris from the same angle, a victim deserving a rescuer. Iris is the one character who connects, albeit in a predatory way. It reinforces the concept of connections as loci for coercion.

9.
Travis with the mohawk hair is distorted, a cracked or convex self unrecognized by the audience, a shadow personified. His self as an object (Taxi Driver) has shifted to that of subect -- the avenging angel, a returnee to the warrior caste so revered in every civilization. His new character is his rationalized spiral from one extreme to its opposite to its circular return. Any moral restraint is subverted and rage is the driving influence. He imagines his suicidal actions as the gift of a new liberty for the captive Iris. He identifies with her and in her his own neglected or burnt-away innocence -- Edenic.

10.
The last reliable image is Iris sobbing after Travis' spree. The impact of his actions are almost diluted in his dying dreamstate. He'd like to be remembered as a hero (reclaiming the lost valor of his military service?) but the ending impression is one of dour invalidation: he has contributed to her corruption and erasure as much as those exploiting her had. If we imagine past the confines of the screen-time, she is more trapped in her existence than prior but he is released of any responsibility.

11.
The social conditions that created Travis likewise effect the audience and initiated their need to escape their life-circumstances to watch the film.

12.
Conclusion: 5/5. Travis is everyman minus reason and accountability.