Shortly after we first encounter this insomniac cabbie, he’s already pondering his own fanatical brand of order-before-law social cleansing, predicting that a “real rain” will come to wash all the scum-“whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies”-off the streets. While Bickle has little time for conventional politics-he only declares an interest in presidential candidate Charles Palantine (Leonard Harris) because he fancies a crack at campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd)-he’s not apolitical.
#TAXI DRIVER MONOLOGUE SCRIPT DRIVER#
Viewing Taxi Driver today, it becomes apparent that while the urban landscape depicted by Martin Scorsese and DP Michael Chapman represents a poetically stygian version of pre–Mayor Koch Manhattan, its protagonist’s febrile psychological state is rooted in a timeless, prescient, and political reality. Nearly forty years after Taxi Driver’s release, Bickle’s image, left to float free of context, has long been so defanged that it can comfortably adorn the walls of student residence halls, and be appropriated for chuckles in wacky comedies such as the recent Neighbors (featuring a surreal De Niro costume party, in case you were curious). With his mohawk, shit-eating grin, DIY spring-loaded wrist-pistol, and “You talkin’ to me?” spiel, Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle is deeply enshrined in popular culture as seventies American cinema’s most charismatic psychopath.