Every time I watch Martin Scorsese's films,
I realize just how much insight the director has into human beings.
His insight calmly illuminates the anxious individual beings unable to settle in a society that is going through a period of boom and growth that seems to have no problems. And finally, critically pinches the absurdity and imbalance of the community hidden behind it.
Travis is a post-war generation. He does not return to his hometown, but remains in New York, working as a taxi driver and living a normal life. However, to him, 'normality' comes to him like another task to adapt to. The maladjustment of a man who directly experienced violence and misdeeds in a New York space represented by a democracy and peaceful community that everyone seems to have agreed to may be a natural result. Ironically, he still sees himself as a hero. So he can't stand the 'dirty and ugly things' of society, such as prostitution, drugs, assault, and illegal trafficking. He thinks he should define and judge the dark and drab back streets of New York, but no one sympathizes with his thoughts and actions. Completely isolated from human relationships, this man finally arrives at Iris, a girl who is caught by a pimp and lives a prostitution life. He recognizes each other as beings that can lessen each other's feelings of isolation and lack, and finally forms a human bond.
In fact, there is another woman Travis loves. While she is obsessed with her paternal love and protective instincts in her relationship with Iris, she wants to reveal her macho masculinity in her relationship with Betsy. However, on her hard-to-promised first date, she takes her to a porn theater, bluntly blowing up her relationship's prospects. Looking at Betsy and Travis, I think they represent the relationship between men and women who were at the extremes of American society at the time. A beautiful woman who works at the campaign headquarters and has her own culture and a sense of order as a member of society, and a shrewd man who forgets how to form human relationships and has an extremely ordinary job of disorder and relatively simple repetition. Contrary to the rising values of women, I feel that it adequately reflects the men of the post-war generation who were obscured by a false sense of heroism .
Travis's eyes exploding in the second half of the shootout sequence are arguably De Niro's best acting. Travis, once again gripped by loneliness after her relationship with Betsy breaks down, plans to assassinate a political candidate she supports, but fails. Shortly thereafter, he goes to the brothel where Iris is and engages in a fierce gunfight with the pimps. In this sequence, Travis appears in a completely different form than in the first half. Wearing Boeing sunglasses, a field jumper reminiscent of a military uniform, and an extremely prominent mohican hair symbolize that he has not yet fully recovered from the aftermath of the war, and at the same time, it can be seen that he expressed rebellion and disobedience to the society to which he belongs. can This intense appearance has risen to a unique position among various characters in the film history.
In a word, Travis can be seen as representing the clumsy and clumsy male image of the time. A 'taxi driver' who thinks, 'I have to do this', but does not have any legal rights and status, watches the streets of New York at night. A satirical struggle story of a small citizen who tries to approach someone as a lover, as a family, or as a judge, but is ignored and neglected.
In the final scene, after taking Betsy home safely, he looks in the rear-view mirror until she disappears, clearly showing how he still illuminates himself as a being with meaning.
Travis, unable to fully return from the past
, wanders the streets of New York for another day.
