35.) The Poster
The black and white poster for Taxi Driver is simple but effective. It depicts an isolated individual with his head turned down in disgust at the filth surrounding him. That one still manages to perfectly capture the film's central theme of loneliness.
36.) A Walking Contradiction
Betsy describes Travis as a walking contradiction and she has a sound point. Travis says that someone needs to clean up the streets despite the filth of his own apartment and he turns his nose up at the hookers whilst regularly watching pornographic films. He protests too much and is secretly everything that he claims to hate- a sure sign that he actually hates himself.
37.) The First Date From Hell
This is the defining scene that shows us just how out of touch Travis is with the rest of society. He has seen other couples at the lewd theatre and assumes that a high class businesswoman would want to sit and watch such footage. It makes for an utterly cringe worthy sequence just when it had seemed that Travis was effectively romancing Betsy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJfOea-OVEg
38.) God's Lonely Man
In the book Scorsese on Scorsese, the director talks about a three week seminar he attended in China where a young student told him how much he identified with the loneliness in the film and wanted to know if it was possible to take the loneliness away:
People related to the film very strongly in terms of loneliness. I never realised what that image on the poster did for the film a shot of De Niro walking down the street with the line, In every city there's one man and we had thought that audiences would reject the film, feeling that it was too unpleasant and no one would want to see it.
The human element of Taxi Driver is so profound that anyone who has ever felt lonely or alienated can relate strongly to the inner conflicts of the film's tortured protagonist.
39.) Contemporary Importance
Taxi Driver reflected some of the violent news headlines of the time and held up a mirror to a troubled and deeply flawed society. Unfortunately of course the picture itself became partly responsible for influencing the actions of John Hinckley who tried to assassinate then President Ronald Regan. Hinckley was obsessed with both the film and actress Jodie Foster and claimed that he had done it to try to get Foster's attention. I'm sure he did but not in the perverse way that he had anticipated. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bj6aOgfcJU