Taxi Driver - What Does The Ending Really Mean?

1. Does Travis Die?

Taxi Driver is a surreal feature from start to finish, and this was very much Scorsese's intention. In the Faber & Faber book, Scorsese on Scorsese, the director speaks of his desire to instil a sense of surrealism to the proceedings, and how it manifests in the character of Travis, who he refers to as an "avenging angel" of sorts. When taken together, these two elements lend Taxi Driver a dreamlike quality, and nowhere is this more apparent than during the film's climax.

Travis enters the brothel like a man with a death wish, but there's also another way to look at it. This is a man so deluded, so self-righteous, that he believes he can walk out of this place alive, despite the fact he's easily outgunned. Scorsese has previously mentioned that Bickle's attempted suicide was also meant as a reference to rituals practiced by Samurai, lending more weight to the former interpretation, but it could also be the case that Bickle's wartime experiences have come back to haunt him; he'd rather kill himself than be captured, a reality the veteran no doubt faced day to day as a Marine in Vietnam.

This is what makes the prospect that he survived his encounter at the end such an unlikely one. The way the violence is framed by Michael Chapman exemplifies the film's surreal nature in the extreme, playing out in dreamlike fashion as the colour desaturates, and Bickle takes blow after blow from his targets.

Then, all of a sudden, time stands still. Bickle bleeds out on the bed (moments after trying to shoot himself in the head), and the camera pans backwards to unveil the carnage lying in his wake. It's in this moment that the story of Travis Bickle comes to an end. Visions of his heroic reception only reiterate the tragedy of his delusion, and that, in reality, the Travis Bickles of the world aren't revered - they're reviled.

What do you think happens in Taxi Driver's ending? Does Travis really die? Sound off in the comments below!