Taxi Driver

I believe that you will see some similarities in Taxi Driver compared to the previous three films we've watched. There is a strain of existentialism (remember, we talked about this term after screening The Hitch-Hiker) that runs through all of these films, but it is most obvious in Taxi Driver. Can you talk about how your understanding of existentialism is embodied in this film and the others we're viewing in this last unit? Also, what do you make of the burst of violence that happens near the film after all that brooding, all that voice-over driving and solitary watching? What do you make of the real conclusion, when Betsy (Cybil Shepherd) ends up back in Travis' (DeNiro) cab? Scorsese called this his "feminist film" which, I suspect, will be surprising to many considering the small roles that women have in film compared to DeNiro's psychopath. What he meant was Travis embodied all the worst natures in manhood taken to the extreme and that he viewed women as dichotomies, either whores or virgins, but not much in between.