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Concept:

Movie Title: Taxi Driver (1976)

Film Introspection:

One of the most common elements in the works of existentialism is the theme of isolation and self-loathing. Taxi Driver (1976), directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader, stars Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, a socially awkward and mentally unstable Vietnam veteran who spends his sleepless nights driving a New York City cab. Bickle resembles the existential hero in that he cannot summon normal emotions about day-to-day events and is often extremely isolated. "Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There’s no escape. I’m God’s only man,” the antihero states.

Existentialism is a philosophical method of thinking that views humans, with will and consciousness, as being in a world of objects which do not have those qualities. The fact that humans are conscious of their mortality, and must make decisions about their life is what existentialism is all about. (Bullock, Alan & Trombley, Stephen 1999. The new Fontana dictionary of modern thought. 3rd ed, Fontana, London. p297/8 ISBN 0-00-255871-8)

Similar to the protagonists in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea, and Albert Camus’ The Stranger, with the first two being told exclusively through journal entries, Travis excessively chronicles his everyday life and strong disdain, or at the very least, indifference towards his fellow man. The Stranger’s Meursault, a Mediterranean native who basks little in the culture, even shows apathy at the news of his own mother’s death.

Like Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man, Travis is somewhat of a public servant. “I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn. I take ‘em to Harlem. I don’t care. Don’t make no difference to me. It does to some. Some wont even take spooks. Don’t make no difference to me.” Reoccurring threads throughout existentialist literature are characters that work in professions where they feel disassociated with the rest of the society, such as in the works of Franz Kafka. Examples include The Metamorphosis’ Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, The Trial’s Josef K., a chief financial officer of a bank, and The Castle’s K., who passes himself off as a land surveyor.

Taxi Driver is set in the morally bankrupt New York City of the 1970’s, where it’s landscape has made the twisted cabbie indifferent and eventually hostile, but fully aware of his own human condition.