Theme Of Loneliness In Taxi Driver

In Martin Scorsese’s neo noir: Taxi Driver (1976) Scorsese channels his theme of loneliness through the questionable motives of a young man called Travis Bickle, an all night taxi driver suffering from insomnia and living alone in downtown New York.

From the outset Travis vocalizes and addresses his loneliness through a diary he keeps and updates, “Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I’m God's lonely man (Taxi Driver). This honest, but disconcerting self-analysis is materialized throughout the film; Travis walks alone, drives alone, and eats alone (Figure 1.1) – (Figure 1.2); his loneliness festers but he does little to resolve it. Moreover, Travis also talks of his inability to sleep, and the drag of life and his distaste for society, “Twelve

hours of work and I still can't sleep. Damn. Days go on and on. They don't end.” (Taxi Driver) he believes the city is filled with “whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal.” (Taxi Driver)

It is partially within these musings that Travis’ personality could be defined as complicated and one that only becomes more perplexing as the film evolves. You could also say that Travis is an outsider, a man voyeuristically peering into a society that he claims to condemn. Paul Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver comments on Travis, stating that he is “the peeper, which is kind of an outsider, the guy who wanders around and looks into the windows of a culture or a civilisation, but can’t quite get inside.” To illustrate this point further Robert Kolker in his book A Cinema Of Loneliness, believes that “Taxi Driver is the portrait of an obsessive, a passive obsessive, so oppressed by his isolation that when he does act, it is only upon the dark and disconnected impulses triggered by his perceptions. (1980, p.234.235)

This ‘obsessiveness’ is readily highlighted throughout the film, specifically through Travis’ musings, as already mentioned.

However his loneliness is also translated through his attempts at forming relationships. One example of this comes when he pursues Betsy, a beautiful, blonde presidential campaigner. In one scene Travis stares at her from outside her office, he then walks in and introduces himself, claiming that he wants to volunteer, but this isn’t his intention, he asks her out on a date. Yet his method of doing so, is strange, for he attempts to invite her out on a date by offering up his judgement of her, “I think you're a lonely person. I drive by this place a lot and I see you here. I see a lot of people around you. And I see all these phones and all this stuff on your desk. It means nothing.” (Taxi Driver). It is therefore in this occurrence that suggests that Travis is attempting to engage with another person and thus moving away from his usual voyeuristic approach, to something more abrupt which only informs us further, of his social inability and lack of mannerisms, suggesting an individual with a tainted social

ability.

It can be argued that Travis doesn’t pursue Betsy to purge his loneliness, but rather, he does so to only lust over the beautiful blonde. “I first saw her at Palantine Campaign headquarters at 63rd and Broadway. She was wearing a white dress. She appeared like an angel. Out of this filthy mess, she is alone. They... cannot... touch... her.” (Taxi Driver)
The significance of Travis’ opinion of Betsy are analysed by Robert Kolker, who believes that Betsy is, “appearing to him as a woman in white who comes “like and angel” out of the “filthy mass” he sees himself living in” Moreover Kolker believes that Travis is attempting, “to project his own feelings on her” (p.195). This projection then, does not prove him to be an empathetic man, and rather it suggests that Travis is experimenting, giving this whole ‘human contact’ thing ago, but failing miserably.

Travis’ social inability is highlighted in another scene between Betsy and Travis, where he decides to take her to the ‘cinema’ for a date, yet he takes her to a porno movie, an interest of his that is highlighted earlier in the film. Betsy, clearly disgusted, then leaves “Taking me to a place like this is about as exciting as saying to me "Let's fuck." It in this sleazy ‘mistake’ though, that the film is able to affirm Travis’ blatant social naivety, and his lack of consideration for other people, Peter Hofstee in his paper: God’s Lonely Man: The Appeal of Loneliness in Taxi Driver, suggests that this scene “serves as a confirmation of his own hopeless, doomed condition. He wants to ruin the date with her because he wants to be alone.” What’s more, as Betsy thereafter ignores him, Travis’ hostility grows. He rings her, sends her flowers, but without success. And in a climatic scene, a tired and desperate Travis barges into her office and confronts her, but as he is ushered out a darker side of Travis bleeds through. He screams “You're in a hell, and you're gonna die in hell like the rest of 'em. You're like the rest of 'em.” (Taxi Driver) this enraged comment again suggests that Travis is a sociopath, a person who cannot handle their emotions, an affect of being by on his own for too long. Paul Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver comments, “That mechanism, of not having what you can get, and not wanting what you have, is the mechanism of loneliness. We are not lonely by nature, we make ourselves lonely, Travis makes himself lonely.”

As well his failed attempts at igniting a relationship, Travis is man full of uninformed political ideals. For example, Travis’ viewpoints on what should be done with the city are cynical, blunt and extremely violent. This is demonstrated one night when the presidential candidate, Palantine enters his taxicab. Travis, in slight awe suggests to him that, “ someone should just take this city and just... just flush it down the fuckin' toilet.” This is the talk of an extremist, and only propels the ambiguity of what Travis may wind up doing, and what’s more puts forward his segregation from society as well as his hate of it.

Peter Hoftsee’s suggests that, “The most straightforward way in which the film presents his deliberate isolation is by means of the taxi.” At the beginning of the film, Travis is seen in the offices of a taxi company looking for work, and when the personnel officer asks what his availability is, Travis simply replies, “I'll work anytime, anywhere.” This small chunk of dialogue is significant, for it suggests that Travis is using the taxi as a means to diffuse his insomnia, as well as to enclose himself and escape society.

As we have already explored, Travis is an individual who is acutely aware of his loneliness, this is exemplified by his diary entries, his failed attempts at forming relationships and also his alarming viewpoints. However, Scorsese also achieves this loneliness through Travis’ environments. For example, the New York backdrop that Travis is placed against, is full of pornos, drugs, crime, pimps and prostitution and his apartment messy and unkempt, like the city. Ironically, these elements reflect Travis’ most prominent associations, a narrative choice made by Scorsese to only perpetuate Travis’ hostility as well as his contradictive personality. Robert Kolker suggests that, “Taxi driver rigorously structures a path to violence that is separate from community, separate from the exigencies of any “normal life”, separate from any rational comprehension, but only the explosion of an individual attempting to escape from a self-made prison.” (Kolker, 1980, p.223)

When Kolker talks of a “self-made prison”, it exemplifies exactly Travis’ issue. He’s too dry and apathetic to act as a socially able individual, too self-aware and enclosed within his own web of isolation. To illustrate this further Robert Kolker suggests that, “its central character lives completely enclosed in a city of dreadful night; he is so removed and alone that everything he sees becomes a reflection of his distorted reflections.” One example of this arrives in the film’s opening sequence (figures 1.3 – 1.5), here, we witness Travis’ urban world. It’s intoxicated with smoke; the streets are teeming with people. But Travis’ receptive eyes, stare out from a darkened vehicle as he analyses the vibrant world around him. In Robert Kolker’s analyses of this scene, he comments saying that “The strange movement of the people on the street, our gaze both at and from this foreboding car and its occupant, move us into a realm of distortion and threat in which we remain throughout the film.” (1980, p. 187) Moreover, this scene also implies that those who are external to Travis’ taxicab are there to be observed and nothing more, highlighting Travis’ obsession with the society he cannot reside in, as well as his segregation from it.

Travis’ isolation is an amalgamation of many elements, infused fluently together to create a man who knows his loneliness too well, but who refuses to medicate it. The fact that his actions are seldom orthodox and his inability to form relationships with any depth are the blueprints of the lonely man. What’s more his inability to sleep, his desire to ride a taxi at night as well as his hostility to society is only propelled by his backdrop, and the clusters of society he meekly attempts to dodge. After all, he is, “God’s lonely man”.