Taxi Driver Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Stanley Kauffmann

Critical Essay by Stanley Kauffmann

[Taxi Driver, written by Paul Schrader, centers on Travis Bickle, an ex-Marine] who becomes a New York taxi driver, who is willing to drive at night even in the riskiest parts of town, who lives a lonely, grubby life even though he makes an adequate living, who keeps a journal, who goes from ten hours' nightwork straight to porno films because he can't sleep, who develops a crush on a distant blonde beauty, fails with her, then assumes a knightly stance toward a twelve-year-old prostitute in the East Village. He shows increasing signs of psychosis, arms himself with a knife and several pistols, attempts the life of a political candidate for whom the blonde works, fails, then kills the pimps of the child-whore. There is a postlude after the presumed finish, intended to be ironic but which only blazons the defects of what has gone before and crystallizes the picture's...
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