[Taxi Driver] is, in part, a film about films. But it is unusual in being expressive of, and simultaneously about, a particular kind of film, which might be called "the pornography of violence." Through the windshield of Travis Bickle's cab, the audience sees the repeated image of movie marquees. Through most of the film, these marquees advertise erotic films, displaying titles like "Swedish Marriage Manual" or "Anita Nymphet." But after the film's bloody catharsis, and subsequent apotheosis of Travis, as a vigilante hero, the surrealistic street scene behind the closing credits reveals marquees, which contain the following camera-selected fragments, "Charles Bronson," "Mafia," "Blood," and "Killer." Although the cathartic scene of Taxi Driver includes the bloody killing of a "mafioso," the effect of the film is far different from that of other vigilante films, such as the Bronson vehicle, Death Wish. Scorsese [and coscreenwriter Paul Schrader] … present a protagonist with whom the audience will initially identify, but from whom they will unexpectedly be jolted into alienation. The alienation effect differentiates the film from the Violence genre, upon which it comments, and is achieved through the metamorphosis of Travis from a figure of naturalistic film fantasy to a horrifyingly familiar image of media "reality." After his brief incarnation as a political assassin, Travis returns in the final scene to the conventional hero image, which the audience is unexpectedly and uncomfortably forced to reject.
In this alternation between fantasy, truth, and fantasy, the film makes certain "connections," (one of its recurrent terms) between subjective aspects of contemporary culture and specific events of recent history. The overt externalizing of fantasy differentiates a psychotic person from a normal person. (pp. 109-10)
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