Travis Bickle

Travis Bickle
First appearance	Taxi Driver
Created by	Paul Schrader Martin Scorsese
Portrayed by	Robert De Niro
Information
Nickname(s)	Cowboy, Killer
Aliases	Henry Krinkle
Gender	Male
Occupation	taxicab driver, US Marine Corps (retired)
Nationality	American

Travis Bickle is a fictional character from the 1976 film Taxi Driver, played by Robert De Niro. He is widely considered one of the most iconic characters in film history, and De Niro earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of him. He is greatly inspired by Arthur Bremer, who attempted to assassinate presidential candidate George Wallace on May 15, 1972.

Biography

Little is known about Bickle's past other than that he is a former Marine who served in the Vietnam War, has "not much" education, was given an honorable discharge in May 1973, and is 26 years old. He is socially inept, has few friends, and is suffering from insomnia. He takes a job as a graveyard shift cab driver to occupy his time. Working late at night in dangerous neighborhoods, his customers tend to include pimps, addicts, and thieves. He is visibly disgusted by them, and begins fantasizing about "cleansing" such "filth" from the streets.

He becomes smitten with a woman, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who works in the local campaign office of presidential candidate, Senator Charles Palantine. He often watches Betsy from his cab, and finally enters the office with the pretense of wanting to support the candidate, and asks her out. They meet for coffee, and Betsy finds him odd but intriguing, and agrees to see him again. He takes her to a porn theater he frequents. She is appalled and refuses to see him again.

After Betsy rejects him, Bickle becomes increasingly paranoid and starts acting out his vigilante fantasies. He buys several guns and takes to carrying them secreted about his person—taped to his limbs, for example, or in hidden spring-loaded holsters. He begins an intense physical training routine which consists of doing "50 pushups and 50 pullups" every morning to prepare for war. He famously practices a menacing, tough guy swagger in the mirror — "You talkin' to me?" — to use on whoever angers him. Eventually, he shaves his head into a Mohawk. He attends one of Palantine's speeches, apparently intent on shooting him. However, he draws the attention of Secret Service agents and flees.

He becomes obsessed with saving Iris (Jodie Foster), a 12-year-old prostitute he has seen on his route. He pays her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel), for her time, but is not interested in having sex with her; instead he tries to persuade her to leave prostitution and return home. Iris rebuffs him, only increasing his anger and resolve to take her away from a dangerous life. He confronts Sport and shoots him in the stomach with his S&W Model 36 snub nose and leaves him to die on the street. He then goes on a rampage through a brothel with his concealed weapons, while Iris is servicing a client. Bickle shoots the approaching bouncer's hand off with his .44 magnum as soon as he walks in, but is shot in the neck by a dying Sport from behind. This causes Travis to drop his .44 magnum, and he then guns down Sport with his snub nose (which Travis kept in his right hand, while the .44 magnum was in his left hand). Travis begins to advance only to have the enraged, wounded bouncer behind him trying to attack him while going up the stairs. The Mafioso who is being serviced by Iris both overhear the previous gunshots and sneaks behind the distracted Travis and shoots Travis' arm making him fall on the ground, causing him to drop his snub nose down the stairs as well. However the Mafioso is killed by Travis' Smith and Wesson Escort, hidden in his sleeve with his quick draw rig on his wrist. Travis finally gets to Iris. The bouncer, however, is still enraged over the loss of his hand, tackles Travis into her room, but is quickly overpowered and executed when Travis pulls his knife from his boot holster and stabs him in the hand. Travis grabs the dead Mafioso's snub nose and finishes the bouncer off in front of Iris's eyes. Out of weapons and injured severely, Travis lays on Iris's couch; only for the police to arrive. Travis stares at them and smiles, pointing his finger like a gun at his head.

The newspapers hail Bickle as a hero for rescuing Iris. While in the hospital, he receives a letter from her parents, thanking him profusely for returning their daughter to them (she had been sent home after the police arrived and found out she was a runaway). After recovering, he sees Betsy, who tells Bickle that she read about him in the papers, and when she gets out and asks him how much the cab fee was, he smiles and drives away.

Critical response and analysis

Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, Light Sleeper, and The Walker make up a series referred to variously as the "Man in a Room" or "Night Worker" movies. Screenwriter Paul Schrader (who directed the other three films) has stated that he considers the central characters of the four films to be one character, who has changed as he has gotten older.

In the American Film Institute's top 50 movie villains of all time, Bickle was named the 30th greatest film villain of all time. Empire magazine also ranked him 18th in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll.

The cynical cab driver Narasingh (played by Soumitra Chatterjee) in Satyajit Ray's Abhijan is seen as a prototype for the character of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Scorsese himself has credited Satyajit Ray as a major influence on his work.

Since the release of Taxi Driver in 1976, psychologists have analyzed Travis Bickle, and hypothesized what could have driven him to do what he did. The general consensus concludes that Travis was a psychopath; a man unaffected by sorrow or remorse, who will continue to do what he in his mind thinks is right. Several other theories have shown that Travis likely has some sort of self-defeating personality disorder. In several instances, particularly those with Betsy at the dirty movie theater, and his constant removal of himself from social situations, he has been given the opportunity to succeed, but has crushed it with his own self-doubt. He subconsciously chooses the option that will lead to his downfall, so that he will have to get up and keep trying, never to emerge victorious.

Sequel

In late January 2005 a sequel was announced by Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese. At a 25th anniversary screening of Raging Bull, De Niro talked about the story of an older Travis Bickle being in development. Also in 2000, De Niro mentioned interest in bringing back the character in conversation with Actors Studio host James Lipton.