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Taxi Driver: Is Travis Bickle a hero or a psycho?
Anyone who's seen the movie understands how strange and morally ambiguous the main character was. so did you view him as a hero or a psycho? Why?
3 Answers
- 8 years ago
i've seen it said that he is an anti-hero which means he doesn't really have the characteristics of a hero and blurs the line between hero and villian.
EDIT:(here is something from imdb)
Is Travis Bickle a hero or a villain?
Travis Bickle is often erroneously referred to as an "anti-hero", although every fact points out that Travis was certainly no hero. Screenwriter Paul Schrader has said "The irony of him becoming a hero is in the script". In relation to the sound heard at the end of the film, as previously pointed out, director Martin Scorsese said "I decided I'd put something on that shows that the timer in Travis starts to tick again, the bomb that's about to explode again". Bickle is a mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran. It is fair to say that his state of mind is the result of the effects of the horrors of war that turned him into a violent psychopath. However the point still remains that he is a violent psychopath, unstable and capable of extreme violence against others. It should be pointed out that just because Travis kills bad people in the film does not make him good. . Travis shows signs of a mental breakdown as the film goes on. After killing a robber in a convenient store, Travis is seen watching the television of young men and women dancing happily to Jackson Browne's "Late for the Sky". His reaction is that of general alienation as if seeing people together in a less than violent way is too much for him to take. Although his heart may have been in the right place (or at least he thinks it's in the right place) his frame of mind has been distorted by war, loneliness, and filth he witnesses everyday on the streets that lead him to commit unspeakable atrocities. He is not an inherently evil person, but has nevertheless became a deranged gunman and danger to society, ultimately becoming to very thing he sought to get rid of. Therefore, Travis Bickle is, and was intended to be a villain. AFI listed him as the 30th greatest film villain of all time.
Source(s): imdb