Robert De Niro · 1976 · Signature Roles
Travis Bickle is not a character an actor plays for applause.
Travis Bickle is not a character an actor plays for applause. He is a lonely, sleepless cab driver drifting through a New York that feels permanently at night, and De Niro plays him from the inside out: the awkward politeness, the journal entries, the slow narrowing of a mind that cannot find a place to rest.
De Niro prepared by actually driving a cab in New York, and the research shows in the small things — the way Travis handles fares, the way he watches the city through glass. The film’s most famous scene, the mirror monologue, was largely improvised, and it remains terrifying precisely because it is not performed as madness. It is performed as a man rehearsing a self he wishes he had.
Taxi Driver won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and became one of the most debated films of its decade. De Niro never explained Travis or excused him. He simply showed him, completely, and left the judgment to us.