Taxi Driver Interpretation

I think the different interpretations of the film Taxi Driver to be very interesting. I specifically found the theory that we discussed in class the whole movie is Travis’s dreaming to have the best perspective of the film. 

My interpretation of the movie is that the whole movie is a dream while Travis in still in a coma. Travis is an isolated insomniac, who spends his nights driving a New York cab. He is “God’s lonely man” Much of what we see of the city is viewed through his windshield. After long night shifts, he still can't sleep and spends hours in porno theaters or alone in his room. Travis is a character who is invisible to all of society. No matter what he does good or bad, whether it's helping Violet or trying to be nice to a "date" or even going nuts and shaving his head, he cannot make people notice him. He comes to the conclusion that killing a presidential candidate will make people notice him.

Even more convincing of the dream scenario, the scene where he drives Cybil to her place and lets her out as a kind of final farewell to his life just before he dies, driving into the streets of New York is the perfect symbol for hell. Taxi Driver is a nightmare, and like all nightmares it doesn't tell us half of what we want to know. We're not told where Travis comes from or what his specific problems are, but instead an illustration of some days in his life.