Taxi Driver - The Danger of Self Imposed Loneliness 5/5

The movie focuses on Travis Bickle, a man trapped in loneliness. Not any kind of loneliness but a self imposed loneliness. Travis takes the stance of “me against the world.” The world is full of dirty people, while Travis views himself as a saint. What you start to learn is that loneliness can stem from a self righteous attitude. We typically think loners are down trodden and outcasts because society is cruel. While that may be true it’s not always the case. Sometimes loneliness stems from conceit and envy. 

Upon a few watches of this movie what you realize is that the end of the movie cuts into the beginning of the film. In other words if you took the last frame of the movie and put it in front of the opening frame you’d see that the one leads into the other. This movie is essentially a loop. This kind of dangerous lifestyle is on repeat, and goes around and around.

Proverbs 18:1 says that the one who isolates themselves is a fool. They take an arrogant, self righteous, self sufficient approach to life and cut themselves off from those around them. This is a great example of a vicious cycle, where a person cannot break themselves away from their own fallen nature. It takes someone more powerful than ourselves to free us from our own depraved nature. Taxi driver is a great example of this.