Taxi Driver: is there definitive proof that Bickle really was a vet?

I agree. I think the interview scene is there mainly for exposition. However, reading into it, I think Paul Schrader may be suggesting a couple of things.
1. Travis was a very average Marine at best. He was not adept enough to win any awards or honors, but at that time, he had his sh** together enough to make it through his hitch without any kind of blemish on his record. Basically, he wasn't green beret material but he wasn't Gomer Pyle from FULL METAL JACKET , either.
2. He had very little formal education before he joined the Marines, and he was a bit of a hick from the sticks. He don't know moonlighting and hacking meant.

 

I agree, but it works. Many of the other supporting actors are a bit unusual
1. Leonard Harris, who played Pallantine, was a cultural critic on tv in New York.
2. Harry Northrup, who played Doughboy, was a friend of Scorsese, and he published poetry. He played bit parts in several Scorsese movies.
3.Steven Prince who played Easy Andy was also Scorsese's friend. He was a heroin addict and Neil Diamond's road manager.

 

The very large George Memmolli was supposed to play the crazy passenger that Scoresese played.

 

fixed mistake

 

The way he knows guns and that stuff would suggest he had experience in the army.

 

Where does the film show him having knowledge of guns? Someone who understands and respects the responsibility of arming themselves would go through the proper channels to get a gun, and many vets make gun ownership a priority. We never see this from Travis. Instead, we see a sketchy salesman able to make some fast money after Travis goes crazy and decides to gun down a politician. He also conceal-carries the firearms with his improvised devices, which doesn't suggest military experience either.

 

It’s either that (he’s full of crap and made it up) or Scorcese and DeNiro were ill prepared getting the details right for the role. I personally (re)watch this film now convinced he’s a bullcrapper.

But LH Oswald was a big time loser too and he was a marine and got an honorable discharge as well. So, there you go.

 

Hmmm...is Iris really a hooker? What about Sport? Perhaps he's pretending to be a pimp. I'm not sure we can trust Betsy as a legitimate worker with Charles Palatine's campaign. I'm thinking she's a spy for the opposition (would that be Ford or Carter?). By the way, how do we know that Travis really was employed as a taxi driver? Or maybe the taxi company Travis worked for was just a front for organized crime to launder money.

I'm beginning to think that none of the events actually happened as it was all made up in Travis Bickle's psyche.

 

Hmmm, great post. I like the way you peel the onion

 

While we're at it, maybe Betsy never really owned the Kris Kristofferson album! Maybe they went to see Barry Lyndon at the movies!

 

If Travis wasn't a vet, why bother having the character say he is one? It was not particularly important for getting his job interview, or dating Betsy, or getting to meet Iris, or gunning down Sport, or really anything beyond alluding to some PSTD that was a factor in his killing spree. My point is can see no reason to have Travis pretend he is a Vet in this movie. None.

 

Yep...you said it much better/less sarcastic way than I did.

 

Right. Of course he was "supposed to" be a vet. Part of the problem is that neither Scorsese, De Niro nor Schrader knew the first thing about how veterans acted. Since so much of Travis' inner world was based upon psychosis and fantasy, it begs the question what's true and what isn't. So questioning whether Travis is really a veteran seems like a valid question to me.

The film parallels King of Comedy where Pupkin claims throughout the film to be an up-and-coming comedian. This is borderline psychosis. He's just a loser playing make-believe in his mom's cellar. The twist comes at the end when he becomes a famous comedian. But it is still valid until then to doubt him. Heck, I wouldn't mind if folks interpreted the endings of both films to be fantasies of the protagonist, although that's not what the Scorsese intended.

 

He clearly was not a vet. Didn’t show him helping any animals.

 

I always figured him as a typical unreliable narrator with a healthy dose of delusions of grandeur. I wouldn't necessarily believe anything he tells anyone.

 

Slightly off-topic......but on the local news the other night a young police
officer was speaking about an arrest in a case. His name was Travis Buckle.

 

Like I said in earlier post, the interview scene was basically one of exposition. However, I think if Paul Schrader is trying to say something in that scene, it is that Travis was a rather unremarkable "nobody" before he flipped out and decided he was going to be an avenging angel.

 

That first scene is there for exposition yes, but it is there to introduce us to the character Bickle. Scorcese showed us a guy who’s just off. He is unfocussed, akward and socially inapt.

Notice the fog/smoke behind him when he’s walking in the door. Like he’s walking in there straight out of hell.

 

I was under the impression that the name "Bickle", and indeed the character himself, was at least partly influenced by Samuel Byck, who in 1974 hijacked (or tried to hijack) a plane in an effort to crash it into the White House. There are many parallels in their stories, and Byck sent tapes of long monologues to certain public figures that resemble Bickle's voice-over in the film.

Related to the premise of this thread, Byck was an Army veteran, and like Bickle was honorably discharged. However, it doesn't seem that Byck fought in any war since he joined after the armistice in Korea and was discharged before Vietnam.

Samuel Byck - Wikipedia

 

We ARE the people.

 

That boy can shoot fingers off at 50 yards!

 

I’ll have to re-read my copy of the script. I seem to remember it was implied however when Scorsese approached the material, he could have made it part of the delusions that drove Travis.

 

As you likely know, the primary inspiration for Bickle was Arthur Bremer - another would-be assassin who kept rambling journals a la Bickle and also intended to assassinate Nixon, but when that proved too difficult settled for crippling George Wallace instead. He’s still alive and somehow got paroled a few years ago.

 

paul schrader gave an unusual explanation for the name Travis Bickle

he said that said he chose the name Travis because it is soft sounding and it means to cross or travel.

he chose the name bickle because it was unpleasant and harsh sounding. he actually got the name from THE BICKERSONS. the bickersons was a radio comedy about a married couple who argued a lot, hence the name the bickersons.

 

Disagree, I think when the film begins, Bickle hasn't gone off the deep end. It's really only after his rejection by Betsy that he loses it. There's no evidence that he lies about anything early in the film, as when he mentions his service. Whether or not the filmmakers "knew the first thing about how veterans acted" doesn't enter into it - I would imagine and hope that not every single veteran is identical to another. The audience is very aware (perhaps up until the slightly surreal ending) of what is true and what is not. When he writes that card to his parents, the audience is fully aware of his delusion - we know he is not doing secret work for the government. The idea that he actually starts off right at the beginning of the film with a separate, almost imperceptible delusion that the audience never really even knows about, is a silly idea that, whether one agrees with it or not, undercuts an underlying character trait and personal past which possibly hints at some trauma that lead to his breakdown.

Pupkin is indeed a comedian, despite his delusions of how easy his success will come and the fact that he never performs out (and he never lies about that.) I don't think he ever claims to be "up and coming" in those terms. He actually has material and works it out, we see him practicing earlier on, even if we don't hear the material at that time. And then he gets on TV and somehow his practiced comedy actually works, for that audience. I don't think Pupkin is psychotic at all, he's not Bickle. If Pupkin's fantasies lead him to plan the murder of Jerry Langford, that could be psychotic. He's delusional, but more just as a very extreme version of how many people are in their minds - inwardly acting out past or future events in their minds, to ease their pain and feed their ego, and how a shattered illusion could make someone take dangerous and desperate action.