Extended Cut

Before I sat down to write TAXI DRIVER, I reread Sartre's Nausea, because I saw the script as an attempt to take the European existential hero, that is, the man from The Stranger, Notes from the Underground, Nausea, PICKPOCKET (1959), LE FEU FOLLET (1963), and A MAN ESCAPED (1956), and put him in an American context. In so doing, you find that he becomes more ignorant, ignorant of the nature of his problem. Travis's problem is the same as the existential hero's, that is, should I exist? But Travis doesn't understand that this is his problem, so he focuses it elsewhere: and I think that is a mark of the immaturity and the youngness of our country. We don't properly understand the nature of the problem, so the self-destructive impulse, instead of being inner-directed, as it is in Japan, Europe, any of the older cultures, becomes outer-directed. The man who feels the time has come to die will go out and kill other people rather than kill himself.

— Paul Schrader

I saw Tim Bradstreet's art, you know, and the realism of that, I thought, "wow, if we could do that, that would be really cool." And that's kind of how they sort of roped me in. You know, in other words they just said yes to everything I said. And, you know, I like to think that I brought a little more realism into the project that wasn't there initially. And I was always trying to push to make Taxi Driver.

— Thomas Jane

Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up.

— Taxi Driver

Those who do evil to others, the killers, the rapists, psychos, sadists, you will come to know me well. Frank Castle is dead. Call me 'The Punisher'.

— The Punisher

It really did for the character what Sam Raimi's Spider-Man did for its. People unfamiliar with the comics like to point out the obvious influence of Garth Ennis' work. The real ones know that Dan Abnett's Year One is an even bigger influence, down to the very structure of the story and certain lines of dialogue being lifted directly from the comic. This movie not only perfectly captures the nature of The Punisher and his motivations, it also brings all the best elements of the comic books into one story and improves on the fundamental lore (e.g. the t-shirt with the symbol being a sentimental item rather than just something worn to look "scary".) It's a shame we never got the sequel (not counting Dirty Laundry which I need to rewatch) cause then we would've really seen Frank have to live with his crippling suicidal depression that we only get a glimpse of here.