A Still From the Picture Taxi Driver

I have seen the (1976) Martin Scorsese picture Taxi Driver at least six times over the last 35 years. Let me say a few words about the scene where the image comes from. It is late at night and New York Taxi driver Travis Bickle has stopped for a break at a 24 hour diner where he buys a couple of things and sits down at a table with a few other taxi drivers he knows. The other drivers try to engage Travis in small talk, but he does not participate in the discussion very much. And when he does say something, he talks about how he just heard on the radio about how someone was attacked with a knife earlier that night — a topic completely unrelated to the conversation the other drivers were having before that.

After Travis says his lines, the camera cuts to a view of a glass of water where Travis has just dropped a couple of Alka Seltzer tablets in and they start their bubbling effervescent action. The camera lingers on the glass for several seconds and the viewer comes to realize that the camera is showing what Travis is looking at. A couple of questions could be asked. Why is Travis looking so long at his glass rather than at the faces of his fellow drivers? Is he having trouble following the conversation because he is starting to lose touch with reality?

But, then again, sometimes a scene of glass of bubbling water is just a glass of bubbling water. It is up to the viewer to determine what the glass might or might not suggest about the character in the picture.