After he takes a job as a taxi driver to cope with chronic insomnia, Travis Bickle (Robert “You lookin' at me” De Niro), ex-Marine with a sporty mohawk, begins to see the dark city as one vast cesspool of crime and concupiscence. Raunchy streets by night, seedy porn theaters by day, and only one bright spot, the angelic Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a worker for a political campaign. When his angel takes it on the wing, Bickle decides to clean the streets of its depraved human debris. To achieve an “R” rating, director Scorsese famously desaturated the film's color, muting the gore while creating an otherworldly cityscape.