The 1976 film Taxi Driver is a work of fiction, but it is grounded in a hauntingly "true" atmosphere of post-Vietnam War New York City. The screenwriter, Paul Schrader, based Travis Bickle’s psychological spiral on his own experiences with chronic insomnia, social isolation, and "aimless wandering" through the city's underbelly during a period of deep depression. While Travis is a fictional character, the "grit and decay" of 1970s Manhattan depicted in the film—characterized by high crime rates, open-air vice in Times Square, and a general sense of urban abandonment—was a very real reality for New Yorkers at the time. The film also accurately captured the "Veteran's Disconnect," where many men returned from Vietnam with undiagnosed PTSD and a feeling of total alienation from the society they were meant to protect. While the specific plot involving the assassination attempt and the shootout is a dramatic invention, the film's portrayal of a "lonely man" warped by his environment remains a definitive and "truthful" psychological portrait of urban rot and the darker side of the American dream.