Butch aka Travis

Im doing a lot of reasearch for my uni assignment at the moment, and due to the natuere of my chosen topic i am goiung through a lot of interesting stuff and just deleting it. Alas i have deleted a whole bunch of interesting trivia already, but i will endevour to include the interesting parts from here on in

· At one point, Roman Polanski and Jack Nicholson got into such a heated argument that Polanski smashed Nicholson’s portable TV with a mop. Nicholson used the TV to watch L.A. Lakers basketball games and kept stalling shooting.

· According to Roman Polanski’s autobiography, he was outraged when he got the first batch of dailies back from the lab; due to the success of The Godfather (1972), producer Robert Evans had ordered the lab to give this movie a reddish look. Polanski demanded that the film be corrected.

· Roman Polanski forced Robert Towne to sit and re-write the script with him. Towne was so opposed to this idea that he would argue with Polanski non-stop.

· Faye Dunaway’s distinctive look was inspired by Roman Polanski’s memories of his mother, who in the pre-WWII era would fashionably wear penciled-on eyebrows, and have her lipstick shaped in the form of a Cupid’s bow.

· Peter Bogdanovich turned down the chance to direct Chinatown. He later regretted his decision.

· Paul Schrader has said that his main influence for Taxi Driver was the diary of would-be George Wallace assassin Arthur Bremer. Bremer’s writings, published under the title An Assassin’s Diary fascinated Schrader during a period of time when he found himself recently divorced and living in his car. Another influence Schrader acknowledges is the film The Searchers starring John Wayne. In it, a war veteran comes home to find that his young niece has been kidnapped by a band of Comanche Indians. Ethan (John Wayne) embarks on an obsessive quest to bring her back, completely ignoring her own feelings on the matter. This influence is directly evident in the latter part of the film when Travis attempts to rescue Iris from Sport. Coincidentally, Sport at one point calls Travis a “cowboy” and during their final confrontation Sport’s attire resembles that of a stereotyped Native American.