Travis Bickle’s real-life inspiration set to be paroled
August 27th, 2007 by Scott Marks
Q: What do austere auteur Robert Bresson, religious founder John Calvin and bungling political assassin Arthur Bremer have in common?
A: They were all prime inspirations for Paul Schrader’s Taxi Driver screenplay. Schrader cites Bremer’s autobiography An Assassins Diary as the well of hatred from which Travis Bickle sprung. For those of you too young to remember, it was Bremer whose bullet permanently put Alabama’s racist governor George Wallace in a wheelchair.
Many were quick to fault Bremer for his miserable marksmanship.
Bremer’s “King Midas touch in reverse” eventually rubbed off on John Hinkley. Hinkley, the man who viewed Taxi Driver as a how-to-pick-up-chicks manual, attempted to gun down Ronald Reagan
If nothing else, credit Bremer with an assist.
After serving 35 years of a 53 year sentence in a Maryland slammer, Bremer, 57, is set for a December 16 release.
The news comes just one week after the release of a special 2 DVD commemorative collector’s edition of Taxi Driver
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