Paul Schrader

Paul Schrader, the acclaimed director of Affliction, The Comfort of Strangers, American Gigolo, Blue Collar and Cat People, and the screenwriter of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ, was born in 1946 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He had a Calvinist upbringing, and did not see his first film until he was in his late teens. His interest in film increased as he attended Grand Rapids’ Calvin College, a liberal arts/seminary, where he began programming films at a local cinema, while still planning to be a minister. In the summer of 1967, he took three courses in film at New York’s Columbia University. Through a friend, he met critic Pauline Kael, who told him, “You don’t want to be a minister – you want to be a film critic.”

After graduating from Calvin in 1968, he attended UCLA's film school, soon becoming the film critic for the L.A. Free Press, before being fired for panning Easy Rider. Next Schrader began editing Cinema Magazine. His thesis on Ozu, Bresson and Dreyer was published as Transcendental Style in Film by the University of California Press. After graduating from UCLA, he became a fellow at the American Film Institute. During this time, he was mentored by directors such as Jean Renoir and Roberto Rossellini, as well as architect/designer Charles Eames, who Schrader considered his greatest influence. “Eames taught me that there is a visual logic in life and that to be a poet, or a poet of ideas doesn’t mean you have to use language,” says Schrader.

Schrader wrote his first screenplay, Pipeliner, about a young man who finds out he has very little time to live, so he goes back home and works on an oil pipeline. Then Schrader had a period of isolation that inspired his screenplay for Taxi Driver, written in ten days. He soon received a letter from his brother Leonard, who was living in Kyoto, Japan. There he had been watching a lot of Japanese gangster movies. The two brothers teamed up to write the screenplay for The Yakuza, for which they were paid the then-record sum of $325,000. The film, directed by Sydney Pollack in 1974, starred Robert Mitchum and Ken Takakura. Schrader next collaborated with Martin Scorsese with the film Taxi Driver, nominated for four Academy Awards and winner of the Golden Palme at Cannes in 1976.

In 1977, Schrader made an impressive debut as a writer/director with Blue Collar, starring Harvey Keitel, Richard Pryor and Yaphet Kotto as three Detroit autoworkers who try to rob their own union payroll. He followed with Hardcore (1979), about a Michigan man (George C. Scott) searching for his daughter who has been drawn into the seamy world of pornography. American Gigolo (1980), starred Richard Gere as a male prostitute in a gleaming, high-style Los Angeles. Schrader’s first project not to come from his own idea was Cat People (1982), a remake of the classic Val Lewton atmospheric horror film, starring Nastassja Kinski.

One of Schrader’s favourite films is Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), about the legendary Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. Light of Day, is about a girl’s (Joan Jett) need to play rock ‘n’ roll, despite the wishes of her religious mother (Gena Rowlands). Patty Hearst (1988) followed the story of the kidnapped heiress (Natasha Richardson), kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Next was the erotic thriller The Comfort of Strangers, written by Harold Pinter, about a vacationing English couple (Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett) who are befriended by a wealthy Venetian gentleman (Christopher Walken) and his wife (Helen Mirren).

Willem Dafoe plays a drug courier going through a crisis as he makes his deliveries in 1991’s Light Sleeper. Schrader followed with his first TV movie, Witch Hunt, an offbeat film starring Dennis Hopper, which combines a murder mystery, magic and a Hollywood setting. He next adapted Elmore Leonard’s novel Touch, the tale of a miracle healer (Skeet Ulrich) and the evangelist turned RV salesman (Christopher Walken) who tries to exploit his powers.

One of the greatest triumphs of Schrader’s career is Affliction (1997), based on Russell Banks’ novel. A deeply troubled sheriff in a small New Hampshire town (Nick Nolte) continues to investigate a suspicious hunting death while things occur that cause him to mentally disintegrate. Both Nolte and James Coburn (who played Nolte’s raging, alcoholic father) were nominated for Academy Awards for the film, and Coburn won the prize as Best Supporting Actor. Schrader followed with Forever Mine (1999), a tale of love, betrayal and retribution, starring Joseph Fiennes, Ray Liotta and Gretchen Mol.

Schrader has had a remarkable career as a screenwriter, most notably for his collaborations with Scorsese on Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1998). Among his other notable screenplays for other directors are Obsession (Brian de Palma, 1976), Rolling Thunder (John Flynn, 1977), Old Boyfriends (Joan Tewkesbury, 1979), The Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir, 1986) and City Hall (Harold Becker, 1995).

Schrader received the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America in 1999. He has also been nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards: Light Sleeper (screenplay), Touch (direction and screenplay), and Affliction (direction and screenplay).

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