Paul Schrader
Paul Schrader
Paul Joseph Schraderis an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. Schrader wrote or co-wrote screenplays for four Martin Scorsese films: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christand Bringing Out the Dead. Schrader has also directed 18 feature films, including his directing debut crime drama, Blue Collar, the somewhat autobiographical crime drama Hardcore, his 1982 remake of the horror classic Cat People, the crime drama American Gigolo, the biographical drama Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, the cult...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth22 July 1946
CityGrand Rapids, MI
CountryUnited States of America
His gifts are now more social than sexual. He's this society walker who has his lady friends, and a boyfriend on the side.
It's an old-fashioned romance of the highest order, a real melodrama, which I wrote and directed and financed. Nobody paid me to do this film. If a studio had made it, everyone would be saying that I had whored out, but in fact I had to fight to raise the financing, so if I did whore out, I whored out to my own melodramatic side.
In the end it's a revenue stream. And all revenue streams eventually reach the sea.
I don't believe that anymore but you certainly know that world. But I wasn't Catholic. It was slightly different. The metaphorical strength of that stuff, of those stories, whether it's stories from the Bible or stories from contemporary mythology like The Exorcist have enormous metaphorical weight.
All these teachers and [screenwriting] books mean you see movies that have been worked over by more committees wielding more rules, that all originality and authorship is lost. That's why you're seeing superstars like Brad Pitt in THE FIGHT CLUB and Tom Cruise in MAGNOLIA. They're desperately searching for people writing and directing off-formula movies.
There's no escape. I'm God's only man.
I was raised as a Calvinist, which is doctrine-driven. And though there are many things wrong with Calvinism, you are at least encouraged to argue about things.
The clock is impotent; mechanical time does not affect those living in an eternal present.
You can't take contradiction away. Part of the fun of it is that the contradiction never really quite goes away.
Ultimately, it's an illusion that you can understand yourself.
I want to be happy; why do I do things that make me unhappy?
You think it's a blessing to know what God wants?
The problem with The Exorcist was that I wasn't holding any cards. They paid me for the movie, so they own the movie. It's like if you made this chair and I buy it from you. You want me to sit on the chair, and I want to put it in my fireplace. What are you gonna do? Time to go off and make another chair.