Notes on Schrader on Schrader

I read this book for my annotated bibliography for my screenwriting degree. It's a low residency program so I have to compile a reading list and write a feature length screenplay. I chose to start out with a book about Paul Schrader; read his screenplays and watch his films. So far I've watched Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, and Light Sleeper all of which were well done. I have written blog posts about these films, check them out if you like.

The first part of the book is about Schrader's background. He was born in Northern Michigan to a tight knit community of Dutch protestants. He was very religious in his youth. He didn't see a movie until he was seventeen. During college he took an avid interest in film. From there he went to UCLA and graduated from there with a film degree. After that he lived in LA and watched films and wrote for small publications. He had an opportunity to be a critic a major newspaper but passed on it to pursue work as a screenwriter. Soon enough he fell in with the right crowd, met Scorsese, and made Taxi Driver which catapulted him to stardom.

The more I read about Schrader the more I became aware of his political leanings and his opinions about film. He was one of a few, if not the only critic who dismissed Easy Rider as a crappy film. This caused me to reconsider the film in a new way. I disagree with Schrader's dismissal of the film as not good enough. I like the film. Easy Rider along with Bonnie and Clyde and the Graduate stand to me as the leading films of the New Hollywood. Taxi Driver is certainly in that group, even thought it came a few years later.

To me Schrader seems to be classicist. He deals a lot with biblical themes. A common theme in his work is the redeeming hero which comes through in the movies I have seen so far. Taxi Driver and Light Sleeper for sure have a redeeming character. American Gigolo not so much. Travis Bickel is right wing extremist who becomes a hero by killing gangsters and liberating a teenage prostitute. Willem Defoe in Light Sleeper becomes a hero by killing Tis who is Euro trash.

The films of Schrader's that I have watched are classcial. Most prominently in how they are structured. They all follow a linear structure. There are no distortions of reality. The hero is clearer revealed, the conflict is obvious, the resolution precise.

I am going to read and watch Schrader's further collaborations with Scorsese; Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ and write further about Schrader's work as a screenwriter.