Paul Schrader
American director, born in 1946 in Grand Rapids (Michigan).
Paul Schrader: Iconoclast of New Hollywood? The author of the cult script of Taxi Driver and an emblematic director of American independent cinema, grew up in a Calvinist family that prohibited images. His life tipped in favour of the big screen when he discovered film at eighteen – seventy-five minutes of Pickpocket and his fate was sealed. A young critic, he educated his gaze through European and Japanese cinema. His eye was further honed by the ethics and mystique of moving images, by the Transcendental Style in Film (a 1972 essay) which he identified in Bresson, Ozu, or Bergman. In the mid-1970s, Schrader became a storyteller. In his films, writings, or tours, we find a lone contemporary with perverted ideals. This character wears different masks: he is Pollack’s Yakuza (1975), the driver in Taxi Driver, the boxer in Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1976, 1980), the dealer in Light Sleeper (first collaboration with Willem Dafoe), or this American Gigolo (1980). This individual tormented by paradoxes follows ever-actualized Stations of the Cross, from First Reformed (2017) to The Card Counter (on the world of casinos, 2021). In 2022, he won a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival.
Writer : Yakuza by Sydney Pollack (1975) – Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese (1976) – Obsession by Brian De Palma (1976) –Rolling Thunder by John Flynn (1977) – Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg (1977) – Old Boyfriends by Joan Tewkesbury (1979) – Raging Bull by Martin Scorsese (1980) – Mosquito Coast by Peter Weir (1986) – The Last Temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese (1988) – City Hall by Harold Becker (1996) – Bringing Out the Dead by Martin Scorsese (1999)
Director : Blue Collar (1978) – Hardcore (1979) – American Gigolo (1980) – Cat People (1982) – Mishima (1985) – Light of Day (1987) – Patty Hearst (1988) – The Comfort of Strangers (1990) – Light Sleeper (1992) – Witch Hunt (1995) – Touch (1997) – Affliction (1997) – Forever Mine (1999) – Auto Focus (2002) – Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) – The Walker (2007) – Adam Resurrected (2008) – The Canyons (2013) – Dying of the Light (2014) – Dog Eat Dog (2016) – First Reformed (2017) – The Card Counter (2021) – Master Gardener (2022)