Books, Arts & Manners: From Schrader to Schroeder

PRETENTIOUSNESS may not be the deadliest sin in a filmmaker, but neither is it venial. Paul Schrader, to judge by his films and writings, could not have laughed at himself more than a couple of times in his life. The product of a Midwestern Calvinist upbringing, Schrader seems to have been at equal pains to live it down and cash in on it. Accordingly, he came to the fore with Transcendental Style, his film-school thesis on Ozu, Bresson, and Dreyer, which made for a short book in a very grand manner; its index reads like something out of The Bluffer’s Guide to Total Erudition.

In the French manner, Schrader began as a writer on film and progressed to filmmaking, first as a scenarist, then as a director. As a screenwriter, he is best known for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull for Martin Scorsese, and Obsession for Brian De Palma. But I wonder how many of the films he directed and, usually, wrote ring a bell in a non-buff’s memory: Blue Collar, Hardcore, American Gigolo, Cat People (the remake), Mishima, and Patty Hearst (the last-named from a screenplay by Nick Kazan)? Among filmdom’s snobs, however, Schrader is a big name.

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John Simon

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PRETENTIOUSNESS may not be the deadliest sin in a filmmaker, but neither is it venial. Paul Schrader, to judge by his films and writings, could not have laughed at himself more than a couple of times in his life. The product of a Midwestern Calvinist upbringing, Schrader seems to have been at equal pains to live it down and cash in on it. Accordingly, he came to the fore with Transcendental Style, his film-school thesis on Ozu, Bresson, and Dreyer, which made for a short book in a very grand manner; its index reads like something out of The Bluffer’s Guide to Total Erudition.

In the French manner, Schrader began as a writer on film and progressed to filmmaking, first as a scenarist, then as a director. As a screenwriter, he is best known for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull for Martin Scorsese, and Obsession for Brian De Palma. But I wonder how many of the films he directed and, usually, wrote ring a bell in a non-buff’s memory: Blue Collar, Hardcore, American Gigolo, Cat People (the remake), Mishima, and Patty Hearst (the last-named from a screenplay by Nick Kazan)? Among filmdom’s snobs, however, Schrader is a big name.