Paul Schrader

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Cremildo
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Re: Paul Schrader

#126 Post by Cremildo » Thu Jan 30, 2020 7:20 pm

Sorry to learn that Mary Beth Hurt is in such bad health.

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colinr0380
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Re: Paul Schrader

#127 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:48 am

aox wrote:
Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:53 pm
The Wild Bunch is the last real Western
Anyone willing to explore this further? That's quite a claim.
Well its the end of an era for those characters, and The Wild Bunch is an apocalyptic one. It was all over the Western at the time beyond the Peckinpah film too with films like Lonely Are The Brave with Kirk Douglas and Once Upon A Time In The West which are both commenting on the mythology of the western film as much as being Westerns. John Ford made his last Western in 1966. In 1969 John Wayne was making True Grit, which was the start of his older man-younger protégé run of films in his final years.

In the 1970s we start getting into the truly revisionist Westerns commenting on, and dirtying up, the 'myth' of the Western. Films like Soldier Blue, Little Big Man, A Man Called Horse and Dirty Little Billy. We also get the spaghetti westerns doing amazing things (often politically) in the wake of Leone.

And since then there have been some fine films (I particularly like Kevin Costner's Open Range, which is just as good as Dances With Wolves. And of course there's Meek's Cutoff, the Clint Eastwood films, the True Grit remake, and so on), but its not the dominant genre in the way it was up to the end of the 1960s. Which is what Schrader is saying in that interview, that the gangster genre will keep on and there will be films made, but he feels that The Irishman is sort of summing up an era of the gangster film being a dominant genre. I do wonder if he is equating Scorsese with John Ford in that sense, that they both defined and refined a certain genre of film, so inevitably when they make their last film in that mode the whole genre will have to move into a different phase?

On the other parts of that interview, I do not really find Schrader's comments at the end all that depressing, since an A.I. future sounds pretty nifty! Though I am a hoarder, unlike Schrader (I think I had heard that story he tells before and remember wishing we could have been able to read the other side of the conversation involving Leonard Schrader's adventures in Japan, so it just emphasises to me that we have to be grateful to 'hoarders' for keeping what they did!), so I like the idea of all my stuff going into the ether and being stored in perpetuity. It may not be 'me' in an actual sense but it might preserve the 'useful' bits of me for others to enjoy!

And he's also right about the rooms in amateur pornography! One of the things lost in that purge of adult content on Tumblr recently was a blog called something like "horrendous home furnishings in porn" that was of course very NSFW but was all about the absurd juxtaposition (but touchingly so!) of people doing really naughty things in plushy furnished chintzy rooms, or guys trying to look tough in their parent's homes full of soft furnishings and flower patterned wallpaper!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Fri Jan 31, 2020 1:57 pm, edited 5 times in total.

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aox
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Re: Paul Schrader

#128 Post by aox » Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:16 am

Thanks for the write-up, Colin. I just have a quick followup question. I recall hearing your argument in film class in college (sorry, it's been almost twenty years), but how does McCabe and Mrs. Miller fit in which was released three years later? I assume that this falls under your revisionist western claim? Does it represent the beginning of the post-romantic western epoch?

Also, on a personal note, coincidentally I just saw Open Range for the first time last week since seeing it originally in the theater upon release. It really holds up and I am surprised it didn't do better upon release. Though they only have some similarities plot-wise and character-wise, I think I greatly prefer it to Eastwood's, Unforgiven which I have some problems with.

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colinr0380
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Re: Paul Schrader

#129 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jan 31, 2020 1:48 pm

It has been a long time since I last saw McCabe & Mrs Miller so I need to refresh myself on it, but I guess it might be in that revisionist era of focusing more on the female characters and life in a frontier town. But it is also just as much a Robert Altman film too, so its just as fruitful to consider it as his take on the Western as much as Long Goodbye is his take on Chandler or Gosford Park on the stately home murder mystery, etc.

But in the end its all just attempts to group disparate groups of films together and try to apply some methodology onto the landscape of cinema after the fact, so its all up for debate really.

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Slaphappy
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Re: Paul Schrader

#130 Post by Slaphappy » Fri Jan 31, 2020 3:57 pm

The Irishman is Marty’s The Wild Bunch. The end of an era. Just like The Wild Bunch is the last real Western, this feels like the last real gangster film. There will be other gangster movies, but The Irishman finally said that these guys are out of time, out of place.
Wild Bunch’s liberating laughter while facing the realities of new era, joined from beyond the grave by comrades who died with their boots on, is a great ending for epic genre if one feels like it was the last true western. I dread the thought that the depressing and neurotic Marty ending of The Irishman would be the end of the gangster genre. Please, let’s have another Scarface or Dillinger before writing off the movie gangsters.

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dwk
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Re: Paul Schrader

#131 Post by dwk » Fri Mar 27, 2020 10:25 am

For those that don't check the Vinegar Syndrome thread, they are releasing Patty Hearst in May. Right now it is only available in a 5 film halfway to Black Friday sale pre-order.

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Reverend Drewcifer
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Re: Paul Schrader

#132 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:14 am

Patty Hearst has one of the great final lines. The movie is well-crafted but really runs me through the ringer every time I watch. My last viewing was an endurance test just so I could get to Natasha Richardson's last line reading.

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PfR73
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Re: Paul Schrader

#133 Post by PfR73 » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:59 am

Oh heck yes, this is really exciting. I just watched Patty Heart for the first time on the Criterion Channel last month while going through Schrader's ouvre and it was really good. I was wondering if Criterion would release it, but I'm happy with a Vinegar Syndrome release since I'm a subscriber with them and will now automatically be getting the release.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Paul Schrader

#134 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Apr 07, 2020 8:56 am

Schrader is getting bored in quarantine.. on Facebook today:
Paul Schrader wrote: ON THE SUBJECT OF FEMALE BREASTS. Last week I speculated which actor or actress ‘ faces would be the best suited to achieve your personal artistic vision The question of breasts reaches deep into artistic history and is more complicated from both sexual perspectives.

It addresses issues of placement, uplift,spacing, aureole and nipple contour not to mention color and size

So in this spirit I invite male and females alike to prefer your most aesthetically inspirational examples of female breasts from sculpture, painting and photography.

Paul S.

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barryconvex
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Re: Paul Schrader

#135 Post by barryconvex » Tue Apr 07, 2020 10:46 am

Does photography include movies?

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yoloswegmaster
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Re: Paul Schrader

#136 Post by yoloswegmaster » Tue Apr 07, 2020 11:06 am

At least he's stopped buying guns from people's garages :lol:

beamish14
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Re: Paul Schrader

#137 Post by beamish14 » Tue Apr 07, 2020 2:06 pm

I'll echo the praise for Patty Hearst. Scott Johnson's score is truly exceptional, and I hope the disc offers a chance to experience
the film with just it. Ving Rhames is great in it as well, and the scenes with him psychologically wearing her down are horrifying.

I love how Schrader reused one of the most notable design elements of Mishima in it for the ending, and he has an interesting
explanation for why he did so in Schrader on Schrader. It's a shame the film did so poorly when theatrically released, as it
was distributed by Atlantic Releasing, a company that went under and had all of its titles absorbed into MGM's library.

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tojoed
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Re: Paul Schrader

#138 Post by tojoed » Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:57 am

There is a region 2 MGM DVD from 2005, but a Blu-ray would be nice.

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domino harvey
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Re: Paul Schrader

#139 Post by domino harvey » Wed Apr 08, 2020 9:31 am

Good news: Scroll up!

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Reverend Drewcifer
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Re: Paul Schrader

#140 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Tue Apr 21, 2020 3:46 pm

Schrader doomin' and gloomin' over at Vulture. https://www.vulture.com/2020/04/paul-sc ... ovies.html

Some choice moments:

"[Taxi Driver] was a partial inspiration for the controversial Joker, which Schrader will not publicly discuss."
"The following interview — taken from two separate conversations — was edited for length, clarity, and, in some cases, to protect him from misrepresenting his complicated views."
"...they’re talking about having a virtual Cannes where you can sell your product reels."
"I’m working on what would have been if I had lived...I can sort of show what the film would have been if I hadn’t died before finishing it."
"If you keep shooting and hide the fact and then it comes out, that’s a hell of a liability...I was more worried about the legal liability than the moral one."
"I just had a long conversation with Michael Mann. I knew that Michael was shooting a TV series in Tokyo, Tokyo Underworld. He had to shut down, and he was totally opposed, and he was in the same situation I was, which is you can keep shooting but you’re going to be the only one on-set. So he had to come home, too. But, you know, that’s the way it is with film directors. They’re all alpha types."


...and that's just the opening! Oh please let's discuss all of this.

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diamonds
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Re: Paul Schrader

#141 Post by diamonds » Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:40 pm

It's a great read. He clarifies the link between the disparate ideas he had teased before in that Metrograph interview ("the world series of poker and Abu Ghraib") in a way that sounds pretty compelling. I also found the bit about calling up his previous collaborators quite touching, unexpected for cantankerous Schrader.

(And of course, it's nice to have confirmation that Mann is – or was – actually shooting).


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therewillbeblus
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Re: Paul Schrader

#143 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Sep 17, 2020 10:02 pm

Schrader has been posting various character and plot bits on Facebook for the last few weeks (and apparently finished a script but lost the last 20 pages in an autocorrect issue) which seem to be from multiple projects.. but his latest posits what would happen to a sex-addict in quarantine, and says he’s writing a script about it

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Never Cursed
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Re: Paul Schrader

#144 Post by Never Cursed » Thu Sep 17, 2020 10:12 pm

Glad he isn't planning on quitting/committing suicide after The Card Counter, like (I think) he said he might

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Big Ben
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Re: Paul Schrader

#145 Post by Big Ben » Thu Sep 17, 2020 10:31 pm

He was asking for advice on taking LSD earlier and for a spiritual guide while doing it. I think he's just being Paul Schrader.

beamish14
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Re: Paul Schrader

#146 Post by beamish14 » Thu Sep 17, 2020 11:23 pm

Never Cursed wrote:
Thu Sep 17, 2020 10:12 pm
Glad he isn't planning on quitting/committing suicide after The Card Counter, like (I think) he said he might

I'm still worried Peter Greenaway is going to make good on his promise to commit suicide once he turns 80

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MichaelB
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Re: Paul Schrader

#147 Post by MichaelB » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:44 am

I had dinner with him a couple of years ago and he made it very clear that that was still his intention. (He cheerfully brought up the subject himself.)

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colinr0380
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Re: Paul Schrader

#148 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Sep 18, 2020 4:11 am

Has Greenaway attached a special significance to that particular age number, or just likes the mathematical preciseness of it in some way?

Either way, I am not sure I would want to go to the buffet at the wake! You never know what you might be eating!

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ellipsis7
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Re: Paul Schrader

#149 Post by ellipsis7 » Fri Sep 18, 2020 5:01 am

George Sanders notably set his exit age @ 65, famously leaving this suicide note...
Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.

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MichaelB
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Re: Paul Schrader

#150 Post by MichaelB » Fri Sep 18, 2020 5:16 am

colinr0380 wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 4:11 am
Has Greenaway attached a special significance to that particular age number, or just likes the mathematical preciseness of it in some way?
He firmly believes that 80 marks the point where you stop being a productive member of society and start being a drain on it. He made that decision years ago and clearly intends to go through with it. (I doubt very much my experience was unusual, and he'd already gone public so I'm not betraying any confidences.)

Anyway, we'll know on 5 April 2022, or shortly afterwards.
ellipsis7 wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 5:01 am
George Sanders notably set his exit age @ 65, famously leaving this suicide note...
I recently edited a terrific career-spanning interview with Don Sharp (for Indicator's Fu Manchu box), who said that it was rather sad working with Sanders on Psychomania, which turned out to be his last film - Sharp didn't realise until shooting started that Sanders was pretty much stone deaf and so they had to devise various elaborate workarounds for when he reacted to things.

And Sharp used to share a car with him to and from the set, and said that he seemed incredibly depressed for someone with such a stellar past - so the suicide probably wasn't that much of a surprise (although Sharp merely acknowledges that it happened; I doubt that he thought it had anything to do with Psychomania specifically, because Sharp always struck me as the epitome of brisk efficiency, not remotely the kind of director who'd drive his actors to suicide).

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