Paul Schrader Says Films Weren't Better In The 1970s But Instead There Were "Better Audiences"

We’re starting to see that the filmmakers that we admired from generations past are now getting older and giving less of a fuck than ever before. One of those filmmakers is Paul Schrader. As he makes the rounds, promoting his surprise awards contender, “First Reformed,” the writer-director, who helped revolutionize cinema in the ‘70s is talking about how even though people feel that the film industry has changed in the last 40 years, it’s really audiences who have changed.

Speaking at the BAFTA Screenwriters Series in London (via Deadline), Schrader was asked to explain what he thinks is so different from how films were made in the 1970s versus how they’re made today. The answer that the filmmaker gave is surprising because he feels that films haven’t changed. Instead, those watching the films have changed — for the worse.

“There are people who talk about the American cinema of the ‘70s as some halcyon period,” said Schrader. “It was to a degree but not because there were any more talented filmmakers. There’s probably, in fact, more talented filmmakers today than there was in the ‘70s. What there was in the ‘70s was better audiences.”

He explains further, “A lot of what was happening in the world had people in consternation: women’s rights, gay rights, sexual liberation, drug liberation, anti-war. All of these things were rolling on top of each other and people were turning to the arts, specifically movies, for what we should feel about this. ‘Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice’ about wife swapping, and ‘Coming Home’ about Vietnam veterans, ‘An Unmarried Woman’ about female liberation.”

“So almost one a week, films were coming out to address these things that were on people’s minds. When people take movies seriously it’s very easy to make a serious movie,” the filmmaker continued. “When they don’t take it seriously, it’s very, very hard. We now have audiences that don’t take movies seriously so it’s hard to make a serious movie for them. It’s not that us filmmakers are letting you down, it’s you audiences are letting us down.”

Now, obviously, the statements by Schrader are fairly sweeping generalizations and don’t necessarily cover the entire film industry. Fans of this site, and many like it, will know that there are definitely examples of cinema from all around the world that fall under the filmmaker’s umbrella of quality. However, he’s right that audiences have definitely changed. We’ve been conditioned by what dominates the box office to expect escapism on the big screen. Superheroes, robots, dinosaurs and other fantastical things dominate the multiplex.

Schrader continues by explaining that if audiences were more open to other types of films, then perhaps it could change, “Because if audiences are receptive to a quality movie, believe me they will get it. We’re all just waiting to make it. At that time, that period about ten, twelve years, every single week there was some kind of film coming out addressing a social issue in a fictional form.”

We’ll have to see what happens with the future of filmmaking. Maybe these types of films and the audience that Schrader wants just doesn’t show up at the theater anymore. Perhaps the future is in other mediums, like streaming. We’ll see. Until then, make sure you support films like “First Reformed!”