With the screenplays for Sydney Pollack’s “The Yakuza” (1975), Brian De Palma’s “Obsession” (1976), John Flynn’s “Rolling Thunder,” Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” (1976) and “Raging Bull” (1980) under his belt, Paul Schrader‘s legacy as a seminal figure in 1970s American screenwriting was unassailably assured. Yet not only did he go on to write “The Mosquito Coast” and Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation Of Christ,” he has also enjoyed a long, diverse career as a director, with his most recent foray being released last week: the controversial, chatter-worthy “The Canyons” (you can read our review here).
While not as celebrated (or maybe as consistently assured) as his writing, Schrader’s directing career is nevertheless an intriguing one. Often tapping into the same sordid corners of the human psyche that his most famous screenplays deal in, with morally layered themes of obsession, guilt, repression, catharsis and psychosis often culminating in acts of anti-social psychosexual violence, he’s certainly a fit subject for auteurist analysis—rarely is it so clear that a filmmaker’s directorial impulses are largely an extension of his concerns and preoccupations as a writer, and presumably, as a man. Of course, Schrader grew up in a hardcore Calvinist environment, and the author himself often attributes the pain and conflict of his various characters to the friction he pent up while working against the tight confines of this upbringing.
A cinephile from the very beginning, Schrader wrote the seminal book “Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer” in 1972 at the tender age of 26 (having completed a M.A. in film, for which he was recommended by none other than Pauline Kael) and soon thereafter, his screenplays were gaining the attention of ’70s movie brats DePalma and Scorsese (he even wrote an early draft of “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind,” but Steven Spielberg rejected it for being too dark and guilt-obsessed). The critical acclaim for Schrader’s screenplays eventually led to his debut directorial film, “Blue Collar” (1978), and the filmmaker hasn’t looked back since.
Schrader, ever the film buff, has often spoken at length about how influential certain films were on his writing and directing career. One key influence is Robert Bresson’s “Pickpocket” which in many ways sums up the filmmaker’s raison d’etre. “[Bresson] taught me I could make films about unlikeable people—I could take an outcast, a lonely man, a guy who lives an interior life, and say, ‘Let’s walk in his shoes.’ ‘Pickpocket’ gave me the courage to write ‘Taxi Driver,’ and from that point on I have never had a problem with characters that appear beyond empathy. I’ve made films about a wannabe assassin, a gigolo, a drug dealer and a guy who’s totally into home porn.” So let’s fall into step beside some of these losers, loners and disaffected screw-ups, as we take a trip back through the rogues’ gallery of Paul Schrader’s uneven, but never less than fascinating directorial career.
“Blue Collar” (1978)
When Spike Lee revealed his list of essential movies that he hands out to his film students at NYU on the first day of class, amongst the classics by Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, and Federico Fellini was an interesting choice, tucked away in the bottom half: Paul Schrader’s offbeat heist movie “Blue Collar.” Schrader’s directorial debut following a string of high-profile collaborations with directors like Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma and Sydney Pollack, tells the story of three auto workers (Yaphet Kotto, Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel), who decide to rob their local union chapter and wind up with much more than they bargained for: a ledger that ties the union to organized crime. For a movie that ostensibly fits into the crime genre, “Blue Collar” borders on being a naturalistic masterpiece, full of small moments that, had any other filmmaker been in charge, would have been the first to hit the cutting room floor. In fact, much of the movie consists of the three actors standing around and shooting the breeze on the assembly line or in the local bar, mostly about how strapped for cash they are (Keitel’s daughter needs braces, Pryor has been lying on his income tax, and Kotto is in deep with some loan sharks). Once they make the heist, the movie shifts gears and becomes a darker beast altogether, much more closely resembling the bleak hopelessness that Schrader brought to “Taxi Driver” than the gonzo comedy some were expecting when buying a ticket to “the new Richard Pryor movie” (Pryor, for his part, is absolutely brilliant, in a live wire performance that ranks amongst his very best). It’s a testament to Schrader’s talents as a first time filmmaker that the notoriously contentious behind-the-scenes drama never leaks onto the screen (the three leads hated each other and at one point Pryor, high on cocaine, pointed a loaded gun at Schrader’s head). Schrader claims that he suffered his first on-set nervous breakdown thanks to “Blue Collar.” But it was worth it: the movie is an underseen classic, full of moments that you can’t imagine making it into any movie today, indie or otherwise (highlights include a bizarre, threadbare orgy sequence halfway through the film involving cunnilingus and a dildo sword fight, plus a late-in-the-movie suspense set piece that ranks amongst the best of the decade). Schrader’s first film might also be his best. [A]