Paul Schrader

Paul Joseph Schrader (born July 22, 1946) is an American screenwriter, film director and film critic.

Schrader wrote or co-wrote screenplays for four Martin Scorsese films: Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999).

Notable filmography:

• Blue Collar (1978)
• Hardcore (1979)
• American Gigolo (1980)
• Cat People (1982)
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
• Patty Hearst (1988)
• Light Sleeper (1992)
• Affliction (1997)
• Auto Focus (2002)
• Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
• The Canyons (2013)
• Dog Eat Dog (2016)
• First Reformed (2017)

Paul Schrader provides examples of the following tropes:

• Creator Breakdown: He had fairly serious emotional problems and drug issues during his carreer, not to mention his struggles with his Catholic upbringing.
  • Paul Schrader went through a divorce and a breakup with a live-in girlfriend. He lived in his car for a few weeks. He stayed in the aforementioned former girlfriend's apartment for a few weeks as well. He was lonely and alienated. The result? He wrote Taxi Driver.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Schrader shot his prequel to The Exorcist around 2004, but studio Morgan Creek had not much faith in it and instead ordered Renny Harlin to shoot his own version, 2005's Exorcist: The Beginning. Eventually Schrader's version was released as Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist one year later.
• Spiritual Successor: In a Q&A at Rotterdam Film Festival 2018, he said that, during the editing of First Reformed, he was surprised at the many similarities the film had with Taxi Driver.
• Troubled Production: He recalls the shooting of Blue Collar as a very difficult one because of the artistic and personal tension between himself and the actors, as well as between the stars themselves. He suffered a mental breakdown on set.