Interview (Written): Paul Schrader

A conversation with the screenwriter of such notable movies as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

A Film Inquiry interview with the writer-director of the new movie First Reformed starring Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried.

In a Q&A at Rotterdam Film Festival this year, you noted that, while editing First Reformed, you noticed many similarities to Taxi Driver. In a sense this is an update of that film.

Paul Schrader: Yeah, it’s an update of a number of films. Yeah. Actually, Taxi Driver was probably the last film that got thrown into the stew. A number of other films were thrown in first. And then I really wasn’t aware of how much of Taxi Driver I was throwing in. I was much more aware of how much of the other films I was throwing in.

Can you expound a bit about what you noticed in the editing room?

Paul Schrader: Well, the editor [Benjamin Rodriguez Jr.] just said to me, “You know there’s a lot of Taxi Driver in this film.” And I said, “Yeah. I knew there was some, but I didn’t think there was this much.” And that really just came into the obsessive momentum of it. I thought when I was making it that it was going to be slower and more contemplative.

I intentionally made it slow and contemplative, but that Travis Bickle engine that was rumbling underneath it the whole time all of the sudden starts keeping it going. Yeah. I set out to make a slow film.

Let’s talk a little bit about the Movie Brat generation. You’re obviously considered an integral part of this generation, hailing from UCLA. What are some of the most important things that you learned in film school that you’ve carried with you throughout your storied career?

Paul Schrader: Well, I lived in a very fortuitous moment. I came to UCLA in ’68. And studios are collapsing. And there was a sense of panic, and in fact, I recently was given a lot of letters I had written at this time — and it’s right there in all the letters — you know, the studio system is collapsing. They’re looking for people to move in. And so, I don’t know if I would have been able to enter the film business at another time.

Wow.

Paul Schrader: But it was — there was a sort of a panic, and I remember Francis Coppola telling me, “Just go in there and tell them that you know how to make them money, because they’re so scared they’ll believe you [laughs].”

Here is a trailer for First Reformed:

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