Now 78, Paul Schrader has become a little philosophical, a little introspective and, to be honest, quite pessimistic about the future.
The legendary former film critic turned writer-director – whose long list of credits includes work with Martin Scorsese as a screenwriter taxi driver (1976) and angry bull (1980) and, as writer-director, american gigolo (1980), first reformed church (2017) and this year’s Oh Canada — will arrive in Tuscany this week as a special guest at the Lucca Film Festival. On September 25, he will give a master class to college students, and the next day, September 26, he will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. There will also be a retrospective of his greatest films.
THR Romans We caught up with Schrader in New York just before he caught a flight to Italy. Schrader was all about metaphysics before he scandalized John Travolta and talked about the trials and tribulations of John Travolta.
Paul, you are coming to Lucca. What would you most like to be remembered for in a lifetime of great achievement?
I could answer that question, but my answer would be based on a belief in the future, which I don’t actually have. So it’s hard to talk about a person’s legacy if you don’t believe there will be any. I think we have no more smoke here. Humanity is phasing itself out. Good progress has been made on carbon-based life, but if there are still humanoids hearing or reading these words a hundred years from now, then I think I’d be most proud of having created everything to specification. I started writing specifications taxi driverI’m still writing specs today. I’ve written four films on spec in the last two years. It makes other people feel like they can do it. just do it!
tell me about writing taxi driver As you said “meets spec”.
Before I met Martin, I wrote many books. I wrote taxi driver 1972. I didn’t do anything with it. One day I was interviewing Brian De Palma and I said to Brian, “You know, I wrote a script.” Brian said, “Oh, God, no, no, no, please!” And then, While we were playing chess, he said, “Okay, I’ll read your script.” He gave it to Marty. Brian told Marty that the movie might be for him.
Apart from taxi driveryour other most iconic films are angry bull and american gigolo. Giorgio Armani once told me a story about how you brought John Travolta to Milan and Armani cast him in roles that ended up being cast by Richard Richard Gere took over. do you remember?
I have a picture of it. I do have a photo of George taking John’s measurements. And Sergio [Galeotti]Armani’s partners in business and life have been watching for years. John and I came over from London where he opened grease. Then he dropped out.
But before Trevolta dropped out of school, he had already been faked by Mr. Armani himself, right?
Yes, yes, yes. The clothes are being made. They’re not made to order or custom made, but they are from his upcoming product line, which is clearly his idea as he prepares to expand into North America.
What happened to John Travolta? Is he experiencing a family crisis?
Three things happened. First, his mother died, which hit him hard. Second, his first movie failed, called moment to momentwhich shocked him. The third one is I think he was getting increasingly anxious about the gay subtext [of the film]. In fact, as the story goes, our friends Kit Carson and Karen Black, who were still alive at the time, were living together. Karen Black is going to Scientology [meetings]. She came back and said, “Kit, I think John is going to drop out of Schrader’s movie. He’s been talking about it in meetings. So I started looking around for people who were available.”
Is John Travolta sensitive to gay subtext because he’s a Scientologist and they don’t approve of gay themes?
I don’t know if he’s out now, but he certainly wasn’t out then. I don’t know if this is true or not, but if it were, it certainly wouldn’t be discussed. You know, no one really stepped up until Rupert Everett. He is the first. He lost a lot of jobs as a result.
Anyway. John Travolta dropped out of school. What did you do?
I like Keele’s idea. I didn’t think I could get Paramount to agree to do this. Sure enough, John dropped out of school on Friday afternoon. I told Barry Diller [the boss at Paramount at the time] I want to be close to Gere. He said, “No, we’re going to Chris Reeve.” So the next day, Saturday, I called Chris Reeve’s agent and I said, “I heard you’ve been offered the script. , but I didn’t think Chris was suitable for the position.” So I poisoned the well. There’s no way Chris can read it! [Laughs mischievously.] Then, on Sunday I went to see Kiel. He lives on the beach. So I went to Malibu and Keele was busy watching the Super Bowl. I offered him the role. He was hesitant and said he couldn’t rush into such a big decision in such a short time. So I told him: “The game ends in half an hour, but if I walk out of here, the movie will probably be ruined and you won’t have a chance to make a decision.” He said okay, he will do it.
What about Diller?
I went to Barry Diller’s house and left a note in his mailbox. He called me an hour later. I told him Richard Gere would do it american gigoloI told him that Chris Reeve didn’t think it was a good fit for him. I said, “So tomorrow morning, John’s exit from the deal will be affected. We can’t suppress this news any longer. It’s too big. Now, after this headline, they’re going to ask for your reaction, Barry. Now I can legally Tied up John Travolta for three months because he walked out ten days before filming. Or, maybe there was another announcement, Barry, because I could. know you want john urban cowboy. I know John wants to do that. So the other news you can make is that John has exited American Gigolo and we’re going to continue working with Richard Gere. Barry called me back an hour later and we broke the news.
