35 Facts About Paul Schrader

Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic.

Paul Schrader first became widely known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Paul Schrader later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Bringing Out the Dead.

Paul Schrader then worked as a film scholar and critic, publishing the book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer before making the transition to screenwriting in 1974.

The success of Taxi Driver in 1976 brought greater attention to his work, and Paul Schrader began directing his own films beginning with Blue Collar.

Paul Schrader's mother was of Dutch descent, the daughter of emigrants from Friesland, while Paul Schrader's paternal grandfather was from a German family that had come to the US through Canada.

Paul Schrader did not see a film until he was seventeen years old, when he was able to sneak away from home.

Paul Schrader first became a film critic, writing for the Los Angeles Free Press and later for Cinema magazine.

Paul Schrader wrote an early draft of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but Spielberg disliked the script, calling it "terribly guilt-ridden," and opted for something lighter.

Paul Schrader wrote an early draft of Rolling Thunder, which the film's producers had reworked without his participation.

Thanks partly to critical acclaim for Taxi Driver, Paul Schrader was able to direct his first feature, Blue Collar, co-written with his brother Leonard.

Paul Schrader has described the film as difficult to make, because of the artistic and personal tensions between him and the cast.

Paul Schrader directed Patty Hearst, about the kidnapping and transformation of the Hearst Corporation heiress.

In 2005 Paul Schrader described Light Sleeper as his "most personal" film.

In 1998, Paul Schrader won critical acclaim for the drama Affliction.

Paul Schrader's script was based on the novel by Russell Banks.

In 1999, Paul Schrader received the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America.

In 2003, Paul Schrader made entertainment headlines after being fired from The Exorcist: Dominion, a prequel film to the horror classic The Exorcist from 1973.

Paul Schrader headed the International Jury of the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival, and in 2011 became a jury member for the ongoing Filmaka short film contest.

On July 2,2009, Paul Schrader was awarded the inaugural Lifetime Achievement in Screenwriting award at the ScreenLit Festival in Nottingham, England.

Paul Schrader used the website Let It Cast to have unknown actors submit their audition tapes over the internet.

In 2014, Paul Schrader directed The Dying of the Light, an espionage thriller starring Nicolas Cage as a government agent suffering from a deadly disease, Anton Yelchin and Irene Jacob.

In post-production Paul Schrader was denied final cut by the film's producers.

Paul Schrader later recut Dying of the Light into the separate, more experimental work Dark, which received more positive reviews.

Paul Schrader received his first Academy Award nomination for the film in the category Best Original Screenplay.

In 2021, Paul Schrader directed the crime drama film The Card Counter, starring Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish.

Paul Schrader's new film, Master Gardener, is a crime thriller starring Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver.

Paul Schrader has written two stage plays, Berlinale and Cleopatra Club.

Paul Schrader has repeatedly referred to Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, Light Sleeper, The Canyons, The Walker, First Reformed, and The Card Counter as "a man in a room" stories.

Paul Schrader battled a cocaine addiction, which contributed to his divorce from his first wife, art director Jeannine Oppewall.

Paul Schrader then moved from Los Angeles to Japan in hopes of getting his life on track, finally quitting drugs around 1990.

In September 2022, Paul Schrader was hospitalized for COVID-19 and pneumonia which had resulted in "breathing difficulties".

Paul Schrader became an Episcopalian after the birth of his children.

Paul Schrader expressed some regret for his post, apologizing for his post's violent rhetoric, but not for his comments critical of Trump.

In 2022, Paul Schrader criticized that year's Sight and Sound Greatest Films poll, describing it as a "politically correct rejiggering", with its selection of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles as the greatest film of all time being the product of "distorted woke reappraisal".