Gift SubscriptionsPaul Schrader
In the late '60s, American culture experienced a period of change as the youth movement challenged conventional attitudes about politics, sex, drugs, and gender issues, while the advancement of the Vietnam War found many citizens questioning the actions and wisdom of their government for the first time. As American attitudes continued to evolve, so did the American film industry; as costly big-budget blockbusters nearly brought the major studios to the brink of collapse, smaller and more personal films such as Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, and Five Easy Pieces demonstrated there was a ready audience for bold and challenging entertainment. As the '60s faded into the 1970s, American cinema moved into an exciting period of creativity and stylistic innovation, which led to such landmark films as The Godfather, MASH, The Last Picture Show, Shampoo, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Chinatown, and Taxi Driver, and new freedom for directors and screenwriters. Ironically, however, it was another pair of big-budget blockbusters directed by students of the new wave of filmmaking -- Jaws and Star Wars -- which brought the studios back to power and put an end to Hollywood's flirtation with offbeat creativity. A Decade Under the Influence is a documentary which explores the rise and fall of new American filmmaking in the 1970s, and features interviews with many of the key directors, screenwriters, and actors whose work typified the movement, including Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Roger Corman, Dennis Hopper, Jon Voight, and Julie Christie. A Decade Under the Influence received its world premier at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and an expanded version of the film was later shown on the premium cable outlet The Independent Film Channel; the documentary was the final work of co-director Ted Demme, who died shortly before the film was completed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, (more)
Nick Nolte and James Coburn deliver some of the finest work of their respective careers in this powerful but troubling adaptation of Russell Banks' novel. Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte) is the sheriff in a small New England town; it's a part-time job with few taxing responsibilities, and Wade fills his many free hours by swilling booze, smoking pot, and thinking back on his nightmarish childhood. Wade's father Glen (James Coburn) was by turns callous, distant, and abusive, and Wade has inherited his addiction to alcohol and inability to deal with others. Consequently, Wade's ex-wife (Mary Beth Hurt) despises him, his daughter is uncomfortable and frightened in his presence, and the only person who can reach him is his loving but long-suffering girlfriend Margie (Sissy Spacek). When a wealthy businessman is killed in a hunting accident, Wade suspects foul play and pursues the case with an obsession that puzzles all around him; meanwhile, Wade's mother dies and his brother Rolfe (Willem Dafoe), the only one in the family to escape Glen's abuse without crippling emotional scars, returns to pay his respects and is caught up once again in the damaged lives of his father and brother. James Coburn) won an Academy award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Affliction, while Nick Nolte was nominated for Best Actor (he lost to Roberto Benigni). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nick Nolte, James Coburn, (more)
- 1979
A slick Los Angeles callboy finds love and redemption in Paul Schrader's ultra-stylish drama. High-living prostitute Julian Kay (Richard Gere, stepping in for John Travolta) has it all: the Mercedes, the clothes, access to Beverly Hills' swankiest establishments, and a stable of rich, older female clients. But it all falls apart after he does a favor for his former pimp (Bill Duke) and the trick turns up dead a short while later; Julian's actual client won't give him an alibi, and police detective Sunday (Hector Elizondo) doesn't believe the gigolo's denials. The one person who can help him is frustrated politician's wife (and sole non-paying bedmate) Michelle (Lauren Hutton), if only Julian could let down his defenses and accept her gesture of love. Mixing his admiration for European art cinema with a voyeuristic view of the seamier side of sex and affluence, Schrader renders Julian an inscrutable, emotionally disengaged purveyor of pleasure, decked out in Giorgio Armani clothes coordinated with Ferdinando Scarfiotti's meticulous production design. Amid critical doubts about its artiness and distanced eroticism, American Gigolo surprised everyone by not dying on the box office vine. With some audiences reportedly showing up for repeat viewings of Gere's seductive charms, it became a moderate hit, turning Gere into a star and Armani into the new fashion sensation. Whatever reservations one may have about the movie, it provided two indelible images of 1980s decadence to come: Gere's perusing his "artist's palette" of shirts, ties, and jackets, and Gere's cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in his convertible to the New Wave strains of Blondie's "Call Me". ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Lauren Hutton, (more)
The life and sordid, untimely death of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane are explored by director Paul Schrader in this biopic, which marks one of the few times the filmmaker has not scripted his own film. Auto Focus chronologically traces the meteoric rise of Crane's show business career, beginning with his early success as a jokey deejay on Los Angeles morning radio in the early '60s. A devout family man, Crane lives in Southern Californian comfort with his wife Anne (Rita Wilson) and their young children, relishing the modicum of celebrity his job provides him. His life begins to change, however, when his agent Lenny (Ron Leibman) proposes that he take a breakthrough role on the CBS POW-camp sitcom Hogan's Heroes. Initially reluctant to take the job, Crane signs on with the production and, to his and everyone else's surprise, the show becomes a smash hit. With celebrity comes a new set of friends, and Crane falls in with audio-visual guru John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), a Sony sales rep who spends his days setting up home entertainment systems for the Hollywood elite, and his nights cruising strip clubs for anonymous sexual encounters. Already a pornography buff, Crane starts using his fame to secure him and Carpenter an endless parade of affairs, which they videotape and then obsessively review. It isn't long before Anne demands a divorce, and Crane marries his Hogan's co-star Patti Olsen (aka Sigrid Valdis, here played by Maria Bello), who's more accepting of his escapades. When the sitcom is canceled, however, Crane has trouble securing acting jobs, and recedes further and further into his life of amateur porn with Carpenter. Auto Focus premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals before its art-house run in the fall of 2002. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greg Kinnear, Willem Dafoe, (more)
- 1978
Paul Schrader's directorial debut examines the trials of Detroit autoworkers living at the mercy of a heartless corporation and a corrupt union. Surviving from paycheck to paycheck, Checker Cab assembly linemen Zeke (Richard Pryor), Jerry (Harvey Keitel), and Smokey (Yaphet Kotto) scrape by and take pleasure in a few rounds of beer or bowling (and occasional illicit amusements). But when their money troubles pile up, Jerry and Smokey join Zeke in a desperate plan to steal cash from their local union office. Along with a piddling $600, they unexpectedly swipe evidence of union corruption. Deciding to use it for blackmail, the men discover instead how powerfully malevolent the union can be in a system that counts on petty divisiveness to keep the larger power structure intact. Inspired by stories of real-life disillusionment, Schrader and his brother/co-writer Leonard Schrader took on politically difficult issues of race and corporate labor, infusing the indictment of unions with a suggestion of post-Watergate paranoia about forces beyond the union that keep workers in their place. From the opening sequence of the assembly line to the final evocative freeze-frame, Schrader maintains an atmosphere of gritty realism, with the lead trio lending low-key dramatic force to a situation beyond their control. Too downbeat for a late '70s audience increasingly drawn to happier fare, Blue Collar flopped, yet it did earn Schrader critical accolades. Although he has reportedly since disowned the film, Blue Collar remains one of Schrader's best works, with Zeke and Jerry powered by the same sense of simmering frustration that would explode so effectively in Affliction two decades later. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, (more)
This tense urban drama stars Nicolas Cage as Frank Pierce, a paramedic on the brink of physical and emotional collapse. Frank has worked for years in one of New York's most brutal neighborhoods, and the pressure of his job has taken its toll; plagued with self-doubt, he is haunted by the spirits of the people he couldn't save, and while he desperately wants to quit his job, outside forces won't let him walk away. Bringing Out the Dead brought director Martin Scorsese back to the streets of contemporary New York, one of his favorite locations, after three films set elsewhere: Kundun, Casino, and The Age of Innocence. The film also reunited Scorsese with screenwriter Paul Schrader, who scripted Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ. The supporting cast includes Patricia Arquette as the daughter of a heart attack victim that Frank has fallen in love with, and John Goodman and Ving Rhames as two of Frank's fellow drivers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, (more)
In this loose adaptation of the 1942 horror classic of the same name, a 2001-style opening montage establishes some sort of sacrificial, mystical union between panthers and an ancient tribe of humans. Flash forward to 1980's New Orleans, where waifish Irina (Natassja Kinski) meets her older brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell), a minister, for the first time since their animal trainer parents died and she was sent to a series of foster homes. Paul's Creole housekeeper, Female (Ruby Dee), helps Irina settle into her brother's home, but Paul himself disappears. Cut to a fleabag motel where a blasé prostitute finds an angry panther instead of a client; after mauling her, the cat is captured by police and a team of zoologists: Oliver (John Heard), Alice (Annette O'Toole), and Joe (Ed Begley Jr.). The next day Irina finds herself in the zoo where these scientists work; drawn to the newly captured panther, she befriends Oliver and takes a job in the gift shop. Shortly after the panther's violence turns deadly, it escapes, and soon Paul turns up spouting an unbelievable story about his family's were-cat heritage and his inevitable sexual union with little Irina. On the run from her dangerous brother, Irina takes refuge in a sexually frustrated romance with Oliver, afraid of what might happen if she consummates their passion. Astute viewers will notice that the zoologist characters refer to the film's panthers as leopards; "panther" is actually a generic term for any large cat, especially a black one, but Cat People's panthers are in fact leopards whose black color comes from a recessive trait known as melanism. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, (more)
Three A-list screenwriters -- (Nicholas Pileggi, Bo Goldman, and Paul Schrader) -- contributed to the script of this idealistic political drama. John Pappas (Al Pacino) is the popular, ethical Mayor of New York; Kevin Calhoun (John Cusack) is his even more idealistic and principled deputy. When a detective and mobster kill each other and an innocent six-year-old black child in a shootout, questions arise about what the cop was doing meeting with the gangster in the first place. The Mayor and his staff handle the situation ably, but Calhoun digs deeper and finds troubling evidence that even his seemingly incorruptible boss has not escaped the shadier aspects of political life. The Mafia boss (Tony Franciosa) whose nephew was the dead gangster, along with a Brooklyn political boss (Danny Aiello) with his own agenda, come into the story, becoming part of a series of larger links, secret relationships, and bonds of "honor" between men who, on the surface, would have no reason to be in business with each other. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Al Pacino, John Cusack, (more)
- 1984
The film style of Robert Bresson is the subject of this documentary tribute to the French director and screenwriter, and to his minimalist auteur films about sensitive individuals (or even animals) trying unsuccessfully to survive in a cruel world. Weg Naar Bresson is divided into several segments with specific themes, such as "camera" or "theory," that are illustrated by film clips, and interviews with Bresson himself (a coup), and also with acclaimed directors Andrei Tarkovsky, Louis Malle, and Paul Schrader (who also wrote a book on three directors, including Bresson). The knowledge and experience revealed in each interview, and the examples of the film clips are clear indicators that the 54-minute running time of this documentary is too short, and should have been extended to do full justice to Bresson and his films. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Bresson, Louis Malle, (more)
- 2005
- R
- AddDominion: A Prequel to the Exorcistto QueueAddDominion: A Prequel to the Exorcistto top of Queue
In 2003, respected filmmaker and screenwriter Paul Schrader was hired to direct a prequel to the 1973 box-office smash The Exorcist. However, when Schrader turned in his film to executives at Morgan Creek Productions, the producers felt the film was not marketable, and they opted to remake the picture with director Renny Harlin, who brought a more visually aggressive approach to the story than Schrader's more contemplative vision. In 2004, Harlin's film, Exorcist: The Beginning, was released to middling critical and financial response, while the following year, Schrader's version went into limited release following film festival screenings. In Schrader's Exorcist: The Prequel, Father Lankester Merrin, the aging exorcist from the original story (played here by Stellan Skarsgård) is introduced in 1944, as he serves a flock in Holland during the Nazi occupation. After Nazi officers force Merrin to choose ten members of his congregation for immediate execution, Merrin is left an emotionally broken man, and he takes a leave of absence from his duties. Three years later, Merrin is taking part in an archeological project in East Africa, and he and his crew -- including priest Father Francis (Gabriel Mann), Major Granville (Julian Wadham), and Rachel Lesno (Clara Bellar) -- discover that a church from the fifth century has been buried in the desert. As Merrin and his associates discover that that a porthole to evil is located in the church, Cheche (Billy Crawford), a local boy Merrin has taken under his wing, begins showing signs of having fallen under the spell of Satanic forces. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stellan Skarsgård, Gabriel Mann, (more)
Based upon Peter Biskind's book of the same name, this BBC-produced documentary traces the rise of a generation of Hollywood filmmakers who briefly changed the face of movies with a more personal approach that pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable onscreen. Influenced by such European directors as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Federico Fellini, the movement kicked off in the mid-'60s with two films directed by Arthur Penn: Mickey One and Bonnie and Clyde. (The latter had been offered to both Godard and Truffaut before it wound up with producer/star Warren Beatty and Penn.) What really kicked it into gear was the unexpected success of Easy Rider, a biker-road movie that became that rare film phenomenon: acclaimed at the Cannes Film Festival and a huge commercial success. Film school graduates, the first generation brought up with movies as their main cultural reference, flooded the studios (whose own regimes were changing) with production chieftains such as Robert Evans of Paramount and David Picker at United Artists; they approved risky-looking projects and allowed relatively untested filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola to take on heavyweight movies such as The Godfather or Hollywood newcomers like Britain's John Schlesinger to make quirky stories like Midnight Cowboy. Enriched by success with their TV show The Monkees, producer Bert Schneider and director Bob Rafelson formed a company that produced not only Easy Rider but seminal '70s films such as Five Easy Pieces and the Oscar-winning Vietnam War documentary Hearts and Minds. Another godfather to the new movement was producer Roger Corman, who gave early career opportunities to Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, and Jonathan Demme on low-budget projects that allowed them to learn their craft.
Two things brought this movement to an end: Some individual filmmakers' personal excesses (such disastrous flops as Dennis Hopper's follow-up to Easy Rider, appropriately titled The Last Movie, and Scorsese's New York, New York), and the studios growing fascination with special effects-driven B-movies. An outgrowth of two box-office and marketing juggernauts -- Jaws and Star Wars -- the resulting films became entertainments rather than personal statements of the directors. Narrated by William H. Macy, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls features vintage clips of Coppola, Scorsese, Beatty, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Robert Altman, and Pauline Kael. It also includes original interview material with Penn; Corman; Bogdanovich; Hopper; Picker; writer/directors John Milius and Paul Schrader; actresses Karen Black, Cybill Shepherd, Margot Kidder, and Jennifer Salt (the latter two shared a house in Malibu, a social center for young filmmakers); actors Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, and Richard Dreyfuss; producers Jerome Hellman, Michael Phillips, and Jonathan Taplin; editor Dede Allen; production designer Polly Platt; writers David Newman, Joan Tewksbury, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck; cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond; agent Mike Medavoy; and former production executive Peter Bart. Among the films discussed are Rosemary's Baby, The Wild Bunch, Mean Streets, American Graffiti, The Rain People, Midnight Cowboy, M*A*S*H, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Last Picture Show, Shampoo, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull. (Three interviewees -- cinematographer Gordon Willis, critic Andrew Sarris, and writer-director Monte Hellman -- listed in the Variety review of this film, were not included in this version from a screening on Bravo.) ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Two things brought this movement to an end: Some individual filmmakers' personal excesses (such disastrous flops as Dennis Hopper's follow-up to Easy Rider, appropriately titled The Last Movie, and Scorsese's New York, New York), and the studios growing fascination with special effects-driven B-movies. An outgrowth of two box-office and marketing juggernauts -- Jaws and Star Wars -- the resulting films became entertainments rather than personal statements of the directors. Narrated by William H. Macy, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls features vintage clips of Coppola, Scorsese, Beatty, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Robert Altman, and Pauline Kael. It also includes original interview material with Penn; Corman; Bogdanovich; Hopper; Picker; writer/directors John Milius and Paul Schrader; actresses Karen Black, Cybill Shepherd, Margot Kidder, and Jennifer Salt (the latter two shared a house in Malibu, a social center for young filmmakers); actors Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, and Richard Dreyfuss; producers Jerome Hellman, Michael Phillips, and Jonathan Taplin; editor Dede Allen; production designer Polly Platt; writers David Newman, Joan Tewksbury, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck; cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond; agent Mike Medavoy; and former production executive Peter Bart. Among the films discussed are Rosemary's Baby, The Wild Bunch, Mean Streets, American Graffiti, The Rain People, Midnight Cowboy, M*A*S*H, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Last Picture Show, Shampoo, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull. (Three interviewees -- cinematographer Gordon Willis, critic Andrew Sarris, and writer-director Monte Hellman -- listed in the Variety review of this film, were not included in this version from a screening on Bravo.) ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dede Allen, Peter Bart, (more)
Writer/director Paul Schrader explored his well-documented interest in film noir with this modern-day crime story. A horribly disfigured man named Manuel Esquema (Joseph Fiennes) is called upon to help out Mark Brice (Ray Liotta), a former city councilman in a wealthy New York community. Brice has been accused of some serious financial irregularities, and Esquema is the sort of "fixer" who might be able to make his problems go away. Mark, however, doesn't recognize Esquema as the former Alan Ripley, who was working as a towel boy at the Florida resort where Mark and his wife Ella (Gretchen Mol) were honeymooning shortly after their marriage. Alan became obsessed with Ella the moment he saw her, and before long the two were engaged in a torrid affair. Ripley urged Ella to leave Mark for him, but she refused; Ripley followed them to New York, and when Ella eventually confessed her infidelity to Mark, he responded by shooting off half of Alan's face. Alan survives and builds a new (and sinister) life for himself, but when Mark hires Esquema to help him, the former Alan's obsession with Ella blooms anew. Forever Mine was screened in competition at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Fiennes, Ray Liotta, (more)
"Oh my God, that's my daughter." So read the advertising copy of Hardcore. George C. Scott plays Jake Van Dorn, a man of means and conservative values who discovers that his precious daughter is appearing in X-rated films. Desperately making his way through the sub-rosa world of pornography, Van Dorn talks to pimps, prostitutes, and other such sterling individuals in hopes of locating his daughter and dragging her home. At one point, he falsely advertises himself as a porn producer in hopes that his little girl will show up for an interview. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George C. Scott, Peter Boyle, (more)
A cynical gambler reluctantly comes to the aid of a mysterious beauty in this interpolation of Casablanca and the real-life Cuban revolution. Big-stakes American gambler Jack Weil (Robert Redford) is comfortable in the anything-goes Havana of 1958. But with Fidel Castro out in the wilderness broadcasting revolutionary messages, it seems the good times may be on the way out. On a boat back to the island nation from the U.S. mainland, Weil agrees to help beautiful Bobby Duran (Lena Olin) smuggle in some contraband by trading vehicles with her on their way through the checkpoint. He's amused to discover not jewelry, but radio transmitters squirreled away in her car. Eventually, he learns that she's the European wife of monied Cuban communist Arturo Duran (Raul Julia), who believes his class and status will protect him from the ruling party. When that assumption turns out to be false, Jack finds himself sucked in by the plight of the suddenly widowed Bobby, who remains committed to her dangerous ideals. Risking his cushy lifestyle to protect Bobby from the coming tumult -- and from herself -- Jack must grapple with the dictates of his newfound conscience. With a supporting cast that includes Alan Arkin and Tomas Milian, Havana reunited director Sydney Pollack with Redford and David Rayfiel, star and co-screenwriter of The Way We Were. Rayfiel has also worked on a number of Pollack pictures, stretching from 1969's Castle Keep to 1995's remake of Sabrina. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Redford, Lena Olin, (more)
- 1990
This documentary respectfully interviews a number of important American directors who have in one way or another "bucked the system." It also explores the life and work of earlier American mavericks through the tributes, reflections, and recollections of the first group. Prominent among the living directors interviewed are Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola, Paul Schrader, and David Lynch. Among the directors who are discussed are Orson Welles, D.W. Griffith and Samuel Fuller. Clips from the films of these men, and interviews with important actors who have worked with them (e.g. Robert DeNiro) are another feature of this documentary, commissioned by Japanese public television corporation NHK. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, (more)
Paul Schrader's brilliant study of another alienated urban denizen skirting the borderline of madness stars Willem Dafoe as John Le Tour, a rich, upscale drug dealer for Manhattan professionals -- "White drugs for white people," as he puts it. John is a recovering addict and for him it's the perfect job, as he can relate completely with the self-absorbed eccentrics he services. But when his boss Ann (Susan Sarandon) tells John that she is planning to abandon the drug business for herbal cosmetics, John's life is thrown into disarray. With no future plans, he sees black clouds heading his way. Coincidentally, he runs into Marianne (Dana Delany), an old girlfriend and former addict who has returned to New York to be with her dying mother. John sees Marianne as his redemption and starts to pursue her, but she doesn't want to be reminded of her past. When the murder of an Upper West Side woman involved in a drug transaction has the police scouring the town for suspects, John thinks they are following him, and the strain upon his life and his hopes for the future become harder and harder to bear. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Willem Dafoe, Susan Sarandon, (more)
- 1987
- PG13
A brother and sister grapple with family and lifestyle issues in this rock-n-roll drama. Real-life rocker Joan Jett stars as Patti Resnick, an unwed mother who sings and plays guitar in a Cleveland bar band with her brother Joe (Michael J. Fox). Estranged from her parents and struggling to make ends meet, Patti decides to dive headlong into a carefree rock-n-roll lifestyle. Good-guy Joe pulls away from music to provide some stability for her tiny son. It takes a family crisis to bring Patti back home and force her to face the prickly past with her devoutly Christian mother (Gena Rowlands). Despite a somewhat thin story, the film has solid performances all around, most especially from the refreshingly compelling Jett. Bruce Springsteen penned the title song. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael J. Fox, Gena Rowlands, (more)
- 1985
- R
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In Paul Schrader's unusual biopic, Ken Ogata stars as Yukio Mishima, perhaps the most celebrated Japanese novelist of the last five decades. The film begins with Mishima's youth, then moves forward in episodic fashion to his 1970 suicide, symbolically committed at a military site. Originally titled Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, the film is neatly divided into a quartet of acts, and the screenplay does not flinch in its depiction of Mishima's hyperactive sex life. Among the many neat directorial touches is the decision to offer the narrative in black-and-white, while depicting scenes from Mishima's novels in vibrant color. Written off as self-indulgent by those impatient with Schrader's fragmentary technique, Mishima was produced in Japan by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, an offshoot of Coppola's involvement with Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Ogata, Masayuki Shionoya, (more)
- 1976
- PG
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Love never dies in Brian De Palma's psychological thriller, though money certainly complicates matters. Rich New Orleans real estate developer Michael Courtland (Cliff Robertson) lost his beloved wife Elizabeth (Genevieve Bujold) and their daughter during a botched kidnap rescue, after he chose to let the police try to free them instead of paying the ransom. Sixteen years later, Michael returns to the Tuscan church where he and Elizabeth first met, and he sees Sandra Portinari (Bujold again), the mirror image of his dead wife. Despite the reservations of his long-time friend and business partner (John Lithgow), Michael woos Sandra and brings her back to New Orleans to marry her. Seeing Sandra as his second chance to prove his love, Michael thinks he can finally put the past behind him, but the past is about to catch up with him in ways he never dreamed. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cliff Robertson, Geneviève Bujold, (more)
Noted screenwriter Joan Tewksbury made her directorial debut with this bittersweet comedy-drama. Diane Cruise (Talia Shire), a psychologist going through a severe depression, takes a long look at her life after attempting to commit suicide. Diane decides to pay a visit to her former boyfriends in order to get in touch with her past and map out her future. She meets up with her high school sweetheart Eric Katz (John Belushi) and gets to turn the tables on him in revenge over a past humiliation. She also finds Jeff Turrin (Richard Jordan), her college beau who now works as a filmmaker, and she discovers that the first boy she fell in love with has died -- only to find herself drifting into an unexpected romance with his older brother, Wayne Van Til (Keith Carradine). The supporting cast features John Houseman, Buck Henry, Gerritt Graham, and P.J. Soles. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Talia Shire, Richard Jordan, (more)
- 1988
- R
A newspaper heiress is kidnapped, brainwashed, and forced to join a group of terrorist bank robbers in this docudrama, based on the saga of Patricia Hearst. In 1974, Hearst (Natasha Richardson), the granddaughter of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, was a student at the University of California. On February 4, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a radical political group, broke into the Berkeley home she shared with her boyfriend and kidnapped her. Hearst then allegedly spent 57 days locked in a closet as she was indoctrinated into the group's revolutionary beliefs by their charismatic leader, Cinque (Ving Rhames). Eventually, Hearst joined (or at least pretended to join) the SLA, adopted the name Tania and participated in a number of high-profile bank robberies. After several SLA members died in a police fire storm, Hearst and fellow members Bill and Emily Harris (William Forsythe and Frances Fisher) went on the lam and were later arrested. Although she claimed her participation in the group was a ruse carried out to protect herself from further rape, torture, and mind control, Hearst eventually served several years in prison after her 1976 conviction for bank robbery. Based on the novel Every Secret Thing, Hearst's own account of the events, Paul Schrader's film tells the story from the heiress' own viewpoint, with little in the way of conflicting evidence. After President Carter ordered her release from prison in 1979, Hearst went on to act in several films, including Cecil B. Demented, a John Waters spoof whose plot bears some resemblance to her own life story. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Natasha Richardson, William Forsythe, (more)
- 1990
This documentary, made for PBS' American Masters series, explores the life and career of the renowned screenwriter and director Preston Sturges (1898-1959), whose few but very influential films managed to change the entire film industry. The documentary features clips from his films, and interviews with those who knew him well, including ex-wives. He was the first screenwriter to make the move to become a film director. He is best known for his unerringly light touch in dealing humorously with difficult topics, and directed one of the first widely successful spoofs of Hollywood, The Great McGinty. The director had a life as eventful and fraught with coincidences as anything in the movies, and this is recounted also. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Bracken, Thomas Quinn Curtiss, (more)
Martin Scorsese's brutal character study incisively portrays the true rise and fall and redemption of middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, a violent man in and out of the ring who thrives on his ability (and desire) to take a beating. Opening with the spectacle of the over-the-hill La Motta (Robert De Niro) practicing his 1960s night-club act, the film flashes back to 1940s New York, when Jake's career is on the rise. Despite pressure from the local mobsters, Jake trusts his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) to help him make it to a title bout against Sugar Ray Robinson the honest way; the Mob, however, will not cave in. Jake gets the title bout, and blonde teenage second wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarity), but success does nothing to exorcise his demons, even as he channels his rage into boxing. Alienating Vickie and Joey, and disastrously gaining weight, Jake has destroyed his personal and professional lives by the 1950s. After he hits bottom, however, Jake emerges with a gleam of self-awareness, as he sits rehearsing Marlon Brando's On the Waterfront speech in his dressing room mirror: "I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody." Working with a script adapted by Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader from La Motta's memoirs, Scorsese and De Niro sought to make an uncompromising portrait of an unlikable man and his ruthless profession. Eschewing uplifting Rocky-like boxing movie conventions, their Jake is relentlessly cruel and self-destructive; the only peace he can make is with himself. Michael Chapman's stark black-and-white photography creates a documentary/tabloid realism; the production famously shut down so that De Niro could gain 50-plus pounds. Raging Bull opened in late 1980 to raves for its artistry and revulsion for its protagonist; despite eight Oscar nominations, it underperformed at the box office, as audiences increasingly turned away from "difficult" films in the late '70s and early '80s. The Academy concurred, passing over Scorsese's work for Best Director and Picture in favor of Robert Redford and Ordinary People, although De Niro won a much-deserved Oscar, as did the film's editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. Oscar or no Oscar, Raging Bull has often been cited as the best American film of the 1980s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, (more)
- 1977
- R
William Devane plays a rare sympathetic role in Rolling Thunder, though his behavior is just as cold-blooded and sharkish as in any of his villainous assignments. Devane is cast as Maj. Charles Rane, a recently released Vietnam POW who is given a hero's welcome in his Texas hometown. Things sour pretty quickly, however: Rane's wife has lost all love for him, his son doesn't recognize him, and there are those in town who consider him a "loser" or "baby-killer." All he really has to show for his ordeal in Nam is a cache of silver coins bestowed on him by the more sympathetic townsfolk. A scumbag gang of thieves decides to relieve Rane of his money; they kill his family, then torture and disfigure Rane to ascertain the whereabouts of the coins. Now living only for vengeance, the taciturn Rane heads to Mexico to exact his own brand of justice on the fleeing crooks. Tommy Lee Jones co-stars as Rane's best friend, Johnny Vohden, who unquestioningly agrees to help Rane in his mission of revenge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Devane, Tommy Lee Jones, (more)
