- published: 08 Nov 2014
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Paul Joseph Schrader (born July 22, 1946) is an American screenwriter, film director, and former film critic. Apart from his credentials as a director, Schrader is most known for his screenplays for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.
Schrader was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Joan (née Fisher) and Charles A. Schrader, an executive. Schrader's family practiced in the Calvinist Christian Reformed Church, and his early life was based upon the religion's strict principles and parental education. He did not see a film until he was seventeen years old, and was able to sneak away from home. In an interview he stated that The Absent-Minded Professor was the first film he saw. In his own words, he was "very unimpressed" by it, while Wild in the Country, which he saw some time later, had quite some effect on him. Schrader refers his intellectual rather than emotional approach towards movies and movie making to his having no adolescent's movie memories.
Schrader received his BA from Calvin College, with a minor in Theology. He then earned an MA in Film Studies from the UCLA Film School graduate program upon the recommendation of Pauline Kael. With her as his mentor, he became a film critic, writing for the Los Angeles Free Press, and later for Cinema magazine. His book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, which examines the cross-cultural similarities between Robert Bresson, Yasujirō Ozu and Carl Theodor Dreyer, was published in 1972. The endings of Schrader's films American Gigolo and Light Sleeper bear obvious resemblance to that of Bresson's 1959 film Pickpocket. His essay Notes on Film Noir from the same year has become a much cited source in literature on film.
Actors: Benno Fürmann (actor), Sandra Borgmann (actress), Ralph Herforth (actor), Andreas Schreitmüller (producer), Enis Rotthoff (composer), Konstantin Graudus (actor), Patrick Dreikauss (miscellaneous crew), Jeanette Würl (producer), Marcel Peragine (editor), Jochen Striebeck (actor), Hermann Kirchmann (writer), Hermann Kirchmann (producer), Jan Ruzicka (director), Annika Kuhl (actress), Paula Schramm (actress),
Genres: Drama,