Paul Schrader

Paul Joseph Schrader born July 22 1946 is an American screenwriter film director and film critic He first became widely known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorseses Taxi Driver 1976 He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese writing or cowriting Raging Bull 1980 The Last Temptation of Christ 1988 and Bringing Out the Dead 1999 Schrader has also directed 24 films including Blue Collar 1978 Hardcore 1979 American Gigolo 1980 Cat People 1982 Mishima A Life in Four Chapters 1985 Light Sleeper 1992 Affliction 1997 and First Reformed 2017 the latter earned him his first Academy Award nomination Schraders work frequently depicts troubled men struggling through an existential crisis that is then punctuated by a violent cathartic event Raised in a strict Calvinist family Schrader attended Calvin College before electing to pursue film studies at UCLA on the encouragement of film critic Pauline Kael He then worked as a film scholar and critic publishing the book Transcendental Style in Film Ozu Bresson Dreyer 1972 before making the transition to screenwriting in 1974 The success of Taxi Driver in 1976 brought greater attention to his work and Schrader began directing his own films beginning with Blue Collar cowritten with his brother Leonard Schrader His three most recent films have been described by Schrader as a loose trilogy First Reformed 2017 The Card Counter 2021 and Master Gardener 2022 Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Schrader licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia