Mister Tee wrote:If he doesn't want to be known as that, he shouldn't recycle the plot. This is what I wrote when I saw First Reformed:Big Magilla wrote:According to Schrader on the DVD and Blu-ray, Diary of a Country Priest was his main influence.
I thought there was more of his Hardcore than Taxi Driver in it. Schrader himself is a bit scornful of being known primarily for Taxi Driver. He often says that no matter what he does, his obituary will refer to him as the writer of Taxi Driver.
"You have a isolated man suffering psychic pain in the aftermath of a disastrous war. He's putting his feverish thoughts into a journal, which we hear in voice-over. He becomes obsessed with the filth he sees all around him (in Taxi Driver, it was the urban chaos of NY in the 70s; here, it's extended to the entire polluted planet). He has contempt for the bureaucrats who answer his questions with platitudes. He begins to contemplate a violent act in response to all this (an act that's aborted). His great redemptive relationship is with a younger, fair-haired girl, for whom he cares more than anyone else."
Not since Ernest Lehman lifted scenes from North by Northwest for The Prize have I seen a writer so shamelessly plagiarize himself.
The good things about Paul Schrader is that he is an original voice in American cinema, and has been so now for decades, and that he's never been afraid of dealing with important subjects, often with more than one at the same time. Subjects which European films are maybe more accustomed to, but which really one rarely sees in American films. He also often provide his actors (the males especially) with powerfully raw roles.
The bad things about Paul Schrader are that he's sometimes more obvious than he thinks he is, that you feel that he's either not totally up to the task when he faces such subjects, or that he gets too carried away by them, like a preacher delievering a feverish sermon. Also his writing is intense, but at times (intentionally? conveniently?) confused, clumsy even.
First Reformed is, in a way, a combination of both his good sides and bad sides - one can't deny that it IS a Paul Schrader film, and Paul Schrader, like it or not, is an auteur, one of the few still active in the US. This doesn't mean that First Reformed is a great movie, of course, or even a good one - the ending(s) is particularly ludicrous.
Yet, while only a few years ago I'd have quickly dismissed such a movie, and found it annoying, today, after a succession of dreadful, uninspired, absurdly praised things like A Star is Born, I must admit that the good things in it suddenly seem to me to be more important than the bad things, and no, this doesn't make me think that it's great, but interesting, yes. I am more indulgent, more forgiving, towards this kind of admittedly flawed and at times downright irritating stuff. And Ethan Hawke - in a kind of role that we don't find anymore in mainstream American cinema - is very good.