‘The more you tell a story, the richer it gets’

MEENAKSHI SHEDDE meets iconic Hollywood film director and screenwriter Paul Schrader and comes away convinced that there is definitely a Bollywoodwallah in there

MY MARRIAGE BROKE, I was in debt, I had an ulcer, I had no place to stay, I had quit the American Film Institute. I spent three weeks cruising in my car along the sewers of the city. I was living in a metal box, surrounded by people, but absolutely alone. I came to screenplay writing as self-therapy,” begins Paul Schrader, acclaimed Hollywood screenwriter (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Last Temptation of Christ). “I wrote about a taxi driver who was full of anger, suicidal. I needed the power of art: if I didn’t separate from this person, he was becoming me or I was becoming him. That’s how I created Travis Bickle,” he says, of the character memorably etched by Robert de Niro, in the film Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese.

As his life became art, Schrader used screenwriting to understand and take control of his problems. Problems can be painful, but it’s a good pain, he says. “When screenwriting, be prepared to drop your pants and show your dirty laundry. If you can’t do that, better find yourself something more polite,” he warns. Schrader has made a career of being impolite, with a large body of work in both screenwriting (21 films), as well as direction (18 films) and his films have won swarms of prizes, including an Oscar for Affliction, Golden Palm nomination for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Golden Bear nominations for Hardcore and Light Sleeper, and a Golden Globe nomination for American Gigolo. He was in Delhi last week to attend the 10th Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab cinema (July 10-20), where Taxi Driver and Mishima were screened, and where he gave a “master class” on screenwriting and a lecture on new media.

Schrader pads into his own press conference at Osian’s in a black shirt, brief black shorts revealing hairy legs, and plastic Croc sandals — as if he were headed for the beach in Goa rather than a press conference at Siri Fort, New Delhi. Although his carefully dressed-down body language seems to drip casual scorn — and he insists on a simultaneous, joint interview by 10 print journalists — he soon warms to his subject.

film, Adam Resurrected, an Israeli- German co-production. “It is set in a mental hospital for Holocaust survivors,” he says, “and its protagonists are a man who was once was a Commandant’s ‘dog’ during the Nazi era — chained and walking on all fours — who encounters another ‘dog’, a 12-year-old boy, who was raised like a dog, in a basement, on a chain. It’s about a man who used to be a dog and a dog who used to be a boy, and they recognise each other as dogs.” How splendid that a Hollywood director would direct, and find producers for, such a promisingly off-kilter subject.

Although solidly part of the Hollywood establishment — he loves to casually drop names like Bob and Marty (Robert de Niro and Martin Scorsese) — it is delightful that he acknowledges the power of oral storytelling, a centuries’-old tradition in India. “Screenwriting can be a formal affair, but many screenplays are not really written at all. They’re part of the oral tradition and I know many Indian directors don’t write scripts either,” he drawls.

“I just finished a screenplay, Tree of Smoke, about a retired CIA man,” he continues. “Bob had done a film on the CIA, and he put me in touch with his contacts. When I met the CIA guy and was relating my story to him, I did not have an ending. But as I narrated my story, I figured out the ending. Oral storytelling is important: the more you tell a story, the richer and more complex it gets.” Suddenly, this Hollywood Bob-and-Martywallah seems a tad more of an apun ka aadmi, doing “script narration” like a proper Bollywoodwallah (even Ashutosh Gowariker did it for Aamir Khan for Lagaan), instead of scoffing at the “unprofessional Bollywood folly” of making films without a bound script.

More modesty is to come. “I’m not a real writer,” he insists. “You’re a real writer if you write every day. I’ve written two screenplays this year, but for three years earlier, I didn’t write any screenplays at all.” He takes two to three weeks to work on an idea, then a month to flesh it out. “If the story says to you, I don’t want to be written or I’m getting sick of being told or I’m bored, just stop,” he suggests. “Sometimes, the idea will go away, and that’s a pretty good day. You’ve just saved six months slaving on a screenplay that doesn’t work.”

Is it frustrating that despite his body of work in screenwriting and direction, the public’s reference point is still Taxi Driver, which he wrote 32 years ago? “It is a blessing that Taxi Driver is a classic and a touchstone of world cinema, as a lot of directors go through whole careers without getting the sense of affirmation that it
gave me,” he admits.

However, as a director, he remains ruthless with the scriptwriter. “After I’ve been director of 18 films, I don’t often get asked to write scripts,” he says. “As director, I rewrite everything the scriptwriter gives me. Hollywood unions insist that you can get a writer’s credit only if one-third of the film is your brand new contribution, and a director’s credit only if half the film is your brand new contribution.”

The best screenplays, says Schrader, “take place on a sidewalk outside the cinema. If he says, ‘The movie was kinda crap,’ and she says, ‘No, it was not crap…,’ then the movie’s still happening. If he says, ‘What d’you wanna eat?’ then the movie’s over. If you can get the viewer to be part of your creative process, it becomes memorable. But that’s the opposite of what so many Hollywood films allow. Everything is explained, and there are no questions unanswered.”

Reflecting on the future of screenwriting, he says, “The weakest writing in America today is in the movies, the best writing is on TV, in series like The Sopranos. That’s because scripts for TV are about human beings and human behaviour, not a journey to the centre of the earth. Movies have become less and less about good writing and more and more about spectacle, so the importance of the screenwriter has declined. The most spirited dialogues in spectacle films are lines like: “Look, it’s coming” or “Run, run, run.” When I started out in the film business about 30 years ago, there was a crisis of content. Now there is a crisis of form, with films on DTH, internet downloads, and so on. But as screen sizes become small — TV, cable, computers, mobile phones — spectacle will become less important, and the importance of the screenwriter will be re-established.”

What does it tell him about Indian cinema, when Hollywood has been doing business in India for over a century, but still has barely eight percent of the Indian market? “You’re lucky”, he shrugs. Although he acknowledges that the Bollywood cult is spreading, he admits he doesn’t know what it would take for an Indian film to make it internationally. “Probably a bit of luck.” Talking of Indian cinema, he says, “I saw Bride and Prejudice, and liked it a lot,” but doesn’t sound convincing.

Before we finish, a cub reporter asks him sweetly, “Do you like cats or dogs?” “Dogs,” he answers graciously. We hope she won’t be sacked for forgetting to ask him which label he wore to the Oscars.

Meenakshi Shedde is a national award-winning film critic and key advisor on Indian cinema to the Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Toronto film festivals