ReFocus: The Films of Paul Schrader

Offers the first comprehensive academic text to explore Paul Schrader’s film career through analysis of his directing, screenwriting, and film criticism Contains a chapter-length interview, in which Schrader examines the arc of his career for the first time and revises previous statements about filmmaking and film criticism Provides a valuable update to previous texts on Schrader Considers Schrader’s overlooked films and provides new insight into their connections with Schrader’s better known films Contains chapters on Schrader’s work since 2008, the publication date of the last book on his filmmaking
Paul Schrader’s unique relationship to the role of the author (as screenwriter, director and critic) has long informed his cinema, and raises complicated questions about the definition of the auteur. This volume of essays – one of the first collections to assess Schrader’s contributions to directing, screenwriting and criticism – includes the first original appraisals of his much-lauded masterpiece First Reformed (2017), as well as a chapter-length interview with Schrader himself, conducted by the editors.

Providing a comprehensive exploration of his groundbreaking achievements in cinema, the book considers Schrader’s more overlooked films and provides new insights to their connection with his celebrated work in direction and screenwriting such as Taxi Driver (1976), Cat People (1982) and The Comfort of Strangers (1990).