Writer/director Paul Schrader was one of the defining voices of the maverick film movement of the 1970s.His films helped define a generation and he loved plumbing the depths of depravityof which many of his contemporaries only wanted to skim the surface. As a result, his films have a harder edge than most, but in all of his best films, he wields sexuality like a finely sharpened weapon.
Let's dive in to five of Schrader's most well-known, most skin-filled flicks and discover how he uses sexuality both to stimulate and to repulse...
Hardcore
Between his scripts for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull being turned into films, Schrader first dipped his toes into directing with 1978's Blue Collar. His next directorial effort, however, is this harrowing 1979 film that hasregained its popularity in the last ten years thanks to its meme-worthy "Turn it off!" scene from George C. Scott.
Removed from the context of the film, the scene has gained popularity because of how over-the-top and melodramatic it seems. However, when placed back into the context of the film—Scott is watching his daughter perform in aproduction whose content is indicated by the film's title—it's a truly horrifying moment, the kind by which Schrader's early career was defined.
Schrader's interest is in removing the sexuality from the nudity, showing it in a sleazy, exploitational way that wasn't common in big budget productions during this time period. While nudity was mostly being used to titillate, here Schrader was showing us a depraved world through the eyes of a righteous, religious man. If the nudity isn't sexy, it's because Schrader intended it to be uncomfortable and off-putting.
Schrader's twisted relationship with sexuality was only just beginning, however.He almost dares you to be turned on by the nudity in this film, showing the ever-present guilt that his religious upbringing instilled in him. It's never quite this shameful and guilt-inducing again, but he's only just getting warmed up.
American Gigolo
Releasedeleven months before Raging Bull, this 1980 look at the world of male escortingmay be most famous for star Richard Gere's full frontal scene,but it was also the first time Schrader explored sexually charged nudity on film. The women of American Gigolo are meant to be glamorous and beautiful and look amazing when they're naked, and Schrader nailed that, often by using POV to put you into the shoes of a man being desired by women.
Couple scenes like this with a killer score by 80s sensation Giorgio Moroder—with whom he'd re-team on Cat People—and you've got one of Schrader's sexiest films sandwiched between two of his least sexy films. Which brings us to...
Cat People
It seemed like an interesting proposition on paper. Schrader doing a sexy remake of Jacques Tourneur's 1942 classic of the same name with Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell? Sign me up!
The problem was that Schrader became hung up on familial sex, to the point where Kinski and McDowell's characters turn into panthers if they have sex with anyone outside of their family. It's hard to be titillated when McDowell spends most of his time on screen either begging Kinksi to sleep with him, or looking totally disinterested while he gets his cock sucked...
I covered this one in aSKIN-depth Review from last April, so I would encourage you to read that for my full thoughts, but this is sort of the apex of Schrader's sexual depravity. All of the film's nudity is gratuitous, though I'm not necessarily complaining as it brought us Annette O'Toole naked in the pool...
Which brings us to the most gratuitous nude scene of all, perhaps a top ten most gratuitous nude scene of all time. Horrorfixture Lynn Lowry appears as a prostitute who is attacked by Malcolm McDowell as a panther. As she crawls for her life, she falls down a flight of stairs and when she hits the bottom, her bra pops open...
Again, I'm not complaining, I'm just floored by how stunningly gratuitous this nude scene is.
Schrader continued making films throughout the 80s and 90s including the mostly forgettable Patty Hearst, Light Sleeper, and Forever Mine, though the latter brought us an early nude scene from the gorgeous Gretchen Mol...
Auto Focus
Sometimes the marriage of director and subject matter seems like destiny, as it did when Schrader took on the sordid life and death of former Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear). Crane's off-screen peccadilloes were the stuff of legend, and Schrader relished the opportunity to dive into that seedy world.
Schrader regular Willem Dafoe plays John Henry Carpenter, Crane's real-life friend turned suspected murderer. The two become fast friends thanks to their mutual interest in bedding as many women as possible and filming them for posterity...
The most memorable nude scene in the film occurs during a fantasy sequence when Maria Bello—playing Hogan's Heroes star and later real-life wife of Crane Sigrid Valdis—has sex on set with Col. Clink himself Werner Kemperer (Kurt Fuller) while Bob watches...
The film's first two acts make the sex seem fun and free-wheeling and kind of celebrates Crane and Carpenter's seedy lifestyle a bit...
But the already dark film takes a turn for the seriously macabre as the perils of sexual addiction begin to take hold of the main characters. It gets bleak and bloody, not unlike the third act of Taxi Driver, as the film's themes all collide in an orgy of violence.
For my money, this and the skinless Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters are Schrader's two best films. Auto Focus is the perfect blending of titillating sex and nudity with the decidedly unsexy sex of the third act, Schrader finally harnessing and rectifyingthe two warring sides of sex he'd wrestled with through most of his career.
It would be a wonderful button on the career of a world class provocateur, but the problem is that in 2013, Paul Schrader made...
The Canyons
By any objective measure, this should have been a slam dunk. Schrader teaming up with author Bret Easton Ellis—another authority on 80s excess, both societally and sexually—for a cautionary tale about the lengths people will go to in order to maintain their lavish lifestyles.
The problem is, that's not the movie that was promised and not the one that was turned in. The one turned in starred Lindsay Lohan, long after earning her reputation as being trouble on the set, and porn star James Deen, just a few years before he became a pariah himself. As a result, there's no depth to anything that anyone says or does.
More annoyingly, Schrader is attempting to make a point by lovingly filming abandoned movie theaters and making virtually every scene with nudity completely devoid of sexiness...
He's trying to show us the ugliness of the character by bathing her in yellow light, right? Well, it's only succeeding in making Lindsey look jaundiced.
Honestly, you couldn't watch a single frame of this film—except the ones involving the abandoned movie theaters—and know that it was made by Schrader. It's so pedestrian and treats its lengthy sex scenes with all the sex appeal of a nature documentary.
Obviously Schrader's strict Calvinist upbringing left a lasting impression on how he views sex, and more importantly, how he shoots and presents sex on film. What are some of your favorite Schrader films or moments? Do you like him better as a writer than a director? Sound off in the comments section below!
