Paul Schrader (Michigan, 1946) defines himself as the penultimate active representative - always with the permission of his inseparable companion of faith Martin Scorsese - of what he himself describes as "the film school generation." The screenwriter of the totemic Taxi Driver insists in his latest work recently presented in Venice, The Basics of Philosophy, on the plot that has presided over his latest films from The Reverend to The Master Gardener through The Card Counter. Once again, a single man fights tooth and nail against his grave sins of the past in desperate search for forgiveness, redemption or, at least, an ounce, just one, of hope. This time, the protagonist (Jack Huston) is a philosophy professor who argues with Spinoza himself (the Jewish philosopher appears as a character) about free will and the possibility of a man or a woman changing. As far as Schrader is concerned, he is completely free to give his opinion on everything and, yes, exactly the same as himself. There is no change possible.
Why precisely Baruch Spinoza?
He hesitated between Leibniz and Spinoza. I could have also chosen other authors with whom I am familiar such as Marx or Wittgenstein, but, as I became more immersed in reading, I began to see it more clearly. I wanted to talk about free will and whether human beings can really change and everything fit. Furthermore, the fact that he was Dutch like myself and a Christian Jew brought him closer to my own biography.
One of his most celebrated works as a writer is The Transcendental Style in Cinema: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. I wonder where your interest in philosophy comes from.
I first went to a Calvinist religious school. Let's say that I received the base there. Then at university, we all, whatever we studied (I did a degree in English), had to go through a mandatory subspecialization in philosophy. I don't want to sound nostalgic, but I consider it a good education. Now I see how the money from the evangelical right contaminates liberal universities, pushing them more and more toward faith instead of the study of thought, and I find it regrettable.
Guilt, forgiveness, redemption as a necessary condition of change have been present in his cinema from the very beginning. A very basic question: why?
I can't think of a halfway intelligent answer. All I can say is that I was programmed that way. Freud did not talk about computers, but he was clear that we are what we are at five or six years old. Then all you do is run the program. No matter how fast you run or how far you want to go, you can't escape who you are.
I imagine that after years of working on the same topics on which it was programmed, the conclusions are now clear.
Everything revolves around the same dilemma. When the protagonist meets Spinoza himself he tells him: "I think I have changed, but, still, they have not forgiven me." The philosopher answers that change is impossible, that rationally we are completely determined. And immediately afterwards he confesses his firm belief in free will. How is such a contradiction possible? Freedom may be an illusion resulting from our ignorance, but we have to act as if it were possible, as if it were a certainty.
That sounds little like a conclusion. What do you believe?
You could argue one way or the other. Sometimes I think I've seen people really change and other times I think no, they just act like they've changed. But if you act like you've changed, haven't you really changed? Or do you just act like you've changed?
The film somehow raises the conflict between the Church and homosexuality...
I have to say that I live in the West Village of New York, which is a gay neighborhood, and the two churches that I have nearby, one Presbyterian and one Lutheran, basically have a gay congregation. Obviously, there is no conflict. What happens is that there have been and are movements determined to use the Bible and the Church itself as a force of control. And, of course, if you are going to control people, the first thing is to control sexuality. You can't allow people to have free sexuality and keep it under control. The Church has historically tried to control any type of sexuality and very particularly the non-normative and out of control: homosexuality.
In his cinema, forgiveness has always been a central argument. But I would dare to say that never, in this time of hatred, has it had such little prestige as now.
There is a tendency to think that things are worse now than before. We've been thinking that for thousands of years. If we go back to my parents' generation, to my grandparents' generation, everyone will say the same thing: it was better before. I don't think it is like that. It is true that the 1950s had many good things, but the rights of women, blacks and minorities did not exist. It seems that there is more intolerance now than ever, but if we think about it we see such blatant facts as the fact that people of short stature were previously stigmatized is no longer the case. And that was common.
But he will not deny that we are experiencing a regression with the rise of the extreme right around the world.
If you talk about the MAGA movement, don't be fooled, it will be over long before fundamental rights are curtailed. In fact, it is already on its last legs.
The film appears sponsored, not produced, by Martin Scorsese, how do you see, if you will allow me, two sacred cows like yourselves the new Hollywood?
We now live in the post-internet generation. There have been about eight or nine generations throughout the history of cinema. We were the generation of film schools. Before us, there was the television generation. Then came those who emerged from the theater and those who grew up with television series. This new generation comes from the internet and has its own style. I call it scroll cinema. In fact, there is a film like Adolescence, Sex and Death in Camp Miasma that is a good example. They are films that embrace contradiction; the contradiction of style and argument. Its authors are a generation that has grown up doing and seeing contradictory things simultaneously. They read email, watch sports on TV, and watch YouTube at the same time. And now they make movies.
AI yes or AI no.
You cannot be against reality. It's already here. It has merged with CG special effects and will do so even more. In fact, I'm working right now on an entirely AI-generated movie.
"It won't be long before we see digitally generated actors. I myself am already working on a film entirely with AI"
And the actors?
They are also AI. Everything progresses at an exaggerated pace. Soon it will be impossible to distinguish a flesh-and-blood actor from a digitally generated one. The question is: Will carbon people like us pay to identify with silicon people? That already happens. Or we haven't seen Avatar or Toy Story. It's only a matter of time before we have our first AI star.
So don't you think it's the Apocalypse of cinema?
What is cinema? Is cinema something that is projected on a wall? Or is it something you see on the phone? Both things are cinema. Cat videos are cinema. I compare those who oppose AI to the portrait painters of the 19th century when photography emerged. They said, "No, no, no, we have to stop photographing. We're going to lose our jobs." I would answer: "They have already lost them." Nobody wants to pose for a photo.
He is very active on social networks. How do you deal with hate messages?
I still use Facebook because it seems like a nice pulpit to launch into a tirade about anything that comes to mind. And about hate, I have the block button very well trained. As soon as I smell the first symptom, goodbye.
Where do you watch the movies?
Depends. I watch certain series, especially long ones, on TV. I like to go to the movies when there are horror movies, comedies, where you can feel people's reaction. But for certain movies where reaction is irrelevant, home is fine. I'll tell you an anecdote. George Lucas organized a screening of Star Wars in which half the screen was digital projection and the other half was celluloid. He then asked the spectators to say which was which. About 30 percent were wrong. There is a lot of mystique about irrelevant matters.
