Martin Scorsese kept Paul Schrader working after wife’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis
Director and screenwriter Paul Schrader has credited Martin Scorsese with encouraging him to keep working after Schrader’s wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.
“You have to strike a balance,” Scorsese told Schrader, as Schrader later explained to Curbed. “You can’t let her condition stop you from working.” Scorsese and Schrader had collaborated on numerous occasions, most notably for the films Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ.
Schrader originally tried to care for his wife at home but realised the care “needed to escalate” and relocated to assisted living facility Coterie Hudson Yards. “I started realising that we’re not going to be able to take care of her anymore and wondering, ‘Where’s a good place?,’” Schrader recalled. “Am I going be left as the lonely old guy at the lake house, walking into walls, drinking? Is that going to be my fate?”
“Would I have moved here if I didn’t have a situation with my wife? No. Will I leave if she dies? No. I like it.” Schrader said of his neighbours, “They all tend to be kind of interesting because otherwise they couldn’t afford to be here, even if they are a little on the geriatric side. But then so am I.”
“Throughout those 50 years, my respect for him as an artist has really grown with every new picture he has made,” Scorsese said about Schrader at the 2022 Venice Film Festival. “His career is a light, a beacon of personal expression – personal expression above all else, and he’s never stopped growing as an artist. I can’t think of a better example for young, first-time filmmakers to follow. For those of you that get discouraged, just look and adapt and survive the way Paul has. And keep going getting your movies made the way Paul has.”
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