The movie Paul Schrader made out of spite: “This was to remove the stain from our clothes”
Paul Schrader wrote Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ. Good movies about punching people in the face and Jesus, respectively, are perhaps the greatest successes in those two prolific genres. He also worked on other movies, some of which he should be proud of and some of which he should (and is) angry with the studio system for ruining.
He wrote Taxi Driver and Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, the latter telling the story of the bodybuilding Japanese novelist who tried to lead a coup de tat with a samurai sword. He’s especially proud of that one, as he should be. Schrader’s career hasn’t been all wine and roses, however.
In an interview with Slant, Schrader thinks back upon a project that didn’t earn him much in critical regard. He says, “With different projects, it’s a different story, of course, but this particular one came out of a desire to right a wrong. Simple as that. About three years ago, Nic Cage and I made Dying of the Light, which was in the end taken away from us.”
“It was made into something completely different, recut and made a mess of.” This is hardly the first time that Hollywood execs have undone and unravelled a film under the aegis of ‘marketability’ or whatever equally horrifying term they’re using, but it upset Schrader to the point that he became vengeful.
He goes on to say, “And then I said to Nic that, if we lived long enough, we should just work together again on something new and fresh. All on our own. This was to remove the stain from our clothes. It just so happened that someone sent me the script to Dog Eat Dog, which wasn’t even financed.” It did get financed, though.
But you can’t expect an actor like Nicolas Cage to play ball. At least not according to your rules. He’ll do the movie, no matter what it is–this we know–but he had his own ideas, too. Shraeder thinks back, saying, “It had the role of Mad Dog in it, and I thought Nic would be perfect for it. But when we talked about the project, it turned out that he was most interested in playing Troy, the straight guy. So that’s kind of how it started.”
Reflecting on the project, Schrader says, “I didn’t set out to do a crime film. In fact, at one point, I tried to stop myself from making it. I don’t think of myself as a filmmaker working in the crime film genre. I mean, how do you even make a crime film today? Post-Scorsese, post-Tarantino, post-Ritchie? After a while, I just tried to make this genre mine. But really the crucial part is the final cut.” And we don’t get to choose our legacies. Schrader’s name will always be tightly embraced with the crime genre, whether he likes it or not.
