WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1435 - Paul Schrader

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Paul Schrader’s upbringing was steeped in the contradictions of religion, which helped him explore the contradictory characters in his screenplays, like Travis Bickle, Jake LaMotta and the protagonists of his recent films, First Reformed, The Card Counter and Master Gardener. Paul talks with Marc about his early career as a film critic, his rejection of Hollywood filmmaking, his experience directing Richard Pryor, and the sibling dynamic he brought to Raging Bull. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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nicks what's happening how's it going i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it exciting day this is an exciting day. It might even be a nice day. I don't know. Paul Schrader is on the show today. Paul Schrader, one of the greats, one of the true artists of film and screenwriting. Just, you know, I was not nervous, but I didn't know how he would be. This guy's a fucking real intellectual and has written some of the greatest movies of all time and directed a few.

He wrote Taxi Driver. He wrote The Last Temptation of Christ, Bringing Out the Dead. He wrote and directed Hardcore, American Gigolo, Cat People, Affliction. His last three movies are kind of an informal trilogy. First Reformed, The Card Counter, and his latest is Master Gardener. And I talked to him, and I think I got some stuff out of him, some good stories, some nice tidbits about Richard Pryor, George C. Scott, some of the movies we talked about, some insight into his conception of Travis Bickle, how one of his movies did not end the way he wanted it to end. It's kind of a great talk. So I've had, it's been a pretty exciting few days, I guess.

I find myself getting busy. I did some big work, did some big work over the last few days. I don't know what you do with your free time. Here's what happened. It's cat related. Like I had one of those old pet safe fountains, uh, one of the original pet safe drinking fountains, right? It's, uh, that, that company makes a bunch of stuff. This is the original drink. Well, from pet safe. Now I've,

I've had a few of these over the years. Uh, Sammy, my, uh, Sammy smushy, uh, he likes it. He drinks out of it. And I've had this one that I had for like many years and it was, you know, calcified. It had all the water deposits from hard water on it. And usually I can clean it out, but I cleaned it and it just wouldn't start up again. And, you know, it had, it was all kind of gunked up, but so I bought a new one. This is like maybe a $42 item, if not cheaper, so I got the new one, I rigged it up, and, you know, I turned it on,

and Sammy's drinking out of it, and the new one came with instructions, and I'd thrown the old one out, it's sort of like, I had a good run with it, it's got to be at least eight years on that thing, so I threw it out, you know, because I couldn't get the fucking pump started even after I brushed out the tried to get as much as the gunk the the hard water deposits out of it so I just threw it out and got the new one everything's good and then I got the instruction manual with the fucking new one and I'm looking at it at the proper cleaning instructions for the pump and also for the body in general and I'm like well it. I'll make a vinegar and water solution. And I'm going to go get that one out of the garbage and make it like new. So I

soaked the body of the fountain in a vinegar and water solution. Then I soaked the, uh, I opened up that goddamn pump, took out the pieces, soak them, decalcified everything, put it back together. No more deposits on any of it. And it started working again. So I now have a refurbished drink well, original fountain that I refurbished myself with a good chunk of time during my day. So if you're wondering like, Hey, if you got a free day and you wonder how to relax or do something, I do a little of that. Yesterday I built a cat door. I've tried a lot of different cat doors to put in my window because I want bugs coming in. I'm not sure that my cats will even use a cat door. I've got to take the time to try and train them.

But the two I had ordered from companies, one didn't fit the window properly, and the one I just got that's a cat door mounted in the middle of a plexiglass panel, I think is too small for them. So I got a cat door from Chewy that you're supposed to put in a door, used half of it, got a piece of plywood, mounted that half on the plywood. I got some foam for the sides and the top, insulating foam kind of strips, rubber. And I created, I built a cat door from scratch. And it looks like it fits.

It looks like it's going to work. I just have to train him. So that's how, you know, you can spend a little time doing that, right? That's what's happening. That is what's happening. I also did a music show at Largo, which went on for two and a half hours. It got away from me, folks. I had Jamie Lee and Ronnie Chang on the show. Me and the band did like six or seven songs. I, you know, rambled for a long time, seemed to be pretty entertaining. But after the last, after I did my set, I said, who wants to hear one more song? And at least 30 people got up to split. Cause I didn't realize it had been two and a half hours. And I think a lot

of them just went to the bathroom, but felt a little bad about that. But those who hung in there, what a show. I said, it was, uh, was uh it was like it was like a mini music festival but the same band just keeps coming back on and uh and and the and the front man is not particularly confident listen people hear me out the bird situation i'm having my house painted and there was uh there was a problem right there was a problem, right? There was a problem because the birds built a nest right above where you walk in and the whole front of the house is kind of speckled with bird shit from the nest. And they got to get up there and do the patching and they got to power wash.

And I told the guy, we can't do anything until the birds are gone. And the guy,antiago the painter he's like okay no problem we're gonna work around it and then last week he's like the birds are big they'll be gone like in a couple of days they just need to get more feathers they need to eat a little more and i'm like okay man are you a bird guy but they left and i was fucking so worried about it just so worried about the vulnerability of those little birdies but they're gone so now that's a that's a big stressor off my plate the little birds still vegan still doing it went to a place called mccharlie's here in la it's a vegan

mcdonald's looks like a mcdonald's uh and i gotta be honest with you man you can get these fake fun meals they're all plant-based and it was great you know the place is a little weird and i don't think it's a chain or anything there's one it's down on the brea and uh it was great like if i ever get the urge to have that kind of garbage food, it definitely will fill the void. But it was a little weird. I was walking out, me and Kit, down La Brea. It's a huge synagogue down there.

And I believe there was an intercom on a car behind me. I hear it go, we will replace you. I'm pretty sure that's what it was said. And this pickup that Hebrew writing all over it pulled up, you know, was driving next beside us. And this black dude in the car points me and he smiles and drives off. The joke was about the Jews. It was from my special, you know, I just want you to know we will replace you. But it was all sort of a, it was a sign. I don't know what it was, but the whole thing was a lot. Him yelling my joke over the intercom, all the Hebrew writing and the fact that he's a black dude driving this Hebrew security truck, I guess, for the

neighborhood at the synagogue it just uh it was food for thought it was a poetic moment it should be a haiku somehow we will replace you we're working on it it's all gonna happen all right listen i went on a little paul schrader festival, not because of him coming, uh, just because it was, you know, over the last year I watched a blue collar again. I watched hardcore again. I watched raging bull at least once a year. Um, I watched light sleeper. I watched, uh, I got to watch affliction. I haven't watched bring a. I watched Autofocus again. And I've seen First Reformed, The Card Counter, and Master Gardner.

These are all movies he was involved with, either written or directed. I watched Taxi Driver again. So this guy's one of the great dark minds, one of the great sort of deep risk takers in cinema and a real intellect in cinema. And I was honored to have this conversation with him. Master Gardener is the new film, which I talked about with Sigourney Weaver, but it hadn't opened.

I guess it was just at festivals. And we talked about it pretty thoroughly, but it opens in theaters this Friday, May 19th. And this is a conversation I had with Paul Schrader. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. conversation I had with Paul Schrader. See you at Pretty Tales. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

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Yeah, I lived here quite a while at one point. Yeah. Every time I come back, as soon as I get here, I say, oh, I'm so glad to be back now. I love LA. And about two days later, time to leave. But I have to assume that, because when I talk to guys who were out here during the heyday of whatever the heyday was, the second to wave heyday, there's got to be a different game out here.

Oh, yeah. No, no. I came out in 68. Yeah. So that was the height of the counterculture. Right. Working for the LA Free Press. Yeah.

Going to UCLA. And it was, well, it's always been sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Sure. But just a different kind of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yeah. It seemed to be culturally more proactive sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yeah, it seemed to be culturally more proactive sex drugs than rock and roll. Yeah, yeah. And that whole sense that you could actually get something done, which is gone now.

And it's gone in so many ways, it's hard to imagine. For some of my father's generation, hard to imagine a world where you don't think things will be better for your children than they were for you. So when you say get things done, that there seemed to be more possibility Or opportunity? That the system would adjust to change. Okay. In a way that we no longer believe it can. Because I know, because I was thinking about it. I did a little bit of research and this sort of idea, because you were brought up very religious. Yeah.

And obviously some of that, I don't know if the word sticks with you or haunts you or has evolved with you over time, but it's still there. Well, yeah. I mean, the computer gets programmed fairly early. Yeah. You know, Freud said about 8, 7, I think, maybe 9 or 10. But anyway, the software is loaded in. And that's it. Yeah.

And then all you can do is sort of either embrace it or push back. Yeah, just try to write some new code every now and then. And then it doesn't, sometimes it seems like it works and then it doesn't anymore. But what kind of, what religion was it? Dutch Reformed. Yeah. So that's the roots of Calvinism, right? Yeah, I went to Calvin College.

Yeah. So I had to study eight hours of the institutes just to graduate. It was also a seminary. Calvin was, and I'm afraid sadly it's less so, it was a great Christian liberal arts college. Because Calvinism is very intellectual. And everybody in the school is very intellectual. But now that the enrollment is dropping there and all across the board

in colleges, they are more and more dependent on money that is coming from the hard right. Yeah, well, that's a big problem. And just that in essence that the nature of education is shifting because they need students

so it becomes all about money money and not necessarily about interest. It seems like your generation and maybe mine a little bit were really the last who had real intellectual heroes, that there was a kind of liberal intellectual hero, a well-rounded liberal arts education. grounded liberal arts education. Yeah, I mean, there's exceptions, but as a mean, median level, that aspiration, the idea of a liberal arts education, more and more that whole idea is saying, am I going to get a better job?

Am I going to make more money? Where can I work with a liberal arts education? Can I write books? No, there's no money in that. Can I get into journalism? No, there's no money in that. No journalism. So how do you, like, when you, I mean, do you feel, I don't want to jump right into fascism, but I, so when you were brought up, I mean, the college was seemingly

liberal, but your childhood was not. Well, it just depends what you call it. Yeah. Was it restrictive? Yeah. Restrictive, I mean, we didn't watch movies, but then I didn't know anybody who watched movies. Because you were insulated. No, it's because in 1928, our synod passed what they called the Decree Against Worldly Amusements. And that was right at the height of the Jazz Age. The synod within the religion. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was a synodical decree, and therefore there were no movies shown.

And I really didn't miss them. Nobody saw them. Nobody talked about them. There was no social media. You weren't exposed to other wild people who had seen movies. And then that all started turning over in the 60s. And so my first exposure to cinema was really the European cinema of the 60s. Right.

Which was a wonderful place to walk into the world of film. What's grown up movies. Yeah. Right? So there was... So, you know, Bergman, Godard, René, Truffaut. Yeah. Antonioni.

You know, that was my first experience. When you went to college? In college, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But when you were younger, being that you never saw movies, how did you entertain yourself? Well, there was TV. Oh, yeah.

And then, you know, they had bicycles. Oh, yeah. And they had bats and balls. Sure. And you would stay outdoors until the streetlights went on. Yeah. Then your mom called you. Yeah. And you have stay outdoors until the streetlights went on. Then your mom would call you. Yeah.

And you have to go inside. So you had thought about pursuing religion? Well, that was just in order to graduate, you had to take a minor in theology. Okay. And then at a certain point, you decide to stay in theological school or go elsewhere. Sure. And so it was 1968. Yeah.

And I had become obsessed with films, and I went to UCLA film school. So you left. Yeah. And how did your family feel about that? Where you didn't give a shit? I think they were, I had been making a lot of trouble. I'd gotten the newspaper shut down already. How so? How'd you do that? We called for the board to resign and then

we published some things and, you know, I mean, it was just what John Lewis called good trouble. Yeah. Just being trouble. Yeah. And so it wasn't a big surprise. Yeah. That you left.

Yeah. And now, like, so Calvinism, the idea is predetermination, right? That God knows who's going to heaven no matter what. That's the naughty center of Calvinism, because your works have no value. My best works are filthy as the sight of the Lord. You cannot earn salvation. And if God is omniscient, he knows all the names of who are saved. So where does free will come in?

And that's always the thing. But, of course, you do have free will. Right. But you don't have free will. But depending on who you are and what your moral or personal constitution is, I would assume that if you were enlightened in a progressive way, it's hard not to feel doomed. Well, you know, there's also the elect. The elect are those that God has chosen from the beginning of time. Yeah.

And you presumably will be in the elect. Yeah. If you choose to be. What does that choice entail? It includes good works, but it primarily entails belief. Oh, okay. Faith. Yeah.

But isn't this where we get the idea that if the Protestant work ethic, doesn't that come directly out of Calvinism? So if you work hard, you'll get in. Yes. So doesn't that then create this idea that capitalism is God? Well, no. You just jumped over. I'm sorry, yeah.

To a – I can't think of his name. But there is a German philosopher who basically just said that right there. Right. Yeah. But, I mean, does that, do you find, because it seems like in a lot of the films that that is sort of in the background somehow. Yes, it is. The sense of asceticism.

Yeah. I mean, the difference between the Abrahamic religions, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, they're all based in kinds of blood, but different levels of it. Yeah. And Catholicism is quite flamboyant. Yeah. Very fancy uniforms and lots of bloody paintings. Sure. And... Wizards, a lot ofoyant. Yeah. Very fancy uniforms and lots of bloody paintings. Sure.

And... Wizards, a lot of wizards. Yeah. And Protestantism is the opposite, very, very austere. Yeah. And you know the difference between a crucifix and a cross?

One has Christ on it? A crucifix has a guy on it. Yeah. Ours don't have a guy. We don't have a guy on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's purely a symbol, you know? And where do you think that comes from?

Is that like a class decision? I mean, it seems when I visited the cathedrals in Rome, I was sort of like, these were built to scare the shit out of poor people. Yeah. And they were. And it's also, they were given an enormous license because they were very, very rich. It was the Holy Roman Empire. Yes.

And there was an enormous amount of decadence, an enormous amount of license, and they fought a hundred-year war in Europe to get away from the power of the Catholic Church. It seems like, because when I was thinking about this trajectory or whatever the hell I'm talking about here, that, you know, this new trilogy, you know, of the three movies, First Reformed and The Card Counter and Master Gardener, that these are all, you know, meditations in some ways on the repercussions of capitalism in terms of global warming, in terms of war crimes, and in terms of racial tension.

Yeah. Yeah. And there are several component parts. Yeah. You get an interesting occupational metaphor, and that started with taxi driver. There was something that people think they know, but they don't really know. You think you know what a taxi driver is.

He's kind of like your brother-in-law. He kind of cracks jokes. Character. He's a character. Yeah. Then I look at him and I say, no, this is the black heart of Dostoevsky. Yeah. You know, that's what a taxi driver is.

He's this kid in a yellow coffin locked in, getting angrier and angrier. For Skolnikov? Well, yeah, notes from the underground. Oh, notes from the underground, right, yeah, yeah. And so then once you see the duality of a metaphor, then you start to move and put it in a larger social context. So the duality of the taxi driver metaphor, you get male violence and incel-ness, you know, basically. Yeah, he was the—

Travis was the first movie incel. Yeah, a little old for the incel. He was a little older than most incels, I think. He was in his 20s. Okay, all right, yeah, that's good, yeah. He was in his 20s. Okay. All right.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. And then, so then, you know, so it's maybe a card player. You don't associate a little series of poker with torture. Yeah. But then you put them together, and you see you have Abu Ghraib. Yeah. And a card player.

Yeah. And you have a little room to move in there. Yeah. And you have a little room to move in there. And Gardner is a former white supremacist who's a gardener and racism. Right. And it allows you to do these little, you know, they're kind of character studies. They're in a way like short stories. Master Gardener is maybe almost like a fable in a way because it isn't so much this is what is happening, but what if this could happen?

Yeah, but also like there's, you know, just filmically, you invert the plantation metaphor. Right. So you kind of turn that on its head. Also, just filmically, you invert the plantation metaphor. Right? So you kind of turn that on its head. Yeah, I do the reverse Mandingo scene. And then you wonder about this guy. But in all these things, in First Reformed as well, the choice that he shoulders with taking the action or not taking

the action, where his heart is and where the future of the world is, and then choosing to ultimately torture himself. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, what he does is he's looking, in a way, I mean, the great temptation of Christianity is this notion that I can earn salvation. And the Bible doesn't teach that. Jesus Christ doesn't teach that. But it's such a temptation that if I suffer enough, if I starve myself, if I live in a monastery, if I'm celibate, if I hit myself on the back with a whip, somehow I will earn a place in heaven. Right.

Whereas Jesus is not saying that at all. Yeah. But there's the temptation to earn it. Where did that come from, though? Who decided that? I think that's human. I just think the idea of— If I'd be good.

I think that's human. I just think the idea of... If I'd be good. I think the idea of accepting grace is a hard one. Yeah. You know? Yeah. You feel that, you know, I'm going to earn this. Yeah.

I did it. I did it. Yeah. The Christian idea that love your neighbor and do some very basic things of kindness doesn't really sit well with our evolutionary path. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there's an inherent contradiction there. And so then I used those elements. So I ended up doing three of these films in a row. It wasn't, I post-facto called it a trilogy, but it didn't set out to be.

In the same way, there's three Bergman films that they now call a trilogy, but he didn't make them as a trilogy. And I did these three in a row, and now I'm doing something quite different. And a lot of it had to do, of course, with the new technology, which allowed me to make films that I couldn't make before. Because it's easier and cheaper? Yeah. But, like, in these protagonists, you know, like, and even in, you know, Travis Bickle and, you know, and Raging Bull 2 and Jake LaMotta, is that you have this sense of an attempt through discipline and ritual to have some control.

Yeah. And that's what's really keeping them connected to whatever their reality is or to whatever their purpose is. And that's sort of Calvinistic, isn't it? Yes, but it goes against the notion that, you know, the contradiction, which is you have to have that. On the other hand, you have to not have that. Yeah. have that. Yeah. And so Calvin, who was a great intellectual, he had this notion that you could create this huge fabric of logic with one tiny little pinhole of faith. If you believe that one little thing, everything else was logical. Well, the problem with a pinhole of faith is about the same size as a barn door.

Yeah. The moment you let faith into the argument, it's not a logical argument anymore. Right. Yeah. Because you have to suspend your disbelief. Yeah. Anything, any tiny little bit of faith that's in the logic breaks the fabric, tears the fabric. So where do these things start? I mean, let's go back a little bit in the sense that so you come out here in 68, and the goal is to make movies?

No, I was a protege of Pauline Kael's. So you're a critic when critics were real critics. Yeah, yeah. And a very elitist one. Well, I was working for the L.A LA Free Press, which had 150,000 circulation, writing every week, and polling to help me get that job. But that was the generation when we stopped going to the movies and we started going to a movie. Right. Then we needed critics. Right. Because how do you know which movie you're going to the movies and we started to go into a movie, then we needed critics. Right. Because how do you know which movie you're going to see?

And also, there was a world of esthetes and film intellectuals. I imagine that most of the generation you're talking about knew Cahiers de Cinema, read all of the— Yeah, but before that, people would just go to the movies. Right. Let's see a movie. Sure. Now it was, let's see The Godfather. Right. Let's see a movie. Sure. Now it was, let's see The Godfather. Right.

Let's see Coming Home. Yeah. Well, how do you know which one to see? Well, you have to read about it. Therefore, you have a huge critical establishment that just burst into bloom in the late 50s and into the 60s. But it was real criticism. It was contextualizing. It was aligning it with culture.

It was assessing filmic device. And therefore, he was very elitist. I mean, back then, I was of that group where you said, we'll tell you when you make a good movie. Right. Bogdanovich was a critic too, right? He was not really a working critic. He was more of a profiler and an interviewer.

So that's different. Well, yeah. Yeah. But he was a peer? He was a few years older. Oh, he was? Yeah. Yeah.

Who were your peers, your immediate peers at the time? David Denby, Ebert. Yeah. Ebert was good, huh? Yeah. And here, Dick Whitehead here and David Kerr and other places. And I was also editing a film magazine, so they were getting people to write for me. And that's how I met Manny Farber.

And when I first met Scorsese, we went down to San Diego to see Manny. And what were the foundational movies for you that defined your critical thinking around film? Well, when I was in college, you know, and people weren't seeing movies, but they started seeing movies underground on 16 millimeter projected in people's houses and stuff, you know, because the system was cracking. And you no longer could really keep kids from seeing movies

because there were too many good movies out there. Oh, this is, oh, in... In the 60s. Here or where you grew up? Grand Rapids, Michigan. Okay, so right. And so there was... Bootleg movies were being shown in homes.

Yeah. Okay. So then the Janice 16mm prints. Yeah. And then there was a guy who had a softcore porn theater that did a lot like Russ Meyer, Big Tim.

Faster Pussycat. He wasn't making any money. He had a place near the college and so he started to show a month of Ingmar Berber. Everybody went over there. And people were coming back and saying, you know, through a glass

darkly, you know, this guy is talking about the same thing we're talking about in the seminary. And he's a filmmaker, and he's from Sweden. What's the problem? Yeah. And so that just broke it down like crazy.

Yeah. So Through a Glass Dockery would be an important film. Yeah. And then I was a film critic here, and I had a pivotal moment in March of 1969. Yeah. I went to the Lemley Theater on Los Feliz. And it was a critical morning screening of Pickpocket by Robert Brisson. Yeah.

And two things, it's a short movie, 75 minutes. Yeah. Two things happened in that movie that changed my life, that 75 minutes. Yeah. First is I had assumed that there was no connection between my sacred upbringing and my profane present. Yeah. And I realized there was.

But it was not a connection of content. It was a connection of style. And that people who chose to represent the holy all around the world, whether in gardens, cathedrals, music, cinema, you did it through style, not through content. Right. What's an example of that? Transcendental style. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. How you do it. Zen garden is a context of that. A cathedral is a context of that. Well, you used that like in Mishima, right? There was the sets of the... But it's a format.

It's a format. It's like meditation. Yeah. Or like... Okay, so it's a metaphor. Yeah. Okay. It's a method.

Yeah, right. It's a way of acting and living that you see emulated all around the world, different religions. Okay, so you're saying that then the medium becomes film. Yeah.

And so that's why I wrote a book about that. Yeah. So I wrote a book two years after I saw the film. And then the other thing that occurred to me, I was living in a house in a Fairfax district with four kids who were all filmmakers. Yeah. And they were all full of that 60s kind of arrogance, and they were doing a biker movie for a corpsman. Was it before or after Easy Rider?

Right around that time. Yeah. They were doing a film called Naked Angels. It was before. Yeah. Angels. It was just before. Yeah. And they all looked down on me as I was

in film, critical studies. Yeah. And they were making a film. Right. And I looked down on them because they were trash. And I didn't get Hollywood and I didn't want to be a part of Hollywood. I didn't think there was any place for me here.

And Pauline was going to get me a job as a critic, and that's where I was headed. And then I saw this film, and there's this kid in it, and he writes in a journal, and then he goes out and steals some stuff, and he writes some more, and then the cops talk to him, and he writes some more,

and then his neighbor. And I thought to myself, I could make a movie like that. And three years later, I wrote that movie. It was called Taxi Driver. Directly from the pickpocket. Inspired. It's the same movie. Yeah.

And what was it essentially that, you know, if you were drawing a line at Hollywood movies, so I'm assuming that most Hollywood movies, and that would be, you know, the history of film in a certain way, American film, you had decided was mostly garbage. Yeah. So this movie captured the very personal story of a guy who lives in these two worlds. Yeah, and it was that smaller canvas thing, like the European cinema. Right. Wasn't that many of my peers and coibles, rightly or wrongly, they would say rightly, became addicted to the big toys. By the big toys, I mean the large budgets,

the machinery, the cranes, the extras, the sets. So that's De Palma, Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola. And I never really was attracted to that. I liked the idea of the more intimate chamber kinds of films. Well, all those guys studied those movies, but they ultimately fell back on Hollywood. Well, they also saw those movies when they were

children. Right. And I never saw a movie when I was a child. Right. I never saw a big Hollywood... You didn't grow up with it. A musical. Yeah. Or anything. Yeah.'t grow up with it. A musical. Yeah. Or anything. Yeah. You know, not even a biblical epic.

So you came into film as an adult, and what resonated with you were your sort of rites of passage as an adult in dealing with faith. You know, you saw movies at that time that spoke to that that were not American movies. No. No. And they were changing the whole world of movies. Right. In that 10 years. In the late 60s. Yes.

And, you know, starting with 58 through 68. But how do you contextualize, you know, like, you know, the Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, In the Heat of the Night. Yeah, that was just a part of it. Hollywood was just waking up from a slumber and starting to do thematic films that had real punch to them. Because of your contemporaries. No, no, that was just— A little before?

That was the theater generation. Yeah. Oh, okay. That was Mike Nichols and those guys? Yeah, and Pollack and Frankenheimer and all those guys that come from the theater. Right. My generation came from film school. Right.

And that's another generation. Well, that's interesting. So the first part of the transition out of the old studio system as those older guys no longer knew how to market, which was essentially what movies were all about, was selling them. That kind of broke down, and the first ones in were the theater guys, the smart guys, but theater guys. Because they moved from theater to TV theater, Playhouse 90, American Film Theater. Because in the early days of TV, there was this whole thing which only survives today in the broadcast of the opera or the ballet where you would have cultural programs. Right.

And so you would have a Lumet do Long Day's Journey Into Night on television. Oh, man. Isn't that something? Because even when I was a kid, I'm 59, those guys were making the talk show circuits. I mean, you would see Norman Mailer on the talk shows, and there's a negation of intellectual cultural content. Well, it's not an ongoing, otherwise we wouldn't be even having this conversation. Well, that's right. Our avatars would be talking about us talking about this conversation.

Well, there's a small intellectual bubble, Paul, and we're in the bubble. I don't know if it goes to the other bubbles, but, I mean, we've all had to become content with our bubble. Do you feel that, that in the broader conversation, I think that when you were starting out, there was the idea that despite the fact that you were going against what Hollywood was, that there was a way to deliver the message to a broader audience? Yeah, you couldn't make room for yourself in the same way that you could going against what Hollywood was, that there was a way to deliver the message to a broader audience. Yeah, you couldn't make room for yourself in the same way that you could change Vietnam.

Right. You know, the government was not monolithic. They could be moved. Yeah. And since then, the government has figured out how not to be moved. Yeah. By corporate occupation.

Yeah, how to do something under the cover of doing something else. Oh, I see what you're saying. But also, they're bought and owned. I guess they always kind of were. But yeah,

I mean, well, now, like, the notion of there being a truth has taken a big hit. So, you know, it all gets pretty slippery

when you get a bunch of people making false equivalencies and conspiracy theories, right? But I mean, just going back to this period in the 60s of this burst of European cinema, of intellectual cinema and personal cinema, you know, there's a saying that you always remain in love with the music that you first heard when you fell in love.

Yeah. And I think the same thing is true about the movies. Yeah. You always become, you always may in love with the movies that you first saw when you fell in love with movies. Yeah. So if you're Martin Scorsese or Steve Spielberg, you never forget those movies that you first fell in love with. Yes.

And Marty remembers every single one of them. He seems to remember every movie ever. Yeah, but he remembers being eight years old, six years old, and at the matinee. Yeah. And so that's where his love was born, and he carries that love with him to this day. My love was born in the Nouveau Vague.

So how did you convince, or how did that partnership come about? Because Martin certainly went his own way. I mean, he wasn't making big Hollywood movies. Well, he was on his way there and he just finished a $200 million film. Which one? Flower Moon. Oh, yeah.

Well, that. Well, now. I mean, at the beginning, I mean, he made Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. That was a small movie. Who's Not Knockin' and that. Yeah. And Mean Streets was the one that sort of, but I had written this script. I wrote it on spec.

Yeah. I was one of the first people who wrote on spec. I'm probably going to be one of the last. I just wrote it as self-therapy. Your alter ego? I was afraid of becoming this kid. I felt if I could write about him. I had to break through the bounds of nonfiction. Nonfiction wouldn't take me to the therapeutic place I needed to go to get that kid out of my head. Right. And so I had to write about him and become him in absentia.

Yeah. So what elements of Travis Bickle were you struggling with? Anger, loneliness, incelness. How do you describe that? Just a rage at wanting to be known? Yeah, well, I mean, if you look at a taxi driver, the girl who he wants, he cannot have. The girl who he can have, he does not want. Now, who set up those rules?

He did. Yeah. He's the one who put himself in that box. It's not that he's lonely. It's that he's contriving a method to remain lonely in order to get angrier. Okay. Interesting. But that's not a conscious.

No. Right. No. Okay. So that's the fundamental issue. So many of these guys, you see them, you know, and they're just furious that women don't take them out. And you realize they're making the problem themselves.

There are a lot of women out there who would date those guys if they only didn't see themselves as undateable. Yeah, but also there's other, I would say 50% of them have other unresolved sexual issues that they can't live with. Well, yeah, or that they cannot process. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so you had to get that out of you. Yeah. And so then I was back being a film critic, and I had reviewed Sisters, and I was playing- Altman's movie? No, De Palma. No, De Palma. Oh, De Palma, right, right, right. And I was playing chess with Brian because he played chess. Yeah.

And then I said to him one day, you know, I wrote a script because I never, I just wrote this script. Yeah. I didn't do anything with it. Yeah. I still wanted to be a critic. I said, you know, I wrote a script. He said, oh, no, no, no, no.

Please, please, please, no telling. Finally, at the end of the game, he said, okay, I'll read your script. And he read it, and he gave it to Marty. And he said, I don't think this is for me, but I think you might like this. And that's how it started. That's interesting, because De Palma would have done it much differently. Yeah. He couldn't have done it.

Yeah. Would have done it much differently. Yeah. He couldn't have done it. Yeah. Yeah. And in truth, Marty at that time wanted Harvey Keitel because he knew Harvey. Yeah.

He didn't know Bob very well. Right. And I went and saw Mean Streets and I said, Marty, it's got to be Bob. Yeah. And in truth, we didn't talk about that character that much. Scorsese and De Niro and myself, there weren't any long conversations about that. We understood this cat. We knew exactly who he was.

And we knew how he had come out of German, I mean, European existential fiction. Yeah. And we knew why he did, you know, no one said to another, well, why would he take that beautiful girl into Times Square Porn Theater? Yeah. What else is he going to do?

Yeah, what else is he going to do? And that's what he wants to do. He wants to destroy himself. Yeah, but in that moment, he, you know, he's insulated himself into what he thinks is proper, and he doesn't know better in a way, right? Yeah, but that's what he's trying to convince you. But the truth is probably the opposite. Oh, he wanted to start shit. Well, no, he wanted to show how evil he was.

Oh, interesting. I just was thinking about Marty's cameo in that movie, and he's one of the only fully realized male moments in that movie, right? A decisive moment. I'm going to kill him. You see that up there? Yeah. And that was supposed to be George Memoli.

And George had an accident. They banged his head. George was a big mook guy from the streets. Yeah. And he subsequently died. And Marty said, I said, well, who are you going to replace George with? Yeah. He said, I thought I would do it.

I said, please, Marty, please. Don't do it. I love that scene. I think it's really well done. Yeah. And if you do it, you'll see yourself on screen, and you'll hate it, and you'll cut it out. Yeah. And I was wrong.

It was just the opposite. He saw it on screen. He loved it. He made it even longer. Yeah. And I was wrong. It was just the opposite. He saw it on the screen. He loved it. He made it even longer. He kind of nailed it, didn't he? Yeah. So what gave you the confidence to, because I've watched several of your movies,

just I had no idea I was going to talk to you. But over the last year, I re-watched Blue Collar. I re-watched Hardcore. I re-watched Taxi Driver. I re-watched, I saw Light Sleeper for the first time. So, you know, what gave you the confidence to do Blue Collar, to write it and direct it? You wrote that with your brother, I guess. Yeah.

Well, that was a scheme. A scheme. How to finance it. Yeah. So Lucy Soroyan, I had this idea, the metaphor of union workers who rob their own union. Right. A perfect great metaphor for racism. Yeah.

How can we destroy each other? As Pierpont Morgan said once, I could hire half my workers to kill the other half. Yeah. Well, that's what's happening in the country. hire half my workers to kill the other half. Yeah. Well, that's what's happening in the country.

And so I knew Lucy Soroyan, and she was dating Pryor, so I was able to get to Richard. Yeah. I knew Harvey. And so I started putting it together. And then my former agent was now working for Norman Lear. Yeah. And Lear had a deal with Universal. And Lear was the king of black populist comedy,

moving on up, all the family, all of that. And so we got Norman to take it into Universal, and they had just done Which Way is Up with Richard. Sure. And so all the pieces aligned. Yeah. And I was able, and I'm still doing that today. I mean, quite literally today,

I'm doing another film with gear in July, and I'm putting it together, write a script on spec, find Richard, find another piece. I got a million and a half bucks from here. Now I'm working with the dog food heiress, trying to get some money out of her. Who's the dog food heiress? I don't know because they won't tell me her name because I'm afraid I'll call her the dog food heiress. Oh, okay.

But what was your experience with Richard? Was it good? Prior or dear? With prior. Well, it was very bad. Bad? Yeah, he was an angry black comic. Yeah.

And he suffered from what I call the big and black syndrome. Yeah. Which is he wanted to be the biggest entertainer in the world. Yeah. And he wanted to be the blackest. Yeah. So in order to be the biggest, he would be the nicest guy. He could make anybody laugh.

People would just gather around him. Yeah. And as soon as he saw all these white people gathering around him, he realized he wasn't black enough. Yeah. And the next day, boom. Yeah. The pendulum swang.

Yeah. And he was the blackest motherfucker in town. Yeah. And everybody said, oh, I don't want anything to do with Richard. Yeah. Then, of course, the pendulum swung, and he was the blackest motherfucker in town. And everybody said, oh, I don't want anything to do with Richard. Then, of course, the pendulum swung again, and he was the nicest guy again. Well, just watching that, and comics are, for the most part, unhappier than any other form of entertainer. Just watching that, it was exhausting to see him,

and he would often displace it. Yeah. And so it would come out racially, which would get ugly. Yeah. I mean, what do you do? At one point he said to me, the first white man I ever saw came to my mama's house to fuck her, and you're just like him. What do you say? Well, that's very interesting.

I hadn't quite thought of it that way. But he did deliver a good performance for you. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. But it was exhausting. Sure. And was it exhausting for everyone? I mean, did Harvey get along with him? Yoff had?

No, it was exhausting for everyone. Harvey quit at one point. Yoff had, from about the third or fourth day on, there was an altercation on set every day, if not verbal, sometimes physical. Do you think that added to the film in retrospect? I think so. I mean, I think it probably did. And when you look back at your films—

I'd never want to do it again. It's not worth the price worth paying again. Which ones do you sort of look back at and think, like, I nailed it? You have different favorite children. Yeah. Mishima, just because it's the damnedest thing. There's no film like it. Yeah, there is no film like it.

It's wild, man. And I think Affliction is probably a perfect adaption of that, of a book. Yeah. Really, I nailed that book. First Reformed I like because I finally got to make a spiritual film. That's the first one you consider spiritual? That I set out to be. That you directed?

Yeah, that I set out to be. Okay. That. Yeah, that I set out to be. Okay. That. So you don't see, because you wrote The Last Temptation, didn't you? Yeah, but I already directed it. Right. But I set out with First Reformed to do a film of religious aesthetics. Yeah.

Aesthetics and aesthetics. Aesthetics and aesthetics, yeah. And so those are some of them. And then I like a film I did called Cover of Strangers just because it's so perverse. Yeah. Harold Pinter-esque. How do you think hardcore holds up? I'm not a big fan of it.

I made some compromises, one in casting and one in the end. Like what? You can talk about it now. Yeah. I thought Susan Hubert was too cute. And that was Columbia, Dan Milnick had to...

I wanted to use the girl from Mommy Dearest. The daughter? Yeah. Yeah. And then in the ending, my ending was the ending of Chinatown, which is this guy goes through this whole underworld of pornography. Yeah.

And it turns out his daughter was killed in a car accident, unrelated to pornography. That was your ending. Yeah. And he has to go home with all the shit in his head. That's the Schrader ending. Yeah. And he has to go home with all the shit in his head. That's the Schrader character. Yeah. And Columbia said, no, no, no, he has to find his daughter.

That's funny because that is the most inauthentic moment, right? Yeah, yeah. And you had to appease them. Yeah, I had to do that. But I think the reason the film is getting a bounce in the last year or two is the nostalgia for pornography. Old style. Old style, where you go down Santa Monica Boulevard and the peep shows, and if you go in to get a buyer magazine, you have to look both ways to make sure a car isn't passing with your mother's friend in it. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. cars and passing with your mother's friend in it, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now every sub-teen is, you know, three keystrokes away. Yeah. Oh, yeah. One keystroke away. It's almost like a virus. Yeah.

But how do you, like, I watch Raging Bull at least once a year. What was your experience on that movie? Well, I was directing during that, so I wasn't on the set. Right. And. How did you feel about the script? Well, I mean, I didn't write the first version. Okay.

Mark Martin, and they couldn't get it financed. Okay. And De Niro came on the set of Hardcore, and I said, well, what does he want? Yeah. He doesn't show up unless he wants something. Right. And he said, we can't get the film financed. Marty thinks maybe if you rewrite it. Well, what had happened was Jake LaMotta had hated his brother so much that he wrote his

own autobiography and cut his brother out of it. Yeah, and it became The Friend. No, no. In Raging Bull, Jake's book, there is no Joey. There's no Joey, but he had that close friend. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I started researching it. I said, wait a second. The Finding LaMotta Brothers. Yeah. You know, one takes the beating, the other takes the money, and the girls. Yeah. I said, you know, I know that relationship. That's called sibling rivalry.

Rivalry. Yeah, yeah. And so then all of a sudden it became a sibling movie to me and not a boxing movie. Yeah. And because I wasn't interested in doing a boxing movie. Well, what's interesting about it is after I watched a bunch of those boxing movies on Criterion is that it is a boxing movie structurally. Yeah.

But what I guess you mined out of LaMotta's personal struggle, his own self-flagellation was sort of a uniquely Schrader character in a way. Yeah, well, me and my brother, I had an older brother. He's dead. But he was my older brother. Yeah. And he showed me the path, and then I became his older brother. And then I began, I superseded him, and then I began supporting him.

Yeah. Well, that's a very fraught kind of dynamic, and a lot of siblings have that, you know, where, you know, brothers switch roles. Yeah, he was also a writer. He wrote with you. He wrote a couple of – Mishima, right? Yeah. And then he wanted to be a director, and he failed at that. Yeah.

And then, and I'll tell you the truth, I was a careerist, and if I had to elbow him a little bit to promote myself, I wasn't above that. And how do you feel? I'm beneath that. How do you feel about that now? I feel I was a bad guy. Yeah. How much of that do you how do you feel? How do you feel about that now? I feel I was a bad guy. Yeah? How much of that do you have

in you? How much do you carry? Because I wonder about these characters, especially the characters you create. What are they ultimately? Because a lot of them, the movie ends in a way that you rarely get the feeling like these guys are

going to be okay. They got it out of their system. Until the next go-around. Right. Exactly. So what about conscience? Well, I mean, that's the difference between, let's say, Taxi Driver and Master Gardener. Yeah.

Taxi Driver is really secular. It's all going to start up again. The music starts again. He's back in the cab again. It's a loop. I'll say, oh, here we are at the end. Nope, right. Here we are at the beginning.

Yeah. And whereas Master Gardener is more of a fable saying, what if a person could in fact change? What if it were possible for a person to change? So it's a different kind of a way to end it. And in Venice... Is that a happy ending for a Schrader movie? There's a song at the ending.

S.G. Goodman? Yeah. I talked to her. She told me that you guys were email buddies. Yeah, yeah. She's great. Yeah. And, well, she did this song, Space and Time, I Don't Want to Leave This World Until I Say I Love You.

Yeah. And we—Valente Hines and Mariba got that—re-recorded it. Yeah. And that's what ends the film. Yeah. And I said, in Venice, I said, I used to be a writer, a young writer, who believed I did not want to leave this world until I said, fuck you. Yeah. Now I'm an old director who doesn't want to leave this world until he says, I love you.

Oh, yeah. And so you did it? You feel like you did it? Yeah, I think so. Yeah? Well, let's talk about, real quick, let's talk about autofocus, because I thought you did an amazing job with that movie. Yeah.

Directing it. What attracted you to that property, to that script? Oh, just the perversity of it. Just the, and we changed the ending again, so that Bob doesn't get it. He just doesn't get it. He didn't get it in his life. And after he's dead, he still doesn't get it. And get what?

What he is. Right. What he's doing. He says at the end of the narration what he's doing. You know, he said, at the end, the narration after he's dead, he said,

John wasn't really such a bad guy. Right, right. After John has killed him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, my favorite scene

is when the two of them are sitting on the couch. Yeah, to their own porn. Yeah, and they're just on the opposite ends of the couch tugging their dicks,

having a regular conversation. Oh, yeah, I was staying on Tony. Oh, yeah. I also liked your focus on technology. That was such a pivotal part of what facilitated their compulsion. And you were like, you spent real time

with the new technology, like what we can do with this. Yeah, yeah. And you were like, he spent real time with the new technology, like what we can do with this. Yeah, yeah. And, of course, you could tell that same story now with the new technology. Sure. And now it's obviously even much scarier because people don't even have to know they're being filmed anymore. In fact, we're all being filmed unaware.

Yeah, everywhere. And our Alexas are listening to our conversations and deciding what commercials to put on our Amazon Prime website. It's wild, right? Because they heard us talking about getting a new lawn chair. Isn't that crazy? What was your experience with George C. Scott? George was an angry drunk at that time.

He had just directed two films that both failed. During Hardcore or during – didn't you use him in The Exorcist too? No, no. I was still on Star Wars. Oh, right. Just during Hardcore. He was angry. Yeah.

But that wasn't a problem like Pryor was. In fact, his agent said to Columbia before we made the film, I want you to build in five days of absenteeism for drunkenness.

And it was exactly five days. And affliction to work with Coburn at that point in his life must have been kind of astounding, huh? Yeah. And Nick. He's the best man. Yeah. And it's about getting there.

I was doing a scene with who the actress was, and Nick was telling her about his conspiracy theory. And she came back to me after the first couple takes, and she said, he doesn't get it. He just doesn't understand. And he was able to convey the fact of one of these people who believes something, and you say, wait a second. Ground control of Major Tom? That's not what's going on here. believe something and you say, wait a second, you know, ground control of Major Tom. Yeah.

That's not what's going on here. He, I interviewed him years ago. It was very, it was something. He's got one of those brains where it's like a, I call it, it's like a bingo, like a turning bingo ball. And he just mentioned a name. He's like, oh, yeah, well, Marlon was up on the hill. And he just keeps, if you can follow him, you can get something, you know?

So what influence did Peckinpah have on you? I was hanging around with Sam during the Wild Bunch. I ended up writing a big article about him. Yeah. and ended up writing a big article about him. The Wild Bunch is not only one of the great films of all time, but also it is the greatest end of a genre. You think that was it? Well, for a certain kind of Western.

Yeah. Because basically what it just radiates is, look, we know this is wrong. We know this is evil. We know we should be condemned for doing this. But God help us. We love it so. And that was the end of that.

And those guys, you're never going to get that bunch of guys like that anymore, right? Were you on the set at all? No, no, no. I heard it was crazy. Yeah. Well, that was right at the beginning of the Coke years. Cocaine is what did Sam Ant. Oh, really?

Yeah. I remember when I was a little kid, I grew up in New Mexico. They shot Convoy in Albuquerque, and I went down to the Hilton Hotel and met him. I met Ernest Borgnine. I met all the actors, and he was just this little bearded dude all lit up. But I was a kid. I didn't know. It did everybody in, huh, the coke? No, some of us came out the other end.

One of Sam's problems was that he was regenerated by defeat, his psyche, so that when he finally made a fool of himself in the bar room, got so drunk he fell on his face and everybody was standing pointing at him laughing. That's when he got up. That's when he said, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. Laughing. Yeah.

That's when he got up. That's when he said, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. Only he could do that with alcohol and with other sins of the flesh. Yeah. But he couldn't get up from cocaine. Yeah. And you got through it? It took a while.

Yeah. At first I left Los Angeles because of it. Then I left New York because of it. Yeah. Then I left New York because of it. Kept running from it. And then I finally got to Tokyo, which is where I started getting off of it. Was your brother there? Yeah. Yeah.

Was it harder to get in Tokyo? It was not. Oh. No, even today, speed is the drug of choice. And also, if you were in the entertainment business and you got caught with any kind of drugs, the society closed ranks against you. And either a year or two years,

it wasn't that they told you to stop making music. Yeah. Nobody bought your music. Huh. And so one of the biggest singers in the world got busted for marijuana, and his sales ended. No shit. And one year later at the Red and White show,

New Year's Eve show, he got on, and he used to be the last performer. Yeah. Now he was the first performer. And he got in and he apologized to the nation. For weed. For weed. And the next day his music started selling again.

So that was the force, you know, when you have a unified society that acts as a single body. Is there a body of work that you call the cocaine movies? For yourself? What would you say? No, not for myself. I did do a film while you saw Light Sleeper about a drug dealer. And

American Janko, it was just very casual. Sure. Because at that time it was part of the culture. But you didn't write on Coke? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's because I liked to write at night.

One of the problems of giving up Coke is trying to learn to write during the day. Yeah. Because at night, you go through, you go alcohol, caffeine, cocaine, nicotine. Yeah. And you just circle through them. Yeah. And as the night goes on, and then you start working at about 10, and you finish at 5 or 6. Yeah.

And you can get a lot done. It's quiet. And also, you're writing like this. Yeah. Because, you know, you've bribed all those little people who live in the keyboard. Yeah, yeah. And they're all coming out for drugs and booze. Yeah. And, you know, you've bribed all those little people who live in the keyboard. Yeah, yeah. And they're all coming out for drugs and booze. Yeah.

And now they're all running around, they're talking like crazy, and you're trying to keep up with them. Yeah. And then as the years go on, you start realizing that when you have, instead of 15 pages in a night, there's like two. Yeah. Or one and a half. Yeah.

And you're doing even more drugs. You're saying, wait a second, am I pretending to write so I can do drugs? Or am I doing drugs so I can write? Yeah. Yeah. Hard to know, right? Yeah. Well, you know when the page count drops.

Yeah. So today, at the beginning of the conversation, there was a hint, a suggestion about the right-wing funding religious colleges. And the right-wing, I'm assuming in your point of view, is a problem and always has been a problem. And now the country is sort of threatened. So where do you see art in relation to that? Because I know in Mishima, there was, you know, there was an idea of art living within fascism in a certain way. Yeah, but it was also part of a suicidal ethos. Yeah.

And maybe fascism would be more tolerable if it were suicidal, as it was in Mishma's case. Well, there's some suicidal instinct with the incels. Yeah. But most fascism is, we're not going to kill ourselves, we're going to kill you. Kill you. And, you know, we now live, it's interesting, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Nuclear holocaust, global warming, rampant viruses, and now AI. And AI is now threatening, pulling at the reins, threatening to become the lead horse.

Yeah. And what are your feelings about it? Well, as Al Franken said a while, a couple weeks ago, he said, you baby boomers will understand this. We got the last plane out of Saigon. Yeah? He said that? Yeah. And what about films,

the film business? How do you feel about it? Well, you know, theatrical is being marginalized. Yeah. Audio-visual entertainment is still very, very large. Yeah.

It is now possible for virtually anybody to make a film. Is that good? And it is also impossible for virtually anybody to make a living. Yeah. So, you know, on one hand, you're saying, I could make a film for $50,000 with my phone.

And the other hand, you're saying, I'm going to lose my $50,000. And I'm not going to get paid a dime. Right. So it's a two-edged sword. But don't you think also that with the democratization of films, and I hope this doesn't sound slightly – I don't know what – it's not – well, I mean, there's a lot of garbage out there, and not everybody can do it. And at some point, because of the monetization of films, there was some sort of quality control on some level. Well, yeah, but there's still a lot of garbage.

Yeah. Oh, even before. Yeah. I mean, fortunately for people who have taste and intelligence, only about 10% of art is really any good. And so, you know, if you're any good, you know, there's a room for you. You don't have to compete with that other 90%. You just have to wade through it. And the AI can do that 90%.

Oh, AI can, yeah. You want an episode of CSI? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, easy. AI will write it faster, better, cheaper. Yeah. You know, you want the new Paul Schrader film, AI is going to be scratching its head.

Yeah, yeah. It'd be interesting what it came up with, wouldn't it? Well, they've asked it to come up with Dylan lyrics, I have. Yeah. And it could come up with Dylan lyrics because there's a huge library of Dylan songs. Sure. But they're just not quite as good as Bob's. No.

Thank goodness. Great talking to you, Paul. All right, Mark. Thank you. There you go. That was fun, right? Master Gardener opens in theaters this Friday, May 19th. Hang out for a second, folks. It's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice?

Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.

and ACAS Creative. If you liked that talk with Paul, you can check out my talk with Sigourney Weaver, which I mentioned earlier. This happened last year. We talked about Master Gardener as well as the rest of her career. So every role, it's just sort of like you're kind of like, okay,

you're nervous or you're excited. I'm terrified. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, ugh, this is the one. This is the one where I'm going to fall flat on my face. But I also can't think of anything I love more than getting out there, pushing off into the unknown and letting the character out. And letting the character out.

And Norma was especially like, you know, she was Pandora's box when she opened her mouth, you know. And I just, and that, you know, the turn at the end, you know, and then again, just sort of like the relationship shifting. It's kind of an astounding thing. I've never seen anything like it. I'm so glad. No, I mean, I haven't. I mean, I think Paul's amazing. I feel so fortunate to have been able to work with him and that he, you know, I once made the mistake of saying, why'd you think of me for Norma? I don't know what I expected him to say.

Yeah. But I remember that Pauline Kael had been a great champion of mine early on, and he knew her quite well. Yeah. He said, no, I wanted Glenn Close, but she wasn't available. Lesson is never ask those questions. That's episode 1369, and it's available for free in whatever podcast app you're using right now. To get all WTF episodes ad-free, subscribe to WTF Plus. Click on the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and Subscribe to WTF Plus. Click on the link in the episode description or go to

WTFpod.com and click on WTF Plus. Slide guitar. Dirty style. guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo Boomer lives. Monkey in La Fonda. Cat angels everywhere. Got a little weird at the end, man. Yeah, I don't know.

I'm just improvising. I'm just improvising. I'm just improvising. Thank you.