Paul Schrader

Paul Schrader
Schrader at the 44th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, July 5, 2009
Born	Paul Joseph Schrader (1946-07-22) July 22, 1946 (age 70) Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States
Occupation	Screenwriter, film director
Years active	1974–present
Spouse(s)	Mary Beth Hurt (m. 1983)

Paul Joseph Schrader (born July 22, 1946) is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. Schrader wrote or co-wrote screenplays for four Martin Scorsese films: Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Schrader has also directed 18 feature films, including his directing debut crime drama, Blue Collar (co-written with his brother Leonard), the crime drama Hardcore (a loosely autobiographical film also written by Schrader), his 1982 remake of the horror classic Cat People, the crime drama American Gigolo (1980), the biographical drama Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), the cult film Light Sleeper (1992), the drama Affliction (1997), the biographical film Auto Focus (2002), and the erotic dramatic thriller The Canyons (2013).

Schrader was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Joan (née Fisher) and Charles A. Schrader, an executive. Schrader's family attended the Calvinist Christian Reformed Church. His early life was based upon the religion's strict principles and parental education. He did not see a film until, when he was seventeen years old, he was able to sneak away from home. In an interview he stated that The Absent-Minded Professor was the first film he saw. In his own words, he was "very unimpressed" by it, while Wild in the Country, which he saw some time later, had quite some effect on him. Schrader attributes his intellectual rather than emotional approach towards movies and movie-making to his having no adolescent movie memories. Schrader is of Dutch descent.