A famed draft dodger shares all his secrets to de-mythologize his mythologized life in Director Paul Schrader’s drama, Oh, Canada.
Schrader’s film tells the story of Leonard Fife, a terminally ill writer and documentary filmmaker who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam. In an interview to one of his former students, he tells the whole truth about his life during a confession filmed right in front of his wife.
On December 8, after the DGA membership screening in New York, Schrader discussed the making of Oh, Canada during a Q&A moderated by Director Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell).
During the conversation, Schrader spoke about knowing which projects to shoot and said, “It all comes down to the oral tradition. The idea starts, you outline it, tell it. You outline it, tell it. Every time you tell it, new ideas come to you, and you redo your outline.Then one of two things happens, they’re both very good: One is the idea dies and you give up on it and you don’t have to write it. The other is the idea gets sick of being told over and over again and it just jumps out of you like an animal. If you could hold someone’s attention for 45 minutes, then you have a movie.”
He also referenced his early days as a critic and discussed the difference in approaching films as an artist.
“The way a critic sees a body is how one would see a body in a mortuary. You’re trying to figure out how it lived, how it died, do I take it apart? How an artist sees a body is how a man would look at his pregnant wife. Not how can I examine it, how can I sustain it to make sure this thing is born alive.”
Schrader’s other directorial credits include the feature films Master Gardener, The Card Counter, First Reformed, Dark, Dog Eat Dog, The Canyons, Auto Focus, Affliction, The Comfort of Strangers, Patty Hearst, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Cat People, American Gigolo, Hardcore and Blue Collar; the documentary feature Venice 70: Future Reloaded; and the movie for television Witch Hunt.
Schrader has been a DGA member since 1977.