THE MOON IN THE GUTTER ARCHIVES
Showing posts with label Paul Schrader. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Schrader. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Sunday, June 28, 2026
Amplifier Article #4: Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst
The original version of this article can be found here. This is my slightly re-edited version for Moon In The Gutter.
Chances are if you were around in the seventies you probably have an opinion on Patricia Campbell Hearst. Her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), her imprisonment, and her eventually joining the terrorist group in 1974 became one of the biggest and strangest media stories of the decade, and to this day people are still divided over what actually happened to Patricia Hearst in that fateful year of 1974.
Writer and director Paul Schrader was twenty seven years old when Hearst was forcibly taken at gunpoint from her San Francisco home in that particularly cold January of 1974. He had just recently sold his first script, for THE YAZUKA, and was working on the work that would make him a legend, 1976’s TAXI DRIVER. Schrader, like most of the country, watched intently throughout the mid to late seventies as Patty Hearst went from kidnap victim to fugitive to finally convicted felon. By the time President Carter had her released from prison in 1979, most Americans, including Schrader, had all but forgotten who Patricia Hearst had been and could only see the gun toting “Tania” that the SLA had made her into.
Schrader hadn’t thought about Hearst for years until one night in the mid eighties when he ran into her at a social gathering. The two immediately hit it off and Schrader was impressed by the down to earth and fragile person he encountered. After that fateful meeting Schrader began looking closely at her case and realized that the real story of Patty Hearst wasn’t the bank robbing counterculture icon that had been ingrained in so many peoples heads, but instead the nineteen year old college student who had her life and spirit completely and suddenly stripped away from her.
Working from a script by Nicholas Kazan and adapted from Hearst’s own searing memoirs, EVERY SECRET THING, Paul Schrader began shooting his PATTY HEARST in and around San Francisco and Los Angeles in early 1988. Schrader, still reeling from the failure of his last film LIGHT OF DAY (1987), felt suddenly reinvigorated working on location, with a low budget and a relatively unknown cast. The resulting film would be a triumph for the fallen director as well for his lead actress, and a work that would restore the humanity that had been stripped away from Hearst a decade before.
The opening shot of PATTY HEARST is one of the most memorable from the eighties, and quickly identifies this as a major work by a director stylistically shooting on all cylinders. Featuring an ambitious 360 overhead crane shot that manages to finally pull into a tight close up of the film’s star, Natasha Richardson; the opening shot of PATTY HEARST is one of the more audacious moments of Schrader’s controversial career and one of his greatest. Add on that thematically it is one of the only shots in the film that doesn’t feel totally claustrophobic and you have a striking reminder of how quickly freedom can be stripped away.
The film quickly moves straight into the kidnapping in just the second sequence, and the open air spaciousness of the first scene is suddenly transformed into thirty of the most frightening and claustrophobic sequences in American film history. With Hearst’s own words providing bracing narration, Schrader’s camera first puts us inside a car trunk with her and then immediately into the closet where the SLA kept her for weeks in the first stages of her imprisonment.
These shots from the closet represent Paul Schrader at his most brilliant and most humane. There is never a moment when he lets us completely leave Patty Hearst’s viewpoint, and I have never talked to anyone who has seen these degrading and dehumanizing sequences that questions why Hearst would have done absolutely anything to get out. Schrader’s film is less about brainwashing and more about sheer survival, and everything Patty experiences helps us understand just what was finally going through her mind months later when she re-appeared as the angry and crazed “Tania”.
These early sequences also show, even more than his MISHIMA, Schrader’s dedication to Ozu and Japan’s more presentational style cinema. With his camera seemingly sitting, unmoving, on the floor next to Patty in total darkness, and the only light being provided by the light just behind the SLA member’s looking down at her from the hallway; Schrader’s PATTY HEARST is an astonishingly composed and well designed film that recalls many of the European directors he had written about so intelligently in the seventies. More so than most of his contemporaries, Schrader was actually able to take some of his Bressonian like tendencies and translate them into something very much his own, and PATTY HEARST is the greatest example of this.
The stunning first section of the film finally gives way to the second act, where Patty is finally let out of closet to find that in place of an actual army, is just a small group of confused and angry kids who had chosen the only path they could see in front of them. It is the handling of the SLA that is among the biggest attributes to PATTY HEARST. Instead of presenting them as monsters, Schrader treats them instead as humans and the second half of the film is ultimately about their shattered lives as much as Hearst. Schrader never offer excuses for their actions but he does allow a window into their lives and it is finally this that distinguishes PATTY HEARST from being just another true crime film.
Some critics have pointed to the very last act, which includes Patty’s capture and trial, as being a let down. But to me the stylistic change in tone in this section was very necessary. Gone is the claustrophobia of the first act, the character development of the second, and all we are left with is the fragmented shattered shell of a woman and a judicial system that lets her down. Patty Hearst’s last line of the film, which I won’t give away here, is one of the most subtle and powerfully simple indictments of hypocrisy in America that I have ever heard; it is also probably the greatest moment Paul Schrader has ever shot.
Of course PATTY HEARST wouldn’t have worked without the right actress in the title role. Twenty-four year old British born Natasha Richardson might have seemed an odd choice but here the young actress delivers a seamless and terrifyingly real performance that channels the real Hearst in a very complete and profound way. Mostly known in that period as just one of Vanessa Redgrave’s daughters, Richardson is simply astonishing in the role and it is impossible to imagine anyone else in the part. Schrader was so impressed by the young actress that he would give her the lead in his next film, 1989’s THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS. Also noteworthy is a young and unknown Ving Rhames giving a haunting portrayal as the angry and damaged SLA leader Cinque. William Forsythe, Frances Fisher and Dana Delany also provide fine support in the film.
Yugoslavian cinematographer Bojan Bazelli, in one of his first major assignments, gives PATTY HEARST its memorable washed out grainy look and his work is particularly noteworthy in the, near impossible to light, first section of the film. Minimalist composer Scott Johnson delivers an outstanding score and the rather rare soundtrack album is a real aural treat.
Schrader’s film still resonates, possibly more than it did in 1988, as our current political and media crazed climate feels much more like 1974 than it did twenty years ago. One suspects that this is one reason PATTY HEARST came and went so quickly in the fall of 88. Despite mostly positive reviews and a Golden Palm nomination at the Cannes Film Festival, PATTY HEARST bombed at theaters and barely cracked a one million dollar take. It faired slightly better on Video but it has been out of print in America for well over a decade now and no DVD is currently planned. Used VHS and laserdisc copies can be found and a region two DVD is on the market, but otherwise one of the bravest and most perfectly realized films of the eighties remains missing in action.
Patricia Campbell Hearst was given a full pardon by President Clinton in 2001 and works today as an actress, mostly for director John Waters. She remains one of the most controversial figures of the seventies as some view her as more a master manipulator and less a tragic victim. Paul Schrader’s brilliant and moving film stands as a reminder though of the one fact that everyone should agree on, that on a Winter’s day in 1974 a young woman’s promising life was irreversibly altered and corrupted beyond repair.
Chances are if you were around in the seventies you probably have an opinion on Patricia Campbell Hearst. Her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), her imprisonment, and her eventually joining the terrorist group in 1974 became one of the biggest and strangest media stories of the decade, and to this day people are still divided over what actually happened to Patricia Hearst in that fateful year of 1974.Writer and director Paul Schrader was twenty seven years old when Hearst was forcibly taken at gunpoint from her San Francisco home in that particularly cold January of 1974. He had just recently sold his first script, for THE YAZUKA, and was working on the work that would make him a legend, 1976’s TAXI DRIVER. Schrader, like most of the country, watched intently throughout the mid to late seventies as Patty Hearst went from kidnap victim to fugitive to finally convicted felon. By the time President Carter had her released from prison in 1979, most Americans, including Schrader, had all but forgotten who Patricia Hearst had been and could only see the gun toting “Tania” that the SLA had made her into.
Schrader hadn’t thought about Hearst for years until one night in the mid eighties when he ran into her at a social gathering. The two immediately hit it off and Schrader was impressed by the down to earth and fragile person he encountered. After that fateful meeting Schrader began looking closely at her case and realized that the real story of Patty Hearst wasn’t the bank robbing counterculture icon that had been ingrained in so many peoples heads, but instead the nineteen year old college student who had her life and spirit completely and suddenly stripped away from her.
Working from a script by Nicholas Kazan and adapted from Hearst’s own searing memoirs, EVERY SECRET THING, Paul Schrader began shooting his PATTY HEARST in and around San Francisco and Los Angeles in early 1988. Schrader, still reeling from the failure of his last film LIGHT OF DAY (1987), felt suddenly reinvigorated working on location, with a low budget and a relatively unknown cast. The resulting film would be a triumph for the fallen director as well for his lead actress, and a work that would restore the humanity that had been stripped away from Hearst a decade before.
The opening shot of PATTY HEARST is one of the most memorable from the eighties, and quickly identifies this as a major work by a director stylistically shooting on all cylinders. Featuring an ambitious 360 overhead crane shot that manages to finally pull into a tight close up of the film’s star, Natasha Richardson; the opening shot of PATTY HEARST is one of the more audacious moments of Schrader’s controversial career and one of his greatest. Add on that thematically it is one of the only shots in the film that doesn’t feel totally claustrophobic and you have a striking reminder of how quickly freedom can be stripped away.
The film quickly moves straight into the kidnapping in just the second sequence, and the open air spaciousness of the first scene is suddenly transformed into thirty of the most frightening and claustrophobic sequences in American film history. With Hearst’s own words providing bracing narration, Schrader’s camera first puts us inside a car trunk with her and then immediately into the closet where the SLA kept her for weeks in the first stages of her imprisonment.
These shots from the closet represent Paul Schrader at his most brilliant and most humane. There is never a moment when he lets us completely leave Patty Hearst’s viewpoint, and I have never talked to anyone who has seen these degrading and dehumanizing sequences that questions why Hearst would have done absolutely anything to get out. Schrader’s film is less about brainwashing and more about sheer survival, and everything Patty experiences helps us understand just what was finally going through her mind months later when she re-appeared as the angry and crazed “Tania”.
These early sequences also show, even more than his MISHIMA, Schrader’s dedication to Ozu and Japan’s more presentational style cinema. With his camera seemingly sitting, unmoving, on the floor next to Patty in total darkness, and the only light being provided by the light just behind the SLA member’s looking down at her from the hallway; Schrader’s PATTY HEARST is an astonishingly composed and well designed film that recalls many of the European directors he had written about so intelligently in the seventies. More so than most of his contemporaries, Schrader was actually able to take some of his Bressonian like tendencies and translate them into something very much his own, and PATTY HEARST is the greatest example of this.
The stunning first section of the film finally gives way to the second act, where Patty is finally let out of closet to find that in place of an actual army, is just a small group of confused and angry kids who had chosen the only path they could see in front of them. It is the handling of the SLA that is among the biggest attributes to PATTY HEARST. Instead of presenting them as monsters, Schrader treats them instead as humans and the second half of the film is ultimately about their shattered lives as much as Hearst. Schrader never offer excuses for their actions but he does allow a window into their lives and it is finally this that distinguishes PATTY HEARST from being just another true crime film.
Some critics have pointed to the very last act, which includes Patty’s capture and trial, as being a let down. But to me the stylistic change in tone in this section was very necessary. Gone is the claustrophobia of the first act, the character development of the second, and all we are left with is the fragmented shattered shell of a woman and a judicial system that lets her down. Patty Hearst’s last line of the film, which I won’t give away here, is one of the most subtle and powerfully simple indictments of hypocrisy in America that I have ever heard; it is also probably the greatest moment Paul Schrader has ever shot.
Of course PATTY HEARST wouldn’t have worked without the right actress in the title role. Twenty-four year old British born Natasha Richardson might have seemed an odd choice but here the young actress delivers a seamless and terrifyingly real performance that channels the real Hearst in a very complete and profound way. Mostly known in that period as just one of Vanessa Redgrave’s daughters, Richardson is simply astonishing in the role and it is impossible to imagine anyone else in the part. Schrader was so impressed by the young actress that he would give her the lead in his next film, 1989’s THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS. Also noteworthy is a young and unknown Ving Rhames giving a haunting portrayal as the angry and damaged SLA leader Cinque. William Forsythe, Frances Fisher and Dana Delany also provide fine support in the film.
Yugoslavian cinematographer Bojan Bazelli, in one of his first major assignments, gives PATTY HEARST its memorable washed out grainy look and his work is particularly noteworthy in the, near impossible to light, first section of the film. Minimalist composer Scott Johnson delivers an outstanding score and the rather rare soundtrack album is a real aural treat.
Schrader’s film still resonates, possibly more than it did in 1988, as our current political and media crazed climate feels much more like 1974 than it did twenty years ago. One suspects that this is one reason PATTY HEARST came and went so quickly in the fall of 88. Despite mostly positive reviews and a Golden Palm nomination at the Cannes Film Festival, PATTY HEARST bombed at theaters and barely cracked a one million dollar take. It faired slightly better on Video but it has been out of print in America for well over a decade now and no DVD is currently planned. Used VHS and laserdisc copies can be found and a region two DVD is on the market, but otherwise one of the bravest and most perfectly realized films of the eighties remains missing in action.
Patricia Campbell Hearst was given a full pardon by President Clinton in 2001 and works today as an actress, mostly for director John Waters. She remains one of the most controversial figures of the seventies as some view her as more a master manipulator and less a tragic victim. Paul Schrader’s brilliant and moving film stands as a reminder though of the one fact that everyone should agree on, that on a Winter’s day in 1974 a young woman’s promising life was irreversibly altered and corrupted beyond repair.
The Essential Paul Schrader: Focused And Hardcore
One of the most telling moments of Paul Schrader's career actually doesn't occur in one of his films but instead in an interview he gave concerning Peter Biskind's book EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS. During the interview a rather frustrated Schrader correctly notes that the biggest problem with Biskind's book is that he seems incapable of admitting that many of the seventies best director's did quality work after the early eighties. It seems to be a common misconception by many film fans that all of the best work by artists like Schrader, Scorsese, Coppola, Bogdanovich and so on just happened in that very special period in the seventies. While that might be true to an extent it is certainly arguable in all of their cases that some of their most important, personal and challenging work came later and of Schrader this is absolutely true.
I had originally hoped to write reviews of several of Schrader's films this week but the death of Heath Ledger and some personal issues have kind of stopped me. I will eventually though but in the meantime here is my own offering of what I think the great Paul Schrader films are. I find his career to be much more balanced than most fans give it credit for and he remains I think one of the only key directors who have managed to deliver masterworks in the seventies, eighties, nineties and finally this decade. I hope the following list proves of interest.
1. BLUE COLLAR (1978):
Schrader's directorial debut is one of the best films of the seventies and one of the most searing. With one of the most combative casts in any film in place, Schrader delivers a mesmerizing tale of corruption, friendship, betrayal and the often forced difference between both class and race.
2. AUTO FOCUS (2002):
Schrader's stunning return to form stands as one of his great works and one of the best films of this, now not so young, decade. Featuring amazing performances from Greg Kinnear, Willem Dafoe and Mario Bello, Schrader's film about tragic HOGAN'S HERO star Bob Crane is a complex and moving work that got lost in the shuffle when it came out back in 02.
3. PATTY HEARST (1988):
I wrote a long piece on why I think this is one of the great and essential films of the eighties before. It can be read here. The current unavailability of this important film is baffling and absolutely criminal.
4. AMERICAN GIGOLO (1980)
Richard Gere's performance as hustler Julian Kaye remains as electric and right on as it was nearly thirty years ago. With Schrader's studied direction, the music of Giorgio Moroder and the slick production design of Ferdinando Scarfiotti this is the film that created everything eighties cinema should have been but finally rarely was.
5. CAT PEOPLE (1982):
I took a long look at Schrader's most controversial film here, which I hope everyone will check out.
6. HARDCORE (1979):
One of Schrader's most personal and interesting films featuring a terrifying performance by George C. Scott (just about a career best) and a moving supporting turn by Season Hubley. The key to the film, in fact, lies not in Scott's obsessive search for his daughter but in the unlikely relationship he forms with Hubley. The film's final chilling moments are some of the most effective Schrader has ever shot.
7. AFFLICTION (1997):
Often considered the best of Schrader's later works, this film falls just below AUTO FOCUS as his best film from the past ten years. Steered by an eerie and astonishing performance by Nick Nolte and Schrader's expertly handled script from Russell Banks novel, AFFLICTION briefly returned Schrader to everyone's cinematic radar where he has always belonged.
8. THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS (1990):
A striking extremely well thought out film that unfortunately seemed to slip under the radar immediately. The Venice locations and work by Christopher Walken and Natasha Richardson combines into an unforgettably hypnotic and seedy cocktail.
9. MISHIMA (1985):
Considered by many to be Schrader's best film and it is definitely his bravest. I must admit the film has always left me a little at a distance, which is perhaps the point but it keeps me from including it higher on the list.
10. LIGHT SLEEPER (1992):
An almost masterpiece that garnered a lot of acclaim when it has first came out but it feels oddly dated now, much more so than almost any other work in his canon.
11. FOREVER MINE (1999):
Schrader's attempt at an all out modern noir is misguided, little seen and frustrating. Still when his camera focuses on the face and body of Gretchen Mol it is quite striking and sublime, like they are both channeling an erotic fever in cinema long since vanished.
Schrader's weaker films are for the most part noble failures. Works like LIGHT OF DAY (1987), TOUCH (1997), and DOMINION (2005) all suffered from studio manipulation and were bitches for the great man to get made. I have yet to see his newest film, THE WALKER, but am eagerly anticipating it.
Schrader's legend was cemented with his script for Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER but his career as a director needs more attention.
For a great if outdated look at his career, may I recommend SCHRADER ON SCHRADER and it looks like coming in March is the new PAUL SCHRADER CONTEMPORARY FILM DIRECTORS which will hopefully prove to be a worthwhile companion to his films.
My look at BLUE COLLAR will hopefully appear this weekend.
Great Performances: Natasha Richardson in Patty Hearst
I must admit that I felt like someone kicked me in the stomach yesterday after work when I heard how serious Natasha Richardson's condition had become. Last night I watched and read in horror as the reports came in concerning her, and I felt such a deep sadness for her and her family. I've not seen all of Richardson's work, but I always had a great respect and admiration for her. She, nor her sister, never had it is easy career wise as the daughter's of one of cinema's great actors but both managed to rise above the impossible with always intriguing and commanding work.
For my own little tribute to Natasha I wanted to offer up ten stills of her in Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst in place of my usual weekly series focusing on the decade's greatest films. I have written on Schrader's film here before so I won't say much more except to mention that Natasha's work in it had a profound effect on me as a teenager and it continues to resonate. Her work in the film is riveting, terrifying, touching and most of all very human...it's one of the performances in cinema that I admire the most.
I am very saddened by the tragic death of this young and gifted actress, and I really grieve for her and her family today. These stills from Patty Hearst are taken from the original VHS copy that I purchased soon after the film hit home video almost twenty years ago. It was one of those rare life altering performances for me...
For my own little tribute to Natasha I wanted to offer up ten stills of her in Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst in place of my usual weekly series focusing on the decade's greatest films. I have written on Schrader's film here before so I won't say much more except to mention that Natasha's work in it had a profound effect on me as a teenager and it continues to resonate. Her work in the film is riveting, terrifying, touching and most of all very human...it's one of the performances in cinema that I admire the most.
I am very saddened by the tragic death of this young and gifted actress, and I really grieve for her and her family today. These stills from Patty Hearst are taken from the original VHS copy that I purchased soon after the film hit home video almost twenty years ago. It was one of those rare life altering performances for me...
Saturday, June 27, 2026
Images From My All Time Favorite Films: Paul Schrader's Blue Collar (1978)
"They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place."
***Dedicated to Richard Pryor***
***Dedicated to Richard Pryor***
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