Paul Schrader on 'Oh, Canada'

Summary

All Of It – Episode Summary: Paul Schrader on 'O Canada'

Podcast Information:

• Title: All Of It
• Host: Alison Stewart
• Episode: Paul Schrader on 'O Canada'
• Release Date: December 4, 2024
• Description: ALL OF IT is a show about culture and its consumers, engaging thinkers, doers, makers, and creators to explore the what and why of their work.

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Introduction to 'O Canada'

In this episode of All Of It, host Alison Stewart sits down with acclaimed writer and director Paul Schrader to discuss his latest film, 'O Canada', an adaptation of Russell Banks' novel Foregone. Schrader, known for his work on seminal films like Taxi Driver and American Gigolo, delves into the intricate narrative and thematic elements of the movie.

Plot Overview and Themes

'O Canada' introduces audiences to Leonard Fife (played by Richard Gere), a celebrated documentary filmmaker facing the twilight of his life after a cancer diagnosis. The film centers on Leonard's decision to participate in a documentary interview by his former students, now accomplished documentarians. This act is portrayed as Leonard's attempt to confront and unveil the truths he has long concealed.

Schrader explains, "What comes out is a mix of confession and confabulation where the reality is not always clear, even when the truth is there." ([01:32])

Dedication to Russell Banks

The film is dedicated to the late novelist Russell Banks, whose work profoundly influenced Schrader. Stewart shares her personal connection to Banks, recounting how she discovered his novel Affliction in a bookstore, which led to a friendship and collaborative efforts in bringing Foregone to the screen. Banks' battle with cancer and his contemplative writings on death deeply resonate within the film's narrative.

Character Exploration: Leonard Fife

Leonard Fife is depicted as a man who has built his life on façades, masking his true self behind the lens of his camera. As Schrader articulates, Leonard "has built his life on a lie. And he is not who he has pretended to be for decades. And now he's coming to the end of that life and the end of that lie, and he wants to expose it." ([05:31])

The character's complexity is further explored through his interactions with his wife, Emma (played by Uma Thurman), who is apprehensive about the documentary, fearing the revelations it may bring. This dynamic adds depth to Leonard's internal struggle between truth and self-deception.

Narrative Technique: Unreliable Narrator and Interrotron

Stewart and Schrader discuss the film's use of an unreliable narrator, highlighting Leonard's confabulations and memory distortions, especially as his illness progresses. This technique blurs the lines between reality and perception, offering a nuanced portrayal of Leonard's psyche.

A notable aspect of the film's production is the utilization of the Interrotron, a device inspired by Errol Morris's interviewing technique. This technology facilitates a more intimate and direct engagement between the interviewer and Leonard, enhancing the authenticity of the confessions.

Leonard explains in the film, "The interviewer is not in the sight line. It's that simple. Right. You position yourself so that the subject can only look directly down the lens. And if you're silent long enough, you're unseen long enough. People will talk." ([13:20])

Casting and Character Development

Richard Gere's reprisal of a character he last embodied in American Gigolo (1980) brings a layered familiarity to Leonard Fife. Schrader remarks on Gere's enduring professionalism, noting, "Pretty much the same. He had picked up a number of mannerisms over the years that I had to kind of knock out of him." ([15:52])

Jacob Elordi plays a younger version of Leonard, adding a generational perspective to the character's development. The casting process, as Stewart shares, involved personal recommendations and the serendipitous selection of Elordi, whose performance bridges Leonard's past and present.

Visual and Structural Elements

Stewart emphasizes the film's visual storytelling, utilizing multiple screen ratios and color schemes to differentiate timelines and emotional states. "Film is more malleable than literature. We can do things with film... I use four different screen ratios. I use three different types of color." ([11:47])

These elements enhance the narrative's complexity, allowing audiences to navigate Leonard's fragmented memories and the blurred boundaries between his reality and fiction.

Insights on Truth and Memory

A central theme in 'O Canada' is the elusive nature of truth. Leonard's assertion, "I can't tell the truth unless the camera's on," reflects his dependency on external validation to confront his innermost truths. However, as Stewart challenges, this reliance becomes a facade that potentially obscures more than it reveals.

The interplay between Leonard's career as a documentary filmmaker and his personal journey underscores the film's exploration of authenticity, memory, and self-deception.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, Schrader and Stewart reflect on the film's release and its place within contemporary cinema. "O Canada will come out in select theaters on December 6th," updates listeners on the film's availability.

Schrader's work in 'O Canada' exemplifies his enduring ability to craft deeply introspective narratives that challenge audiences to question the nature of truth and the stories we tell ourselves.

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Notable Quotes:

• Paul Schrader ([01:32]): "What comes out is a mix of confession and confabulation where the reality is not always clear, even when the truth is there."
• Leonard Fife ([13:20]): "The interviewer is not in the sight line. It's that simple. Right. You position yourself so that the subject can only look directly down the lens. And if you're silent long enough, you're unseen long enough. People will talk."

Key Takeaways:

• 'O Canada' is a nuanced exploration of truth, memory, and self-deception, anchored by strong performances and innovative narrative techniques.
• The film serves as a tribute to Russell Banks, infusing personal and literary influences into its storytelling.
• Schrader's collaboration with actors like Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi brings depth and continuity to the character of Leonard Fife.

For listeners interested in contemporary filmmaking, character-driven narratives, and the interplay between personal history and artistic expression, this episode of All Of It offers insightful perspectives directly from one of cinema's notable auteurs.

Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

Listener supported WNYC Studios.

[Paul Schrader]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. O Canada is a new movie from Academy Award nominee Paul Schrader, and it's based on a novel by the late author Russell Banks. In it, we're introduced to documentarian Leonard Fife. He's agreed to sit for an interview with another documentary team to tell his life story. They were his students back in the day. Five has cancer and is near the end of his life, and his wife is concerned about the film. But as Leonard says, I can't tell the truth unless that camera's on. Here's a clip that opens with one of the filmmakers and features Leonard, played by Richard Gere, and his wife Emma, played by Uma Thurman.

[Renee]

We've worked up some great questions for you.

[Leonard Fife]

Oh, I'm sure you have.

[Renee]

Renee said you wouldn't begin unless Emma was present. Is it true?

[Leonard Fife]

Mostly true, yeah. You might have done it differently.

[Emma]

Why?

[Leonard Fife]

For the record.

[Renee]

What record?

[Alison Stewart]

I don't know.

[Leonard Fife]

Like giving testimony. Please, you. When I say it to you.

[Alison Stewart]

Okay, let's begin.

[Paul Schrader]

What comes out is a mix of confession and confabulation where the reality is not always clear, even when the truth is there. The film will come out in select theaters on December 6th. Joining me now is writer, director, also behind countless films from Taxi Driver to Master Gardener Paul Schrader. Welcome to the studio.

[Alison Stewart]

Welcome. I assume you're Alison, because that's the name right behind your head.

[Paul Schrader]

I sure hope it's me. Yes. In case I get lost. I turn behind me. There it is. This film is dedicated to the novelist Russell Banks, and it's based on his book Foregone. Do you remember how you first became interested in Banks work?

[Alison Stewart]

Well, it was just in a bookshop and I picked up Affliction. I read the first paragraph when I was caught. So then I read the book. And then I said I tracked Russell down and was able to get the film made. And Russell was very happy with it and we subsequently became friends. He had a place up in Keene Valley in the Adirondacks. So I would spend a week there every summer. And then about a summer and a half ago, I called to see what would be a good week because he had always would have very interesting visitors, from Paul Thoreau to Joyce Carol Oates to William Kennedy. And he said, you know, not this year. I've got cancer. I'm undergoing chemo. And he had written a book about the death process called For Go on. He called it My Ivan Ilyich and he had wanted to call it Old Canada, but Richard, another book out called Canada. And so he said, well, if you do it, please use my original title. And so I did, and now it's my Ivan Ilyich.

[Paul Schrader]

Before I leave Banks. What was it about his writing that you admired?

[Alison Stewart]

You know, he was kind of old school. You know, he was not a meta writer. But he somehow managed to feel contemporary without the bells and whistles of contemporary fiction. But he knew it was coming to an end, too. I was at his house when he walked in. He said to me, said, well, I just guaranteed that I can finish my life as a novelist. He said, I just signed a three book deals, so I get to finish. But he saw the incoming, too.

[Paul Schrader]

We're talking to writer director Paul Schrader about his new film, O Canada, which we understand why it's called O Canada now. It'll be in theaters this Friday. All right, let's talk about Leonard Fife. He's preparing for this interview for a documentary. Who is Leonard Fife? When we meet him in the world.

[Alison Stewart]

Of film, he was One of the 60,000Americans who went to Canada rather than go to Vietnam, 40,000 of which stayed there. And he stayed there, through a kind of fluke, ended up making documentaries. And then he ended up being a very successful, politically engaged documentary filmmaker. And now it is her turn. His turn. As he says in the film, I've spent my life getting people to say things to me they wouldn't say to others. Now it's my turn.

[Paul Schrader]

Why does Leonard want to do this.

[Jacob Elordi]

Interview with his former students who are now Oscar winning documentarians?

[Alison Stewart]

He has. He has built his life on a lie. And he is not who he has pretended to be for decades. And now he's coming to the end of that life and the end of that lie, and he wants to expose it.

[Paul Schrader]

In the film, Leonard tells someone, At.

[Jacob Elordi]

22, I'd already been married, fathered a child, and gotten divorced. He goes on to say, imagine everything good that could ever happen to you has already happened to you. How does this help us understand Leonard beyond his stature as an acclaimed filmmaker?

[Alison Stewart]

Well, there's another line in the film that I particularly like, is straight from the book. He said. He talked about this interview. He says, this is my final prayer. And even if you don't believe in God, you don't lie when you pray.

[Jacob Elordi]

It's good.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah.

[Jacob Elordi]

Well, you know, it's interesting because his wife is played by Uma Thurman. She's been his producer for many years. She is very cautious about this documentary. Why is she against it?

[Alison Stewart]

Because she doesn't know what he's going to say. And also she doesn't think he should be putting himself through this, which in what turns out to be the last day of his life.

[Jacob Elordi]

Is she worried he's going to tell the truth, do you think, as he.

[Alison Stewart]

Says to her, you don't know the truth. There are things I haven't even admitted to myself. And so she's on pins and needles.

[Jacob Elordi]

It's so interesting because watching the film, you kind of see her not change the way she feels about him, but changes the way she maybe feels about him at the same time. Do you know what I mean?

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah. I mean, she is a younger wife. He is late 70s and dying, and she is in her early 50s. So there's a discrepancy there. And so she's always been very protective of him.

[Jacob Elordi]

Let's listen to another clip from O Canada. There's an exchange in the film that occurs between Leonard and his wife. And this is in a classroom flashback scene. Leonard speaks first. Let's listen.

[Leonard Fife]

Yeah. This was taken by photojournalist Eddie Adams the morning of February 1, 1968. It shows the execution a Viet Cong prisoner, Nguyen van Lem, by General Ngo Nhak Luan on no Jia 2 Street, Saigon. His photograph won Adams the Pulitzer Prize. Van Lam will never die. General Lohan will never die. Every time this photograph is seen, they're alive again. Emma. Ms. Flynn, you disagree.

[Renee]

There's another way to put it. Van Lem isn't going to be living forever. He's going to be dying forever. Every time someone shows that image.

[Paul Schrader]

Ooh, who do you agree with?

[Alison Stewart]

Fortunately, Russell isn't with us to answer that question.

[Paul Schrader]

There are moments in this film that really start to blur. Uma Thurman's character says that medication is affecting his memory. What was interesting to you about this idea of a film told by somewhat of an unreliable narrator?

[Alison Stewart]

Well, I like unreliable narrators, and I like narration in general, but he gets things confused. There's an attractive assistant in this interview, and he remembers his first wife. Only he cast the assistant in the room as his first wife, and then his current wife is in the room, and he remembers the wife of one of his young friends, and he cast his current wife as his friend's wife 30, 40 years ago. So he's, as you said, confabulating. He's taking little pieces of what he remembers, and he remembers himself as vital. So when he appears, he's really healthy. And then occasionally so Jacob already plays Fife as a young man and Jake, lordy, walks out of his wife's pregnant wife's bedroom to see his father in law. And after the meeting with the father in law, Richard Gere walks in and lies next to the wife and they have this conversation they would have had if it were Jake. Oh, now it's just Richard remembering being Jake.

[Jacob Elordi]

It's funny because you can see it change in the mirror. At first it's Jake Balordi's reveal and then you realize it's Richard Gere's reveal.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah, wonderful young actress in a Christian Firth. And I said to her, in the morning she did a scene in bed with Jake, and in the afternoon she did a scene in bed with Richard. I said, you're always gonna remember this day.

[Jacob Elordi]

I was about to say, that's a good day at work. How did you decide when to use gear in these flashback scenes? Is that from the book? Is that in your imagination?

[Alison Stewart]

See, film is more malleable than literature. We can do things with film. Not a lot you can do with literature. You can change the typeface, you can do bigger and smaller, you can do all caps, but film, you can do black and white, you can different screen ratios, different color contrast. And so I use four different screen ratios. I use three different types of color. Now you can do this on film. And you know, if Russell had been able to do it in a book, I'm sure he would have.

[Paul Schrader]

Leonard's interview in the film is done using a device based on Errol Morris's and Terratron. He's actually going to be on the show tomorrow. It's kind of exciting.

[Alison Stewart]

Say hi for me.

[Paul Schrader]

I will. How does that work in your world? Do you just do it the way Errol Morris would have done it or how does that work?

[Alison Stewart]

Well, I mean, I had a tough staging problem. I had a lengthy interview and I, you know, there's only so many angles you can have in an interview. And so. And I remembered being interviewed by Arrow on that machine. And I thought, oh yeah, what if I use the interrotron? Because that gives me more angles. It's a huge piece of machinery and you get on one side of it and you look in it, you look around it. And so I just used that gimmick to, to make the space more useful.

[Paul Schrader]

Well, let's play a scene from O Canada where Leonard describes why the Interrotron is effective.

[Jacob Elordi]

Let's listen.

[Leonard Fife]

The interviewer is not in the sight line. It's that simple. Right. You position yourself so that the subject can only look directly down the lens. And if you're silent long enough, you're unseen long enough. People will talk. They can't help themselves. Freud, he was sitting there in his chair next to the chaise. He understood this very well. Listen. Wait.

[Jacob Elordi]

That works in journalism, too. You have to be okay with a little bit of silence.

[Paul Schrader]

Tomorrow.

[Jacob Elordi]

What should I ask Errol Morris? You've been working with this device?

[Alison Stewart]

I don't know. You're going to know more than I do, because I last saw Arrow maybe six, seven years ago. So I don't even know what he's up to.

[Jacob Elordi]

All right, we'll think about that one. Leonard says I can't tell the truth unless the camera's on. He really believes that?

[Alison Stewart]

I don't. He wants to believe it.

[Renee]

Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

He wants to use this excuse to say some things that he might not have said if there were not a camera.

[Jacob Elordi]

He has a lot of secrets. We won't give them away, but he has a lot of secrets. A lot of secrets. How has Leonard's career shaped his relationship with the truth?

[Alison Stewart]

Well, like I say, it's fungible. But I'm just thinking, you know. So it's called Old Canada because he goes to Canada to flee. And I use Canada as a metaphor for irresponsibility, cowardice and death, which is a very cool way to use Canada.

[Jacob Elordi]

I don't think Canada's like, what? Did you say something? People understand what the film's about. By the way, my guest is Paul Schrader. We're talking about his new film, O Canada. It's in select theaters this Friday. The last time you worked with Richard Gere was on American Gigolo in 1980. What was it like to work with him again?

[Alison Stewart]

Pretty much the same. He had picked up a number of mannerisms over the years that I had to kind of knock out of him.

[Jacob Elordi]

Love that.

[Alison Stewart]

And I gave them some of those mannerisms to begin with. I remember when we were doing Gigolo, I showed him La Plain Soleil with Alain Delonge. I said, oh, look at this guy. Look how he walks. Look how he holds his hips. Look how he walked on his feet. So Richard did that walk in American Jingle. And then he kept doing it in his other face.

[Jacob Elordi]

You're like, hey, who's the walk? Do me a favor. Jacob Elordi plays a young version of Leonard. How did you think about casting the part?

[Alison Stewart]

Well, I'll tell you a funny story if we have time. I'm good friends with Brett Eastonelis and Brettie Sten.

[Jacob Elordi]

Ellis. Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

And I was having dinner with Brett. I said, I'm trying to cast a young Richard Gere. Now, Brett is a big fan of American Jingle. He's written about it in books and so forth. And Brett said, oh, no, no. You're not going to find a young Richard Gere. You're just not going to find him. I said, well, you know, I just saw, I just zoomed with this young actor named Jacob Elordi. And Brent looked at me and held up his hands and said, stop right there. I just came in my pants.

[Jacob Elordi]

Our entire control room is like, yeah.

[Paul Schrader]

We can say that. I think that's a great place to end the interview.

[Alison Stewart]

My guest, all right.

[Paul Schrader]

Has been Paul Schrader. We're talking about his new film, O Canada. You Got Juliana Going. It'll be in theaters this Friday. Thank you so much for coming to the studio. We really appreciate your time.

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you, Allison.

[Emma]

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