Paul Schrader Discusses Upcoming Film ‘Oh, Canada’
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At age 77, Paul Schrader is still consistently making films. The prolific writer and director, whose filmography includes Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and First Reformed, had his latest film, Master Gardener, release in theaters earlier this year.
He has also already begun work on a new film, Oh, Canada, which will star Richard Gere, Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli and Kristine Froseth.
This isn’t Schrader’s first time working with Gere; the actor famously starred in Schrader’s 1980 film American Gigolo. You can check out my review of that movie here.
The upcoming crime drama is based on Russell Banks’ 2021 novel Foregone. The book follows a famed documentary filmmaker, played by Gere, who looks back on his life and his current condition at 80 years old and without much time left due to being stricken with cancer. A younger version of Fife will be played by Jacob Elordi, while Kristine Froeseth will portray his wife.
In a New Yorker article from several months ago, Schrader said that he would like to make one last film, which means that Oh, Canada could be the legendary filmmaker’s final foray into filmmaking.
Discussing the upcoming film with Le Monde, Schrader had this to say:
The assembly is finished. The only thing missing is the soundtrack, by the rock group Phosphorescent. I am coming out of a trying period, I was hospitalized several times for pneumonia and long-term Covid. I have recovered approximately 70% of my abilities. When I got back to work, I told myself that it was no longer the time to make a film about the mysterious sexuality of a young girl, or something like that. Death is my subject. And it’s better not to hang around! A close friend, the writer Russell Banks, fell ill. So, as I did with ‘Affliction’, I decided to adapt one of his novels, ‘Oh, Canada’.
He also stated that Oh, Canada will be his ‘version of The Death of Ivan Ilyich’, the acclaimed Tolstoy novella published in 1886.
That’s not all the filmmaker teased about his upcoming film. Though he isn’t sure if it will premiere at the Cannes or Venice film festivals, he stated: ‘It’s the first time, since Mishima, that I’ve made a puzzle film. Or an assembly of scattered memories, heterogeneous formats, fragments.’
The film finished production in October of this year after a 17 day shoot. Currently the runtime of Oh, Canada is 91 minutes. No release date for the film has been announced as of yet.
