Schrader/Goldblum: Heaviness for Christmas

Published: Fri Dec 19, 2008 (updated Mon Dec 22, 2008) in Press

The "Taxi Driver" alum and his "Adam Resurrected" star on art, craft and collabroration

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"LA Weekly" Schrader/Goldblum cover story.

The “LA Weekly’s” cover story for December 19-25, “Holiday Film 2008,” bypassed the usual seasonal images (Santa, Rudolph, roasting chestnuts) in favor of a decidedly serious-looking writer-director two shot of Paul Schrader MA ’70 and Jeff Goldblum. In a duo interview, they describe their collaboration on the intense and surreal Holocaust drama “Adam Resurrected.”

In “Adam Resurrected,” [Paul] Schrader and screenwriter Noah Stollman's film version of the revered 1968 novel by Israeli novelist Yoram Kaniuk, [Jeff] Goldblum plays a Berlin magician and cabaret star forced to debase himself in weird and terrible ways in order to survive a Nazi concentration camp. Adam's plight, during and after the war, makes him a psychological whirlwind, which Goldblum uses to give the most deeply felt performance of his career, while Schrader ventures into some of the most nakedly emotional territory of his. For both artists, it's a brave leap. Recently, Goldblum and Schrader sat down to talk about their particular brand of collaboration.

L.A. WEEKLY: We're focusing on actor-director collaborations in this issue, and it occurred to me that you, Paul, first as a screenwriter working with guys like Scorsese and DeNiro, and then as a director yourself, have come at collaboration from more angles than most. Is collaboration an important concept for you?

PAUL SCHRADER: Well, in a way, I think people make too much of collaboration. If you have the right people in place, it works quite well. If you miscast — your actor, your cinematographer, your production manager — then no amount of collaboration is going to fix that. So it's really just a matter of having the right gears and then figuring out how they work together. I can't think of any examples where one partner triumphed over the other. If it's bad chemistry, then you tend to go down together.

…

GOLDBLUM: … early on, just to get on the same page, the same sensibility, I asked Paul, "Which are the movies you really admire that I shouldn't miss out on?" We were in a restaurant in Israel, and in 10 or 15 minutes he handed me a list of 20 movies. I took it and went off to take the Paul Schrader college course in film.

Tell me your three favorite films from his list.

GOLDBLUM: He said the most important movie ever made was “Rules of the Game,” which I hadn't seen. Next was “Tokyo Story.” Then Fassbinder's “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.” He said he watches two movies before he makes any movie: “Performance” and “The Conformist.” I saw those again. Antonioni's “The Eclipse.” “Masculine-Feminine” I'd never seen, by Godard. “Vertigo” is his favorite Hitchcock. Budd Boetticher's “7 Men from Now.” All those amazing films. It was great fun for me, and you know, I think it helped bring us together.