Whether as scriptwriter or director or both, Paul Schrader has something of a (post-)religious take on life. Given his strict Calvinist upbringing, that is not surprising; he has been quoted as saying he is still trying to “outrun” his childhood. Hollywood movies usually have a schematic moral framework that helps viewers pigeonhole characters (in the laziest possible way) and then feel good about their upliftment or their downfall. Schrader’s moral universe (when he’s allowed to body it forth fully) is the more deeply felt and more thoroughly thought-through version of this.
He is fascinated by transgression — or sin, in more theological terms. And he is riveted by the obsession that often goes with that transgression. Look at his scripts for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (loner taking on God’s job as moral judge) and The Last Temptation of Christ (God incarnate doubting his divine mission), or his own Mishima (suicidal fascist homosexual Japanese writer) and Affliction (alcoholism in father/son relationship), never mind Cat People (woman turns into jaguar whenever she has sex). He even scripted, for Brian de Palma in 1976, a movie bluntly called Obsession.
But there is nothing simplistic about Schrader’s view of sin or the consequential possibilities of salvation or damnation. Schrader understands that in a hypocritical world transgression will have a great attraction; at the same time he is clear on the fact that sinning is often something we can’t help doing. All of us have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. That’s what makes us interesting.
Schrader’s new movie, Auto Focus, is based on the real-life story of Bob Crane, a minor Sixties TV star who was found bashed to death in a hotel room in 1978 after a long period of career decline. We first meet Bob in 1965 when he’s up for the lead role in Hogan’s Heroes, an odd sitcom set in a World War II prisoner-of-war camp, which became a hit. At that point, Crane is a happily married family man, and a devout Catholic to boot. Fame, however, will test his commitment to that squeaky-clean life.
Fame is what allows Crane (Greg Kinnear) to find himself a whole new vocation in the area of casual sex. He is led into temptation by one John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), an audio-visual expert developing and selling the then-new technology of video. The combination of a stream of fresh girls (“A day without sex is a day wasted” becomes Bob’s motto) and the capacity to record his sexual shenanigans as they take place is irresistible to Crane. He is seduced as much by the technological advances of the day as he is by the sea-change in attitudes to sex.
He is living on the cusp of major social transformation in the United States, the movement from the conservatism of the Fifties to the libertinism of the Sixties, though Schrader does no more than hint at that background (and allow it to emerge through the sets and clothes). The film focuses closely on Bob’s burgeoning obsession and its effect on the rest of his life. It also keeps a close eye on the odd relationship between Crane and Carpenter, the mutual dependence that evolves — as well as the power struggles that inevitably erupt.
Kinnear, as Crane, is excellent, doing well with someone who is clearly rather naive, rather shallow and rather lost. His chief asset in life, as Crane himself notes, is that he’s “likeable”. By contrast, Dafoe, looking more saurian than ever, has the ability and the guts to play someone very unlikeable, and to keep us interested. Carpenter is creepy and yet strangely vulnerable, and Dafoe’s work in this film is another in his series of superb performances.
If Auto Focus falls short of being a totally engrossing movie (and it is admittedly a depressing little picture), that is because Schrader does not play the obvious tricks on us — or impart an easy message. We’re not sure where our emotions should be going. Should we be condemning Crane, as conventional morality would have us do, for his submission to his own lusts? Should we feel sorry for him, even as we sympathise with his drives? Is this a fable about how too much sex can ruin your life? I don’t think so, though some will see the film as moralisistic. Schrader’s better films demand the freedom of ambivalence, and as far as Auto Focus goes I would be willing to grant it.