Paul Schrader is a screenwriter, director, teacher who understands the power, mystery and history of cinema. He ought to- he's been doing it over 40 years. Mr. Schrader writes a movie protagonist with a precision and voltage unrivaled in cinema history. His creations/characters are misjudged, agonized, testosterone drunk powder kegs that will, indeed must, erupt at some point. It is simply part and parcel of their salvation.
Schrader is- always will be- the man who wrote Taxi Driver (1976). Martin Scorsese’s classic, resonant film boasts one of the most elusive and dangerous men ever mythologized on a big screen, Vietnam vet turned vigilante cabbie, Travis Bickle, famously played by a young Robert De Niro. Schrader has often commented that this film will be the first thing mentioned in his obituary. He’s probably correct. But I vote they mention his latest writing/directing effort, the splendid First Reformed (2017), directly after.
Schrader, 72 this year, is arguably our most respected living screenwriter (also an expert writer of film criticism and essays). First Reformed is a logical continuation of his “man in a room” tales. The angsty taxi driver of Taxi Driver (1976)- the narcissistic gigolo of American Gigolo (1980)- the brilliant Japanese artist, Mishima (1984)- the passive drug dealer in Light Sleeper (1992)- the society walker in The Walker (2007)- has re-surfaced as a tortured Reverend in upstate New York. Schrader’s Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke) is a servant of God and a man of abysmal torments whose faith is on the wane. Or is it just being tested?
First Reformed is recognizably a not-so-distant cousin of Taxi Driver. But any screenwriter lucky, talented and brave enough to pen a singular, resounding story of alienation and reactionary violence like Taxi Driver must expect to loop back to it now and then. Taxi Driver had the power to jostle 70’s audiences out of their post-60’s torpor (for at least it’s running time). First Reformed does something a bit similar. It courageously examines what’s on a lot of contemporary minds with galvanizing clarity (climate change, extremism, technology’s effects, corporate greed and generational obligations). Moments in the film directly recall De Niro’s cab driver (the Reverend driving at night with lights bouncing off his rear-view mirror, swilling Pepto Bismol mixed into whiskey, keeping a diligent diary, etc.); but First Reformed isn't about loneliness. Taxi Driver was. FirstReformed is about something larger. The film brings an understanding of the truest nature of faith out of the dark shadows of current American life. Schrader’s movie digs so deep into despair it demands the accessibility of hope.
Reverend Ernst Toller tends the attendees of his modest Dutch Reformed church (all 6 or 7 of them?) near Albany, New York. The more attended and popular church- aptly called, Abundant Life, is down the road a stretch. The Reverend Toller keeps a journal and will do so, he states, for one year. Toller is solicited by Mary (an inspired Amanda Seyfried) to counsel her soul-sick hubby, Michael. With climate change raging and being consistently stoked by corporate vultures of the planet, Mary’s husband doesn't see a point to bringing children (Mary is quite pregnant) into this dark, doomed, disgusting world.
One of the best scenes in the movie is when Michael and Toller discuss faith, climate change, Toller’s son (a casualty of the Iraq war) and Toller’s former life as a military chaplain. Toller (in one of the film’s frequent voice-overs) expresses ecstasy over having his ideology questioned and confronted by a passionate Michael (Philip Ettinger, strong in the part). This scene is a great example of Schrader’s writing strength as well as being expertly framed. It alternates between close-ups and longer shots at just the right moments. Toller's contradictory impulses materialize in this scene as he vacillates between advisory remarks and shopworn platitudes. Toller barely buys his own impressive bullshit- however articulate he may be.
First Reformed church, now mostly a tourist attraction, is 250 years old- and a gaggle of richies and dignitaries are being displayed by Abundant Life’s leader (an energetic Cedric Kyles/Cedric the Entertainer) for a re-consecration ceremony. Corporate ghouls will attend- including a petrol exec (an appropriately unapologetic Michael Gaston)- as they contribute significantly to the “Abundant Life” of the Abundant Life church.
But it’s Toller’s encounter with Michael that bullets the film into a symphony awaiting it's deserved applause. The discussion Toller and Michael engage in is lofty and almost uncomfortably intimate and humane. The radical activist literally invades Toller’s already vulnerable soul. This invasion- coupled with Toller’s turbulent past (Victoria Hill plays an ex-lover/choir director at Abundant Life), poor health (blood in his urine), heavy drinking, and oodles of time contemplating the nature of his duty to God- catapults Toller into full-on Schrader territory- that is to say- existential sickness. Or as Toller mentions in the film- “The sickness unto death…” Key Kierkegaard.
Ethan Hawke, an actor who is nothing if not earnest, finds a gravity he hasn’t displayed before. I imagine any actor/actress would relish the opportunity to bite into a Schrader character and Hawke is definitely present in the role. He exhibits a series of tiny nervous shimmies and anxious facial affirmations that serve to underline his inner storm. Amanda Seyfried’s Mary is radiant with the glow of pregnancy (naturally- she was with child during the shoot). We really believe her when she weeps and when she says she wants “to live this life” and “have her baby” unlike her activist husband.
After all the withholding and transcendental tricks Schrader can possibly muster- the film starts to gracefully skip away from its modesty and solitude toward a frenzied enlightenment that its central character simply must discover. And it is the end of the film- very beautiful and quite earned- that marks it as one of Schrader’s finest. The last 20 or so minutes are wonderfully realized and they mark the characteristic evolution of a serious and thoughtful film artist.
The writer/director does not shy away from his influences (refreshing to behold in an age of unnecessarily coy young filmmakers straining for mystique)- Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light (1963), Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Mirror (1975), Dreyer’s Ordet (1955) and, of course, Robert Bresson’s sublime, Diary of a Country Priest (1959).
Cinematographer, Alexander Dynan, deserves a lot of credit for his deliberate, potent photography. First Reformed is a real knockout movie for those who care about the drowning world and the few thoughtful people left in it. It’s a big-hearted movie asking the right questions at the right time. It has an odd exuberance- an almost romantic bent. First Reformed is a picture for the patient and concerned and it's of and for the moment. It is also a film for film lovers made by a film lover.