[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Oh, 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. Fife 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.

Filmmaker: We've worked up some great questions for you.

Leonard Fife: Oh, I'm sure you have.

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

Leonard Fife: Mostly true, yeah. Might have done it differently.

Filmmaker: Why?

Leonard Fife: For the record.

Filmmaker: What record?

Leonard Fife: I don't know, like giving testimony. Easier when I say it to you.

Speaker 4: Okay, let's begin.

Alison Stewart: 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.

Paul Schrader: Welcome. I assume you're Alison, because that's the name right behind your head. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: I sure hope it's me.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: 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?

Paul Schrader: Well, it was just in a bookshop and I picked up Affliction. I read the first paragraph and I was caught, so then I read the book and then I tracked Russell down and was able to get the film made. 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. Then, about a summer and a half ago, I called to see what would be a good week because he always would have very interesting visitors, from Paul Theroux to Joyce Carol Oates to William Kennedy.

He said, "Not this year. I've got cancer. I'm undergoing chemo." He had written a book about the death process called Foregone. He called it my Ivan Ilyich, and he had wanted to call it Oh, Canada, but Richard, another book out called Canada. He said, "Well, if you do it, please use my original title," and so I did, and now it's my Ivan Ilyich.

Alison Stewart: Before I leave Banks, what was it about his writing that you admired?

Paul Schrader: He was kind of old school. He was not a meta writer, but he somehow managed to feel contemporary without the bells and whistles of contemporary fiction. 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 three book deals, so I get to finish," but he saw the end coming too.

Alison Stewart: We're talking to writer, director Paul Schrader about his new film, Oh, Canada, which we understand why it's called Oh, 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 of film?

Paul Schrader: He was one of the 60,000 Americans who went to Canada rather than go to Vietnam, 40,000 of which stayed there. 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. Now it is 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."

Alison Stewart: Why does Leonard want to do this interview with his former students who are now Oscar-winning documentarians?

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

Alison Stewart: In the film, Leonard tells someone, "At 22, I'd already been married, fathered a child, and gotten divorced." He goes on to say, "Imagine if 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?

Paul Schrader: Well, there's another line in the film that I particularly like that's straight from the book. 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."

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] It's good.

Paul Schrader: Yes. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Well, 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?

Paul Schrader: 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 turns out to be the last day of his life.

Alison Stewart: Is she worried he's going to tell the truth, do you think?

Paul Schrader: As he 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.

Alison Stewart: 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 [laughs] at the same time. Do you know what I mean?

Paul Schrader: Yes. 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. She's always been very protective of him.

Alison Stewart: Right. Let's listen to another clip from Oh, 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 1st, 1968. It shows the execution of Viet Cong prisoner, Nguyen Van Lem, by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, on [unintelligible 00:08:30] 2 Street, Saigon. This photograph won Adams a Pulitzer Prize. Van Lem will never die. General Loan will never die. Every time this photograph is seen, they're alive again. Emma, Ms. Flynn, you disagree?

Emma: 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.

Alison Stewart: Ooh. Who do you agree with?

Paul Schrader: [laughs] Fortunately, Russell isn't with us to answer that question.

Alison Stewart: 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?

Paul Schrader: 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. He's, as you said, confabulating. He's taking little pieces of what he remembers and he remembers himself as vital.

When he appears, he's really healthy, and then occasionally, I-- so Jacob Elordi plays Fife as a young man, and Jake Elordi walks out of his pregnant wife's bedroom to see his father-in-law. Then, 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, only now it's just Richard remembering being Jake.

Alison Stewart: It's funny because you can see it change in the mirror.

Paul Schrader: Yes.

Alison Stewart: At first, it's Jake Elordi's reveal, and then you realize it's Richard Gere's reveal.

Paul Schrader: Yes, and the wonderful young actress in a Christian firth. 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 going to remember this day."

Alison Stewart: I was about to say, that's a good day at work.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: How did you decide when to use Gere in these flashback scenes? Is that from the book? Is that in your imagination?

Paul Schrader: Yes, 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. I use four different screen ratios. I use three different types of color. Now, you can do this on film. If Russell had been able to do it in a book, I'm sure he would have.

Alison Stewart: Leonard's interview in the film is done using a device based on Errol Morris's Interrotron. He's actually going to be on the show tomorrow, which is kind of exciting.

Paul Schrader: Say hi for me.

Alison Stewart: 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?

Paul Schrader: Well, I mean, I had a tough staging problem. I had a lengthy interview, and there's only so many angles you can have in an interview. I remembered being interviewed by Errol on that machine and I thought, "Oh yes, 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. I just used that gimmick to make the space more useful.

Alison Stewart: Well, let's play a scene from Oh, Canada where Leonard describes why the Interrotron is effective. 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.

Alison Stewart: That works in journalism too. You have to be okay with a little bit of silence. Tomorrow, what should I ask Errol Morris? You've been working with this device.

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

Alison Stewart: 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?

Paul Schrader: He wants to believe it.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

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

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

Paul Schrader: Well, like I say, it's fungible. I'm just thinking, so it's called Oh, Canada because he goes to Canada to flee, and I use Canada as the metaphor for irresponsibility, cowardice, and death, which is a very cool way to use Canada. [inaudible 00:15:20]

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Canada's like, what? Did you say something?

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: People who understand what the film's about. By the way, my guest is Paul Schrader. We're talking about his new film, Oh, 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?

Paul Schrader: 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.

Alison Stewart: Love that.

Paul Schrader: I gave them some of those mannerisms to begin with. I remember when we were doing Gigolo, I showed him a place to lay with Alain Delon. I said, "Oh, look at this guy. Look how he walks. Look how he holds his hips. Look how he walked on his feet." Richard did that walk in American Gigolo, and then he kept doing it in his other films.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: You're like, "Hey, lose the walk. Do me a favor." Jacob Elordi plays a young version of Leonard. How did you think about casting the part?

Paul Schrader: Well, I'll tell you a funny story if we have time. I'm good friends with Bret Easton Ellis, and-- [crosstalk]

Alison Stewart: Bret Easton Ellis, yes.

Paul Schrader: I was having dinner with Bret and I said, "I'm trying to cast a young Richard Gere." Now, Bret is a big fan of American Gigolo. He's written about it in books and so forth. Bret said, "Oh no, no, no, you're not going to find a young Richard Gere. You're just not going to find him." I said, "Well, I just Zoomed with this young actor named Jacob Elordi," and Bret looked at me and held up his hands and said, "Stop right there. I just came in my pants."

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Our entire control room's like, "Yes, we can say that."

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: I think that's a great place to end the interview. [laughs] My guest has been Paul Schrader. We're talking about his new film, Oh, 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.

Paul Schrader: Thank you, Alison.