Get the latest gossip
Every Paul Schrader Movie, Ranked
The director’s psychological portraits of lost souls desperately seeing salvation take many forms.
His psychological portraits of lost souls desperately seeking salvation take many forms: a stylish escort cruising around Los Angeles to the tune of Blondie’s “Call Me” ( American Gigolo); a Japanese writer struggling with his own repression ( Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters); a drug dealer trying to turn a new leaf ( Light Sleeper); a former actress and her trust-fund boyfriend navigating the depravity of their surroundings ( The Canyons), and so on. A charmingly schlocky erotic thriller very loosely based on Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton’s 1942 horror film by the same name, Cat People follows the explosive sexual awakening of Irena Gallier (Nastassja Kinski) who, upon arriving in New Orleans, slowly learns that her desires transform her into a black leopard, placing her and her new zoologist lover (John Heard) in jeopardy. Inspired by stories of “real-life disillusionment,” Schrader’s phenomenal directorial debut confronts capitalism’s innumerable evils head-on with a bleak, yet humorous tale about three forever-strapped auto workers (Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, and Richard Pryor, in a tragically overlooked dramatic performance) who rob their union headquarters and discover evidence of an illegal loan operation tied to the Mob.
Or read this on VULTURE