R.I.P. Leonard Schrader
I have an Yahoo email account that I rarely use, but it sends me little news items from all of the web that have the search words script and screenwriter in them. So I was going through that mail box and though I saw his obituary in passing, it hadn't really registered with me that Leonard Schrader had gone on to the great big typewriter in the sky.
If you want to talk about collarborations, the Schrader brothers were a hellva team. They started off with The Yakuza, which I still haven't gotten around to seeing, but I understand it to be a good film. On the strength of that and his friendship with a director, Paul got a gig. He wrote something called Taxi Driver. You might have heard of it.
Over the years, they made two films that were crucial influences to me, Blue Collar and Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters. The essence of those two stories are in everything I write that is larger than a message in a birthday card. Leonard would go on to adapt Kiss of The Spider Woman for the big screen and Paul would go on to quite a career himself, yet I think they were at their best, storywise, when they worked together.
Bringing Out The Dead could have been something other than a straight from the book adaptation that lacked spark and Greg Kinnear might have had a little more of something to draw on in Auto Focus, because Leonard understood the darkness and duality that exists in every human being.
Hopefully all of our lives will be that much more interesting, now that God has a great cowriter in Leonard Schrader.
If you want to talk about collarborations, the Schrader brothers were a hellva team. They started off with The Yakuza, which I still haven't gotten around to seeing, but I understand it to be a good film. On the strength of that and his friendship with a director, Paul got a gig. He wrote something called Taxi Driver. You might have heard of it.
Over the years, they made two films that were crucial influences to me, Blue Collar and Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters. The essence of those two stories are in everything I write that is larger than a message in a birthday card. Leonard would go on to adapt Kiss of The Spider Woman for the big screen and Paul would go on to quite a career himself, yet I think they were at their best, storywise, when they worked together.
Bringing Out The Dead could have been something other than a straight from the book adaptation that lacked spark and Greg Kinnear might have had a little more of something to draw on in Auto Focus, because Leonard understood the darkness and duality that exists in every human being.
Hopefully all of our lives will be that much more interesting, now that God has a great cowriter in Leonard Schrader.
Labels: Writing
posted by Writeprocrastinator at 8:33 PM
3 Comments:
Sorry to lose him; those are great films you listed.
I have a Yahoo account that I rarely use also. I get a lot of emails from Spammy McSpammerson.
Hey, by the way, my blog isn't about Melfi or Manhattan so much these days. :)
Beth,
Thank you much, though I'm falling behind as a fan because I have yet to get "Blue Collar" on DVD.
Becka,
My spam karma has been pretty good since I've stayed away from Earthlink and AOL, though there is a Spammy somewhere that sends the occasional to film-related blogs (or am I the only one?).
You're right, that link is literally so last year, I'll have to update it. Of course, you stll look like the good doctor ; )
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