Paul Schrader to Receive Venice Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Honor

Paul Schrader, director of American Gigolo, Cat People, First Reformed and The Card Counter and the screenwriter of Martin Scorsese’s classics Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, will be honored with this year’s Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival.

Schrader’s work is inextricably linked with the New Hollywood revolution in American cinema in the 1960s and 1970s. After starting as a film critic, Schrader made his name as a screenwriter, penning scripts for directors such as Sidney Pollack (The Yakuza) and Brian De Palma (Obsession). But he is best-known for his four collaborations with Martin Scorsese, starting with 1976’s Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes and received a best picture nomination at the Oscars. Schrader also delivered scripts for Scorsese’s Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and Bringing Out the Dead.

He first stepped behind the camera in 1978 making his directorial debut Blue Collar starring Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel. Later that year, Schrader wrote and directed the loosely autobiographical film Hardcore, starring George C. Scott. His breakthrough as a director came in 1980 with the critically-acclaimed crime drama American Gigolo starring Richard Gere. Other successes include the 1982 horror remake Cat People with Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell, the 1998 drama Affliction, nominated for two Oscars, including a best-supporting win for James Coburn, and the 2019 Ethan Hawke-starrer First Reformed, which received an Academy Award nomination for Schrader’s original screenplay.

First Reformed premiered in Venice, as did Schrader’s last feature, The Card Counter, starring Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish, which graced the Lido last year.

“Paul Schrader is a key figure of New Hollywood who, from the late 1960s on, has revolutionized the imagination, aesthetics, and language of American film,” said Venice Festival director Alberto Barbera. “It is not an exaggeration to affirm that he is one of the most important American filmmakers of his generation, a director who is deeply influenced by European film and culture, and a stubbornly independent screenwriter who nonetheless knows how to work on commission and confidently move within the Hollywood system.”

“I am deeply honored,” Schrader said in a statement. “Venice is the Lion of my heart.”

Schrader will receive his Golden Lion at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, which runs Aug. 31-Sept. 10.

Hollywood Reporter Original Article