The iconoclastic writer and director Paul Schrader will be at the Aero for two nights of screenings this week, engaging the audience with a discussion of his work.
On Wednesday night, Schrader will introduce two of his films from the 1990s: AFFLICTION (with Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek) and LIGHT SLEEPER (Willem Dafoe and Susan Sarandon).
The following evening the director will present his latest work, the Bresson-meets-pulp fiction tour de force FIRST REFORMED. The film’s star Ethan Hawke will join Schrader for a post-screening conversation.
“When I look back on my life and think of the various people who have befriended me, whether it be Pauline Kael or Charles Eames or whoever, obviously they saw in me a hungry, thirsty sensibility that wanted what they had to give very badly, and if you’re a decent person then you realize that this is what you are put on this earth to do…
“[Eames taught me] that the cult of personality is transient, that we are in fact all alike and that if you don’t understand how we are alike then you won’t get anything done.” — Paul Schrader, 1989*
Wednesday, May 9, at 7:30 pm.
Member’s screening on Thursday, May 10, at 7:30 pm.
For membership information, see: egyptiantheatre.com/join
Aero Theatre
1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica.
* From Schrader on Schrader & Other Writings, edited by Kevin Jackson (London: Faber and Faber, 1990), 27.
From top: Ethan Hawke, poster detail, First Reformed; Susan Sarandon and Willem Dafoe in Light Sleeper (1992).