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Interview: Paul Schrader on The Canyons, Lindsay Lohan, and More

The industry legend discusses being an art “leftover” and how exhibitionist porn stars got Lindsay Lohan all shook up.

Interview: Paul Schrader on The Canyons, Lindsay Lohan, and More
Photo: IFC Films

In the media, the road to The Canyons has been paved for many months, by everything from Stephen Rodrick’s epically odd New York Times piece, which chronicled the dirty details of Lindsay Lohan’s on-set drama, to Larry Gross’s ethically questionable Film Comment article, which all but lauded the L.A.-set treatise on youthful hollowness as a newfangled masterpiece. On the eve of the movie’s VOD release, as defenders and naysayers continue to step up and state their cases, the jury is still out on The Canyons, a film that’s exploited the powers of subversion from beginning to end—whatever that may be. Conceptually, the project is undeniably titillating, an ostensible bit of knowing, arty trash that mashes up the subcultural talents of Lohan, porn star James Deen, writer Bret Easton Ellis, and director Paul Schrader. But is the sum worth the parts? And does that even matter?

Not even Schrader can definitively declare whether the headline-grabbing buzz, or “noise,” as he calls it, can be set apart from whatever art has actually been made here. He knows full well that, with The Canyons, he was embarking on something provocative (and something all the more remarkable for its micro-budgeted, crowdfunded, of-the-moment financing), but he also contends that the collaboration of this motley crew was an “intellectual enterprise,” which may well be deserving of the serious critical kudos its detractors are railing against. At this point, after having The Canyons rocket him back into popular discussion, there are only so many things Schrader can say that he hasn’t already said about the project. Yes, he dropped trou to help make Lohan more comfortable. Yes, Lohan rallied against having Deen play Christian, the scummy, rich boyfriend of her vixen-ish character, Tara. But Schrader expresses zero fatigue in talking further about the movie, one he gleefully recognizes is unlike any he’s ever made before. Frank and forthcoming, the 67-year-old industry legend told me about being an art “leftover,” his fondness for T.S. Eliot, how exhibitionist porn stars got Lohan all shook up, and how, despite having introduced mainstream audiences to full-frontal male nudity in American Gigolo, and having directed Lohan in her first topless turn, he’s not much of a sexual being himself.

You open this film with a series of shots of run-down, abandoned movie theaters, which could lead some people to believe that you’re commenting on cinema’s demise. But, considering how The Canyons was made, it seems to register more as an acknowledgment of how the viewing experience has evolved.

That’s correct. We’re talking about cinema for the post-theatrical era. Not the end of cinema, but the end of the notion that it must be seen in a dark room, in front of a crowd, projected on a wall. And that was the concept from the very start, in my very first email to Bret, when I proposed this. I proposed it [in terms of] working that way. There was a time when the phrase “direct-to-video” was a disparaging term, but I think we’re emerging from that, and we have a chance to create must-see VOD that just bypasses theatrical. I showed the film to Steven Soderbergh, because he had done The Girlfriend Experience, and I wanted his opinion. He said, “I’ve already done that.” And I said, “Well, what would you do differently today?” And he said, “I probably wouldn’t show it in any theaters.”

In a way few recent movies have, The Canyons virtually achieved cult status without even being seen, developing this provocative, anticipatory, pre-release life, in large part because of who’s involved. What enticed you more: The movie you were making or who you were making it with?

[laughs] I don’t know if you could separate those. Lindsay creates her own cone of chaos, and the fact that she’s making a micro-budget movie is chaotic in and of itself. So it all merges into a kind of ad-hoc reality, where everything is changing as we’re doing it. One of the things that really attracted me about this was just the notion of it: Is it possible for someone, meaning me, to make a film in such a way? Nothing I did in making this film is how I’ve done it before. Not the inception, or the financing, or the casting, or the making, or the promotion, or the release. So that was a kind of a buzz, just sort of exploring new territory.

There’s been a great deal of press about Lindsay, but what about James? What was it like to shift from working with mainstream male stars like Richard Gere and Willem Dafoe to someone like him?

Well, in this case, James was a fucking saint. [laughs] You know, he’s been in front of the camera for a long time. There’s been a lot of film on this guy. And he’s worked with a lot of high-strung, temperamental women. And I thought that he put up with the environment remarkably well. I don’t think there’s another actor who would have been as patient as James was. Now, why did I cast him? I don’t know. It was surprising to me. It was Bret’s idea, and I never thought it would happen. But I tested him, and the more I thought about it, the more interesting it became. He was so much like a Bret character. And then Lindsay got involved, and this notion of using two icons of outré culture—James from the adult world and Lindsay from the celebrity world—and putting them together in an intellectual enterprise, by Bret, started to have a real appeal. And I thought, “Wait, this could make some noise.” It’s such a post-empire idea. Bret is a believer in post-empire art, meaning that America is now in its post-empire art phase, just like Britain was in the last century. We’re making art from the leftovers of our empire. And when you talk about leftovers, there’s Bret, there’s me, there’s Lindsay, and there’s James! [laughs] So we picked up the broken pieces and put them together.

Do you see James as getting a fruitful mainstream acting career out of this?

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I don’t know. And I don’t think James knows. His acting career in porn is coming to an end because of his age, so he’s doing a lot of directing now. But he would run back to work as soon as we wrapped. I think he’s tempted by [mainstream acting], but on the other hand, I don’t think he’s gonna give up his day job.

I spoke to him recently, and when we discussed the filming of some of the sex scenes, he mentioned that you’re not a very sexual creature. Upon first hearing that, it seemed a little hard to believe.

Oh. I would say he’s probably right. I’m certainly not in relation to his world. I wouldn’t be comfortable shooting porn. It wouldn’t appeal to me. To me, it would be like shooting industrial videos.

How would you describe the mood in the room among you and James and Lindsay while shooting, say, the neon-lit foursome?

Well, Lindsay was very, very uncomfortable, because she had never done this before, and she’s there in a room with three people who do it for a living. And for them, for James and his friends, this was a lark. It was like, “What a joke this is—we’re going to shoot a sex scene where there’s really no sex.” And for her it’s a trauma. So that was a rough kind of thing to negotiate. And Lily [Labeau], who plays the girl in that scene, she kept walking around naked all the time. And I said, “Lily, you know, you’re really unnerving Lindsay. Could you please put a robe on?” And she said, “Well I thought I was just making everybody feel comfortable.” And I said, “It’s not having that effect! You’re making Lindsay even more uncomfortable!” [laughs]

Wow. Given the setting, the tone, the story, and the talent involved, The Canyons almost feels like an experimental intersection of parts of your previous work, from Hardcore and American Gigolo to Light Sleeper and Auto Focus. Is there another film of yours you feel it most closely resembles?

Not really. It has the beat, it has the pulse of American Gigolo, but the characters here are all very hollow. These are “The Hollow Men.” That’s why I put T.S. Eliot in the film. You know that shot, that racked focus, when James is at the shrink’s office? And there’s that painting on the wall?

Yes, I do.

That’s T.S. Eliot.

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That shot also contains that fish-eye mirror, which is part of another shot that draws us into the shrink’s office. Tara often pesters Christian about what he talks about with his therapist, and it made me wonder, what sort of things would Paul Schrader talk about with his therapist?

Well, I was in analysis for a good number of years, and it was very, very useful for me—that notion of speaking to the ceiling, and free-associating. It helped me a lot in my life. But, literally, you talk about anything, and you just go from one subject to another until you stumble across something that’s revealing. But Christian isn’t really free-associating there, he’s just sort of pissed off.

The movie revels in presenting its share of industry sleaze, and I know this is Bret’s script, but should we be inferring that any of this behind-closed-doors stuff is reflective of your own experiences in Hollywood?

Oh, I’ve never had those experiences. But, then, I never looked for them either. And the character James Deen’s playing isn’t really a movie guy; he’s a Blendr/Grindr hook-up guy, who just happens to be financing this movie that he doesn’t even care about. I never really saw it as being about the movie business in that way.

But it’s very much an L.A. movie, and it’s one of those films in which the sun has a kind of palpable heat, which only adds to the tension of what we’re watching. As an image-maker, what are your thoughts about that iconic atmosphere, and what it’s come to mean in our collective consciousness as film viewers?

Well, yeah, it’s just that Los Angeles light. I mean, if it were raining, I would have still shot, but it never rained while we were shooting. And also there’s that mixture here of talk, talk, talk; walk, walk, walk; walk and play music; talk, talk, talk. And it gives a kind of L.A. rhythm, which is the same rhythm in American Gigolo.

Personally, I think one of your greater strengths as a filmmaker is how you’ve remained an inventive voyeur, and continually found intriguing ways of looking. Does that skill and interest often feel like it’s refreshing itself?

I mean, yes. That’s just the boredom factor, in a way. Any good director, or any director at all for that matter, should always be saying, “Well, what’s the best way to see this, and how can I see this better?

R. Kurt Osenlund

R. Kurt Osenlund is a creative director and account supervisor at Mark Allen & Co. He is the former editor of Out magazine.

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