‘Card Counter’ director Paul Schrader talks Oscar Isaac, haunted men and ‘Taxi Driver’ voiceover

Paul Schrader made his sanction arsenic the screenwriter of tormented oregon mislaid souls, with “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Mosquito Coast,” and “The Last Temptation of Christ.” As a director, helium has excavated and explored akin veins, from “Blue Collar” to “American Gigolo” to “Affliction” and, much recently, “First Reformed” and present “The Card Counter,” which volition beryllium released Sept. 10.

This caller movie stars Oscar Isaac arsenic a poker subordinate who gambles but minimizes his risk, desperately seeking to power outcomes and incorporate the harm from imaginable chaotic cards. But that’s connected the surface. Simmering — and past boiling — underneath is his past, which helium tin ne'er outrun: his days successful Iraq, torturing prisoners astatine Abu Ghraib. The movie besides stars Tiffany Haddish and Tye Sheridan.

If you privation to recognize the impulse to research the darker broadside of quality quality successful Schrader’s films, look archetypal to the movies helium saw increasing up… oregon alternatively that helium didn’t see. Raised successful a strict Calvinist household wherever movies were verboten, helium didn’t observe the cinema until helium went disconnected to college. Unlike his contemporaries, “George, Steve and Marty” (as successful Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese), the Saturday greeting serials and gangster movies that enthralled astir kids “never impacted maine much.” 

Instead, helium developed his tastes watching Ingmar Bergman and Bernardo Bertolucci, arsenic good arsenic the much ambitious American cinema being developed successful the precocious ‘60s and aboriginal 1970s. 

“Those films were addressing societal issues with regularity and erstwhile you person audiences who privation that due to the fact that they person superior questions, you’ll get superior movies, including immoderate precise bully ones,” Schrader said successful a caller Zoom interview, successful which helium discussed casting Oscar Isaac, processing a ocular benignant and penning successful metaphor.

The interrogation has been edited for magnitude and clarity. 

Q. How did you formed Oscar Isaac for this role?

To get these kinds of movies made, you person to spell to radical you tin access. If you spell done their agents, they’ll ne'er get the publication — agents are determination to support the clients from getting these smaller scripts due to the fact that they mightiness privation to bash the movie and the cause won’t marque immoderate money.

I tested Oscar astir 20 years agone for his archetypal starring relation for a movie, truthful I knew him and I followed his career. I had thought astir him for ‘First Reformed’ but Ethan [Hawke] is astir 10 years older truthful I thought helium would beryllium better. 

For this one, I emailed Oscar directly, I said, ‘I’ve written a publication for you but I won’t nonstop it unless you’re available, you tin springiness maine a determination wrong a week and you recognize the economical parameters.’ And helium wrote backmost and said, ‘Send it.’ With each that concern cleared up successful advance, you cognize you’ll get a existent read. 

Q. You started arsenic a writer but your movies person go overmuch much visually arresting since “Blue Collar.” Do you deliberation much visually present erstwhile you are writing?

With ‘Blue Collar’ it was precise wide the lone happening to bash was decorativeness the film. I utilized to accidental to my cinematographer, ‘If we get 1 changeable today, what should it be? And if they’re each inactive present for a 2nd shot, what should that be?’ Because 1 of the actors would locomotion disconnected the acceptable each day, truthful that was conscionable astir capturing the lightning striking successful beforehand of you.

I developed much of a ocular benignant aft that, which was chiefly informed by [Bernardo Bertolucci’s] ‘The Conformist,’ which was a precise important movie for each the filmmakers of my generation. I deliberation the acme of that ocular benignant successful my enactment is ‘Comfort of Strangers,’ which is astir apt the champion visually directed movie I’ve done.

Q. The scenes successful “The Card Counter” wherever soldiers are torturing prisoners are warped, distorted arsenic though done a funhouse mirror. How did you determine connected that?

Those scenes were a existent challenge. I didn’t person the clip oregon the wealth to instrumentality an attack similar ‘Zero Dark Thirty,” which had already done torture scenes, truthful I had to find different solution. I changeable it arsenic a benignant of disfigured representation — alternatively of filming successful a warehouse, it’s a maze. It’s not meant to truly beryllium Abu Ghraib; this is the nightmare that stands retired successful the character’s memory. 

Q. You motion astatine “The Hustler” and “The Cincinnati Kid” successful the movie, if lone to accidental your movie is not similar those. Do you interest astir radical coming to spot Oscar Isaac successful a gambler movie and ending up with a Paul Schrader movie astir the lasting interaction of torture connected the quality soul?

The powerfulness of genre is that you tin make expectations and past thwart them. Anyone who is simply a bully spectator volition cognize that the full Mr. U.S.A happening [a rival poker player] is simply a reddish herring, a feint. Yet you inactive can’t defy the phantasy of what volition hap erstwhile Mr. U.S.A. and William look off, adjacent if they ne'er will. The powerfulness of genre lets you manipulate that.

Q. Since “Taxi Driver,” you’ve written astir exclusively astir haunted, despairing characters. It’s a reasonably acheronian worldview. Has it changed astatine all?

I’m not opposed to grace notes. At the extremity of a acheronian transition successful a symphony, you perceive timpani oregon a precocious sound. This movie has a grace note. I americium susceptible to grace notes but I don’t deliberation the satellite we unrecorded successful needfully validates that. 

Q. You’ve talked astir taking these lonely men, hidden down the disguise that their occupation affords them, and entwining them with a larger problem. Is the occupation a MacGuffin oregon is it indispensable arsenic a metaphor?

It’s an occupational metaphor. This doesn’t mean there’s a taxi operator similar Travis Bickle oregon a cause trader similar John LeTour [in ‘Light Sleeper’] oregon a poker subordinate similar William Tell successful this film. They’re each metaphors.

In “Taxi Driver” we had a batch of voiceover, but I said to Marty, ‘We don’t request each of that’ — each clip you spot the cab, and him unsocial successful the cab, the metaphor does the enactment for you. In ‘Card Counter,’ helium is simply a idiosyncratic who spends 10 oregon 12 hours a time playing cards, moving numbers successful his caput — it’s a metaphor for a half-life, a quality who is successful purgatory. ‘I’m not dormant but I’m not truly alive. either.’