Paul Schrader is seventy-six years old, compact, pugnacious. When production on his film “The Card Counter” was interrupted by the arrival of the pandemic, he took to Facebook and railed against the movie’s producers. “I would have shot through hellfire rain to complete the film,” he wrote. “I’m old and asthmatic, what better way to die than on the job?”
Last year, he came close to getting his wish. He was in New Orleans, working on his new movie, “Master Gardener.” First, the retina on his right eye detached. Without surgery, he risked damaging his vision permanently. Afraid he’d never get the movie off the ground if he stopped for an operation, he bought an eye patch instead. Then, in the middle of filming, he started gasping for breath. COVID tests came back negative, so he got a nebulizer and an oxygen tank. When production wrapped, he celebrated at Teddy’s Juke Joint, outside Baton Rouge. The next morning, he flew home to New York.
Schrader was living in a brown shingled house on the edge of a man-made lake in the Hudson Valley. Near the driveway was a greenhouse he’d built for his wife, the stage and screen actress Mary Beth Hurt. She and Schrader have two children, Molly and Sam, both in their thirties, and Molly, who was living in Queens, had come to stay with her mother, who has Alzheimer’s, while Schrader was on location. When he got back from Louisiana that night, his breathing was shallow; the next day, they had to call 911. He had contracted walking pneumonia.
He spent a week in the hospital, watching old movies on cable and posting to Facebook. “AMBIEN DREAMS,” he wrote, several days in:
Bu hikaye The New Yorker dergisinin May 08, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye The New Yorker dergisinin May 08, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.