Paul Schrader says that Quentin Tarantino contacted him regarding his newest film, The Movie Critic.
Speaking to the French publication Le Monde, Schrader was asked if he had spoken to Tarantino about The Movie Critic, a film that was previously rumored to be about real-life critic Pauline Kael.
“Yes,” Schrader answered. “Quentin will insert extracts from films from the 1970s. And he will also make his own versions of films from that era. He asked me for permission to shoot the ending of Rolling Thunder (1977), by John Flynn, as I had written it in the original screenplay – before it was completely rewritten and watered down.”
What do we know about Quentin Tarantino’s The Movie Critic?
Tarantino has denied that The Movie Critic will be about Kael’s life. Instead, as Tarantino told Deadline in May 2023, the movie will be “based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag.”
He added, “He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle [Robert DeNiro’s character in Taxi Driver] might be if he were a film critic.
“…He wrote like he was 55 but he was only in his early to mid-30s. He died in his late thirties. It wasn’t clear for a while but now I’ve done some more research and I think it was it was complications due to alcoholism.”
Tarantino — known for making 1994’s Pulp Fiction, 2009’s Inglorious Basterds, and more — has previously said that he intends The Movie Critic to be his final film, hence the reason why he decided not to make an R-rated Star Trek movie.
Schrader, meanwhile, wrote the script for 1976’s Taxi Driver, along with a number of other Martin Scorsese movies, including 1980’s Raging Bull and 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ. Schrader has directed films such as 1979’s Hardcore, 1980’s American Gigolo, 2017’s First Reformed, and, most recently, 2022’s Master Gardener, among others.
