Word: schrader
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...more than the close attention to visual detail, what distinguishes Raging Bull is the way Scorsese has captured the flatness and banal perversity of these lives. Much of the credit for this belongs to Paul Schrader, who scripted Taxi Driver and was called in to assist Mardik Martin with Raging. Schrader writes highly stylized dialogue, the way short story writers write it. Often there's a total lack of communication...
Directed and Written by Paul Schrader...
...film's emphasis, however, is too often elsewhere. Much of the plot revolves around an attempt to frame Julian for a particularly unpleasant sadomasochistic murder. Hector Elizondo is fine as the detective investigating the case, and Julian's attempts to clear himself allow Writer-Director Paul Schrader to penetrate the seamier side of a gigolo's world. Hollywood Boulevard garishness is colorfully contrasted with Rodeo Drive posh. But as in last year's Hardcore, Schrader seems unable to get very far beneath the ugly surface of the demimonde. It is clear he is horrified...
...what finally betrays the film is a redemptive ending. Having spent almost two hours getting Julian into a tight corner, Schrader cannot bear to leave him there. The picture ends with a cockamamie implication that love will conquer all -even the false, but seemingly airtight, murder rap. Such a conclusion betrays everything the film has so carefully built up -the easily victimized Gere character, the hypocrisy of the chic world he has risen to, the viciousness of the underworld which spawned him and retains its vicious claim...
...because there is much here that is morally acute. As in much of his other work (notably the scripts of Taxi Driver and Old Boyfriends), Schrader simply refuses to face the grim, climactic consequences of his essentially tragic vision. He manages to contract conjunctivitis just when he needs to be most clear-eyed. -Richard Schickel