Director/writer Paul Schrader has some very recognizable credits. He directed
Affliction, American Gigolo, Cat People and wrote the classic Taxi
Driver, Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ. As a young
film critic in L.A. he was fired from the L.A. Free Press for panning Easy
Rider. Almost consistently, Schrader is fascinated with tales of men facing
a moral crisis and the resulting disintegration this often causes. His film
Auto Focus is no exception. T.V. star Bob Crane was a supposedly squeaky
clean family man with a dark secret. When his "sex, lies and videotape"
habit became a public obsession, it destroyed his career and is thought to have
resulted in his murder in 1978 in a motel room. Schrader told us about his choices
in the making of the film, his arguments with the American MPAA ratings board
and his general film fascinations.

Why did you want to make this movie?

A lot of reasons. It's a character that's right in my wheelhouse. I love these
people that live contradictory lives. They say they're one thing but behave
in another way. They want to be one thing but act in a counterproductive fashion.
I've been writing about this character from Day One, from Taxi Driver on.
Here I had a very interesting variation of that, which was kind of this glib,
clueless cat that didn't get it. Usually, my characters at some point get it.
This guy never did get it. I had the unreliable narrator. I loved that. You
hear him trying to explain himself and it doesn't jibe with what you're seeing.
On top of which, I had this male-male romance, not unlike Prick Up Your Ears
which is a movie I've always liked. On top of that, I had a fascinating social
handle bouncing around. The birth of porn. Celebrity. Shifting male identity
during the era of women's liberation. It was a bouillabaisse of fascinating
twists and themes and turns.

Are you fascinated with dark characters?

It has more to do with conflicting modes of intent and behavior. I don't think
Bob Crane is that different from Wade Whitehouse in Affliction. Wade
wasn't on the seedy side of life. He was a small-town sheriff but he had a delusion
and he was clueless in a way. For him, it wasn't sex, it was conspiracy.

Will they see a different version of this film in Europe (no pixelization)?

Yeah. Even at the film festivals, where you don't have to have a rating. So
at Telluride, Toronto and New York, that won't be there.

Does that bother you at all as a filmmaker to have to change your film?

Well, it was my call. It was my mistake. When I was directing it, I thought
I was making an R-rated movie because I was sort of basing it on "Sex in
the City" and "Six Feet Under." Then I showed it to the ratings
board and they said, no, that's NC-17. I said I see it on cable. And they said,
but we don't show it in the theaters. The theaters are actually more restrictive.
Then I had to decide whether to cut the shot or just blur the offending portion.
I thought it was better to say to the audience, he's not shooting cheesecake,
he's shooting hardcore. And we can't show it to you.

What are they going to see?

Simulated oral sex. It'll still be soft-core. It'll be like what you see in
your hotel room on the soft-core channel.

How many times did you go back to the board?

Five times. I had subject matter you couldn't run away from. If you're doing
a movie about the birth of pornography and a sex addict, you have to acknowledge
it to some degree.

Can you talk about the way you use the camera?

The goal was at somewhere into the movie the audience says, wait, this wasn't
the movie we were watching an hour ago. That occurs incrementally throughout
the whole film. The idea began with the intrusion of clutter. One reviewer said
to me, the most truthful thing about this film is that the real attraction for
men is not women, it's the gadgets (laughs). You see how the advent of video,
and electronic cable replaced the neat and well ordered home. Also, it skewed
neatly with the whole idea of addiction in that you don't just decide to become
an addict one day. It sort of sneaks up on you and one day you wake up and say,
this thing's bigger than me.

We tried to do that with the film style. So what began as a sense of clutter,
which is props, moved into set design, color palate, hair, makeup, wardrobe.
The film stock, camera style, music. All of these elements are slowly shifting
through the film. It's not immediately discernable when the camera style changes.
But it's when [Crane] is sitting at home and Patty's pregnant, that's when there's
the first handheld camera movement. That's a new film stock and the introduction
of green.

What about the technology aspect of the film? How did you make actors comfortable
with the sex scenes?

It's all written; it's all cast. Everybody knows what you're going to be shooting
that day. A number of the female performers work in soft core, the "Playboy
at Night" crowd. Willem has done a lot of nudity in the past so it was
primarily Greg [Kinnear]. Greg wasn't terribly comfortable with it but he knew
he had to do it and had to go there. It often involved long conversations and
sometimes I'd have to say him, 'Greg, I the devil command you. It's not your
responsibility' (laughs).

Why Willem and Greg as Carpenter and Crane?

Greg was recommended to me early on. I thought that was a great idea. I never
considered anybody else. Willem is a friend. When you're working in the low-budget
area you need somebody who will make the financial sacrifice for you. And I've
always liked the vulnerable side of Willem as opposed to the over-the-top bullying
side. I like him when he's needy and he looked like this guy. That was an ideal
fit.

Was Crane really so much an innocent at the start of 'Hogan's Heroes"
as shown in the film?

That was a dramatic license. The first script was extremely that way. Hollywood
makes good Bob go bad. I didn't believe that. I thought it was wrong. I tried
to get as much of that out as I could. Unfortunately, Greg, who had read the
first script, was wedded to that character arc. Part of me was a little worried
about that too. Because if he was a sleaze ball from Day One, I was worried
about getting the audience in there. But what I really think about Bob Crane
is that the only thing that changed in his life was the level of hypocrisy.
He was always this cat but he was deeply constrained by his church upbringing
and his need to be a good boy. At the time of Hogan's, he was doing those "Photoplay"
interviews; the perfect family, the perfect father, all that. Once Hogan's ended
and his first marriage ended, the need for hypocrisy went away and he became
who he really always was.

There is a rather flip Crane narration at the end after the murder. Some
feel it's out of place.

It was recommended to me that I rewrite that and make it more momentous or
give it greater perspective. I said, look, this guy was f...ing clueless; he
didn't get it. He never got it. Just because he's dead, doesn't mean he's going
to get it. (laughs) There he is in a pool of blood and you need somebody to
explain what happened with the case. So you're either going to do it with a
crawl or narration. Why not have Bob come in tell you what happened to the case.
While he was there, he was a cool guy. That's the way it is: Men gotta have
fun.

What was the actual murder instrument?

It was a tripod. They proved it. In the trial, they showed footage of Crane
and Carpenter doing this woman at the same time. The reason they showed it was
because on the counter behind them was this tripod that they didn't find. They
found a replica of the tripod and it fit the wounds. They know somebody picked
it up from the scene.

Do you think John Carpenter killed him?

I think it's the best fit in terms of means, motive, and opportunity. The Scottsdale
police, DA, thought he did it. They put him up for trial. They didn't have the
evidence. The jury was out 20 minutes. If I was on that jury, I would have voted
to acquit him too. It's the best fit in terms of history and it's the best fit,
certainly, in terms of drama. (jokes)

How was it working with family members on this?

There are two families. Ann had lunch with Rita Wilson. Bobby was around a
lot with Greg. The only time I spent with Scotty [from Crane's second marriage
to his "Hogan's Heroes" costar] was when he came down from Seattle
when we were trying to hammer out a deal. We spent five o'clock in the evening
to four o'clock the next morning with him. He had some issues. I thought we
would make a deal, but it was broken off. Mark Dawson is Richard Dawson's son.
He and John Carpenter became the best of friends. He was with John Carpenter
through the entire trial. He has a website devoted to proving Carpenter innocent.
He was one of our technical consultants on the film. He introduced us to Carpenter's
widow. He went into Carpenter's widow's garage and dug out photos and memorabilia
for Willem to see to have a better take on the character. His father and Crane
didn't get along. Then he became Carpenter's surrogate son. (laughs)

What's your opinion of Crane?

He was a second rate actor with a first rate problem who became important as
a societal totem in a way that he didn't understand. His life in retrospect
has far greater meaning than it did at the time.

What's next for you?

If I don't get fired, in 9 weeks I start shooting a prequel to The Exorcist;
my first studio film in 20 years. I get to play with big toys. Shoot in Africa,
London. It stars Stellan Saarsgaard and Liam Neeson. This is right after WWII,
when Lancaster (played in the original by Max Von Sydow) first meets the devil.

-Lynn Barker

Hollywood-based Entertainment Journalist